The Business of Business Podcast

Why You Should Value Happiness On The Road To Success with Vernon Brown

With over 15 years’ experience as being a trainer and coach Vernon Brown is the happiness and success coach. He shows entrepreneurs how to leverage happiness to become more successful, strategic and influential both personally and professionally.

Everyone is looking for magic key that will unlock their happiness, not realizing that we’ve been evading it all our lives. We take it for granted, getting caught up in the minutia of life, failing to stop and smell the roses and appreciate the things that are important to us. I believe your life truly begins when you make happiness a tangible commodity that is non-negotiable. Why is your happi important to me? Because happiness evaded me most of my young life.

It wasn’t until I reached adulthood that I understood the value of happiness, which is somewhat of a backwards experience. Many people experience the wonder of childhood imagination and innocence, only to lose it as they grow older. Not me. Childhood wonder and innocence was foreign to me.
When you shatter a vase on the floor, it takes time to pick up the pieces and put it together. And, once it is put together, it’s never the same; it’s now more fragile than it was to begin with. I was that shattered vase.

My grandmother was the glue that helped me begin to put pieces together when I moved in with her. She showed me how to be a child, something I’d never really known. My experiences taught me to be very observant of people, mostly as a defense mechanism to protect myself. My awkward stage extended into adulthood. I did not grow into the person you see before you today until I turned 20.

At that point, I learned that being happy is not something life gives you; you have to seize it for yourself and control it. That’s one of the biggest challenges people face today; they are allowing someone else to hold the puppet strings on what makes them happy.

I share my story with you because I want you to know that no matter your circumstances, you have the power to claim happiness for yourself. My life experience has not only helped me learn the value of happiness for myself, but it has awakened a passion in me to help others claim that freedom for themselves. It is my desire for everyone I encounter to experience what I see in them.

I want to help you move out of crisis mode and be present. When you discover your happi, finding what’s right becomes easier than searching for the problem in everything. I want to open your eyes to that. There is no agenda or menu when you work with me. I meet you on your level to achieve what’s most important to you – discovering and claiming your happi.

www.whatsyourhappi.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (00:03):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy. Thanks for joining us today. Um, you know, what our format is basically, as we bring on a lot of professional, a lot of different disciplines, uh, try to get the message out what they do. Um, sometimes as small business, uh, solo preneur entrepreneur, you know, it's a matter of, we just don't know what we don't know. And so this is a great way, not only to help myself in my business endeavors, but also like to share the message with you, the audience, because, um, also this helps us. If, if we do have a problem or find something that we need, uh, gives us a lot of people to turn to, to get that help, to be successful. So today we're going to talk about probably the, um, big, one of the bigger topics that we've ever talked about, and that is happiness. And we were fortunate enough to have Vernon Brown with us. He's got over 15 years experience as being a trainer and a coach, and he is the happiness and success coach. He shows entrepreneurs how to leverage happiness, to become successful, strategic and influential both personally and professionally. So with that welcome Vernon.

Vernon (01:19):

Oh, thank you. Well, I appreciate you having me here. Appreciate people taking that time to listen. So yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (01:24):

Thanks so much. And you know, when, uh, when I had, when we had talked, when I had read about you, and then we talked a little bit earlier, of course, we got carried away on the conversation because this is a huge thing for me. I just feel like, um, you know, happiness in our life, even when things aren't going good, or when we're squeezed, happiness is such an important factor.

Vernon (01:46):

I agree, you know, seven years ago when I started this, everyone said I was a fool, what are you doing? Two and a half. And it's going to get out of here. And now it's just like, I laugh about it now. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (01:57):

Sometimes that's how we know we're on the right path when everybody's telling us we're on the wrong path. Right. No, you know, and it's, it's big for me. I mean, you know, through the day, it's not necessarily, you know, like Tenter temper tantrum throwing on the floor screaming, but you know, as D as things are moving through the day, if things don't work out, if you have, you know, sometimes you have to take that extra time to reload that web page or redo this or whatever. And then, um, you know, it can kind of send you on that downhill spiral. So what are some things that we can do to, uh, you know, try to maintain that happiness level, even when things are starting to crumble around us,

Vernon (02:38):

You know, that's a, you know, that's a optimal question. I laugh another webpage that, so Joe was having some issues with mine. You know, fortunately things worked out, you know, I think first, I think, cause I'm gonna answer that, but I think it's important to understand what happened. It says by my definition, what's your happy death, you know, what makes me happy? What makes you happy? What make your aunt, your mom, your dad, anybody, what made you happiness is such a subjective thing. Right? And for me, regardless of whatever your happy is, it's it equates to the same output and it's energy. Happiness for me is energy. No, hear me out. I want to kind of explain the energy. It's when energy is low concentration focus awareness, um, we get a little more irritable. They're gone. Like, I mean, you know, I mean, excuse me, you, you, they, they just, through the roof, like you just, it's not happening.

Vernon (03:29):

You know, you mentioned like with the webpage yesterday, I was like so frustrated, but then, you know, I had to sit back and I had to reframe, right. And that's where the energy came from. It's like, what am I learning? And so that, from that point, that's when, um, you know, you kind of come out of it and that's when the energy gets higher. So I think it's important, you know, to kind of start there with that snippet. Yeah. Now, now you're thinking, go ahead. I think when it comes to happiness, what, you know, some people can do and you know, can help a lot of people, just so many different clients. So many, several thousand clients over the years is just recognizing that you got to take some time for you and entrepreneurs are notorious for not taking any time for themselves. They're like, I'm off, I'm off and they're on the phone. They always checking emails. Like I'm all, if I'm often Dan looking at this and looking at it out, like, no, that, that, that, that is the first thing we got to do, right?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (04:25):

Yeah, no. And I've got a, I've got a wonderful girlfriend that, you know, kind of keeps me on the right path with that because I am that guy I can fall. You know, there's always a, some kind of a stat to check something to follow up on. And, but, um, before we even get off into that, I want to, you know, kind of drop back and say that what you're saying about everything being in line is so important. Because with me, I notice when things, when, when I don't get enough sleep, that's when things start to go downhill, don't get the exercise in. And I, I love to just walk because of the clarity. I'm lucky to live in a very rural place so I can walk quietly here in nature. It gives me that clarity, but when I don't get that sleep and, uh, you know, it's just like, eh, this morning I had a couple tough tasks facing me this morning with some stuff. And I thought, Oh, when I woke up, I was laying there and thinking, do I even want to try to get up out of bed? Because you know, I know these first few tasks are gonna be tough, but I finally got happy and said, you know what? I can do this. And you know, once I got that happy motivator, man, I jumped up and got after it. And you know what things went extremely well.

Vernon (05:38):

Well, excellent. You brought up such a great phenomenon and none of us can say we haven't experienced. Sometimes. You're like, I don't want to go to the gym and you got to get your shoes on and you got to get him to call. You got to just turn the steering wheel. You know what I mean? And it sounds, it sounds like so funny, but that's, it feels like, but then once you kind of get moving and get into action, all of a sudden, guess what things get easier? It's not as bad.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (06:05):

Yeah. Speaking of the gym, it's funny. I was walking into mine not long ago. And there was a frustrated driver that was mad cause they couldn't park right in the front door. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you came to the gym to get some exercise. And now you're getting all upset because you can't park right in the front door. I mean, it was kind of, I know that it wasn't for them, but it's kind of humorous for me to think about, you know, things that we, we had to let agitate us. And I think that's the other thing to, you know, it's, uh, my priest is, he's an awesome guy, just so down to earth. But you know, what he told me a long time ago was that our minds are like grinders. And, but they grind all day 24 seven while you're up, but we get to choose what they grind and you know, that's been such an important message for me through life is to always when, you know, when I start feeling that way, I think, Hey, you know what? I'm sitting here thinking about this or making it worse. It's up to me to, you know, kind of flip that switch and I guess gratitude, you know, first thing I do is look around and what am I grateful for? You know, I've got such an awesome life that really I'm letting them, I'm having to re log into this website five times and now I'm getting all bent out of shape about that. Look around let's, you know, kind of put things in perspective,

Vernon (07:26):

But you said so many key things here and I'm happy that you're having, you said this because a lot of people, everybody experiences this when we get caught up in life, right? Like when, when things are pulling us and we feel like we have no gift, it narrows our focus. And all the sudden that parking spot seems like, Oh, it's the end of the wording of everything means everything, right? Yeah. Part of our brain that we need, we need to make sure that, you know, we gotta fight. We gotta make sure that we're safe, but when energy gets low, it just ignites it and it doesn't see anything other than what it wants. Correct. And you know, I think the really big key point here is something I'm always reminded, you know, audiences, the powers and the questions, you know, you ask yourself, what am I grateful for?

Vernon (08:06):

Which is a fantastic question, asking yourself, what's really going on here. You know, um, the questions free us up because the questions, openness stuff, you know, and then it's why questions are, you know, it's my number one tool that I use every single day, the questions. Right. And you know, you understand it that, you know, this, this thing when he gets upset, frustrated, agitated, whatever you want to call it, it's not bringing you closer to what you want. It's doing what it's supposed to do with the energy it's doing what it's supposed to do with the energy, but it's not doing necessarily what we wanted to do and the questions for you up so you can see an alternative. Right?

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (08:42):

Yeah. And I think, you know, the other thing to this is that when we start getting frustrated, um, you know, we have an unfortunate pattern of taking it out on others that are around us. So, you know, that's one reason why I try to keep in check is because, you know, I don't want to, you know, I'm upset about something else that's going on. I don't want to come on here and, you know, take it out on Vernon or whatever. It's not, you didn't have anything to do with that. You know, you may, sometimes you're just the victim in the fallout from people. But I think if you have staff working for you, it it's super important to be in touch with yourself. And it's not the it's not bad that you get that way. I don't think it's just more recognizing that you are going down that path and, and you have the power to change that

Vernon (09:29):

You are you're right. It's anger, whatever, whatever that feeling is that you bond on pleasant. It's not bad to feel it. It's just recognizing you don't have to stay there long. You know, people will come up to me and like, we're the happy guy. You're not allowed to have a bad day. And I'm like bull butter. I'm not, no, I have bad experiences. Like I mentioned a website, I was frustrated and it took me about 10 minutes. I used to have a quick story. I used to have a horrible, horrible temper. And I'm not proud to say this we're talking 15 years ago. And you know, you produce the word. Thank a few times what stopped me from having a bad temper was that realized that I can't think of the angry. You can just be angry and you'll attack anybody who's near you. You know what I mean?

Vernon (10:08):

Like, we'll try anything. Cause it's the closest thing to you. Right, right. Whatever. I think it was bad. I'm like, wait a minute. I'm not in control. And then that's, that's not cool. Yeah. But it's, it's such an amazing phenomenon. The beauty of it is, is setting that, you know, one of the things you could do to give somebody some strategies is always that people know these are called positive brain breaks. One, the two who took three minute brain breaks day will change so much. Like even right before we got on the call and my son, you know, we're on the home, I'm working and I'm doing homeschooling and everything. And he like drove me up a wall and what did we do? We sat down and we started watching marijuana. We started like, that's my movie. Right. And we're saying, you know how far I go? And I forgot everything that was going on. Right. But if you're having a tough time, you know, you strategically, and I encourage every entrepreneur to do things like that, you know, take a walk, ride in a car with your tenant, windows and scream when no one's around just to kind of get that energy out. But those brain breaks can be such [inaudible] impact. Yeah, yeah. That one, the Madonna who's that girl when you're upset.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (11:10):

Yeah. Well, that's, that's important, you know, for me, not only, um, and this is a two-fold situation, but getting out and walking for that 15 minutes clears my head. And you know, I do have to say that my girlfriend gets, you know, she's nervous when I come back from walking by myself because like, Oh, I had 25 ideas in this little 15 minute walk. She's like, Oh my God, if I wait too much time to think there, but what you had said earlier about taking a brain break is that read a study not long ago. And this works for entrepreneurs as well as our children that we are so scheduled from the time we wake up to the time we go to bed that we never take that little break, but that break is where we find our creativity. And you know, that the, I think the study was based on children more or less, but I think it applies to us that, uh, instead of giving them that, you know, like for me, I'm I'm of an age that, you know, we didn't have a lot of TV or, um, we didn't have any electronics for sure.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (12:15):

So when we went outside during the day, I mean, we had to figure something out, whether we were riding bikes, throwing a baseball football, you know, playing hide and seek or whatever. But we had to be a little creative in figuring that out. And unfortunately, you know, we just don't give ourselves that space anymore.

