Balancing Optimal Benefits and Optimal Budgeting in a Small Business

Small business owners (read: under 100 employees according to the IRS)  typically have a lot on their plate, so the thought of setting up and managing a retirement plan for their employees is usually put on the back burner. The fact that retirement plans come with administration costs on the order of several thousand dollars or more also causes many small business owners to balk at implementing one in the workplace. Important things to consider are the tax advantages. Contributions made by employees to their 401(k) are typically deducted from the company’s taxable income and reduces the amount of payroll taxes the company has to pay upfront. Employer contributions are also tax deductible as a business expense. This allows the company to incentivize employee savings without a direct cash outflow. SECURE Act also provided for a tax credit to offset plan startup costs.

There are benefits to retirement plans for both employees and owners that go beyond the money they’ll save in taxes and for retirement: a well-structured retirement plan can be a great tool for both attracting and retaining great talent. 

In a recent interview with Jamie Van Cuyk of the Growing Your Team podcast, we discussed how small business owners can balance budgets and benefits. We’ve got the transcript below if you’d prefer to read rather than listen - enjoy!

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Introduction: As a small business owner, have you ever felt overwhelmed by the pressure of choosing the right hire or leading a team, or have you ever found yourself tolerating a bad hire because you fear trying and failing again as you repeat the hiring process? If so, you're not alone and you are in the right place. Welcome to the Growing Your Team podcast. The Growing Your Team Podcast teaches business owners like you to expand your unique business by teaching you to master the hiring and team management process. Hiring and managing a team does not have to be a challenge. You just have to learn to do it right, and the Growing Your Team Podcast teaches you how to become a confident leader who hires right every single time. Now let's jump into the show where each episode you will learn tips on how to identify what type of help you need on your team, how to source amazing candidates, how to conduct interviews that lead you to your idea team member, how to onboard successfully and how to lead every person in your business so you have a team of rock stars who you are happy to pay every single paycheck. So let's jump in and teach you how to hire like a pro. 

Jamie: Hello, Jamie Van Cuyk and welcome back to the Growing Your Team podcast. Today I have on guest Courtenay Shipley. Courtenay is the founder and Chief Planologist of Retirement Planology, a consulting and registered investment advisory firm for corporate-sponsored retirement plans with a wealth of experience in the retirement plan industry. Courtenay not only offers her clients expertise in investments and analysis, plan design and employee education, but she also helps them leverage their employee benefits in a way that supports their own business goals. She has worked with qualified retirement plans, developed strategies for third-party administrators, and conducted over 10,000 educational meetings. Courtenay holds various distinctions, including accredited investment fiduciary, chartered retirement plan specialist, certified plan fiduciary advisor and certified expert planning advisory. She is also the esteemed president of the Retirement Advisor Council and her outstanding contributions have earned her accolades such as Top Woman Advisor, NAPA Young Gun, and FT Top 401k advisor. 

As you might guess, Courtenay and I are talking all about retirement today. As a business owner, you probably don't want to work forever. There's some point you probably want to stop or there is some point that you should be planning on what's going to happen if you have to stop even if you don't see yourself ever fully retiring. And then there's also your team members. Most of them probably don't want to work forever and would like to retire. So we're talking about how you can support your retirement and how you can support your employees' retirement. As a small business owner, retirement plans is a benefit that often gets overlooked in small businesses because we're afraid of the costs, but Courtenay will help you see how providing this benefit might not be as expensive as you think and could actually have a great return on your investments because of your ability to retain team members and keep those team members on your staff long term. 

So let's jump into the conversation with Courtenay so you can learn all about how to plan for both your and your employees’ retirement as a small business owner. Hi Courtenay - thank you so much for joining us today on the Growing Your Team podcast. 

Courtenay: Hey, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here. 

Jamie: Yes, I'm so excited to have you. Before we get started, can you take a bit and tell us about yourself and your business? 

Courtenay: Absolutely. So my name is Courtenay Shipley. I work with retirement plans. Our company is called Retirement Planology and so we help small to medium-sized businesses make smart decisions when it comes to setting up and running employee retirement plans. And I would say those most often are 401k plans for those who haven't heard of employee retirement plans before. 

