Justin Krane is the Founder of Krane Financial Solutions, a firm known for its strategic and holistic approach to financial planning. As a financial planner professional, he counsels clients on marrying their financial resources with their life goals and business ventures.
Before establishing Krane Financial Solutions, Justin spent 12 years as a Vice President of Investments and Sales Manager at UBS Financial Services Inc. His Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA®) designation further underscores his proficiency in financial management.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Justin Krane shares how he helps people work towards winning
What does Justin’s typical client look like?
Some of the greatest challenges facing business owners
The “Return on Life” concept
How Justin measures his success with clients
What made Justin write a book?
Justin’s insights on the impacts of AI
Advice for people who want to succeed in financial planning
In this episode…
Do you ever ponder how your personal principles align with your professional journey? Have you questioned how to seamlessly merge your passion and purpose with your business model?
Justin Krane, Founder of Krane Financial Solutions, exemplifies this balance perfectly. As a financial planner, he's built a reputation for blending financial savvy with an introspective, empathetic approach. This equilibrium between 'the numbers' and 'the human element' distinguishes Justin in a field often perceived as solely data-driven.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, host Richard Walker engages in an enlightening conversation with Justin Krane. They delve into a range of topics from Justin's unique methodology to his emphasis on 'Return on Life' as opposed to just return on investment. Justin discusses how he integrates his philosophy of life into his work with clients, fostering deep connections and helping them make informed decisions, and the importance of staying focused on the human connection.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Sponsor for this episode...
This is brought to you by Quik!
At Quik!, we provide forms automation and management solutions for companies seeking to maximize their potential productivity.
Our vision is to become the leading forms automation company by making paperwork the easiest part of every transaction.
Meanwhile, our mission is to help the top firms in the financial industry raise their bottom line by streamlining the customer experience with automated, convenient solutions.
Go to www.quickforms.com to learn more, or contact us with questions at support@quikforms.com.
Episode Transcript:
Intro 0:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and in turn grow their business.
Richard Walker 0:16
Hey, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins where I talked to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. One of our past guests included Sanjeev Kumar the CEO Skience. Today I'm really excited to speak with Justin Krane, founder of Krane Financial Solutions. And today's episode is brought to you by Quik, the leader in enterprise forms automation. When the last step to earning your clients business requires filling out paperwork, don't ruin your relationship with a bad experience. Instead, let QuikForms make filling out forms a great experience and the easiest part of your transaction. Visit quickforms.com To get started. All right. Justin Krane is a certified financial planner and 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 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. He's married and lives with his wife and three children in Calabasas, California. Justin is also an accomplished athlete, and was a former Junior ranked tennis player in Los Angeles. That is awesome. Justin, welcome to The Customer Wins.
Justin Krane 1:33
What's up, Rich, great to be here.
Richard Walker 1:35
I'm really happy to have you. Now if you haven't heard this podcast before. I talk with business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win, how they build and deliver a great customer experience and the challenges to growing their own company. So Justin, let's help our audience understand your business a little bit better. How do you help people?
Justin Krane 1:53
Let me just start off by saying I just had to come clean on this one. It's so good to be here because you're a stud and you're running an awesome company. For those of you like who've been on Rich's show or watch Rich's show, the guy's got a perfect goatee like it's perfect. Like you can't get a better goatee than Rich's. Like I don't have one right now. But like if I was to hit a button and AI myself with a goatee, I would channel riches goatee. It's like never ever fails. It's amazing. It's like it's a work of art. All right. Now, how do I help people win? Like, I think it's a, you know, you heard that expression progress, not perfection. That's one of those from Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. I really think when it comes to money, and advising clients on their money, it's about progress. I tried to get them to understand this concept of return on life, which we'll get into on your show. But it's building towards something. It's gaining momentum. And it's feeling good about the decisions that you're making financially. And it's about getting more of that now versus when you're like 85.
Richard Walker 2:58
And that is so awesome to think about because it's not just hey, you need a financial plan, you're going to retire it someday. Because I think we go through all these challenges in my own family like should we spend that extra money on the private education? Or not? Where would that money do for us? Should we go on the vacation or not? Should we save that money, etc? So how are you helping people make these connections and think about it in the now versus the long run?
