BIRD WILLIAMS: You're listening to Bird Means Business Episode 93. 

Hi there! Welcome to the show. Thank you for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast. I am your host, Bird Williams. And this week is National Save for Retirement Week. I know it's a little random, right? I'm not sure who came up with all of these national holidays, but we're going to just go with it because retirement is a subject that entrepreneurs need to be thinking about too. So let's talk about it. 

Retirement and entrepreneurship. It's going to look a lot different than in corporate America. Most companies will provide some kind of 401k program and maybe even match it. Well, as an entrepreneur, you actually need to set that up for yourself. And so today I have the incredible Helen Ngo on the show. She's actually been on the show before in Episode 27. We have a money talk. And it is a fan favorite. So if you haven't checked out Episode 27, you want to make sure you do that. Well, Helens is on this show again to talk about retirement and entrepreneurship. 

First, let me tell you a little bit about Helen. Helen is my financial planner. And we met in a really interesting way. I actually was listening to another podcast called Brown Ambition. Love that podcast. And one of the co-hosts, Mandy, was talking about her financial planner and how great she was. And she didn't say Helen's name, but she explained how to find a financial planner. There was this website, and I went through it. And I looked through all the different financial planners, and I remember feeling so overwhelmed with who to choose. And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna go with Helen Ngo because my mom's name is Helen. And there we go. 

Also, she had a really great bio and she spoke to specific points of expertise, like with entrepreneurship. So I connect with Helen. She was in Houston at a conference, I believe, and I was super pregnant, and we met and we just hit it off. That was years ago and now I consider her a friend. 

Now let me tell you a little bit more about her professionally. Helen Ngo is the CEO and founder of Capital Benchmark Partners. She has over a decade of experience in investment management and running her own financial planning firm. She's unlocked the key to financial freedom that most people get wrong. So she's an expert in personal finance and helping women create more wealth for themselves. And she's often sought after to speak at women's leadership conferences, universities, and Fortune 500 companies. Yeah. Also, her insights have been featured internationally in well-known publications like CNBC and Forbes. Need I say more? Like I told you, she is an incredible person. I'm excited for you to get to know a little bit more about her in this episode. Let's dive in. 

Helen Ngo, I am so glad to have you on the podcast. Again. Thank you so much for being here.

HELEN NGO: Thank you for having me for round two. It's an honor. It's an honor. Truly.

BIRD: This is gonna be so fun. I want you to start off for any listeners who don't know you well, who haven't already listened to our money talk episode in Episode 27. Which, by the way, I got so much great feedback from. People love that episode. So thank you. I want you to share a little bit about how you got into financial planning and kind of what you do.

HELEN: Sure, sure. So I've been in the finance industry since 2008 since the Great Recession. I started out as a stockbroker. And I did that for five to six years. I had always been interested in personal finance and money management. At the time, I didn't think that I would be a business owner. 

Right now I have two businesses. I have capital benchmark partners, which is my investment management firm and personal financial planning practice. So we work a lot with small business owners, a lot of solo entrepreneurs, and smaller partnerships, and working with them to determine what their retirement plan should be, how to pay for their kids' education, how to pay off debt, all of that cohesively together. And also help our clients literally make investment decisions and manage their assets there. And then I have a second business where I do a lot of speaking engagements and business coaching for those in the creative online marketing space.

BIRD: I love it. And I've already mentioned in the intro that I am a client of yours, that you are my financial planner. I know that I've recommended you to so many people. I don't want to mention their names. I know that I've had friends who are working with you which is amazing. And I just always tell people that you are just so to the point. Like there's no fluff and I love that because it's like let's not waste any time. Let's just get to it. And also I'll just share that Terry and I, my husband and I, we had a big financial decision coming up and it was Helen that we went to say like you, "Hey, we're going to come into this big sum of money. How should we use it? Where should we allocate it?" And having someone like you to help guide that decision is so important because we could totally screw that up. So I just wanted to share how awesome you are and how grateful I am. 

HELEN: Well, thank you. I think, especially if you're married, and it feels more like couples counseling because I try to defuse the conversation because you'd get emotionally tied up. You know, as husband and wife in the conversation, you're not really seeing the big, like, what is your end result with the money you're trying to ... What are you really trying to do with your money at the end of the day, and coming together? It's really all a philosophical thing between you and your spouse. So that's what I try to do.