Jamie: Yes, it's always those exciting things that you think about those benefits that come along with corporate businesses and corporate jobs and you're like, can I afford to supply them to my team members? Should I, when's the right time? And it's always one of those things I say is you need to look into them as a small business and figure out when it's right for you because retention, all these things matter. Your team members want certain things for working and if they can't get them in a small business, they're going to go to a large business if that's where they get the benefits that matter to them. 

Courtenay: That is so true and people really appreciate benefits that are relevant to them and it's so interesting how many smaller businesses are coming to us saying, well, all of our new recruits are asking for our 401k plan and we need it in place yesterday because of that. 

Jamie: Yeah, it's actually really interesting that a sentence you just said, all the new recruits…I'm on the board for a nonprofit and one of the things that…we had quite a bit of turnover during the Covid time where people were moving away, deciding that they want to be closer to family and things and the jobs, they weren't jobs that could be done remotely, so if they were moving we had to refill, and as we were going to refill those jobs, a lot of the people were asking about retirement and they were young people. So people that are at the beginning of their career, so years and years and years and years away from retirement and they're like, there's this completely different shift in the new workforce that they really care about this benefit at a young age and at a younger age than previous generations. 

Courtenay: Absolutely. I think we have the Baby Boomer generation hammering on their kids to get involved in their retirement plan to thank for that, I really do, because it seems like we have a much easier time of having people enroll and really take control of their financial future when they're younger, and that did not always used to be the case. It used to be retirement, that's for old people, but now we're seeing that financial education is really important, people are asking for it and that the younger generations in the workforce right now, we've got what, four in the workforce right now? Four generations. It's the younger ones for sure who are like, oh, hey, I need to sign up for this because I was told as I was growing up that this was an important thing to do. 

Jamie: Yeah, well I think it's one of those things that's very visual for the younger generation because some of their parents are either at retirement age, past retirement age or getting close to that and they're hearing the conversations. They're seeing some of their parents that are working, not because they want to, but because they have to and they're sitting there and saying, how do I prevent that? How do I make it so I can retire when I want to retire versus feeling that I'm stuck working instead of traveling or enjoying life? 

Courtenay: Yeah, I think you hit it straight on the head there. We saw a shift years and years ago now where it used to be the defined benefit plan, so some sort of pension plan that the company provided…those have kind of gone the way of the dinosaur for a number of reasons, and it shifted over to this contributory system where you have to set up your own account and you have to put money in, work still sponsors the plan, and if work sponsors the plan, it turns out that employees are 13 times more likely to save in it than they are to go set something up on their own. 

So it is important from a business owner standpoint to offer that to your employees just for that reason alone. But what we've seen is now that you're responsible for saving for your own retirement, it's kind of shifted how people think about retirement in general, and we're starting to see that it's more and more important for companies to offer that benefit as a result. 

Jamie: Right, and I would assume, and we can probably get more into this, is I know from being a small business owner and one that really doesn't have employees yet, and we're not personally at a point where we're setting up these accounts or even need to set up these accounts for our team members as a business owner for myself, I'm just like, wow, saving for retirement just got really hard because of the fact that I'm not in a corporate company, the fact that where my income and stuff is, it knocks me out of certain plans, but not enough for other plans. And I'm thinking in my mind, I was like, by setting up these plans for your team members, then you get to take advantage of them as a business owner, as well. Right?

Courtenay: Yeah, you got it. And there's lots of different types of plans. The 401k is by far the most popular one that people know about, but there's also a simple IRA and it's pretty simple to set up. That's why it's got that name. There's also a number of states now who are requiring a retirement plan be set up, and they're setting up some sort of state-run IRA program. So I think you will see that this becomes a larger conversation as time goes on, a more common conversation with business owners of all sizes just as these mandates kick in, but also it helps them to take a look at where they stand, right? Profitability, how is the company doing? Do you want to reward your employees in that way? I think one thing you've mentioned before on this podcast is about compensation and how you structure that if you're offering benefits or if you don't offer benefits. And so that's one of the pieces of the puzzle when you're attracting the new talent in - is this is a really nice thing to dangle as a benefit, but also if you're doing a corporate match of some sort, if you've decided that you want to put some money in your own account as well as the owner, this is a great time to be selling on that point as well. 

