David Clayman, co-founder and CEO of Twelve Points Wealth Management and the Twelve Points Companies

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicitor implied shall be extended to W four CY Radio or it's employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. Churchill said, those who failed to learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Kevin Helenan believes that certainly applies to business. Welcome to Winning Business Radio here at W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com and now your host, Kevin Helena.

0:52 Thank you everybody for joining in today. I am Kevin Haleanan and welcome back to Winning Business TV and Radio on W four or cy dot com. We're streaming live on talk four tv dot com. That's the number four. In addition, we're on Facebook Facebook Live at Winning Business Radio as well, and we're available in podcasts after the live show on many platforms pretty much wherever you get your podcast content, We're there, YouTube, I heart radio, Spotify, Apple again, pretty much wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. The mission of winning business radio and TV, as regular viewers and listeners know, is to offer insights and advice to help people avoid the mistakes of others, right to learn best practices. Those are the how tos, the what toos, the what not tos to be challenged and hopefully to be inspired by the successes of others. Those consultants, coaches, advisors, founders, owners, entrepreneurs, people with expertise that are our guests. But you know, virtually every successful person that I've ever talked to has had some form of failure in their lives and careers. So, as they say every week, we all have to get our knee skinned once in a while, I'm driven to keep those scrapes from needing major surgery. Let's endeavor to learn from history so we don't repeat it. I've spent the better part of my career equipping businesses to grow through better selling success, from solopreneurs to small and medium sized companies all the way up to the Fortune fifty.

2:16 I've seen some of those companies win and to varying degrees. I've seen some of those companies fail. I've had the opportunity to rub elbows with some of the highest performing people around and with some who probably should have found other professions other than selling. In my own businesses, I've had lots of success, but some failures too, and I like to think I've learned from those experiences. So you'll hear from me my opinions and insights, because anybody who knows me right Dave will tell you that I sometimes have a hard time being quiet, But mostly you'll hear from experts, those consultants, coaches, advisors, founders and owners, entrepreneurs, and today's guest is no different. Today my guest is friend and longtime client Dave Klayman, co founder and CEO of Twelve Points Wealth Management and the Twelve Points Family of Companies bio. The proudest moment of Dave Claiman's life was when he became an Eagle Scout at the age of sixteen, so it should come as no surprise that he and his co founders created a financial services firm based on the twelve principles of Scouting. Those include trustworthiness, loyalty, kindness, and helpfulness. In nineteen ninety seven, Dave started his career in financial services at Payne Weber now UBS Financial Services, where he developed his passion for the markets and trading.

3:27 Over the next twelve years, he became a financial advisor and Senior Vice president of Investments. Dave spent the next five years working for Morgan Stanley, where he grew to appreciate the value of providing in depth financial planning services to his clients to help them focus on their goals and of course, to protect their wealth. Davis received the five Star Wealth Management Award many years. He's an Accredited Investment for Duciary Designee, considered the gold standard for fiduciary care in the financial services space, and earned the Certified four oh one K Professional designation, which distinguished as financial professionals who've demonstrated the knowledge and experience to favorably impact the outcome of corporate retirement plans. He's got other designations which we can talk about as well. For Dave, it's really just about the relationships he has with his clients and helping them to focus on and achieve their goals.

4:17 When Dave and his partners founded Twelve Points Wealth Management ten years ago, congratulations. The team set out to create a company that was more than just a wealth management firm. They wanted it to be a symbol of what they believe to be the right way to treat people, a movement if you will. They believe that all clients deserved a fiercely independent, service oriented brand. They dreamed that the people who joined their family would would feel the passion that they had for what they did every day, the desire to make their client's dreams come true. Well, the team is very pleased with how far they've come, but they look even more forward optimistically to the future. The firm's motto is that they provide their clients quote the freedom to dream, live, provide for their family, retired, deliver excellent employee benefits. Two of the mission increased their financial literacy.

5:02 Whatever freedom looks like for them. They look forward to seeing all their clients who realize their own individual freedoms and the firm's role in facilitating those. Here's to many more decades of success. Dave His inate ability to connect with people is evident not only in the way he works with clients, but also in his involvement with the community. Having grown up in Waltham and Newton, Massachusetts. He attended Saint Sebastian's and graduated from Waltham High School. He studied at Bentley University and received as BS in Global Financial Analysis at the UMS Amer's Campus. He's a founding member of the Friends of Waltham Scouting, former president of National Eagle Scout Association of Boston, and a president of his president of the Spirit of Adventure Council, Boy Scouts of America.

