Hey now, welcome to another edition of the Inside BS Show. My name is Dave Lorenzo, and today we're talking about being an entrepreneur, and this is a show that I hope inspires you. I want you to come away from our time together feeling like you can take on the world, because you can, and I've got exactly the person to help us think that through.

Her name is Brittany Anderson, and she's an entrepreneur and author, and she's going to help us get our dreams and put them into motion, so please join me in welcoming Brittany to the Inside BS Show. Brittany, thank you so much for joining us here today. Thank you for having me.

I have been looking forward to this. I have as well. We were introduced by a mutual friend who does not introduce people he doesn't believe in, so I am super excited to have you here.

I want you to tell the folks who are listening, the folks who are watching, the story about your mom, because I knew I had to talk to you when I read that story, because I think that people could use what comes away from that story and go one direction or the other, and I love the direction that you chose, so tell folks that story, and let's talk about how that inspired you. Yeah, you know, there's been so many wonderful moments in life that, you know, I look at them as moments of impact, and this particular one that you're referencing, you know, I grew up in a single-parent household. My mom raised my brother and I, and I remember I was about eight years old, and I look in at my mom.

She's sitting in her bedroom, and she's got her bills spread out, and she's got her checkbook in front of her, and she is in tears, and she's, you know, kind of looking around, and you can tell she's in a total state of overwhelm, and even at eight years old, I knew that it was a struggle for her to decide, like, am I gonna put the roof over their head this month, put food on the table, pay the utilities, and it wasn't gonna cover all ends, so for me, it was that moment in time where I decided, A, I was not going to let any circumstance that's outside of my control affect my destiny, affect maybe even my future family, and two, I didn't ever want to be in that space. I didn't ever want to feel like I was completely out of control and couldn't provide basic essentials, so that was really a major moment of impact for me where I liken it to almost a turning point where I decided that I was gonna do whatever it took to create a life that I wanted, one of abundance, one of maybe more certainty, and one where I felt like I was in control. Yeah, you know, and I say that that story could have gone either way.

I know people who, 2008, and then, again, during the pandemic where things just stopped, they came to a standstill, and the folks froze. These people just absolutely froze. There are people, we're recording this now smack in the middle of 2022.

Just a year ago, there were people who I know who are professional speakers who were broke, sitting at home going, well, I'm just gonna wait until this ends, and then I'll go back to doing what I was doing before, and they had spent a year and change at that point, and they had gone through all of their savings, and yet they were still waiting, you know, and then I hear a story like yours, and you use that to propel you almost like, you know, I liken it to like something chasing you that you never want to catch you, and that kind of, you know, that kind of just kept you constantly moving forward. Now, today, I would imagine you're in a different situation. Do you still draw upon that for motivation? Yes, and probably even more subconsciously than what I realize.

You know, it's one of those things where I look at it as creating possibility for the future, so I won't go down this tangent, but I do believe that more and more women should be open to talking about money, and income, and earning, and, you know, maybe even being the rainmaker per se in the family, and it's all about creating opportunities and creating possibility for the future, so for me, that's a massive motivator when I look back at my life, and I look back at where I came from and knowing that I don't want to go back to that place. You know, my dad was not the best with money either, so, you know, those two things to kind of play off of, I look at my mom, who was extremely hardworking, and dedicated, and sacrificed for my brother and I. It was always a struggle, though, and it was a battle, and money almost turned into a negative thing where, in my life, I want it to be put towards good, and positive, and possibility, and opportunities for my kids, and opportunities for myself, and my family, and my friends, and different things like that, so it is absolutely something that I still draw from. And now it's time for another Sandrowski Business Minute.

Here with us today is John Alfonsi. He's a valuation expert. So, John, how can mistakes in my valuation, in a business valuation, how can that affect my business? It can affect it in many different ways by either undervaluing or overvaluing the business.

If you're undervaluing the business, especially on a M&A, a sale transaction, you're leaving money on the table. Your potential acquirer or the purchaser is going to be getting more value than what they're otherwise paying you for. If you're overvaluing the business, say for estate tax or gift tax purposes, then you're giving away too much, and you're giving the IRS more money than what they otherwise should be entitled to.

