Latest / The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast / The Collateral Damage of Business Success with Ryan Finley (stage 4) - Ep. 406

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The Collateral Damage of Business Success with Ryan Finley (stage 4) - Ep. 406 · The Start, Scale & Succeed Podcast

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  Unknown: Hello, hello, and welcome. Welcome once again to
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  the Start Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that
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  grows with you through all seven levels of your journey as a
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  founder. I'm your host, Scott Ritzheimer.
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  And here's something that almost no founder plans for: you spend
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  years building a business or even a nonprofit, but the
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  question is, at what cost? Because if you win at work, but
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  it costs you your marriage, it may end up costing you your
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  organization too. And to help us figure all of this out, navigate
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  this very tricky terrain, is my guest, Ryan Finley, who's the
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  founder of Freedom Financial Services Group. He's a divorce
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  finance advisory firm that assists families, attorneys, and
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  courts with the financial challenges of divorce. With over
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  20 years of executive experience in finance and forensic
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  accounting, Ryan has led hundreds of families across the
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  country to financial clarity and assurance. As a CPA, CDFA, CVA,
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  and court-approved mediator Ryan combines technical accuracy with
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  empathy, bridging financial analysis and human insight. His
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  skill in clarifying complex financial matters and
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  encouraging constructive dialog makes him a trusted ally for
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  attorneys and clients alike. And he's here with us today. Ryan,
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  welcome to the show.
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  I'm excited to have you on. To be honest, whenever we got your
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  proposal, it was like nothing that we had seen. I didn't know
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  that this existed, at least this particular position. And what
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  got me really excited about this conversation is not so much the
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  mechanics and the realities of what has to happen deep down in
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  it, but when I, when I get folks on the show who specialize in
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  really tough times, I'm always interested in the lessons that
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  they've learned that could have prevented this whole thing. And
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  so, while I want to talk through a little bit of, you know, what
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  you do, how you do it, and how relevant that is, I'd love to
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  see if we could get some wisdom right out of the gate here on
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  what keeps people from having to come to you in the first place.
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  Well, you know, as you said, well, first, first of all, thank
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  you for having me on the show today. I appreciate being here.
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  It's been.. it's looking forward to it, and it's most of your
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  audience is founders and business owners and things like
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  that, so you know, a lot of people we get are people that
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  start off as owners or they are business owners, and then life
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  gets away from them, you know. They start off, it's where they
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  marry their best friend, and they, you know, end up having a
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  family, and
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  usually the spouse stays home, raises the kids, and they're,
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  they either off busy with their business and everything, so you
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  know that's what we see quite often, you know, where
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  the branch just splits, you know, one life goes one way,
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  business goes the other, so you know
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  it's common, and it's common in divorces, and we see it a lot,
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  and there's a lot of, I get brought in a lot to value the
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  business and to figure out what went wrong, you know, but most
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  of all, you know, I think
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  advice I would give, you know, it's back to simple, it's back
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  to basics, it's back to communication, it's keep your
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  spouse involved with everything that's going on, you know, we've
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  got
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  so often they get busy with the family and get busy with the
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  business, as they don't talk about what's going on with the
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  family or the business, and so you know, I think a major step,
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  as simple as it is, is just keeping communication, keeping
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  your spouse updated with the business activities, the
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  financials, and things like that, just keeping them
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  involved. So I think that's a big key to
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  keeping marriages together and keeping communication going, so
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  yeah, I think one of the hardest occupations in the world is
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  being a founder's spouse,
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  whether wife or husband, whatever it might be, that
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  because you basically have all the same risks as the founder,
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  but a fraction, if any, of the degree of control that they
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  experience, and so this idea of communication, I think, is so
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  vital, and it's so easy to miss when you see these things really
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  come into full bloom and blossom into full on fights, possible
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  divorce, court, the whole nine yards.
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  Where do you see the biggest gaps in these relationships?
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  Well, I want to touch on kind of what you said there, you know,
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  because the business takes time, and someone that's a founder of
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  a business, it's a lot of work, it's it's not eight hour days,
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  it's 12 and 14 hour days, and it's seven day work weeks, and
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  so, as you can see, where I'm going with this, you know, you
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  have a family, your family needs you too, your business needs
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  you, and your family needs you, so
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  it's, it's a split on your time demands, and so it, you know,
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  you, you, you're working all these busy days, and you come
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  home,
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  and your kid.