BIRD: I love that you brought that up because I know when we went through premarital counseling, we learned that the number one cause for divorce was money.

HELEN: Money. Yeah. 

BIRD: It's so funny. Typically, there's a spender and they're the saver. And I definitely am the saver in our relationship. So I can see how coming into a big sum of money, what he might want to do with the money, what I might want to do with the money, can be very personal. But then when we come to someone like you who's much more neutral, and like, let's think about your vision and your goals, it's much better to navigate that.

HELEN: Yeah, what is the bigger picture you're trying to do jointly together as a couple? I always view every couple or every individual household as just one unit instead of Oh, this is Ashley's money, and this is Terry's money. It doesn't work that way in a marriage.

BIRD: Ooh, I could not agree more. I love that. This is a National Save for Retirement Week, which by the way, these national weeks just crack me. Like when did we come up with these? Who's in charge of validating them? 

HELEN: I have no idea. I didn't even know until you brought it up. I was like, really? I'm in the business and I don't even know about this week.

BIRD: Well, it's National Save for Retirement Week. And it made me think like, this is a topic that is not really top of mind for most entrepreneurs, right? People don't start a business and think, ooh, let me make sure I can start saving for retirement right away. You know the first thing they're thinking about is how do I make money with this business? How do I manage all the things I'm trying to do? But I know that saving for retirement is so, so crucial. So I want you to kind of talk about what that could look like, and what are some dangers of not prioritizing this as an entrepreneur.

HELEN: I'll start with my own personal journey because I think your listeners especially can relate to this. When I first started my business back in 2013, I left corporate America. I left a very comfortable salary, I had a 401k there too. And then I moved back in with my parents and borrowed money from them. I'm going to be honest with you, Ashley, like retirement, was not on my mind. What was on my mind was crap, how do I pay my bills? How can I get clients? How can I afford the technology for my business? That's what I was focused on. Retirement was like, it's not even a dream. It's like, what is retirement? You know, like, why? I'm not even there yet. 

But as your business grows, in terms of the number of people and how you want to structure it, and everything, and more importantly, the revenue that you're generating inside your business. Then you start changing your mindset from I'm hungry, I need to get clients to how can I build a business, which is your greatest retirement asset, actually, and thinking about it in such a way that it can feed towards one day when you do decide to stop working, or want to step back from your business and withdraw income from your business itself. So I'm at a stage right now where, and I'm gonna be honest with you, I didn't restart a 401k for my business and my team and even actually been able to save until probably year five into my business. The first five years, everything was reinvested back into the business and just to sustain my personal life. I had no savings, Ashley. I don't know if you can relate to that. 

BIRD: Yeah, absolutely. 

HELEN: It's like, literally feast or famine for the first five years. And finally, I was able to put away a thousand dollars here, two thousand dollars there. And then you get to a point where I'm maxing out my 401k now, and being able to build a more robust, not only personal but business savings, too. 

But in regards to retirement, I think the first thing that you need to think about is what does that look like to you? For me, personally, I don't ever see myself stop working. Because I like working. And I deal with a lot of clients who are in their 70s and 80s even, and they're still working because they're bored. It's not because they ran out of money, or will run out of money. It's because they want to stay mentally and socially stimulated. And that's how they stay healthy too. So for me, it is not in my personality to just sit at the beach and withdraw money from my accounts. That's not what I imagine. 

So when you're thinking about retirement, just using that word, and I think you should really think about the location of where you're going to be because that affects your taxes. Are you going to be in Florida where there's no state income tax or the state of Washington? Or do you want to live overseas where it's a lot cheaper to get health care? That's one thing that a lot of people don't think about, especially like people our age, Ashley, in their mid-30s, and even those in their 40s. But for those clients, I try to educate them. Look, one day you will be 65 or 70. I hope you live that long. And medical expenses are going to go up. We're not always going to be this young, healthy spring chicken all the time, and they do come up. 

As I get older, and I watch some of my friends who are in their 40s, they're having heart problems already, and they seem healthy on the outside. I don't know if you can relate to that, where you start seeing your friends kind of deteriorate. I know it sounds morbid, but my job is to help mitigate as much risk as possible for clients. And so think about long term like, okay, I think a lot of your clientele or audience, they're freshly into their business, maybe two to three years in at the longest. But when you get to that five-year mark, and you cross that bridge of okay, this is for real. This business is here to last. I would think about it in such a way like how can I build my business so that maybe, potentially, later on, I can bring on a partner or a junior person or somebody to take over the business or even potentially sell the business to where you can use it as income to sustain long term during your retirement years. Does that make sense?

