IAM188- CEO Relieves Millennial Business Owners of Their Financial and Tax Planning Burdens

Cortlon Cofield is the Founder and C.E.O of Cofield Advisors. At Cofield Advisors, they help millennial business owners by taking the financial and tax planning burden off their shoulders so they can focus on growing their businesses!

• CEO Hack: Book- Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki
• CEO Nugget: Following a morning routine
• CEO Defined: Taking ownership of what's important to you and giving it to the world

Website: https://www.cofieldadvisors.com/

Free Money Master E-course: https://moneymaster.thinkific.com/courses/money-master-intro

Check out one of our favorite CEO Hack’s Audible. Get your free audiobook and check out more of our favorite CEO Hacks HERE. 

Transcription:

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

Intro 0:02

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.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Cortlon Cofield of Cofield Advisors. Cofield, it is awesome to have you on the show.

Cortlon Cofield 0:36

Thanks, Gresham. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure.

Gresham Harkless 0:38

No problem. Super excited to have you on and what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Cofield so you can hear a little bit more about him. And Cofield is the founder and CEO of Cofield Advisors. At Cofield Advisors, they help millennial business owners by taking the financial and tax planning burden off of their shoulders, so they take focus on growing their businesses. Cofield, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?

[restrict paid=”true”] 

Cortlon Cofield 1:00

Ready!

Gresham Harkless 1:00

Awesome. Let's do it. So first question I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Cortlon Cofield 1:07

Oh, yeah, great question. So I'm proud to start back from college. You know, had I gone to the University of Illinois, had an undergraduate and master's degree there, went straight into working in public accounting, then moved over to finance. And what I noticed in both my public accounting career and my finance career is that most of my employees, and supervisors kind of looked to me, like when it came to personal finance advice, and it really showed me the difference between a person's finances and personal finance knowledge, it did not correlate at all.

So, um, I was like to go to person for all like personal finance issues and topics, places of employment. So that led me to look around and see, you know, was anybody else that was serving, you know, the clients that are my co-workers, which were millennials, right? So I looked around the financial advising financial planning space, and I didn't, I didn't see anyone serving, you know, millennials versus, you know, older, wealthy people. So I wasn't noticed. I saw a key spot in the market and nobody was taken advantage of. And in June 2017, I decided to leave my last employer and start my own financial planning firm, where I focus explicitly on millennials.

Gresham Harkless 2:12

Awesome, awesome, awesome. He is definitely forward-thinking because millennials can be I'm a millennial. So sometimes that can be like a curse word around some people. But we are starting to come of age, and we're starting to, you know, be able to have purchasing power and be able to influence the world unlock greater weight, but it's great to see that you were ahead of the curve, it kind of sounds like because you saw an opportunity where it didn't sound like anybody else was fulfilling that gap.

Cortlon Cofield 2:33

Yeah. And I think the biggest misconception is like, the oldest millennial was actually 38 years old. So it's not like we're just, you know, these young 20-year-old whippersnappers, like, you know, always millennials is close to 40. And they have purchasing power. And more importantly, they have a lot of things going on in their life at one time, which can make their finances complicated.

Gresham Harkless 2:51

Yeah, absolutely. And they probably need to lean on a professional like yourself to kind of get that kind of squared away and cleared away. So I wanted to hear a little bit more on like, what you're doing to help serve these millennial clients, like what types of things are you doing? And what are some of your products and services?

Cortlon Cofield 3:04

Oh, great question. Great question. So at the beginning of 2018, I review my business and notice that the majority of my clients were business owners because as you can imagine, millennials are pushing the status quo of working for 40 years and retiring. So actually niche, my firm and only working with millennial business owners, because that is where I felt like I could provide the most value. And that's what seems like my favorite client. So to answer your question, I'm a CPA, by trade and I'm also a personal financial specialist, I get to be a tax planning and financial planning background.

