In episode 81 of The Kitchen Table, Ken Baden interviews Brendan O'Rourke, founder of True North Wealth Solutions,, as he shares his journey as a fresh entrepreneur in the wealth management and financial planning industry, having started his own company just a few months ago.
Tune in to discover how faith, purpose, and community can guide you through the ups and downs of entrepreneurship!
TIMESTAMPS
[00:02:35] Starting a business challenges.
[00:05:00] Spending money and emotional ties.
[00:08:35] Sobriety and professional growth.
[00:12:05] Spiritual condition and personal growth.
[00:15:17] Family support in new ventures.
[00:18:57] Business growth decisions.
[00:21:33] Inflation and the stock market.
[00:27:14] Market volatility as investment strategy.
[00:30:14] Budgeting strategies for financial health.
[00:34:08] Mortgage rates and housing supply.
[00:38:14] Voting intelligence and misinformation.
[00:40:35] Local level impact on politics.
[00:49:30] Insurance claims and complications.
[00:53:09] Roofing scams and insurance issues.
[00:56:09] Fraudulent practices in roofing industry.
[01:00:34] Helping people in the industry.
[01:03:42] Fighting the good fight.
[01:04:51] Life and death honesty.
[01:07:46] Estate planning seminars for community.
QUOTES
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Ken Baden
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialkenbaden/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialkenbaden
Brendan O'Rourke
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendan-d-o-rourke-cfp%C2%AE-60b4089b/
WEBSITES:
The Kitchen Table Podcast: https://thekitchentablepodcast.net/
Blue Collar Ballers Union: https://bluecollarballersunion.com/
True North Wealth Solutions: https://www.truenorthwealthsolutions.com/
Welcome to the Kitchen Table, a podcast about where business is done. So pull up a chair and join your host, Ken Baden.
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Kitchen Table Podcast. I'm here with my good friend, Brendan O'Rourke from True North Wealth. And he actually is a friend of mine, because I say that every time. So Brendan, what's up, brother? Welcome.
Ken Baden
What's up, man?
Brendan O'Rourke
I mean, I do literally say, like, my good friend. And most of the time, I don't even know these people at all. Brendan is actually a good friend of mine. He lives up the street. He's a friend of mine, both personally. We run in the same circles, and we'll get more into that. in a little bit, but you're also a fresh baby faced entrepreneur. You're like right out there. Like how long, I mean, this is very recent, right?
Ken Baden
Very recent. Yeah. Started my own company in may. What was that? Three, four months.
Oh yes. Yeah. It's going to be a good episode for any of you guys.
It's been fun. My first thing was like, wow, like I'm doing all this work, right? And it doesn't feel like it for the first time.
This is before you started, or is this now?
This was like when I was starting it, it was exciting. It's fresh, right? I'm like getting a website, doing all these different things, right? And it's like, all right, this is a lot of work, but it doesn't feel like a task that I've been assigned by a boss.
Right. You know? Because you're building something.
Because I'm building something. And it's exciting. It's fun.
And it's been what, four months, something like that?
Four months. So I'm like, I'm in that sweet spot where it's like, I still have some time to, you know, like I'm building, but I don't have an existing, you know, business that's on top of growing and all of those different things. It's just gross for the most part and servicing, you know, a small book of clients that occur.
Yeah, right. And it's usually the most, like the least overhead. It's a good time. It depends on what you're doing, because a lot of people would say like starting a business. I saw somebody the other day in our blue collar ballers group. He was like, Hey, I'm looking to start a business. I think he was like a linesman or something. It's like, you know, I want to make sure my family's taken care of and I want to make money and blah, blah, blah. And everyone was like, you're starting a business for like extra cashflow. You need to really better understand what you do because you might not make anything for the first couple of years, you know, and that's a good point. You know, not, not every business is like that. There are certain businesses you can get into where you can make money quickly, but it's then going from that, like one man army or three or four man army where you're running that way, trying to grow from that, then you, then it kind of gets real. So it just depends. I think the fact of what we do, unfortunately, with the insurance roofing, there's so many guys that I've fired or were just not core value fits that just go take the test because the barrier of entry is so low, like we were just talking about. And they need a truck and a ladder and a license. And in some states, they don't even need that license. And then they're just like, I'm going to go climb this person's roof. See if, uh, if there's damage, maybe if there's none there, those kinds of guys got fired for a reason. They might even, they might even create it themselves, which again, is just the worst thing ever and makes our jobs way harder doing things the right way. But like, that's, what's out there for us. Is there anything like that? Well, first of all, we got to talk about what you do. What is, what's the business.
Yeah. So wealth management, financial planning. Um, so I'm a comprehensive wealth manager. I'm a certified financial planner, which is a designation, right? Kind of beyond just the general securities licenses that you need to do business, um, requires like 200 hours of studying. There's all these different areas that you study all the way from general investing to state planning, taxation on and on and on. Um, So there's a lot of different things that I get into. Right. But everything that I do is planning focused and planning center. Right. So like people will come up to me and they might ask me, Hey, Brendan, what should I do with X, Y, and Z? What should I do to make money? Right. And that's for me as a planner, that's a really difficult. It's a question that I really won't answer without first meeting with them, understanding their goals, what they want to do, right. Where they are currently and then how to get there from like, what's the most efficient way to get there. Right. It's not just like a back of the envelope. Like these are the eight things that you need to do to get rich.
Right. Yeah. Just get a 401k put 5% in. I get it. You really need to do tailored, especially because some of your clients could be, I would imagine in way different circumstances than others. Right. Some might be blue collar folks that have saved up their whole lives and need your help to get, I guess, get towards retirement. And then some might be a hundred plus millionaires that are looking to make sure that they're set generationally.
Yeah. Some people even need help spending money, right? Like it becomes very emotionally driven. It's almost like you're, you know, halfway a therapist. Um, and it's either you're doing a great job. It might be people who are just holding on to it. Right. Big time savers. Can't quite let it go. Can't quite like bring themselves to spend the money that they've worked their entire lives to save. Right. and just trying to bring them through that process and have a good time with it too.
That makes sense. I mean, somebody who only ever has taught like just, and it's like everything we read now is the complete antithesis. Like dude, saving that value of the dollar, you know, your money just sitting there. It's quite literally like, that's something I've learned even just recently, you know, that like doesn't do anything for you.
Yeah. You gotta, you gotta find a balance.
Well, and we'll get more into the specifics and we'll pick your brain and make sure we pour all the value into the listeners today. But I want to talk about, first of all, like how you got here, because you just started. So I think there's a couple of things that, you know, Brendan could really bring to the kitchen table. I was going to say to the table. Well, whatever. I mean, pun intended. There's a couple of things Brendan can bring to the table today. But one, you know, we know each other really well, and Brendan's got a really interesting story. And like myself, and he's already told me he's comfortable talking about this. I mean, He's been through the ringer, you know what I mean? He didn't just a clean cut young man, family man that you see before you currently was not always the case. So these two guys in ties, I mean, he's one of us is a felon. I don't know if he is or not, but. Not convicted. No, not convicted. Not yet. Two degenerates, you know, ripping and running, doing all kinds of craziness, you know, and sitting up here with these suits and ties and so on. It's just, he has a background that I think might surprise you. So I'd love to talk and touch on that a little bit, like how you got Just a little bit, you know, you don't have to go into anything too crazy, but going from where you came from to getting into the industry and ultimately deciding like, I can do this for myself and, and what that leap was like. But first and foremost, take us through your story a little bit about kind of, you know, where you were to getting in the industry at all.
