Building Financial Peace with Mike Bennett

Introduction

In this interview, Alan Olsen, CPA, MBA discusses building financial peace with Mike Bennett. Mike is the Managing Partner of Crewe Capital.

Transcript:

Alan Olsen

Hi, this is Alan Olsen and welcome to American Dreams. My guest today is Michael Bennett. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Bennett

Thanks for having me on.

Alan Olsen

So, Mike, we’ve known each other for a number of years. And, you know, you have an exciting background career, and I appreciate you coming on today’s show. For the listeners, can you give us a little bit of history of the path that you’ve taken in life to get you to where you are today?

Mike Bennett

Sure. Well first of all, thanks for having me. My background, I guess, during my undergrad I wanted to be an orthodontist, so I studies chemistry and, and biology and dound that I wasn’t really doing great in my classes, my brain didn’t work that way. But I had started a busines during school and one thing led to the next doing portfolio lending where my clients were Wall Street investors. And I quickly realized, I thought better with math and it came more natural to me. I didn’t know what private equity was. So I was just naive to this.

And I remember going to New York to work with some of these firms… and all they told me what they were doing. And, and then I had this epiphany how the world worked and that finance was part of that world. And some of the most powerful companies were investment firms or investment banks. And I knew I want to be part of that. So my business in college- it went under during the 2008 Recession, I saw tremendous success, relatively speaking… I did pretty well.

And I ended up putting most of the money I made back into real estate, they could always be smart and prudent. And come to find out that I was riding a big wave like most, kind of had a big financial setback during the recession. And so I went back to school, and it was a really big learning experience for me, learning how to look at risk… There was just a huge learning experience. And my grad school experience was very inspirational.

And it helped me start a new business and I started Crewe around 2011, right at some of the final stages of business school and that experience, being young entrepreneur and an investor as kind of framework to start Crewe and now now we have offices in New York, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver. You know, it’s become kind of the dynamic investment firm that we’re super proud of. But it came with a lot of hard work and a lot of failure along the way.

Alan Olsen

So Mike for Crewe Capital, what is your ideal client? What? How would you characterize them?

Mike Bennett

I mean, our perfect client is a business owner, because Crewe Capital, we also have Crewe Advisors. So what we do is with this owner, we provide high quality advice to their personal balance sheet and their corporation. So if else with all their plans are they’re in sync, so what they’re, they do professionally impacts them personally.

And so whether we’re, you know, the one division Crewe Capital, that client, actually we’re helping them with any capital transaction with their operating business, whether they need to raise capital or debt, buy out a shareholder or buy a business or sell their business by frankly, we you know, just traditional mergers and acquisition, or we call lower.

So the average business owner, you know, we’re not we’re not doing big, glamorous IPOs but most of America is made of, you know, small business and and he’s sophisticated advice and then they need to know how those applications impact their families. And so between Crewe Capital and Crewe Advisors, those are the services we offer businesses.

Alan Olsen

Is there a certain level of assets under management that you should have that before it makes sense to be under Crewe’s umbrella?

Mike Bennett

That’s kind of a hard question to answer. Mostly we’re trying to make sure that our advice is helpful. So if there’s, you know, if it’s if a business owner has pity, if they’re thinking about maybe estate planning or charitable giving or what to do with this setup of their corporate entity, and they need advice from not only managers but, planners, philanthropy and investment bankers, and that’s something we help with. If their portfolios really simple, we may not be the best course, although we have our clients that are relatively small, but are complex. And we have clients that are large, are relatively simple.

So to answer that question. We don’t really have a minimum, Alan, but we want to make sure that we’re providing good advice.

Alan Olsen

Fair enough. Early on I remember a really fun event that you started off, and that was the Crewe Cup. And I think in that that year, we went out to Pebble Beach and we had a Steve Young team and a Jerry Rice team. What inspired you to create that fun event?

Mike Bennett

Yeah. So the Crewe Cup is a passion project, I learned one of my first business failed, that I had made wasn’t as fulfilling as the Salanter little that I had time to give back or a charitable and it was way more like I wanted to spend time there. And so when I started Crewe, I wanted to start something at a time. That was everything bought making. I wanted to focus on relationships, experiences, if it your charity, not bow not making.