Jamie: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, there's so many benefits about it and you did mention something that I think is super important. So before I get to my other talking point, I want to circle back to, that is that there's some states requiring certain things. So I always say if you're hiring your first employee, make sure you're speaking to some sort of lawyer or HR representative or somebody that can tell you what is required in your state once you have employees. And sometimes there's different levels. So sometimes one employee, there's different things you need if you have five employees, different things than 10 employees, and all those things differ per state. So make sure you know what your state rules are. And then also if you're hiring a remote employee in a different state, know that it's their state rules that matter and a lot of times trump your state rules, so it's where the person's located. So if you're hiring someone out of state, make sure you're doing your due diligence to understand what you need to provide those team members so you don't get in trouble down the road. 

Courtenay: Yeah, that's a great point. 

Jamie: Okay, so one of the things when it comes to setting up these plans that I think scares off a lot of business owners is cost. We always think of, in order to provide a benefit, there's a cost to me. So what does that look like? I know you said there's a bunch of different options out there, so there's probably a bunch of, well, it all depends, I'm assuming type answers, but ballpark roughly thing, what is the investment? Before we talk more about the reward, what is the investment of a business owner to offer these types of benefits to their team members? 

Courtenay: I don't think I've seen situations where business owners spend less than about $5,000. Now that is maybe constructed different ways. So let me start by saying that what the IRS has…the IRS has set up different options for these plans, and so they have different rules that go with each one and they're trying to encourage the business owner to help employees, and you also get to help yourself in the tax code by doing that, as well. So anything that you put in the plan from an employer standpoint is something that is tax deductible. So think about it that way. You also get a tax credit for setting up a new plan. So there's details on the IRS website about that, but a tax credit, of course, is worth more than a tax deduction as we know because that's money that comes right back. So that's a really nice new feature about setting up new retirement plans that just passed this past year. 

You should think about, too, if you go with the simple IRA, for example, that does require an employer contribution of some sort. You either have to give everybody 2% of their pay or you can match them up to 3%. Now with a 401k plan, you have more flexibility. You don't have to make an employer match, but you're probably going to want to for a number of reasons. One is that there's some non-discrimination testing that goes on that is a little tricky to pass if you don't put a company contribution in, but also you want the tax benefits. And so typically employers, smaller employers, have a tax problem and that's why they're trying to set these plans up to begin with. Not only is it for recruiting and retention, but it also is good for your own tax, your own tax applications. So that's something where you start with working with your accountant first and when they say, “Hey, it's probably a good time for you to start looking at these things,” that would be clue number one to start your Googling. 

And we know that answers are cheap, the questions are hard. That's where we come in. You can go to any financial advisor, but you want to work with one who is very well versed in retirement plans and how to construct them, because your business is going to grow and change over time and you don't want to get locked into something that costs a lot if you staff up quickly, or you want to leave yourself enough room and flexibility with these types of plans to make sure you don't blow your budget like you said before. Now you can work with someone like us, you can not work with someone like us. And as with anything, cost is only an issue in the absence of value. And so you might start off with just a starter plan, a plan out of the box if you will, and then you decide later that you've got different goals and you need some help in sorting out how to make the plan do what it's supposed to do now, and that's when you would definitely reach out to somebody like us, especially if your plan has been on autopilot for a while, it's grown, it's there, but you're not really sure that it's necessarily a strategic asset for your business, if that makes sense. So that's when you call in someone like us. Does that help? 

Jamie: Yeah. Yeah, I think that definitely helps. So when you say a minimum of $5,000, is that total or per employee? 

Courtenay: Oh no, that's probably total just an admin cost, an overhead really to absorb, especially with a 401k plan. Now a simple IRA will have less overhead, but you'll be giving it back in the form of a match or a contribution of some sort. 

Jamie: Yeah, so it could be one of those things. If you're thinking, if you're hiring your very first full-time employee and that employee salary is pretty low, you might think, oh my gosh, $5,000 is a lot. But once again, we're talking about retention, we're talking about the fact that you don't have to rehire. We're talking about the fact that you don't have to retrain and get someone up to speed again. So sometimes even though $5,000 might seem like a lot to get that first employee set up compared to their pay, we're talking about that long-term value, and then the more employees you have, the more that's spread out, that initial setup cost, or you're getting it set up and then maybe you're adding people to it and maybe eventually you're going to have to make changes as things move on. But you got it started. So we're talking about that long-term value. 