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  You're tired, and you know you still need to make time for your
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  wife and your kids, and you know, plan date nights, spend
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  time where you're away from your work, and they have your full
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  attention. Business has your attention a lot of the time, but
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  your family still needs you. Your family needs your support,
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  they need your leadership, they need your, you know, financial
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  ability, your earning ability, but most of all, they need your
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  guidance and love, and you know, I think a lot of that gets kind
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  of pushed aside because the work involved to make your business
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  successful, to found your business, and you've got other
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  people at your business that depend upon, so you've, they
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  need your time, but you don't forget your family, you know
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  it's that's one thing that I see as far as what causes a lot of
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  divorce, I think it just, it's a time management and it's a
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  communication issue, and I think that's kind of the biggest
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  ranch in what's going on, yeah, yeah, and as you mentioned, it
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  starts small and gets bigger and bigger in your world,
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  I don't know. Anyone sets out hoping that it'll be that way,
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  right? But even within that, there are some folks who get
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  through it more gracefully than others. Let's say it that way.
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  When it comes to that impasse, where it's just like, hey, we
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  just have to go our own separate ways, and there's a business
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  involved. Walk us through kind of what that looks like, like
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  what happens in those cases, and then maybe even speak to what
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  makes for a more graceful process or a more cantankerous
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  one.
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  Yeah, in, you know it, it gets complicated, you're right, and a
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  lot of times when I get brought in, you k now, first of all
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  if the business was started during the marriage, it becomes
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  a marital asset, you know,
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  it could complicated if it was started before, because then you
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  have to still part of it is marital income, and you have to
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  go back into it, and then you have to look what the baseline,
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  what value was when they got married, so it could get very
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  complicated,
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  but you know,
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  let's assume in our, for discussion purposes, that the
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  merit, that the business was started during the marriage, you
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  know, then
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  from a
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  marital asset perspective, you have to go in and determine the
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  value of the business, you know, and look and see if how that's
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  going to get separated, you know, the thing you want to do,
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  what happens a lot is the divorce takes a lot of time too,
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  and so you want to keep the patient alive, meaning you want
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  to keep the business operating, you want to keep the operations
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  going, you want to keep the cash flow going. You don't want that
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  to suffer
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  as a consequence of the divorce. You want to keep that going, so
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  you know
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  you keep that going. You keep that, you know you want to keep
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  what the value is. You want to, you have to determine what the
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  value is, but you know it is a mayoral asset, and
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  you have to look about if,
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  how do we divide that? Is that something that the founder
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  keeps? Is there enough assets where
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  the spouse can take that, and the business can take this? You
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  look at division of assets, and you know how that happens. It,
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  what it gets complicated, because then you have
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  conflicting
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  directions. You have
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  a founder that wants to reduce the value of the company because
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  of divorce. You have a spouse that wants to increase, so
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  typically you get
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  competitive appraisals to see what it is, and then you have to
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  go through and look, look at it on small businesses, where it
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  gets even more complicated, as if they're running personal
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  expenses through there. If there's a car, or groceries, or
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  vacations, or gasoline, or thing, trips, or things like
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  that, then you have to pull those back and add those back
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  as, as
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  non-operating expenses, and so it gets complicated that way,
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  but it does get messy, it gets very messy, because then you
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  have to look at, you know, again, division of assets and
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  how that's going to happen, and each person has a, has a
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  objective to get to, where I come in a lot of times
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  either as litigation support for one spouse or the other, just to
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  try to justify, you know, why that valuation is accurate or
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  why this one is not accurate. You know, I get brought in a lot
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  of times for litigation support to say, okay, have you
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  considered this, this is their appraisal. This is your
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  appraisal. Here's where I see the differences, and here's
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  where I see the reconciliation should be somewhere in the
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  middle, or somewhere what's what I think's accurate, what I think
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  is inaccurate, or what I think might be jaded a little bit
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  towards that side.
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  Yeah, well, I've never walked through this with one.
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  Of my clients, or at this, it's not what I do, but even at the
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  same time, as they were going through this, a friend of mine
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  did, who was a business owner, and ended up
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  at the end of it being co-owners with his wife in the business
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  that he ran, and because it was a small business, wasn't really
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  capitalized, neither one could buy the other out, and they
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  ended up having to work together, both of them in the
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  business. After their, they actually worked together more
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  after the divorce than they did before the divorce,
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  and it was really bad. I mean, it was really bad and really
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  hard, and I don't think a lot of folks expect that's even a
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  possible outcome, and,
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  and so, yeah, it really struck me as odd. So, there is
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  something that I have
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  had clients go through, and I want to see if it's similar in
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  this respect, because you talk about keeping the patient alive.
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  So, I've, I've walked with clients through seasons where
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  they were also dealing with litigation, to various, some
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  big, some small, and one of the things we had discussed is how
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  do you sandbox the time that you give that thing, because it's,
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  it's not going to make your organization, but it might break
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  it, and for founders in particular, I've found that that
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  weights like that are much heavier, because they're so
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  personal, and I can only imagine that, that would be 1020 100
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  times more in a divorce situation. So, for a founder
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  who's going through that and has all the emotional and time and
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  financial struggle,
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  how do they walk that road of keeping the business on its best
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  foot?
