Live by Design with JD Ramirez | Financial Planner Search

<p>In this episode of Financial Planner Search, JD Ramirez, who leads RAM Capital Group, talks about what changes when a business owner stops running the company by default.<br /></p><p>JD grew up in his family’s wine business in Colombia. By eight or nine he was around the vineyard. He was not tasting the wine. He was watching his parents turn grapes into something people wanted, then put the money back into the company, the employees, and the next season. That is still his standard. If he says he will do something, he treats it like a signed contract, and he expects his team to leave a client better than they found them. His phrase for the work is live by design, not by default.</p><p><br /></p><p>Most of the people who come to him already own the business. Restaurants, stores, healthcare practices, law firms, companies they have been building for five or ten years. They usually show up with a structure in place. The first pass is a hard look at what is actually there. His favorite recent conversation was a couple in Atlanta who had spent 45 years building a manufacturing company after moving from Mexico with three children. Nobody had asked what they wanted to happen to the company, how it would move to the next generation, or how they might share some of it with the executives they already treat like family. Another company in South Florida went from about 10 employees to about 680 after a reward program that went past salary and a bonus: performance measures, a path toward equity, schooling, and even a daycare at the workplace so parents could have lunch with their kids. He will not take an owner who will not be coached. If the advice sits unused, he would rather walk away.</p><p><br /></p><p>Takeaways</p><p>- What a childhood in a family wine business still requires of his word</p><p>- Why “live by design, not by default” starts with questions the owner has not been asked</p><p>- How a 45-year company opened up once someone asked about the next generation and the people they treat like family</p><p>- What kept employees at a South Florida company as it grew from about 10 people to about 680</p><p>- Who he turns away: owners who will not act on the coaching</p><p>Chapters</p><p>00:00 A Family Wine Business in Colombia</p><p>04:37 Your Word Is the Contract</p><p>06:48 Live by Design, Not by Default</p><p>09:40 Forty-Five Years, and Nobody Asked</p><p>15:02 Taxes, If I’m Gone, and Getting My Time Back</p><p>17:38 Past Salary and a 401(k)</p><p>24:04 If