What Building a Business Owner Consulting Program Taught Me About Professional Education
- David H. Kinder, RFC®, ChFC®, CLU®
- 3 hours ago
- 10 min read
Over the course of my career, I have had the opportunity to study under some exceptional educational programs, learn from outstanding professionals, and spend nearly two decades refining how I communicate complex planning concepts to clients and other advisors.
What I never expected was to eventually be asked by an established professional industry association to help develop and evolve a business-owner consulting designation program of its own.
What began as a curriculum-development project ultimately evolved into something much broader: a deep professional exercise in defining what meaningful education, practical competency, and real-world consulting should actually look like for advisors working with business owners.
This is the story of how that happened — and what I learned from it.
How It Started
This story actually begins back in 2007.
At the time, I had completed the CFP® curriculum portion of the ChFC® designation when a discussion forum member from Texas, Jamie Anderson, recommended that I look into an industry association and their primary designation.
I had never heard of either at that time.
I researched the organization, watched presentations from then-CEO Ed Morrow, RFC®, CFP®, CLU®, ChFC®, read issues of their monthly newsletter publication, and decided to join.
Ironically, my first membership application was initially declined.
At the time, the educational standards required either completion of an approved curriculum, a qualifying designation, or CFP-equivalent coursework. While I had completed the CFP curriculum portion of the ChFC® (six of the eight required courses), I had not yet technically earned the designation itself. After submitting clarification and appealing the decision, I was ultimately approved.
Oddly enough, that experience reinforced an important principle for me very early in my career:
Professional standards matter.
As I became more involved with the association, I began reading their monthly newsletter publication regularly and was introduced to professionals like Lew and Jeremy Nason of the Insurance Pro Shop — relationships and friendships that continue to this day.
Around 2009-2010, Ed Morrow launched his Business Owner Consulting Workshop, a live educational workshop focused on helping advisors better serve business owners and professionals.
I was fascinated by it.
One of my long-term career aspirations had always been to become a more comprehensive advisor for business owners, but I never felt there was a clear roadmap showing how to truly approach that market at a high level.
Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to attend the workshop myself.
Over time, references to the program seemed to quietly disappear.
The Return of the Idea
Several years later, I noticed discussions online mentioning that the association was evolving the original workshop into a more formal designation program geared toward business owners.
Immediately, I became interested.
Would this become an evolution of what Ed Morrow originally created?
I rejoined the association in late 2020, partly because I still hoped to eventually study the material myself.
At roughly the same time, I enrolled to complete my CLU® designation through The American College of Financial Services. While the CLU® had always been on my personal career “bucket list,” I was particularly interested in the business-owner planning curriculum within the program as a personal prerequisite to taking the evolved business owner consulting program.
Meanwhile, I had also begun writing extensively online.
What started as occasional articles evolved into a large body of educational content covering financial planning concepts, myths, strategies, and professional observations.
Through that process, I discovered one of the greatest paradoxes of professional growth:
You often learn far more by teaching and writing than you ever did as the student.
As my writing became more visible, conversations about the business-owner program resurfaced again.
In August 2021, I received an unexpected message asking whether I would be interested in helping develop and evolve the program itself.
I was genuinely surprised by the opportunity.
My initial reaction was hesitation. I had never written a formal designation program before, nor had I ever even written a business owner case at that level. At the same time, I also knew how deeply interested I was in the subject matter and how strongly I believed in improving how advisors approached business-owner consulting.
This quote is commonly credited to Tina Fey: "Say yes, and you'll figure it out afterwards."
I signed a non-disclosure agreement and waited for the opportunity to begin.
Why the Opportunity Was So Unusual
The more I thought about the opportunity, the more I realized how rare it actually was.
Most major educational institutions in financial services operate within highly structured academic environments.
The CFP® curriculum is taught through universities and accredited institutions.
Likewise, The American College of Financial Services and the College for Financial Planning are regionally accredited educational institutions with extensive faculty structures and academic standards.
To formally write educational content within those systems typically requires traditional academic credentials and academic career paths.
I do not come from academia.
My background is practical application, professional self-study, industry relationships, writing, and real-world advisory work.