So we have more clients with everything from their personal finances. So budgeting, saving, and not a debt to loan repayment, mortgage, you know, people buying the first home fast when I'm planning for the kids that volunteer their, you know, their job, or they had a previous employer. So that's what we do from a personal standpoint. But this is a business standpoint, we also do. The S&S ratio reviews, reviewing the income statement, helping them with tax planning, helping them set up, you know, their solo, or self-employed retirement accounts. So as you can imagine, handling personal finances is tough. Imagine how to do that and handle the business finances at the same time. So we kind of help take the burden off our client's shoulders, and so they can focus on their businesses.

Gresham Harkless 4:12

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love that aspect. Especially because you're juggling so many things as a business owner, especially, and especially a millennial business owner, that you know, you want to be able to kind of sounds like help and find the help from an expert and somebody that's actually able to help you kind of figure out all of those things and have you focus on what you do best.

Cortlon Cofield 4:30

Yeah, you said it perfectly, because it gives them more time right to focus on what they do best because as you may know, most small businesses fail within the first five years I did some extensive research and a huge reason for that is due to the business owner not understanding their financial metrics, you know, the understanding of their business is surviving or not understanding where they're spending too much money or whether or not allocating enough money. So you know, my goal was to help them succeed as well as give them the time that they have to focus on based on what actually brings in revenue, right, you don't need to be, you know, a business owner to sales, a product, but also be your own accountant. Right, not me hours of the day. So that's what we try to relieve the pressure from.

Gresham Harkless 5:09

Yeah, that makes sense. And a lot of times I watch Shark Tank all the time. And there are so many people that come up there. And the biggest thing that they don't know is their numbers. And they always say, make sure that you know your numbers. So it's great to say, you know, hey, even if you're not, as well as being an accountant, for your business, in addition to what it is that you're doing, you can be somebody they can call on.

Cortlon Cofield 5:26

One hundred percent

Gresham Harkless 5:27

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And you might have touched on this, but I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this is kind of like your differentiator, what you feel kind of sets you apart.

Cortlon Cofield 5:35

Yes, yeah. So um, you know, like to say like, you know, we call it our unique selling proposition, the value proposition, and it's being a one-stop shop, right? So you traditionally you had to go to a bookkeeper to help you with your bookkeeping, you had to go to your accountant to help you with your tax preparation and tax planning, you had to go to your financial advisor to handle any of your investments, and that's when it counts like that.

So what I strive to do is be a one-stop shop for everything so my clients you know, we do the bookkeeping, we do their tax planning, the tax preparation, and we also we are their investment advisor and that their financial planner all in one shot. As you can imagine, trying to play quarterback with those three different or four different people could be a lot of time period time-consuming in itself. But having all those people the in the same house doing the coordination themselves could just save you time and gives you comfort.

Gresham Harkless 6:23

Yeah, absolutely. Like you mentioned, like, you know, especially when you're filing your taxes, you need so many different pieces, and I have to call on you know, five different people to get all this information you definitely have, you know, one room for one person or one point person that you can contact and one organization. So that definitely helps out in like we mentioned, time is very valuable for everybody.

Cortlon Cofield 6:39

Yes, only that you can purchase right?

Gresham Harkless 6:41

There you go. It's so I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app a book or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Cortlon Cofield 6:53

Okay, um, well, let's start with the book. Just because this book is so reasonable that without this book, I probably when I started my firm, so of course, you've heard of it. But Rich Dad, Poor Dad was just like, the just a huge transformation book in my life by Robert Kiyosaki. Because what it did, you know, having the extensive college background that I had, again, I went to college for five years, got two degrees, it college teaches you how to be an employee, and there's nothing wrong with that the world needs employees. But getting out of that state of mind is one of the hardest things to do.

And that book made it not so hard and really gave me the courage to take the leap. Leap of faith and take a chance on me. Because if you think about aggression, I don't know if everybody thinks of it this way. But like, you know, if you started a business and it fails, like the worst case scenario is you go back to work, which you're already doing. Um, so it's pretty easy to see. But like, at that moment, it's it felt really nerve-wracking to kind of leave. It's our own business.

Gresham Harkless 7:54

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And, yeah, I love that book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And also, the thing that I remember that he cemented home in the book is that it's not just you know, when you're in college, it's been kind of ingrained in you since you were in elementary school, and probably even before that on how to, you know, be a good employee. And again, nothing wrong with that. But just understanding that there is another opportunity because a lot of times you don't see or hear that perspective.