5:42 He's married to Julie. Together they live in Auburn. Dave, Welcome to Winning Business Radio and TV. Appreciate you being here. Thanks so much. Kevin, though was quite the intro. Try to live up to it? Well you do, you do. People don't know you, but are You do have humility, but you've also been very accompliss All right, First, I want to tell people you know this. I just said it pre show. You were my very first guest for the very first episode in twenty eighteen during that summer and now this is episode one eighty six. Pretty amazing. So thanks part of that, of course, so most important part of the interview tell us about Julie. My vistage group refers to as my ten because we rank ourselves every month, and I was saying family as ten because takes care of everything.

6:28 Yeah, what does she do? She actually is recently left the dental field and she now works with twelve points. Excellent. Excellent. And if I recall, you proposed during a Patriots pregame tailgate. Close it was a Chillette Stadium, but it was prior to a bon Jovi concert. Actually, oh, okay, I knew I saw the picture. I remember seeing the picture, YESO. But all right, So to me, there's a story behind that. I want to know what your early interests were, how you get into scouting, and then we'll talk about your financial services square, But what were your early interests and how did you get into scouting? Sure, so passionate sports fan. Thankfully, Boston's been good to me over the last twenty years. It's been a little rough going forward, but good start. And scouting was is actually an interesting story. When I was coming out of Cub Scouts, I was actually going to leave scouting because the gentleman who was the scout master was someone I actually didn't like. And I was at my baseball banquet and sitting with one of the other coaches, Joe Swanson, and he was picking on me for not eating my green beans, and we got talking about scouting, and he said he was actually starting up the new troupe over in Wallfam and would I like to leave Newton and check out Walfam. And Joe had always been a good guy, so I joined his son became one of my very best friends. Shout out to Joe who served in the Navy for twenty plus years and retired from the Navy, and we grew together and we became Eagle Scouts together,

8:00 and a lot of that is thankful and thanks to Joe, and he did a lot to create the person that I've become. I know scouting has had a lot of influence on you and you're giving back. We'll talk about that later. What was the process? Just so people understand two things becoming an Eagle Scout, and in particular, there's a project that every Eagle Scout candidate has to perform. So tell us about the process of becoming an Eagle Scout as well as the project. So Eagle Scouts are required to earn twenty one merit badges, eleven of which are laid out for you specifically, and then the rest are optional, and you do that throughout your time in scouting and also taking on leadership positions. And I feel very strongly about this. But the time I made Eagle, only two percent of all kids who joined made Eagle. It's now four percent. I'm less happy about that than others are, but I like it being an exclusive club. But they also remove some of the age requirements and now you can become an Eagle at twelve, and personally, I don't think that the kids that are twelve can appreciate the responsibility that comes with being an Eagle.

9:06 And I'm very proud. I was sixteen when I became an Eagle, and it did have a profound influence to this day. You know, hey, we named the company twelve Points for the twelve points of the Scout laws. So every day I think about what it means and the responsibility that comes with being an Eagle, because it does reflect on everyone else who carries that badge. So it's a very important time for me and my project was all another story. We actually had a hurricane come in in April, which doesn't happen in Massachusetts, and we had to cancel the cleanup of the Charles River that we were doing and move it to the next weekend. So a lot of logistics for a sixteen year old to be dealing with. And at the end of the day, we pulled so much trash out of the Charles River that the mass I forget they were called now they'd be the dor now they said that the DCR excuse NAS DCR said they weren't going to come pick up because we had pulled too much trash out. So we actually had to get our State centator involved in Trumbly.

10:12 It was the State Center at the time took care of getting the NASS DCR to come out and clean up what we had already cleaned up or take away what we'd cleaned. Up too much of a good thing. Sounds like not really, but that's you know. Well, my friend was brave enough to be in the Charles River in a wetsuit, hooking a tow truck chain to pull carts and motorcycle frames out of the Charles. Oh my word, what part of the Charles I mean, for those that know the area, Waltham, Waltham. Okay, yeah, wow, all right, So now what was behind your decision to major in global financial analysis? I mean, you're you know, eighteen seventeen eighteen going to college, that's a really narrow focus for somebody at that age. And I know there's a story behind it.

