Meet Jeff Davis
Business Owner and Independent-Minded Investor

My name is Jeff. I am the owner and president of a business I built from the ground up. We are in our 5th year of operation. I’ve finally got great people on the job, and it’s just now that I feel like I can take a breath and look around. We are bringing in the business and producing a great product, but I feel like we could do better. I’ve done a lot of reading about managing money, but I am the big ideas guy, not the money guy. I wish I could find an advisor I could trust to help me and my business get to the next level.

Social Values
My work life and values must align.

A Day in the Life
My average day looks like this.

Still working long hours and have not seen a weekend in a while, but I love what I do and don’t see it as work. I am in the office by 6 am but try to get home for dinner by 6 pm every night. Now that I’ve got good people on the job, my average day begins with reviewing my weekly and daily goals, my day plan from the night before, and choosing one new concept or idea to think about for the day. I get out of my office and onto the production floor. You’ve got to lead by example in this world. Your people will only work as hard as you do. I wind down the day by reviewing the goals and making a plan for tomorrow. Then head home for dinner with my family. After all, all the success in the world is nothing without putting your family first.

Objectives
The things I want to accomplish.

Practically speaking, our numbers look good. Plenty of customers with more on the way. Our prices are strong and customer satisfaction is high. But in the end, I don’t think we are making the most of the resources we have. I’d like to be able to move forward faster. I’d like to reinvest more of our resources into growth and development and send less of it to government and professional services. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind paying for advice. I just want to make sure it’s the right advice.

Problems
The things I want to fix

I spend an hour every evening reading and researching. Investment and financial news, operations best-practices, currency, and precious metals. I know that the world changes fast and you have to find ways to stay ahead of it. If I have a problem, however, it is that I have too much information and not enough context. In order to figure out what strategies are effective, you have to have concrete experience applying them in the real world. Otherwise, it’s just someone’s opinion. I wish I had someone I could go to that eats business finance for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Someone with real-world experience. Someone who has already made all the mistakes and know what works and what doesn’t. Someone who knows the inside, but is not an insider.

Orientation to Job
How I feel about my job and career.

My job is a part of me. Along with my family and my faith. That is what gives me meaning and purpose. With those three things in line, you will never work another day in your life. That said, my job is also precious to me. Its trials and triumphs are personal. It’s not something I can quit and go try something else. This means I am very careful with whom I chose to trust and work with, but I am highly motivated to create a team that compliments my strengths and makes up for my weaknesses. I have plenty of self-confidence or I should not be in business for myself, but I am the first to admit when I need help. But don’t ever try to pull a fast one. I never hand any aspect of my business to someone else without doing my homework first. You’ll be surprised how much I already know about whatever it is you are selling. Trust and track. That’s what I do with my employees, business partners, and even myself.

Obstacles
External and internal things that stand in my way.

Complexity is one of my biggest obstacles. The more we want to build and accomplish the more complex the landscape becomes. Sometimes exponentially. For every five new employees, you have to add a sixth manager. And so on and so on. One thing many people don’t understand is that the more money you make, the more you have to spend to make it. At the small business level, that is easy to manage with an accountant and bookkeeper. But at the next level, you’ve got to start talking about strategy, and that takes a different level of experience. I want to keep growing and evolving as a business but I don’t want to get buried by complexity or lose an opportunity because I couldn’t see the forest through the trees.

Burning Questions
The things I want to get answers to today.

1. How do I know if I am making the right financial decisions?

2. How can I get a handle on my cash flow?

3. If we can get better financial performance, where should I put the money to help the business grow?

4. What is the smartest investment strategy toward financial freedom for myself and my family?

5. How can we protect ourselves from the instability of the markets and global currencies?

Channels
I am banner blind like everyone else, but I’ll admit to following some well-done display ads if they are exactly in context and I am in the right mood. You’d better have a solid piece of intel on the other side of the link or I’ll never visit your site again. I am also susceptible to affiliate marketing provided that I trust the hosting site. Like many people, if I agree with what you are saying, I am much more likely to follow your recommendations.

Social Media
I keep track of my favorite influencers in the financial and investment world via Twitter and LinkedIn. I respond well to well-reasoned arguments born from experience, but I am susceptible to a little drama and intrigue. I like to feel like I know things that other people don’t and find out about things before others do. But I am not big on Kool-Aid. Once the intriguing storyline is told, you’d better have clear facts to back it up.

Content Tone and Style
I am generally a glass-is-half-full type of guy. I don’t spend much time with the “the sky is falling tomorrow” type of content. However, I am a realist and I know this house of cards will not last forever, so don’t sugar coat your language. Give it to me straight.

Formats
I prefer long-form text and podcasts as primary information sources. I am on the road a lot and blogs and podcasts keep me from wasting my time in airports and waiting rooms. I like podcasts that go deeply into an issue and bring on voices from different perspectives. I have noticed that more and more I consume information that is also consistent with my values.

Interactivity
I use financial calculators that help me visualize my investment decisions in real time. I like dashboards like everyone else, but I do not need to be alerted to every status change. My idea interaction with technology is that it tells me exactly what I need to know when I need to know it, but lets me dig deeper into the data if I need to. I can smell fake tech and I don’t have time for it.