Courtenay: Not only that, but you may be getting a lot of it back in the form of a tax credit or a tax deduction for your business as well. So like I said, it's really important to start with your accountant and figure out how this is actually going to affect your bottom line and then you can work backwards from there. 

Jamie: Yes, yes, definitely. Okay, so not to get too technical, we don't want to get too technical in the weeds. I feel like there's some people, even when they go to set it up, they're like, just tell me what's best. I don't care. Just give me the numbers, ask me the questions that you need to know so that way you can tell me what's best. But can you just briefly describe what is the difference between a simple IRA and a 401k? 

Courtenay: Yep. A simple IRA is just what it sounds like. It's simple, but it's an IRA, so it's an individual retirement account, and so that is where everybody's going to set up their own account and you as the employer will fund what you need to fund in it. The limit for 2024 is $16,000, so that's the maximum participant contribution. So a person could save $16,000 for their retirement over the course of a year. Now a 401k plan, that is set up more like a group plan.

So everybody does have their own individual account, but it's wrapped up in a trust, so it has a tax ID, and that's what gives it its special tax perks. And with the 401k plan, the limit is just way higher. For 2024, it's $23,000 that a person can put into that plan, and if they're turning 50 or over the age of 50, they can put up $30,500 in. So it's got a much higher level for not only the employees to be able to put their own money in, but it has a lot of room for the employer matching or profit sharing contribution as well. So the overall contribution that can go into a 401k per person for 2024 is $69,000. So that's the $23,000 they put in plus whatever the employer puts in on their behalf. So for some people they're really looking to sock away money for retirement. 

Maybe they're older or they just haven't been a very good saver along the way. So again, it's going to come back to what kind of talent are you trying to attract into your business, and then what really makes sense for them from an employee benefit standpoint. Maybe they want to defer that higher amount or maybe you have been really profitable and you want to share some of your profits with your employees as a way to keep them engaged. And if that's the case, then maybe at the end of the year you decide on some sort of profit sharing contribution that goes into their retirement accounts. So it's a really nice tool that has a lot more features to it than just a simple IRA. The simple IRA is just straight up the two things I mentioned, employer contribution is either 2% or 3% match and it allows a person to put up to $16,000 in it, otherwise, 401k, you've got all these different things that you can do with it. 

You have different eligibility, different vesting schedules. So does a person earn ownership of the employer matching over time or did they get it all at once? So there's just so many more features and things you can do with a 401k plan to really suit your business and also who it is that you're attracting and retaining in it. 

Jamie: Right, okay. One of the things that came to my mind is I think back when I was in corporate, you had a different matching…not the vesting schedule, but a different matching percentage based on I think it was how long you've been at the company, I think certain levels of the company. Is that something you could still do? Let's say this employee, I'm matching at 3%. Can I match this employee at 6%?

Courtenay: With all of these questions, it's going to be…the answer is it depends, right? Depends on the situation. The larger the company, the easier it is to do a service-based match, which is what you just mentioned. I would say that you probably as a smaller employer want to keep it easy. 

You can think about some different features like that depending on what makes the most sense for your employees and then what you're trying to accomplish goal-wise and what your budget looks like from year to year. So a lot of our smaller to medium-sized companies will just say it's going to be a discretionary match or a discretionary profit sharing so they can make that decision later or that they'll pick something, but they're not locked into it. 

We've seen others who say you're getting 3% or you're getting a 4% match for reasons of getting out of the non-discrimination testing. We've seen others that have structured it to where they have different levels of employees who have very different jobs and they want to make sure that they reward the most valuable employees so they can slant some of the profit sharing contributions towards that group of very valuable employees. 

There's some leeway that you do have within plan design, but it's going to depend on a lot of different parameters. And what is okay with the IRS.

