Good Neighbor Podcast: Rochester
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Rochester
Good Neighbor Podcast: Rochester
EP# 114: Steven Fronrath with Kennedy Financial Group
Ever wondered how a saxophonist and pianist from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra found his calling in financial advising? Join us for an engaging conversation with Steven Fronrath, one of the owners and wealth advisors at Kennedy Financial Group. Steven shares his unique journey and breaks down the importance of understanding individual goals before diving into investments. He debunks common misconceptions, stressing that the foundation of any solid financial plan is clear objectives. Discover how Steven and his team help clients use their money as a tool to achieve their dreams, from retirement to education and beyond.
Balancing business with personal passions is an art, and Steven exemplifies this beautifully. Not only does he play in the band "If Walls Could Talk," but he also faced the challenge of rescheduling his wedding due to COVID-19. We explore these personal stories and how they shape his approach to financial planning. Stephen explains the comprehensive nature of his work, encompassing income strategies, tax planning, and estate security. Tune in to gain valuable insights from Stephen and learn about the services offered by Kennedy Financial Group, all designed to align your financial goals with your broader life plans.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Lisa Swiftney.
Speaker 2:Number 115 of the Good Neighbor Podcast. Today I have with us Good Neighbor Stephen Fronrath and he is with the Kennedy Financial Group. Did I say that right?
Speaker 3:You said it just perfectly.
Speaker 2:Okay, how are you doing today, stephen?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great, Lisa. How about you? Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you for being a guest, so let's start off by telling our listeners about your business. What do you do?
Speaker 3:For sure. Yeah, like you mentioned, my name is Stephen Fronrath. I'm one of the owners and wealth advisors here at Kennedy Financial Group and we are a financial advisory firm. We do financial planning and investment management for individuals and businesses and really with the whole goal of helping people live their best financial life, using money as a resource in order to help them live the lives that they want to live.
Speaker 2:That is awesome. Tell our listeners about your journey. How and why did you get started in this business?
Speaker 3:For sure. No, I think there's a lot of different ways which I think unique about our industry is there's lots of different ways that one can become a financial advisor and wealth advisor. My journey actually did not start in finance. I actually grew up as a musician played saxophone, piano, actually went to Wayne State University downtown Detroit, actually studied music, business of all things in college. So I think for a long time there, especially in high school and college, all musicians as they do think that they're going to be the rock star, they're going to tour the world, they're going to be the next best thing since sliced bread. And graduated college took an internship with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and then eventually a full-time job with the orchestra, doing marketing of all things as well, which I'm sure you're very familiar with, but doing marketing for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. I worked a lot with their young professional programs, their ticket program, their student offering and then some of their neighborhood shows that they would go out into the community and do and did a lot of work on the marketing side there, learned a lot about just the impact that the arts can have in people's lives and in that same time frame I had always been I'd always been a budget nerd Right.
Speaker 3:I always loved digging into my expenses and savings and spending and all that fun stuff. And, you know, I got fairly decent at it and had a couple of friends and family members that needed some help with their own financial situation. That would come to me and we would sit at their kitchen table and go through some of that stuff. And yet when I reached a crossroads at my career, I said, hey, what am I? You know the old saying of if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.
Speaker 3:And I said, hey, I love doing this budget thing. How can I make that a career? And kind of went down the path. I had actually hired my own advisor out of college to help me with investing and, um, kind of picked his brain a little bit and realized, wow, this industry is incredibly interesting. There's a lot of opportunity to help people and have a huge impact in their lives by helping them get a hold of their money and their investments and make a plan for that. And that's kind of how I got started with them brand new to the industry, and was given a great opportunity to help people make their most with their money and investments. That brings us to here, six years later.
Speaker 2:Wow, that is amazing. Thanks for sharing that story with us. Can you tell us about any myths or misconceptions that you hear about in your industry?
Speaker 3:For sure. I think our industry, especially the financial and investment industry there's a lot of people in this industry. There's a lot of noise, quite honestly, in our industry and that's one of the things that we really try and help our clients focus on is cutting through the noise. Especially, we're in the middle of a political election year right now and our job is to help our clients see the forest through the trees, if you will, and focus on the bigger picture when it comes to their money and their investments. But going back to your original question, I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions is that people think that, hey, investment management we got to start with. Hey, what's the best mutual fund to be in? What's the best mix of investments? What should the portfolio look like? And certainly that's an incredibly important part of our job that we have in working with families, helping them put together the best overall plan for their situation.
Speaker 3:But the best financial plans don't start with the investments. We try and back up a couple of steps to figure out what are we trying to solve for? Right, because money is going to be invested significantly differently, whether that goal is hey, this is my long-term retirement nest egg that I'm going to live off of once I stop working. That's going to be invested differently. If this is for grandkids and their future education versus hey, we've always wanted to buy that vacation home down in Florida and, yeah, we might touch that money in three to five years to use it as a down payment for that house All three of those situations are going to have different investment goals and objectives associated with them, and if we start with the investments first, it's putting the cart before the horse and it's not capturing all the other necessities that somebody might have in their life, because, at the end of the day, for most people, especially the families that we work with, it's not about who can accumulate the biggest pile of money at the end of their lives.