Cortlon Cofield 8:17

Oh yeah! 100%. 100%. And so that just really was so profound to anybody. I mean, any kid, you know, I mentor, they read that book, and we'll talk about it just to get them. Because if you change your mindset early enough, then starting your own business, or just taking the chance yourself won't be that tough.

Gresham Harkless 8:32

Yeah, absolutely. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice. Or if you can happen to be a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Cortlon Cofield 8:42

Yeah, so this is probably one of the most profound things I've learned since being an entrepreneur. And that is, you know, winning, starting a morning routine, right? So it isn't saying that goes, if you win the first hour of the day, he won the day. And that simply means having a morning routine every single morning that gets you in the right mental, physical, and emotional mindset to take on the day in the best way possible. And it's research on this. And once I started doing this my life just completely shifted for the better, I became more productive, and I got more things done. I always had a positive attitude every single day. So just coming up with a morning routine first hour of every single day is probably the most profound advice I have gotten as a business owner.

Gresham Harkless 9:27

Yeah, and I absolutely love that advice. Because a lot of times you know, if you don't start and have a kind of focus on getting your day started the right way it can quickly get away from you. You can start you know, listening to emails getting on social media, and all of a sudden it's 12 o'clock, and half the days are already gone. So making it a point and making sure to take care of that first hour as you mentioned, I think is phenomenal advice.

Cortlon Cofield 9:48

Yeah. And because the first thing that most people do is check their phone and that is literally the worst thing that you can do when you start your morning because then you're dealing with everybody else's winds and everybody else pulling you from one direction and on the other direction checking you're in checking your text message checking Instagram. So you can put in so many directions, you never get to get your mind right. So I said, taking that first hour to me, I meditate for a bit, I pray, I listen to one or two motivational videos, and I just have to physically stretch. And then by the time I opened my email, and check my phone, I'm in such a good mindset and nothing kind of knocked me off, my group.

Gresham Harkless 10:18

Absolutely. And I always say, you know, if I tried to vibrate higher at the very beginning of the day, that helps out increasing the probability that I'll have a really great day. So I definitely, you know, echo that. And now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, the definition of being a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So, Cofield, I wanted to ask you what being a CEO means to you.

Cortlon Cofield 10:37

Being a CEO, to me, means taking ownership of what is important to you and giving it to the world. So most people start their businesses because they're passionate about something, right? And that's great, but the ultimate thing that they're usually doing is providing is to kind of make the world a better place, whether it's your product or your service, or whatever. So I really think that you know, being a CEO means that, you know, you took what's important to you and made it real. And the goal of that was to make the world a better place. And that's my goal as an entrepreneur and CEO, and I hope that everybody's goal is to, you know, find what you can do every day that you love to do, and try to make the world a better place by doing that service or giving that product. So, yeah,

Gresham Harkless 11:23

Absolutely. And I love that definition, largely because it also brings home the truth that you know, no matter what place in the business or in the organization you are, you can do something to impact the world on a higher level. So if you have that mentality, have that perspective, then you can really, you know, make a tremendous influence upon the world.

Cortlon Cofield 11:39

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 11:41

Awesome. Well, Cofield, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out, what I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional, you can let our readers and our listeners know, and then how best of course, they can get a hold of you.

Cortlon Cofield 11:51

Yeah, um, so actually just developed the course, coming out tomorrow, January 1. So they can find that at www.moneymastercourse.com. It's really free. It's just it was a way for me to give back to the community because I get so many questions. And I answer the same question, so many times. I decided to make a course. So you know, it's about just like, you know, personal finance, of course, and to give away for free. So that I can answer those questions and kind of provide value to people who aren't necessarily my client. My little, my specific niche client. So that's the additional advice I want to get through to the listeners.

Gresham Harkless 12:27

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And what we'll do is we'll have those that link in the show notes just so that anybody can follow up with you. But obviously, I appreciate you for doing that. And obviously creating content to help out people that want to know more and want to empower themselves as well, too. And of course, I appreciate the time that you took today, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Cortlon Cofield 12:43

All right. Gresham, thanks for having me!

Outro 12:45

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.

[/restrict]