Jamie: Yeah, it's interesting that you said giving more funds or different things to the more valuable employees, and that's actually something I would sometimes challenge. I think we get into this mindset of some positions are more valuable than others, and I know some, obviously, positions we pay differently, but I always challenge people. I was like, but those other positions are valuable because those people that you see as the most valuable can't do their job if those other people are not there. So I think sometimes when we reward people on that level of, your position’s more valuable, so I'm going to give you more, it actually demoralizes the other positions. 

I remember being in a company where it was like the sales teams got all the credit. They got to go on the big expensive sales vacation, the annual sales meeting and everything that was in some tropical location. And myself in my position, we supported the sales team. Yes, they sold those contracts, but we executed the contracts and without us, a lot of those clients wouldn't have come back or the budgets wouldn't have been spent, but we got nothing from the company for that. It was like, your salesperson's going off on this big exotic trip and you get to stay in the office and do all the work. And it was just like why? It's some of those things we have to look about. It is when you reward people for certain value, how does that look to the other people that are supporting those people and making sure that those people can do their job? So that's just one of those things when that value-based compensation thing of rewarding people at different levels, just consider that, especially if you're in a small business, what does that look like? How do you make sure every person feels valued in their role and not that we're just valuing certain roles? 

Courtenay: Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point. And being able to have the ability to design things so that you do take advantage of situations like that or not is really important and really valuable when you look at the total compensation package. Yeah. 

Jamie: One of the things that you had mentioned that I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this correctly, is with a 401k, you said that you can give them more, like you share your profits at the end of the year. So is that something where we can say, okay, we guarantee a 2% match and then say, wow, at the end of the year we did fantastic, so we're going to bump it up to 3%. Is it retroactive for that previous year or is that kind of going towards the next year and things like that, which I guess there's two parts of that. 

Where does that apply? Future or past year? But then also I think I really liked that because a small business…sometimes we're like, my revenue might fluctuate. I only have a few team members, so when our revenue fluctuates, it impacts every role differently than in a large corporation. So I'm afraid to give 3%. I'm afraid to give 4%, because what if I am struggling to be able to afford that a few months down the road? 

Courtenay: Yes, that's such a good point. We have a client now that's a marketing firm and they guarantee a percentage throughout the year -  they're going to give everybody 3% and then at the end of the year, well pretty much two months before the end of the year, is really when they start looking at things and how their contracts are lining up and they say, okay, it looks like we're going to have X dollars in profit, so we are going to reserve this much to go back to reward our employees. 

And they do it two ways. They have a cash bonus that they give them, so they get some upfront like, hey, thank you, here's part of your profits for this year. And they also reward them in their retirement account as well with another profit sharing. So it's really nice because they can look and say, okay, we've got $20,000 or we have $50,000 or whatever, make up your numbers, but then they can allocate it based on what makes the most sense and they are not locked in, like you said.

Jamie: Yeah, I like that. That was something I never really realized that we could and do with some of those 401k plans and everything is kind of, give them that bonus as a part of it. 

Courtenay: Yes. But I will say that employees tend to appreciate cash in their hands a little bit more than they do in their retirement plans unless they really value the retirement. So again, back to that conversation of what your employees value and how do you structure their compensation as such, that's where the rubber meets the road. 

Jamie: Yeah, and I like that, that you could possibly do a combination of both. They'd say, here, you're going to get some cash in hand and here, because we know you guys value these plans, you participate in these plans, we see the effort that you are making to make sure you have funds for retirement, here's a little something to help you there, as well. And I think especially because as you said early on, pension plans are not a thing really anymore,, so it's like how does that company really help you get to where you're going to be able to comfortably retire and live the life you want when you're done working? 

Courtenay: Yes. 

Jamie: Okay. So we talked about offering these types of benefits and everything as a way, I think make your job attractive when people are searching, but how do they actually help you retain team members? 

Courtenay: I think it just goes back to what I was just talking about a minute ago. They're looking at their full benefits package and they can say, oh, that's a nice retirement plan that they're offering me. Also, they're less likely…so let's be real, the retirement plan is probably not going to be the thing that keeps somebody at your workplace, but it is going to be the nail in the coffin. So we had a group that they paid a hundred percent of their health insurance premiums, which we thought was, wow, that's so rich. But then they did zero for the 401k plan, and unfortunately those employees just did not understand the value of what they were receiving on the health insurance side. They're like, well, it's free, whatever. Okay, fine, but you're not giving me anything for retirement. It ended up being this really big negative and was cited in several people's exit interviews as they were leaving about, well, it was one more thing that showed the company doesn't care about me, which I thought was fascinating. 

