In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Justin Krane discuss:
- Challenges lawyers face with managing their finances
- The importance of automating financial systems
- The connection between lifestyle choices and financial health
- Strategies for building a financially secure law practice
Key Takeaways:
- Automating the transfer of funds between business and personal accounts helps remove emotion from financial decisions and ensures steady savings.
- Lawyers often struggle with personal finances because they lack clarity on their business model and revenue generation strategies.
- Over-spending on luxury items like vacations and yachts while neglecting long-term savings can disrupt financial stability.
- A reframe from thinking of business expenses as “spending” to viewing them as “investing” helps ensure lawyers prioritize sustainable growth and ROI.
“You have to be a prosperity thinker. You have to be able to believe that you can create and manifest the financial life that you want and make things happen.” — Justin Krane
Read Steve’s past episodes as Blogcasts—visit now: https://fretzin.com/blog/
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Episode References:
INspired INsider Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inspired-insider-podcast/id729464589
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel: https://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Money-Timeless-lessons-happiness/dp/0857197681
About Justin Krane: Justin Krane, a Certified Financial Planner professional, is the founder of Krane Financial Solutions. Known for his savvy, holistic approach to financial planning, he advises his clients on how to unite their business and personal money with their lives. Justin works with his clients to create purpose-driven financial plans, aiming for a “return on life.” He manages his clients’ investment portfolios for their long-term goals, such as retirement. Justin is the author of the book Money. You Got This. It’s a book about everyday crazy, funny life experiences that we all have – with lessons for all of us.
Connect with Justin Krane:
Website: https://kranefinancialsolutions.com/
Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinkrane/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/krane-financial-solutions/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: [email protected]
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
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Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Steve Fretzin: Hey listeners, I know you’re getting a ton of amazing tips from our expert guests here on the show, but keeping track of them can be a challenge, I know that. That’s why I’ve created blogcasts, the perfect way to capture the best insights from every episode. Each blogcast condenses an entire show into a two page summary packed with key takeaways that you can apply right away.
[00:00:21] Steve Fretzin: Head over to Fretzin. com slash blog to start reading, learning, and taking action. Let these blog casts help you on your journey to be that lawyer with Fretzin. Now. Enjoy the show.
[00:00:35] Narrator: You’re listening to be that lawyer life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice Each episode your host author and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin Will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results Now, here’s your host Steve Fretzin
[00:00:56] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, it is Steve Fretzin welcome back Transcripts provided by Transcripts.
[00:01:13] Steve Fretzin: com And there’s the finance piece. And I think like, there’s a lot of different things that lawyers don’t know about running a business or managing their money and their finances. And like, I had a guy who wanted to work with me, Justin, and let’s just, I’ll make up a number and say, let’s say a thousand dollars a month.
[00:01:33] Steve Fretzin: Okay. And he couldn’t do it. He’s like, I’ll have to call you in a year. And I’m like, why? He’s like, cause I got all these things where I’m just thinking in my head. You know, how much, you know, first of all, it’s a write off, second of all, it’s an investment, third of all, like, if you don’t have a thousand dollars to put in something a month, that’s gonna grow your book of business, that’s gonna make a big difference in your world, that’s concerning to me, like, on how that person’s running and managing their finance, and by the way, if you’re listening, and I’ll make up a name and say, Bob, don’t worry about it, we’ll work it out, but you get, you know, like, but you see what I’m saying, like, You should have money in the bank for things that you want to do, not just your Disney trip with your family or something.
[00:02:09] Justin Krane: Yeah, 100%. I mean, I think, you know, you have to be a prosperity thinker. You have to be able to believe that you can create and manifest the financial life that you want to and make things happen. A poverty thinker is freaking out about, Oh, it’s too much money. There’s lack. There’s nothing really there.
[00:02:26] Justin Krane: It’s not going to work out. I’m going to waste money. But one of the best investments that we can make is obviously in ourselves.
[00:02:33] Steve Fretzin: Well, and it’s, it’s frustrating because it’s like, yeah, you’re, you’re going to double or triple your book of business. You’re going to do more than you’ve ever done before with me.