With respect to any other sorts of valuations, especially if you're issuing stock as compensation, you want to make sure that you've got a fair value because I've been involved in lawsuits representing businesses and certain existing shareholders where they feel that the value wasn't correct and either too large of an interest was given away or not enough with respect to a final exit with respect to the business. All right, John, how can people reach you if they have questions about the valuation in their business or they just need a valuation done? Sure, you can contact us at our toll-free number, 866-717-1607, or contact us through our website, cca-advisors.com, or email me directly at jta.sendcel, C-E-N-D-S-E-L.com. All right, this has been your Sandrowski Business Minute with John Alfonsi. We'll see you right back here tomorrow for another Sandrowski Business Minute.

And remember, Sandrowski, they're a CPA firm with a different perspective. Yeah, so there's two different, I think there's two opposites of the spectrum, right? So there are people who let money define them and they become kind of a slave, if you will, to either chasing it or hoarding it and never thinking that there's always gonna be something that's gonna come around the corner and attack them. And then there's the other side of the spectrum where you realize that there's so much money out there, you just have to figure out to whom you have to deliver value in order to receive the amount of money that you want.

So talk about your approach and your philosophy when it comes to, first, attracting money into your life and then how you handle it. So let's talk first about how you attract it. What's your philosophy on how money comes to people? Yeah, you know, I think, and I wish I could remember who this is.

Zig Ziglar pops in my head, but I don't know that that's right. There's a quote out there that talks about how if you help enough people get what they want, you in turn will get what you want. And that's what we have.

That's 100% Zig Ziglar, you're right. Yes, yes, okay, good. I'm glad I got that part right.

You know, so that's really what I live by. And I've never been one that's necessarily chasing wealth. Like I'm taking those small necessary steps to build the future that I want and build the present that I want.

But for me, it's like if I can add value and figure out ways to create impact for others, and in turn, then that money attraction comes, then that's a win for me. Because if I'm just earning without feeling the impact on the other end, not to throw out another quote immediately, but Tony Robbins, and I look at my monitor right here in front of me, but I have a Tony Robbins quote that says, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. So for me, I'm looking at ways that I can not only add impact, but also fill my own cup and do things that are meaningful versus things that just generate a dollar.

Once you start kind of down the world or down the path of entrepreneurship, the opportunities kind of become endless. And there's a heck of a lot of stuff that you can say yes to, but you can also create a pretty dang miserable life in the meantime. So for me, it's saying no to the things that are not serving the greater good that I wanna contribute to, and saying yes to the things that absolutely give me energy and excitement and get me going and flowing.

And actually, there was one thing that I thought about when you were talking about the pandemic and how you can add value. So it was, let's just see, it was like March of 2020. So when the world is literally starting to go crazy, shut down, things are super uncertain.

In one of our businesses, we were looking at it going, financial advisors in particular were getting real, real nervous, especially those that were around for the 08-09 downturn. And so we sat there and said, all right, we coach advisors, so how the heck do we create value for them right now to help them then better serve their clients? Because we can do everything that we want to serve ours, but how do we create bigger impact? So literally in a three-week period, my business partners and I pulled together this summit where we brought in brilliant talent, people that are thinking outside the box that could add value to this advisor audience, and we literally put on a week-long summit with like a three-week headway. And for us, it was a way to add value, and it was honestly one of our biggest launches we've ever had.

So the side effects of that, it was looking at there's a gap, there's a need, people need to be served, how do you do that? And I think that's a great representation of putting things out in the world, helping others and having something come back. Yeah, I think that's a great example. We did something similar.

What we did was we started three days a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, every single week from the end of March 2020 all the way up through the end of December last year, three days a week, I just invited everybody I knew onto a Zoom meeting. And if you could make it, you made it. If you couldn't make it, you could come to the next one.

And we invited somebody to share a topic each day, something in their area of expertise. We never ran out of topics, three days a week for a year and a half. And it was a way to get people who were shut in, essentially not going anywhere, to be inspired and to draw energy from one another.