So it's all about perception, right? Like I said, it's not going to be the thing that makes or breaks someone staying at your company per se, but it is part of the larger conversation of what's your culture and should I stick around for that? 

Jamie: Yeah, yeah. And I think that is important. If people are feeling that way, it's like, well, you set this up so I can contribute, but I'm not getting anything from you, but I know other companies contribute here. What's the point? It's like, I think there's companies out there that at certain levels they offer the health insurance plans and then it's like, well, you can add your family members, but we give you no discount for adding your family members, that part's all on you. And people are like, well, great. You gave me access to something that I have to pay a lot of money for. So what was even the point? Sometimes they think about it that way. 

So I think that is a really good point that you brought up. What is that perception? How do they feel like you actually care about them? Because just giving access to something…yeah, technically they can save for some on their own, which is always one of those things. It's like what you could save on your own is different than what you can save if a lot of times if your company set up these plans, but they can technically save for retirement on their own. It's when you give them and you show them the value and you contribute it and contribute to them, that makes a difference. And I do know there's been times where my husband, when he switched jobs, we reached a point where it's no longer just about the base pay, it's the total package. 

It's like, what is this job going to cost us? And looking at…I remember I think one job offer he got where the pay looked like it was a bump, but then factoring everything we would lose benefit-wise, it's like, oh no, no, no, it's actually a decrease in pay if you took that opportunity. So let's either negotiate or pass because what we're getting out of you working at the other company is more than what we'd be getting if you switched to this company. 

Courtenay: I love that. And we had a client who was recently acquired and working with the employees, which is part of what we do, is we're helping provide the retirement plan, but also the education that goes with it. So we're talking with the employees about their options on rolling over to the new plan and trying to get the information, and it came to light that the other company doesn't have anybody like us, so they're just kind of left calling the 800 number and hoping they get somebody who's pretty good and knowledgeable on the other end. 

And in some cases we've had five-, ten-year relationships with some of these employees, so that education piece, even though it doesn't seem like it might be a huge benefit, it really can be to employees, as well. So yes, you were talking about looking at two offers side by side and being able to itemize everything that's on there. So if you do have a retirement plan, just make sure it comes with a person that they can call and get that financial education because even though that may not be a line item of cost on their comparison report, it certainly does help them navigate those decisions and being able to figure out what fits into their budget, how much they should save for retirement, where they ought to invest it, all that good stuff too. So it's not just those benefits you see, but also the benefits that come along. 

Jamie: Yeah, it's like one of those things that's like, okay, well how much should I put away? I can put away this much, but how much should I be putting away? And I think sometimes if, for younger employees who have never really participated in these plans, it's like, ooh, you put money away, you might be putting a thousand dollars a month away, but it doesn't necessarily feel like a thousand dollars a month because the way it works with your taxable income and everything, not losing a thousand dollars from your paycheck just because you put a thousand dollars into your retirement plan. 

Courtenay: Yes, a hundred percent. And you know what? We are changing jobs a lot more nowadays. I think the average is like six jobs or six different workplaces in the lifetime right now. And what that means usually is that there's six different 401k plans that are floating out there that no one's ever rolled over. 

So that's another important thing, if you have worked at different places, to be able to consolidate and keep it front of mind…maybe at your current employer, that would be a good place to start. So you've got your beneficiary up to date and all that’s good, all that jazz. 

Jamie: Especially because some of them, if I'm remembering right, if you don't roll them over, then you end up having more charges. That past employer is like, I'm not paying the maintenance of this plan anymore. So you're stuck. 

Courtenay: They could. They're allowed, they're allowed to do that. 

Jamie: Yeah. So okay, before we go and start wrapping up today…we've talked a lot about our team members and setting them up for retirement success and everything and getting those plans. But as small business owners, a lot of times I think we forget about ourselves, especially if we're not at the point yet where we're setting these plans up. So let's just take a few minutes to talk about…you're the business owner and what we should be doing to set ourselves up for retirement success. 