10:52 Well that's because there's a little twist there. So I went to school as an accounting major, actually starting at Northeastern, and I had a National Marita scholarship. Due to financial reasons, I had to withdraw and went to Bentley Knights for a little while, and then, honestly, nineteen and twenty year old Dave thought he was smarter than the rest of the world, so decided to stick with the job I had full time and did not go back and get my degree until I was forty and I went to you said, the UMS campus. Ironic that indn't step on campus until I actually got my diploma. I did it all online through the University Without Walls, which a program from US, and graduated that when I was forty one years old. So that's how I was already deep into my career. And that's how it was Global financial analysis.

11:38 By the way, the only reason this is some inside radio. The only reason I did that is because I stumbled and I didn't want it to sound like I made a mistake. But your grandfather was instrumental that in there somewhere to tell us about that. Yeah, Sam was an entrepreneur. So his father, Harry from Chelsea, mass actually started an antique store to h Claiman and Sons. And when I was young, my grandfather would pick me up early on or usually i'd sleep over on Friday nights and my grandfather and grandmother would drive me into the store on Saturday mornings, and I would have to sweep before we went over to Hay Market. My grandmother and I would go to Hay Market. While popular at the store and on my way in, my grandfather always makes me say I wanted to go to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Wouldn't let me say mit so, but it was a good early experience. And then on Sundays we'd actually go to flea markets and try to find more antiques for him to sell. So that's how I got into that business. And in nineteen eighty three, the city of Boston took that store by eminent domain to Neil Building. Oh have ended up in the antique business. So, but he was visiting in nineteen ninety two and I was going to be taken him to the airport and he said to me as we were sitting in the lounge there, David, my boy, someday you'll start your own Fidelity.

13:01 And it took me to just a couple of years ago. I never knew why he said it, and then I realized he probably saw a Fidelity sign out the window of Logan and that's probably why he said it. But it was pretty cool, and I always took that as a promise to him, even though I had no interest in financial services at the time, that that became a promise as my career was ongoing, that someday would start my own. Which you did actually kind of twice, but we'll get to that. So you first you went to work for Paine Weber right, which became UBS. As we know, you spent twelve theres twelve years there, moving on with a senior vice president investments title. Tell us about that experience in that particular role. So I started at pain Weber, as I mentioned, without a degree. They were kind enough to take me on as an assistant. My friend Tim got me the job, and I was there for a little while. They decided to allow me into the broker training program. I had some great mentors from Janet Zorbis to Al Fullerton to Neil Gore to Paul Flanagan taught me, bonds, taught me stocks, taught me options and commodities, and I just got a really broad experience there and very appreciative for all the things.

14:06 I honestly believe that if pain Weber had stained Pain Weber, maybe you never would have left. So it was quite the culture originally. And it would be to me it seems unusual that they would offer that to a non degree holder. Yeah, I said to them, Look, I either have to get into the training program where I need to go somewhere else because it's just the money's not good enough to be honest. Yeah, yeah, all right, Well hold that thought right there. We'll come back to lessons learned at pain Ubs, but for now we've got to take about a minute break. We'll be right back with Dave Claman, CEO, co founder of Twelve Points Wealth Management. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com.

14:54 Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio. Have you ever dreamt of being on the Radio. Well, now it's your chance be a radio show guest on the number one ranked internet radio station and promote you and your business for free. Yes you heard it, free business advertising right here on W four cy dot com. Call five six one five zero six four zero three to one now to get booked on one of our shows. That's five six one five zero six four zero three one. Get your free advertising now.

15:36 And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again, it's Kevin Helena. We're back with Dave Clayman. He's co founder and CEO of Twelve Points Wealth Management. So, Dave, thinking about UBS twelve years there, it's a long time. What were some of the best lessons you learned during those twelve years? Again, I had the opportunity that I learned the markets, you know, not having a degree coming out of high school, I thought I was pretty smart, but I got the opportunity to work with particularly three gentlemen who had been in business for over thirty years, and they gave me the ins and outs of every different fast of the market and I got to learn how different markets interact and it was quite the education. It was the real world education.

