Interview with Amber Sherlock
Michael Grant, Australia’s foremost strategic legacy planner for wealthy business owners is interviewed by television news presenter and reporter Amber Sherlock of TV’s Nine News. They discuss Michael’s path to success and how he helps his clients enjoy the same.
Transcription
Amber Sherlock: I’m Amber Sherlock and welcome to the Trusted Authority Alliance Expert Series Show. We’re here today with Michael Grant. Michael is Australia’s foremost strategic legacy planner for wealthy business owners. With over 30 years in the fields of tax consulting, accounting and management, Michael is uniquely qualified in the area of strategic legacy planning. In his book, Identifying And Managing Your Legacy, Michael describes the legacy planning process, citing some of the problems that arise from not having a structured and strategic approach to determining and implementing your legacy. Welcome to the show today, Michael.
Michael Grant: Thank you, Amber.
Amber Sherlock: Can you share with the audience a little bit about your story and the success that you’ve had so far in your career?
Michael Grant: Well, I grew up in the western suburbs of Sydney. In my senior year of high school, I was elected school captain by my peers. I went to the University of New South Wales, got a commerce degree. And after that, I joined an accounting firm and specialised as an auditor but then I really enjoyed being a tax advisor so I swapped. During that time I became a chartered accountant as well. After that, I started thinking, well, how do I progress my career? So I moved to a mid-tier accounting firm where I became a partner. For the next 20 years, I specialise in taxation, but towards the end of that time I was elected to the firm’s board, became its chairman, and spent some time as managing partner. When I was a managing partner, I was responsible for merging the firm in one of the six largest accounting firms in the world, and that was a great outcome for the firm. After that, I did some reflection on myself and realised that I should retire from the firm. Then did some overseas travel with my wife, focused on my health, and then started to look at what’s next. I created a little accounting firm of my own or advisory firm on my own. And I then distil 30 years of experience in a book, Identifying And Managing Your Legacy.
Amber Sherlock: Well, why did you decide to write this book?
Michael Grant: I decided to write this book because in the last few years when I was at the firm, number of mine, baby boomer, successful business owners were having this conflict where they were controlling their businesses, building assets, but starting to look at what comes next for them. And then their problem was is that they had this difficulty of how to move from being a successful business owner in control to giving up their control. And so this created some conflict with them, is to how that actually gets done. So what they needed or what I thought they needed was they needed a structured process to actually help them do it, but more importantly, they needed a trusted advisor, someone who could be their sounding board to actually guide them, facilitate, and then basically help them get to a point where they could make the last 30 years of their life their best.
Amber Sherlock: Who specifically is this book for?
Michael Grant: This book is for people who have created successful businesses and built significant asset portfolios. But looking at the bigger picture for their lives, they were wanting to examine what’s important for them and the spouse or partner and their families and what else that they can actually give back to their communities. So they have a problem that this business that they’ve created, they control it, they own it, they love it, but they need to give it up. They need to give that control up if they had to get on with their bigger goals. So this book is designed to give them some guidance around how that might be done.
Amber Sherlock: What are some of the big ideas that you’d like your readers to take away from your book?
Michael Grant: I’m a tax guy. That’s been my career. So my life has been around, or my career has been about numbers, legislation, rules, real money focus. But what I’ve discovered is that it’s the more esoteric things that are actually important to people. Things like, what is it you really enjoy doing? How good is your health? How well are you developing your relationships with your spouse or partner with your children, your grandchildren? Have you really focused on your true friendships and what is it you really want to do in terms of coming and contributing back to the community that has actually given to you?
Amber Sherlock: How will your book make an impact on your reader and help them?
Michael Grant: The process of legacy planning is one of developing a roadmap and like all roadmaps, you need to know where you are. You need to know where you want to go and the road map shows you how to get there. So it’s a structured process that someone like myself facilitates through a fairly detailed discussion, very honest discussion. Sometimes it can be quite confronting, but a very important one.
Thing is that people have done the hard yards of creating a successful business, building up an asset portfolio and they are financially secure and their families financially secure. And that means they’ve got the ability then to get on and do these other things that they think are more, not more worthwhile, but in addition to what they’ve done. And so where we get to is a situation where they need to understand how do they build a plan? How do they implement it and what structures should they use to put that implementation inside? And so one of the concepts I’ve developed and the book is we’ll talk about in the book is the concept of a family office. Now, this is a concept which can be a real company, which employs people that looks after the family’s finances and all the other things that mattered to the family.
Or, it can be a virtual organisation, which is basically an outsourced structure which someone like a trusted adviser would manage for them. And he would actually, he or she would actually manage other advisers as and when the family require them. And in conjunction with the discussion with the family.
Amber Sherlock: Can you take us through one or two success stories of clients that followed that approach?
