IAM1393 – CEO Helps Clients Build Financial Safety Nets

Ahmie is the founder and CEO of Interchange Capital Partners – a family business that has honed a comprehensive and collaborative process over its 40 years of practice in financial services and is dedicated to helping clients and their families build financial safety nets.

With over 40 years of practice in financial services, Ahmie has been named to Barron’s Top 1,000 Financial Advisor List.

Mr. Baum and his team previously managed over $420 million in client assets.

• CEO Story: Ahmie had to work to support his college. From running a restaurant to the financial industry. Which gave him more opportunities as he learned the ropes of the business. With his vision in place, Ahmie was able to build and be independent.
• Business Service: Set criteria for success for business owners – Maximum value for their life’s work and mitigate the tax burn.
• Secret Sauce: 1. Identify and quantify. 2. Maximise and protect. 3. Transition and transact. Giving clarity and understanding of who and what’s involved.
• CEO Hack: Mindful meditation practice. Be mindful of what to eat – plant-based. Yoga practice.
• CEO Nugget: Unique ability – what you are passionate about.
• CEO Defined: Having a vision that empowers other people to be the best version of themselves.

Website: interchangecp.com

LinkedIn: ahmiebaum , interchange-capital-partners

Facebook: interchangecp

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Transcription

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00:24 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:52 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AmM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today, Ahmie Baum of Interchange Capital Partners. Ahmie, super excited to have you on the show.

01:01 – Ahmie Baum

Great. Same. Looking forward to sharing a little bit about what we do, why we do it, and hopefully we can be of some value.

01:08 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. I know you're definitely going to be of some value and you're doing so many awesome things. So of course, before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Ahmie so you can hear about some of those awesome things that he's been working on. Ahmie is the founder and CEO of Interchange Capital Partners, a family business that has honed a comprehensive and collaborative process over his 40 years of practice in financial services and is dedicated to helping clients and their families build financial safety nets.

With over 40 years of practice in financial services, Ahmie has been named to Barron's Top 1000 Financial Advisors list. And Ahmie and his team previously managed over 420 million in client assets. Ahmie, super excited to have you on the show again. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:52 – Ahmie Baum

I am. Let's get started. Let's talk a little bit about what we can do and how we can help.

01:58 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. I want to hear a little bit more about what you do and how you do it. But before we jump into that, I want to hear a little bit more about how you got started. Could you tell us what I like to call your CEO story?

02:07 – Ahmie Baum

Yeah. I got started at a very young age. I came from nothing. My favorite line was, what my father used to say, what do you think money grows on trees? And I looked around and I said, well, it looks like there's some people around me that and around the Family that certainly have a money tree. So we struggled a lot. You know, we got behind. Never, you know, wasn't, you know, tremendously challenged, lower middle class.

But, you know, there was always a problem or an issue. Money seemed to be always front and center. And I remember when I got the. Got my acceptance into college, and I was so excited, I came back, and my father said, look, I've got it in college. He said, great. How are you going to pay for it? I said, what? And that's when I realized that he was walking this tightrope around. Money. Really didn't know much about it, really didn't know how to handle it.

It ultimately became the destruction of the family, divorce, and all that. I didn't realize it at the time, but later on in life, I realized that was a seminal moment for me when I recognized, that I was going to go out there and build a safety net for myself. And then unbeknownst to me, I ended up getting into a profession that helped build safety nets for others. I ran a restaurant in college because I had to pay for college, as we know.

And a friend of mine's father was a stockbroker for E.F. Hutton and said, I got you a job. I said, what's an E.F. Hutton? What's the stock? I didn't know anything about this stuff. Fortunately, there was one question they used to ask all the time in interviews, which was, so what's your weakness? And I was very candid. I said, I don't know anything about your industry, but I can learn.

And if you've got a good training program, bring it on. The manager talks. I've never had someone so young turn that question around on me. You're hired. And so that was the start of getting involved in the financial service business. And then I recognized at the time that it was sort of like a franchise opportunity for me a lot. I didn't see it as being an employee. I saw it as.

Even though I was, I saw it as a franchise, here I was, had the opportunity to go out there and talk with people and build a business. And that's where it was. 1979 and fast forward had a lot of success, and a lot of failures, and ultimately on my 65th birthday, June 12th of 2020, we launched interchange Capital Partners. We decided that we wanted to be independent. We really want. Had some ideas and ways of going about doing things that were unique and different and just didn't fit into the big bank model, you know, that we had come from.

05:09 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. So I Know, we touched on a little bit, but I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear a little bit more on how you're serving your clients, how you're helping them to create that financial safety net.

05:17 – Ahmie Baum

Yeah, I mean, we decided that this was part of what was the transition. My oldest son joined us, and because I was already successful, I had some concerns about him having to live for the rest of his life, that everyone would say, well, you're successful because your father was successful. Just quite the opposite of my father. So it's very interesting how the generations play. And so I said, well, let's go out there. And I looked at my career and I said, if I could do this all over again, what market would make the best sense and give us the greatest opportunity?

And I realized that most of the wealth that people have, if they're business owners or CEOs, are tied up in their business. And so I said, what we want to do is we want to go out there and help this business owner unlock a lifetime of work. It's not a question of if you're going to leave your business. It's a fact. It's going to happen. The question is not if, it's when.

And so we built a program around helping this exit succession, and transition planning for this business owner because it's the single largest financial transaction of their lives. So that's the niche that we're involved with, and we help with the three phases that are necessary. The first phase is they need to identify and quantify. And that's a part which most people don't like to do. They like to jump to the second phase, which is how do I maximize and protect? And then they like the third phase, which is how do I transition and transact where's the money?

