Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast

How do you know when you need to make a change with your CPA? If you are seeing any of these four signs, it may be time to start seeking out a new team:   1) You have asked for tax projections but don't get them. 2) You have asked for guidance around the timing of a use of capital but your CPA doesn't want to offer a recommendation. 3) You feel like your CPA knows less about taxes for your busines...

We get this question often: "How is business owner financial planning different than regular financial planning?"   Financial planning is the process of creating a comprehensive plan to fund your current and future needs. Financial Planning for business owners is the process of including your business planning in your personal financial planning strategy.   In today's episode of the Entrepreneur A...

When you are in a tight spot with liquidity, where do you go to source the cash? In today's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod focuses on things you can implement relatively quickly, most within a few weeks or even a few days.   -----   ABOUT JARROD   Jarrod was born into financial planning and solving financial problems. With his financial advisor father Steve telling stories abo...

Growing your business through acquisition requires financing. In today's episode the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod provides an overview of SBA 7(a) loans and how you can use them along with seller-carried financing to acquire and grow your business.   For a deeper dive into this week's topic, check out our long-form blog post on this very topic: https://entrepreneuraligned.com/insights/smal...

Increasing the equity value of your business can be done in many ways. What are the fastest ways to start increasing value right now? In this episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod breaks down the three ways to increase your business equity value fast.   Fast doesn't mean the most powerful tools you have available. Those are usually increasing revenue, profitability, and growth rate....

There are lots of ways to lose money with investing, but perhaps the most frequent is selling assets when you don't want to. Sometimes this is driven by fear, when economic conditions worsen or the market turns against us we naturally want safety. Sometimes we see a better opportunity or think we do, and want to make a change to take advantage of it even if the assets we own are down in value. Mos...

How is wealth management different for business owners?   The more accurate question might be, how isn't it different? Business owners control their time and capital to a greater degree than the 91% of non-entrepreneurs in the US. Most of the research and writing on personal finance is targeted toward those 91% who work for someone else and operate in a very traditional work environment. They gene...

How do you know if you are financially free or how much more you need? I wrote about this in my book The Abundant Entrepreneur and call it the Enough Number. Meaning, how much do you need in lump sum wealth and recurring passive cash flow to meet all the personal goals you and your family have for the rest of your life? You can download a simple version of that calculator here.   Grab a copy of my...

Quarterly estimated tax payments are one of the least enjoyable parts of entrepreneurship. Making sure that they don't cause a cash crunch is one of the keys to reducing the pain they cause. In today's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod outlines how you can properly forecast and reserve for them.   -----   ABOUT JARROD   Jarrod was born into financial planning and solving financia...

As many startups embark on their entrepreneurial journey, one critical decision involves choosing the business structure that best fits their unique needs. Two popular choices are the Limited Liability Company (LLC) and S Corporation (S Corp), each having its own nuances and specific governance structures.   Both S Corporations and LLCs offer "pass-through" taxation, where profits are taxed at the...

A question we are frequently asked is, "When will the next recession be?" We all know that the business cycle is real and that the next recession will eventually be here. However, we have no idea when it will occur and with what severity. We don't know because the global financial system is incredibly complex and difficult to predict. This doesn't mean that we don't go through mountains of financi...

Often entrepreneurs neglect their physical health. Our businesses and families require so much from us to succeed and be the entrepreneurs, fathers, and mothers we aspire to be. Time always feels short and the same drive that makes us successful can also leave little time to focus on our physical health. I make the argument that if there are three legs on the stool of the entrepreneurial life, one...

For many business owners, the process of getting a business valuation feels like a black box. You give your valuation expert your financials and out pops a number, right? How do you know what goes into that number and whether it is accurate?   This week's episode the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast is intended to shed light on that black box so that you can understand the key value drivers for your v...

What happens when your business is not performing financially as well as you thought it would? What happens when that underperformance means that some of your family priorities are not met? When these things happen, you can either increase the amount of owner benefit being withdrawn, take on debt or sell some or all of the equity in the business. In this week's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned...

Entrepreneurship is about generating wealth without a direct connection to your time. Building things that run without you and continue generating cash flow without you being there is what creates the time flexibility we are all seeking.   The leap that we all must make is from being self-employed to truly sitting in the seat of the entrepreneur. So how do we go about making that jump? The answer...

What do we mean when we talk about risk management? As entrepreneurs, our job is to make sure that our businesses and personal lives have no singular failure points. Some of the biggest risks we face are around the two broad terms of "business continuity" and "liability risk".   In this week's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod discusses these two types of risk, the impact they ca...

One of the frequent questions asked by our entrepreneur families is, "What are the best trips that other clients are taking?" Because we get to hear about some truly amazing adventures from our clients, we here at Entrepreneur Aligned are effectively trip advisors as well as financial advisors.   The entrepreneur families we know are always looking for ways to maximize the time they spend away fro...

This week, I want to respond to a question we often receive from entrepreneurs who are meeting us for the first time. Many times, they ask us, "How should I evaluate whether working with you is worth what I pay for your services?"   Great news! We have an easy way to calculate our value based on three quantifiable areas, each of which is based on increased merit when compared to you doing things y...

Why do many entrepreneurs insist on working with the same financial team they started with years ago? The skills needed to solve problems for a household with $100,000 of income, $1 million or $10 million are different. Protecting $1 million of wealth, $10 million and $100 million should change, because the threats to keeping those levels of wealth change. The tax code and the challenges it presen...

The things we regret are those that are left untried. How often have you thought about that business that is just screaming to be built? How often have you written it off because you just do not have the time for it? In this week's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod goes over these four key elements for running multiple businesses successfully:   #1 - You need operational leverage...

What happens after you sell your company to a publicly traded one and, in the deal, you take stock in the acquirer? You just invested in the acquirer! The details make all the difference. In today's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod goes over a few of the key elements seen in these transactions and some important things to consider.   -----   ABOUT JARROD   Jarrod was born into f...

In today's episode of the Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast, Jarrod walks us through the three-step decision making process we here at Entrepreneur Aligned take clients through when they are purchasing their own ski homes. This process works well for any vacation or seasonal-use property, but there are certain steps, locations and seasonal elements that are specific to mountain town ski properties.   -...

In this week's episode, Jarrod talks about focus. Focus is key, for our business and for yours. Focus does not only mean keeping your eye on a target, it also means excluding everything else. What do you focus on in your business and what do you exclude? At Entrepreneur Aligned , we exclude a number of things from our services. We choose to focus on a few keys that actually matter and help our cli...

There is a fantastic transition that happens along the way while building personal wealth. You have the option to move from using outside lenders to fund your personal needs to leveraging your own assets. The question is at what level and how do you put the pieces together?   -----   WANT TO LEARN MORE?   Subscribe to our Entrepreneur Aligned Podcast for new episodes posted every week OR click bel...

We will all exit our business someday. The question we need to answer is, "Am I being pushed to exit or pulled into it?" The distinction between the two is entirely about you as the entrepreneur and not about the business itself.   When you are being pushed, it is typically because you feel that you cannot continue with the business as it is. There is something missing which makes continuing not a...