And it gave a lot of people ideas that they've carried through into their businesses now. So now that we've talked about creating value, what do you do, let's say with financial advisors to help them differentiate the value they provide from the value that somebody else provides, right? Because I know, if I know one financial advisor, I must know a thousand. And they all have great personalities and their personalities are all different.

But if you ask me, why would I pick one over the other? Well, it's gonna be a matter of trust and a matter of who I build a relationship with. But how do you coach people who are in an industry like that where there's so many of them to be different and to share that difference and to create value in a different way? Yeah, that's such a great question. And it's so true.

I mean, if you really wanna get to the core of it, when you look at investment management as a whole, it's a commodity, right? Like that's something that, as long as you have somebody that's pretty sharp and pretty smart and pays attention to things, that aspect of it is, what do you call it? Like set it and forget it kind of thing. But really to get a full, like true wealth management experience, a lot of times what we tell people is you have to pull from what really gets you going. Like what is something that is like pure and true to your heart? And a lot of times it's pulling back to some of those like foundational stories from your life.

So I'll use for example, within Sweet Financial Partners, our wealth planning firm, the founder, gosh, it's been probably 11 years ago or so. He came from a single parent household. Dad was an alcoholic.

He was abusive towards his mom, left when he was two. Could have been a very bad path and turned out to be a great one that he absolutely excelled and created opportunity and possibility. But there was this thing that always pulled on him and it was that it doesn't matter where you came from.

It doesn't matter what your circumstances, what matters is that you're intentional with pursuing your dreams. So through that mindset was born the dream architect. So it's literally the foundation of how we do business now with people.

So again, that's trademarked. That's our process. But what we do with other advisors is say, come up with your own dream architect.

Like what is something that shaped who and why you got into this business? Who you are today? Who do you serve? Because I think your target demographic has a lot to do with differentiation too. If you're set out there and I won't use any names, but there's certain financial advisor businesses, platforms that serve the greater masses and that's their business model and that's great. But what we found is that the people that truly create massive differentiation and success are the people that have niched down to serve this particular demographic, this particular person or avatar that they can add max value to.

So be it like you serve business owners with less than 50 employees who typically have a multi-generational strategy for business succession. Your message is gonna be a lot different and your branding and your differentiation from someone who serves, let's just say, female widowed women who are in their 50s who have a lot of money that they took over because of that transition per se, your differentiation and your strategy is gonna be very, very different from that business owner. So it's finding who you serve.

It's going back to the core of why you're in business and it's really getting clear on how you want to be able to help them. So that's kind of the foundation for how we help people start with that differentiation strategy. No, I love that.

And the big takeaway is you're going to speak their language. It's going to be like you're sitting at the kitchen table with them. The very first time you meet them, they're gonna think, was this person listening to my conversation that I had just yesterday? I mean, that's the power in drilling down into that market niche.

All right, Brittany, so devil's advocate here, and this is what I hear all the time from my clients is, okay, well, if I go into that narrow a niche, is there gonna be enough there? Because I only close maybe one out of every 10 deals. Is there gonna be enough there? Now, tell me about the flaw in that thinking. Yeah, well, first of all, define enough, right? Because here's the thing is there's this whole thing with attract and repel.

And this kind of goes into your basic marketing is you want to create a message that basically turns a ton of people off, right? You want to repel all of the people who are not aligned. Because what happens when we take on a client that's maybe not ideal, it usually creates a ton of pain and anguish. We're trying to kind of bend our model to fit into whatever it is that they're trying to get.

And it's a recipe for disaster. You end up with either a bad review, a client that leaves, bad word of mouth, the list goes on. So I would say for anybody who thinks there's maybe not enough, just hasn't gone deep enough in that niche yet, because there is plenty.

And if you get crystal clear on, again, who it is that you serve, you're still gonna be a little bit different than Joe Smith over here who serves maybe a similar target demographic. It's all about connection. It's about relationships.

It's about transparency and vulnerability. And there's just bottom line, people who are gonna connect with you on a whole nother level as compared to maybe the person down the street that there just wasn't that relational connection with. So there's always enough.