16:35 I would say, that's good, that's awesome. By the way, for people that are listening and watching, we're not giving any investment advice today. We're just talking about your knowledge of the industry and how you work with your clients. All right. Then you moved over to Morgan Stanley where you ran your own practice within Morgan Stanley with two other partners. What was behind the decision to leave, ultimately UBS and to join Morgan. Well, that was actually UBS was deciding to get out of the commandit these business and my boss at the time was kind enough to come to me and instead of just dropping on my desk, said we're changing our business model. You need to find a home. And so that gave me the opportunity to interview, and I chose Smith Barney and about five days after I got to Smith Barney, they were purchased by Morgan Stanley.

17:20 Wow, and so you ran a practice with again two co partners. Tell us about that experience and the work you did. Again an excellent opportunity. I went over there as a solo practitioner. I learned the value of a team having the sum of the part to be greater than the whole, to be able to offer advice to business owners, which was really our focus at the time, a little different vision as to how we thought that should look, and that was ultimately the reason for one of the reasons for the change from the team we were. Some of us wanted to be very broad and I wanted to be very narrow and niche is to understand what different business owners were actually going through. So that was the main reason.

18:03 There best lessons learned from that team. The best lessons learned, so read Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Because Padrick LENCIONI. Absolutely it's great insight, have a great sales coach like Kevin Hallanan, who we were proud to hire during our time at Morgan Stanley, thank you. And just the value of planning, you know, I really, as I mentioned it Pain Weber, it was all about the markets. It was all about the investments. And I now say to people, I'm the market geek, the investment geek, and I realize what I do for you in the investments is going to do far less than what I can do for you in the planning. So That was a really great lesson that I learned by being integrated into a team rather than just solo.

18:51 Shot awesome differentiate for second, those that are familiar don't need it, but those that aren't differentiate planning from man. Sure, so, investment management is literally just picking what investments are going to treat your portfolio the best, whether that's reducing your volatility or increasing your return, whatever that is that allows you to stick with your investment plan. Financial planning takes into how do I maximize the amount of money that ends up in the pockets of myself the people and causes I care about, And that's really There are things that you can do between taxes and planning and different structures that will allow you to maximize that outcome for yourself and those you care about.

19:35 And we will talk in a little bit, but you interact with many of the advisors that your clients have, the attorneys, the CPAs, etc. All get to that, but I want to talk about twelve points. Why did you decide to make the move? That was a big decision. You know things were going well, but you decided you want to make a change. Tell us about that decision. Sure, so, again in the back of my head always was that promise from to my grandfather and that I would fulfill that someday. And as I mentioned, the team was growing a bit apart, and we were already making decisions that the team wouldn't stay together either way. And then I noticed that both clients and advisors were moving to this independent channel, the registered investment advisor channel, because clients were looking for someone who was a fiduciary, which means simply means legally obligated to act in a client's best interest. I say all the time, I can't believe that's actually a thing, that there are people who don't do that, But that was the movement that we saw, and I really thought there was an opportunity. And last, but not least, in twenty thirteen, our industry was rated the least trusted industry in America by Edelman Survey of Industry YAUS. And so I thought starting a firm that was based on trust and trustworthiness, and thus the first point of the Scout law, that's where the name twelve points came from.

21:03 What was the most difficult part of starting the firm? And in this case, you had three partners, still do three partners. Yeah, at the time, we actually started with only two other partners Kristen join us till twenty sixteen. What was the difficult part I functionally, I guess I didn't know what I didn't know. I mean, you're now literally putting together you need space, you need lease, you need right. This is not a practice within Morgan Stanley, which no, exactly, it's a difficulty, but. Yeah, you're running a business and you have all the same headaches that a business owner does, like you said, finding space and filling that space and putting together furniture to fill your space. And you know, we had the one of the original systems we picked couldn't handle the volume of opening our accounts in a timely fashion, and I had to make the decision only two weeks in to go ahead and switch to a brand new system.

21:58 And that was a little scary. Yeah, And there were definitely moments when people were wondering if I knew exactly what I was doing, and probably moments that I wondered about myself. But you know, it's turned out. Okay, we're pretty proud of where we are now, so yeah, you should be thank you. Hope you don't mind me saying that you had a very small staff. How many people in the firm now? We started with five people total and we now have thirty two people including our interns. Wow, that's outstanding. Yeah, the intern program is very demanding excuse me, not demanding selective. You have a good group of people and it's hard to get into. So that's pretty cool. So tell us about the firm and the work that you do for your clients. Sure.