Vernon (12:35):

I love everything that you just said. It's something that, um, you know, I really sat back and especially been a father that really stood out to me and it said everything we needed to be successful and happy in life. We learned as children, we need proper nutrition. We need sleep. We need to have fun. And we need you to new experiences. And there's many more and we need structure. There's many more things, but when it comes to that, that space, and I love that you said taking a walk. I think bill Gates was saying that the Mo the, one of his, um, the Casey attributes to assess, um, success and a butcher in his quote, but it was his walk. He learned so much. Yeah. And one of the things I tell everyone I demand actually entrepreneurs and my clients to do is you have to take thinking time every single week.

Vernon (13:15):

Right? I mean like, what do you mean they can Thomas that you need to take at least two hours. I'm not saying you gotta do two hours of blocks. You go take a walk. One of the things that I deal with is I locked myself in a room with my white board and you're not allowed to stress about a lot of worried, but I have to sit there and think it's because, you know, a business owners, you know, especially we gotten into business because we thought we would be successful. Right. Right. And so for us to get to the next level or for us to create gaps or for us to kind of work smarter, you need to think, right. And it's a powerful thing. And it's something that we used to do with kids. We let them play adults don't play enough. Right. When you're not thinking about what's wrong in your plane, you start coming up. And all of a sudden these solutions, all of a sudden you start seeing different opportunities. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (13:58):

Yeah. A guy, no, that's a fitness instructor. He just told me this the other day. He's like, we don't get, we see how we don't stop playing because we get old, we get old because we stopped playing. And I think there's so much power in that statement.

Vernon (14:15):

George Bernard, Charlotte, isn't it

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (14:16):

Wasn't, it could have been. Yeah. He just had a, he just told me the other day, but I thought it was very good because that's right. I mean, we, we still, and we got into this as entrepreneurs and doing things. So we would have spare time to do what we want to do. But then if we, um, you know, if we work from candy cane, then all of a sudden, all we've done is really, we've just, you know, kind of bought us a minimum wage job that we don't get that joy out of life. And I think, uh, you know, joy is so important that in the other thing, talking about joy is not let other people steal that. And that's, that's very difficult sometimes going through the day is that, um, you know, we have to protect that and say, Hey, you can't take that from me.

Vernon (15:05):

Well, you know, um, again, so many key things you're hitting on, you know, I just made a post about this, about every relationship is a chemical reaction and you need to make sure, are you getting positivity out of reaction? Are you getting plant them out of your interaction or are you get a negativity? Are you getting pessimism or are you getting cold? And especially now with so many different things going on, I call it the great reset, not to diminish the tragedies that have happened, but to, you know, recognize it. There's a lot of time for us to grow even more right now. That's what called the reset. Right. But we need to be guard ourselves guard your mind. Like when we hit it off, we had our call the first time just to see if we're a good fit. We were like, Oh man, got this idea.

Vernon (15:45):

Or we're gonna have a great time. Like when you have a relationship like that, like picture had 10 conversations like that day. And it's not just, you know, um, it just fills you up, but look, what you more, how much more you can give, like, Oh, Hey, no problem. Let me help you. Let me grab that door for you. Let me do that. Like it, it feeds off of it. And there's some people, especially with the holiday season, you know, out and about in a film every year, I'll let people know. There's some people that you need to feed with a long-handled spoon. You need to love some people from afar. I don't know about you, but I got a couple of them. I'm not family. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (16:18):

There is nothing wrong. I, you know, we have this conversation around our family a lot is that, you know, you, you don't get to choose your family. You're born into them. That doesn't mean we love you less, but you're right. Sometimes that long handled spoon, I like that. I like that analogy.

Vernon (16:32):

You don't have to talk with someone and they're dreading the holidays and I'll just ask them. I was like, so what's the time limit? Like, what do you mean? It was like, you're telling me they make you miserable. They judge you and this and the other. Did you realize, you know, it's like, since you don't have to stay there the full day, how long can you stay? That you can show some love. And they're like, Oh, I never thought of that. I was like, now don't you all have? How long would you like to be in misery an hour?

Vernon (16:54):

Well, you got to make fun of people because you or somebody, or some people are in different places in life. And it might not be in alignment with yourself. You know, we're all trying to figure things out. I don't know about you, but I didn't get the manual life. Yeah. And when people are trying to figure some things out, they can have be a particular way that might not suit you. Now, what you just mentioned though, is you don't have to be around them, right? I mean, you can still love them. You might love them, but not their ways. And that's okay. But I challenge everyone. If you really want to see a significant impact in your life. Um, this probably number two is your environment. There is no man or woman greater than his or her environment. If you are in a negative judgmental, critical place, it is incredibly challenging to get out of it. Trust me. I came from that. Yeah. Um, but a lot of it started with how a condition, my environment that started with watching YouTube videos, listening to songs, um, songs, watching movies that made me happy. And it gave me the strength to take the risk, which was actually wasn't even a risk to, um, put myself in a better place. Right? Relationships are,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (17:58):

Music is, uh, music is great for me too. And that's usually what I do when I'm eating. You know, if I'm not just listening to nature is turning on a little music, but it can really change my, my outlook immediately, you know, to get a good song, kind of gets you moving. And I think it is, it's an energy. It's an energy that, uh, that you use it can have on some of us, not everybody feels that way, but you know, I, I got some good advice. This has been years ago. Uh, and it was somebody telling somebody else I just get got to over here, but they were dreading going to the, their families for Christmas. And, uh, what this person told them was, you know, don't go over there in dread, turn it around and go over there with, uh, an abundance of energy, buy little small gifts for everybody go in there.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (18:47):

Like, you know, she actually used these terms. They'd go in there. Like, you're the cat daddy. And you know, you're, you're happy. You're not dreading be there. And it would, you know, it was amazing that this other guy that, uh, that did this came back after Christmas and said, Oh my gosh, it was a totally different experience because I think he, you know, what he said was the dread that I had to do, this was what was bringing all this negative energy. And when I went in with that positive energy, had a little gift for everybody. And like, you're not messing me up this year. He said it was a whole different experience.

Vernon (19:27):

Yeah. And you bring up again another phenomenon. You're like a calendar today. It's oftentimes when we, we, and there's nothing wrong with some hesitations about going to an event, right. Because who wants to be in a past circumstance in the present, but it's recognizing that often times the most sophisticated person can control the room. I used to get into your head. This is bad attitude, bad temper. And then I thought the world was against me. And it's like, no, it's not, it's not against me. And it was just a lot of it had to do with my attitude. And, you know, even when it doesn't have anything to do with your attitude, you're positive, you're energetic. If you keep being positive with people, they either become positive or they leave you alone. Right. You know, they'll send him like, what are you so happy for? Just like, give me three reasons why I shouldn't be right. And you know, and they're like, well, uh, well tell me three reasons why you are happy. And then they're just like, well, something's wrong with you? Something wrong, wrong. I don't want something weird about him because something, because that's just how some people, um, I don't know, see the world and that's okay, but that's not for you. That's not for me. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (20:29):

Yeah. And you know, I have a little bit of a survivor's guilt, I guess, because this pandemic, and like you said, I don't want to ever make light of it because it's been hard on people. There's people that have lost loved ones, people that have lost their job, their income, and really hard times. But, you know, I, I guess I feel like I've actually kind of thrived a little bit during this because it has given me that extra time, you know, like to get out, work around my place a little bit to have that clear head thinking. But you know, also, uh, just not, uh, I'm not on the run from the time I wake up until the time I go to bed, there's actually some time. And, you know, we have, uh, we've actually embraced cooking. You know, we used to pretty much eat on the run, but now we're getting in the kitchen, cutting up some stuff, trying some different recipes and, you know, we're just, it's just, it's not only good togetherness time for us, but I've actually kind of found it a little fun and little interesting to what you can create.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (21:30):

So, um, but I know that there hasn't been, I know there are people that, that haven't had that luxury. So, um, you know, what about that? What's the, you know, how can people, like I said, I try not to be too bubbly about that because it's like, well, um, you know, you never know the other person's situation and I sure don't want to make light of things, but, uh, you know, that survivor's guilt. It can be a kind of a real thing.

Vernon (21:58):

Yeah. It's, you know, I appreciate you being so open and honest about that because it is a, this is a subject I talked about often with many clients and, um, just some, uh, loved ones. It's, it's not for me. And it's not that it's hard to, you know, celebrate a lot of the good times and how like you've experienced a positive, um, pandemic, you know, for everything that's going on. And that's the way we might want to play small. It's why I'm just a big fan of everything I have going on with the gun, call it out. It's called a double down. Like we need to double down and talking about are the wins because what's happening is the wins are being overcast by the, the, the negative. Right. Um, and it's, you know, uh, it depends like I was talking to, you know, a couple of my clients and agents and they didn't want to talk about their successes and a couple of hundred, three doors in the metal fabrication.

Vernon (22:51):

They didn't wanna talk about their successes with family members. I was like, you need to talk to them. You need to share these things because right now people are looking for hope. People are looking for reasons to smile and they, you turn on the news and you're going to find out the five things that you need to curl up in a ball for, but you need to find that one thing or that one per person, who's like, we can do this. And that's why I've actually doubled down on my messaging because people need to recognize we must endure. Right? And we're not going to endure sitting back, playing small. We've got to travel. We got to do some things where you can find strength in others, success, where you can recognize maybe that can be me, right? Because oftentimes we think playing small helps us. And it's not that everyone overshadowed the tragedy, we don't overshadow the losses, always sad, or the struggles people losing their job. If you look at, um, all my clients, you know, they're not all entrepreneurs, but there's a few of them that have lost their jobs. But guess what? We found better ones. Yeah. Because if you're looking for the pain, you will find it. But if you're looking for the wind, it's there. Yeah. You got a little.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (23:51):

Yeah. And I think that's important even in normal times is that, uh, you know, w we go through the day and we have a one or two things that maybe didn't go right. Or something went bad and we can tend to focus on that instead of saying, what about the other 10 things that went extremely well? You know, I don't, I guess we just, as, I don't know if it's humans are conditioned as children, or I don't know why, but it seems like we can always focus on that negative instead of, you know, there's one negative and we'll focus on that instead of the 10 positives.

Vernon (24:25):

Well, you're right on the head. It's because this, this day state, his organism was designed to keep us safe. It's not designed and to keep us happy. And the negativity sticks to us, like Velcro sticks to us. You don't even have to try. You don't even have to try to find something wrong. It rolls right off your back, like Teflon. Right. And, uh, we have to flip that switch and you do it with practice. You do it around being around people who have something that you would like to have. May I want to smile more. I want to have a big smile where I love that. And you gotta be around people. And there's a few more things that you can do, but we've got to do that. It's we have been taught to play small all of our lives. I'm a huge believer of that.