Justin Krane 3:21
A lot of iteration. It's like anything like there's no like, paint by numbers system when it comes to Financial Planning and Advising on, on that. The common word that you used in all of those was "should." And "should" is it's such a tough word to go with. Because should mean it's like the world according to someone. It needs to be that way. Like, like you ever watch Alex Trebek on Jeopardy. Yeah, the guy's got all the answers. He's got the cards there. Like he knows everything. He's the guy that's like the should, right. But like, I don't know, I literally have no idea. I have no idea other than working with a client going a little bit deeper profiling them, asking them, getting them to uncover a little bit more about like, Are you a spender? Are you a saver? What does that look like? Do you feel pulled in one direction like this, the Savers aren't going to spend unless they know that they're going to be okay, when they're 70 and 80. Right. And the spenders need to see that if they keep spending they're going to run out of money when they're 80. So it's obviously a balance, but it's like how do you get someone to be aware of what's going on? And by the way, did you know that today's "National Get Your Head Out of the Sand Day?"
Richard Walker 4:33
I've never heard of that.
Justin Krane 4:34
I use that all the time with clients. You got to get your head out of the sand like and like let's get let's get real about what you want and how to work towards that.
Richard Walker 4:43
Yeah, my wife and I have this conversation. She's the saver and I like to save to I don't know if you knew Justin, I was a financial planner. So I'm very savvy about saving, but my wife truly is the saver. It's very, very hard to get her to actually spend the money. Yeah, and I used to have the joke that look, money doesn't buy happiness. But when it does, you should spend the money, right?
Justin Krane 5:02
Totally, like, let me ask you this Rich, you can have $85 billion and be financially free when you're 85. Or you can have I don't know, less along the way, and enjoy it. It's like, where do you find that balance, you have to do both. Because when you're 85, you might not be as healthy, you might not be able to travel, you might not be able to run an amazing podcast like you're doing right now. So you have to see that that the use of some of that money now is actually a good thing.
Richard Walker 5:32
Yeah, for sure. So who is your ideal client? What is your typical client look like?
Justin Krane 5:38
Someone in their 40s or 50s, that's running a business. And that's doing a million plus in sales, they have about 10 employees, they usually have investments of near seven figures. So like a million bucks or close to that. And their challenging problem is, is time rich, a lot of it is time, they're pulled in all of these directions, they really, really need to delegate, but they feel like they're not like, and I'm putting this in quotes, like getting ahead with their money, like they're being really reactive. And they're not being proactive. And they know, according to Alex Trebek, that they should be doing something with their money. But they don't exactly know what that is, and what role the business money serves, and the personal money, and they're just like stuck. And they don't have an advocate, someone advising them and helping them and holding them accountable. And they're like, What do I do? Enter me. And then uncle Justin comes in with my cape and tights, and away we go.
Richard Walker 6:38
So do you usually meet these customers where they're, we're in there in that quandary? Or they're stuck, and they're not spending? They're just in this, ike, I don't know, call it a rat cage, where they keep spinning the wheel and not accomplishing life? Is that why they come to you?
Justin Krane 6:51
I think they're, they're making some progress. But something happens, something's that trigger, their cousin almost dies, their mom has breast cancer, they just got hit with a big tax bill that they didn't know, they lost a lot of money with their investments, they don't have enough cash, they just had their third kid. They don't feel like they're getting ahead. And they don't see a way out where they're going to be more financially independent. And they need this big word, which is a plan. Most of these people don't have a plan. And they're guessing.
Richard Walker 7:25
Okay, so yeah, let's do some reverse psychology here. Oftentimes, the psychologist is trying to solve their own problem. So what made you get in this path? How did you get started and say "this is the kind of customer I want to work with"?
