Tax Planning for Business Owners: How Mark Miller Uses Smart Money Strategies to Build Legacy Wealth | Ep. 178

Mark Miller: 00:00:00

I learned the smart money way is the real right way to invest. Overall, it's light years ahead of really light years ahead of doing it any other way.

Intro/Outro: 00:00:13

But I am the world's biggest super fan.

Mark Miller: 00:00:15

You're like a super fan.

Intro/Outro: 00:00:17

Welcome to the Business Superfans podcast. We will discuss how establishing business superfans from customers, employees and business partners can elevate your success exponentially.

Learn why these advocates are a key factor to achieving excellence in the world of commerce. This is the Business Super Fans podcast with your host, Freddy D. Freddy, Freddy.

Freddy D: 00:00:43

Hey super fans.

Superstar Freddy D. Here in this episode 178, we're joined by Mark Miller, a leading expert in tax and wealth Strategy with nearly 40 years of experience guiding business owners, executives and and high net worth individuals.

He's a best selling author of Hilton wealth how to Invest like an American Dynasty where he breaks down the powerful strategies used by the Hilton Family and Fortune 500 companies.

Mark has been featured in over 200 major outlets including the New York Times, Money magazine and Fox News and was named a Presidential Businessman of the Year by President Mark George W. Bush as co founder of the Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors with Bradley J. Hilton, he empowers clients to build lasting legacies through smart dynasty level investing. Get ready for an insightful conversation packed with smart money strategies and legacy level wealth wisdom.

Freddy D: 00:01:51

Welcome Mark to the Business Superfans the Service Provider's Edge podcast. Great conversation that we had prior to us starting to record, so let's continue that conversation here on the show and welcome to the show.

Mark Miller: 00:02:03

Mark, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

Freddy D: 00:02:06

You're working with Hilton wealth but what was the road that got you working with that organization? What's the backstory and how did you get to where you are today?

Freddy D: 00:02:16

Great question.

Mark Miller: 00:02:17

I started right out of college. I worked for that small little company called American Express in the financial services industry. Industry.

Freddy D: 00:02:23

Never heard of them.

Mark Miller: 00:02:24

I've never heard of that company and just got my feet wet and really was just very passionate about the financial services business and went on to did some in the brokerage business and ultimately became a business financial consultant where I worked with lots of business owners over the years. I wrote some nationally published books in the 90s on saving money and investing.

Was on stage with Susie Orman and Dave Ramsey for a few years, did all sorts of things like that and then opened up my own firms in financial consulting.

And what happened in my career was I developed from the retail side like retail brokerage, what your listeners might think of like Fidelity, Vanguard or even of American Express. That's the retail side of the business.

And then I started making relationships with people that were on more of the wholesale side or what we call the institutional side. In my book, Hilton wealth, we call it the smart money.

The folks that tend to invest a lot better, a lot safer, cheaper, get better returns, have less volatility. Throughout those years, I met a lot of people. First and foremost was I became very close with the Hilton family.

And I am the manager of the Hilton family office now, which is some of the Hiltons and various other people also in that family office. They are excellent, really great and well known to be great tax mitigators. So we do a lot of tax planning and mitigation there.

But basically I just made this transition more onto the institutional side, kind of smart money side. Now we're Brad Hilton, who is the grandson of Conrad Hilton, my main partner.

Brad and I have a passion for getting some of these advanced concepts and teaching people that are a little more average investor.

You don't have to have 10 or $20 million, which is the barrier to entry into a family office and just teaching people about these concepts and giving them access, these concepts that people normally wouldn't have access to. And that's Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors, which I'm the CEO of.

Freddy D: 00:04:31

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Freddy D: 00:05:22

You heard about it right here on.

Freddy D: 00:05:23

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Freddy D: 00:05:55

Great backstory. And you're right because we don't learn financing in school.

We don't even learn how to balance A checkbook, which baffles me because I've traveled the world, and I'm sure you have, too. Other countries prepare people a little bit differently than we do.

