Business Innovators Radio - Interview with Mark Hansen, Financial Planner at Second Comma

Episode Date: October 1, 2023

Introducing Mark, the financial planner at Second Comma, a trusted partner in striving for financial success. Mark helps his clients navigate the complexities of personal finance, ensuring they make informed decisions to secure their financial future. By following Mark’s advice, couples can gain control over their finances, start saving for their dream home, and even plan for their children’s education.Mark’s dedication to empowering his clients to transform their financial lives.Learn more:https://www.second-comma.com/Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saundershttps://businessinnovatorsradio.com/influential-entrepreneurs-with-mike-saunders/Source: https://businessinnovatorsradio.com/interview-with-mark-hansen-financial-planner-at-second-comma

Welcome to influential entrepreneurs, bringing you interviews with elite business leaders and experts, sharing tips and strategies for elevating your business to the next level. Here's your host, Mike Saunders. Oh, and welcome to this episode of Influential Entrepreneurs. This is Mike Saunders, the authority positioning coach. Today we have with us Mark Hanson, who's a financial planner at Second Comma. Mark, welcome to the program. Oh, thank you, Mike. Glad to be here.

Hey, so I'm excited to talk with you, learn with what you do and how you serve your clients. But give us a little bit of your story and your background and how you got into financial services in the first place. I got into financial services when I was actually called into it. I was having some success in the non-financial world. My wife and I, we needed a financial planner. And halfway through the interview with a financial planner, he actually said, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? you need to be a financial planner.

And he said that as a hobby, I had, you know, accidentally created a little bit of a knowledge base where I could actually sit and pass my tests. He thought I could do it cold. So I wound up having some events at work that kind of made me feel like maybe this isn't the right place for me. And so I took him up on his offer, got certified, and launched a second comma. Yeah. That's awesome. You went in for one thing. someone noticed something. And I love how you said, you got called. Because isn't that really the case?

I mean, you know, I feel like the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. And that whether you believe that or not, the point is, you know, you were doing what you felt was right to protect your family talking about financial topics for yourself. But then someone noticed something in you. And then someone spoke, you know, encouragement into your life. And then you had already, you know, if you kind of look backwards, you would already be doing a lot of the work anyway, just out of passion. Well, if you, you know, like Henry Ford says, if you have a job that you love, you really don't ever have a job because you just get to do what you do. So I love that story, that intro. And how many years ago is that? Years ago would be the wrong time frame. I actually launched January of this year. So I am nine coming up on 10 months in business. That is awesome.

So you are just loving it and excited. So tell us about the area of financials. services that you're focusing in because definitely I know that you don't focus like a shotgun spray and prey approach. So what is it that you're focusing on? So I focus on six figure single income families. You know, when I sat down and I said, who does it feel like is on my heart and who would I feel the most honored serving? That's who I came up with. And so, you know, kind of why is that, well, you know, in those families, six figure single income families, you've got one parent that's a fill in the blank. They're a engineer, their mid-level management. My kind of favorite is when they're

an entrepreneur and they have their own small business. They spend some portion of their day providing for the family financially. And the other parent is a stay-at-home mom or a stay-at-home dad. And they spend some portion of their day providing for the family non-financially. They typically have young children in the home and they have questions around how do we pay for college. How do we keep our family safe and how do we save up for, you know, fill in the blank, the house, a bigger house for a growing family, a new car, a vacation so we can relax. You know, these families, they want to focus on their family, but they also know that money is an important part of giving their family access to things, even if that's as simple as, you know, a home

with electricity and running water. They know that they need to do things intentionally with their money, but they might not specifically know what are the actions, what's the A, B, see of getting these things done. But they're very intentional or they're very interested in being intentional with their dollars. And that's where I like to step in is meet people when they feel like they want to be intentional. They just aren't sure what's that next step. And I found the more that I talk to this, this group of people that sometimes two good people with the same goals, but just very different day to day operations that can accidentally wind up on different pages. And I try to help tie that all back together and get everyone back on the same page,

working together to achieve the goals that we uncover in our discussions. You know, I love that you said the words non-financially because, you know, a lot of times it's like, oh, six-figure, single income families, give me all your money. Let's invest and do all kinds of things. Nope. You took like nine steps back and you're like, let's just look at the big picture. Let's talk about some of these non-financial things. And I've interviewed so many financial professionals and it comes up so many times that you're

almost like a life coach of sorts. You know, you're sitting down with this family going, you know, we'll get to the money and investments and all that kind of thing you can consider in a minute. But first, what does retirement look like to you? Or what makes you happy? Or tell me about your family because so many of those things are impacting their end result, which is retirement. And you mentioned kids.