Yeah. Yeah. So I got in the industry based off of a LinkedIn message after I graduated college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. Somebody said, hey, you wanna come in for an interview? And it was one of those kind of big insurance companies. And I talked to them and they told me that five, what was it? 10% of people don't make it through their first five years in the industry. From that point, I was like, oh, I'm in, right? Because I'm still drinking at this point, right? My ego is running wild, right? Now I wanna prove to the world that I'm enough.
Yeah, I'm gonna be in that 10%. Yeah, yeah.
And it was a lot harder than I thought. I mean, I was making 200 cold calls a day and buying my own leads and my own lists and things like that. And money, when it comes to financial advisors, especially, they're not just buying whatever product you might be putting in front of them, but they're buying you, too. They want to know that they can trust you and whatnot. And I was not in a healthy place. So while this is all going on, I'm hitting my bottom. at the same time, end up going to Baltimore city central booking for a few days. And, um, lovely place, lovely place kind of had us awakening there you could say. And, um, that's when I started, that's when I started taking sobriety seriously for the first time. Um, And so like, as I'm going through sobriety and the steps, I'm getting happy again. And all of these great things are happening in my life. I'm also starting to realize what else is out there in the financial planning world, right? Because it's like a big world. Saying financial advisor is like a very general
Right.
It is like you could be into insurance. You could be annuity focus. You could be this, you could be that. Right. And, um, and so I was just kind of like working my way through it. I was at Morgan Stanley for a few years. I was at Charles Schwab for a few years. Most recently, I was at a small business for a few years. Right. And just kind of like getting a good feel for all these different aspects of financial planning so that I can be as well rounded as possible. The whole time I wanted to. become my own boss and didn't really have the confidence to do that until like, you know, part of it is being around guys like you, right? Like guys that we hang out with, there's a lot of like business owners. It's like, okay, these guys can do it.
Maybe I can do it too. And it's one thing for me to enter into something, right?
by myself, and that's scary, right? But when I go into it after a lot of prayer and a lot of meditation and thinking about these things and thinking of it in terms of purpose and mission and where does God want me to be, then I can go into it with confidence because I know that it's a journey, it's an adventure. Either way, I'm gonna end up in a good spot, right? It's either gonna be a great lesson or it's gonna be exactly where I'm supposed to be.
Really good point. I hope you guys, uh, and obviously we're in 12 step focus, right? So you mentioned a few things that did not, didn't need to elaborate on because if you've heard my story, but you know, we belong to a same secret society and, uh, it saved both of our lives, but it's very centered around, uh, the topic of a higher power. So like, it's not very, it's everything really, but I mean, I love that thought that like, if you put faith in that and you just, lead with prayer, because I've been struggling with that recently, man. You know, I think we have these ebbs and flows, you know. And recently I've been trying to dive more back into just kind of the basics, working with new guys, going to more, you know, going to the meeting on Sunday, going there purposely just to try to find, you know, new people and help them, selfishly in a sense to like help ourselves. You know what I mean? It's a great program because it's like, Yeah, we are, we're going to help people, but in doing so we're doing that because that's the ticket to helping ourselves. You know what I mean? So like, but I say all that to, uh, I get abruptly reminded often where it's like, well, our, the book talks about it, you know, and not to get too off task because not everybody on this is going to even know what the hell we're talking about, but in our, our 12 step group, you know, it talks about that what we have is a daily reprieve predicated on regular maintenance of our spiritual condition, which is prayer and making sure that you're spiritually fit daily. So whenever I'm all out of sorts, usually it's a good indication my spiritual condition is pretty shitty. You know what I mean? I had a sponsor when I first got my stuff together and you know, we're all over the place. Like our emotions are all over the place. You know, somebody, I'm in a halfway house with a bunch of other dudes. which I didn't care because I was homeless before that, but like somebody eats my cheese I got with my food stamps and it's like, I'm ready to fight. You know what I mean? Call my sponsor about like that. And then I'm like conflicted on whether I should even be calling this guy about the cheese. That's got me upset because I'm like, do I call him about this? But I'm really upset. So I think I should be calling him, but I think this is weird to call him. And he would always just ask the same thing. He would just say, how's your spiritual condition? I would get pissed every time. But every time I'm like, probably not. Probably not pretty good. So I don't know. I said all that because it was something good for me to hear that going through whatever you're going through business, taking a new journey, jumping into something, you know, like going into business for yourself. If you do it with faith and prayer, then whatever the outcome is, is what it was supposed to be. And I had that exact same mentality when I was facing 15 years. It's locked up. That's one of the best examples I have of that. I was facing 15 years. It was right before my sentencing. I had no plea, no nothing. Just go see the judge, see what happens. So I was praying in my cell before I left, and I was freaking good, dude. That's the best. That is one of the most powerful examples I personally have of something like that, where I was like, dude, either I'm supposed to go to prison and maybe help somebody or do something, but if that's where he's taking me, and if I have faith, that's real faith, then I'm good with whatever the outcome is. In this case, same thing. And I don't know, I'm harping on that. Cause I needed to hear that actually, to be honest, I needed to hear that. It's not been an easy year. You know what I mean? Starting a business is fun and it's getting going and I'm not minimizing anything, but did you get in stakes? Can you get higher? The money continues to get, you know, longer and the consequences more severe and other people now are affected by your decisions and moves. And it's like, You know, the year we've had, not just when I say we, by the way, like we'll end up up, like I'm a very, I've got a big, big, we, I think have really high standards. It's funny. It's funny. We didn't have very high standards back when we were ripping and running, but we get a little sober and all of a sudden anything less than perfect is unacceptable. So. I'm telling you, man. You know what I mean? That's how we are, dude. That's how we are. We're shooting way past the moon. We're like Pluto. You know what I mean? The moon's unacceptable. Wretched excess. Yeah, dude. That's how we are. So having said that, I keep making these pieces where I'm like, it's been hard. That's because we had our sights set on Pluto. It ain't a Pluto year, man. It's a, we got enough gas to get to the moon. You know what I mean? And I should be happy to get to the moon, but you know, and I am, I'm blessed. I'm blessed. I'm blessed. But hearing things and talking to guys like yourself and having is and talking about it puts it into perspective, man. Honestly, we're meeting tomorrow. Like I feel if nothing else, I got something out of this today, Brennan. So thank you so much.
All right.
So you guys will wrap it up. I'm just kidding. No, that was great, man. I, I, That's exactly how you, if you, if you have faith and you pray on it, who cares? And even if you don't, like you're listening to this, like, oh, it's dude, you got to understand. We come from a place where it's like, okay, I got to do what? I don't care what it is. Tell me to stand on my head and a pink tutu. And I don't have to like rob people or hate myself and wish my existence just, you know, wasn't such a curse. You know what I mean? Like that's a pretty low place. So I would have done whatever. If it means I got to pray, and find a reprieve and a higher power, dude, okay, cool, wonderful. So we're not trying to be all preachy to you, just saying.