And when somebody young, in their early 20s, really don't understand the importance of managing your finances, and you get all these credit cards thrown at you while you're in college, you're upside down, and you're not even thinking of investing because right now, all of a sudden, you got all this debt that you got to deal with.

Mark Miller: 00:06:31

Absolutely. And I wish there was more education like that. I think there are some schools that are getting a little better at that.

As a matter of fact, I was very surprised that my son's going to Georgia State right now. We're from the Atlanta area, and he's actually taking a class that's on personal finances.

And I didn't even know it, but unbeknownst to me, I was kind of happy that he was doing that. He's in business school, but he's asking me things and learning things. And I just wish more schools would do that and get people prepared.

Freddy D: 00:07:02

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:07:03

Because life comes at you and it's a locomotive, and if you're not prepared. When I was in my 20s, I was fortunate. I got into the computer industry in the early days, and I had a mentor that helped me with some stuff.

And so first thing I did was: 1980

And then I ended up getting some roommates, some of them from fellow workers at the office, because I was the guy that had the townhouse, and they would rent rooms out for me. But I had somebody helping me and giving me some advice.

Mark Miller: 00:07:34

Totally get it, and I think everybody needs that.

One of the things that we found is there's a lot of books out there that you can read from, but there's no substitute for, like, hands on, though, learning it firsthand. And you've probably been through it, too.

Even me being in the financial consulting business for so many years, I had to learn in those early years how to do it and how to do it right.

And like I said, I was very fortunate to make some acquaintances of some of the best investors in the world that were teaching me the right way to do it. And there is a right way to do it. I say you can do really well, and you can do pretty well on the retail side.

But when I say right way, I learned the smart money way is the real right way to invest that is light years ahead of doing it any other way.

Freddy D: 00:08:24

And I think what you guys do Is really help business owners, especially the SMBs of the world in professional services or trade services is really, okay, you're making money with your business, but what are you doing with that money? And how many businesses have you seen that are not until you start working with them, not planning for the future a lot.

Mark Miller: 00:08:46

And that's a common thing. We have a lot of people that come to us and they may have tax problems or whatever, or they have amassed some wealth, but you'd be surprised.

I'm often surprised if a company that generates a lot of cash flow, they've been so focused on the company as their main asset, they haven't diversified it outside of that. I think it's super important to do that.

And that's one of the things we teach folks and we walk through with them that, hey, it's great you have your business over here.

But we start, you have to get some hedge here because if something really happens to your business, then that's just like having one individual stock out there. And if that stock tanks, then you could be down 50 or 60 or 70% and it's almost impossible to get back.

Freddy D: 00:09:33

Yeah, I can completely relate. Back in the mid-80s, I bought two apartment buildings and I was doing. I had about 20 units out of those two apartment buildings.

So I was diversifying the money that I was making in technology space into some other assets, just like you're saying for investment purposes. Unfortunately, I didn't get the proper advice and I didn't protect myself, which is some of the things that you do.

And that's why I want to share this and pull myself vulnerable. But unfortunately there was a situation that took place that was not in my doing, but I was involved in it.

And it ended up losing all those properties because it was all in my name versus being properly protected, which is what some things that you do is with the assets is helping people, their financial investments protect them. So I'm sharing that because today that'd be worth probably at least a couple million because that's 40 some years ago.

But I had everything under my name, not even in an llc, because I didn't know any better and nobody told me any better.

Mark Miller: 00:10:37

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think one of the biggest things that we teach people about the smart money folks, for instance, we see the Forbes list and all of that and it seems all these high rollers and they're all taking these giant risks and all of that.

The reality is very rarely do you see somebody drop off those lists because most of their portfolios and all their Business assets, all their private equity stuff, everything is pretty battened down and pretty safe and secure, that they might have 50, 60% of their money in very secure things, but then they're maybe rolling the dice with maybe only 30% or 40%. You compare that to retail investors.