Courtenay: Oh, man. Okay. So you have the value of your business. That's what you're building, that's what you are spending all your time on. Is that the widget you provide or the service you provide, or whatnot, that does have value to it and you need to think strategically about growing that business, and will you sell it someday? Will it be something that you hand off to someone else and continue to get a paycheck from? What does that look like? So that's number one, and I think that one gets the most focus. 

The second is… your retirement is coming and maybe someone's not going to want to pay as much as you think for that business that you have been growing over the years. And so it's really important to have that second piece and also get the tax benefits as you go along of the 401k or other type of corporate-sponsored tax-qualified plan, so you're going to get some good tax perks along the way. So it’s self-serving, but it's also altruistic in that you're providing a good benefit and a great place to work for your employees. So that would be the second part of it. 

And then the third is, are you going to do some other planning on your own outside of what you set up through your business? And that could be individual retirement accounts, that could be, I don't know, a rental property. That could be a patent that you have, that could be…so there's all kinds of different directions you can go with that. But those are the three main things. 

And then, of course, the last is Social Security. So we want to make sure that that's there in the future. Be vocal about that in your advocacy work. If you can call your local representative, tell 'em it's important. So Social Security is that last piece for when you're going to file for it. And there's a lot of different ages that go with it. There's some different parameters that go with it. Will you still be working? Will you not be working? And how much do you get to take? So having a thoughtful conversation with a financial advisor about wrapping all of these pieces together is a really good idea. 

Jamie: So, it's definitely…you should be working with someone and figuring that out. I think sometimes we're too busy running our businesses, starting our businesses, growing our businesses, that we're like, that's a conversation for next year. It's a conversation for next year. And next thing we know we're five years in, ten years in, we're like, oh my gosh, I haven't been having those conversations. What should I be doing? I'm behind now. 

And also the very first thing you brought up is kind of the value of your business. We have to remember that our business really doesn't have a whole lot of value if we are the only worker in our business because, what are you going to be selling off? Especially if you're service-based and you are providing the service, you don't have a lot of things to sell to somebody because it's been just you. So it's one of those things that if you want your business to be more valuable, you need to grow your business and grow your team so someone can take over because you step out. Not that your business goes away when you step out. 

Courtenay: Yes. So true. So true. 

Jamie: Yes. Alright, Courtenay, we have to start wrapping up for today. So tell everybody how they can get in touch with you. 

Courtenay: You can go out to our website at retirementplanetology.com - there's lots of great information on there. You can also book a call if you just want to have a quick conversation about your plan or if you're thinking about starting a new plan. 

Jamie: Sounds good. And of course that link will be over in the show notes for the episode on GrowingYourTeam.com. Alright, so my last question that I love to ask all my guests…we've all had leaders or managers that have stood out to us. Think of a leader or manager who has stood out to you and share one thing about them. 

Courtenay: This is a great one. So I had one leader that was just, unflappable, I think, is the best way to describe it. You could go and the house would be on fire and the roof is caving in and all the things. And he was so calm, he would just listen patiently. He would take it all in. He would pause, and in that pregnant pause you thought, oh no, what's going to happen? And then he would say, it's going to be okay, here's what we're going to do. And it was always that little bit of silence to let everything sink in and then the reassurance that the world is not going to end. And I just loved that and I try to remember that pause is so important sometimes just to let people get things off their chest, just to let it really sink in about how bad or not how bad it is before you respond. 

Jamie: Yeah, I think that's great taking that pause. It's also great when someone just will let you get everything off your chest and talk through it and not be like, okay, let's jump in and solve things right away. And it's like, we are emotional human beings and maybe sometimes we need to get that emotional, like, oh my God, the world is falling apart, here's what happened, I don't know what to do. And it's like taking that pause and then regroup and say, okay, let's move forward. But the conversations I've noticed are different when you let someone say everything that they need to say and then move forward versus immediately jumping in. 

So, well, thank you so much for sharing today, Courtenay. That is a great example, and thank you so much for joining us today on the Growing Your Team podcast. 

Courtenay: Oh, it's been…the pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much for having me.