BIRD: Oh, yeah, totally. And I love that you brought up the point that it's not realistic to think about it from the very beginning because you're going to be so focused on getting money in and being profitable and growing it to a place to where then it's like, okay, now this is something to consider. 

I share all the time like I even have my Prove It Plan course where it's like developing a business plan and all these things to think about. And I inevitably get the question like, what should I focus on? It's like a lot when it comes to running a business. And I say all of these things don't have to be done on day one. And one of those things is like saving for retirement. It's definitely something you want to think about. Because I don't know if you've ever seen a situation where someone was getting like to retirement age, and they didn't have anything because they were kind of in this space. Like you don't want to be in that situation. So it's something you do want to prioritize because I think it's one of those things that you don't think about, especially if you've been in a corporate environment because all of that is just happening in the background. Right? 

HELEN: That's right. 

BIRD: Same thing with insurance, right? Same thing with having to remember to pay estimated tax payments as a business owner. You didn't have to worry about any of that because it was being taken out of your check when you're in corporate America. 

HELEN: Correct. 

BIRD: So this was just one of those things. I guess I don't want it to surprise people. Like, oh, crap, I need to make sure that I take care of this. So have you seen that happen, where there's like ...

HELEN: All the time. All the time. I mean, statistically, most Americans don't have enough in retirement, even if they've worked in corporate America. It could be a systematic problem, but I think it's psychological too. Before we hit record, you and I are like, what do we want? I ask that question a lot for myself. And as a new mom, I can't even think what I want for dinner tonight, much less 30, 20 years from now. If somebody asked me like, oh, what are you doing for the weekend, Helen? I cannot tell you what my plans are for the weekend. How can I tell you what I want 20 years from now, what that looks like, you know? All we're focused on, especially if you're a parent, you just get so stuck on the day-to-day and trying to survive and stay clean.

BIRD: Keep your little humans alive.

HELEN: Yeah, it's like. You know, when I was single, it was so much easier to think long term, because I didn't have so many responsibilities to think about, and had time to think. But I do think it's important for you to pause, like you and I talked about before hopping on here. To pause and really think like, okay, when I am 50 years old, let's just say, what do I want my life to look like, ultimately? Long-term to really enjoy the accumulation of money that I've made in my lifetime, and then can relax. 

Some people they become philanthropic and they just do volunteer work. But at the end of the day, you have to think long-term of how you're going to pay for things because eventually, you're either going to quit work or be forced out of work at some point, either because of old age or some medical issue. It's really inevitable. And I've seen it with my older clients too where they're just forced out of work or laid off because of age. 

So again, it's very hard to think about, but you have to pause and really think about it. And don't, I'm going to go back to your original point of not feeling guilty, especially we just came from corporate America or you work for somebody and this is your first business and just starting out. Do not feel guilty about being unable to save. It's so normal. A lot of people don't even talk about that because they feel so much shame that they are not putting enough away like they were before. You know, like, if you worked in corporate America like I did, I had matching and all that stuff. Like, I have $0 left at the end of the day for my business to even match for myself.

BIRD: It's so normal. Yeah, it's important to talk about that. I think sometimes people aren't so transparent about numbers. And so no one knows, you know. Everyone's just thinking, oh, man, am I doing so great? It's like, no. It can be tricky in those early years, for sure, as you're trying to really build things up and grow your brand. But then like you're saying, once you hit a certain point, whether that's like five years like you mentioned, you're gonna start automatically thinking different. And so that's what I love, that we're already having these conversations so that, as you're approaching that time frame their mind is already there.

HELEN: I'm glad you mentioned that, too, because you are building a business. So I want to change that phrasing to you are building an asset. Your business is an asset to you, right? It's part of your net worth statement, on top of your checking account, your savings account. If you have an IRA or your car, your house, all of those are assets. You really should think about your business building as building personal wealth for yourself. Because eventually, it can, in itself become a quote-unquote, passive income stream if you structure it, right. And that's where I'm at right now in my business. I'm not at that feast or famine state anymore, but I'm at how can I economically benefit from this longer term and build it structurally so I'm not like sending invoices and all this administrative stuff that I have to worry about. And really build a machine that I can one day just be on the board and collect dividends from it.