Justin Krane 7:37
By massive osmosis and iterating. And just like, it's so much of that. So I'll give you an example. I had a business I had, my first business was Financial Planning and Investment Management, and I kind of got bored with that. I'm like, Oh, let me open up a second business, I'll do coaching. And it was like 10% of my business and 10% of my time, and I, I coached business owners on their money, and a fair amount of that were women. And we talked about the psychology of money, and I had a whole group coaching program and all of that. But what I learned is, is that my unique ability is not group coaching. It's just not like, I can't coach 10 I'm not good at it. I'm like, they would probably say I'm okay. But like, I'm much better actually doing the reverse of what I thought Alex Trebek was going to tell me that I should do, which is leverage and scale and all of that. And I'm like, I'm done with that. I'm going deep, with one client at a time. And then I'm like, What's my unique ability, my unique ability is learning and then teaching, holding people accountable, being fully committed, following through having attention to detail and having this passion for teaching and investing. And most entrepreneurs that that have already made it in business, and they're at seven figures. Their problem is as has to do with efficiency, return on time, return on Enter, it's not sales. And what I was advising this group on was more sales things. And yeah, I'm okay at sales. But I can't sell my way out of a paper bag like you can with that goatee and your QuikForms business where you can close $4 billion in two minutes. I'm not okay at that. But I do know what I'm good at. Man. I wish I don't sell like that. By the way. Rich's blue shirt is really popping today. If you're looking for just a classic, simple. This is the commercial in here. A simple classic blue shirt. You should do business with British Walker, because this shirt really is outstanding.
Richard Walker 9:38
That's it, it matches my eye color. And this is why you should do business with me.
Justin Krane 9:41
So that's how you're done.
Richard Walker 9:44
I just sold 4 billion dollars how that happened. Oh, man.
Justin Krane 9:49
Well, let me ask you a question about worth $4 billion. I believe that one of the biggest, I guess, challenge that challenges that business owners have is around their business model. know, how do you make money? What do you have to do to make money and all of that? I mean, I know you do Quik forms. I'm fascinated by your business model. I'm fascinated by the, by the fact that you've got some technology that no one can come close to. You're like the Jenson Huang of Quik forms, where you're so far ahead of you don't know who Jensen Wong is? Oh, boy. NVIDIA. He's the CEO of NVIDIA.
Richard Walker 10:23
Oh, yes. Okay. They just hit a trillion, I think.
Justin Krane 10:26
Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think about your customer or clients business model? And how have you incorporated that into your business?
Richard Walker 10:37
So first of all, I appreciate this question. Because I love business models. I've done so many business plans. As an entrepreneur, I started 10 Different companies. So I'm always in love with business models. Wow. And I realized when I was a financial advisor, it's a good model. But I was still I still had this element of trading time for money and having to work and software I've always been enamored with, I wasn't necessarily doing it. But I was enamored with it, because you take brain power, put it into a computer keyboard and turn it into something infinitely replicatable. Sure. So yeah, what I what I tried to understand is, how do my customers and my partners work, so that we can complement what they do, and either streamline it so it's faster, lower their cost, improve their revenue, improve retention, improve loyalty? I mean, this is why I care about how customers win. Because really, what you're trying to think about is, how do you grow your company, you drive for customer experience, you drive for better customer success, if you help. I think it was Zig Ziglar said it, "You can have anything you want, as long as you help enough people get what they want." So that's what I think about Justin, and I love what you're saying, I think you call it return on life. Yeah, go deep with somebody and help them actually get more value. Because how many advisors out there just say, Oh, I'm going to work with this guy for 10 minutes and this guy for 10 minutes, and every time every year, another 10 or 50 or 100 minutes. But how deep do you go? So tell me more about this return on life? And how you describe it?
Justin Krane 12:01
Yeah, yeah. So I'll give you a very, very high level example. Of and this is hypothetical, this is more hypothetical in nature. It's not like weather, we're so regulated. So I have to be careful on how I describe an experience. But I worked with someone who she wanted to be a mom. And you know, asking her questions, like, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do? You know, if you only had five to 10 years to live? How would you live your life? What would you do? So these are, these are deep life questions. And you know, her answers were, ultimately that she wanted to be a mom. So if you're single, and you want to be a mom, I mean, there's no you don't plan on getting married, right? You're not going to go down that path, you've made the decision, that's not going to be your path. There's only a few ways that you can go and we don't have that it's pretty common sense. So one of them was adoption. So we worked on a plan to, to set her up so that you could adopt and have a kid. Now, if that isn't return on life, I don't know what is. I mean, that's amazing. That's, I get the chills. I get goosebumps when I tell this, because it's it's just, that's real financial planning. Yeah.