Vernon (25:08):

You know, if you say, you know, people would say things to us, like you're younger, like, well, maybe you don't be too full of yourself or don't get big again. And over while, I mean, there's a few more things. And I call those interjects that have taught us. Don't, don't make your, don't let little giant look bad. Don't make him feel bad. Right? You don't want to make anybody feel bad. You're a figure, the sense of feeling bad, right. Or feeling simple. But so we do these things under the habitual, even thinking about it. And one of the big thing is I tell people, you need to know five things that makes you amazing. There's many more about you and makes you amazing, but you need to know those and be able to step into those. Right. Because people are looking for permission to, um, to be more positive and be who they would like to be. But we got the, I worked religiously, um, to let people know what they're amazing at.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (25:51):

Yeah. Yeah. And that's fine. I think it's, um, that's a good point to think about too, is that we can be happy without being obnoxious. I mean, I don't have to be, I have to be mean to somebody else to, you know, rub in my successes my day. And of course, you know, not what, you know, what I was talking about more or less, a lot of that thinking to myself, but it's a good point is that, you know, sometimes some people have that tendency to, they need to make people around them feel small in order to make themselves feel big. And, you know, I kind of look at it the other way is like, what can we do to build people up around us? Because there's enough room for everybody to be successful. We, it's not, there's not a limited number of winners and a number of Lee and everybody else is a loser, can all be winners and encourage each other. And you know, you were talking about giving back and what we can do, but I think we have to finally accept. We need to do things for others without expecting something in return. And I think that's what frees us, because can't be like, Oh, you know what? I gave this person this, and didn't even get a thank you for it. Well, we sh if we're going to give something to somebody, we shouldn't expect anything in return. And that's what frees us to be happy in our heart. Not looking for that negative in that exchange.

Vernon (27:18):

Right. It's when we go through life where we forget that, that person, that we're connected to, that you might've given a gift to that car, to that compliment to, we don't know what they're going through. Right. And sometimes it might take us a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, even a couple of days, you're like, Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. You don't know what a person's going through. Right. And many times it's just, and sometimes they don't know what they going through. They can just feel like, I feel, I feel off. I feel weird. I feel they don't know. And so they might not have the space to say, thank you. Right. For me, it's like you just said, it's recognized. And I'm happy that I was able to provide something to someone I'm happy that I did good. I'm happy because you'd be amazed at how many people.

Vernon (28:01):

And I'm sure you had this experience where someone might come up and say like, I am so sorry. I was not trying to be rude. You know, they're hold the door from seal, hold the door for someone, just a simple gesture. But you know, they're not trying to be evil. Don't get me wrong. There are some knuckleheads out there. Don't get me wrong. But you know, looking at like right now with the pandemic, I, you know, I talked to some, uh, I talked to many people early on and one gentlemen, uh, real quick story here, what gentleman reached out to him? His company was going under and he did light. And he did add light in and everything, you know, speakers, all that good stuff. And his main clientele was colleges and universities. Now, I'm sure you saw that they were shut down at one point.

Vernon (28:37):

And right now even unlimited capacity. So 70 to 80% of his business is completely cut off. Wow. And he was so again, rightfully so my survival, I need to fund, I'm looking, uh, I got, what do I do? And, um, and this is, we've kind of our discovery call. And I sat there and I was listening to him. And with me, we can talk about what's wrong for about five minutes, maybe 10, but we're going to spend the next 50 talking about what we're going to do. Right. And he was saying, Oh, people are dying. And people are dying. And I just sat there and I looked at him and said, people are dying. He's like, yeah, yeah, no people are dying. And then I said, people are dying. And then as I started getting really big, he's like looking at me. And then I said to him, where do the deceased to go?

Vernon (29:24):

He was like, funerals. It was like, who's going to a funeral right now. He's like, nobody. I was like, don't you think they need some sort of audio video? And immediately he's like, I gotta go put half, but you can see it. I'm gonna kind of touching back on a couple things. But I think the big thing here is it's easy to see the negative. Sometimes you need someone to listen to you and hear and repeat back what you said. Right. And I do also want to touch on also, um, sometimes she said about when you're around people and you know, you won't, you, you hesitated on talking about your wins. You know, I think this goes back to relationships where I never hesitate talking about the things that I have positive going on my life, because my circle that I intentionally set out to do, it's so happy for me, a buddy of mine, because I get energy from it.

Vernon (30:09):

I'm like, Oh man. And he, Oh dude, yes, you can do this. You got it. Um, a buddy of mine gave me a call yesterday and he said, Ron, I don't know if I can do this on my own. I mean, I've always worked for this one company. And I said, you can absolutely do this. You got it. Um, excuse me, this is Monday. He calls me back and said, Virta, I'm doing it. I got so excited for him. So excited. That is like, it's a win. And that they're like, if your circle wins, we all win because we've been doing this together who wants to go to the top of the mountain by themselves. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (30:35):

I know. Right. Yeah. And I think it's important too, that you, you brought up about talking things out and, you know, I've just put in a plug for why people need a success coach because, uh, you know, we were talking the other day and I'll just use this as an example about some changes I'm making to my website is I was just sitting there verbalizing some things and all of a sudden it hit me, you know, what I need to do. And so being able to talk that out, having that positive affirmation, somebody that believes in you is not trying to tear you down. Um, all that stuff is important to our growth. And, uh, you know, even if we're successful and we're doing good now, we can't be still. We have to always be growing, adapting, changing, looking to the future. And so, you know, that's where I think the success coaching can help us become unstuck is like, we don't want to just live in this place where we're at right now. We want to continue that growth.

Vernon (31:36):

Exactly. You know, we're, we're all working on some change. I don't care who you are, where you are. Um, however you measure that. I don't care if you're bringing in, you know, 200 K a month, we're all working on some change right now with, you know, in regards to the financial success, you know, just picking that, um, everything comes with a cost, right? And there's certain things that we gotta make sure that we're talking about, that we're figuring out and making sure that we're staying congruent with who we are, um, versus what's coming, you know, in alignment with what's coming in and looking at just, you know, relationships. Do you mind bringing in a lot of money and you go in there, but are you really working on the relationship relationships? Are you nurturing those? Or you find other people who will challenge you because you don't want to be in a group and you, I mean, you better be sure that you, you know, apologize for, you want to be sure that you're around people who challenge you. Right. You want to be true. Who pushed you? You want to be and not push you like to hurt, but to say, we're, I know you can do better. Yeah. You know, I was thinking about what you said yesterday, and I came up with a plan. You need to be around people who want you judges grow and do the same for them.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (32:41):

Yeah. I love the saying that, uh, if you're the smartest man in the room, you need to find another room. So let's, let's talk about like, uh, and success is like happiness, I think. And I'm glad you, you kind of define this in the beginning, but everybody's, um, definition of success for themselves is going to be different. And you know, the money's nice, but you know, health relationships, happiness, being able to go to bed at night and close my eyes and go to sleep. You know, those are all things that, uh, are important to me before we get to the salary. Not that it's not important, but, um, so I guess that's another thing where, uh, somebody, uh, a coach like yourself can really sit down with an individual and say, let's define that. Cause a lot of people don't think about it. They just, you know, they may be, they've been brought up thinking that salary is the important thing until you really stop, slow down and think about it. So where I'm going with this is not, you know, once we define that success, it's like, how do you find that people that are happy in their day-to-day life for the most part, happy in their job, they tend to find that success faster, easier, and stay in that zone for longer. Would you agree with that?

Vernon (34:08):

I think once the person has defined their definition of success, that's cohesive to where they have chosen. Right. I think that's when they stand at success. So success zone faster. I think the definition that, um, I feel universally fits is, um, you know, Marta, some Earl Natty Natty in Gail. He said any man or woman, who's making progress in a direction of their choosing. And for me, that stuck with me because we were taught so young. I mean, I know I was it, you got to make a lot of money. You gotta make a lot of money. Well, guess what? I made a lot of money, but then all of a sudden I realized like, this is it right now. And it made me sit down and I'm like, what is success for me? Right. And my definition of success. I mean, granted, it's this, it's the metric values.

Vernon (34:59):

The measure doesn't change the fact that you need to figure out where you want to make progress in. Right. And I'm such a big fan of relationships, relationships on everything. Yes. You know, I love being a father. I love, um, my family, who's not my blood, you know, I'm African-American but my mommy, dad, momma, and daddy, number two are Caucasian, but they are everything to me. We talk at least once, every couple of weeks. Yeah. But relationships for me, that's success because no matter what I have, as much as people think they want to be on a yacht who wants to getting out by themselves, I'd rather be on a little John boat, you know, sitting there, you know, not going into, you know, like, but that's success for me, but making in the direction of your choosing is success for me. Right. So I, I do agree with that. I do agree with that. As long as it's something that you have chosen. Right. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (35:46):

So, um, what is a tool that you use either? Well, first off, before we get to that, let's can you kind of give us some pointers about how we can flip that switch? You know, some things that we can do in our daily lives to, to try to regain our happiness or find our happiness.

Vernon (36:05):

Yeah. I think, you know, to, to take it back to being a kid, if, if you're working on finding your happy, because often times I ask the audience, what makes you happy? And I'll, and I'll say, what makes them happy? And do you know what makes you happy? And they'll say everyone throws a handout, you know, two or 3000 people. And then they'll say, wait, I need to qualify this. It can't involve binder spending. It can involve filigree alcohol. And it only can involve yourself, you know, 80, 90% of the room's hands drop. And the last remaining few, I might point them out and grab a microphone. And you're like, well, I love being with my kids. I'm like, it only can involve you. So, and when people are like, well, what do I do? And I just let people know with finding what makes you happy?

Vernon (36:44):

You know, it's get curious. And this would be an, a kid is about kids. Children are so curious, you know, why does it seem like once you turned 15 years old life flew by you because when you were eight years old and six year old, you were so curious about things and we didn't get into these routines. Right. Right. And it's about looking to see what makes other people happy. What used to make you happy? You know, we forget that we, what we used to do for fun and enjoyment. So get curious. Yeah. And if you want, if you're in a rut and you recognize it, you're trying to shake it off. You know, you've been saying it all along, go move your body, go take a walk, go, just go, go drive and look around. Just, just get out of the environment. If you can, um, you know, find something positive, you know, that you can listen to. I'm a big fan of put yourself in a positive place by listening to some good music. Just like you said, you love music. I love music and transports me. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (37:34):

Yeah. The, uh, I think you mentioned something and of course we could talk for hours. I know. But, um, the other thing that you kind of hit on there was being, when you tell people to define their happiness with themselves only, it's a good point that we have to learn to be happy with us. We can't find our happiness in stuff or others. And, um, you know, I went through this, it's been five years ago now, uh, downsize from, you know, that my kids were grown and gone downsize from the bigger home to a small place, got rid of, you know, 30 years worth of stuff. But it was liberating. I mean, it just, I, I felt like I found my freedom, you know, I wasn't tied to just stuff. And, uh, it's incredible. People don't understand it, but there was something about it that just, I felt freer, but kind of, that's a little bit off track. But on the other hand, I think it's, you know, you have to find whatever you can do to be happy you before you can either be with other people, make them happy or help them define their happy place or find happiness in those relationships.

Vernon (38:46):

Exactly. You know, I love being with my son, but I also recognize what am I happy? He's just cooking. And that's my time where I can just be in the zone and it's, for me, I can do that by myself. Right. Because I never want to incur my happiness. So my son and I never wanted him to ever get that sense that without me and him, I won't be happy. Right. becomes the older, you know, young man out in the world. Right. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (39:09):

Well, uh, Vernon. So we appreciate you taking time out of your day to talk to us and we will, uh, set something up to have you back on, like I said, we could talk for, we can talk for more hours, but, so what is a tool that you use in your daily life? It can be professional, personal tool, habit, something that you do that you just couldn't do without

Vernon (39:31):

Every morning. This is something that I've done religiously for probably 20 years is taken a walk, put my headphones on and I walk and I don't. And, uh, the music is just there for background noise, but I just think, and it's something I do every single morning, some days I don't feel like getting out of bed, like to your point, but I make myself and this morning it was 28 degrees and freezing. And once I got out there, that is my, that is my tool. I love walking in nature. That keeps me centered. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (40:01):

That's awesome. So, yeah, I just want to, before we wrap up, I just want to say you're probably one of the most chillest guys. I know. And then also you sitting there with the guitar in the background. I mean, it couldn't be a more perfect setting. I'm glad you know this. Thank you. Uh, well, so tell everybody, uh, who's your customer, what do you do for them? How they can reach out and get ahold of you.