[00:02:40] Steve Fretzin: And now we’re losing a year of our time together. That’s just not going to still make okay, but it’s not going to go the same gangbusters it would together. Justin, let’s start off with our quote of the show. And I appreciate you being here, man, a lot to a lot of goodwill to share about you for those listening.
[00:02:56] Steve Fretzin: Justin Crane is the president. Of crane financial solutions and also my financial planner So, you know if you want to know like you’ll find out today why I chose justin and what he’s done for me And it’s been absolutely eye opening But the quote of the show as we love to start off with is more of the same equals more of the same So welcome to the show and and share why that quote is famous to you
[00:03:21] Justin Krane: Yeah, thanks again for having me, Steve.
[00:03:23] Justin Krane: So on the one hand, like if things are working and you continue want to have success, then keep doing what’s working, whether it’s in your financial life, your business, what have you. But if you want to make a change in your business, you have to do something different to produce a different result. It’s obviously Einstein’s definition of insanity.
[00:03:41] Justin Krane: Like, you know, you can’t do the same thing over and over and expect a different result. So you have to be massively intentional about what you’re doing if you want the same result or a different result. So I love that. I have it up. It’s like, I swear by it. It totally speaks to me.
[00:03:57] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, it does for me as well.
[00:03:59] Steve Fretzin: And it’s, it’s so frustrating when I see lawyers just having the same year every year, And they’re not happy. They’re not getting where they want to be. They’re not making equity. They’re not scaling. They’re not building the book of business and putting away and socking away the money that, that I think it’s so important to do these days, you know, especially, you know, in your thirties through your fifties, that’s like the time to be, you know, building wealth, right?
[00:04:22] Steve Fretzin: So Justin, give us a little background on yourself. And, and then I’ve got a ton of questions for you because I think talking about the, the finance of a business and the finance of. Personal finance of individuals that we need to get into the weeds on.
[00:04:37] Justin Krane: Yeah, so I started out as a financial advisor at UBS and worked there for about 14 years.
[00:04:43] Justin Krane: And for those 14 years, my mindset was, I don’t think I have the skill set to be an entrepreneur and to run a business on my own. And I know a fair amount about investment management, but I don’t know a lot about life. I don’t know a lot about just money. I don’t know enough about business. So I played it massively safe for like 14 years.
[00:05:04] Justin Krane: I had very little confidence in myself and more of the same equals more of the same. I did the same thing, grew steadily, but I wasn’t feeling like I was my best version of myself. Finally, I had the balls to pull a Jerry Maguire and I just did it one day and I did it and I planned for it and all that.
[00:05:21] Justin Krane: And I left to go start my own firm. And looking back, It was one of the best decisions that I made, except it took me 14 years to do it. I love business. I love entrepreneurship. I became a fee only financial advisor, taught myself business money strategy as well, actually opened a business along the way and then closed it, but kept that business money strategy.
[00:05:44] Justin Krane: I’ve grown a business. I have a team of four. I love what I do and it’s just, it’s awesome. So I love being an entrepreneur.
[00:05:53] Steve Fretzin: It’s, it’s not for everybody, but it’s something that, you know, my father instilled in me at a very young age, that if you ever have the chance to work for yourself. Take it and there’s a lot of advantages.
[00:06:02] Steve Fretzin: There’s business advantages, right? There’s tax advantages and by the way, you don’t have to have a huge staff like you’ve got four I have now two virtual assistants working on different things for me that are both 1090. They’re not even 1099s They’re Well, you know, to me, they’re there. I’m working through get staffed up and through Virtustat.
[00:06:20] Steve Fretzin: So it’s, it’s like, I don’t even have to W2 these folks. I guess that would make them 1099. You would know that better than I.
[00:06:27] Justin Krane: Yeah. Yeah. I know. They’d probably be a 1099.
[00:06:29] Steve Fretzin: There you go. But I’m even, but I’m not paying them directly or having them as a tenant and the company is. So for me, it’s even in my opinion, safer.
[00:06:35] Steve Fretzin: But at the end of the day, there’s like the business finance and then there’s the personal finance. And what I loved about meeting you through our mutual friend over at oh, shoot. I’m blanking on the name. All right.
