Client Tales: Streamline Financial Takes the Chaos Out of Financial Planning

We love that our clients are becoming a bigger and bigger family! As you’ll read on, Tim of Streamline Financial Services heard about Quote Roller from one of a couple of our all-star clients. The more and more this happens, it just means there’s one less SaaS you need to use to streamline and organize both ends of your business. How rad is that?

Now read on about how Illinois’ own Streamline Financial family business helps families better plan their financial present and future.

Jennifer Riggins: Could you please briefly introduce yourself and tell us what your business is about?

Tim Meisenheimer:
Business: Streamline Financial Services (Tim Meisenheimer, Chief Maximizer)
Our Mission: Take the chaos and complexity out of financial planning.
What We Do: We manage the personal finances of a select group of families in Chicago and around the world.

Jen: Why did you start it? What makes it unique?

Tim: Fifteen years ago, the same month that Google launched out of a garage in Menlo Park, California, the idea of Streamline was being born in the Chicago suburbs. Our growth curve doesn’t look like Google’s (unless you change the scale on the vertical axis). My older and wiser brother, Toby started Streamline. He’s a natural starter. My role is to maximize Streamline’s positive impact on our client’s lives, starting with their finances.

Toby started Streamline because during his “training” as an financial advisor, he realized that most training programs were glorified sales programs for this product or that product, without much regard to what was best for the client.

We are helping people achieve life goals, not just financial ones. Our commitment is to deep, long-term relationships with our clients. Planning for the future is a fluid exercise that requires discipline, not just action, and faith, not doubt. We take the time to build a high level of trust so that we can walk with our clients through both their best and worst times. Oh, and we also have a Kids Cube with attached reading loft for our clients’ children. And a ping pong table for much-needed brain breaks.

Jen: What do you love about being an entrepreneur?

Tim: It’s amazing to directly impact the life of a client, without asking for permission. It’s expected at Streamline that we give our best for those whom we are serving.

Also, when you see that you can make something better at Streamline, you can. And you can do it today. Like this one time, I wanted to build an online proposal using Quote Roller for a unique client situation. So I built it, and it worked. Now we’re going to make it better next time. I didn’t need any committees to approve the project, I just did it.

Jen: How do you envision success?

Tim: When we are making an impact on our clients’ finances, their lives, and their family. We’re also passionate about changing our industry, but haven’t figured that one out yet.

Jen: How did you hear about Quote Roller? Why did you decide to try our app?

Tim: Our good friend Jason Blumer tweeted about the Honey Agency being in a Quote Roller video. I watched the video and then thought about how we might utilize the online proposals. We decided to try the app because we are seeing an increase in the number of prospective clients that want to pay for our advice and counsel, not just ongoing investment management. A lot of people want to just be pointed in the right direction and don’t need us to hold their hand. We’re like Google Maps. Tell us where you want to go and we’ll give you a couple of options of how to get there.

Jen: How does Quote Roller help your business?

Tim: We can start educating prospective clients before they even engage us. Through live and visual content, we’re able to connect with clients through a variety of learning styles. As former high school teachers, we see the power of being able to show a client a video, write an explanation, or show them a diagram of what’s going on. We’re also a little old school with the proposals, so we talk through it with them so that they’re comfortable with the format.

Jen: What would you tell your friends about Quote Roller?

Tim: I would say, “So, still using Microsoft Word for generating proposals? Loving Microsoft Excel for tracking your sales in a spreadsheet? Jazzed about collaborating on all of these documents via SharePoint? Oh, really? No to all three? Why don’t you try Quote Roller? Chances are, it integrates with your time-tracking, invoicing, e-signature, or CRM app that you’re already using. What’s that? You still use Outlook for your CRM? Nevermind, I don’t have time for this.”

I’d also add: Quote Roller will give you information that you wish you always had. You’ll also create an arsenal of tools that you wish you could present to clients during a proposal, but you gave up because of that one time you tried to stream a video during a powerpoint.

Jen: Have you seen any winning rate increases? Any other delightful numbers?

Tim: We’re fairly new to Quote Roller, but it has already paid for itself 83.3333333333333334 times after our very first proposal was accepted. Did I mention that it was one of our largest proposals ever for a client project? If you want numbers, we’re batting 1,000 so far with proposals sent and accepted. We can’t wait to send out the next one.

Tim Meisenheimer is a Registered Representative of and Securities offered through LaSalle St. Securities LLC (LSS), member FINRA/SIPC.