22:40 So. Our biggest goal as a firm is first and foremost to make our clients' lives easier. We believe that's most important, and our other objectives are just to build communities that can bring resources to people. You know, one of the firm's philosophies is based on the book The go Getter, and that's been a fabulous resource to us. My partner Francesca says all the time, I just want to be Pindar, who's the main character of the book, And maybe we should figure out how to get paid for that. So we do really enjoy interacting with our clients, getting to spend time and helping them. Obviously, financial planning and investment management, we have solid capabilities there or else clients wouldn't stay just for the social aspect, but we enjoy digging in deep and helping families define, discover and live out their freedom, as you said in the intro, whatever that means to them. And it's been great. We started with the wealth management piece, we've grown it out to include our family office, our retirement plans, so being able to help companies offer great benefits to employees and then have them experience their own retirement and what that might mean. And some of them are people who would never have that opportunity otherwise. One of our favorite stories is the client who when we joined them, they had a twenty percent participation rate in therefore one K plan and they said they're minimum wage, they'll never participate. And

24:11 the next time and we said, you know, Francesca and I said, leave that to us, we'll figure this out. And the next time we went back, they were jumping on they'd put the app on their phone and they're like, look how much money I've got in my account, Look how much money I've got. And that was just that's just a great feeling. So do we love working with the business owner and helping them, you know, conquer the world. Of course we do, but it's a great feeling too, to introduce financial freedom to someone who never had that dream. And some of the folks in your firm are working on financial literacy for young people. Talk about that. Yeah, so super excited about Twelve Points Academy, which was founded last year. Joey Belsanti, who's one of our interns, came to me last year as a sophomore at Bryant and brought a three page reporter as to why financial illiteracy was such a problem in this country. And I said, cool, what do you want to do about it? And he said, well, I think we should create some programs that people could start to learn. I said, cool, you want for profit or nonprofit? He said nonprofit. I said, here's the company, credit Card. Go get it founded, and we rolled it out to Bryant University. We had thirty kids in the program last year Bryant. We had the opportunity to take those kids and teach in the elementary and high schools in the Rhode Island area. We're now expanding to four more colleges this fall, and we've expanded out to Twelve Points Athletics, where we're coaching college teams and working with them to define their goals and to help young people make good decisions and tie in their goals and values

25:42 to money, because money ultimately is just a tool. And last, but not least, that's now expanded out to some of the nonprofits that we already work with managing their foundations. We're bringing it to the kids that they work with in there, and had a great opportunity to go out to the Light Foundations camp out Ohio and teach financial literacy to those kids. So it's been awesome. That is understanding all right, two minutes before the next board, roughly two minutes for the next break. Who are the types of clients that you work with? Sure? So myself, I primarily work with fellow entrepreneurs. As I mentioned in starting the firm. I got to understand a lot of the struggles that they go through. I get to understand the triumphs have had, the sleepless nights throughout the years. Know what it was like to think about all the people that your decisions impact every day, your employees, their families, the community. What it was like when the pandemic struck, and trying to figure out how that was going to impact our worlds as a business owner.

26:41 So that's my favorite type of client. We also work with another person on the team, Chris has a specialty working with real estate developers because they tend to get ignored in our industry because they don't have dollars that they can manage right up front. And then we are actually in the process of founding the Twelve Point Center for Women. A number of the passionate women and our team are going out and building programs and community for those women. They've had a couple of great events and we're looking forward to what that can become as well. Yeah, I'm excited about that too. What differentiates twelve Points from other wealth advisory practices? Sure, again, I think it's the resources that we bring to the table. We have an outstanding network of professionals that can do everything from helping you select home care for an ailing parent, to an attorney for trust in the state, to an accountant to who's the best body shop in town. Of course you know Francesca's family, but no, so everything. We just believe that we're there to be a resource to our clients and whatever that is that they need, we want to bring that and I know a lot of people you'll go to every financial services firm, and they'll say we're trustworthy, we're honest, we do great work.

28:01 It's only one way to prove it, and it's one handshake, one introduction, one look in the eye at a time, and we get the opportunity to do that. I think it's okay to say Mass Motors on Boston Street. I actually do think it's okay to say that's a little free pub for them. There you go, all right, We will take a break and then I want to read something to the audience. We'll be right back with Dave Claiman. You're listening to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helenet on W four CY Radio. That's W four cy dot com. Don't go away. More helpful information is coming right up right here on Winning Business Radio.