But you're right, like the more people that are affected by it, right, the right thing to do is harder to figure out, harder to find. I've found, but I have to sit with it longer. And I have to really like kind of test it because I've, you know, one in a three year old and a wife and I'm like, all right, y'all, I'm going to go, I'm going to go do this thing. Wish me luck. Right. Hope it works out.
Yeah.
Yeah. What was that experience like?
It was good. I mean, my wife honestly was probably more confident from the start than I was. Yeah. Right. And that gave me the confidence to, to step out and,
Hell yeah. So she was like, yeah, I think you should do that.
She's like, do it. Yeah. You don't know how to. Sure do. You just might not know it, but yeah, I can find a way. And I mean, that's the honest truth, but. It's been an amazing experience so far, it's brought us close together as a family. You know, I'm able to have a little bit more flexibility, right, helping out with the kids and whatnot and being around when She really needs me to be around. You know, depending on how this thing goes, that might not always be the case, but it's just been a real blessing.
What's your goal? Is it to put your, you know, to like brick and mortar and several folks, or is this something where you're like, eh, I want that freedom and just to kind of be home more?
Yeah, I've been wrestling with that.
Based on what we just said, I've got my guess.
First goal was to like, let's get off the ground and running, right? And it's going pretty well so far, knock on wood. It's going better than I expected. And then I think the next decision will be like, yeah, is it just me? Is it a quote unquote lifestyle business where I have some support and whatnot? Or do I grow this into a business, something that's greater than that? myself, right? And I'm going to have some time before I really need to make that decision. But that's, yeah, something I'm kind of wrestling with. Yeah, because I can see where, if it continues on this path, where it's going, right? And it's early. It's really early. So I'm cautious even saying these things. But if I continue on the path and everything continues to go pretty well, then I could see having to make a decision like that. three to five years, maybe, you know, like it's not that soon.
Yeah. I think it'd be sooner than, than three to five years. I would bet. I would bet just knowing, but I get it. I get it. But just knowing how we are and how you are, the success, the success determines that. And ultimately the cool thing is you can just do whatever the hell you want. It's like with what you do, it's feasible. then that's a great, that's awesome. You know what I mean? I don't understand it, I guess, enough to like know the nuances and like what the next move would be, whether it be to get a couple other folks selling under you or, uh, and how that would even impact you. Maybe you still like, I don't need an office to do that. You know what I mean? Um, but like you said, man, I mean, honestly, dude, doing this this year is I think that anything from here on out, it's going to be really easy.
Yeah.
Cause I don't know what's your market or, but the market period is like, we're playing games here, pretending like it's anything I trying to reel myself back in lately and not be all weird and not weird, but like, so overly like obsessed on what's going on, like the current political or socioeconomic, but like it directly impacts everybody, first of all, but also like this business and all the businesses. I mean, I'm in all these business groups. I've got a coaching group, got a consulting company. I pay to be in all these other groups. Everyone is feeling it. And so it's just like, gotta be a reprieve coming. And then you see, what's this face? Big, big baller. Takes out a billion damn near from Bank of America. Buffett. And I'm like, cool. What's that all about?
Yeah. So like, You gotta understand the context of it too though. Buffett did that like earlier in the year and then the report just comes out. So every time that we get the report of it, the news is like, Buffett just pulled all his money out and the market's going down and all this stuff is happening, right? Like the sky isn't falling. So the question, I think the biggest question with the market right now.
Yeah, let's talk finances since we've got a financial guy. Let's talk about that. Help us feel a little bit better. That's fine. You can, unless you're gonna tell me it's some really terrible news.
The biggest question with the market is the Federal Reserve and what is the Federal Reserve going to do, right? We're pretty sure that they're going to reduce rates by 25 basis points at their next meeting mid-September, middle of this month, right? You think they're actually going to do that? I think they'll actually do that. The question is, is that enough to appease the market, like to make the market happy? And I don't know if it is. If they were to go 50 and cut them even more, market would be super happy, right? Because right now it's pricing in 25. Beyond that, I have no idea exactly what's going to happen. I have no clue. And you know, this thing could go on for a couple more years.
This thing, what inflation, just everything, everything we're experiencing.
Well, the market itself has been pretty good. The economy has shown signs of weakness, right? With all the inflation and all. Hopefully the Fed reducing interest rates helps to ease some of that influence.
Yeah. Cause what he's referring to is like the stock market. You know what I mean? Which is always so perplexing to me because you know, people look me in the face and I'm like, whoa, the stock market's good. And I'm like, do you not believe your own eyes and circumstance and what pocket book? Like, okay, cool. And then I do a little bit more research than that. And I'm by no means Brendan, but I'm like, All right. Well, from what I'm learning, you know, okay, the stock market looks good, but it's also propped up by like these four or five massive tech companies that are like super overinflated like an apple. And it's just like, but everything else is down. And then that tweaks and goes, it's just, it can so easily be. misleading, right? That if your basis for like, what's happening in this country or everything, is everything good? Is the stock market, and you at least need to know what you're looking at. Cause it's like, well, if majority of the SMP or what we typically see as like, is the stock market good or bad? And if I say something really stupid, just correct me, because I'm just learning this on the YouTube myself. So what I've read recently is that the S&P is mostly like those main companies, right? Apple, these big tech giants, and they're like, for some reason, super fucking over, excuse my language, overinflated or over worthed.
They have a large market cap.
Yeah. And so everybody else is just kind of there and they might be doing poorly as long as these main, contributors in pieces, it looks like, well, the market's good. But then why is it that we can't afford groceries or we can't afford the cost of living or, you know what I mean? Like wages haven't kept up to the increases in cost of living. I mean, it's just like everything else really that matters. The things that really matter, I mean, not to say that that doesn't matter, but it's like the things we experience. cost of goods, how much we're making, cost to live. You know what I mean? Like a kid like Roger, he was like, dude, you can't, it's like, you can't live on your own making less than, I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Which is nuts. Cause a hundred used to be the pinnacle of like, if I could just make a hundred. Yeah. Not around here.
I mean, rent for what a one bedrooms, two grand at least.
Yeah.
Crazy. Ridiculous. And then groceries are nuts. Gas is crazy. Yes. It's all something needs to happen without a doubt.
Right?
The first, the first lever is definitely the federal reserve. Question is the federal reserve too late. They waited too long outside. They have waited too long, but economically speaking, right? Most of the economists, most of the people who are a lot smarter than I am are betting that it's going to be a quote unquote soft lane. Right, meaning that they're able to slow things down without causing a full-blown recession.
So they don't think that we're currently in a full-blown recession.
There's a lot of indicators that suggest we've already been in one for a while.
Yeah. I thought that was the deal like two years ago. They just kind of like, nah, nah, nah.
Yeah, well.
It's weird.
You saw what the Fed said like COVID times. The big word was transitory inflation. Meaning it was temporary. It was just caused by the issues with shipping goods and things like that.
All the hangups in COVID.
Yeah. All the hangups in COVID. And then they're like, oh, nevermind. It was because we injected trillions into the- Right.
But still they're not willing to say like recession. Right. Even though isn't like, haven't we already more than met the typical factors of what would be considered a recession two years in a row?