BIRD: Right. Ooh, I love that you're thinking like that. It's funny, because today is the day that episode 91 drops, and I'm with Iffe Ibekwe. And we're talking about wills and trusts, and we're talking about building wealth. And she talks about the exact same thing, how you should think about your business as it adds a method to building wealth. And so it's just so perfect because that's when this episode airs, it'll be two weeks ago that one came out. So I love that you brought that up. 

I do want to ask like for anyone who's like starting to think about this, are there any tax strategies for retirement savings for entrepreneurs? Is there anything we should think about tax-wise?

HELEN: Oh! I feel like this needs to be a subset episode. How technical do you want me to get? The answer to your original question is yes. There are huge tax-saving strategies as a business owner when it comes to retirement planning, and I can get highly technical in it. So when you say tax-saving strategies, are you talking about like for the benefit of the owner, I'm assuming? 

BIRD: Yes, yes. 

HELEN: Absolutely. So I'm going to get a little bit technical here. Because, again, it's hard to think about, like, oh, my God, how can I start my own retirement account for the business? I guess the best way to think about it is, especially if you're a solo entrepreneur, I'm gonna use you, for example, for Bird Williams Consulting, right? Let's just say, I'm just throwing the numbers out there. I don't really know what Ashley's numbers are. But let's just say you're making one hundred thousand dollars. And your profit is going to be fifty grand, and you're trying to reduce that profit because you got to pay taxes on that profit. So instead, if you want to reduce that, you start your own, for example, solo 401k, for yourself, as the employer and only employee in your business, and you're going to dump potentially twenty thousand dollars in there. Now your profit went down to thirty thousand instead of fifty. That's a huge amount of taxable income. So there's so many different types of retirement plans that you can implement for your business to reduce your tax liability as much as possible.

BIRD: So in that situation, if you have employees, or let's say I had either an employee, like a part-time employee or an independent contractor. Would I have to put them on the same plan, or is that not the case?

HELEN: The employee, yes. Contractors, no, because they're their own entity. 

BIRD: Got it. 

HELEN: So again, as you are building your business, and really thinking about it as an asset to yourself. And you're starting to build out your team, but you have to keep in mind that you are in charge, and you have the power of economically changing somebody's lives, right? When you hire somebody on your team, whether that's a new assistant or another consultant, like yourself, Ashley, and you start a 401k. I'm just going to use that as an example, because everybody's familiar with a 401 K, or at least have heard of it. It is golden handcuffs for them. Very few small businesses implement a retirement plan benefit for their employees. So the fact that you are able to offer any type of retirement plan on top of any health plan for them, they will more than likely stay with you and be loyal to you because you offer a benefit besides a salary.

BIRD: Right. 

HELEN: It makes the relationship quote-unquote, stickier. Does that make sense? And that's why a lot of larger companies do it all the time because it helps your employee retention.

BIRD: Yeah. And that's especially important. Now I know we've talked about this, and I've talked to a lot of my clients about this, the whole hiring issue right now. It is so hard to find good people and then to retain them. And one of the things I was reading about it is what you're talking about, is offering benefits, is, of course, higher pay. And so I love that you point that out because it is something that's very important. And also you're communicating to them that you care about them long-term, right? You're in here for the long term. You're not gonna get fired, you know, quick, cause you're a part of this team. And I think that really helps for morale, too.

HELEN: Yeah, my philosophy is, look, I want to from the very beginning, I've always wanted to hire people, I just didn't know when, where or how. But the culture I want to cultivate too, as a business builder, I want to take care of my people. You're helping them build their personal wealth. They might not look at it that way. But you can educate them when they first onboard with you. It's like, "Look, I'm offering this." I know a lot of small businesses can't even afford to start their own retirement plan. And a lot of small businesses will say, oh, I can't afford it. Well, no, you can afford it. You just are choosing not to allocate dollars to it. 

And I want to go back to the tax strategy question for you, too. Let's just say you have an employee who's making fifty thousand dollars, right, and you're paying them fifty thousand dollars a year W-2 income. And then you want to give them a raise, or a bonus because you had a banner year in revenue with your business. Instead of having payroll taxes, which are Social Security and Medicare, on that payroll tax for that employee, you can just dump some money in a profit-sharing account for the employee. And it's just a business expense. There's no taxes for that. So instead of bonusing them ten thousand where you have to pay payroll taxes, that entire ten thousand will just be straight ten thousand not plus taxes.