There definitely is always enough. I discovered that in my own business when I made a decision. I guess I started my own business in 2007.

And in 2009, I made this decision that I was only gonna work with professionals who wanted to make a great living and live a great life, wanted to spend more time with their families. I wasn't going to work with any individuals who were looking to make $15 million a year, work 24-7, need to call on Saturdays and Sundays. Why? Because that's not my mission.

My mission stems from who I am. And I was a person who got hit by a cab and was paralyzed from the armpits down. Before I had kids, I was divorced.

I was overweight. I had plenty of money but no life. And I realized what was missing.

Now, I recovered from that completely. I had two kids. I found a great marriage.

And then I decided to start a business that was going to focus on giving other people that same gift that I have. And that doesn't resonate with people who are single or divorced and they're high-profile attorneys who are chasing cases on the weekends or they're personal injury attorneys and they got to work 24-7. Somebody gets in a car crash, they got to go to the hospital tonight to sign them up.

My message doesn't resonate with them. And I'm glad it doesn't resonate with them because it drains me to work with those people and I'm not the right fit for them. But when I first did it, Brittany, I was scared to death because I'm eliminating three quarters of the people.

I was only working with lawyers at the time. I was eliminating three quarters of the people who I could go after. Now, what ended up happening was that message was so strong and so powerful, it transcended the practice of law and I started attracting CPAs who are like that.

I started attracting other consultants, people who I thought were competitors who are now like, listen, I don't want to take business away from you but I want to have a business like yours. Will you help me? And that's the other thing and that's what I want you to talk about now, how you can start in that narrow niche. You think you want just one specific avatar but then your energy ends up attracting people who are more like you and you're amazed because it goes across market niches.

Speak to that a little bit. Yeah, you're dead on, number one. And it can be, it can be so scary.

When you start, like as the entrepreneur, as the business owner, you're the one that's saying no to people. That's kind of a terrifying first experience because you're like, oh my gosh, I don't want to let them down. I don't want to come across as arrogant or I don't want to come across as, I'm never going to find another client if I say no to this guy.

Nobody else is going to come by. Right? And then you start thinking, I mean, you can go deep down that rabbit hole too where it's like, well, if I say no to them, then that's one less referral too because they probably know five or 10 or 20 other people. Oh my gosh.

So you can go down that path really easily. But yeah, I would say- I'm going to have an anxiety attack. Seriously, it's scary.

And honestly, I mean, there's things that we have to do, especially within the wealth planning business. And I would say even in our coaching, advisory coaching business, where we have to put ourselves in check sometimes where you kind of have to come back to that gut check of, okay, you know, maybe we have a new initiative or a new service offering or whatever that is. And you have to make sure that it stays aligned to that particular niche, into your original kind of source of who you're going to and who you're providing to.

But I would say that when you look at kind of how you cross pollinated, let's call it, you know, you start in the attorney space and then all of a sudden it's CPAs and financial advisors and carry on, right? You go and you expand from there. You know, I think that that naturally happens where you get so clear on who you serve, who you add the most value to, that when you talk about, you know, opportunities being abundant, that's kind of what happens there. So I'll even liken it to our own situation where, you know, we have the wealth planning business.

And this is actually an interesting story of how the financial advisory coaching came about. So we have a very streamlined way of how we do things at Sweet Financial. Processes for everything, very high focus on our high-end clients, team members, paths, all of that stuff is very much buttoned up.

It's something we constantly work on, constantly try to improve. At the same time, our founder, Brian Sweet, who's been in the business for over 40 years, he is able to take at least 16 weeks away from the business every year. And not only does the business, you know, continue to be okay, but it grows.

And it continues to grow even more. So that's something that, as we're putting this message out, kind of same thing. It's like, yeah, you can have a crazy successful monetary financial life by working around the clock and essentially killing yourself.