Yeah, we did in 22, I think, where it was like a couple quarters in a row.
Yeah, I remember. Because I remember like by all accounts of what they say is or isn't the factor, however many quarters in a row, we hit that. And they're like, well, yeah. But maybe that's when they were saying like, well, yeah, but I just haven't seen anything. Anyhow.
And that's hard to know. If I knew we'd be doing this on an island.
That'd be amazing. Yeah. Great. Figure it out, dude. Yeah.
I mean, the truth is money always comes back. Right. So being invested, it's best to stay invested for the long term.
That's you. Say that again. The truth is what the market always comes back.
Market always comes back or it doesn't. And it really doesn't matter. I was going to say it doesn't.
Well, That's a great point. That's a hell of a good point. It always comes back. And if it doesn't- Anarchy. I was getting ready to say. Mad Max. You've all seen Mad Max. That's what it's going to be, dude. Yeah. That's a really good way to look at it. Either it always bounces back or I don't know. I hope the doomsday preppers are going to look real smart.
Yeah. And I'm assuming a lot of your listeners are like our age, right?
Probably, yeah.
Probably have a lot of time, right? So volatility in the market's your friend. putting money into the market, when it's volatile up and down, you're gonna be able to buy more of something when it's down, right? So you really wanna move inverse to what everybody else is feeling.
Meaning if everybody's freaking out and pulling their money out, that's a great time to invest, right? Yes. For you me's out there. I did, I've done that, I've done that. I've gotten cheaper stock of, I think it was like Apple, I don't know the big ones. Right. Uh, but that's the problem is the ones that I went after the ones that are like, yeah, we're really not feeling that.
Yeah. And it's also like a big deal. I talked about financial planning and like looking at the total picture. Right. What you do, which I do. So it's a big deal just to look at that. What are your goals? Right. My goal might be to, I want to retire at 62. I want to have X amount of dollars in retirement. Right. And that helps you to change your benchmark from, oh my gosh, what is going on in the world right now? Look at the economy, look at the stock market, right? To, oh, this is how close I am to reaching that goal.
That's a really good point. So if you're just finding yourselves kind of panicking, watching the news, something that could help is kind of getting a plan together.
Get a plan. Figure out what your goals are and then just attack those goals. Everything else is just noise. There's a reason there's 24-hour news. They really like to play.
Yes, they do. Yes, they do. And it's never good. It's always, if you've never noticed, it's never good. It's always doomsday, doom and gloom. It's just, that's why I don't watch it. But it's different. And why I've been more outspoken recently is obviously we're coming up on an election and it's just like, No, we're not going to get into politics, but just this feeling firsthand what's going on and being responsible for other people, man. You know what I mean? Like you said, you feel it. It's one thing for me to be frustrated and it's like, we're not where we're supposed to be. But it's like when it, when you're involving other people that it's personal, it's more personal to me when it involves other folks than when it's just me. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like now I have people You know, young men, young women, and people with families, they're all counting on us to be strong, healthy. And we're doing, I think, all the right things. We've leaned out recently where, you know, we have a meeting tomorrow, like, hey, what are some of the things we can do to, you know, maybe even something we can talk about, you know what I mean? Like looking at that business from a business standpoint, you know, like what are some smarter plays we can make? You know, Kevin's worked in on that, but he doesn't have the knowledge of the market that you do. You know, he's a fractional CFO, but he's more like, he's an engineer and he's more like, he works for the government and he's moves. How can I make these numbers more friendly for us? You know what I mean? So the strategy part of it is the only thing he just doesn't, so it'd be great actually to talk to you more, but going off on a tangent here, if you're worried and if you, you know, that's what I wanted to talk about really, to be honest with you, man, was things, we're all feeling it. It's not a secret, everybody's feeling it. So if you are feeling it, what are some things we can do to not feel so shitty? I guess one would be get a plan.
Get a plan, focus on your goals. Just find different ways to save a little bit of cash here and there. I think one of the biggest things is budgeting, honestly. Getting a budget. Getting a budget and tracking it monthly, right? And there's different apps that you can use. You can use like Rocket Money. You can use YNAB. And you might come to the point where you're like, wow, I feel so tight right now because I'm spending money on some really stupid stuff every month. And I didn't even notice it because I was never looking at it.
Spending hundreds on food or energy drinks, whatever.
11, wherever. We all have our things. So that's a big thing. And then you can also look at like different ways to like, you know, cable TV, $250 a month of whatever it is, right? I'm one of the streaming services or your cell phone, right? $200 a month of whatever. I'm one of the cheaper ones, like mobile or something. Um, so there's different ways to kind of go about it. Right. As the economy and the market are kind of trying to like, really work this fine line because we do need the economy to slow down, right? In order for it to get healthy again. What does that mean? So we need it to slow down so that inflation doesn't continue to tick up.
Slow down as in like, we're doing too well or like, cause I really don't know.
Yeah. So like we were doing so well. Right. And they put so much cash into the economy. right, through different programs and loans.
So when they were pumping, so beforehand, we were doing great.
Yeah.
Everybody was flush, right? And then things heat up. Six to eight years ago? No, sooner than that. I mean, COVID times, 2020, 21, and then some of the policies that have been put in place. It's just kind of flooding the market with cash, right?
So then people are spending- So it wasn't all just because they like blew through all, I mean, but it's a lot to do with the cash they dumped in during COVID. Yeah.
I'm just trying to understand. Yeah. So what they're trying to do is like, so everybody's spending that money, right? And things are heating up and then inflation, things just keep costing more because people are willing, right? And if that continues, then it'll create a bubble and it'll explode and you'll have 2008, right? Where things are really, really, really, really bad. So what they're trying to do is kind of walk that fine line where they're trying to make it slow down to a pretty good level, right? But not quite to the level where it's gonna explode. So they're trying to slow it down so that they can open it back up. And the way they open it back up is by reducing interest rates, right? Then- Which would be in September, possibly? It should be, yeah, September- They've slowed it down. 16th through the 18th, I think. Oh, they've slowed it down and they've gotten that. I felt the slowdown. At least on the metrics that they're. So that's one thing is that like when they track inflation, they kind of remove a couple of categories like groceries and oil, because those are very, very volatile categories is what they say that they can't really rely on consistently.
Two of the most important signifiers, like the main things that we judge, whether or not stuff's good or bad. Can I afford gas or can I afford food? Yeah, exactly.
Cool. Right. So when you take those out, like inflation and a lot of these other areas has kind of returned to a level that they're comfortable, at least year over year.
Hence why they may consider in September to do that.
Yes. And we need, it would be really great if they did. Everybody would appreciate it. Then you see mortgage rates starting to come down and see all of that good stuff, right? Which like mortgage industry is beast of its own right now.
In a good way or a bad way?
Well, I don't know if it's good or bad. It depends if you own a home or not and what your interest rate is, you know, cause everybody out there right now is sitting on like, if they owned a home in 2020 ish, between 22, they are sitting on a 2.5% interest rate. You're like, I'm not moving paying seven and a half. Right. But. So the reason, and then, so you don't have much supply of homes and you have a lot of buyers in the market too. I need homes. I need homes, but they can't afford them because it's seven and a half percent interest rate. Builders can't afford to build them. Builders can't afford to build them. Right. So you start to bring the cost of borrowing money down and maybe people will start to take risk again, like building homes and whatnot.