Richard Walker 13:16
What I mean, that's amazing, because that's a hard one to kind of figure out. There's cost associated with that. Right. And there's time but also having the financial wherewithal, I suppose in the adoption process. I've never been through it. But I would suppose they want to know that you're financially sound and capable of taking care of the family. So yeah, you must have to look at a lot more than just hey, can you save for retirement?
Justin Krane 13:38
Yeah, no, it wasn't retirement, it was more like a five year goal. So so much of what a lot of financial advisors will do is create and I do this all the time is create a retirement plan. Of course, that's important. So let's say you're 50 years old, and you're worried about are you going to have enough money when you're 70, 75, and 80. But can we also talk about ages 50 to 54? Like, what are people doing? They're like, what are you doing Tuesday afternoon at 330? When you're 56 years old, and your kids are out of the house? Or your kids are in the house? And it's three o'clock? And you're 41? What are you doing with your financial life then? So we worked on some of the numbers and it's not like we finished it in four seconds, and she was done. And that's it. It's like it's an iterative process. I don't have all the answers people like I am not Alex Trebek, I don't have all the answers. I have a lot of the questions. And, you know, that's, that's what I believe in.
Richard Walker 14:34
So how often do you feel like you need to meet with these types of clients over that five year journey? Is that quarterly monthly? Is there a cadence or is it just as it's comes up?
Justin Krane 14:45
I mean, definitely on the planning side for the what those that I do planning for it needs to be that are closer to whatever goal they want to have happen at least once a year. I mean, it's got to be something. But I also believe that if you're too In the weeds of tracking a goal, it you don't, you can't see the forest from the trees. So you have to somehow figure out a way and a system of other measuring things that you can control, which isn't the the end event like, you know, if I want to lose 10 pounds, I can track calories and not pounds, because I cannot control that. So it depends if I'm working with a business owner or a W2 employee, it's a lot a lot more moving parts with a business owner than a W2.
Richard Walker 15:29
You know, I didn't say this in your bio, I don't think. But on your website, you have this, you also do kind of fractional CFO work for some of your clients, right?
Justin Krane 15:37
Yes. Yeah.
Richard Walker 15:38
So it's an interesting combination, that you're working with a business owner on their financials, but also looking at their business. How deep do you go into their business?
Justin Krane 15:47
For the for certain clients massively deep. Like, if the business let's just use you as an example, right? If you have some goal that you want to hit personally, whatever it is, buy a house, send your kids to college, donate money to charity, whatever it is, the engine that's going to fuel that is your business, cash and profits. So why don't we? Why don't like I wish all the financial advisors would learn this? I mean, and study it and get educated on it. You could charge for it. Is it scalable? No. But is it good? Yes. I just don't see why more financial advisors don't go deep with their clients on their business money. And, you know, I bought books, I taught myself, I just started, I was not waiting for Alex Trebek saying, check. You're good. You're done. Rich still has his goatee in place. It's in full form, just letting everyone know.
Richard Walker 16:40
Yeah, I kept it there. I didn't shave it. I didn't shave it once. And my then seven year old walked in the room was like, Oh, you put that back on right now. He had never seen me without my goatee. And he was just like, adamant.
Justin Krane 16:53
There are funny YouTube videos on that. Yeah, seriously, you gotta you gotta check those out.
Richard Walker 16:57
I know, I probably should hire you as my financial advisor. Not that this was an interview for that purpose. But I can't tell you how many times when I talked to my CPA about wealth, growth and management of our business, versus their reaction of just like, Well, okay, you did this, you did that? How many how it's so hard to actually get somebody to say, here's what you shouldn't be doing. Or here's what you could be doing. Wll for me to have the ability to ask a question of, hey, if I wanted to take more money out this year, should I? Could I? What would I do? Et cetera.