[00:06:48] Justin Krane: Get visible. Get visible.
[00:06:49] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Jason. Jason is awesome over at get visible. And thank you, Jason, for the intro.
[00:06:54] Steve Fretzin: And I just was blown away because like you looked at everything I had and you were able to evaluate that. I didn’t really know what I was doing and that the person that was helping me. Managing basically like, Hey, let’s put everything here and then let’s just let it ride and not really think about the business or not really think about my personal finances and just, just, Hey, how much do you want to retire with?
[00:07:15] Steve Fretzin: Was kind of the only question. So, so let’s, let’s get into why attorneys struggle. And let’s just talk about personal finances for starters. I mean, why do they struggle with personal finances?
[00:07:27] Justin Krane: So they struggle with personal finances because they don’t have clarity. On their business finances, the business finances fuel and fund their personal wealth.
[00:07:39] Justin Krane: But to even go like the 10, 000 foot view, which we talked about at the beginning, is like the business model of an attorney. How is it that you’re actually making money? Are you building hourly? Are you getting leverage? Are you having someone work under you? Like, what, what is the business model that you have?
[00:07:56] Justin Krane: And that business model is the start. It’s the engine that’s going to fund sales in your business that ultimately are going to trickle in to the personal finances. So what happens with Lots of business owners, whether they’re attorneys or whoever, is the money comes into the business and they have all these bills in the business and they’re not quite sure.
[00:08:15] Justin Krane: What should I pay myself? How much money should I automatically transfer over? What about taxes? I’m hoping that I’m going to make money. I’m guessing that I’m going to pay this, but I really don’t know what I’m doing and I think I’m going to just let it go and I’m going to just float down the river and life, like, let life take me where I want to go.
[00:08:34] Justin Krane: Yeah. And that’s not the way we want to do it.
[00:08:36] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. I spoke to an incredibly bright attorney last week who, you know, came out, like, had her year, had a great year, made a ton of money, worked her ass off, and then had like a 100, 000 tax bill to pay. And she wasn’t really prepared for that. And it’s like, geez, if she hadn’t the ability to meet someone like you who would have worked through, you know, how to invest the money or how to, you know, harbor it in 401k and profit sharing and other legal means.
[00:09:04] Steve Fretzin: Right. I use the word harbor. I probably, it sounds like I’m being shady there, but no, like how do we take the money and pay the least amount of taxes, pay the fair amount of taxes, but pay the least amount possible. Yeah.
[00:09:15] Justin Krane: Yeah. Well, I, the thing is, is. You have to have a game plan and a vision for where you want to go, and you have to have clarity.
[00:09:24] Justin Krane: This is the most important thing. You can guess and wing it for a certain period of time, but the longer that you do that, you may not get to where you want to go. That, what’s that expression by Yogi Berra, like, Be careful where, if you don’t know where you’re going, be careful because you might get there, you know, like, so one of the things that we’ve done is like, I’ve acted as an advocate for you.
[00:09:46] Justin Krane: Like, I don’t know how to do a tax return, but I know everything that goes into QuickBooks. I can read a tax return. I know what to do tax planning. I know how to, you know, give advice and make, make, make decisions in the context of your life, both in your business and both personally, the thing is, is my tagline is uniting money with life and business.
[00:10:06] Justin Krane: The business money comes in, it flows to personal. You got to have some clarity on what’s going on. Otherwise, you’re going to get this surprise. And the feeling of a surprise. Or a regret is it’s not a good one. And then we think like, gee, I’m not where I am financially based on where I thought I’d be.
[00:10:24] Justin Krane: Like, I thought I’d have a million dollars more or whatever it is. And then we have this like identity of like, Hey, like I’m not happy with where I’m, where I am and I should have done blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So let’s get in front of that.
[00:10:38] Steve Fretzin: But, but the thing that I’m tired of and this, this, you know, I’m not going to shout on anybody, but like, all right, Steve, how much do you want to retire with?
[00:10:45] Steve Fretzin: What do you and your wife need to retire? Okay. So we want to get to a certain number and then it’s like, how much do we have to put away to get there? Okay. So that’s like the most basic level of financial planning is, okay. How much do you want and then how much do you have to put away and then how do we do that?