But we try to pull them back and say, first and foremost, let's get you some clarity around where you want to go, what that bigger future looks like. Then from that clarity, let's help you get some understanding of what's involved, and who's involved. It's a complicated situation. And then finally, let's build an action plan around that and help keep all the participants who are necessary because it's not something that you can do by yourself. You need tax help, you need legal help, you need protection help, you need investment help, you need financial planning help, you need banking help in order to pull this thing off.

07:44 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have. But what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

07:56 – Ahmie Baum

Well, I actually developed three of them and this is really about life in general. I start my day with the first thing in the morning. I wake up, I immediately go to an area and do a 20-minute mindful meditation practice. That centers me, and that gets me focused. I'm a prolific dreamer and frankly, sometimes those dreams infect me. I mean, I wake up, if I had a bad dream, I got a bad day or so. That 20 minutes sort of separates my sleep from my day. The second thing that I learned to do is really be mindful and careful about what I eat.

You know, I used to weigh 250 pounds when I was a teenager. I ate all the junk and all that stuff and I have converted myself into a plant-based eating style. And what that does is I don't wake up with a food coma or a food hangover. And it gives me the energy to work through the day. And then I finish my day with 45 minutes of yoga practice. And that again allows me so those that no matter, what I say if I can do and I call those my three success strategies.

I get those three things done every day, which I do every day 99% of the time. There's always a day here, the rest of the world because the rest of the world happens. But I know I'm grounded and centered and I'll be able to handle whatever comes my way. So that's one thing that I do from a more professional standpoint. I've been involved in a coaching program which you have to find the right one. I have been involved with Strategic Coach out of Toronto and Chicago which frankly helped me redefine my life.

And part of the three success strategies came from working. What I like about Strategic Coach coaching is it is a process of giving you some knowledge products and allowing you to create your pathway versus coaching programs that I have been involved in the past will say, well, you got to do it this way, this way, and this way. Well, that really doesn't celebrate the differences that all the people that we know have. So those would be the two things that have helped me, obviously the three success strategy strategies. And I've been going to strategic coach quarter after quarter for the last. I think I'm starting my 19th year now on that.

10:28 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely, absolutely. So what I wanted to ask you now is what I like to call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

10:42 – Ahmie Baum

Yeah, it's a concept called unique ability. In other words, there are things in life that we're good at, there are things in life we are very good at, and there are things in life we are excellent at. But none of those are unique abilities. Unique ability is what are you passionate about. What would you do when you look at all the activities and all the things that you do in your life, what are those things that energize you as you go?

What are the things that you would do for free if nobody would pay you for it? It is not an easy concept to get your hands around, but there's an easy way to figure it out. And that is, it's clear what isn't your unique ability. So you keep whittling it down. Well, I don't like to do this. I don't like to do this. I don't like to do this. Oh, all of a sudden you get to this place where you are in your unique ability.

And so if I had to, my nugget is to get people to realize that there is something that they are really passionate about that they love to do, that energizes them, that keeps them going, that never, they get tired of doing, and being involved with for it. And mine is helping people. I just love to help people reframe. You can hear some of the things that we've talked about in the last few minutes, you know, taking a look at something that, well, I can't be non-negotiable. Well, wait a minute, you've been non-negotiable.

It's not that you can't. We just need to. I like to say my unique ability is knowing which screw to turn and how much you know for. So that would be one and then the other one for business owners is learning to be inconsequential. Most business owners are control freaks, myself included. And you got to really, you're going to do everything because you do it better than anybody. Well, first of all, that's not true. If you do what you love to do and you're passionate about that, you will do better. But if you can become inconsequential, meaning that the entire business doesn't revolve around you, that makes your business that much more valuable.

Remember, you're going to ultimately leave your business. And if you're the center of the wheel, then the Business isn't going to be there to support the rest, whoever that potential buyer would be. So those would be my two become inconsequential, learn how to delegate, stay in that unique ability area, try to find out what that unique ability is, and then live your life towards those ways.

13:11 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Well, I definitely appreciate that, Ami. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping for different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, I mean, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:24 – Ahmie Baum

It's vision. I think CEOs have to be able to have a vision that other people can find a way to become their best selves. So it's having a vision that empowers other people to be their best version of themselves. You know, if you can do that as a CEO, you're going to build a phenomenon organization, whether that's in the profit world or the nonprofit world, whether it's in your family.

I think fathers and mothers or CEOs, need to create this vision and empower the children to be able to be their best selves out there. Recognizing, you know, I love the thing, you know, God has. You know, there's my plan, which is a straight line, and then there's God's plan. It's got all the dips and valleys to it. I mean, but that to me is what I, a great CEO, a great leader, do, is it has a vision, but empowers the people who work with them to become their best selves.

14:33 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Ami, truly appreciate that definition and of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get a hold of you and find out about all the things you and your.

14:48 – Ahmie Baum

Teamwork at a very early age. I think I was 14 at the time. It said if you can help enough people get what they want, you'll get everything that you want. And that's what we're really about. We come into relationships with all our expertise, with all our value. But we start with a blank sheet of paper, which is your canvas. So if you will tell us where you would like to go, we will help you get there.

That's what we do at Interchange Capital Partners. You can reach us by going to our website, www.InterchangeCP.com and you can contact us from there. Otherwise, you can reach me at ahmiebaum@interchangecp.com so either by the website or by email. You know, website or by email. Get ahold of me and would love to further the conversation with those who recognize what they've built and they're at that place in their life where they want to start to unlock that lifetime of work.

16:04 – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely love that. And of course, we're going to make the information available in the show notes as well too so that everybody can get ahold of Ahmie and his team. Thank you so much for unlocking that and us. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:15 – Ahmie Baum

Thank you for having me. My pleasure.

[00:16:17.34] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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