Justin Krane 17:29
Yeah. And not only that, another thing, which like, this is really where I can like geek out who doesn't like talking about their business and strategies. And, like, I don't do EOS. But I know a lot about like their ROC, right, your quarterly whatever it is you want to do? And what the sales could be, and how much cash can it generate, and the impact that you could make? And then what you could do with that money, it's your like, alive, it's like, it's like, nothing can stop you. And it just, it invigorates me. And I could do it all day long, because I love it.
Richard Walker 18:05
Do you? Do you work with business owners in this capacity? Do you get into the kind of moral ethical value types questions that I think I would want to ask, such as: How much money should I set aside for bonuses this year? And that can be in the context of growth are down, down years, that can be in the context of how much money I want for myself. I mean, I want to give my employees what they deserve. Obviously, in more short, there's always a balance, right? I started this business for a reason, the people who work in this business joined for a reason. How do we share in those rewards? Are those the types of conversations you're doing?
Justin Krane 18:37
Okay, so what I'm hearing you asked me is, is Justin, do you work with clients? Or? And really, does it make sense for entrepreneurs to ask themselves these values-based questions about what do they believe about money? What role does ethics play in business? How does it relate to their employees versus them? Yes, but I'm not doing it consciously. Sure. I'm not saying I'm going to have a unique selling proposition and do this. i It's not like I'm just making it conscious. Right? What I at the core is like, I am a certified financial planner. I am. That's my thing. Financial Advising, CFP planning work, I'm always going to come back to the personal side of my clients balance sheet. That's, I'm always going to that. So, Mr. client, or I should say, rich, if you're wanting to give your employees an extra x 1000 bucks. How does that impact you personally? And we need to talk that through. Yeah, that's the most important thing in my opinion.
Richard Walker 19:44
But I think I'm just kind of thinking through the nature of questions that you're probably fielding with your clients because it's one thing for me to have a plan for my kids, my wife, myself, etc. It's another thing for the business. And there's always this balance that entrepreneurs face of do I keep really, reinvesting, do I put all the money back in the business? Do I believe in its worth that much when I start taking money out of the business? Or I think what you were saying, When do I live life versus just work?
Justin Krane 20:10
Totally. And I think, you know, a big thing that I think we can talk about is valuation of businesses, right? I'm sure you've looked at your valuation, and I'm sure you're looking at the things that would affect it. And then you have like, the big carrot of like selling it, or monetizing it somehow, whether it's having someone buy some of it or or whatever. So like, well, what is how does that play into you, personally, and how easily is it sellable? And you know, like all of that, that's why I've created my tagline is uniting money with life and business, because they're all three, like converged. And you have to like de-triple them, instead of decouple them, and kind of begin to figure it out. But these are all great questions that you're asking it, it, it can only be obvious that you care about not only your employees, but your business. And I would encourage you to go deeper. And think about those.
Richard Walker 21:07
You know, let me ask, I appreciate that. Let me ask you a slightly different question. You've got it. Well, how long have you been in business?
Justin Krane 21:13
Since I was like five years old? All right, forget about that one. So I got in, like when I was in 1995. So I was like, 23. So that's 20 as well.
Richard Walker 21:24
Yeah, you've been doing this a while? Yeah. So with all that, how do you know if you're really serving your clients well? Or not? How do you how do you measure your success with clients?
Justin Krane 21:35
I think if they're accomplishing two things, at the same time, they're working towards their retirement goal. And they're getting closer to that. And they're feeling financially, okay, now, and are able to do things now, where they're not as stressed out, and they know that there's a plan in place, like they can do both, they could have this return on life, it's not a guarantee working with me, or any financial advisor, but I know that, that I've done a good job, when the anxiety level or stress or guessing or lack of clarity goes down, you know, or you know, where things where you can breathe, you know, and I'll give you an example. You're going to I know that you're, you're going to ask me this question later. But like, who's had the greatest impact on me, right, and my success, right? And I thought about that. And for a while, I'm like, I don't really know. And then I realized, and I'm gonna say this, humbly, the person that has had the greatest impact and success on me has been myself. And it has really been through therapy, that I've learned to get to know who I am. And I only started to get to know who I am when I got divorced at age 40. And had to rebuild my entire life. And I got to know myself even better when my father died. And I realized that I was really on my own, that I don't I didn't have that. And this is only five years ago. This is not when I was 30. I'm 50. Now, this is what I was 45. So the therapy and inner work has had the greatest impact on the success of my business, and personal life.