I see people that come to us all the time that have 90% of their money sitting in the stock market because the stock market's been running. Obviously, sooner or later that's going to end. And I have a feeling it's going to end very poorly the longer that it goes on. Not a feeling.

We just know that. And.

But I think it's first and foremost, if you focus like the smart money does, on safety first, if something horrifically goes wrong or the economy changes massively, or your business changes massively or whatever, then you're still not. You're not ruined. You still got a good foundation for your pyramid to maybe start rebuilding on.

But we've seen it time and time again, and I've seen people that have also come to us and already been through that where we've started helping them rebuild to try to make up for previous losses that they just didn't plan for.

Freddy D: 00:12:15

And it's a perfect segue for you to share a story how you took somebody that was messed up and helped rebuild them and they became one of your super fans that was in turn promoting the services and how you've transformed their life to all the people that they know, which in turn do more business and you can't buy that kind of pr.

Mark Miller: 00:12:35

Yeah, that is true.

I could probably tell you numerous stories, especially on the tax planning side of folks that came to us that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and they had no idea that they were basically just overpaying, that they didn't need to be paying that kind of money to Uncle Sam. And we could get into a back and forth about the people go, you got to pay your fair share and all that.

Then the question is, what's the definition of fair share? A lot of people bash wealthy people because, oh, they're doing all these different strategies and quote, they're not paying any taxes.

But they are because they're making so much money. They're creating jobs, they're making the economy go. Ultimately, they're paying taxes in different ways in their businesses.

But we've just had numerous people come to us that have been just sick about their taxes going up exponentially, which, that's how I got into tax planning originally too, where I was just paying so much in taxes. And my CPA was not doing anything for me. He kept talking about the great. He's the greatest CPA in the world.

But I said, if you are, then save me some money in my taxes. And he wasn't. And I ultimately fired him. And I had to go off on my own, find a tax attorney and then learn all this stuff myself.

And fortunately, over time, I got hooked up with the Hiltons too, which have incredible tax strategies. But I would say probably I could give you just numerous cases.

Freddy D: 00:14:02

Just share one story. Let's give something that people can sink into. This is where they were at. This is what you did. This is the outcome.

And now they're promoting you and providing introductions to other people that are in the same situation where they were at before you started working with.

Freddy D: 00:14:18

Absolutely.

Mark Miller: 00:14:18

I had a client that owned a very large construction company, and they were getting hit with massive taxes every year. Every time tax time would come along, the client would get sick to his stomach. Wouldn't even want to.

The main thing that he was doing was avoiding getting taxes done because he was two years behind on his taxes. That practically gave ulcers. And first year alone, we saved him about 700,000 on his taxes just the first year.

We're working now on getting him into the zero tax bracket, but we also started moving him into some of our advanced wealth planning. He's involved in some of our private equity offerings. We do a lot of things with the Hilton Financial Network.

We happen to be hooked up with some of the greatest producers in the country. So we do movies. We just did some movies with Mark Wahlberg. He got involved in some of those movies that have done extremely well for him.

We've also helped him restructure some of his business finances. Pretty good cfo, but there we brought a advanced CPA in that works with some of our family offices.

And we restructured all their books so there was much better reporting, which in essence, ultimately helped on his taxes also. So that's just one example. But we do that kind of thing, and that's a big number example. But we work with people that are paying $50,000 in taxes.

We work with people that are paying multi millions in taxes. We work with people that have portfolios of half a million. We work with people that have portfolios of 10 million.

But that's one example of just the type of things we do with our clients.

Freddy D: 00:15:56

So you've completely transformed that person into a superfan because now you put money back into their pocket, they can sleep a little bit better.

More importantly, they have a strategy in place that not only protects their investments, but basically maximizes their status from a paying a tax perspective in a positive way where they're not paying unnecessary taxes because you're leveraging the tax code as it should be leveraged because it's designed for business people.