It would be awfully convenient. I mean, whether you like, don't like whatever, but if there's anything that, you know, one side could do to make things look a little bit more appealing right before the election would be to do that. And again, that's neither here nor there. I mean, we'd be great one way or the other. So I'm not going to be mad at that.
Yeah, I'm guessing because of that, they'll stick to the 25 basis points that the market's expecting so that they're not causing any undue ups and downs in the market before or something like that. They try their best to not. Get involved. Oh, really?
The Federal Reserve? Yeah, it's supposed to be independent. Yeah. It's privately, which is wild. It's supposed to be.
It's all wild.
It is. A whole entire currency system backed by people, from what I can understand, but nothing. Fiat, right? It's literally like, hmm. Used to be gold, yeah. Yeah, back in the day.
Long time ago.
Didn't Trump talk about wanting to go back to the gold standard when he was in or something? He probably did. You know, he said some wild stuff too, but anyhow. Um, all right. Well, it's hard for, I really want to go, really want to go a different direction, but I'm, I'm, I'm for your sake, dialing it in. Oh, each of these things are my, I'm getting last couple of podcasts. Yeah. Well, he had me, he had me on here last time doing a podcast that was completely opposite of what, you know, so I was eager to get you in here. Cause I'm like, I'm going to get back to, Our listeners, God love you, all two of you. Well, I've got like, Adam might be listening to this. He's CEO of six, seven massive companies here in the DMV. I know he's a listener. And he's one of the smartest people. He started on Capitol Hill and was going to get into politics. and started selling windows. And now he's, obviously it's worked out pretty well for him. You know, he's CEO of some of the biggest, one of the biggest remodeling firms here in the, it's multi, it's national now, but as well as another commercial construction company, a finance company, an install company. I mean, anything that has to do with it, there's a company that he's involved with that has something to do with it. So, and he's one of the, he's a big listener. He's been on the show, but you know, we have a lot of folks that, listen to it for that aren't business owners. You know what I mean? That's my point. That's what I'm getting at. If you're not a business owner, you're just like, dude, how do we not feel so miserable with everything going on? You know, Roger, like all my people that are here, like it's tough right now, man. And that's why I get a little fired up because I have my own opinions on that. And it's impacting me a lot more than it did before. And before I was like, of course, you know, like, Hey, this is, but now that I own a business, this is my first time as an individual sole business owner where there's been a vote. So I think that's why I'm so like, it's a big deal. You know what I mean? So yeah, I'm trying not to, but he had me on by myself talking. I think it was the end. I think the objective was not to talk politics. We're trying to talk current events. The status. was the most current thing was that thing with Zuck, right? Where like Zuckerberg put out the letter where he was like, hey, by the way, everything you guys thought was happening was happening. Here's some instances with COVID where we were covering that information up. And here's some instances with a Biden campaign where the laptop and all these things were rushing this information. Like, yeah, all that. We were pressured by the government to say, block that. Yeah. And so like, that was what got me going because I was talking about it. And then I went off into political. So I got a little fired up, dude. You're passionate. That's good. Passionate American young man, you know? Yeah. And then I was just trying to make the point, regardless of whom, whatever, it doesn't matter who, regardless of which arm of the same bird you end up deciding, like, this is where I'm checking my box. Just do it intelligently. That was my big thing. Just like, just, please don't do it because it's social media or media or any of this pandering is successful. That I feel like is just the most insulting and it's just, I think it's the majority. That's the scary part. The majority. The majority is like, I mean, did you see, I'm getting ready to go. I'm going, dude. Did you see? Rain him in, man. Did you see where it was? Yeah, all right. Anyhow, I'm only doing this because I know Brendan doesn't want to talk about this. But anyhow, there was lots of examples of folks that were saying like, oh, I'm voting for this person. And it was like, all right, great. What is it that that person's done? They're like, I don't know. Exist? You know what I mean? Like, what? Not one had. It's just that's terrifying to me, man. So it's just, again, you know, All of these things, but you know what too, and Sean and I were talking about this, a good friend of mine that I've had on the podcast many times, it starts at the local level, dude. Like, so if you really want to make impact on anything, like we need to be more cognizant of what's going on at our intimate levels of, we had, gosh, man, I'm wanting to call him. I don't think that's his, he ran for Senate. What? You don't know his name? Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, a gentleman ran for Senate. No condominium psychic. Now he's thinking about running for like PG County treasurer. Really cool, dude. And he was super cool and understanding, man. I mean, like, and I think he got the gist of like, we had a lot of commonalities, but there was probably a good chance to like, you know, hey, I don't know. This guy may or may not vote Republican or whatever. I didn't care. Or do I give a shit? You know what I mean? Marcellus Cruz. You know what I mean? Like I've got a lot of, like I was awesome. Really, we're all here together as Americans in this crap together. So we better figure out a way to make this crap work. Stop letting these freaking powers that be just like completely just, you know what I mean? Puppet.
Puppet dude. Yeah, puppet masters. Yeah, I mean, and the economy and the market like, To bring us back, like I was saying, they're cyclical. So every like eight years, the market's going to crash and it's healthy for it to do that. Economy every eight years or so, every eight to 12 years, it's going to like have a pullback and it's healthy so that we can keep going strong.
It's supposed to. Bottom line. every eight to 12 years, it's supposed to crash or like bottom out.
If it kept going forever, like it would just be like, okay, that's what you're saying.
So it goes up, it's healthy, but as it goes up, there are consequences for going.
Yeah. And you can argue why it's gone like the way that it has and whether the policies have like influenced it in a positive or negative light, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is just what happens.
It's part of it. Ultimately, you know, we just all want to see it level out. So, but that's a great, great news is hopefully September we get that. That'd be a great reprieve. Cause what we're experiencing in our industry is the insurance companies are just like, their pocketbooks are tight. I mean, they are just, it's egregious. You know, it was always difficult. It was always a pain in the ass, but it's turned into, you know, just absurd. I mean, it's egregious, like blatant. No, or like, we don't care. We have no, It's always been like, you can always leverage the homeowner. They want to salvage the relationship with the homeowner. It doesn't seem to matter anymore. So I sincerely hope that it's just a byproduct of like, we don't have any money. You know what I mean? How long they pay, how long it takes for them to pay us all of it. It's just, so, you know, there are things you can certainly do like, all right, well, we're just going to focus on selling roofing in a market that doesn't deal with insurance carriers. Right. That's an entirely different business model, but it's what I've actually known more than the insurance restoration angle. But if that doesn't change, it's going to put a lot of people under. And frankly, most of those guys I was talking about have no business running businesses anyhow. So.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you hope that just the consumer gets to a point where like they're flush again, you know? Cause that's what drives all of us.
Well, not only that, man, I mean, they're not flush and then they get hit with what, think about it, you know, in a market that's already rough, Houston goes and gets hit by a The weather patterns, that's a whole nother topic. Like the things that have been happening, you know what I mean? Like it's just crazy, dude.
It's all nuts.