Michael Grant: Yes. Look, I have one client that I’ve acted for over 20 years. He’s in his early seventies, and he still races cars at 240 kilometres per hour. He’s amazing, quite an inspiration. He has built and sold several businesses and is still managing one. He’s also built a substantial asset portfolio. He loves property. He’s one of the canniest investors I’ve ever seen. But his biggest passion is his family. And his focus in life is to make sure that their welfare and happiness is a priority for him.
Every year he spends four to six weeks in freezing cold in North America so that his wife can go back and spend time with her aging mother and her sister and her wider family that live in America. But he also has a blended family, which means that the family dynamic at sometimes can be a little bit complicated and he’s always managed those complications and issues with fairness and quiet dignity. But one thing he expressed to me a couple of years ago was that he was very concerned that when he was gone that the family dynamic might be severely disrupted cause he won’t be around and manage those issues anymore. So we had a bit of a chat about legacy planning and he decided to do the work. So that was two years ago we started and we’re still going, but we’re nearly done now. We are in a situation where he and his wife finally in agreement about where things, their actual goals in terms of what they want to achieve in the next 20 years, but also on the outcomes for the various members of the family.
And because they’re in agreement with that, they were able to then get me to brief their lawyers to be able to document legal agreements and do all that stuff to make it, to put it into the boxes that need to be put into. So that we’re at now is very important stage and that is to communicate their plan and those outcomes to their family directly. And so what I do is I’ll help them facilitate that family meeting. And the really good thing is that he is very confident now. All the work he’s done and what we’ve done together, that the family will accept the plan that they’ve put in place for themselves and the outcomes for the rest of the family. And so that this big fee that he had just never will be realised.
Amber Sherlock: When you’re selecting in the clients that you want to work with, what are some of the criteria that you look for?
Michael Grant: I’m looking for motivated individuals who’ve built successful businesses or created significant asset portfolios and they’re in control of those, but they are looking to things beyond, beyond just doing that. And they wanted to look at doing more exciting things of their life with their wife or partner with their families and with their friends. So they need to have a conversation around how that might happen. And often this is a conflict for them because they don’t know how to do it or they’re resistant to how they do it. But as long as they’re open to that conversation and they have an attitude of compromise, then I can help them and move on. So what I’ve found is, is the people who are not willing to let go, don’t really want to compromise about where they’re at. They’re not ready for the legacy planning journey just yet.
Amber Sherlock: So what are some of the challenges you see now or in the future?
Michael Grant: Well, you might’ve seen in the media discussions around the big transfer of wealth issue from the baby boomer generation to the subsequent generations. That of itself is a natural thing, but the problem is that there’s too much of a focus on the money side of things and not enough on the human side. So when I have a discussion with people about legacy planning, sure we look at the wealth transfer strategy, but a very important part of that in addition to is looking at what people want to get out of it as human beings. And one of the objectives I wanted to achieve as humans. So that means we need to look at things like, and these other advisors often overlook this, look at people’s health, where they’re at. Look at those critical relationships with their spouse or partner and their families, examine their friendships and look at how they might want to contribute back to the community. Because if these things aren’t factored in, then the whole wealth transfer process becomes a very cold and clinical exercise. And the key participants actually get disenfranchised and then don’t want to engage. And then the whole process falters.
Amber Sherlock: So what’s one of the biggest key pieces of advice, maybe the best advice you could give your client?
Michael Grant: This might sound a bit simplistic Amber, but I just simply ask people when I first meet them, assuming that they’re interested in the process is that they need to sit back and critically and seriously examine their life. In particular, they need to look at relationships that they want to have with their spouse or partner, with their family and with their friends and what that looks like over the next 20 or 30 years of their life. And then once they’ve gone through that reflective process, they need to sit down and work out where they are and how they’re going to get to where they want to be.
Amber Sherlock: What is the most fulfilling part of the job that you do?
Michael Grant: Amber, that’s a really good question because that’s why I turn up every day. Often people having the heads, really great ideas on how they liked their life to be. But if I don’t write it down and extract it, then often it just never gets done. What I really like about, in fact love about the legacy planning process is that when I worked with a couple, cause that’s the usual case, and they go through the journey and they’d pop out the other end and they say to me, Michael, I really feel like I’m in control of my life again, but not just about the financial stuff. It’s about things I haven’t thought about for a long time. Like reconnecting with old friends or repairing damage to that was caused years ago we relationships with family and getting the family on board with where they want to go and the outcomes for the family that they believe is best for them and for the family and for the family to agree.
And when I see that result, I know I’ve made a real difference in these people’s lives and that’s when I know I’ve done something really, really worthwhile.
Amber Sherlock: Well your book is Identifying And Managing Your Legacy, Michael Grant, thank you so much for your time today.
Michael Grant: Thank you, Amber.