And so my passion golf and I took my favorite parts of my favorite golf tournaments to the jacket, from the masters to trophy from the open, and the format of the Ryder Cup and created the Crewe Cup. And it’s so it is a team match play tournament. And we do go all over to different venues. Very, it’s very private, made up of celebrities. And Sego is primarily, yeah, like it’s kind of taken a life of its own. And it’s something that I’m super proud of, because when I look back to see if it’s lives up to what I was trying to accomplish, it has some amazing relationships and great experiences and a lot of goodwill.

Alan Olsen

I want to jump into the world that to the sandbox that you play in few people are able to accomplish commingling with celebrities ultra high net worth. And, you know, give me your approach, I want to just jump into your mindset of Mike and when you’re interacting with these guys, the problem that you’re trying to solve within their life, you know, why they why they come to these events, why they come to Crewe, the value added that they feel when they interact with you?

Mike Bennett

Yeah, that’s a good question. I think that early on, I was trying to build Crewe or build my first, for that matter, you know, I came from out is probably the first one to graduate my family and my family struck my job. And so I had to, I needed help. And I kind of felt those are a lot of people who want to help. But I found that if I added value to the first set of asking that it created a better relationships by first seek to add value to people in a genuine way and see where how I can help them.

And then as I’ve gotten older, and I’ve seen some success, what I find is that I’m more interested in the relationship than any alternative motives. And I think if the motives are pure, and people peep, we all need good relationships, good friendships. And I think that if focus is on what actually matters, and having that, you know, Lysol, the depth of relationships that you have, I think if that’s the case, then then people recognize that that you’re genuine and you understand the value of instead of what you can get out of a religion, I think probably been helpful.

Alan Olsen

And I like to just add the mic knowing you as a friend, you know, you have a very unique approach and a very strong network. There’s one thing I realized early on that there’s a gift that you possess, in being able to maintain not just a relationship for money, but there it goes much, much deeper and people feel they feel the value as a as they interface with you. Thank now I want to you know, move forward and say that in today’s world old volatility of markets, you know, a constant change with AI, unpredictable futures.

Someone comes to you, Mike and says, Hey, Mike, let’s start working together, what would be the first thing that you do to set their mind at ease as they’re trying to? Trying to look into the what’s going on in the world today?

Mike Bennett

Yes. That’s a great question. So the two prongs to that is what it is they’re trying to accomplish. First off, you know, depending on whether it’s theirs, or their personal portfolio, and those are what I always tried to do, find out what the family’s goals and objectives are, what they’re trying to accomplish. As we are successful, you don’t even know what that means. Right? And so, what does winning look like? You know, does that mean passing all the family? Or does that mean passing nothing to your family, but passing on to the community?

Or, or things that are near and dear? Does that mean? saving your money? Honestly? Or does that mean, making a ton more money? And so it’s very a complex question. But what we tried to do use all the tools have to reach the goals and objectives of the specific family.

Right in my mind. There are so many options, and so many tools to reach each individual families goals that what we provide as a peace of mind that they could focus on what we’re how they spend their time, whether that be working or whether that be spend time with grandkids, or in their community or in their religion, whatever. We like to be a confidant or they see oh, so that they can have that peace of mind. I think that most people are searching for peace, they’re not searching for more money. It’s a peace of mind. And that’s something that we strive to deliver.

Alan Olsen

I love that because you know, at the end of the day, that’s one thing you understand is that time is a finite commodity. And once it once you lose the time you don’t get it back. So it was well said well said. So if a person wants to reach out and is looking for more information, how do they how do they get you Mike, you’re in multiple states there. Are you going to have an email or have a phone call phone chat with them. How do they how did they break through the minutia and say, hey, I want to talk to Mike I love that.

Mike Bennett

I mean, the easiest way is email m@crewe.com. Or just reach out at Crewe.com. Crewe is a city in England, outside of London. I did a grad degree in the UK there’s a city that was super inspiring to me. It’s like the working-class towns are responsible for railroad system in England. Huge impact. But they used those facilities 50 years now to build Rolls Royces and Bentleys. So when I heard about this Crewe, I’m like man, that should be what we strive to do, is having the hard working grit behind this beautiful product. And so that’s the name of our firm, Crewe named after Crewe England. But crewe.com is how they find us.

Alan Olsen

Thank you, Mike, appreciate you being with us on today’s show.

Mike Bennett

Thanks, Alan. Appreciate you