[00:11:02] Steve Fretzin: But what you did was you went in to my business and looked at my P and L, you looked at all my bills, you looked at how, where I’m spending and investing money. You looked at my personal finances, like you went through everything with a fine tooth comb and then we were able to back out of that. What needs to happen to, you know, to get where we want to be, but also to how are we handling the day?
[00:11:21] Steve Fretzin: How are we handling the year? Not, not just the future.
[00:11:25] Justin Krane: Yeah, well, it’s the business model. Steve, we looked at your business model. You were clear with me on what you’re doing and how you’re transitioning. We made some assumptions. We looked at the numbers and then we make decisions on that. And just, it’s so much easier to make decisions.
[00:11:42] Justin Krane: When you’re clear on what you want and you understand how you’re going to get there And then you feel good about it.
[00:11:49] Steve Fretzin: So, you know, what are the big rabbit holes that people have? Regarding their personal finances, so a lawyer’s making five hundred thousand dollars a year now Anyone that hears that number give or take is going to go.
[00:12:02] Steve Fretzin: That’s a great living Like if you make a hundred thousand a year, that’s good. Five hundred thousand is great But they’re not living a great, they’re not saving anything. They’re not, they’re not staying above. I know someone who does a million a year and had to get money from his father because he didn’t have money to pay for a certain thing that came up.
[00:12:19] Steve Fretzin: What’s going on with that?
[00:12:20] Justin Krane: I think it’s automation. I mean, everyone listening, you know, that you need to automate your finances. Like, it’s like, you, you know, you have to brush your teeth when you go to bed. Like. But are you doing it right? So the automating means you have to automatically pull money out of your business account into personal.
[00:12:38] Justin Krane: Then once it gets into the personal account, it has to automatically go somewhere. So what amount should you be doing? How much can you afford? How much automatically has to be invested? How much automatically has to go to a savings account? Like, how do you do that? If people knew what their, those numbers were, they’d be much better off.
[00:12:57] Justin Krane: But the thing is you don’t. And then you start to guess. So I’m a big believer in automation. Why it removes emotion, just like you just, it’s happens automatically to it. You, you won’t change your mind. You’re like, Oh, the market’s up or the interest rates are there, or, Oh, I want to use the money for a vacation or whatever it, like if it forces you to do things, Before you can even start to make a change.
[00:13:19] Justin Krane: Yeah, so that’s my big takeaway there
[00:13:22] Steve Fretzin: Well, the other thing that I was I was angling towards as well was was people living beyond their means They’ve got the big house. They just bought a boat. They take these big vacations I mean vacations used to be you know, five grand you can’t get a vacation for five grand.
[00:13:35] Steve Fretzin: It’s 10 grand It’s 20 grand to go on a family vacation these days. So, you know, I think that’s a big problem. You know, people with credit card debt. I mean, there’s all these things that are happening and people aren’t really tracking it well enough.
[00:13:47] Justin Krane: So if you’re investing in saving for your future, you can’t spend gobs of money on a 50, 000 Dollar trip to Hawaii or buy yourself a yacht unless you go into debt to do that.
[00:14:00] Justin Krane: But if you’re really trying to get ahead and you’re automating your money, it’s going to force you to review and think about your lifestyle. Now, so many people talk about like this book, The Psychology of Money. It’s a great book written by Morgan Housel. And he talks about as you make more money, the goalpost keeps moving as to what you want.
[00:14:19] Justin Krane: You’re spending more lifestyle creep comes up. You have less money that you. Invest. So yeah, I think you’re on to something there, and I think there’s just a deeper issue that really goes on with people spending. They don’t feel that they deserve it. They had a really, really hard childhood as a kid, where something happened with money with their parents.
[00:14:41] Justin Krane: Or they’re, somehow they got influenced with it, and they don’t have a good relationship with
[00:14:45] Steve Fretzin: it. It’s funny that, you know, occasionally when this, when someone says something like that to me, I think, you know, with the late, great Larry Fredson, my father that Larry, the lawyer, I talked about him on the show, but he didn’t value because he grew up in the projects of Chicago and he grew up with nothing.