Vernon (40:27):

All right. So I'll just start with how you can contact me itself. www.whatsyourhappi.com as my website. And it's happi with an i now, before you ask why and I, because do you make that better, but it's, uh, the i is there to wake you up, but you can also email me at [email protected] V E R N O [email protected]. And it's happy with an I. Okay. Now my, my ideal client is someone who seems a little stuck. Who's recognizing that the energy's low. You recognize them. If you don't have the same concentration, the same focus and awareness, who wants to figure out what they are successful, but they know they want to be more successful in certain areas. Um, but someone also who's willing to have fun. You know, I think people forget to take fun out of the equation.

Vernon (41:14):

Like everyone thinks that coach and I'll have some people get on the first call and they're like shaking. And I just let them know, like, that's not the way we roll because to your point, like, I don't do the high stress job getting, do this. I don't yell at people. I'm just simply asked, you know, what type of reasons are you looking for? Are you getting, uh, are you getting it by doing a current behavior? So what can we do to adjust what options do you have available? Because when you're having fun, everything that we do sticks faster way faster. Right. But, um, yeah, that's, that's the best way to get in contact with me and a type of, you know, really cool, fun clients I'm looking for. Okay.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (41:47):

Well, great. And I'll post that contact information in the show notes as well as on the web page when we get there. So again, Vernon, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us. Uh, I'm Roy, this is the business of business podcast. You can find us on all the major platforms, iTunes, Google, plus, uh, Spotify, Stitcher, uh, also at www dot the business of business podcast. And, uh, we're on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook as well. So until next time, uh, everybody be happy.

www.whatsyourhappi.com

www.thebusinessofbusinessodcast.com

       

Who's Making Sure Your Finances Are In Order So You Can Retire One Day? with The Millennial Money Woman Fiona.

I’m The Millennial Money Woman. Also known as Fiona. Entrepreneur. Polyglot. Pundit. World Traveler. Dog Lover. 

I want young professionals to have what I didn’t growing up: A guiding hand to help make the right financial decisions NOW so that their FUTURE will be a seamless ride. 

The first time I discovered my passion for finance was when I saw my grandparents lose every cent to their name, after some poor financial planning. They worked all their lives, every day, and when they neared their retirement – their hard work fell to pieces because they didn’t practice healthy financial habits.

That’s when knew I wanted to jump ahead of the game when it comes to finances, so I gathered my resources, stuck my nose into books and learned as much as I could.

I would not allow anyone to make the same mistake.

My educational background has allowed me to help young professionals navigate the sometimes-murky waters of finance:

• Earned a Certified Financial Planner (CFP – which is the equivalent of a financial ninja)
• Earned a Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC)
• Earned a Master of Science in Personal Financial Planning degree

Because I gained knowledge and practiced healthy finance habits, I purchased my first house at 23, have no debt (minus my mortgage), co-founded a financial non-profit program in my community, and am on my way to millionaire status in just a few more years. Most importantly? I met the love of my life in my best friend and partner in crime, my husband.

I’ve been through a lot although I’m only a Millennial, and I’m here to pass down the tens of thousands of hours of reading, brainstorming and real life experience I’ve had so far in finance to YOU.

Here’s to you and starting your financial journey!

www.themillennialmoneywoman.com
www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. I'm Roy. So today we have an awesome financial voice to come speak with us today. I think it's important. We talk about the mechanics of business and doing this and doing that, but we also need to think about ourself and our savings because when we're entrepreneurs solopreneurs, small businesses, we may not have access to the, uh, big 401ks and other vehicles that some corporate employees have. So, uh, we're fortunate today to have the millennial money woman also known as Fiona coming on the show to talk to us about a few things. Uh, she, and I think this is important because we were kind of joking about this, but I want us to take her serious because it's not somebody that had just kind of like Googled finance yesterday and decided to come on and talk. She has earned her a certified financial planner CFP, which is a very high in designation in the finance industry and very difficult to pass the test. Also, she is a chartered retirement planning counselor, and she has her masters of science and personal finance planning. So with all that said, Fiona, welcome to the show. And I can't wait to hear all the great advice you have for us today.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:01:27):

Roy, thank you so much for having me on the show and I'm really, really looking forward to talking to you about some retirement advice. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:01:34):

So why don't you, uh, why not before we get too far into the, um, talking about the vehicles and you know, we're going to talk a little bit about active and passive investing as well, but once you tell us a little bit about, you know, how you got here, I know that, uh, in our previous conversation that, uh, you bought your first house by the time you're 23 and had no debt, uh, except for the mortgage itself, which you know, that that is a huge feat nowadays. Uh, you know, back in my day, it was a much, much easier task, but kinda tell us a little bit about how you, how you got to this point.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:02:10):

Sure. I'd love to, um, so I guess I'm going to start out actually, where I kind of got my passion for finance and that started out at a pretty young age actually. And so I would say I was roughly six to 10 years old and yeah, I know. Right. But it actually started from my grandparents. Um, they were my total idol. I looked up to them and everything they did. And so to give you a little bit of context, my grandparents, they started a business together, my grandmother and my grandfather, and they built it from the ground up, worked every single day. It wasn't a major business. It was, it was your everyday business, essentially. However, I saw that it was basically their baby, right? They put in rather time effort, sweat equity, you name it into this business. And when I, roughly 12, 13 years old, um, something unfortunate happened due to poor financial planning.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:03:06):

Um, in other words, they, my grandparents, they, I think, you know, mortgage their house and a couple of other assets. So long story short, they went bankrupt and they literally lost everything that they had put into this business and their lives that's terrible. It really was. And they, at that point, you know, they were probably early seventies, late sixties, something like that. And uh, at that time, you know, obviously employment is you're, you're basically, unless you employ yourself at that age, it's very difficult to find employment, um, due to your age and learn a new skill. So I saw them pour in every single cent into this business, lose everything and probably more. And that's how they essentially passed away. Right? They did not have a single cent to their name, although they put so much work into this business. When I saw that I never wanted that to happen to me, my family, or anyone else that I can help ever again.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:04:02):

Um, and that was probably when I was in my early teenage years. And although I didn't really know the full ins and outs of finance like I do now, that was the starting point to my wanting to delve into that financial world. So I can really help others understand financed plan better for their financial future and never again, have something like that happen to them. So, um, that was the Genesis. And then, like you said, I went to college, I studied finance. I, I was lucky and unfortunate enough to understand that student debt is not, uh, not beneficial. So I, I was able to actually shorten my college career to two years. I worked 40 plus hours a week on top of taking the maximum class load. And I graduated at 20, um, and started my career. And that's how I was able to kind of get that small jumpstart ahead of my classmates, get into that working world, um, and save up enough money for that 20% down payment for my house at 23. It was just that planet. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:05:03):

Right. Yeah. And I think, you know, you bring up a good point of kind of why I wanted you on the show to talk about this. As we, as I said in the intro is a lot of times a business people, especially like I said, the solo preneurs entrepreneurs and small businesses with, you know, 10, 20 employees, we are so caught up in the, um, I guess the minutiae of what's happening in the business at that day. We don't think about that. You know, that was a tragic story that they lost everything, but it's not uncommon, you know, businesses change, we don't keep up with things. And then we get to some point in time and it's just over with, and the business is not worth anything. We haven't saved anything and it can be treacherous. And then, you know, kind of the, the not so tragic part of all of that is that, you know, even if you have a thriving business, if you're a solo preneur where it depends upon you, you get to the end of time and you're like, Hey, I want to retire. Nobody wants to buy the business because it's in your name. You know, basically it's your name is where the value is not necessarily the service. So, but if you haven't put anything aside, you've got nothing to retire. You end up having to, you know, either work too, you die. Or as you said, get a menial job because you know, when you're even when you're 60, 65 years old, it is difficult to go out and market yourself, uh, just to get a regular job somewhere.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:06:36):

That's exactly right. And unfortunately we see it all too often that, you know, as you go into that retirement stage, even age 40, 50, 60, you realize, you know, looking back, Oh my goodness, I should have saved. I should have, um, you know, been a little bit more cognizant of how much I'm putting away toward retirement savings. And, um, just to share a very quick story, Roy, I was counseling a client actually the other day. Uh, she was just turning, I believe it was 71 or 72 years old. She and her husband ran a successful printing business in Chicago. Uh, and however, this one statement, she told me during our conversation, it was so poignant. It just left a lasting impression. And she said, my past is catching up with me. And that, that basically reflects back on them investing everything into their business, which was extremely successful, but they never took the time or energy or effort, I guess, to put some money into savings and retirement. So, you know, in the end they, they have, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars, but it's not going to cut it, you know, at age 70. So she needs to go back to work, uh, just relative to their lifestyle. So definitely you made a great point. You've got to save early.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:07:47):

Yeah. And, and that, there's another fallacy, you know, I worked in, uh, in, you know, kind of in the financial advising sector back, you know, it's been 25, 30 years ago. And even back then there was this fallacy that, Oh, when I retire, I only need 20 or 30, 40, 50% of my income to live on. And you know, that was kind of the running joke is, well, no, technically you're probably going to need about 125%, 150%. Because when you retire, especially in the early days, people don't want to just, uh, well, a lot of times if you, if you've planned it and you, you were in good health, you're not want to just sit around and watch, uh, judge Judy all day long. I mean, you know, people want to get out, they want to do, they've been wanting to travel. They've been so tied up with this business that they couldn't do vacation. So now it's like, Hey, we're going to travel, but it costs money. I mean, you can't retire on 50% income and expect that you're going to be able to retire or any, you know, when I say income it, you could have a lot of assets, but they generate so much income for you every month. So, uh, you've got to have something in order to keep up, if you want to have an active in a lively retirement.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:09:02):

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I was laughing earlier because I'm the one that's actually watching judge Judy now every day. And I'm telling you, Roy, I do not want to watch judge Judy when I'm 65,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:09:16):

We're on vacation last week and we were flipping some channels and it's like, they had three channels with her on all the time. Like, Oh my gosh, we were in judge Judy purgatory right now.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:09:31):

That is too funny. Well,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:09:34):

Let's talk about, uh, first off, let's talk about the active and passive passive of, um, investing, because I think there, whether you, um, want to invest in one of these retirement accounts or not, you know, you should, but if you choose to just do regular, uh, some kind of regular investing, regular brokerage account, the active and passive will still work for you. And then if you want to take advantage of some of these other counts, we can talk about that in a little bit.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:10:06):

Yeah. I'd love to talk about active and passive management. Um, so I guess I'll start out by saying that, you know, especially for those that I've encountered from the young professional millennial, uh, generation, so we're talking about 21 to perhaps age 40 or a little bit over age 40, um, there's this common fallacy that I at least hear talking to the clients that I coach and that is not active management in other words, day trading, right? So like really focusing on your stocks every single day, trying to make those trades to really time the market, um, is beneficial to retirement savings. And as we have that first couple of, you know, first minutes of conversation, I really hear that a lot of people believe active management is the way to go. In other words, spending, yeah, it's spending like 30 plus percent of your day focusing on your investment portfolio, be it retirement, or just a regular investment account.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:11:01):

And that's really not the case. And especially with younger folks out there, um, I think it's really important to educate them about what active and passive management is. So let me start out by kind of showing the difference. Okay. Active kind of, like I said before is really focusing on almost a daily basis or weekly basis, even at your investment accounts and trying to essentially time the market to make sure you sell low and buy I'm sorry, sell high and buy low. That would be the ideal world, but unfortunately not many of us have a crystal ball. Uh, so that's really not going to happen. And actually I found this really interesting statistic, um, and it says that essentially missing out on just five key days in the markets over a period of 13,870 of investing. So that's about 38 years that would leave your portfolio, your investment portfolio lower, or by 30% less that's. I mean, that's just unbelievable, right? I mean, so the fact that you're trying to be in and out of the market over a 38 year period and just missing five days, that could cause your portfolio returns to drop by 35%, which is just insane. And, you know, moving on to that even more, if you missed the 50 best days, so not five, the 50 best days your portfolio would be by 91% smaller than if you had just left that money in the stocks the entire time. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:12:35):