And, you know, you've got all this money to show for it, and that's great, that works for some people. But for us, who we were attracting in our business are the people who, yes, they've accumulated wealth and they've accumulated a good chunk of it. But they also believe in that kind of perfect imbalance of, hey, yeah, I've worked hard over the years and I maybe did sacrifice, but I also want to incorporate the things that I dream about and the things that I've thought about for forever.

And I want the experiences, and I want the travel, and I want the time with my family and my grandkids and all of that. So we've built this business, you know, with those values and that foundation. So it was myself, Brian puts on a conference every year, so myself, and who is now our other business partner, he's kind of the marketing arm of the coaching business, we each did a talk.

And each talk kind of had a little bit to do about the inner workings of Sweet Financial, all focused on value add for a financial advisor audience. All of a sudden, we have these advisors raising their hands going, okay, that was a great talk, but what's next? What else can you do? How do I get that? So just by being crystal clear on who we serve, we actually crossed into a totally different ballgame, totally different industry, and that's where that coaching business was founded, teaching the same principles that we're actually doing and executing on within our core business. And now because of that, we have a whole other level that we're building out to really help people create these massive experiences, dream big, and attract the people that want the best of both worlds that maybe aren't ready to invest.

Maybe they haven't gotten to that full accumulation where they're going into distribution phase now, retirement, but it's a whole new business opportunity. And it's literally all because we have gotten so stinking crystal clear on who we serve, who we add the most value to, and whose lives we can essentially impact. So it's not just the crossing of different demographics of people, it's like whole other business opportunities that have come up because of that clarity.

Sure, sure. Now, talk about the moment of impact when you know you're clicking with a client, right? How do you know for sure that this client, you're on the same page as your client? Talk about coaching financial advisors, first of all. How do you know when you're sitting across from them, does it come quickly? Does it take some time? How do you know? You know, I have found that if we do the right stuff on the front end to vet out people before they even get on the phone where you're hearing the click, that works really well because it accelerates things faster.

So be it through some sort of, not assessment, but kind of, where they have to go through a questionnaire to get really clear on what it is that they're trying to solve for. So that's just kind of a little insider tip, I guess, is it helps the actual calls when you're face-to-face, voice-to-voice with them. It's almost like a qualifying process.

It's a qualifying process. You're making sure they qualify to work with you, they're making sure that your values qualify to work with them. That's what it is.

Exactly, so then once you get them on the phone, you know, the thing that I think is a big trigger is when they start talking about what your program will do for them. So if you can get them to basically be telling themselves what they're going to solve, that's a major turning point. And again, you know, we use a lot of, I'm gonna draw a total blank, Robert Cialdini, Robert Cialdini's persuasion, and really helping with the verbiage to help them kind of figure it out and get on board.

So there's something that I was trained on years and years ago that when you have somebody going from, you know, you're explaining something, you're telling them something, and they're saying, oh, you're right. Yep, you got that. Yep, you nailed that on the head.

Two, that's right. That's exactly what I need. That little shift from you to that, that is typically a sign that they're starting to get on board because they're really taking it and observing versus just trying to appease you and be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's get off the phone.

So that little shift in verbiage is actually an interesting thing to start paying attention to because you'll notice the level of engagement is different. But yeah, once they start kind of telling their own narrative and talking kind of further down the road about what this is going to look like for them and what impact it's going to have, that's definitely a point where you're like, okay, they're getting this, and they're resonating, and they're ready. All right, so we're talking to Brittany Anderson.

If you want to reach out to her, you can call her at 507-235-5587, 507-235-5587. You can also reach out to her on email. It's brittany.sweetfinancial.com. I'm putting all that, including the website, down in the show notes for you.

So Brittany, talk about what you're working on now. What's going on in your world right now today? Yeah, there's a lot going on. I got three little kids, too, so.

There's a lot, but we'll talk about it. That's more than a full-time job. That's a full-time job and a half.

Preach on that one, yep. No, so we are actually in the process right now of taking what is our dream architect process within the company and actually creating an entirely separate business. So really looking at how we can incorporate multiple legs and facets and get them in front of people.