Well, those kids, hopefully maybe we'll go to college. Well, that's a big old hunch in the gut to a retirement plan if it's not looked at well ahead. Absolutely. Absolutely. When you bring the young kids into the mixture, it complicates it in a beautiful way, right? Family is such a wonderful thing. And I love that these families are focused on their family.

It's an important metric for them is how is our family functioning, how is everyone's health, how's everyone's emotions, how are we doing? But it doesn't mean that everybody understands the ends and outs of estate planning or having the appropriate amounts of insurance or, you know, putting money into a specific investment account and making sure that it actually is invested versus just deposited into an account. I love, I love helping them answer those questions and kind of tying it all together, like I said. Yeah, I think that's huge.

And, you know, just like someone saw something in you and spoke encouragement and guidance into your life, you can do the same with your clients. And many times they're too close to the forestest to the trees. Exactly. The one party is like, you know, grinding and rushing and going, going, working, working. and then the other part is just trying to keep the house, you know, taking care of. And then, you know, you could look at it and go, well, hey, you know, seems to me like you guys could. And what if you considered?

And I'll bet you you have times where the clients are sitting there going, wow. You know, yes, that's true. We agree. But we just have never seen it that perspective. Exactly. Especially when, like you said, even just two different paces, right? So someone's go, go, go. And someone's at home with the family, you might wind up with maybe three kids, two loving parents.

but there's just not a lot of time to sit down and noodle on what are we doing with our finances. And what those families find the most value in is a 30-minute discussion, a 60-minute discussion where I'm able to say, here are the five things that we want to focus on. And here's how we're going to focus on them. Here's the sequence that we're going to move through them in. And here's why we're going to move through them in that sequence. So, you know, when you've got two busy people, when somebody can bring simplicity and direction into their life, I mean, there's not even a dollar sign that they can. put on it sometimes. They feel the value of it versus they see the value as in they paid X dollars

for a service. But when somebody walks away lighter on their feet because they understand how their family is protected if they can't continue to be parents because something happens to them and they're no longer on this earth, I mean, that is my favorite light bulb to see turn on. Absolutely. I love it. So in working with these families, you certainly have made mental notice. if not written documentation of, you know, a variety of concerns that they tend to have. What have you noticed that these families that are going in nine different directions and successful, what are some of those concerns that you have noticed that they have that you are now able to guide them with? It is a little funny when you kind of look at maybe where the information comes from.

So I do have five what I call pillars that I do them in sequence. my clients typically accidentally wind up on step five. And I have to kind of walk them backwards. So step five is tax considerations, which is everybody seems to really enjoy talking about putting these dollars in this account to lower this taxable income. And it's like this, it's a thing that we can have at the end of the tax year.

And we kind of feel like, okay, tax man, you know, take that. And everybody loves step five. But when I step them back, right, where do we start?

We started estate planning. Why do we start estate planning? Well, we bring in an estate planning attorney and we walk through, okay, you guys are a successful family. Maybe you've got a small business. Maybe you've got six figures of income and you're doing things with it. And you still have a two-year-old, a four-year-old and a nine-year-old. They are not equipped and they cannot legally have those things if the two parents are to pass away. And so we talk about what does estate planning look like to make sure that the parents can still, as best as you can through an estate plan, be the parents and it's still. the values that they want to, should they not get to finish raising their children. So we kind of get that locked into place. And then inside of estate planning is a lot of risk management. So,

you know, most people, my clients are going to be younger. They're going to be in their mid-30s or somewhere in their 30s. And the most valuable thing that they have from a earning, is their earning potential today and in the future. And we want to make sure that we've got insurance in case that disappears. You know, but people are, like I said, excited about the taxes and doing fun things with their taxes, which I'm all for. But that's not a fun game to win if you forget about estate planning and risk management. So if we get those two things buttoned up, then we can look at retirement planning. Where are we trying to go?

What are we trying to do? Close your eyes, draw it up for me. I want to hear all about it. And the best version that I've had of this so far is two clients sitting in front of me, eyes closed, telling me about the mountain house that they're going to have in Montana and how it might even be off-grid. but they're just going to be reading books by the fire, watching the snow while they drink coffee, and the grandkids are going to come stay the whole summer with them. I'm getting goosebumps, just reciting this back to you. And then trying to figure out, okay, in retirement, how do we make a plan to get there?