BIRD: Right. 

HELEN: You see what I'm saying? 

BIRD: I didn't even know about that. That's interesting. And so then the employee would be able to pull it out of that profit-sharing vehicle. 

HELEN: It becomes part of their retirement plan for themselves. Yeah, so it's a cost to the business and expenses. But if you're going to bonus somebody, or provide them with additional compensation, quote-unquote, from a tax planning perspective. If you're trying to mitigate and lower your tax liability as much as possible, instead of paying payroll taxes, by paying them an extra salary bonus, just put it in their retirement account instead, and say, this is profit sharing and all of it is expensed and you don't pay additional taxes on it. Because it's not considered income, it's considered a benefit.

BIRD: I see. 

HELEN: Does that make sense? 

BIRD: That totally makes sense. That's really great to know. And it's really another reason why it's so important to work with professionals like yourself. So anyone who's listening, I'll definitely let Helen shout out ways to connect with her toward the end, but you can't navigate this all on your own. As an entrepreneur, let's say you're a photographer, you need to be focusing on photography, not on how to figure out, you know, where to allocate the funds, like you get with a tax or financial planning expert. You have them tell you what to do, and you know that your money is gonna go much further, and it's gonna be much more efficient. And so I just wanted to kind of mention that again.

HELEN: Yeah, I think a lot of what they teach you in, I don't want to say business school, but a lot of the online courses I've seen out there, these business coaches out there. What they're teaching is like how to pay your employees. And they stop at the wages, but they don't go above and beyond like, what types of benefits should you offer so that you can strategically lower your taxes too, right? That's where hiring not just me, but like a CPA and a bookkeeper makes a lot of sense. So you can look at the whole big picture, and they can break it down for you. Like, look, if you pay an employee this much, this is how much taxes you're going to pay. A lot of people don't realize, or a lot of business owners don't realize what payroll taxes are. And just because you pay somebody or made a fifty thousand dollar offer as a salary. Guess what? It's fifty-five thousand dollars as a cost to you as a business owner, because there's something called payroll taxes. 

BIRD: Oh, yes. That is something to definitely think about, because I get those from my CPA regularly, like, oh, it's payroll tax time. 

HELEN: That's why a lot of people or a lot of CPAs might advise you as a new business owner to just hire contractors, because you're not responsible for their taxes. But at the end of the day, like with contractors, the downside to that is you can't control their hours. You can't really say to them, oh, come into the office at seven thirty to four. That's illegal, by the way.

BIRD: And there's those questions that the IRS asks like, are they having to use your equipment? Are they gonna come to your place of business? And so you have to make sure because I actually had a friend who, he didn't mean to do this, but he was improperly classifying his employees as contractors when they were actually employees. And long story short one of his employees left the business amicably, there was nothing wrong. But he went in later and filed unemployment, and it triggered an audit. And so they went back and they said, oh, he should have been an employee because of how he was working in your business. And so now you have to pay back taxes, not only for him, but for all the other employees and contractors that were in the business. And I mean, it shut his business down. So it's just so important to you know, again, hire people who know what they're talking about, and know what they're doing so that you can avoid those situations. Because again, he didn't mean to do that. And he didn't know he was improperly doing it. And it cost him his business. So it's just something to really think about.

HELEN: Yeah, IRS and following the law is extremely important as a business owner. And I always tell my clients and coach them like, look. The IRS is the last person you want to mess with, right? They're probably listening to this recording right now.

BIRD: Right. You know what? They're gonna get their money, whether they have to go into your bank account and get it, they're going to get it. So you might as well just face it.

HELEN: Yeah, I think in one of your episodes, I don't know which number it is. I think you mentioned about building your money team and how important it is to build all of your financial relationships with professionals, because they're the ones making sure you're compliant with the law. So the last thing you want, kind of like what your friend had happened to him. Like it just totally shut him down. Like, that sucks.

BIRD: Yes! Yes, your money team is so crucial. Your CPA, your attorney, your financial planner. It's just so important. I think that's Episode 2. Actually, it's something I talked about in the very beginning. I personally learned those lessons the hard way. And so I was like, I'm gonna make sure that I share about this from the get go because I don't want entrepreneurs making the same mistakes, right? I tell people all the time, you don't have to learn from going through it yourself. You can learn from other people. So take this wisdom and make better decisions to set you up and help you save time and money and energy. That's so important now, for sure. 