Mark Miller: 00:16:29

That's right. And that particular individual was very stressed when they first came to us.

And that particular individual as now referred like three different people to us. So you talk about raving fans and that's what the Hiltons are about too.

When I started working with them, it was all about under promising over delivering, which has been the Hilton brand for decades.

Freddy D: 00:16:53

Another thing that you brought up, Mark, and I want to really emphasize for our listeners is the importance of making sure your books are correct. Because the chart of accounts is critical for how you're tracking that data.

And as you mentioned before, that gives you reporting, that gives you an understanding of what's happening with your business from a financial perspective.

And if you don't set all that up and generate the proper reports, you're really waiting bringing it versus being able to apply strategy to what's happening financially in your business.

Mark Miller: 00:17:26

That's right. And we always, when a lot of the clients we, we work with and some of the bigger companies, they've got a cfo, they've got accounting systems.

But it is crazy how every company has their own crazy accounting system. It really is shocking sometimes because you think, oh, there's a certain way to do it.

So many companies do it differently and even small businesses, but we're always like, try to keep your books as up to date as they possibly can be.

When they engage us, we then come in and we often do revamp some things because I feel like there's different CFOs that do things differently, but I feel like we've seen enough and been around the block enough to say, hey, you need to be doing this and this on the advice of our advanced CPAs that work with our clients. But that's such a big thing.

And then reporting is huge in obviously your books need to be correct, but ultimately that generates reporting to the owners of the business and they have to have all that accurate. So on at least on a quarterly basis, you can be watching the numbers because it's so critical to do that because you catch things.

If you're not paying attention to your books, if you're not getting good reports and not generating good reports for yourself, then you are going to miss things and you are there's going to Be things that fall through the cracks.

Freddy D: 00:18:49

Yeah.

I had a guest on the show several episodes back and had mentioned that the importance of the books in the sense that it can tell you what's happening with the business. And this particular sales manager kept saying that this is what's happening and this is what's happening and what was happening.

And it turned out that the numbers weren't matching with what this individual was saying.

And then when they started to dig in deeper, they realized that this individual was fabricating the information and the books is what revealed the fabrication of the information.

Mark Miller: 00:19:25

Yeah, that's a key thing. And like I say, a lot of our clients, even some of my smaller business owners, they have a bookkeeper that works with them or something like that.

But that's one of the things that we work out up front. We're saying, hey, we've got to get good reporting.

Some of the clients that come on board with us, sometimes they just have spreadsheets, and, you know, that may be a 5 or a $10 million company, and they just have spreadsheets, and it's, yeah, we need to maybe fix that so we can help better.

Freddy D: 00:19:51

It's crazy, but you're right. In today's world, that still exists.

I work with the company a couple years ago, and I took over running it, and we scaled quite nicely in a year's time, but we had to bring in a forensic CFO to fix the books because it was just a mess. Invoicing was in the wr month. They had personal stuff tied into it and everything else.

And to position a business for acquisition, you got to have a couple years worth of books that are clean and make sense to the buyer. So we had to go back and fix all that stuff.

And that's not five cents or five bucks, because that person's got to be a highly qualified individual to go through.

Mark Miller: 00:20:38

Yes. And we work with those forensic folks. When you say forensic accounting, it's deep dive stuff, and it's very expensive.

Freddy D: 00:20:46

Very expensive. And then having to go back a couple years and then you got to fix that, and you got to refile taxes because those numbers don't match anymore.

It's really could be more than just expensive. It can be detrimental to the business.

Mark Miller: 00:21:01

Yep, absolutely.

Freddy D: 00:21:02

So what you guys are doing is when you step in, you start, first off, take a look at what's going on with this company, the necessary tweaks that need to be done, and then say, okay, now that we understand where we're at, now we have a point zero. Here's the plan moving forward.

Mark Miller: 00:21:19

That's right. And again, it's all part of it because we're very holistic. Our concept is bringing in the family office concept.