Because unless you're part of, call it high-level entrepreneurial masterminds or study groups, things of that nature, there is so much out there that people don't even hear about and things that are actually attainable to do or experience or fulfill or whatever you wanna call it if you just knew the resource existed. So part of what we're building out is a platform to help people realize possibility. What that means is giving them access to people that can help with really unique, one-of-a-kind experiences.

The opportunity to sing on stage with your favorite singer comes with a price tag, but it's something that you might be able to do when you're put in touch with this right particular, who, we'll call it, the people who already have the capability. Also looking at presenting opportunities for the health and longevity space, for legacy planning. Because we work a lot with people who are going into, call it retirement, and I use that word loosely because I don't think anybody likes the thought of being put out to pasture.

They really want to go through a transition into the what's next. So helping them really define that, but this is all built on the foundation of, let's make life really fulfilled and full of energy and excitement and make sure that you're doing all the things that you've wanted to do and aren't letting either naysayers or your own mental space take you in the wrong direction. So that's what we're working on building out right now and it's gonna really, I think, enhance both of our other businesses and just create more opportunity there as well.

You know, you said something there, there's a thread there that I want to pull on and that is, and it's so funny that this is coming up now because I just had this exact conversation this weekend so, with two people. So I went to a birthday party this past Saturday and I was at a table with a friend of ours, my wife and I, who's a school teacher. And the school teacher was talking about how she's got 21 or 22 years and she's gonna retire once she's got 25 years in.

And I'm sitting there listening to her speak about, and she's passionate about teaching, but I'm listening to her speak about retirement and I said, well, what are you looking forward to? What are you gonna do in two years when you retire? And then I got the deer in the headlights look and I said, well, you were just, we were just talking five minutes ago about teaching and you were passionate about teaching and you said how great it was to be back in the classroom, to be in front of these kids and to be educating them. Why would you want to stop doing that? And she's like, well, I don't necessarily want to stop doing that. She's like, just the money isn't great.

I said, why don't you just find a way to do that and make more money doing it? And you would have thought that I said something completely outrageous to her because her reaction was just like, it was kind of a cross between, are you crazy and, of course I would love to do that, but I just don't know, she just doesn't know what door to open. Then the second conversation was just yesterday, I'm walking my dog and around the corner is a good friend of ours who's a lieutenant in the local fire department. I'm sorry, I demoted him, a chief in the local fire department, 30 years on the job, retiring, eight more shifts and he's retiring.

And it's been, we've known about this for two and a half years that he's going to retire now and he's only got eight shifts left. And so we stopped with our dogs and I said, hey, so what are you going to do? Eight shifts left. He's like, well, I'm going to take July off.

This is in June, by the way, he's retiring. I'm going to take July off. And then four or five other people offered me jobs.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do. I said, well, are you excited about anything? He's like, no, not particularly. And so we exchanged pleasantries and we walked away and I'm thinking to myself, man, there's a guy who's not going to be happy in his retirement because he's been doing something that excited him for 30 years and now he's got five opportunities.

Not one of them excites him nearly as much as what he's currently doing. So what is, what is, what conversation can we have with people to help them understand that, you know, it isn't retirement. It's a transition to the next thing you're excited about.

Why does it have to, why do we have to stop working at a specific time when we're capable? You know, I'm so glad you brought this up because there's so much to impact there. And I'll touch on a couple of things here is that people spend a ton of time understanding what they're retiring from, right? So you like, you talk about like the teacher, who's like, oh my gosh, this just fills me up so much. I love being in front of the kids, back in the classroom.

That's what they've been doing for how many years? That's their from. Same thing with the fire chief. You know, that's what he's been doing and that probably gives him energy and it's probably exciting and what keeps him going.

I don't know this person, but that's what I would guess. They don't spend enough time on the two and they wait until the very end. I mean, it's kind of like the person who says, in my retirement years, you know, I love golf and I'm gonna spend all my time on the golf course.

And then they realize like two months in that every day on the golf course is pretty terrible. And they've never done that before. They've never spent all of their time out there.

So it's this redefinition. And I think that there's this massive turning point happening where the tradition of people working until 60, 65, 67, and then you retire. And in a handful of years, I'm sorry to be so blunt, but you're dead because you have no purpose anymore.