[00:15:00] Steve Fretzin: They couldn’t afford baseball mitts. They had to play softball. Because they couldn’t afford mitts and in food has been, I mean, he’d always say I’d rather have a McDonald’s hamburger than an expensive steak and he wasn’t joking because he didn’t value food and he didn’t value that experience where we all do.
[00:15:16] Steve Fretzin: You go to drop a 300, you know, on a two person, two people to have dinner. We don’t think twice about it because it was such a lovely, unbelievable dinner, whatever he, I would sit and watch him. It was like almost like an activity for me to watch him review the bill and who had the dessert. And he was working, you know, if there was a penny out of place, he was going to say something.
[00:15:34] Steve Fretzin: And that was like a after dinner activity for me. But I get what you’re saying that it’s like what we value. And then, and then, you know, just thinking about, you know, Hey, we want to live for today. So we spend more than we probably should. And then it ends up haunting us.
[00:15:49] Justin Krane: Yeah, well, I think there’s a balance.
[00:15:50] Justin Krane: I mean, you know, we’ve each had deaths in the family, you know, recently, and Like we’re all at some point going to die. We all have to deal with our mortality and we all are faced with this decision of live for today or safe for tomorrow. And I, I think there has to be a balance. I really, really do. I think, cause we’re going to look back and we’re going to judge our life on like, who was I, was I a good person?
[00:16:16] Justin Krane: And did I use the money in a way to give me meaningful experiences? And maybe did I leave a legacy as well? Yeah, whatever that means.
[00:16:26] Steve Fretzin: Right, right. Yeah. Great stuff there. Ready to take your law firm from good to goat? The inaugural personal injury mastermind conference or PIMCON is happening September 15th through 17th, 2024 at the luxurious Venetian Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona.
[00:16:44] Steve Fretzin: Learn marketing tactics and strategies from some of the best minds in personal injury vertical. And VIP tickets are sold out, but general admission tickets for lawyers are still available. Be That Lawyer listeners can receive 200 off their PymCon tickets by entering the promo code BeThatLawyer at checkout.
[00:17:01] Steve Fretzin: Go from good to good and get tickets while you can at PymCon. org. P I M C O N. org.
[00:17:12] Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody, Steve Fretzin here. Man, I thought I was a good marketer, but maybe not. Lawyers have been approaching me asking, what’s the Rainmakers Roundtable? Well, I tell them this is a special place created exclusively for rainmaking lawyers to continue their journey of prosperity. Our program is unique as every member has a significant book of business and is motivated to grow it year after year.
[00:17:33] Steve Fretzin: Where else does this exist? If you’re a managing partner who’s looking to get off your lonely island and talk shop,
[00:17:47] Steve Fretzin: So there’s a statement you’ve made that I’ve heard you say called a return on life. What does that mean? A return on life?
[00:17:53] Justin Krane: Just that. Like, like if you use your money. wisely and spend it and invest it in a way that brings you meaning, then you’re going to have a return on life. So, I’m in the middle of writing a book about, my second book, about financial independence.
[00:18:12] Justin Krane: And people, like financial independence means you have to have gobs of money that you just live off of and you do nothing. That’s really financial independence. So to get there, you have to save a ton of money to be financially independent. So let’s say you save all of this money and you do nothing. And then when you’re 83, you’re financially independent.
[00:18:32] Justin Krane: So you’re zero percent along the way. Yeah. So I’d rather be 45 percent financially independent along the way than a hundred percent financially independent when I’m 85. So return on life means you have to use that money. Wisely that gives you meaning and fulfillment with some sort of balance is otherwise it’s like you’re not going to have any fun like I don’t actually mind if someone goes and spends 10 bucks for a cup of coffee at Starbucks is law if that brings the meaning or spends money and takes their family to Hawaii on a vacation as long as there is balance.
[00:19:08] Justin Krane: And as long as this is very important, they’re aware, aware of what they’re spending money on. Yeah. Consciously spending money on.
[00:19:18] Steve Fretzin: And understand that there may have to be some sacrifice, right? I mean, if all you’re doing is one side of it and not the other, you’re just doing the spending, not the saving.