Yes, no, I was just, that's one thing that, you know, we used to preach, it's not timing the market, it's time in the market and it's such an important distinction to make

The Millennial Money Woman (00:12:45):

That's exactly right. Roy and I really liked how you said that it's not timing the market, it's the time in the market and that's absolutely true. I mean, in reality, there's, there's a, uh, investment strategy that's known as dollar cost averaging. I'm sure you're familiar with it. Um, and what that means is basically you want to purchase shares of a high quality low cost stock, or my preference is an index fund, right? So we're talking maybe S and P 500 index funds, uh, something like that. And you literally just purchase those shares consistently regardless of what the market is doing, right? So you're basically buying more shares when prices are cheap, because it's a consistent purchase price and that will ultimately boost your longterm investor returns. So to give an example over the last 50 years, the S and P 500 has generated roughly a 7% return.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:13:42):

Um, so that means if you had started, you know, when you're, let's say 25 years old or 30 years old, and you just, you know, set it and forget it. So you buy stocks consistently, um, every week, every month, whatever it is, or 40 years, let's say your working career, and you open up your portfolio at the end, when you retire, chances are, you'll definitely be a millionaire. If not more, it just depends on how much you buy and what you buy the point is, though it will save you so much time and so much stress if you do not open that portfolio every single day or every week, right. And monitor the performance of the stocks and worry about it. It's just not worth your time and energy. I would focus on other things. So big picture really here is, you know, I, I want to go back to what, um, uh, 1973 economists said, one's from Princeton university. His name was, uh, Burton, Malkiel. I hope I'm pronouncing his name. Right. But essentially Burton said that, um, a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at the stock listings to do as well as an investment professional. Right. So just keep that in mind.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:14:48):

Well, I, uh, one of my finance professors, and I love to tell the story because he, he was a maniac. I mean, he, finance was his life. And, uh, this was back in the day before we actually had, you know, air conditioning, all the classes. So, you know, it, you ha I took a summer class with them. The windows are open, it's hot, he's in a dress shirt. He sweated this dress shirt through to where he's just soaking wet. Chalk dust is flying, you know, he's up against the boards. So when he gets out of this class, he is just, he's a mess. He looks like pig pin from the Charlie Brown, you know, with this ch cloud, the chalk dust around. And so, you know, one of his favorite sayings was that bears can make money. Bulls can make money, but hogs get slaughtered.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:15:34):

And, you know, kind of the point of that is, is that you are not going to be able to pick it at its lowest low, or you're not going to be able to get it out, get out from under it at the highest of the highs you just can't. So you've got to find other strategies because information in this business is key. And, but believe me, but time you, as a general public get information, it's old in, uh, investment terms. I mean, you know, if it's more than five seconds, it's old news and somebody has already, you know, had, uh, nowadays with the computer trading, somebody is already traded off of it and you're going to be left holding the bag. So, uh, definitely get in there and, you know, find some good, like you said, a good index fund and just make, put it on that autopilot, just invest in it. A nice thing is, you know, they do the rebalancing for you when that's all necessary. You don't even have to think about that.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:16:32):

That's right. Yeah. It's it's so hands-off, you know, just, just staying in the stock market, sticking to your plan. Um, it it's just so much more beneficial than if you were to pull money out. Like, for example, um, I, I was talking to a client, uh, probably a few months ago back in March. That's right back in March of 2020 when we had, uh, you know, those, the stock markets down, right. Oh my gosh. Right. Hair was flying. It was just crazy, obviously, especially for almost retirees, right? I mean, if you're late fifties, early sixties, or getting ready to retire, and all of a sudden you see your stock, your portfolio just plummet by, you know, 10, 20, 30%, depending on how you are allocated, that can be like a heart in your mouth type of moment. And, uh, it was interesting because there were a few clients who were on the, on the ledge and they were calling up and they're like, sell, sell everything.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:17:25):

I'm not going to stand this, but you know, at that moment, you're already in the negative, right? I mean, you don't want to lock in those losses. Chances are at least historically speaking, the stock market has always rebounded after a drop. So we're going to try to stick the course, stick to the plan. And that's kind of what, you know, younger folks or, you know, those entrepreneurs out there that are to this podcast. That's what I think you guys should do too. Or at least consider doing is just sticking your course, even if it goes down, you know, a day, a month, a week, a year, possibly you stick to your course and keep buying stick to that plan.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:18:03):

Yeah. And I wished I had the, I wish I had pulled this up. I didn't, but you know, we had talked a little bit about one example that we used to have was the, uh, they're two sisters that I guess they were twins. So at the same age, one of them gets out of college, immediately starts investing, putting a little bit back 401k. The other one, she was, uh, you know, kind of the party girl. She was out traveling and buying this and doing that. So as I go through time, uh, the, the one that's been investing, I think she like around 32, 34, somewhere in there, she decides to settle down and have a family quits investing altogether, never does anymore. The other girl waits till she's like 34 35, finally settles down and begins investing. And I think the moral of the story is at age 65, they both have the same amount of money available to them. So again, the moral of the story it's, uh, with, uh, the time value of money, getting into it earlier and, and doing something, even if it's not as much as you want doing very minimal amounts will add up, you know, over 40 or 50 years

The Millennial Money Woman (00:19:22):

Well said. Yep. I know the example that you're talking about, and that is 100% true earlier, the better.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:19:29):

Yeah. Because I used to deal with, you know, people my age, even at that time as like, well, you know, I'm gonna get to this investing, but, you know, uh, just, uh, not right today. And then about a week later, I get a phone call, Hey, I just got this new boat. You want to go out to the Lake, go for a boat ride. I'm like, yeah, well that good money could have been going in your savings here. And, uh, you know, it's, it's always tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. We want the fun stuff today and we want to kick that investment down the road, but it's so important to start young. And, uh, you know, there's a lot of good things you can do to teach your kids that we used to have a, um, we got like a Tupperware plate that had three, it was divided into three compartments. And so we would, you know, if they got money for stuff, we would always have them do, they're spending money, they're tiling to the church and then, uh, their savings. And, you know, try to instill that, that, you know, money has to have value even from being a young child is very important.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:20:31):

That's absolutely right. I mean, especially the younger they are and the more they, you know, the parents are able to instill those investing values. It's really a positive impact on the child's. Um, overall I think financial sense. And there's actually a website when I was young. I want to say I was about 13 years old. I entered this investment competition with the vice principal of my middle school. Wow. I mean, it was fake money, but it was this website called how the market works.com. And, um, so the, I just pulled it up and it's, it's an awesome stock market game. It's completely free. Um, and basically kids, you know, are able to be exposed to how you type in a ticker symbol, how a portfolio online looks like what, uh, the information is that you're going to be looking at when you look at a company online, like you can, you can look where the buy button is where the sell button is, like all of those buttons there in this game.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:21:31):

And it was so, so, so beneficial for me. Um, when I first started out, I mean, like we were given, you know, I think it was $100,000 of fund money to invest. And, but, you know, you want to be able to teach your kids what actually is an investment account. How does it look like? Uh, and this was a really cool start for, for my growth. And I've seen other clients use this for their kids as well. And it's super helpful, even if they just spend like 10 minutes on it a day. Um, it's definitely worth it. And for the record, for those of you who are wondering, I did win the investments and he gave me a free Sunday. I screamed. So that was my reward. So, yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:22:12):

Thing to, I guess that would be good to talk about now, um, before we move on to the vehicles, is the fees, because, you know, back in the old days, man, you, you got clipped 5% just about anywhere you went, but now there are a lot of options, but there are a lot of hidden fees as well. So we need to talk about, you know, there's upfront fees, there's the back end loads. And then there is the maintenance fee that you pay every year. So you don't have to kind of address those just a little bit.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:22:44):

Yeah. I'd love to, and I think this is something that a lot of people actually don't really understand. Um, and you know, it all starts out. And honestly, I didn't know about this either. Um, I, I really like focusing on, what's known as an expense ratio, right? So this is, um, essentially a type of fee that you see and whatever fund you decide to buy. And it's, it's basically designed to measure how much of an investment funds assets are attributed toward various expenses. So in plain English, that means, you know, an expense ratio essentially refers to how much of your invested money will be going toward the investment funds expenses versus how much of your money will actually stay invested in continuing to grow. Um, so to show you a little bit of oversight, there's this website called Morningstar. Um, I use it myself very often, um, and it actually provides a really good overview visually too, for those of you who are visual earners, as it relates to how much a fund actually costs.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:23:48):

And that cost again is known as an expense ratio. A lot of funds are, um, I've seen funds probably 1%, two all the way, 3% cost that's a lot. Okay. There are funds out there, however that are very low in terms of expense ratios, we're talking 0.03%. That's also known as three basis points or 0.05%, five basis points. That's very inexpensive. Um, the lower your expense ratio is the less money that you are investing is actually going to that fund or going to that, um, mutual fund, whatever you're invested in that means more of your money actually stays with you and is being invested. Um, there are companies out there like Vanguard, for example, um, and fidelity too. I mean, there are many companies out there. You just have to do your research, but Vanguard's the first one that comes to my mind and their expense ratios are actually very, very cheap.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:24:48):

They're inexpensive. Um, and the reason why I bring this up and I have this conversation a lot with the clients that I mentor, um, is that if you pay attention to your investment or to your expense ratios, over 30 years of consistently investing in the same product and expense ratio difference of just 0.5%. So that's half a percent 50 basis points or more can make a difference of over $1 million in your pocket in that time frame. So it's 30 years. It's, it's exactly, it's enormous. You're literally, you're looking at the investments you have in your portfolio after you listened to this podcast, take a look at those expense ratios, right? So if you see something for 1.5%, try to look in the stock market or in the account that you have available to you in the funds that are, that you can invest in and see if you can find something cheaper, because again, over three decades, 30 years, if you reduce that by just half a percentage point, you are going to be putting over a million dollars in your pocket. It's so important to be cognizant of this. And I think not that many people unfortunately know about this, and I think this is one of the biggest kept secrets out there.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:26:01):

Yeah. And, and the other thing is you have to be careful, you know, when you're working with the advisors, because you always have to think about how they get paid. I mean, they, they, they do that because they can make money at it. And you know, it shouldn't be a secret. Um, nothing is free, but also, you know, look at the commissions that you are charged through your brokerage because, uh, there are some hand I hate to run it down, but, you know, there are some investments that carry very, very high fees on them. That the reason that they carry those is because the broker gets most of that. So you kind of have, it's very, very important to look at that and not just take somebody's word that this is the best Avenue for you, especially if you don't know him that well, always get that expense ratio just to make sure.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:26:53):

Yeah. You make a great point, Roy. I mean, I've seen so many times when clients come over and they show me their actual investment portfolio, and I look into the individual stocks that are in this portfolio, um, or mutual funds, whatever it is. I oftentimes those advisors that are, um, living off of a commission, right? So again, a commission is they make a percentage of whatever you invest or whatever that is. However, that commission structure is you'll likely see a lot of your investments will be in their, uh, their company's funds, right? So there is, you know, company a that that's where you are with your advisor and company, a actually manages a couple of funds like company, a index fund company, a et cetera fund chances are a lot of your investments will be in those funds. And that means more money for them, right.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:27:44):

Higher permission. So just take a look through your investment portfolio, make sure that what's what you are invested in is not just suitable for you, but it is actually the exact fit for you. And this brings us to the next topic, which I think is really important to know that, you know, you want to make sure you are with an advisor, um, or a manager that is a fiduciary, right? So a fiduciary is someone that, um, truly by law. So they are governed by law to do whatever is in your best interest. So that means if there is investment a and investment B investment, a there's, they're very similar, but investment Amiens that advisor would get a small commission, but investment B is a little bit better for you. They would have to, by law, put you in investment B, that means no commission for the advisor, but you would be getting that better, uh, investment for your personal situation. So, you know, just to make sure that you really understand, um, everything the entire picture before you go to an investment advisor and financially commit, and I'm not saying that investment advisors who are not fiduciaries are bad chances are they probably aren't, they're probably very good, but just make sure you do your due diligence before financially committing. Right.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:29:02):

Right. Exactly. Well, so let's talk for a minute about, um, let's get back to our small businesses and, um, some of the vehicles that, you know, we had talked about the, uh, that they can use if they don't have, you know, they're not big enough to have access to a 401k. There are some other ways that you can, uh, shield some of your money from too high of taxes.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:29:32):

Definitely. Yeah. So, um, I'm definitely happy to talk about these, uh, employment plans. And specifically, I looked up a list here. I have a in front of me and there are four, you know, your every day, um, entrepreneur, but I also have at the end of the conversation, I'd love to go into depth also for those who perhaps are earning a little bit more, you know, those middle aged folks. So we're talking 40, 50, 60 years old that are earning actually, um, a pretty substantial sum because they've had their business for a very long time and they are successful. So, um, but let's start out with the S the smaller, um, self-employment plans for the newer, um, entrepreneurs. So there are a couple of ones out there, and there are so many to choose from, but I'll try to boil it down into just a few options though, before we actually go into the self-employment plans, obviously I want to rephrase that there is your everyday traditional IRA, right?