Richard Walker 23:15
I wholeheartedly agree with that. I do I think that there's a couple of core things that we go through in life, one being communication, but the other one is our own internal self, and how do we view ourselves? And what are we doing to learn, I've often said, the day I stopped learning is the day I die. And so it's, it's really interesting to hear your talk about it from that standpoint, because I do think that has a really, really big impact on how you build your business, how you grow it, etc. Because it comes back to you, you are the leader, you create the framework in which you communicate with your clients how they view you perceive you respect, you communicate back with you, right? So what made you write your book? Was this part of it?
Justin Krane 23:56
Um, no. I was getting to know myself. But like, like, you know, you can Google anything write about and get some answers to anything, how much should I save there? Or what's the rate of return on this? Or what's the best way to I mean, now it's, you know, AI, anything. But I, I wanted to write something where someone can pick up a book about money on any page, and just read for five minutes, and put it down and not pick it up again for a year and pick it back up and all of that. So I wanted it to be really entertaining and informative, informative. At the same time. I just took my crazy, wacky life experiences, found a money lesson into it. And then I like to write like I talk like, I intentionally write things wrong and I start sentences with an and I intentionally misspell words like use spellcheck, SPE l ch e k like, I just play around. And I love it. And I wrote this book for people our age, and then I feel figured out as my clients kids are liking it like the millennials love this book. And I don't mean talking to them. So it's just funny like, just funny. And then I just I write a newsletter. So I incorporate the newsletter into my book, you know, a lot of it is what I write. It's just funny stuff.
Richard Walker 25:19
Oh, that sounds fun. I because I think also, when you have your own business, you need to have other things that entertain you, and excite you, and correlate back to your business. Of course, like you were talking about coaching, I've done coaching. I liked it to an extent except I have this ability to make women cry. And I don't really want to do that. I just, I think it's a trust thing that they feel comfortable enough to be emotional, and I start getting emotional myself, and it's to drinks. I said, I'm not doing coaching anymore. Yeah. But I do think you have to try different things. Are you going to do another book?
Justin Krane 25:51
Yeah, this one's going to be around financial independence. And it's more of a framework and a perspective that people have to have around financial independence. And, like, I, I hope that I can get myself to write at least a quarter of it to be really snarky, and be like, come on, and let's just BS a bunch of stuff. And and get people to feel like they can actually work towards it. And that that term doesn't have to suck for them to where they give up. I just want to ask you a question. And we can come back to my book. But it's about purpose. And I really think it's a little deeper a call, make a comment. But I want to hear what you have to say about this. For me now, for my business, it's about meaning, period, end of story. I need to find meaning every single day that I come in here, working with every client, my employees, the team meetings, I run the client experiences, I have all of that. I'm curious, what do you think about that? Are you doing that? Am I off in left field? Doing something dumb? What do you think about that?
Richard Walker 27:00
Yeah, so I have figured that out. I think I figured out around 2010 in year eight of my business, and I was challenged because I wrote a book and I was afraid to publish it. And I had to kind of coalesce, how do I talk about being an efficiency expert, a software technologist and a self improvement guy, because my book is about change, how to create change in your life, how to change yourself. And a friend kind of went through a process with me and helped me understand it. What I had to come back to is what is my core purpose in life. And one of the things I realized is that as humans, we are social creatures, we really don't live off in the woods by ourselves. There's a few people who do that. But that's the extreme. We depend on each other. So the real question is, how do we help people? How do we help each other and my core purpose in life is to empower others to be their best version of themselves? And if you ask me to do anything outside of that, I won't do it. So how does that translate to my business? Well, my business is one level above that, which is to empower people to do their best work. And I really view that everything we do is about empowering people to do their best work. Does anybody like handwriting forms? If you have to meet that person? Yeah. Why don't I enable you to go do something better? Or like my books, I enable you to change and become a better version of yourself? So Justin, I applaud you, I think it's totally important that people figure this out, and have a driving meaning to why they're doing what they do, and have a purpose to get out of bed in the morning and keep remembering it.