Now, what are some of the steps that a small business owner should take if they want to start saving for retirement? If they're new to the game, what would you tell them to prioritize first? Or are there any steps to kind of getting there?

HELEN: There are. First of all, as a small business owner, one thing that you have to remember is your business, especially if you're a full time business owner, and this is your income. This is your bread and butter. It's the ultimate cash flow generator for either your household or just yourself as an individual. So I would take it from, again, reflecting back on how much do I spend? What is my current personal budget? And project out what that might look like, when 15, 20 years from now if you decide to step back, okay. And that will help you determine how much you actually need to put into towards that retirement savings bucket. 

The second step is to evaluate your current tax situation, right? Because that's a huge component of it is like, okay, I owe a lot in taxes, or I'm making a lot of money, and I'm paying the IRS a ton of money. What type of retirement plan, whether it's a 401k, a SEP IRA, or whatever, do I need to implement for my business to help lower that tax liability as much as possible? That would be more of a short term, every single year question that you need to ask yourself. 

But the third question for yourself that you need to ask is, with my current cash flow, are there any potential investments in the near future, in the next one to three years, that I will actually need this cash to re-infuse back into my business, that can't be towards retirement savings? That might be for hiring somebody or equipment or whatever type of business, if you carry inventory. And just really thinking about the long run. 

But definitely that the cash flow evaluation is huge first. I want you to be realistic in going back to okay, do not feel guilty if you aren't able to save yet. Like I would rather you invest back into your business and view it as a retirement asset itself, than worry about in the short term, putting your own cash flow away into it. Because eventually you'll get there, it just might not be appropriate now because you have to reinvest so much back into your business. 

BIRD: Let's say someone had, it's what October right now, we're getting to the end of the year. I know so many people are trying to think of like, maybe I have this extra you don't have this extra cash. If I don't use it, I'm going to be paying the IRS more money. And you said that you'd rather than reinvest it back in the business. And have you ever heard of that concept of profit first? Where's like pay yourself first? 

HELEN: Yeah. 

BIRD: How would you think about that? Should you take a certain amount or a certain amount that you just need? Or would you say reinvest it all back into your business?  And I know that it kind of depends on the specific situation and the person. But what would be your thoughts there?

HELEN: That profit first concept is from a book, I believe. You have to take some of that with a grain of salt and I know you don't like this answer because it's not, it really just depends on your situation. Yes, you should pay yourself first, but from a tax strategic manner. So if I want to pay myself first, I'm not going to take profits from the business. I'll probably just increase my salary, Ashley, because if I increase my salary or bonus out some of my employees, then it's an expense to the business, and it'll help lower the profits in the business. But I'm still paying myself simultaneously, right? 

I think people look at profit first, or when they hear that phrase it's like, oh, I need to pay myself first and take care of myself. And it's not a self care thing. You have to think about it a little bit more objectively, of how it affects your bottom line, because I don't want you to pay yourself first, and pay yourself too much. And they get slapped with a huge tax bill at the end of the year, because you took too much profit. Profit is great, but you'd have to pay taxes on it.. So how can you strategically do it in such a way that it mitigates as much tax liability as possible? That's the way I approach it. So I like the profit first idea. Yes, pay yourself, but with a bit of an asterisk at the end.

BIRD: Yes, that's great, Helen. I love that approach. 1,000%. So I just want to say this, like, when I connected with Helen, this is literally what she did with us. I remember our first financial planning session, you sat down and you said, okay, what do y'all have? What are your assets, liabilities, etc.? And then you literally gave us a plan over the time that we worked together, what was like, this is how much you should put aside for your children's college funds. And that's when we only had one. Now we have two more. This is how much you should pay, put aside every single month for your retirement plan, and on and on. So it was again, me like putting our situation in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing to be able to tell me how to allocate things. So it's a lot simpler when you're doing it that way. I think it was a lot harder before. I was trying to figure out, okay, I think about retirement, let me think about what the inflation is going to be. And like, Is there a formula that I should plug in.  I was trying to like, figure it out myself. And I eventually was just like, you know what? This is not something that I'm good at. So I'm gonna give it over to Helen. And you were just amazing with that. And Terry, and I absolutely loved working with you. So I wanted to kind of give an example what it was like to work with you because it was just such a great experience.