It is. It really is. Like the weather's crazier than it's ever been, the market, but like, you know, they're paying for like completely fixing Texas because Houston and like they're hit with a hurricane that just destroyed it. I was asked, like a buddy of mine was like, dude, fly out. You need to fly out. And honestly, I don't know. Had I planned better to be a true storm chaser?
Yeah.
I would've done it in a hurry, because we would have made, that's when you make your money, man. There's lots of guys out there. That's when your cup runneth over so much, because the work is just like, it's just who do I see first?
You were about to be a storm chaser.
Well, my market and what we do in insurance restoration, so they call us storm chasers.
So do you have to get licensed in each state? Yeah.
So that's why you can't just- But Texas is great, because it's like, go out there and register an LLC. I could have been licensed there tomorrow, dude. It would have been fun. That Texas is fine. There's like, no there, but that's also why there's 7,000 plus quote unquote roofers in the DFW area alone. Okay. Cause you could go out there tomorrow and be like, I'm starting a roofing business. Here's my LLC. Right. All right. Congratulations.
You're a roofer. You have insurers just leaving Florida in general, right? A lot of people have to self-insure?
In Florida. Florida? Yeah, Florida is, that's a whole nother bear, dude. They changed a bunch of regulations there. That was originally, like, that was the plan for expansion. Yeah. And then a lot of insurance carriers pulled out. And that flipped the markets on its head there. Florida legislation changed a lot of things as far as what you could and couldn't do. Door-to-door, helping customers with stuff. And I heard a lot of it's changed maybe a little bit back in terms of allowing us to at least do some of the aspects of the job again. But just the same, it's so expensive to insure a home in Florida that it's almost, I hear in most cases, it is more than the mortgage. And they're proposing here in Maryland, believe it or not, got an inside scoop to do similar things like coastal regions, They're just, which technically, you know what I mean? Like our, our East, uh, East coast there. Um, but I mean, as a state, they're just like, yeah, we're just not going to do roofs. Like some of the big ones are just like, we're just not going to do roofs, which is wild. Cause it's like, well, we have to have this insurance and you're just not going to cover like the thing that you're like, yeah, well, you guys are kicking our ass with this and we're just not covering it.
You know what I mean?
You know, and there are whole businesses now predicated around like this one. But the good news is, as I said, when we first started, it was just a roofing company that just sold roofs to people that needed new roofs. I mean, roofs are never gonna go anywhere. But the means, obviously, to do it and have someone else pay for it is always nicer than having them pay for it. Especially when it's their insurance, Gary. Like, dude, I keep getting wrote back in because it pisses me off. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I've always sold the roofs traditionally and it's easier, frankly, it's easier. You don't have to deal with that.
Dude, oh my God.
So much easier. Now it's a lot, you got to get it going. It's a lot more risk to start up. You know, that's why you don't see, even that's better though. And you know, then you wouldn't have so many idiots in the market that like don't belong there. Cause there's more consequences. You have to actually know how to get a business started. You got to pay for leads, all those things, right? There's a lot more that could go wrong quickly. Yep. Versus just like, well, the insurance is going to pay for it. We'll figure it out. We'll get the check up front. Like, however, with that, there's a lot that can go wrong on the backend because now you've gotten going at like no cost, but now you're counting on paying your bills and you're, you fronted and you've gotten some credit with a distributor and your manufacturers, but if they take two months to pay you, not that much credit. You know what I mean? So it could be bad quick, man. And that's how it is right now. But it just pisses me off, man. People pay. You make people have insurance. You make them have it. You have to. If you have a mortgage, which everyone has a mortgage. You got a mortgage. You want to own a home in the United States of America, you got to have mortgage insurance. You got to have homeowners insurance. They make you have that, right? You never see it. It goes right into escrow. It gets paid through escrow. Just one of those things. So you don't really know. It's not like a car when you're piecing your policy together and you're like, oh, wait, do I really want this limited liability? Like you think, you think about it. Like if I wreck my car, do I really want to have to pay five grand or do I want rental or do I want this? Or you pay it monthly. You see it. With a homeowner's insurance policy, you get it once. You don't ever look at the deck page again. Really think about it. You don't even remember you have it because you don't, you just, it just goes every year, every month it's paid through. You know, when you make your mortgage payment, it just goes through escrow and that's it. It sits there. So then when something happens, people are like, I got a lady, I'll go off on this tangent. I just want to say this one story. This lady recently, she owns five properties, all this business with a big company, five, five life insurance policies, five properties. several vehicles, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But she's not like a bazillionaire. She's just, you know, her and her husband worked hard and they've got a couple of rental properties on the East coast. We do the roof. Now this is a mistake on the rep. He didn't double check to make sure that the, uh, he said he couldn't get in the attic, but we didn't know that there was cedar shake under the shingles and all long story short, in order to do that to code as a licensed contractor, we're bound by doing things to the standard of code in the respective area. Always. Yeah. So in order for us to install this roof to code, we would have to have taken these extra layers of things that we could never have possibly known were on the roof because there was no attic access. And it was a random, like one in a million thing. So she's like, we're telling her, Hey, don't worry about it. This is a code requirement. Insurance company is going to pay for it. They're not going to like it because it was like 20 grand and just stuff extras paying the guys to remove this pan to move this pan to remove this. and reinstalling this and then a full new redeck. They deny it. And now it's like, well, go to your homeowner. That's what they tell us. We're like, hey, sorry, dude, go to them. They don't have, so if you're listening to this and you look at your, I would suggest number one, everybody right now, go to your homeowner's policy. Take a Tom Glancy at it.
I review them as part of our financial, the homeowner policy. We were going through with a guy just yesterday. And, you know, the personal property on it was like $400,000. Like you have $400,000 of personal property in your house. You like a wedding ring. Okay, so no, right and they just kind of add these things and then You know the part of the policy that kicks in should your entire house burn down and they're gonna pay your rent for this endorsement that endorsement Yeah, so the the rent he was able to Use was unlimited. All right So if your house burns down you have the opportunity to rent the most expensive thing in America for 12 months like They're not charging you for that too, right? So like there's little things that they just kind of kick in and
But he's paying a crazy premium.
Yeah.
And he didn't, he had no idea. Right. And it's not like we all do this. I mean, I probably at least looked at mine because of what I do, but I couldn't tell you what it is now. And this poor lady, like, dude, she was so pissed because she's like, well, what's the deal? And they're like, well, you don't have ordinance and law coverage. That's what it's called. Right. You don't have code upgrades. It's really what it breaks down to. And she's like, well, why would anyone insure me, sell me a policy that then doesn't pay for code upgrades, knowing that licensed contractors in this state have to, have to bring things to code in order to do anything. And so like, you're basically just completely screwing me, but they don't give a shit. They don't care. They don't care. They'll say, well, you know, I don't know. Basically is what it says is ultimately just like that they did grandfather. I think ten years ago Anybody that's had anything written since then I think they like changed the law or something They made it to where it had to be like you had to have ordinance law you have to have code upgrades, but oh man, she was one of the last ones so I
Interesting.
It's wild. It's wild. But that's just the type of stuff.
So your issue is all these scumbags going around and jacking up roofs and putting in claims, right? To the point where the insurance companies got tired of these people putting in claims for maybe where they shouldn't. Yeah.
