Hey, guys.

My name's Matthew Grahn if we haven't met. I'm with SC3F Wealth Management. And I thought I would do this video today to just go over a couple things fairly briefly.

Number one, just tell you a little bit about myself and my practice. And then secondly, I just wanted to describe what it might look like if a family sits down with me, but they just want to kind of kick the tires, and neither one of us are really sure if we're a good fit for each other to work together. But we at least want to kick the tires and see if there might be some chemistry there.

So, first of all, a little bit about myself. I married my beautiful wife, Joslyn, in 2009. We dated for four years and change. She told me if we dated for five years, she was going to find someone else.

So, pulled the trigger and we have since had a good marriage and grown our family. So, we have three beautiful children, Lincoln, Adeline, and Callie May. And we have a mini golden doodle, Gunner. So, we feel very blessed with our family.

And then just a little bit about my practice. I got into our industry in 2005 with a firm called A.G. Edwards. And that was in St. Louis. I spent eight years in Los Angeles before moving back to Illinois in late 2019. While in Los Angeles, I consulted hundreds of financial advisors, and I also managed a few offices for Wells Fargo advisors. And a lot of that experience in that time of my life is where I incorporate things in my practice today, whether it was things that I taught on the consulting side or things I learned in my eight years out there.

So, my practice, there is a focus on having fewer clients than average so that I can spend more time per client. So a lot of my clientele are people or families that have more complex needs. A lot of times, business owners, or high-income families, or high-asset families where maybe there's some tax issues, maybe there's some estate issues, and just some complexities that they need a little guidance figuring out throughout each year.

So that's kind of the crux of my practice. And then I wanted to kind of walk through, like I said, what does that first meeting look like when I sit down with a family who just wants to kick the tire?

So, a lot of times when we do that, I think by default, there should probably be an assumption that we're not going to disclose personal financial numbers in that first meeting. Because we don't want any anxiety, right, from coming to that first meeting. Let's just get to know each other, see if we might be a good fit. And if we both agree that we are, then we can get into numbers on the second meeting.

So for that first meeting, I'm probably going to ask some general questions such as where do you see yourself 5, 10, 20 years from now and kind of some longer term goals, and try to get to know you a little bit. And then that family might ask me, and I might share with them our investment models, how we manage money, and also our planning process. So, what does it look like when we take a family from what are they spending, what are they saving, what financial goals do they have down the road, and how might we use our process to package that all together and create a plan? And I think lastly, what do we do with that plan on a go-forward basis and how do I work with clients on a go-forward basis?

So, if we decide to work together, we create that initial plan, and then we're just going to adapt

and evolve that plan every year. Hopefully for the rest of that client's life.

So, life happens, right? People get married, they have kids. We have tragedy, we lose family members. And it might change a family's financial scenario.

So, every year as life happens, we're going to go back to the plan, we're going to change it, we're going to update it, and rebuild that confidence throughout the year every year that there's a solid plan in place that is being updated as we work together. And that's kind of the process that I use with clients.

So, I hope this video was helpful. And thanks for listening. Reach out to my office if you'd like to set up a time to meet.

Thank you.