Justin Krane 28:24
Right. Thank you. Can I ask you a part two to that? Because you're I want to go a little bit deeper on that. And I'm curious how it all goes down. So a lot of the sales that you're making are to enterprise companies, they're bigger companies, right? And I gotta believe if I don't even know anything about, let's put up put my CIO hat on Chief Information Officer. I don't know a lot about tech. But I can only imagine that if I'm buying this software from you, I'm looking for something that's more efficient, at probably a cheaper price that can just get the job done. And I'm ready to move on. So am I right on that?
Richard Walker 28:58
Well, it's a complex decision for most of our customers, my average sales cycles, like 12 months, because they plan for it, they think, yeah, they're looking at honestly, most of them are looking at the best customer experience for their advisors. They're gonna end clients, the investors or clients as well as the back office. And they're thinking really hard about how does the workflow go? What are the steps? When did the forms come into it, et cetera? Sure. So it is a complex decision. But at the end of the day, you're ultimately right, can I do it something that's cheaper and better than what how I currently do it? Does it streamline my business and make it faster? And really, am I helping my advisors do what they do best? I think at the bottom line, that's what they care about.
Justin Krane 29:39
So how do you how do you bring in that core purpose of yours into the conversation with the buyer? They're looking guys hack and software. Yeah, and you're giving them that, but you're also this really introspective, soft dude who has a nice little, like, way of thinking about things. Do you sprinkle that fairy dust in like, throughout the car, like how do you do that?
Richard Walker 30:04
So I think there's a couple of things. I mean, number one, the product itself, I think it's obvious that empowers people to do their best work. So that's the nature of the product. But in the conversation, and I say this with all sincerity, when I talk to people, I view my job is to help people make high quality decisions. I want them to have facts and information, I want them to know when something can't work or can accomplish it. So they can make a really good decision about their their problem that they're trying to solve. And if I'm not the solution, no problem. That's fine. I don't want an unhappy customer. And I really like working with other people who think the same way, like let's get the information on the table. Let's understand how this works. Let's make a really, really good, well informed decision about what we're doing. I don't care what that means buying a car, or, you know, helping your son with homework. I mean, it could be anything. So I approach it from that standpoint. And I literally do say that to people so that they see it clearly. I guess also, this could come across as salesy, and I don't like to come across salesy. I think when you articulate your intention, and then follow it up with the correct acts that support that intention, 100% 100% I think you get the best of both worlds. Because if you just do the X people feel it, but they don't articulate it in their own mind. So by just saying it up front helps.
Justin Krane 31:20
Yeah, yeah, it's, you know, it's like, one of the things I always try and teach my kids is like, do the right thing when no one's looking. Because, you know, you want to call it the universe, I'll call it God, God is looking. And it's for you, like if you do the right thing all of the time, you know, spades. All right, that was your mic. So that was my two part question for you. Sorry.
Richard Walker 31:41
Those are really good questions. And I think it really also shows the quality and character that you have as you approach your clients, which is why I like that you articulate return on life. So many people talk about return on investment. Yeah. Am I going to get 8% this year? 12. I mean, let's talk about how it's going to impact your ability to live and enjoy life the way it should be? Totally, um, I'm going to switch gears entirely, I'm going to go back to something that you brought up earlier, which is artificial intelligence, because AI has the ability to disrupt life in a way or maybe empower life. And I'm curious, how do you see artificial intelligence impacting, I don't know, life experience, customer experience, whoever you serve?