The Millennial Money Woman (00:30:29):

And that's about that's $6,000 of contributions you can do if you're under 57,000, if you're over 50 or older, um, and then there's your Roth IRA. Anyone can contribute to these. Um, you can be employed. You, you can be self-employed, you know, as long as you have earned income, you can contribute to these. Um, however, if you want to move on to larger plans, and let's say you have more income and want to be able to take advantage that tax advantage and can move more or than that six or $7,000 contribution limit annually for the traditional or Roth IRA, then there are several other options and I'll start from smallest to largest. So the smallest option is actually going to be your simple IRA or your simple 401k. Um, so let me explain a little bit about that. So a simple IRA, um, it stands short for savings, incentive match plan for employees.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:31:26):

And what that means is you can essentially, as the employer contribute 13,500 bucks to your, to, to your plan, um, it's, it's really good for, you know, businesses with less than 15 employees. Um, if you have more than 15 employees, you probably want to take a look at your 401k plan. Um, and it's also good for employers who want to contribute between 6,000 to 25,000 per year. Um, otherwise you, if it's less than 6,000, if you want to contribute less than 6,000, you want to go to your regular IRA, right? Why set up a simple plan? Um, if it's more than 25,000, you might want to look at other options that are like a step IRA, for example. Um, but simple IRAs they're literally like traditional IRAs. They're, they're very similar. Um, they're very easy to set up just like the name says simple IRA.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:32:19):

Um, there, there are tax advantages for the employers because the contributions they're considered as a deduction as a business expense. Um, and then employees can also contribute. And I think that's important to know simple IRAs. They're good for both employer and employee contributions. Um, so the only thing is that these contributions, they are lower, right? Like I said, so 13,500. Um, and if you are aged 50 year old over, um, employees can also contribute 3000 in addition to that. So it's, it's very small. It's not that much. However, the employer can contribute, um, 3% of annual salary for employees. If the employer wants to, there are a lot of other tax codes that go into it, and I don't want to go all that in depth. However, this is a plan for, like I said, businesses with less than 15 employees and business owners that have a little bit of excess income and want to contribute to their employees, uh, retirement plans.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:33:19):

Um, so this is a really good option. I've seen a couple of them, uh, clients use the simple IRA. Uh, not that many, a lot of people actually opt for the SEP IRA, which we can go into next. But, um, I do want to mention, and for this out there, there is also such thing as a simple 401k, um, and that simple 401k essentially combines what a 401k is with a simple IRA. So in other words, the contribution limit is the same 13,500 for 2020. Um, it's, it's much more simple to set up less administration costs, et cetera. So it just combines the features of a 401k. So cool.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:33:57):

Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know which one, it may be the set, but the other, the other thing is very important to sit down and have this conversation about your individual situation, because I know one of these plans it's, it was like you had, if you took one out for yourself as the business owner, you had to do equal amounts for every employee. And sometimes people didn't think about that and it kinda got them in a little trouble. So, um, uh, um, taking it that still a rule. Do you know which one I'm thinking about?

The Millennial Money Woman (00:34:32):

I do. Yeah. I'm you're you're one step ahead of me.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:34:36):

Okay, good, good, good. No, that's fine. I did. I knew it was one, but I couldn't remember if it was the sup or not, but I'll let you go ahead

The Millennial Money Woman (00:34:43):

Now. You're absolutely right. Yes. It is a step to confirm that. So a SEP IRA for those of you guys who are wondering, you can actually contribute up to 57,000 bucks into a SEP IRA, which is pretty neat. However, like Robin was saying, um, one of the downsides to ACEP is that you would have to contribute. So let's say you're the employer, right? You're the business owner and you earn a hundred thousand bucks and you want to put in $10,000 into your SEP IRA, that's 10% of your salary. So that means if you have other employees working under you, you'll also have to put in 10% of their salary. Right. So the same percentage of salary for all employees. So absolutely right. Great points. Yeah. Um, basically for a SEP IRA, um, there, there are a couple of things. So first of all, your contribution as employer, right, can't exceed or cannot exceed the lesser of 25% of your income.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:35:44):

So up to $285,000, what that means is if you earn a million dollars, you can't contribute 250,000 into it, right? If you can, it's only considered up to 285,000. You can, that's the maximum, um, where you, where it's 57,000 that's. So it's the lesser of the two, right? 25% of your total compensation or $57,000 for 2020 downside. This is a big downside for step IRAs. You can't contribute an age, 50 catch-up contribution. So typically speaking, it's 50 catch-up contributions there. I want to say it's like 6,000 or 6,500, something like that for 2020. And we'll go into that into the solo 401k later on. But, um, the SEP IRA, the maximum you can put in, um, is going to be 57,000, right. And that's without age 50 catch-ups. So that's kind of a downside. Um, but yeah, I mean, other than that stuff, IRAs, they're very simple to set up contributions, they're tax deductible.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:36:47):

So they're kind of like a traditional IRA, right? Whatever you put in that's deducted from your tax returns, um, the, you know, typically these plans, they're actually good for companies with less than 10 employees. So again, if you have a small business, this might be something that you want to contribute. Again, just keep in mind that, um, if you're the employer, you will have to contribute the same to the employee plans. And this brings us to the next point, employees cannot contribute. So it might be good for the employer, right? Because you get to control how much it goes into those plans, but the employee, maybe not the best because they cannot contribute, um, to their plan. The one thing I do want to say is that, um, you know, if let's say you do contribute more than the annual limits, because each year the annual limits change, typically they adjust upward due to cost of living adjustments.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:37:41):

You'll have to correct that mistake. And the IRS goes into many, many ways to correct that mistake, but I just want to make sure you guys know if there is, if you do contribute more than what's actually acceptable into your step plan, you'll have to make that correction and just make sure you consult your CPA or accountant. Um, but otherwise these are really good plans. And the cool thing is you do not have to commit to contributing every year to these plans, right? Um, there are other plans out there, right? Like for example, defined contribution plan, you're going to have to contribute every single year. This one would not have to. Um, and they're also much less complicated than setting up a 401k. The administration fees are much less. So overall the SEP IRA is one that I've seen many business owners use. Um, there are a lot more common than simple IRAs because SAPs have that higher contribution limits than simple IRAs.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:38:37):

Um, and SEPs are also very easy to manage. They have similar rollover R and D requirements, which are requirement required, minimum distributions as your just regular IRA. Right? So it's very easy, um, very simple rules. And I would suggest to definitely look into this. If you think that, you know, your business is small, you do want to contribute more money. Um, like let's say 30,000 or more to your retirement plan. This might be the right choice for you. Um, just make sure that, you know, you keep in mind those inflation adjustments because typically every year, your con your maximum contribution limit does increase by 500 or a thousand bucks. But otherwise, yeah, it's a fantastic plan. Um, just make sure that you form this, uh, on the due date of whatever your employer's tax returns. So that means if you're a sole proprietor and you're thinking about forming a SEP IRA that has to be formed, opened, and typically contributed by April 15th, if you're an LLC or an S-corp make sure that's open to in time too, which I think is March 16.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:39:48):

So just make sure you consult your accountant in those cases. Okay, great. The next plan is a solo 401k. And this one I've seen very often used actually, um, as much as the SEP IRA, essentially solo 401ks are a neat tool because in addition to, uh, so like I said, a does not allow age 50 or older catch-up contributions. This is the difference in a solo 401k. You are allowed age 50 catch-up contribution. So essentially the maximum that you can contribute to a solo 401k is, uh, I think for 20, 20, $63,000. So it's not that, um, the, the limits are much higher, that it will, they are higher than the sup. However, here's the thing, 401ks. They typically are a little bit more complicated to set up than IRAs. There's a lot more administrative work that goes into it. Um, you'll have basically expenses that they're servicing expenses, right?

The Millennial Money Woman (00:40:51):

So you have a plan administrator that administers your 401k and every year you'll probably have to pay them a little bit. That could be depending on the plan provider, 500 bucks or a couple of thousand dollars. It just depends on who you hire to actually administer your 401k. Here's the thing, a solo 401k is only for one business owner, and there is one exception which I'll go into later. Um, so if you are your own person, if you are a freelancer, for example, that earns a lot of money and you need retirement contributions, and it's just you, this could be the plan for you. Um, again, because it's just one person that's allowed in ACEP, you could have multiple people working under you. Um, the exception that I was referring to earlier is let's say you have a partner and you're married, right? So it's husband, wife, whatever.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:41:43):

Um, you can actually have, if your, if your partner works with you in your business, you could add that partner to your solo 401k plan. So both of them spend wife, right? Yeah, exactly. So both married partners, they could be contributing to a solo 401k that's accepted. So you could have two people as long as they're married, contributing to a 401k. And, um, I actually had a client. He, uh, does, I want to say does like furniture. Um, but he like models the furniture for major hotels, but that's his business. Um, and he and his wife worked together. She's kind of like the back office, like she does the paperwork and that stuff. And he actually goes into the hotels and he kind of like models the furniture there for the hotel rooms and the lobbies and all, and they're on a solo 401k plan.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:42:34):

So it works well. They earn enough money where both of them can actually max out that top contribution 57 or I'm sorry, $63,000 age, 50 and up contribution. So it's super good. Um, again, for people that are just by themselves employed or have husband and wife employed. Okay, great. So now comes kind of the cool thing I was thinking. I'm like, what I like, I'm so excited about that. Okay. Um, so this is for people that maybe are in their forties or fifties or early sixties, and they have already established themselves in the industry. Um, they're earning a lot of money in their business and they are thinking, what can I do to maximize my retirement contributions and tax advantage? What can I do right now? Well, the answer in this case is let's say you're earning a million dollars. You're earning, um, I don't know, you're earning 2 million, 3 million, whatever it is, and you don't know how to best optimize your savings, your retirement savings, one option for you could be the defined benefit plan.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:43:46):

Um, and the defined benefit plan specifically can help older owners of highly profitable businesses. You know, squeeze basically 20 years of savings into 10 years, um, defined benefit plans. They're very similar to pension plans, uh, and honestly defined benefit plans. You don't throw them much anymore because they've been basically replaced by 401k plans. Uh, and for the right small businesses, a defined benefit plan might be the right choice that provides you with the largest retirement contribution and actually the most tax savings possible. Um, so just a little bit of an overview of defined benefit plans. They are a hundred percent funded by the required annual employer investments. The here's the caveat though, there is no, uh, maximum annual contribution limit by the IRS. The maximum annual contribution limit is actually set forth and determined by an actuary. Um, so actuaries, you hired them, they assess your business, they assess your age, they assess multiple factors.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:44:53):