28:43 The yp dot com website is your local search engine. If you're looking for a good restaurant, it can help you find the right one nearby with ratings and reviews. Or if your car breaks down, you can use the yp app to find the closest repair shop. Or maybe you're just looking for something to do on a Friday night. Well, it has great local bonds for all sorts of things in your area, no matter what, when or where. If you're looking for something, YP Local Search can help you find it. So go to yp dot com or download the app to search local, find local, and say local. And now back to Winning Business Radio with Kevin Helene, presenting exciting topics and expert guests with one goal in mind to help you succeed in business. Here once again is Kevin Helene.

29:36 We're back with Dave Claiman. Dave, you sent this over and I didn't read it in your bio because I wanted to read it right around here in the show. So we get to comment on this. I know you know what it is, but I'm going to read it and then I want you to comment on it. Successfully leading fellow business owners isn't just a job, it's a calling. But business owners seek clarity around business valuation and confidence that they're hard work and personal goals are aligned. They seek out Dave Claimant. Many business owners experience frustration with the lack of coordination between their advice between their advisors, and are often far too busy to handle things themselves. Working with Dave's Dave, Well, this is a small print, Sorr. I should have made this larger. Working with Dave clients experience collaboration with a professional who shares a similar experience, enabling them to chart a path to freedom, whatever that may mean to them. For some, it's less time in the office and more time with the family. For others, that's expanding their business into new ventures. Still others seek to reduce the stress of uncertainty. Whatever their particular freedom, each client knows that day will challenge and support them in realizing their lives work consistent with their values. While most advisors are only focus on the numbers contained within a financial statement, Dave augments this focus to include envisioning what's necessary to fully realize the life of significance in the end with the quote, don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. Dolly Parton, I love that quote, but there's a few nuggets in there comment just in general, and I'm asking I'm going to ask you about a couple of these nuggets. Yeah.

31:04 So I actually apparently modified that because at the end it was supposed to say most advisors spend all their time looking at the really big numbers in life, and those are typically numbers on their financial statement, and not the really small numbers, which might be the amount of time you have left to make meaningful memories. Wow, that really is what it's all about. And business owners. Many people struggle, but business owners in particular, as an entrepreneur, you're trying to do what's best for so many people, and you're running, running, running, and for some people, that is spending more time with their family. I was on a call today and we were with other entrepreneurs. We were just asking how weekends were, and a couple of them spent all of their time focused on their family this summer and how fantastic that was. And that's legacy for me personally. I don't have kids, and so legacy for me is whatever twelve points becomes. So running continuously on building twelve points and building a brand that we can be proud of that works to provide freedom and excellence for as many people as possible, that's what I'll leave behind. So that's my freedom. Really understanding that and helping business owners to achieve what their life's outcome, intentional outcome is what their vivid vision is, that's our goal.

32:34 Those are great descriptors right there, their vivid vision. You know their significance, and that's one of the things I wanted to point to helping people become or leave some significance, whether through as you said, charitable giving. Often kids' grandkids, right, great grandkids in some cases. Right. But talk more about this. You talk about collaboration or coordination of clients advisors, which is not something I saw a lot of until I met and spend time with you. Well, thank you for that. Business owners often have their life siloed, right. They have their business attorney, they might have their personal attorney. They have an accountant who probably does both, but it may be two different partners at the accounting firm and they're not talking, and then all of a sudden when it might be time to make a transition, hopefully intentionally, they want to get everybody together and try to pull it all together. And I want to be out in six months. Okay, Well, that's not going to optimize your outcome. And one of the things I've really been focused on, unfortunately, is seeing how many exits from businesses are not intentional. Yeah, that can be good though you could get wowed with an offer. Somebody could come along and offer to buy your business tomorrow.

33:55 But if you're not prepared, if you haven't coordinated all pieces of your life, the three legs of your stool. As we say, you're personal, your financial, and your business. You're not going to maximize that outcome for yourself. I know it's hard. I know you're always running to build your business and just make it better, make it better, make it better, and it's hard to get outside of the business. You're stuck in the business. But that is such. You have one goal as a business owner to build something that is a business of significance, that is attractive, transferable, and valuable at any given time. So really it's important to us that everybody on your team, all the people you're paying, frankly, are all growing in the same direction to maximize outcomes for you. And it does not benefit you to have them in silos. I heard someone last week say silos don't have windows.