At the same time, I also recognized that there are many excellent organizations serving professionals in specialized disciplines:
NAIFA and the LUTCF® designation
The Exit Planning Institute and the CEPA® designation,
NAEPC and the AEP® designation,
The Institute of Business & Finance,
and several others.
Some provide outstanding educational frameworks.
Some provide strong networking ecosystems.
Some provide technical specialization.
But one thing became increasingly clear to me throughout this process:
Many designations educate. Far fewer truly prepare professionals to implement.
Receiving the Original Materials
In 2024, I was finally given access to the original Business Owner Consulting Workshop materials.
In many ways, it felt like receiving something I had been hoping to study for nearly fifteen years.
The original workshop contained PowerPoint presentations, analytical spreadsheets, planning concepts, communication tools, and implementation frameworks.
What immediately stood out to me was that the material was not purely theoretical.
It was designed to be used.
That distinction became incredibly important in shaping my thinking moving forward.
The Real Question: What Makes a Designation Valuable?
As I reviewed the material and began thinking through what the program could become, I found myself asking a much bigger question:
What actually makes a professional designation valuable?
Most designations are built around what are often called the “Four E’s”:
Education,
Examination,
Experience,
Ethics.
Those standards absolutely matter.
But the deeper I became involved in the development process, the more I realized that the real challenge was not simply creating educational material.
The real challenge was defining what professional competency for business-owner consultants should actually look like.
I began distinguishing between two broad categories:
Generalist Designations
Programs such as CFP®, ChFC®, CLU®, MRFC®, and PFS® provide broad-based financial planning and advisory education.
Specialist Designations
These focus on narrower disciplines such as estate planning, retirement income planning, business-owner consulting, valuation, divorce planning, special-needs planning, and similar areas.
The proposed designation program clearly belonged in the second category.
But if it was going to exist, I believed it needed to become more than simply another academic designation.
It needed to help professionals actually function more effectively in the real world.
Educational Philosophy
At a minimum, a credible designation program must include meaningful educational content and a legitimate examination process.
Otherwise, the designation risks becoming little more than purchased initials — something I personally believe weakens the credibility of professional education.
Fortunately, I had a substantial foundation of educational material and professional references to draw from throughout the development process.
My studies through the CLU® curriculum included Planning for Business Owners and Professionals, and years earlier I completed Essentials of Business Insurance through the LUTCF program. Beyond that, I had accumulated years of research materials, case studies, professional references, and practical planning experience.
Educational content is never created in a vacuum.
Terminology, legal structures, tax concepts, valuation methods, and planning frameworks are part of a shared professional language. What matters is not whether concepts are referenced or discussed — it is whether sources are properly attributed, ideas are synthesized ethically, and the material is transformed into something educationally useful, practical, and coherent.
As the old joke goes:
“If you steal from one place, it’s theft. If you steal from many places, it’s research.”
There is humor in the statement, but there is also truth: The value often lies not merely in information itself, but in interpretation, organization, simplification, and application.
Still, educational content alone does not make a specialist designation truly valuable.
The educational component establishes competency — but competency alone does not necessarily create practical effectiveness.
That realization also shaped my philosophy regarding examinations.
Some organizations heavily market the difficulty of their exams or publicize pass rates as a badge of prestige. In my view, that largely impresses other advisors — not the public we ultimately serve.
We are not students competing for academic rankings.
We are professionals entrusted with helping individuals, families, and business owners make serious financial and strategic decisions.
To me, the true measure of a quality designation is not how difficult the exam is.
It is how effectively the educational process helps professionals absorb, retain, communicate, and apply what they have learned in real-world situations.
Designations should function as a silent endorsement of professional competency — not as a talking point designed to impress clients.
While I appropriately display my credentials and professional designations, I rarely discuss them unless someone specifically asks. The focus should remain on the client and the quality of the advice being delivered, not on the advisor’s résumé.
Ultimately, the objective should be practical mastery: Helping professionals communicate more clearly, think more critically, build confidence appropriately, and create better outcomes for the people they serve.
Analysis and Communication Tools
One of the greatest strengths of the original Business Owner Consulting Workshop materials was that they extended beyond theory alone.
The program included PowerPoint presentations, Excel-based analytical tools, planning worksheets, and written communication templates designed to help consultants move from education into implementation.
In many ways, this practical component became the bridge between knowledge and usability.