They then themselves determine how much the employer you would have to contribute to this defined benefit plan. Um, so that actually said when I hear actuary, that means money. So as you can kind of tell, defined benefit plans, they have a lot of administration costs associated with them, right? You will have to, I mean, there's lots of maintenance, maintenance costs. There's a lot of money that actually goes into maintaining one. However, it can allow you or far higher contributions than 401ks. So we're actually talking $250,000 in one year, right? Like we're talking a hundred, the six finger contributions easily per year. Um, and this is extremely beneficial for those that maybe haven't had the chance. So if my grandparents were listening, right, I would tell them, possibly consider this because they can sock away so much more money, um, into a defined benefit plan, especially in later years when you're earning more money and still get that tax advantage, because it will be tax deductible, um, and employers and the employers can actually claim a tax credit for the plan startup costs in the first three years, just because it is so expensive.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:46:02):

So, you know, overall, it's, it's a really cool plan to consider, um, contributing money. We actually had a client who was a social media star, believe it or not. I mean on social media. Yeah. I know, right out of all the clients like this guy was I think, 40 or 50 years old, um, super successful on social media earning probably four to 5 million a year. Wow. Um, but didn't, I know, but didn't have a retirement plan in place. And, uh, we actually ended up recommending a defined benefit plan tier just sock away as much cash as possible and still get that tax deduction. And that's what they ended up doing. Um, and quite frankly, it works, but you have to make sure that you are the right business that it works for. Right. Um, so this is one of the last plans. And again, this really works.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:46:48):

If you have a lot of disposable income, which means you have that cash to put away into retirement plans, but those are kind of the big overviews. I'm happy to go into more depth like taxes and all that, but generally speaking, um, you know, the best plans, if you're self-employed, uh, is, you know, your, your simple IRA, which is a smaller contribution limit than others, uh, 13,500, the next step is your SEP IRA, which has a limit of 57,000. No, no catch-up contributions. Then the next step is the solo 401k, where you do have catch-up contributions if you're 50 or older. So that means you can easily contribute up to 63,000 or more depending on the year. Um, the next step up from there would probably be that defined benefit plan where you can contribute six figures, um, easily into that plan per year. Okay.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:47:42):

And, um, you know, I hope I'm not misspeaking here, but, uh, w when we want to relate these back also to your grandparents just a little bit and say, if I'm not mistaken, since these are, uh, retirement accounts and they are set aside basically in the person's name, I think that adds a little bit of protection if I'm not wrong, doesn't it that if you have been putting your money away in a, in a protect in a, uh, let's just take a sip, you put your money back in a CEP, and then let's say something happens. You either get sick, your business goes under whatever that money is protected against your, I guess, your creditors coming after. Is that correct?

The Millennial Money Woman (00:48:26):

That is correct. Yes. So retirement accounts and funds in general, they are actually protected from creditors. Okay. Um, most plans like 401ks, for example, um, they are protected. You do want to be careful though, because there's, there's this thing called ARESA, um, which basically Mo it's, it's known as the employee retirement income security act. In other words, they it's an organization, um, that w that monitors to make sure that you follow compliance rules, right? So you contribute that in a step IRA. If you contribute 10% and you have employees working under you, that you also contribute 10% of them, um, based on their salary. So if you don't follow those rules, chances are, if you do have creditors that might get into a little bit of a conundrum, but, um, as long as you have an ERISA plan that falls under those guidelines, right, then chances are, they are, well, not chances are, they are protected from creditors, non RSL plans like Roth IRAs.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:49:30):

Um, they do not have that same level of creditor protection. So that's very important to distinguish and even more so, like, if you have a sole proprietorship, right? So if it's in your own name, in other words, the tax, like whatever income you make from your business flows directly to your income tax return, um, you have a much higher probability of being, um, kind of ousted to creditors. If there is, you know, bankruptcy or anything like that, or even Sue, like if someone's suing you, that could be a possibility. So honestly, I would suggest if you are earning money from a business, and you're a sole proprietor, try to consider doing, um, a dual member LLC, or even an, an S-corp is a little bit more complicated, but something to help you help add that creditor protection. Um, and the reason why I say dual member LLC, is because typically speaking, dual member, LLC, is they have more protection against creditors than single member LLC is. And I didn't know that at first either, but I was talking to an accountant and they actually verified that for me. And I was really surprised to hear it, but yeah. So just make sure you take those extra steps for, um, for predator protection. Definitely a great point.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:50:43):

Yeah. And I think, you know, you, I think if you follow the rules and do what you're supposed to, cause, you know, there's all kinds of examples of people that try to hide money in these. And of course, you're not going to get away with that, but I think it just, not only your grandparent's story, but also this pandemic, there've been so many people that, uh, you know, prior to 2020, we're rocking long, small business life is good. And then now all of a sudden they've lost their income, they've lost their business. And if you would just think if you had been putting some money away in ACEP for, you know, 10, 20 years, you would at least have a little bit of, uh, of cushion. You know, my, some people maybe have even retired through all of this. So anyway, it's just very important to get started and do it early.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:51:29):

My advice. And I thank you at second, this is seek out licensed professionals to help you in all of these steps to make sure that you're following the guidelines because, you know, just like myself, I, you know, I have a finance degree and I could probably do my own taxes and be pretty good, but I don't because they send out tax bulletins to these tax professionals all the time throughout the year, it's a constant learning process. And so, you know, as the same with investment advisors seek out last and professionals, because there's always changes going on with these accounts and they can help walk you through to make sure that you're doing everything that you should be doing to keep you out of trouble later on.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:52:16):

Yeah. You make a really, really good point. And I just want to, you know, back, back that up and echo what you said, Roy, I mean, the fact again, although I do have like you, um, my certifications and all, but I don't have my taxes. I don't do my own taxes. Not at all. I have an accountant do my taxes. I do not manage my own investment accounts. Um, because it's funny, actually I read the statistics somewhere that, um, if you're an investment manager, for example, or a financial planner or accountant, chances are you do your own taxes, your own investment planning, financial planning, worse than you do for your clients because we have that bias, right? Because it's our own money. We need that third party view. We need that unbiased third party professional. And that's why Roy, what you said is so true, like make sure you seek out the people, the right professionals, the accredited ones, even if you are really specialized in an area, chances are, it's probably better for you. If you find someone else to help you,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:53:19):

You just need to mess up, wants to, uh, to have all of what you've done, be evaporated. So that's why it's just not worth taking the chance. And you know, like my, my tax preparer, I know that she usually finds me more deductions because she's up on the law, then why I would know, you know, trying to go through one of these computerized, uh, tax generating, things that you go through, where they ask very generic questions because you know, each, each and every individual each and every business is really different, has its own aspects, its own needs, you know, whether you're 20 and starting out or whether you're 50 and getting close to the end and anybody in between. So please again, you can't, um, you can never go wrong by having great support staff around you, counter financial advisors, lawyers, you know, just seek out good, reputable people in those areas.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:54:19):

That's right. I could not agree more.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:54:22):

Well, Fiona, I'm certainly glad that you taken time out of your day to be with us. This has been very interesting and I hope that we can get this message over to, you know, some of our smaller or solo preneurs entrepreneurs, small businesses, this is going to be so, um, so helpful for them, you know, when they get to the age where they want to retire. And I know we don't think about that a lot in our youth, but unfortunately it sneaks up on all of us one day you wake up and you're 50 and wonder where all the time has gone. So get started when you're young, don't let us sneak up on you.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:54:58):

That's exactly right. Roy. Don't be like that client. I was talking to where she said her past is catching up start now. And even if it's a little just start.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:55:07):

So what is a tool that you use in your daily life? Either professional, personal it's a tool, habit ritual, just something that you do every day that you don't think you could do without.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:55:19):

Definitely. It's, it's funny that you asked that because I was thinking about it earlier. Um, and it's, it's a habit that I learned. I want to say back when I was like 18 or 19 and, um, it is physically writing down goals. And not just that I support example, I had a goal to graduate, um, college at the top of my class and I wrote that goal down. I stuck it onto my, um, mirror, my bathroom mirror. And every, every day, I mean probably three, four or five times a day or whatnot. I saw that note every single day. Um, and I made that happen. And not only that, you know, but other other goals that I, that I tried to set my mind to be short-term, but long-term, I write down sticky notes and I try to keep it to like four or five sticky notes.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:56:09):

Right. Um, put it on my bathroom mirror and I actually see those every single day. Um, and you know, some people might say it was a little bit overkill and, and I appreciate that. That's fine. But for me personally, I'm a visual learner. Um, and I understand myself, right. I know that I am visual and that's the best way I'm able to accomplish whatever I want to accomplish. And so knowing myself in that regard kind of led me to write down my goals and short sentences, put it on the mirror. And because I see that every single day I'm reminded, I'm always constantly reminded. And then being able to take off a sticky note and throw it into the trash because I accomplished that goal, Roy, Oh my gosh, it is the best feeling in the world because it's like, I actually did it. Like I complish that. So yeah. You know, it's, it's so funny because I don't think that would be the first thing that most people would say, but writing down and visualizing goals and putting them in an area where you see them every day, be it on your nightstands, uh, on your car dashboard, you know, whatever it is that is so helpful and has been vital to help me accomplish some of the goals that I have.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:57:21):

No, that's great. And I, you know, whether they say like, uh, a goal that's not written down is just a dream or something like that. So, I mean, we've got to ride them down and I'm like, you, I like to keep, I use, uh, a lot of times three by five cards for my to do list. And the other day I let out a big, Oh yeah. Who or scream or something. My girlfriend is like, what's wrong. I just check something off my list. I mean, I get excited when you knock those things out, but, you know, I think to your point about your goals and your dreams and keeping them in front of you is that, you know, there are days that I personally wake up tired or not really feeling it, or maybe have a chance to go goof off or something like that. And, you know, when you see that thing that you need to accomplish or want to accomplish, it can kind of, uh, kind of bring you into a refocus to be like, Hey, you know what, I'm so close to this. I need to really push through. Or, um, I think that can be very, very beneficial. So that's all.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:58:18):

Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad to hear. I'm not the only ones.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:58:21):

No, no, I got, no, I got stuff written all over the place. I love that. Well, tell everybody how they can, um, get a hold of you or, you know, I know that you have a website with some information, so, um, just let everybody know how they can, uh, interact with you.

The Millennial Money Woman (00:58:40):

Yeah, definitely. So first and foremost, like you said, Roy, the website, um, anyone can reach me there. It's themillennialmoneywoman.com. Uh, I, I write posts, uh, probably two to three times a week. And my, my email address is there. [email protected]. I love interacting and engaging. So definitely reach out, um, get to know me. I'd love to hear from you. Uh, the second option is if you guys are a Twitter fan, uh, feel free to reach out to me on Twitter. And my handle is atthe_mmw. And if you guys are Pinterest lovers, then you can always reach out to me at the millennial woman on Pinterest, and I'm always happy to reach out and engage.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast(00:59:25):

Awesome. Well, it's been a great conversation again. Thank you so much. I'll reach out and, uh, see what Fiona has to say. I know it's a very enlightening and we appreciate your time very much. So that'll be, that'll be offered today. Uh, again, this is the business of business podcast. You can find [email protected]. We are also on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Uh, you can also find the podcast itself. You can either go to the website. I have a player that I put on there, or, um, iTunes, Google play, Stitcher, Pandora, and Spotify. All of those, all the big platforms go there. Uh, I will also post all of, uh, Fiona's information on the webpage as well with all the, all the ways that you can reach out and contact her. So again, thank you very much until next time. This is Roy take care.

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

   

Google Ads –  Enable and Maintain with Bobby Machado
Instructional Series 1 Episode 4 of 4

Bobby is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Signa Marketing, CEO at Sector 7 Apps, and a partner at Quick Job Products with his brother Cesar Machado.