Justin Krane 32:20
Yeah. So I think it can make it better if you go about it the right way. And I'll just, there's always going to be a need for human connection and communication. You can leverage AI to the maximum ability you can, and I don't even know, I probably know 2% about AI. But what I do know is, is that in my business, there has been plenty of challenges and themes that have been thought to disrupt a financial advisor from everything from robo advisors to commission free trading to, you know, just everything. And there's always been a need for a human connection. So I think it's an and with AI, it's not an or so my industry will leverage AI, it's starting to now, I haven't incorporated anything with AI, I've done nothing with it. I'm just watching it and learning. I'm checking out cool sites and all that. I think it's amazing. And I don't really need to be at the forefront of AI. I want to be at the forefront of connection of return on life of making people feel like they're getting ahead and they're doing good work. If I can do that, I'll leverage the AI stuff when it comes. But it's not like oh, it's stupid. It's bad. No, I think it's here to stay. Why? I have no idea. No idea. And that's actually just to come full circle. That's one of my biggest differentiators, I think is financial advisor. Because I believe in indexing and like I don't think I have an edge in investing at all. It's all compounding of interest. Like and people are like, what? You've been doing this for this, and this is your luck. Yeah, it's very, very hard. You got to just work on the compounding of money when you invest. So I have no idea about this AI. None. I'll let everyone else who's way smarter than me. Teach me what I need to know.
Richard Walker 34:16
Yeah, I think if somebody had the perfect edge in investing, there wouldn't be 15,000 mutual fund choices, right?
Justin Krane 34:22
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Walker 34:25
No, I think that's a smart approach, Justin, because you're going to be the beneficiary of AI through the tools that you select and use, whether it's simple things like I had an AI webcam that was follow me around the room, and zoom in and zoom out making the conversation more dynamic. And I think it's an amazing webcam. It's not the one I'm using right now. And there's stuff like that that can help build more connection when you are remote with people. So I do agree with you that it's going to improve how we actually work with with our customers. Look, as we wrap this up. I'm going to ask you one more question. Not the one that you already answered by the way. Yeah, but before I ask wanna help people connect with you? How do you want people to find you?
Justin Krane 35:03
I think they could go to my site or LinkedIn. So my sites krane with a K. kranefinancialsolutions.com. They can go and connect with me on LinkedIn, Justin like Justin time Krane, K or Annie, just connect with me there and message me. I have other websites that you can go to and newsletters and all of that. But like, literally, if just call me yell, scream, email, whatever, get in touch.
Richard Walker 35:30
Yeah. And also go check out his podcast. He has a very, very cool podcast. And it's you're interviewing really interesting people, I listened to one of them. So check out Justin's podcast, too.
Justin Krane 35:40
It's called Money. You got this.
Richard Walker 35:42
Yeah. All right. So here's my last question. If there was one secret or a key lesson that you've learned that you could share with other successful or people who want to be more successful in financial planning, what would it be?
Justin Krane 35:55
You mean something to teach financial advisors or people on their own, like the end user, like, an invaluable want to be like you successful?
Richard Walker 36:02
Like you have a deep connection with their clients, let's say.
Justin Krane 36:04
I think it's, it's, it's this, it's the same thing like I tell my kids, and is you have to have small little wins a lot. And nothing is going to happen. And come overnight. I mean, just think of the concept of compounding of money and building wealth. Most people don't get wealthy in like five minutes, they just don't, it takes years of saving, years of investing. It's not about how many Instagram likes you can have in four hours. And it's not about how many clients you can bring in in like, one month, these things take years to happen. The thing is, is you have to put in the work day in and day out. And you can't be productive and efficient. I totally believe in that. A lot of times, things take time. And it's like you have to keep growing and working towards building something. So it's a little bit here a little bit, they're one step forward, two steps back three steps forward. It's a lot. It's just a longer term thing. That and the other thing is, is I believe in each person that's working, that they're going to make progress. I'm an optimist. So I believe that you have to be a prosperity thinker. And I believe in each of you that are listening to this, that you can make progress and get better.
Richard Walker 37:25
Awesome. I love that. I love that. Like yo. Hey, I want to say a big thank you to Justin Krane, founder of Krane Financial Solutions for being on this episode of The Customer Wins. Go check out Justin's website at krane with a K kranefinancialsolutions.com and don't forget to check out Quik quickforms.com where we take the work out of paperwork. I hope you enjoyed this discussion, and we'll click the like button, share this with someone and subscribe to our channel for future episodes with customer wins. Justin, it was such a pleasure having you on today.
Justin Krane 37:54
Thank you. Thanks again.
Outro 37:58
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