Much of the material required modernization. Some spreadsheets contained errors or outdated assumptions tied to prior tax laws and planning environments. Other tools simply needed refinement to improve clarity and usability for newer professionals.
Part of my role became translating complex concepts into tools that were easier to follow, easier to explain, and easier to implement accurately.
In several cases, I added instructional notes directly into spreadsheets and analytical models to guide users step-by-step through assumptions and inputs.
The principles underlying the planning strategies had not fundamentally changed — but the delivery, usability, and presentation absolutely needed to evolve.
These tools alone could have functioned as a valuable consulting and sales system.
However, tools without education risk becoming mechanical. Education without implementation tools risks remaining theoretical.
The real value came from integrating both. A professional should not finish an educational program asking: “What information did I memorize?”
They should finish asking: “How do I apply this to help real people solve real problems?”
That distinction became central to my thinking throughout the entire development process.
Mindset, Psychology, and Working With Business Owners
One of the biggest realizations I had throughout this process was that technical knowledge alone does not build confidence.
In fact, education often initially weakens confidence because it exposes how much we still do not know. Concepts like the Dunning-Kruger effect and imposter syndrome become very real once someone begins operating at a higher professional level.
I remember completing major designation programs and simply asking myself: “Now what?”
The phone does not suddenly ring because additional letters appear after your name.
Business owners are also fundamentally different from many traditional retail clients.
They are busy.
Decisive.
Often skeptical.
And usually surrounded by people trying to accommodate them rather than challenge them constructively.
Business owners rarely need more information. What they often need is clarity.
They need someone who can help them think clearly.
They need someone capable of advocating for them to themselves — someone willing to ask difficult questions, identify risks honestly, and help create intentional decisions.
That requires more than technical education.
It requires communication skills, confidence, psychology, positioning, and mindset.
One of the most important lessons in consulting is learning not to emotionally internalize every client problem.
The consultant’s role is to bring structure, clarity, education, and recommendations — not to personally carry the emotional burden of every decision being made.
That mindset shift is incredibly important for long-term professional sustainability.
What I Ultimately Learned
What began as a designation-development project ultimately evolved into something much broader:
A philosophy about how advisors should think, communicate, analyze problems, and serve business owners more effectively.
The experience reinforced something I have come to believe very strongly:
Professional education matters most when it changes the way someone thinks, communicates, and serves others — not merely when it gives them additional letters after their name.
Too often, professional designations become exercises in information consumption rather than transformation.
My objective was never simply to help create another course.
It was to help build a framework that could genuinely prepare advisors and consultants to think more deeply, communicate more clearly, and serve business owners at a higher level.
In the process, I gained something even more valuable than I originally expected: clarity.
Clarity about the difference between education and implementation.
Clarity about the importance of competency over completion.
Clarity about the responsibility involved in creating professional standards and educational content that may shape how others advise clients for years to come.
Most importantly, the experience reinforced my belief that business-owner consulting is not primarily about products, sales systems, or even designations themselves.
It is about helping people protect their life’s work, make informed decisions, and create intentional outcomes for their families, employees, and businesses.
Whether through future writing, teaching, consulting, speaking, or other projects still to come, that mission has not changed.
If anything, the experience clarified it even further.
And in many ways, this journey was only the beginning.
What ultimately came from the project was not simply a proposed designation program, but a much clearer understanding of what I believe professional education for business-owner consultants should actually accomplish.
Over time, the project itself evolved considerably — and so did my own perspective regarding where I wanted to focus my long-term efforts. After substantial reflection, I ultimately decided not to continue forward with the program in its proposed form.
Even so, I remain sincerely appreciative for the opportunity, the relationships developed throughout the process, and the many professionals who shared feedback, encouragement, and ideas along the way. The experience challenged me professionally, expanded my thinking considerably, and played a meaningful role in shaping many of the philosophies reflected throughout this article.
Most importantly, it reinforced my belief that the future of professional education is not merely about information, examinations, or additional letters after someone’s name. It is about helping professionals think more clearly, communicate more effectively, and confidently apply what they know to help real people solve real problems.
That mission remains very much intact.
I will continue developing my own independent educational content, business-owner consulting concepts, valuation systems, and professional frameworks moving forward — and I remain incredibly optimistic about where those ideas may ultimately lead.