As a kid, Bobby always had an interest in business such as providing landscaping services, training horses, or reselling “Tang” back to his parents during 5 grade. His experience in the digital world began when he taught himself how to code websites in high school, which turned into a way for Bobby to make money on the side while racing motocross, which remains as one of his passions to this day.

After he stopped competitively racing at the age of 22, Bobby decided to focus his full-time efforts in web development as a freelance web developer, which then introduced him into the digital marketing world. Being the analytical and creative type, Bobby developed a passion for digital marketing and data. After working at an automotive digital marketing agency as a paid media specialist, managing a little over $300,000 per month in Google Ad spend for several auto dealerships in the United States, Bobby combined my passion for business and launched Signa Marketing.

Signa Marketing currently makes up about 70% of Bobby’s time and he enjoys hosting a Signa Marketing show named “Blueprint”, in which he answers any and all user-submitted questions on how to market their business online. New episodes are released on Signa Marketing’s YouTube Channel.

Overall, Bobby enjoys being immersed in anything “digital” that has a positive impact on people and humanity.

Signa Marketing Website

Listen to more episodes of The Business of Business Podcast here

 

Full Transcript Below

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (00:02):

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the business of business podcast. This is Roy, your host. Of course we are the podcast that brings you a wide variety of guest on a whole diverse set of topics. Uh, this is our mini series that we've been doing. This is actually going to be our fourth and final one on Google ads. I'm lucky enough to, uh, Bobby with, uh, Cigna marketing is back with us again, Bobby, how are you doing?

Bobby - Signa Marketing (00:29):

Oh, I'm doing great, Roy. How are you doing today? I'm

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (00:31):

Doing awesome. You know what? These, um, these little short segments have been great. I mean, you've been given the audience a lot of actionable items, uh, you know, to try to put into practice every week without overloading everybody and just walking them through. So I appreciate you taking time out of your day to, you know, help us out with this. We look forward to doing some other different ones. Speaking of which, if you're a listener, you have some topics that, you know, on marketing advertising, things like that, reach out, be glad to, uh, you know, try to put together a series to help you out. But anyway, so today we're going to go to the fourth subject that we want to talk about, and that is how to enable. And of course, how to maintain our Google ads that we've put up.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (01:16):

No, this is great. Yeah. So this is definitely a topic where I have a lot of fun with, to be honest, just because they're there, it can get kind of granular, but what we're going to discuss here today is more of the approach because if I could teach their approach, then any type of scenario, you'll, you'll be good for it. Okay. Okay, great. So, uh, so with the context that, you know, we've, you've done your keyword research, you've built your campaign from mapping it out, and now you're about to, to enable it and click that, that button just to enable that campaign. Um, now when you enable it previous to that, you're going to want to set up obviously your, your budget. Um, this would have been determined from doing your forecasting and your keyword research, but say in this case you have a $500 a month budget.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (02:00):

Uh, you can set this budget as a, a, you know, reoccurring monthly budget, um, or sometimes because, because of the fact that Google doesn't actually honor daily budgets, they honor 30 day windows of, of budgets. Um, it, sometimes you can have a campaign that overspends one day, I didn't understand the next stage just depending on search volume. Okay. So, um, what we do is we do you utilize daily budgets. Um, we set that campaign to daily budget and we just do the simple math of 500 divided by 28 days in this month. And we say, okay, this is the daily budget. Um, now the way we maintain, uh, these, these campaigns is that we actually are inside, uh, an account at least three times a week. Okay. Um, and the reason why is because we, we definitely want to stay away from the whole set it, forget it, campaign type of thing, where, where you build everything.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (02:56):

And then you're like, okay, I'll see it in two weeks to up a deal. Um, I mean, for us, I mean it's money on the table. So that's why we're we like to be in there every other day, making sure that, uh, that it's being invested in, in the right way possible. So, right. So some of the main things that you want to make sure that you're doing after you launch is say, you let two, today you launch on a Monday, you'll go back on a Wednesday and you want to see how much like did it acquire impressions? Did it spend if it did spend how much, um, and the system will tell you really quick quickly, if your campaign is limited by budget. So this will occur if the, this will occur, basically if you reached your budget for the day, and there were still more opportunity to have people Googling the same keywords, which essentially is like missed opportunity now.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (03:45):

Yeah. Google will say, this is an increase your budget. This is a missed opportunity, but a lot of people will be saying, well, I don't have more budgets 500 for the month or the deal. So what you can do is you want to go click into your campaign and sort by costs. You're going to sort those ad groups, ad group ad groups by cost. And you'll have diff you'll identify which ad group is actually spending the most. Okay. That ad group right there, you can actually decrease the bid because if you start to decrease the bids on ad groups that are hogging all your budget, then what that allows you to do is start to attain more traffic without spending more, without having to increase your budget. And that, that really is kind of like the magic there, um, because of the fact that it does take time to go in there and do that.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (04:32):

But the thing is that you can squeeze out a lot more opportunity with, uh, from your budget, if you weren't doing that. Uh, well, we do see as a mistake, a lot of times is, uh, seeing that a campaign is Lim limited by budget and they have not been decreasing beds. And so, uh, that's, that's really just lost opportunity in terms of traffic by having overpay for that traffic. So we're definitely very fond of, of going in there, reducing beds, uh, where, where we can, um, another thing that we'd like to do to get a little bit more granular is when you are reviewing your ad groups sorta by costs, uh, there's a button that's that allows you to segment. And when you segment, you can segment by device. So when you do that, you'll see how much spend was actually spending on desktop compared to mobile.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (05:17):

And over the course of time, say you keep going into your campaigns every other day for a couple of weeks, you'll see, say you start getting conversions, you'll see that maybe mobile is responsible for all the conversions so far and not desktop. Right. Um, and so that's where you can start to make optimization bids down to a device level and adjust that and say, Hey, you know what, I want to be bidding a little bit more aggressive on mobile compared to desktop or, or, Hey, you know what, I want to pull back on desktop. It's not converting as much as mobile. So that's where there's a lot of opportunity. Okay.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (05:50):

Yeah. And that's important too, because, uh, speaking from experience, you know, we talked in the pre-show about, this is that I had an ad, uh, you know, my, my budget and my time length got kinda messed up to where, you know, for like two days I didn't have any traffic or any, uh, there was no, this was a YouTube. So there were no, uh,

Bobby - Signa Marketing (06:11):

No news and an activity. Yeah,

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (06:12):

Yeah, yeah. There's basically they weren't being populated. So anyway, it was a, I was able to get that worked out, but yeah, it's always good because while it's pretty good about running on its own, uh, for the most part, things do come up that you just need to be sure and catch, and then, like you said, to be sure and optimize, um, you know, optimize it based on the results that you're getting.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (06:34):

Yes, yeah. A hundred percent. Exactly. And so, and these are kind of tactics to Jay again. Yeah. Basically get the most bang for your buck. I mean, every dollar counts, especially in these times, every dollar counts. And so that's why these th this approach, um, will yield basically the, the most traffic within with that without having to increase your ad budget. Um, and so the same as with video and display too, is if there's opportunity to be craze and your campaigns limited by budget. Yeah. Absolutely. Taking advantage of decreasing your beds.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (07:09):

My experience with Google is very limited. So, uh, helped me out with this, but I know on some of the skip ad campaigns that I run, what I was told is, uh, you know, like maybe one is not doing as good as another. So, uh, what I will do is the tendency is to go in and just get rid of that ad, but there's actually a button there that you can just deactivate where it actually leaves the video clip and everything up there, just in case you just have to go back and re add it. You don't have to redevelop it. So my advice, and it doesn't take up any more space, but just deactivate instead of remove, and it may help you out in the future.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (07:49):

Oh, Roy. Yeah. No, that's, that is great. Great advice there because how many times have we seen that? They just deleted the whole thing and you'll still have all the data there, but you still got to you can't flip it on how you could before. So pausing ads, uh, is definitely something we highly recommend, but that's an excellent point. Yeah. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (08:09):

All right. Anything else we want to talk about on the maintenance end before we go?

Bobby - Signa Marketing (08:15):

Yeah, so, so in terms of we dive, we dove into segmenting, which there's a ton of opportunity there that we always find. Um, and this, this approach, um, uh, I would say a lot of people sometimes may say, Oh, well, if I decrease my bids, I'm going to lose traffic or I'm not going to attain anymore. And what I, what I tell them is, okay, uh, most likely that won't happen as long as your, your click through rate remains the same, or it gets even higher. Right. And so that's why we're running really good ad copy goes a long way, because say on, on the Google search network, there's top four positions on desktop. And if you are reducing your bid to where you're landing on position three or four, you're, you're paying way lower for a click and you're still at the top. Right. And if you have very persuasive ad copy where you're beating the position, number one anyways, in terms of clicks, then you're golden because you're, you're being able to attain that traffic at a much lower cost and being able to get way more for, for, you know, within the same budget. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (09:17):

Well, it sounds counterintuitive, but you would, you know, you'd said if, uh, you got one that's eaten up into your budget, you could back it down. But I think the, what I took away from that is it, like, it can spread that out because some of the other positions that we really weren't getting a lot of traffic on, if we can increase that traffic, we may have higher click-through rates. So, I mean, at some point we still would go back and evaluate what that click through rates. But if we have little to no activity there, we don't know anyway, so it's a good experiment to run.

Bobby - Signa Marketing (09:51):

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's, that's where I see a lot of opportunity when we first, you know, do, uh, an account review or anything like that. Yeah. Those that's, those are some of the low hanging fruit, um, adjustments that we, we, we start to complete right off the bat when we take over an account. Right. Um, and yeah, I mean, you'll, you'll see basically the costs to stay the same and just the traffic goes like the spread. Exactly. Yeah.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (10:17):

All right. Well, that's great. Well, Bobby, we appreciate you taking time to put this series together. This was the Google ad series. And if, uh, you know, this is the fourth verse, this is the fourth episode. So go back and give those others a listen, uh, what we do as it. And I think, uh, we will talk about doing another one in marketing and, uh, see if we can talk Bobby into coming back and helping us out. But we think that this will break everything down into more bite sized pieces that you can implement, you know, over the next week. So, uh, if you're too busy, if it's something you just can't figure out, uh, Bobby and his team are, uh, you know, they're willing to help. So Bobby, how can they reach out and get some help from you at Cigna marketing?

Bobby - Signa Marketing (11:00):

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So everyone can find [email protected]. Um, we actually do even offer free Google ad account reviews. So if you, if someone's had an account and they're like, man, I just can't figure this thing out. Or, or they've just been running for a while, more than happy to, to do a free review and then send you a report of where there's opportunity. Um, and if you have just even like quick questions and you're like, Hey, I just, I just want this type of, uh, this answer, or I have a question on something that is related to Google ads. Um, you can find us on social media, just at Signum marketing as our user handle. And we're more than happy to answer any questions in public forum, because if most likely someone else has the same question. So we'd like to answer a lot of, uh, questions in public form too. Right. Okay.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (11:44):

And you've also got a, uh, a podcast that you do through Cigna marketing. It's called blueprint. So tell us, tell the audience about that one as well. Yeah. So

Bobby - Signa Marketing (11:54):

Blueprint is something we started, uh, to be as a free resource to small business owners, marketing managers, and even it's just anyone that's getting into the industry. Um, and so it's a, it's a fun show. It's a Q and a style show in with Jane and I basically answer any and all digital marketing questions that people have. So yeah, so people can submit them as a comment or even a direct message. And, uh, and then I just answer them candidly on the next episode.

Roy - The Business of Business Podcast (12:17):

Okay. Awesome. Well, y'all check Bobby out, uh, at Cigna marketing as well as on the blueprint. And, um, we will talk him into coming back and we'll talk about some more marketing stuff. So, uh, until next time, uh, you know, you can find us www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com. Of course, we're on all the major social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and these, uh, episodes will go on YouTube when the episodes go live as well. So until next time y'all take care of yourself and take care of your business.

www.signamarketing.com

www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

 

   

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www.mitchwaks.com

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