That's one of them. That's one of them. That's one of them. That's why we belong to a group called RSRA. It's the Roofing Solar Reform Alliance group. And it's literally just like, we just exist. It's like their tagline is like to stomp out the scum, but it's, We exist as a coalition of roofers and solar folks. They're like, these guys are just really giving us, they make our lives way harder than they already are, right? The insurance carriers don't want to pay, period. Don't get me wrong, like they are, the irony of them calling us a scam or like what we do is scam, and it just pisses me off further, but there is, what is the scam? is roofers that have no business being roofers. I have a guy right now, worked for me for not even, maybe two months. He was in solar, whole career, right? Guy's a real piece of work, presents himself real well. I'm sure he could sell well. He's got the emotional maturity of a 10 year old though. So he's just like, always gonna fail, always gonna lose, always, because he beats himself. You know what I mean? Like, if he ever hears this, he's gonna know what he's talking about. And dude texted me, I forgot he existed, right? He brought a couple people over here when he was here, because he was all excited to be here. He brought some other guys on board. Not a single one, but one worked out. Not a single one, but one was worth a damn. I mean, at all, at all. I liked another one, but that's it. I liked him personally. Still wasn't worth a whole lot. And I say that with love, but I mean, like, This is a business industry with like numbers and like the numbers don't lie, right? So they're all gone but one. But, and the one was phenomenal though. So I would do it all over again because the one we got out of that, the connection I got out of that. was phenomenal. However, this young man was following me, I guess, for like six months. And like, so these guys that were worthless start dropping off. Another one does text me like five in the morning, probably drunk. And he's like, damn, everybody's leaving your, damn, everybody's leaving your bitch ass or something like that. I'm like, who is this? Didn't even have the dude's number saved. You know what I mean? I'm like, and I realized who it was. And I'll admit I had a rare lapse in like, it pissed me off because it was five in the morning. And I'm like, what a loser, dude. Like you really think about me that much that you're obviously following me on social media or this other person and really thinking like, just like, that's just bizarre to me. So I don't know. I say all that to just really point out that that guy is the guy who's out there selling you on how he's this roof expert. It's two months of being in the roofing industry. That's the guy that's the problem. That's the guy that's tearing up the roof. I mean, I don't know for sure, but I would wager he probably is. I could totally see him doing that. My old partner, I could totally see him doing that. There's a lot of stuff they kept. I just know his personality. You know what I mean? I know how he is. He would see that as like, oh, I could do this, fake this, and then do this. we vehemently just, you know, our goals. So by as a by-product, if we're trying to build scale and create something that's sellable, whether we ever do or not, we are going to, but like, you don't have anything that's sellable or worth anything. If it's predicated on like doing that, anything fraudulent, like you got nothing, dude, you got something, you got, you got a hustle. That's just, you know, you might as well just go sell drugs. True. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, seriously, dude, like that's nice drug dealer though. Ready to, right. a little bit more, a little bit more white collar, but still, man, like, just saying, right? Like, you know, and they think they're helping people. I'm like, you're tearing up the roof for you to get money and you're getting them a new roof, but they didn't need a new roof. We need to find people that need a new roof and we're going to help those people. And those people are now screwed more because you tore up a bunch of people's roofs that didn't need new roofs and they know it, but they just couldn't prove it. Yep. Maybe they've proved it here and there, but they know they've missed it nine times out of 10, and it's just costing, costing, costing. So now Mrs. Jones, who's got her totally torched roof, the ones that we're messing with, and they're coming back and saying, nah, we aren't here. Nah, we don't see it. I had one recently, just a couple of days ago. Roof is torched on the back, front, a few. Guy comes out, this is a smaller company, company called Windsor over in Eastern Shore. Not a big fan. They've been behaving very poorly. Seriously, man. I mean like- You need to time out. They've been misbehaving. So like, and they're coming at us, you know, a little, and I get it, man. They probably figure we're, who knows. I just only ever assume what they probably think. They don't know the efforts we've put in to like not be even remotely close to that. And they send, and so we know this guy who owns this property, big name on the Eastern shore, big real estate guy. This is one of his properties. They send him an email after we just politely, you know, our job is to say, Hey, this is the damage. We do initial inspection. We time date stamp all that. I mean, my wife is very thorough record. Everything's got to be recorded. Like if we do something, then they send out their inspector. Their inspector says, all right, I know you did your initial inspection. I don't give a shit. I don't even pay attention to it. I don't care what you said. I'm going to look at it and make my own assertions. And they say, yeah, front we'll buy, uh, Here's eight grand. We come back and say, hold up, brother. You know that. Thank you. But no, thank you. Like this whole house needs to be done. The back is worse than the front. And we said we send them what we call a supplement saying so. Mind you, with the same photos and same documents that we took from our initial report, they reply. And this is probably Johnny. Nobody. His name is Billy or buddy. I don't know. Guy sitting in an office just like. you know what I mean? Like a little bit of power, I guess, to tell us to pound sand and just assumes we'll go run for the hills. This guy sends our homeowner and our team that we use, a partnership group that helps us move these papers and send all the information to insurance carrier, says, Hey, nope. Basically, that's all nonsense. And we're going to report you. We think it's fraudulent. We're going to report you for fraud. So not only are we telling you no, but we're going to purport you for fraud to the commission or whatever. We're like, which is no elaboration. Right, of course, of course. So of course, when we have general counsel and they don't, they definitely didn't bet on that. So like, let's just say it's already being worked up. Our response is being worked up as we say, but they don't expect that. They expect us to be some podunk, rinky dink guy, probably like what I was just talking about. That's like, oh my God, they're literally betting on the fact that there's a, and there is probably, sadly, a 50, 50, 60, 40 chance that we, that that's how bad it is that we are one of those guys. I'm like, Oh my God. And they just run for the Hills.
Well, maybe that's a good sign that they're actually coming after people, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Right side of it. That's true. Trying to help people.
That's one way to look at it.
Anytime you lead with trying to help people, you're going to be successful.
That's a, that's a, yes, they are definitely. But it's just the blatant coming at us like that. But you're right. I mean, it's not just us. It's just the industry. They're just assuming, we think it's this. No merit, no basis, no real anything, no thought in your email. Because it's like, dude, if you have an attorney that works with you, they'd probably tell you, be careful saying these things. Because now, ours is going to respond like, oh, really? Would you care to elaborate on that? Because here's the things that we sent you. And that's a very heavy butt.
Well, I think the dirtier the industry, like the better off you really might be as you're doing the right thing, right? You're going to stick out more when you do the right thing. And like, there's plenty of like not great financial advisors, right? And people who kind of meet that minimum threshold are really just selling insurance, but they're telling you they're doing this, that, or the third, or they're really just trying to sell you a product and not really a solution.
The whole life guys or whatever?
It depends. Like there's good ones and there's bad ones, right? There's bad eggs everywhere. But the people who do the wrong thing are sometimes like, they do the selling for me, right? Like I just met with a couple who was paying like two and a half times kind of the industry average, right? Each year on like a pretty good size portfolio. It's like, okay, this is wrong. Like here, I'll charge you what is fair. And you go from there, right? And so as you have people in your industry kind of doing the wrong thing, and it's hard to like maneuver through it because you're a lot of times you are, I'm being met with people who are like skeptical about financial advisors and things cause they've had a bad experience. Right. But if I could just be genuine and just be there to try to help usually good things happen. Right. Which I think is what you're doing. Right. Oh yeah. As a company, without a doubt, I guess that's what I was really getting at.