Speaker 3:It's who can make the biggest impact on your family, your community and, at the end of it, living the life that you want to live and just using money as a tool to help you do that, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That does make sense. So what do you like to do for fun when you're not working on your business or counting numbers?
Speaker 3:I was going to say. That's the nice thing about us business owners is the business is fun for a lot of us, but when I am not in front of clients or my laptop screen which I'm in front of way too much, but when I am actually outside of that, I am in a band. The band is called If Walls Could Talk. I play saxophone and piano and sing in that band and gosh, that band has been around for, uh, over 12 years now, so that that definitely keeps me a little bit busy during the week.
Speaker 2:so music is still a big part of my life so we'll typically do that, and so when's the next big gig?
Speaker 3:we're writing a new album right now, so not a whole lot of live performance, but we've got a rehearsal session tonight and we're going to be writing some more music. So our goal is to hopefully put something out later this fall for some new music and a new album next year. So that definitely keeps me busy. It's the left brain, right brain side of things and definitely I think, if I'm getting them right, the left brain is the more analytical side and very much on the day job of being a financial planner. That scratches that itch there. But on the right side of the brain with the music and the arts that keeps me busy. Between that and the church worship band and playing that every Sunday, it definitely keeps me busy on the musical side of things.
Speaker 2:You are quite the busy person I hope you are, so can you describe for us one hardship or life challenge that you rose above and can now say because of that challenge that you're better for it and are stronger?
Speaker 3:For sure, I think. I think this is not going to be an incredibly unique experience, because we all experienced 2020 and going through that very tumultuous chapter in all of our lives. But my wife and I, we are actually planning our wedding for 2020. And we were scheduled to get married in May of 2020. And I remember when all the lockdown started happening and the order started coming out and got the call from our venue that said, hey, we don't know what's going on, we're not going to be able to do it in May, we may have to push it back, find a different date, and this is something that you plan for for years and years and lots and lots of hours go into this.
Speaker 3:I'm very much a planner and I like everything to go to plan. Shocking that I became a financial planner and I like everything to go to plan. Shocking that I became a financial planner.
Speaker 3:But having that plan in place and just having to throw it out the window, especially something as big as a wedding, that was a huge shift and obviously you know, I think, naturally you, you there's anger or resentment, frustration, just feeling like why should I plan for anything?
Speaker 3:Because I have no idea what to plan for, and that was a really difficult time, but we had to, like many other people, move the wedding date, restructure things, and in the moment, you never recognize this as a learning opportunity or just something that will help you later on in life.
Speaker 3:But looking back at it, it's one of those things that you realize that, at the end of the day, most of the things in your life you're not in full control of and you have to roll with the punches and be adaptable and be adaptive to change. And if you're not, that's how the world passes you by and that's how you live in the past is by not changing and adjusting to this world. And I think this that was just a big lesson for me personally and professionally is that we can do our best to plan for the future, but it's never going to be 100% correct and as long as we course correct along the way and know that we just need to anticipate the inevitable changes that are going to happen, I think that's the best mindset to have, and certainly COVID and 2020 taught me and, I'm sure, a lot of other people, that that particular life lesson.
Speaker 2:True, true. So when did you end up getting married?
Speaker 3:September 5th 2020.
Speaker 2:Oh, my daughter-in-law's birthday. Good date.
Speaker 3:It is a good date.
Speaker 2:It is a good date, so what is one thing you wish our listeners knew about your business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a great question. I would say that the biggest thing is that kind of going back with the original. Like one of the myths of our profession is that financial planning is so much more than just the investments, and that's one of the parts of our we call it our guided wealth process that we take folks through is investments is one, you know, one pillar of that process, but we have a couple of others, one of them being income. Right, looking at what social security might look like, when the best time to take it, whether you take it early at 62, whether you wait till your full retirement age, how much you can afford to take out of your portfolio and your investments. Income is certainly one element of that, but a lot of times other people think forget about things like taxes and making sure that we're not overpaying Uncle Sam. So nobody wants to overpay taxes or leave the IRS a tip, and that's a big part that we work with our client CPAs and accountants to help make sure that we're not doing that. And then things like security as well making sure that you have an estate plan in place, that you have wills in place, that your beneficiaries are updated and a lot of times when we get so focused on we have to get the investments right.
Speaker 3:Oftentimes we'll forget some of those other pillars, and it doesn't matter if you've got a million bucks saved in your retirement, if your beneficiary is an ex-spouse, that you didn't intend to get that money and not the kids. All that hard work that you did, planning and saving and investing really means nothing if it doesn't end up in the hands of the people that you wanted it to. So that's what I would say is I think the biggest thing that people overlook when it comes to their financial life is it's not all about investments. There are so many other areas to consider to make sure that you're all buttoned up when it comes to your financial plan.
Speaker 2:That is great. So now our listeners are intrigued.
Speaker 3:The best way for folks to find out about us and see if we can help in their situation is just to visit us at our website, which is wwwkennedyfgcom.
Speaker 2:That's great. Well, Stephen, thank you for your time today and being a guest on our Good Neighbor podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me, Lisa. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast Rochester. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnp rochestercom. That's gnp rochestercom, or call 248-988-9640.