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  It's hard, it's really hard, especially if, if it's a small
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  business, if that, if the person going through divorce is the
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  main cog in the wheel, you know, if you have other, if it's a
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  bigger company and you have other officers and people making
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  decisions, it's not as, not as bad, but a lot of my clients are
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  small businesses, and that's the main person driving the
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  business, and it does, the business suffers in most cases.
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  It does it because
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  you know it's not getting the full attention that it should
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  ordinarily get,
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  and the thing that's
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  bad about it, or extremely bad about it,
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  is instead of just doing business, there's an emotional
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  component of this too, so you know it's,
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  it's, it's kind of a double whammy, you know. Not only do I
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  have to make my business successful, but I've got to deal
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  with this emotional stress as well that's weighing heavy on
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  me, and you know that's may cause me not to be as clear
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  thinking as normally I would be. Yeah,
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  but you know, I see that happening a lot. The situation
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  you brought up, I don't see that very often, where they, where
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  they share a business because of what you just described, because
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  it's so difficult, and you know, these people are going through
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  divorce, and they're suing each other, and it's, you know, it's
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  usually there's something that happened to bring into that, and
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  so to be able to see each other on a daily basis and manage the
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  business on a daily basis, I could see that being extremely
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  difficult, especially if there's if one of those former spouses
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  become involved in another personal relationship, then you
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  know, then it's right in your face, so
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  yeah, yeah, it was, it was very hard season for both of them.
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  Ryan, there's a question that I ask all my guests, and I'm
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  genuinely fascinated to see what you'd have to say to this, but
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  the question is this: What would you say is the biggest secret
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  that you wish wasn't a secret at all? What's that one thing you
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  wish every founder watching or listening today. Knew,
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  I think the biggest secret that I see would be
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  share your financial situation with your spouse,
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  you know, because I think
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  then maybe
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  they understand a little better, you know, what your situation in
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  the pressures you're going through, you know, and then that
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  in turn should be, you know,
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  how that affects home life. You know, here's what I'm bringing
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  in. Here's what our monthly expenses are. Here's how the
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  business is doing. Here's what I anticipate the business needs
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  are going forward. Here's what I anticipate our personal needs
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  are going forward. So I think a lot of that gets
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  pushed under the rug, or it's just like, well, he's taking
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  care of this, so I'm not going to worry about it. And then the
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  wedge gets a little bigger, and then they get down the road,
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  they're like, well, how much are we making, how much do we own,
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  how much, what, what is it called, what's my living
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  expenses? I think those are things that both spouses should
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  understand, and I don't think that they do. You know, I think
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  that that's she's busy taking care of the kids, or whatever,
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  he's busy taking care of the kids, whoever, whatever the
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  household looks like. And you know, they may not be interested
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  in that, but I would encourage them to have that communication
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  again. Here's our financial situation. Here's what our
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  living expense.
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  Are here's what our income is. Here's what you know.
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  Here's what we have as investments. So, I think that's
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  something that needs to be shared. It's something that I
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  think there would be fewer marriages that fail if that was
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  something that was implemented, or that happened on a daily
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  basis, or on a monthly basis.
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  Yeah, especially in the world of small business, it's so easy to
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  see how hard that is, because so often the answer is, I don't
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  know, you know, revenue - everyone's ridden the revenue
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  roller coaster if they've started something, and, and, and
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  again, it can create those emotions, and then you feel like
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  you're managing them for your spouse, and you're still
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  managing them for you, and it feels like it's easier to just
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  not do it right, but I think what you've so
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  wonderfully helped us understand is the cost of not doing it, as
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  hard as it might be in the moment, it's going to be so much
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  harder later. Well, Ryan, you know there's quite possibly
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  folks that are right in the middle of this
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  and could use some help from an objective source, someone who
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  understands the space and how to move forward. How can folks
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  reach out to you? Where can they find more out about the work
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  that you do? Well, thank you. Thank you. The best way to reach
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  me is probably through my website, which is www dot
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  freedom fsg.com
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  and that's short for Freedom Financial Services Group, so
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  Freedom fsg.com
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  My email is Ryan at Freedom fsg.com
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  and my phone number is 941-315-5535
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  and I'm glad we do,
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  someone can come to our website, fill out a
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  form to an inquiry form, and then we usually give them, you
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  know, the first meetings free, complimentary, and then just
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  kind of understand their situation, and then you know
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  tell them who we are, what we do, and you know, understand
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  their situation, how we can help them, so yeah, fantastic. Well,
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  Ryan, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your
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  wisdom experience with us. It was truly, truly remarkable.
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  And, yeah, it's an honor to have you here. For those of you
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  watching and listening, you know that your time and attention
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  mean the world to us. I hope you got as much out of this
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  conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see you
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  next time. Take care.
• 17:27
  Hey everyone, Scotty Timer here. Thank you so much for listening
• 17:30
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• 17:33
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