And some of your listeners may have heard that word before, but family office is basically a concept that was started by the Rockefellers.

John D. Rockefeller it started out of necessity where they had advisors all over the place and none of the advisors, all of them hated each other because they were all in competing businesses and they were all trying to get at the Rockefeller money. So they were getting, they were actually losing a lot of money and had a very inefficient estate and legacy planning and all of that.

And then John D. Said why don't we make our own financial office and bring everybody in under us, we'll hire them and they'll work for us and then they can all work together. Within five years they double their wealth specifically due to that. And they started the family office concept.

So over the years what happened is there's a single family offices like a Rockefeller, although I think the Rockefeller family office is a multifamily office now because then it morphed to multifamily where several families can get involved. Economies of scale, they all share ideas and all of that.

Just in the last about 20 years or so now there's been a move towards virtual family offices, which is what the Hilton family office is where we go out and rather than trying to bring people in house in one office, let's say we're in Atlanta, Georgia. What's the likelihood that we're going to find the best person in every given financial area that we need help in Atlanta, Georgia? Absolutely zero.

So a virtual family office is. We actually do a lot of outsourcing and we get the best in class of people on almost everything we do in the entire country.

In essence, that's what has allowed us to do Hilton Tax and Wealth Advisors as a spin off because then we can use those outsourced, different vendors and so forth and easily scale them into.

For folks that maybe just have 500,000 or a million or something like that again, don't have to have 10 or 20 million and be in the full blown family office.

Freddy D: 00:23:40

So what can a business that's doing, let's say million to 5 million do to position themselves to be in a spot where they can reach out to an organization like yourselves and really exponentially grow their financial investments beyond their business.

Mark Miller: 00:23:59

If there's a number of things that need to happen and need to occur, it depends on the revenue that the Business is generating what kind of cash flow, all of that. We've set up Hilton tax and wealth advisors that take someone like that.

Generally we have meetings with folks, we talk to them about their overall situation. Generally I have me or one of my advisors have a chat with them and say, hey, is there, are there areas we can help in?

Our two main tracks are really the wealth planning and to start, at least in the tax planning. And we often find a lot of people, they need help tax planning, because most people don't have a tax plan in place.

It's like every business owner should have a marketing plan, should have a business plan. Nobody has a tax plan.

Freddy D: 00:24:46

You're right. You bring up a very important point because you're right. People will put together their marketing plan.

They'll put together what their sales objectives are. They'll put together, they'll put together what the mission of the company is.

But I've never heard anybody say, okay, let's put together, let's get together with the executive team and put together a tax strategy.

Mark Miller: 00:25:09

Yes. And that is the biggest expense of anyone's life. And most people don't have a plan.

They think they do because they have a CPA that's doing their taxes every year. And the CPA will say, hey, we're doing your planning.

And a lot of CPAs will consider just doing regular compliance work and getting your returns in on time is a tax plan.

Now, a real tax plan is a formalized plan that we're putting strategies in that are saving you year after year and doing like a deep dive into the codes, private letter rulings, case studies, all of that things that have tons of documentation behind them.

And the one thing that I say that I think is very interesting is that most people just assume that somehow the planning has gotten done the best it can get done because it got filed. And the reality of it is that's not the case.

So they need to have a formalized plan to where they actually have individual strategies that can actually get those deductions all ironed out on an annual basis.

Freddy D: 00:26:20

So really, I'd say the biggest takeaway from our conversation today is really, really any size business needs to take a look at and incorporate a tax strategy for their business. And it doesn't matter whether you're making 100 grand or 100 million dol. The fundamentals are the fundamentals.

Mark Miller: 00:26:41

Yep, absolutely.

And the thing is, the one thing that people don't understand is this is an interesting story that I tell and you're old enough, you and I are old enough to remember this, but there'll be probably some people on the podcast that adult. But many years ago, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett were on the front cover of Time magazine, Newsweek, all that said, we're giving away all our money.

Freddy D: 00:27:05

I remember that.

