Ken Kendall is this week’s guest of The Business Spotlight, with host Patrick Dougher. Ken is a CPA, who is also a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), and a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU) who is working to help individuals in financial planning that can help to ensure their finances for the future, for themselves and their families.
Ken’s business looks at insurance, investments, taxation and legal documents that have to do with estate planning and so on. “If I have a client who retires and they say, ‘I couldn’t have done this without the planning,’ or if I talked with a survivor family where someone has passed away and they’ve had the insurance and documents in place, or children going off to college partly because of the help that we were able to give mom and dad putting the money away. Those are the kinds of things that help you get recommitted and rebuild the passion for the business,” Ken says.
He goes on to say, “There is no such thing as NO RISK. You have to learn what risks you’re trying to mitigate, which risks you’re trying to take on yourself. That’s true not only in insurance, but in financial planning and investment planning – everything really. There are always risks and tradeoffs and so on.”
In addition to personal and family financial planning, Ken has made it his mission to help improve the financial growth in DPW area local businesses by helping improve their reach to the community. He did this by establishing a network through the social media, “LinkedIn.” Currently his network has over 4,200 members who interact with one another offline, through physical meetings; and online – one on one, or as a group discussion. Ken masterminded the group, and his goal was to concentrate on just the immediate 15-20 miles radius of his residence in Flower Mound, Texas.
His idea was to get local businesses together to network and help each other grow their businesses. The group, entitled “Linking Together DFW,” has been in existence for about three years, and began with a conversation at a meeting where he said he was intrigued by the idea of the social media LinkedIn, and was trying to find a way to make it work for business purposes.
He started a local business group and started connecting with local business people, and the idea just took off. “According to the LinkedIn profiles, 40% of them are business owners and 20% are senior level executives. Because we are a local group, we can have local events. We have a couple of live events a month, and those are pretty well attended. We have a great time. There’s been a great camaraderie that’s developed among the people in this group.”
This group has helped him attract more clients, through personal contact, and has helped other businesses do the same. “Anybody who’s in business is trying to find the people who they can serve and the people who need their services, says Ken. “One of the difficult challenges anybody has in business is how to go out and find the people who need what you have to talk about? I think this has been a real good opportunity for people to meet other people on a pretty low-key basis and just build a relationship, and if there’s something that comes out of it from a business standpoint, that’s a plus.”
If you’re in the DFW area, connect with Ken. The name of the group, again, is Linking Together DFW North Texas. You can access them through the website LinkingDFW.com, or through LinkedIn social network.
You can also contact Ken directly concerning your own financial planning by email at: Ken@KendallFinancial.net.; through his company website at: KendallFinancial.net; or by phone at: (800) 342-4698 or the local line at: (972) 874-8757.