And then that kind of leads us into investing. We're going to do some investing. We're going to have maybe some specific goals in specific accounts that are going to facilitate the plan that we just laid out. And then the last thing that we talk about is how do we get there being the most tax conscious that we can? You know, there are certain things that we can do. We want to work with a CPA, a certified professional, and we want to say, okay, this is what we're trying to do. These are the ways we think we can do it the most effectively and keep the most dollars by the time we get to retirement. But we always run that through a professional to make sure that we're doing that the most efficient way. I love it. You know, it's like how Stephen Covey used to say begin with the end of mind. You know, so what does retirement look like? What is the lifestyle you need so that we can figure out the money you need so that we can make sure that. that the bucket that's filled with, you know, figuratively water money, doesn't have as many holes in it because you can't plug up all the holes. You've got to still pay taxes, but can we mitigate them as much as possible? But we need to navigate through those little, you know, hurdles and speed bumps and catastrophes that are along the way, which there will come.

We just got to be prepared. So I love that explanation of five pillars. Hey, tell me the story about second comma. What's the reason you chose that for your company name? So second comma, first off, is not a promise, right? Let's not, let's get that clear right now for the legal disclosure. But really, what I was trying to get people to see is that it is the implications of the conversations that we have, right? So it is trying to show the length of time and the height of what could happen from the conversations that we have. You know, I sit down on a, on, yeah, I sit down and we talk about cash flow and we talk about

handling cash flow appropriately and, you know, simple things like pay yourself first and the phrases that we're very familiar with. But the implication of that, kind of the shadow would be that second comma that could come up. And it seems so far away, but we are on the, the precipice. We're taking the first steps of walking towards that. And while, you know, it's not a guarantee, it could be an outcome. And it's really just to show that what we're doing today, although it feels small and although we just started, it's really a play on compound interest, the compound effect and how the things that we do today, small actions taken over a long amount of time, can have exponential effects. And I wanted to play into that. And then you'll even see that the logo is actually, it is two commas, that they're stacked together.

One's white and one is kind of a coral color, my favorite color. But they're stacked together to look like a quote, and that's an homage to the fact that this is all going to take place over conversations. And that's what the company's really founded on is having intentional conversations with intentional people. That's what I wanted to set out to do. I love it. And I think it's so important for people to realize to get to that second comma isn't overnight. So we're not going to take undue risk and all of that. But it's a process. It's a goal. It's a journey. And so it's important with that compound. effect that, you know, I think Albert Einstein is known for saying it's one of the wonders of the

world is compounding interest. You got to start. And if you didn't start 10 years ago, you need to start now. So wrap us up with why you feel it's important for people to take action on getting that plan in place and consistent action. Definitely. If we go back to, you know, compound interest, the most powerful years are the last years where compound interest is working and taking action now, is how you get those more powerful compound interests. And this can be on actions, learning. This is on so much more than money, right? The conversations that I have can be around cash flow.

But it's also just how are you intentional with your life? Because you're going to be able to compound so many things that don't have dollar signs attached to them. And really, it's allaying that intentionality. And then for the duration of striving for this goal, not getting distracted. You know, the hardest thing to do when you're trying to go, maybe from L.A. to New York, making a left-hand turn might not be a great idea, right? So it's keeping the first things first and then running everything through that filter. That's a lot of what I do

with the long-term conversations I'm having with the clients. Well, Mark, it's just awesome to hear your passion and energy and expertise. So thank you so much for coming on. If someone is interested in learning more about second comma and reaching out and connecting with you, what is the best way they can do that. If you want to see what I'm doing, I think the best place to find me is on Twitter. That's second underscore comma, so S-E-C-O-N-D underscore C-O-M-M-A. That's where I'm the most active and sharing. What I try to find is the most helpful stuff. It's not all to do with dollar signs, but sometimes it's mindset. I do a lot of book summaries. I have a lot of fun on Twitter. So I would definitely invite people there. If you want to reach out, you can definitely do it

on LinkedIn. You can search for Mark Hansen there. I'll be attached to a second. second comma. And then my website might actually be the best place to find me. So that's second hyphen comma. And on my website, you can learn about me. You can see what I do, how I do it, why I do it. And you can see if we're a good fit. I try to be very transparent. And also on my ebook, or on my website, you can find my ebook, which I really have enjoyed. It's called what the hack are you thinking. And it's a real pushback on trying to hack your way into things faster than you really should, right? Things have a very natural page. And I think in today's world, we get a little bit over our skis, a little excited about making progress

faster than we should. And so I wrote this ebook to help single income six figure families kind of keep the pace where it should be, which is a little bit more sustainable, which again, sustainability in our decision making is really what we're shooting for at second comma. I love it. Well, Mark, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. Oh, thank you for having me on. Thank you. You've been listening to Influential Entrepreneurs with Mike Saunders. To learn more about the resources mentioned on today's show or listen to past episodes, visit www.com.