[00:19:26] Justin Krane: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Steve Fretzin: You know, that’s good. That bubble is going to pop at some point.
[00:19:30] Justin Krane: Yes. Let me bring it back to this though, for the attorneys listening about spending in your business. You have to have a reframe. It’s, it’s, it’s investing in your business. Especially working with someone like Steve or hiring a consultant.
[00:19:46] Justin Krane: You have to do a reframe. Spending means the money’s gone. Investing means there’s going to be an ROI and you’re going to see cash flow come from the other side. Just think about that. Spending, poverty thinking. Investing, prosperity thinking.
[00:20:02] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And I’ve also heard you say, you know, on occasion, today is National Get Your Head Out of the Sand Day.
[00:20:09] Steve Fretzin: What does that mean?
[00:20:10] Justin Krane: Yes. Like, the people listening, and I know you know who you are. You have to have some kind of clarity on what’s going on with the numbers in your business and personally. It’s like, all right, if my head is in the sand and I don’t know that there’s a problem and challenge in my business and I’m not aware of it, then it’s not my fault.
[00:20:30] Justin Krane: So if you don’t deal with your money, eventually your money is going to deal with you. So today is national. Get your head out of the sand day. If you don’t know what you spent your junior attorney that’s on your staff last year, and you’re like, I don’t know, I should then figure out what that is. If you don’t know what your rent is and you think your rent is high.
[00:20:50] Justin Krane: Figure out what that is. If you don’t know what interest rate you’re paying on your credit card debt, figure that out. If you don’t know how much money you should be saving for retirement, taxes, and vacation, no more head in the sand. We’ve got to get your head out of the sand and aware of what’s happening so that you can actually take control of things and stop guessing and hoping.
[00:21:13] Justin Krane: Because that’s not going to get you anywhere.
[00:21:15] Steve Fretzin: No, that’s not that’s not a play that’s gonna work. Here’s a question for you. My wife and I have had separate checking accounts from day one. Now we never fight about money, but there’s also a little bit of a lack of transparency. I know what she makes. I kind of know what she spends.
[00:21:32] Steve Fretzin: You know, she gives me a little bit of money here and there to take care of bills, but mostly I take care of stuff. Is that, is that, I mean, is there’s that people that have joint checking counts and there’s other ways to do it. Is there one that you recommend or that you find works best for couples to pool their money or to work intelligently together?
[00:21:50] Justin Krane: I’m going to turn this one around and ask you how you work. Yeah. I got myself in
[00:21:55] Steve Fretzin: trouble on this one.
[00:21:57] Justin Krane: With a law firm that has two partners.
[00:22:00] Steve Fretzin: Yeah.
[00:22:00] Justin Krane: One partner. Is the day to day operations person. The other partner is the visionary, the rain maker, what have you. They each think differently. Like one’s like a creative quick start.
[00:22:12] Justin Krane: The other one is like attention to detail and they kind of can butt heads sometimes. How do you, what do you coach them on and how do you get them to work together?
[00:22:21] Steve Fretzin: I mean, it’s, it’s transparency and trust and it’s letting people do what they do best. So that’s, you know, the don’t, don’t put the visionary inch in, in, in a position where that individual has to count numbers, right.
[00:22:33] Steve Fretzin: Or has to look at details. Cause if I have to look at details to, to, you know, that one of the things I loved about working with you is you went through and you’ve handled the details and worked through the details with me because That’s not my jam. I, you could tell I was in pain most of the time we’re going through that.
[00:22:50] Steve Fretzin: So but that’s sort of my thought about it that we need transparency. We need trust, but at the same time let the people run the money who know what they’re doing. So why is that wrong? Because I can tell from your pause.
[00:23:02] Justin Krane: No, no, it’s good. It’s good. Do you ever do like mini retreats with lawyers or law firms?
[00:23:08] Justin Krane: You ever do that? I don’t
[00:23:09] Steve Fretzin: really work with law firms. I work with lawyers. So it’s, it’s, you know, I do have groups of lawyers that I work with teams and, and I would love to get them all in Chicago for a retreat, but I haven’t pulled the trigger on that yet.
