Tom & Susan
Meet Tom and Susan, a couple with a number of growing and thriving businesses.
In their own words, Tom and Susan both admitted, “Up until now we’ve been winging it.” But despite this, business is currently great and they have just agreed the purchase of their dream home, a huge milestone and achievement for any family. But while things are clearly going well for them, they sought me out after expressing to another client of mine that despite their current situation, they still continue to worry about their financial future. Even though they enjoy an enviable lifestyle, full of all the things they as a family value and love, they still carry a nagging fear that it might not be sustainable down the line or that it all might not last.
As we chatted, and I learned more about their business and their lives, Tom became emotional as he told me about his own father losing everything in business due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, bad advice, risky investments and not making hard decisions soon enough. This experience had clearly left a huge and lasting impression on him and had shaped how he saw his own achievements, leaving him with a fear of potential failure that still shadowed every success. And despite a thriving business Tom said he still always worried that, “We’ve no idea if we’ve enough.”
It was clear that for Tom, all his drive and desire for growing his business was about providing for those around him and being able to keep doing so as long as he possibly could.
I asked them to look back over the last 10/20 years to see if they could have imagined the £6m turnover they have now. Tom immediately said he couldn’t and that truthfully, he wanted that figure to be double digits in the next few years. As he shared his own hopes for their future, he turned to Susan and said “I’ve never said that out loud before and now you know.” She smiled and told him to go for it.
Their meeting with me was motivated by a desire to finally get a sustainable arrangement in place to have their financial independence secured. They wanted to create a clear plan that enabled them get to a point where they would have enough financial resources (a freedom fund) to passively fund their lifestyle, come what may. To be able to continue working because they love it, not because they have to are or afraid of what will happen if they stop.
The conversation we had, and the means and actions we set out together, showed them that by sticking to the ongoing investment plan they would have the freedom to use spare business capital to fund other projects and “take a few risks”.
Before our meeting ending Tom said, “Before this meeting we didn’t know why we were coming in, now we both do.”