December – Milestone

Troy Lorenz has been a VirtualOffiCenters client at our France location for over 4 years. He started out as a tax attorney, and later transitioned into the financial services industry with Genworth. Troy has enjoyed over 20 years of working with small companies and individual investors. His passion is for helping people invest and plan for their retirement. To learn more about Troy and why he describes himself as an “adrenaline junkie”, continue reading.

Every business has a story, tell us yours.
In many ways, I’m like most businesses in that we arrive at our destination as a result of our relationships and past experiences. I have been in financial services for over 20 years and prior to that was a tax attorney that specialized in estate planning and corporate business dealings. In the past 20 years I have built wonderful relationships with my clients as well as other people that complement what I do and are part of my team.

Every business deals with how to differentiate themselves or run the risk of being just another coffee bean (commodity). However, what can never be commoditized is the strength of my relationships as well as the unique ways that we solve problems. Part of how we keep our solutions unique is that we have a great network of people that we can lean on for ideas and vice versa. We work primarily in three areas:

1. Helping Middle America invest their retirement dollars safely and get a reasonable rate of return. This is a real challenge given the low interest rate environment and the all-time highs of the stock market.
2. Helping small to medium sized employers navigate the Affordable Care Act. Most small business owners should have dropped their health insurance coverage or at least changed their plan design at this point, but haven’t. This is done through private health care exchanges, self-insured and fully insured strategies.
3. Helping those 50 and older plan for the possibility that their health may threaten their family’s emotional and financial well-being in their retirement years. Some people call this long term care planning, but it’s much more than that and it has changed dramatically over the last 5 or so years.

You were chosen as this month’s Milestone Client. Tell us about your Milestone achievements.
When I think about my businesses’ milestones they’re probably both personal and professional. On a personal note, I take great pride in my children and will soon be an empty nester. Hmmm what’s next is a good question? I have three daughters (2 in college and 1 graduated) and one son who lives with me as a senior attending Edina High School. For me each child has created their own set of milestones. On a professional note, I would consider the following as milestones:

1. Early on practicing law for the governor of North Dakota and Price Waterhouse in Minneapolis. Great experiences and set the tone for other opportunities.
2. Making an early commitment to having personal coaches throughout most of my career. Each coaching experience created a number of milestones and breakthroughs (The Strategic Coach, Bruce Elkin, Tony Robbins, Gallop Poll Strenthsfinder, Kolbe to name a few).
3. Choosing and being chosen to lead some fairly large financial service organizations. It’s where I developed as a leader and manager. I was also fortunate enough to have the training and support that can sometimes only be provided by a Fortune 500 company with deep pockets. Some of the leadership development programs that I was part of could and will never be offered today just because of the cost let alone the time commitment.
4. Choosing not to lead a larger organization in favor of becoming a niche player in financial services. At the present time I specialize in really 3 areas. Being independent affords me the opportunity to pick and choose what I work on. I miss the leadership side of the business, but still find opportunities to provide direction to my business owner clients. Sometimes that direction is about financial services and other times it’s about being a confident and sounding board. Being a business owner/leader can be lonely at times.

We all learn from our mistakes, especially in business. Give us some words of wisdom.
I think some of the mistakes I have made have to do with not trusting my intuition and being too logical–remember I am a recovering attorney and CPA! This specifically relates to another one of my learning’s and that is to make sure you do business with people you know, like and trust 90% of the time if they are your clients and 100% of the time if they are your partners. The next and last thing is that if you can’t explain your value proposition or business idea easily, it’s probably too complicated to begin with and will likely create some execution problems. You know the saying “KISS”.

Share the best advice you have ever received.
The best advice I ever received was to pay attention to what people do rather than what they say. I think the saying goes something like this “I can’t hear what you’re saying because your actions speak so loudly”.

Describe your perfect day off. 
Tough question, do I have to pick? How about snowboarding in the mountains in the morning, boogie boarding in the ocean in the afternoon and a great meal with friends and family while watching the sun set.

What might someone be surprised to know about you?
I think most people are surprised at the variety of work experiences I’ve had and how I connect the dots with just about any business conversation. On a personal note people are also usually surprised that I am a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I’ve gone racecar driving, skydiving, whitewater rafting and kayaking, and yes I have some more things yet to experience.

Together we are stronger. Tell us something you like about being our client.
I enjoy the friendship with the girls out front. I feel very welcome when I come in and I know my clients do also. I also think they have done a great job with the space so that I know I am putting my best foot forward. I couldn’t afford to have the number of meeting environments that I have at my fingertips without OffiCenters.

If you could work anywhere under the sun, where would you choose?
I quite frankly wouldn’t pick one place. I love Minnesota in the summer, Costa Rica during most of the winter, and Winter Park in March – after all that’s when they get the most snow.