Mark Miller: 00:27:06

Yeah. Do you remember that? It was a big deal. And you know what? The majority of all the people said that sure is nice of them. They're great philanthropists.

But here's the funny thing about it. Did you notice that neither one of those people dropped off the wealthiest of the wealthy lists?

That they're still both in the top 10 of the wealthiest people that ever lived? It's because they were structuring things, putting foundations together. Don't get me wrong, they're still doing wonderful, great things.

The Gates foundation and what Warren Buffett does and all of that.

Freddy D: 00:27:36

That.

Mark Miller: 00:27:37

But they're also getting massive tax deductions. That is putting more money in their pocket that they can go and reinvest and continue to be wealthy. Everybody wins in that scenario.

But here's the ironic thing about it.

What you learn from that is that tax planning, we believe is one of the greatest wealth creation things that you can do in your entire life because it's your big, biggest expense. You can put 10, 20, 30, 50, hundred, a million dollars a year back into your pocket by saving on your taxes.

Then you've just exponentially increased your wealth that much.

Freddy D: 00:28:13

Yeah. And you bring a very important point there.

And I think people, especially starting out in life, they're out of high school, they're going to either going to college or they've gone to the workforce, really need to stop and think about that. Because you're right.

10 years go by this and you position yourself for the future significantly better had you taken the time to put together a tax strategy which nobody ever talks about until it's too late. Your other side of the 50 year old mark, you're on the second half of life. And then you go, oh man, if I would have known.

Mark Miller: 00:28:52

Yeah. If I would have been a little wiser when I was younger. But I've been very fortunate in the sense.

I've had quite a few companies over the years that have done very well. Not every single one of them.

But I think that the biggest thing that was fortunate for me was to be able to get hooked up with people like the Hiltons and really understand and really have an inside scoop on what it's like to be on the smart money side. Because it's just light years different than being on the Retail side of the business.

Freddy D: 00:29:23

And the book can be found on Amazon.

Mark Miller: 00:29:25

Yeah, Amazon, actually. If you want the book complimentary. If you want to just go to our website, it's Hilton wealth how to Invest like an American Dynasty.

Our website is HiltonWealth.com tells you about our company. I also have another book called the Tax Free Business Owner and we'd be happy to send those out to you, complimentary.

If you'd like to chat with me or somebody in our office about your situation, be happy to chat with you.

Freddy D: 00:29:50

Let's continue the conversation. Could you have another story that you can share where you've worked with somebody? And again, it was transformative.

Mark Miller: 00:29:58

Yeah, absolutely.

So we have a lot of clients in California and I had one client in particular that had a number of companies that were very disjointed and we brought that client on as a business specific client and we were able to assign them an advanced CPA that came in and basically were able to take a structure about. They had an advisor that was just LLC happy and had. I think there were like maybe 10 different LLCs. And it was so confusing to the client.

We literally consolidated everything into a couple different companies and put her on a much better path. Now a little side thing, unfortunately she was. Her house that she had just built was a victim of that. The fires in California last year or this year.

Yeah. But it took a massive amount of stress off of her.

I think that's one of the biggest things that, you know, a lot of people come to us and because they're not happy with the direction that they're going and it's stressing them out.

And I'm not going to say we're perfect in every aspect or no one's perfect, but we feel like we've just been around the block so much with almost every situation. A business owner, high net worth, individual experiences or highly paid exec. We've been around this so much that we really don't see anything new.

And when people come to us and they say, okay, I can't believe this is happening, we usually can solve their problems. So I think we've got a pretty good track record of that going back.

Freddy D: 00:31:38

To the person that unfortunately lost her house and the fires, they're still a super fan of you because you protected the rest of their assets.

Also, the fact that you restructured them in a probably a more efficient, more tax strategy perspective that they're making the investment back because of the things that you guys did.

Mark Miller: 00:31:59

Absolutely.