HELEN: Ashley, at the end of the day, people just enjoy somebody telling them what to do, especially business owners, because we make executive decisions every single day. It's so refreshing to not have to be the primary decision maker for once on so many different things, right? And me being in finance, like I have my own bookkeeper, I have my own CPA, because I don't want to think about all of that stuff,

BIRD: Right, right. Ooh, yes. It's funny. Iffe Ibekwe, the estate planning attorney, said the same thing. She's like, I have a tax attorney, I have people who are helping. I'm an attorney, but I hire other attorneys to help me. So I try to have conversations like this, because I know when we first started off, this was nowhere in my mind, and I didn't have the knowledge at year five to start thinking more strategically about this. So even if there are people who are listening who aren't ready for it right now, I want them to at least know that it's coming and to be planning for that, because I just think it's so important. I want people to protect their wealth and to be able to like make it go further. And again, not make the same mistakes I did. So thank you so much for all that you shared.

HELEN: You're welcome. Yeah, I think part of wealth building, a lot of people think that the word wealth sounds so big and dreamy in itself. And I think a lot of people get stuck on oh, I need to save. Saving is just the mechanism. There's so many different ways to build wealth. And I think having a business, one, it is scary that 100% of your wealth is reliant on you now and it's not on some other corporation helping you out or employer. But that's the best part of it. Again, for five years, I couldn't put money away into my own retirement accounts, much less my own emergency savings. I was literally living paycheck at all times, in my operating account was all I had as personal and business. And that's what I see a lot with small business owners like that literally is all they have. It's for their business and personal life, too. It's like maybe one thousand or two thousand dollars at a time because everything comes in and then it all goes out. 

But, think about it long term as again, you're building an asset, either for you or your family, whatever. And one day you'll be able to generate enough income and think about okay, how can I build this business so that it generates so much money that I can actually play catch up on my quote-unquote retirement savings? Instead of saving a thousand dollars now, maybe later on when your business is more mature, you might be able to save ten thousand dollars a month instead of just a thousand. 

So I don't come from it from a scarcity standpoint anymore. I come from it as like, how can I make as much money as quickly as possible, so that I can double down on my goals later on?

BIRD: That's great. I love that. And I mean, like I said, you always just shoot it straight. That's what we're trying to do. And, again, I'm so inspired by you. I love what you do. And I'm so grateful to have you as a part of my money team. And with me and my family, and all the clarity you've provided and all of that. 

So I know that listeners who are tuning in want to be able to connect with you, want to be able to follow you, learn from you, maybe work with you. So can you share how best listeners can connect with you online?

HELEN: Yeah, so if you're thinking about hiring a team and wanting to talk through, you know how adding a retirement plan to your business will benefit, not just you, but for any new hires you have, or even just for yourself. It's totally fine as a small business owner. You can contact me at helen@capitalbenchmarkpartners.com or just go to my website for that. If you need more business coaching, then it's just helenngo.com. You can connect with me on there, too. So I'll send you all my information, Ashley. 

BIRD: Yeah, I'll be sure to add your website links, your social media handles in the show notes as well. So if you're listening, you can just scroll right down to the show notes and be able to connect with Helen right away. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show, friend. I'm so glad to have had you on.

HELEN: Thank you. I can talk about this all day long. 

BIRD: I know. I need to have you on more. I mean, I've already had you on twice. I think outside of Terry, you're the only one who's been on the podcast multiple times, I'm pretty sure. So you're special. 

HELEN: I feel honored.

BIRD: I love it. Well have a great rest of your day.

HELEN: Thank you.

BIRD: So good, right? Now, even if retirement isn't the number one priority in this phase of your business, you know, maybe you're just starting out or you haven't yet reached that revenue milestone Helen mentioned, I still want you to have it in the back of your mind so that when the time is right, you can be proactive instead of reactive. So that you can take advantage of those tax savings, and so that your future self will thank you. 

I'm so glad you tuned in to this episode. And I'm going to make sure to link all of Helen's contact information in the show notes so that you can connect with her, work with her, and follow her online. 

As always, thank you so much for tuning into Bird Means Business podcast. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts and follow us on Spotify. Also, be sure to tell every entrepreneur you know about this episode, so that they can start thinking about planning for retirement too. 

All right, talk to you next week.