34:54 They don't, that's right. So they can't see what each other are doing. That's not a great position. It's not giving you a three hundred and sixty degree view of your life, your outcome and what your hard work has been building towards. Well, you're just alluded to it without menting too. But I want to ask more about you support and challenge, not not or you wrote challenge and support. I can see how you support? How do you challenge? We believe it's really important to enroll people in a bigger vision of what they can see. Again, when your tunnel vision, when you're head down, you maybe can't see what the possibility is. So we believe that possibilities exist and challenges that are created. So in looking at that, helping people to see is that the most your company can become, is that the most you can become? Is that really what you want out of life. People just don't have the ability to see what somebody else can see in them often and I consider that one of my biggest assets is the ability to see something bigger for people, and so we will challenge. If you don't want to be challenged, twelve Points probably isn't the place for you. But if you're an entrepreneur, probably like a good challenge. So that tends to work out well with personalities.

36:14 So there may be a little repeat of this the answer to the answer of this next question. But tell us more about the people and the culture of twelve Points. Yeah, So, as I mentioned that whole idea of challenging and supporting is a core competency. The twelve points are core values. So in case anyone doesn't know what the twelve points are, trustworth, the loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverend. I do get challenged by the reverend one once in a while. It's not my best. But the culture here is very fast paced, it is very high energy. It is a culture of service, service to our clients, service to each other, service to our community. That is very important that we take care of all all stakeholders at twelve points.

37:05 Yeah, great answer, And just so you know, I was saying them at the same time as you were. You Dave knows. But for the audience, I've probably said it before, highly made it the first class. But I do remember the twelve points of this Scout law Scouts, And by the way, I'm always prepared, at least I try to be. All right, are there any divisions of the twelve points family that we haven't mentioned yet? I think we can. No, We've covered all the all of the key ones. There's more to come. All right, all right, stay tuned literally and figuratively. You're a vistage member you've been a Vistage member for eight years. Tell people about Vistage as an organization and what motivated you to join and continue for eight years plus.

37:49 So Vistage is a CEO group international actually right where you get together with a single coach or Vistage chair every month and you spend a full day with your fellow CEOs. It's typically about fifteen CEOs and you will often have a Vistage speaker every month and they will be teaching you a lesson. For example, this past month we learned how to optimize the use of chat gptai and what it can do for your business. It was a phenomenal lesson. And then in the afternoon, what you get to do is you spend time working with each other through issues and you get to have a sounding board of your fellow CEOs. It's a great option. Phil Thomas is our Vistage chair. Phil is an amazing man, been a CEO of five different companies, both public and private.

38:45 He is a former naval officer and he's just been a great asset to me as a CEO. And then he actually now acts in our coaching program for twelve Points Business Advisors to coach other businesses as well. That's fantastic. You're a car collector, tell us, tell us about your collection. Yeah, so Mustangs. It's been Mustang since I was five years old. When I was five, my dad's best friend was a toll taker on the mass Pike and the seventy nine paced car had just come out to pace the five hundred and it had horses down the side, and for five year old Dave, that was pretty cool. So, as you can see, I do have a passion for Mustangs. Yeah, and it's been it's been quite the right. I've met a lot of great friends and they've become family through my passion, and we have some great times together. We go away a couple times a year just for car events.

39:41 And do you drive all the cars? Do you? Are they investments? Are they more? Yeah, they're definitely investments. I'm definitely cautious about what I pay for a car, and I don't ever get to the point where I have to have something. Thankfully, there are a couple out there I'd like to have, but I won't pay what they're worth, so we won't get them anytime soon. Yeah, but yes, it's been, it's been phenomenal and mostly Selene and Shelby Mustang, so been very fortunate to take those on. And it was kind of a moment where Okay, well, if we're not having kids and I don't have to pay for college, that's where the money the cars are coming from. There, you go, that's awesome, that's fun. All right. You're very active with the Boy Scouts still. I know you're a big believer in giving back. What's the nature of your involvement. I did mention a couple of things in the bio in the preread, but tell everybody about what you do currently with the Boy Scouts.