We pride ourselves on that and we're very happy to be partnered with the Hiltons and be able to continue that legacy that Conrad Hilton originally had. He built his whole empire on trust and on being able to be a great problem solver and obviously iconic in building the Hilton hotels.

But also Baron Hilton had a lot to do with that too. His son Baron, that really exploded the Hilton brand even to a greater extent.

Freddy D: 00:32:31

One of the things that they're very known for is taking care of their customers. And that's the biggest thing that I think in business and especially a service based business, which is what the Hilton brand is really is about.

It's all service based, is taking care of the team. Because at the end of the day, the housekeeper, even though it's a housekeeper, that's your front line.

And that's what people don't realize is I had one guest on the show that came up with a brilliant name and said those people are not housekeeper. They're not the janitor, they're not the call center support center. They're your directors or first impression.

And you got to treat them as directors of first impression.

Mark Miller: 00:33:16

Yeah, absolutely. What's funny and Brad Pill, who's my partner, we talk about the Ritz Carlton has. They have a gold standard on how they take care of people.

Obviously that's not part of the Hilton brand. But we.

There's a couple books that have been written and some of the things we do are some Ritz Carlton concepts, which Ritz Carlton originally came from Europe and of course we know European service and how that is. And it is. We try to do our best to just really take great care of our clients and give them concierge level of service.

Because ultimately that's what people expect from the Hilton brand.

Freddy D: 00:33:54

For any brand really. It's really not tied to Hilton.

It doesn't matter what industry you're in, if you're in business, your front line is your most important asset because that's who your customer base. Your supplier is a customer, your distributor's a customer, you're working with contractors, they're a customer.

Complementary businesses, they're a customer. And ancillary businesses are a customer. That's who's interfacing with your whole business ecosystem.

Mark Miller: 00:34:24

That is very true.

Freddy D: 00:34:26

And that's really the critical aspect.

And so what you guys are doing is you're really helping those businesses position themselves for growth so they can get out of dealing with the everyday minutiae of running the business and they can start doing the other things.

They can because they know that their assets are protected, their tax strategies in place and they can do what they're really good at and that's empowering their teams to do their teams to deal with the rest of the business ecosystem.

Mark Miller: 00:34:56

That is a great point you make because that's really what it's about is that we believe that people shouldn't be worrying about it, their money concerns, it should be running their businesses. The minutiae of the money they shouldn't have to worry about, they should have plans in place.

They should be at least because there's enough stress in running your business and bringing on revenue and all of that to also have to worry about all the back end finances and paying so much in taxes and being disorganized in your books and all of that type of thing. It's just business owners should not be worrying about those things.

Freddy D: 00:35:34

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:35:34

Because when they start off in business, that's not what they're thinking about.

All the headaches I'm going to be dealing with, they've got the vision of I'm going to have a business, I'm going to be able to go yachting, I'm going to go be able to go travel and everything else.

And the reality is, next thing you know, it's 11 o' clock at night and you're still doing stuff because you didn't put systems in place, you didn't bring on the right teams to help you get to the point. And so I just want to really drive that home. Is that what you guys do is you alleviate the financial part of the conversation for the business owner.

You've got that covered.

And more importantly, you position them for longevity and legacy beyond the business because something happens to them, unfortunately, which is called life. The reality is they're protected and their families are protected.

Mark Miller: 00:36:25

Yeah, we did a little study about a year ago because I just didn't think about this a lot holistically. And I was like, it just dawned on me, I said most of the clients, so we very rarely lose clients.

And most of all our clients have gradually grown their businesses or some of them even big leaps in their business. So we went back and we were like, hey, let's take a look at all our clients and how were things when we started and how were things later?

And I don't say this to Taoists, I say more of just about. Well, we're talking about the planning aspect of things, that we get them on a good planning trajectory.

And when you can get business owners in that place where all of that minutia stuff is taken care of. Guess what it frees them up to grow their revenues.

Freddy D: 00:37:17

Right.