So that's part of like the reshaping and that's honestly what the dream architect is all about is our whole thing is there's so much out there and you are finally at a point in your life where you're not answering to anybody. Like you don't have emails coming in that you have to respond to. You don't have to be at that Monday meeting that you loathe.

And that's even if you're the person that runs the business. Like you might be the one that is actually making that meeting happen and you hate it. So now it's time for you to reshape and kind of slough off the things that you don't love, but find that energy.

And what we found is that if people start earlier, the success rate is so much higher. So if you start in that two to five year window before you're gonna stop doing whatever it is you're doing now and really define what the next is, it gives you a ramp, right? Then instead of being excited about, okay, great, I don't have to get up and go to my job anymore. Now you're excited at, okay, I'm closing this chapter.

Here's what I'm going to. It's a totally different mindset. And it helps you, I think, stay young.

It's just my personal opinion, but stay young and stay fresh and have something to look forward to. And I would add this too, if you're listening to this as a business owner, this is something that I think is even more important in this realm, because a lot of times when you're somebody who either, you're entrepreneurial in nature, you've built a business, it becomes like your other child and it becomes a source of identity. And I think that's the other dangerous slippery slope is if you're basically getting out of your business and you're saying, okay, I'm selling this, my kid's taking it over, I have a succession plan, whatever that is, and you're going to the what's next without having clear definition of what that is, there's gonna be a massive identity crisis there where you're going, I just went from a place of purpose, of showing up every day and having contribution and meaning and I had a network of people that all did the same kind of stuff, and now I don't have that anymore, so who am I? So I think it's this twofold, focus on the two and make sure that you understand who you are outside of your business and outside of your role.

Yeah, I think that's great advice, I really, really do. And if you think of it, if you're into business, you're an entrepreneur, businesses evolve. If you look at, my parents both work for IBM, my father worked for IBM for 35 years, my mother worked for IBM for 18 years, IBM started out making office products, they started out making typewriters and clocks and all this kind of stuff, and then they moved into a computer manufacturing and sales company, and then they moved from computer manufacturing and sales into software, and now they're transformed from a software company into more of a consulting company, okay? That entire transition has taken place over the life of a business, and you, as an entrepreneur, for 30 years have been stuck doing the same thing over and over again, instead of wanting to retire, why not morph yourself into something next where you can continue to provide value to people, stay engaged, stay energized, and you know what? If you want to see if you can spend all day on the golf course, become a golf pro, become a golf caddy, and do that for a little while, and if that fires you up, you're in the right business, that's the place you need to be.

If you can't stand it, if you do it for two weeks when you're on vacation, and after those two weeks, your back hurts, and your knees are buckling, and you decide you can't spend all that time on the golf course, you're gonna have to find something else that fills you up, that fires you, that gets you excited, that fires you up. I just, I think to myself, if you're passionate about something, and you're doing it, and everything is positive, and there's this one negative, like I'm just not making enough money, well, it's easier to fix that one thing than to go out and find something else that you're completely passionate about all over again, and why would you do that when you've got this lifetime, why would you just stop when you've got this lifetime of experience to share with people? It just makes no sense to me. I think we've really done ourselves as a society a disservice by building this retirement model where you're 65 years old, and let's just shut out the lights and go hang out on the porch.

I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. It really, really doesn't. All right, so Brittany, where can people find more information about Dream Architect? How can they get involved? Where can they go? Yeah, so sweetfinancial.com is a great place to start.

You've got the foundation of the Dream Architect there to learn more about, contact pages. You can also just reach out to me via email, brittanyatsweetfinancial.com, and you know, if there is anybody that has insight or input or an idea that they think would contribute to what we're building, my gosh, please share. We love ideas and collaborations and synergies and are always open to having those conversations.

Wonderful, all right, Brittany, I'm gonna ask you to take a minute and think about three things we should take away from our time together, three things you want us to remember from the conversation that we had. While you're thinking of that, I'm gonna remind folks who are listening, folks who are watching that we're brought to you by My Revenue Roadmap Guide. Now you need a plan, if you're a professional, you need a plan to develop your business and for you to sit back and have to figure out how to reinvent the wheel, how to develop your own marketing plan, it just doesn't make any sense when I have one that I can just give to you.