40:33 Sure. I am the president of the Spirit of Adventure Councils Scouts BSA, no longer Boy Scouts, very proud to have allowed young women in five years ago, and that was a very exciting moment. I'll be honest, My biggest fear in allowing young women in is that they mature faster than young men. In fact, take all the leadership positions away and what were the learned. So that was my biggest concern. But it's been fantastic. We just celebrated the anniversary of our first Eagle Scouts in our council, first female Eagle Scouts in our council, and it's just been great. I truly believe that our society now needs values, yes, that we teach, and needs the leadership that we teach more than ever. And they hate it when I say this, but nobody, I don't care whether you can tie a sheep shank or not. I don't care whether you can build a fire out of a tpe log cabin or not.

41:33 I believe that the values and the leadership we teach are the most impressive and most needed things that we can offer. So I strongly endorse that. Yeah, I've again, it didn't go nearly as far as you but I have very strong, meaningful memories from scouting, both with the sheep shank and being able to start a fire and cooking the you know, in the woods. But leadership was a huge part of that. You know, those were my first leadership opportunities. Frankly, you know, Yeah, what do you do when you're not working? Not cars? We already talked about that. What else do you do? Well, there's a rare time to sleep. Yeah, well, mostly it's I am a again, as I mentioned, a massive Boston sports fan, and especially New England Patriots. Patriots season ticket older for twenty two years now this fall and really have had an unbelievable run and it's just been awesome.

42:27 So yeah, we've been spoiled. What do you think of the future, What do you think of what they're doing right now? I was not a fan of letting the greatest coach of all time go. I know that's an already opinion these days in New England, but you know, we let the greatest quarterback of all time walk out the door, we let the greatest coach of all time walk out the door. It's probably not going to go really well for us for a while. So I'm hoping I'm wrong. I wasn't the biggest fan of the Drake Maypick. I really hope I'm wrong because I want him to be great. But we'll see where we go. It is what it is, as they say, right we the rest of the country is like, yeah, now it's your turn. Well, I remember being one in fifteen. I remember having their bags over our heads because it was embarrassing.

43:10 Who in the listening and viewing audiences should should reach out to you? And why? Sure? So obviously entrepreneurs are a huge passion for us. I believe we bring a lot to the table, both from a professional and a personal standpoint. We've been working on our own one to many coaching programs where CEOs can get together with other CEOs who can help them through some of their struggles. It can be a challenge, you know, it is a challenge. It's not it can be. It is a challenge to run a business and it can be very lonely to be the person at the top. So men, women's it'd be awesome to connect to see what we could do for you, scouters, anybody who wants to be part of a community that believes that giving back to all of your constituents is really important. And there's a place for you in the twelve Points family, and that's what's most important to us.

44:06 Fantastic and you saw the info. I'll lude it to you again. You saw in the crawl Dave at twelve spelled out twelve points dot com. The website is twelve Points dot com. You can google twelve Points Wealth Management. That gets you there too. Dave. It's been really great for me personally. It's been fun having you here and I really appreciate the time you spent Kevin. I always appreciate the time. Glad to be your first, and I know I won't be your last, so they well do it again sometime. I that's a commitment already. So thank you very much and thanks everybody for watching and listening. This is a show about business and business challenges. If you've got concerns about the growth of your company, feel free to reach out to me on Facebook or LinkedIn at Winning Business Radio.

44:48 You can drop me a note one of my many email addresses, Kevin at Winning Business Radio dot com. Our company is Winning Incorporated. We are part of Sandler Training. I say that we developed sales teams into high achievers and sales leaders into true coaches and mentors. Listen, We're not right for everybody, but maybe we should have a conversation. Thank you as always to producer at Engineer One. Thank you on for another job well done. Be sure to be here Join us next Monday, August twenty sixth. My guest will be Scott Yell, founder and president of New England Sales Solutions and for the last year has been representing the Jackson Yell Foundation. It's pretty compelling. Join us then. Till then, This is Kevin helenan.

45:29 You've been listening to Winning Business Radio with your host, Kevin Helena. If you missed any part of this episode, the podcast is available on Talk for Podcasting and iHeartRadio. For more information and questions, go to Winning Business Radio dot com or check us out on social media. Tune in again next week and every Monday at four pm Eastern Time to listen live to Winning Business Radio on W four CY Radio w fourcy dot com. Until then, let's succeed where others have failed and win in business with Kevin Helen in and Winning Business Radio M h