[00:23:19] Justin Krane: Okay. But let’s say you do like a video call with like two attorneys.
[00:23:23] Justin Krane: I, I would, I would believe that, that at the same firm that you’re going to somehow get them to have a buy in on what the vision is for the firm. Yeah. And what they both want. Yes. Right. And the visionary might do different things. The number is different hats. They got to wear different hats to be successful.
[00:23:40] Justin Krane: Yes. So you and Lisa don’t necessarily have to be in the weeds together. If you both have a common goal on that you agree on and that you know that you’re going to work towards the minutia little things will fall into place and it’ll be that much easier, much more easier to do it. I’m going to go a little bit deeper and just like, like, how does it actually work?
[00:24:04] Justin Krane: Well, what do you guys both want? You want to travel a little bit more. You want to spend a little bit more time together. You want to enjoy, you know, the mid years of your life. Okay, great. So if you have that, it’s so much easier to make financial decisions when you both have a common goal.
[00:24:20] Steve Fretzin: So I think we’re a hundred percent on the, on the same page together.
[00:24:24] Steve Fretzin: And I also feel like because We sort of have an understanding of you have your money. I have my money and there’s going to be some shared stuff that we talk about or negotiate. We’ve really never, we just celebrated 20 years in July. We’ve never really been in a fight over money. And I think that’s probably one of the top fights people get in, in relationships is money.
[00:24:45] Steve Fretzin: So I, I’m just saying for me and for Lisa, that’s worked out really well, but I also know how much she makes. I’ve moved. I pushed her to Max out on what she can take out of her salary because she makes a lot more than she’s going to spend. We’ve worked out a budget of how much she’s going to give me each month for bills for paying the mortgage and everything that I pay.
[00:25:03] Steve Fretzin: So it’s really been, you know, that’s been fruitful. So I think the, it sounds like the answers, it depends. You know, and what’s going to work for you in that relationship?
[00:25:11] Justin Krane: You want to work together and you want to be a team and you want to make progress. Like progress is so important when it comes to money because it’s easy to stop and to stall and just the power of compounding of interest of growing money over time is huge.
[00:25:26] Justin Krane: So if you can start early and work together, it’s a great thing.
[00:25:30] Steve Fretzin: So we’re kind of coming on the tail end of our, of our conversation. Are there two or three additional tips that we haven’t covered that we could That you would recommend to your clients to people like me and or lawyers that are listening of how to best be smart with their money.
[00:25:46] Justin Krane: Let’s see. I think just an element of tax is important. I think people need to clearly think through whether they want to do pre tax or Roth savings for their future. A lot of times CPAs or attorneys will just do pre tax because they get the deduction. But what happens is, is that money grows. And then when you take it out, there could be a lot more tax.
[00:26:07] Justin Krane: So you have to really, really think through way, that’s never,
[00:26:08] Steve Fretzin: that’s never spoken about. We just do that. So we don’t pay tax today, but no one ever talks about when you go to take the money out. Right. Yes.
[00:26:16] Justin Krane: That’s the hidden little,
[00:26:17] Steve Fretzin: hidden little gem.
[00:26:18] Justin Krane: Yeah, absolutely. So that’s, that’s important. I think. I think the automation is, is really, really important.
[00:26:25] Justin Krane: I know we talked about that. And I think what else? The only thing we didn’t talk about was just the valuation of a practice and whether that comes into play. I do think if, if a lawyer can at some point Monetize his or her practice. That’s only going to help them in the later years. The question is, how do you make a business saleable?
[00:26:45] Justin Krane: What are the things you can do? That’s where you come in, but we didn’t talk about that and that is an asset.
[00:26:50] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, and also don’t wait too long to do that. If you’ve got something that you believe might be saleable, whether that’s your systems, whether that’s your marketing, your IP, client base institutional clients don’t wait too long.
[00:27:04] Steve Fretzin: Because, you know, going back to my, my father and I apologize, guys, if you’ve heard this before, but he waited too long to sort of evaluate what is, what his value was and what his valuation would be on his practice. Granted, it was a solo, but it had value and he didn’t really prepare well for that and I think he, he probably lost some, some dough based on the fact that he just handed it off to a couple of knuckleheads who drove it into the ground in about six months.