That's right, I'm gonna give it to you for free. This is the same plan I use with my clients, I use it with lawyers, with CPAs, with architects, with consultants, with coaches, and I'm gonna give it to you for free. I customize it for my clients, you can customize it for your clients.

No, you can't do that, you can customize it for yourself. You customize it for your clients, I'm gonna come and get you. Here's how you can get your free Revenue Roadmap Guide.

Go to this website, revenueroadmapguide.com, revenueroadmapguide.com, enter your contact info right there, you'll be able to download the plan for free. It will take you through the seven steps to building your business development plan. Now people ask me all the time, Dave, is this a marketing plan, is this a sales plan? Well, it's a business development plan.

What does that mean? It will help you identify your strengths, generate leads, and then bring those leads through, nurture them, qualify them, and then eventually convert them into prospects and then clients. It takes you through the whole process, it's a 25-page booklet, download it for free. Then if you want help, you can call me, but honestly, you can try and do it yourself first, and many people have had success using this plan on their own.

revenueroadmapguide.com, enter your contact info, download your business development plan for free today. We're also brought to you by Sandrowski Corporate Advisors. Earlier in the show, you heard a Sandrowski Business Minute.

If you wanna get in touch with Sandrowski, just scroll down into the show notes. I have all the information right there, their phone number, their website, and an email address where you can reach out to them. They're the folks who can help you protect and preserve your wealth.

They're a CPA firm with a different perspective. If you need help getting in touch with Sandrowski Corporate Advisors, reach out to me or reach out to them. Their information is down in the show notes.

Our guest today is Brittany Anderson. You can reach out to her by calling 507-235-5587, 507-235-5587, brittanyatsweetfinancial.com. Her email address is in the show notes as well. Sweetfinancial.com is the website.

That's down in the show notes. If you call or if you email, ask about the Dream Architect process. They are working on that right now, and it sounds like it's going to be absolutely outstanding.

You need to get more information, give Brittany a call, reach out to her today. All right, Brittany, what are the three things we should take away from our time together? I think number one is don't let anything that has happened in your past up to this point hold you back from achieving what you were meant to be, what you were put on this earth for. I think that a lot of times we can actually be our own worst enemy.

So don't let anything in the past, don't let any of your previous experiences hold you back in a negative way. So I'd say that's number one. Number two, I would say don't be afraid to really get clear on who you serve.

We spent a lot of time in that topic, and I think there's so much magnitude there and opportunity for you to create more possibility for others and yourself in turn by doing that one simple act, so getting clear on who you serve. The third I would say, and it kind of goes back to this overarching theme. So Joe Polish, he's the founder of Genius Network, a mastermind group that I'm part of, and he said something that has stuck with me and it rings in my head all the time.

It was that the people who say money doesn't buy happiness have never given enough away. And if you think about that, to really roll up everything we talked about here today, whether it's the pursuit of opportunity, growing your business, talking about the revenue growth, the free access tool that you're giving away today, Dave, all of that stuff, if you look at that pursuit and wanting even more financial independence, if you really think about the impact you wanna make and whose lives you wanna change, that little quote is really shaping for me, and it's one that I think about all the time. So that would be number three.

Wow, anytime we can end with a Joe Polish quote, we're doing great. I've known Joe Polish since 1999. And let me tell you something, there is more wisdom in that one man than should be allowed by law.

That is fantastic. It was wonderful, absolutely wonderful having you on the show here, Brittany, today. Those of you who wanna reach out to Brittany, you need to call 507-235-5587, 507-235-5587.

Brittany, such an honor. Thank you for joining us today on the Inside BS Show. Thank you, Dave.

All righty, folks, that'll do it for another episode of the Inside BS Show. My name is Dave Lorenzo. I'm here every day with another interview.

That's right, every stinking day here with another interview. We'll be back tomorrow. Until then, here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life.