Yeah. That's all my. That was what I just went on like a 20 minute tangent, but yes, that's what exactly what I was saying was like, we could probably just sell retail and that's, but it's not as, it's not as fulfilling. Yeah. Because it's definitely feels good to tell Mr. Billion dollar a year industry that's, that's, they could say what they want about like the other side of it and what they, but they would, it wouldn't change their behaviors. It would, it would in some ways, but it wouldn't change the fact that they're always going to err on the bottom line. Yep. You know what I mean? So like, okay, whatever. Yeah, I get that. You have a great point. There's definitely guys doing that. I get that. But you're still going to be the company that's going to take the slap on the wrist versus paying what you should pay because the slap on the wrist is inconsequential compared to the profit that you're going to make by not paying for folks. claims. Don't give up, dude. Got to fight the fight. We're fighting the good fight, dude. Fighting it. We have to. We're Robin Hooding out in this mofo, dude. That's important. Got to, man. Got to. Someone's got to do it. Someone has to do it. We all have our cross to bear, so that's what we're doing over here. That's it, brother. And you got to do the same thing in the financial industry.
I'm doing my best.
You know, a couple sober guys that used to be nothing but takers. Here we are trying to give back. That's true. And I say that jokingly, but I mean that. I mean, like, that's the irony, I think, here, is that given where we've been and what we were, and I was not, I don't know about you, I was certainly not a stand-up anything. I was a taker in the epic proportions.
Dependability was my strong suit at the time. Yeah.
But now, because of that, we find ourselves not only bound, but completely relying on this code of ethics, these principles that are life and death for us. So to do something like that, I think that might be why it pisses me off so much, is because it's like, we can't do that. Like that, if I was doing that, brother, I would be... Sick.
I'm going to get very sick.
I'm going to get very, very sick.
Emotionally, spiritually, very quickly, right? It might lead to me, you know, drinking alcohol or something like that. So you're right, I can't do that.
And things are going to get way worse from there.
So maybe there's a little bit of, yeah, there's a little something there where other people can, right?
Yeah, 100% where it's like, I know what you're used to, but like, we work so hard to not do those things, because it's life and death for us, man. Even little lies and stuff, you know, stupid little things that seem so dumb, like, we have to catch, like, man, that wasn't exactly honest, was it?
Got to go back and fix it.
Yeah. 100%, man.
But that shines through.
I agree. 100%, man. You're right. It makes you stand out.
Which is a shame.
It should be, but we always say.
We're not perfect. We just try our best.
Everyone in every business could use a 12-step program, and I really believe that. Even if you don't have any issues, it's just living that way. It just makes you look within. It makes you, I don't know, save my ass, save Brennan's ass, but also it just makes you so much of a better person. And I'm saying that I am far from freaking perfect, dude. I mean, I'm telling you that right now. You know, I need all that I can get. But thank God for that, man. So what do you think, man? Do you think they're going to do that in September? We're going to wrap up here in a second, but I want to make sure that our- Yeah, they better bring them down by 25 bases points at least. You think they are going to if you're betting on them?
Yes.
If they don't- I say that because- We got big issues. Okay. Oh, God.
Big issues. Then bring me back on. I'll get fired up.
I was going to say, if they don't, we're going to bring Brennan back on. I'm cool right now. Cause I was, uh, I was at a birthday party this past weekend. The guy I was talking to is one of like my pretty sure he is might be autistic and I don't, it matters not. He's just very smart. Yeah. Very like one of those ones where you're talking to and he starts saying something and he said, I don't think they're going to do that in September. I just don't see them. I was like, God, why do you, I got locked up. Like we were talking about a bunch of stuff. And when he said that, I was like, whoa, Why don't you, of all people, think that? Because you're a smart fellow. Yeah. What do you know? And he, like, works in, like, government security and stuff. I was like, oh, God. I know something.
Exactly. I mean, the market's pricing it in. What do you know, pal? So in order to just kind of maintain, they need to bring it down by 25. Well, I tell you what. I think they're already late to it. It is what it is.
Well, I certainly that would be great for everybody, like you said, if we don't We'll get a more entertaining episode out of it anyhow, so. Although I thank you for the time coming out here. I know being a brand new, getting your business going, taking time to come out here in person, I appreciate that. All the free value and just all the tidbits and pouring into the listeners, man, I appreciate that for sure. I have to have you back on really just to, anything you guys can think of that you might wanna know, just put it in the comments. Brendan can peruse those, but also where can they find you? Are you on social media?
I'm not on social media. Awesome. I try to be invisible. I'm on LinkedIn. There you go. There you go. That's social media. TrueNorthWellSolutions.com.
There you go. That's what I meant.
I do a monthly estate planning seminar at local libraries with the helping of a state planning attorney that we both know. I'm just trying to get out there and help the community and talk about tax saving strategies, estate planning. It might be for more, you know, senior folks, but some helpful tidbits in there. So reach out to me, let me know.
You got a good turnout there?
Yeah. 30 plus people just about every time and leading to good results.
And where do you guys promote that?
Facebook okay, I use a marketing company that a white glove that goes through Facebook and people sign up and you know I choose how many people I kind of want to be there. And, um, the reason I did it was I figured like, all right, no matter who might work with me, at least I'm going to give some knowledge to all these people. You know, they're going to walk out.
No, I think that's super cool, man. That's why I'm asking about it. I think that's really cool. It's cool to try to earn, you know, some business, but it's a really cool way to do it. And that like, Hey, whatever, man, if they work out and does, and if it doesn't, I enlightened some people.
Yeah, it's cool.
Very cool. All right. So did you say the name of your, uh, your company, not the name, but the website again, TrueNorthWealthSolutions.com. TrueNorthWealthSolutions.com.
It took me all night to type that in.
That's his domain too, but you know, which is funny because when you said that, I didn't say anything back, but I was laughing because ours is PotomacCustomerModeling.com and we just changed it to PCRroofing.com. Because we got so tired of typing in PotomacCustomerModeling.com and like, is there two C's here? Is there not?
I was debating like the long one or the one with a hyphen in it where I have to on the phone be like hyphen dash.
You want to know the solution, man? Alias email. Alias email. You create a second data. So PCR roofing goes automatically to PotomacCustomerModeling.com. So you don't have to delete that one. You can just make a. truenorth.com or something and have it go right to your main email. Nice. There's your solution. You don't got to get rid of it. See, there's a reason you came down here. Genius. Yeah. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for giving us your time and entertaining us having a good time because that's what I feel like it really was. But thank you for coming on, my friend. and we'll get you on here soon. Let's hope that he's correct about September. Check out his website. If you guys need any help, you guys want to have any consultations, anything financial, I can personally vouch for Brendan. In all seriousness, he's a great person, a good friend of mine, somebody who's trustworthy, which is saying a lot these days. So if you want to talk to him about financial investing, there's your guy. Thanks, guys. We love you. See you next time.
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