[00:27:30] Steve Fretzin: Thanks.
[00:27:30] Justin Krane: Interesting.
[00:27:31] Steve Fretzin: Don’t do that. So awesome, man. Let’s, let’s get into the the podcast of your choice, the game changing podcast, inspired insider. So talk about that. Who’s, who’s that? And what was that about?
[00:27:41] Justin Krane: Yeah. Dr. Jeremy Weiss. He’s just a great guy. He’s a local Chicago guy, a great connector. He also runs a podcast agency called rise 25, him and his business partner, John Corcoran.
[00:27:53] Justin Krane: They just interviewed great people have got really, really good takeaways. And Jeremy like gets to the bottom of who he’s interviewing and ask weird questions of things he finds out about who he’s interviewing that people don’t even know that he knows about them. Yeah. It’s pretty cool.
[00:28:06] Steve Fretzin: I feel like I’ve been on that show, but I don’t remember him asking me any kind of weird questions.
[00:28:10] Steve Fretzin: Maybe it was a long, long time.
[00:28:12] Justin Krane: Yeah, maybe he’ll have you on. It might have been like four years
[00:28:14] Steve Fretzin: ago. So I don’t know if that, if that’s,
[00:28:15] Justin Krane: what did you have for dinner last Thursday? Like I know where you ate, like funny things. What
[00:28:21] Steve Fretzin: is that? What is
[00:28:23] Justin Krane: that plant in the background? Is that a real plant or a fake plant?
[00:28:27] Justin Krane: Okay. Okay. Yeah. He
[00:28:28] Steve Fretzin: might’ve done that. And yes, it’s fake. My wife and I have agreed. We, we will kill anything other than animals. We will kill any vegetation that comes near us. So that’s, that’s our, our, our issue. Want to take a moment to thank our awesome sponsors, of course, Get Staffed Up and PymCon.
[00:28:41] Steve Fretzin: Last chance to register if you’re a personal injury check out PymCon and you could put in Be That Lawyer as your discount code and get in there before it’s too late. It’s going to be a great show, great great way to spend your time and your money. And Justin, let’s just tip it off with if people want to get in touch with you, they want to learn about your business crane, financial solutions, advisors.
[00:29:01] Steve Fretzin: What is it?
[00:29:02] Justin Krane: Great financial solutions. Yeah. Yeah. With a K. Yeah. I mean, like you could Google me, you could just type in Justin crane, K R a N E. You can Google me. You’ll eventually get to my website, my LinkedIn, my email and all of that. I’m sure there’ll be links in the show notes as well. That’s probably the easiest way is to just Google me and find me that way.
[00:29:19] Steve Fretzin: Yeah. And again, just to share, you know, personal experience, everybody. And one of the reasons I wanted to bring Justin on the show was, you know, I made a life decision to engage him after working with one guy for a long time, who was also wonderful. But just to be honest, the level of attention, the depth of knowledge and the depth of going into my business and my personal finances at a level that never has been done before made a huge difference in how I’m preparing for the future and how I’m taking things you know as they come so so thanks man I appreciate that and I appreciate you coming on the show sharing your wisdom on the money side and everything else
[00:29:56] Justin Krane: Thank you.
[00:29:56] Justin Krane: So good to be here. Thanks again. Yeah.
[00:29:58] Steve Fretzin: Yeah, my pleasure, man And thank you everybody for spending time with justin and I today on the be that lawyer with frets and podcast Again, you know, not to beat the dead horse. Yeah. You know, just, just really consider you know, you know, money is so important and, and, and I’ve been, I’m like a professional money hoarder.
[00:30:16] Steve Fretzin: Like I’d rather put away, you know, 30 grand than spend 30 grand. Right. So, you know, every year it’s just, how much can I sock away? And and and I don’t know how you are everybody with, with your spending, but I think to Justin’s point, it’s gotta be balanced. It’s gotta be balanced. Live, live for today, but also for tomorrow.
[00:30:31] Steve Fretzin: Take care, everybody. Be safe, be well, and we will talk again soon.
[00:30:39] Narrator: Thanks for listening to Be That Lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin. com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.