Mark Miller: 00:37:17

And so that's ironically, I think that's why our clients, the vast majority of our clients have increased every year. I believe we've got great strategies and really neat stuff that we do via the family office and everything.

But I think the bigger aspect is just having plans in place and a track to run on and then they can go focus on being creative. Because every business owner, in my opinion is creative, has a creative part of them.

Even if you're selling some manufacturing widget or something, there's a creation to that business and a vision to that business that is really driving it all.

And when you take half of that vision away because the CEO or the president is worried about all this stuff that is unimportant to generating revenue, then you've just freed up more creativity for them to start another company that's a spin off company of their current company. Or just focus on their processes and their internal structures.

Freddy D: 00:38:23

Better their team.

Mark Miller: 00:38:25

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:38:26

Because no team, no business, that's the chance to announce, okay, let's level up the team and get them going. And then more importantly, be able to walk away from the business and it still runs. That's when you have a business.

Because if you can't walk away for a month, then it's not a business.

Mark Miller: 00:38:43

Yeah, absolutely. For me, I would go crazy if I was away from my business for a month though. We just love what we do so much. We really do.

But I am about to go away for two weeks though and it'll be fine. But a month sounds like a long time to me. I want to be working.

Freddy D: 00:38:58

Yeah. I look at Sir Richard Branson's example. The guy's goofing off, having fun, hanging out in this island with people, stuff like that.

And he's got multitude of businesses and he's got people empowered to run those businesses. Yeah, he's involved. But I've know somebody that went to his island and he said he spends an hour, two hours with them, his main person and that's it.

The rest of the time he's focused with the guest on his place.

Mark Miller: 00:39:26

I'd love to go to that island someday. It sure looks nice.

Freddy D: 00:39:29

There you go, Mark, as we come to the end here. Great conversation, great insights and really, I think the biggest takeaway is really stop and put together a tax planning strategy.

Because you're right, that's money that you're really not leveraging.

Mark Miller: 00:39:44

That is true, yes.

Freddy D: 00:39:46

So how can people find you?

Mark Miller: 00:39:48

Like I said, just go to hiltonwealth.com everything's there.

Tell you about our company, what we do, and if we can help anybody that's listening in any way, we'd be happy to have a chat with you or sit down for a strategy meeting or something and but I do invite people to order the Hilton wealth book and get a really good idea of what we can do for a lot of people.

Freddy D: 00:40:09

Thank you so much for your time. Love to have you on the show down the road.

Mark Miller: 00:40:13

Absolutely. Appreciate it.

Freddy D: 00:40:14

Great interview.

Freddy D: 00:40:15

Thank you.

Freddy D: 00:40:17

What a powerful conversation with Mark Miller.

One of the biggest takeaways is this Most service business owners work incredibly hard to build revenue, but far too often, many never build a real tax and wealth strategy behind that success. And as Mark shared, that's often the difference between consistently feeling stressed and building long term security, freedom and legacy.

For service providers, this matters because your business is usually your biggest asset. If it's not protected, diversified or strategically planned for, you're taking risks you don't even realize you're taking.

Mark's smart money perspective reminds us that real prosperity isn't about gambling, it's about planning, protection and playing the long game game. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don't miss future episodes packed with insights like this.

For service based business owners, don't wait another minute. Join the Entrepreneur Prosperity Hub right now on School Completely free to join and claim your free Service Provider Prosperity Playbook.

A hundred plus page guide designed to help you turn your service into scalable, predictable prosperity.

Join us at schools S-K-O-O-L.com eprosperityhub Inside you'll get great conversations, tools and weekly growth plays to help you shift from doing everything yourself to leading a business that works smoothly, predictably and profitably. Thanks for tuning in today.

Freddy D: 00:41:55

I'm grateful you're here and part of.

Freddy D: 00:41:57

The Business Superfans momentum. Every listen, every action you take gets you one step closer to building your own super fans.

Intro/Outro: 00:42:06

We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Super Fans Podcast. Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.