You Can't Hide the Money. We Always Find It.

He told the court his business made $40,000 a year. It was worth $20 million.

That's the case Jamie Lima opens this episode with, and it's every business owner's divorce in one story. A "little side gig" doing grading and stonework, $2 to $3 million in top line revenue, five vehicles and a Polaris on the balance sheet, the kids' braces written off as a business expense. His wife walked in believing they made $40K a year. She walked out a creditor of a multimillion-dollar company.

This week Stoy Hall, CFP® sits down with Jamie Lima, founder of Allegiant Divorce Solutions and SecureSplit, to pull apart what actually happens when a business lands in the middle of a divorce. They get into why "it's worth $20 million, give me half" is a fantasy, why most valuations are paper valuations and not liquid cash, and how a real appraisal peels back the onion on everything an owner tries to bury.

They go deep on protection, too. Why the wrong prenup gets pierced in court, when a postnup actually helps, how to keep a business you started mid-marriage from becoming automatic 50/50, and where a buy-sell agreement and key man insurance quietly save the whole thing. This is the stuff nobody thinks about until they're already in it.

Jamie's hard truth is blunt: if you think you're going to hide the money, you're going to be unfortunately surprised at what we can find. Tax returns tell the story. The K-1 tells the story. The retained earnings tell the story. You can't hide around the money, so don't try.

His plan is just as simple. Know what you own, and know what you owe. And if you're the spouse of a business owner, get to know that balance sheet and P&L now, because you're probably an owner on paper and don't even know it. Do that one thing and you're light years ahead of almost everyone who walks through his door.

🎧 Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/fb5o6Bd0ZHc

Connect with Jamie Lima:
 Allegiant Divorce Solutions: https://allegiantds.com/
SecureSplit: https://securesplit.com/

Going through this yourself? Reach out to Jamie and his team at https://allegiantds.com/

If this hit home, drop a comment. Tell me where you're feeling it most. I read every single one.

New episodes every week on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube. Subscribe so you never miss a real conversation.

Transcript

The $40K Side Gig That Was Worth $20 Million

Jamie Lima 0:21

Graham, it's time

Stoy Hall 0:30

Our man, Jamie. And by the way, just learned he, he operates out of RV, so I'm gonna have to join him. My wife and I are gonna have to join him sometime because that is just a, a way of life. But as we get into today's topic, y- w- it's our man. He, he's always about divorce. He has a tech that he's dealing with and stuff, but at the end of the day, it's what happens, right? So we've hit a lot about the personal side. We've dipped a little bit into the business side. We're gonna dive deeper into what to think through when you're going through a divorce and your business is involved, both from the lens of, hey, I already have a plan, it should be smooth, and those, like the majority of us, that we start a business in the middle of our, our marriage and our relationship, and we didn't really think about the business being part of a divorce or something like that. So without further ado, Jamie, welcome back to the show. Um, it, it's August for us. This will come out in August as well. Um, glad you're having a great summer and, and we're getting to the ends of it, but, uh, welcome back.

Jamie Lima 1:28

Appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me again. Great to see you.

Stoy Hall 1:31

So you said you had a story. Talk to us. Give us that real, you know, client story, that real moment in time and, and let's dive into this thing.

Jamie Lima 1:38

Yeah. Well, you know, we were talking a lot about, uh, you know, the business leading up to, business situations that come up in divorce leading up to our, our chat here. And I know in preparation for, for this, uh, recording, you had asked me to look at some, some of the cases that we run and where the divorce, uh, the, the businesses fit into those, those particular cases. And, um, I, I have one. It's, it's a case study that I share with a lot of folks that do have businesses, uh, that they're dealing with in these relationships and in part of the divorce. And, and it's, it's, I see Durango, Colorado on your, on your sweatshirt there, and that's, that's exactly where this case actually took place. Um, and the, the, the- The overarching theme of this was a husband's, he- the, the gentleman is in, uh, stone works, right? And gr- and grading, right? So he does a lot of, like, um, uh, grading dev- like, when a new development is going in, his company goes in and does all the grading to make sure, like, the house is, like, the foundations are stable and everything else, and all the drainage and everything else. But they also do, they also do stone works. Um, so, you know, you install a pool, and then you put a nice pretty fountain in or whatever it is, they're gonna- they, they would do that type of work as well. Really, really cool little, uh, cool little side business, so to speak, that they, they were claiming it was, or he was claiming it was, right? And so my, my client is the s- the wife, the s- his, his soon-to-be ex-spouse, and she, she hires me. A super nice lady, really, like, very, um, uh, very friendly, very positive, very, like, very kumbaya, right? Uh, and like, "Oh, well, you know, we're just gonna try to get through this, and we're gonna try to, like, make this an amicable, you know, situation, and I don't wanna fight, and I don't want..." Like, very, like, uh, you know, just like, "I just wanna get this over with, and how do I do so in the, the easiest, the easiest way possible?" So we start diving into the case, and we start looking at all the stuff, and it's, it's, and it's the, as normal, you know, income, expenses, assets, and liabilities. Those four key things are the things that we, that we start with. You know, also wrapped around, like, you know, what are the goals you have? What do you want your life to look like after the divorce, and so on. So we get through that whole process, and I'm s- I'm surfacing tax returns and, and I'm, I'm looking through, uh, you know, the business profit and loss statements and so on, and like, I'm like, "Okay, like, how much? Have you ever had this business appraised?" "Oh, it's just, you know, he, at the end of the year, you know, it's like $40,000 that goes on our tax return, and like, you know, so it's, it can't be worth much." I'm like, "Okay. Well, let's peel back the onion a little bit." And we start go- I start going through the profit and loss, and it's just not making sense, right? Top line revenue in this company was, like, $2 to $3 million a year. Okay? Small little side business. Just a little small side gig. Small little, small little thing, like he's got working off to the side. Okay. Yeah. Well, okay, well, tell, tell me more about, like, so now I'm going through the balance sheet. Tell me more about the, um, these vehicles. Why are there so many vehicles? There was a Polaris, like, ATV thing. There was, like, this thing and that thing all on the balance sheet. Like, why are there five cars on the balance sheet? "Well, that's my son's car, and this is my car, and this is like..." Oh, okay. Now we're starting to put- Personal property under the, under the business. Got it. And then that just, that whole process just starts, like we're like unwinding like this string of yarn, right? Like it just kept coming and coming and coming, right? So I'm like, "All right, time out. We've got to bring in somebody who can actually value this business because it's got to be worth something." So we pay for the business valuation. She gets it done. Um, actually at the time I had a gal on my team who was just doing business valuations, so we did the valuation It's like $21, $22 million, right? Because they're looking at top line revenue, competitors in this space, uh, growth over the course of the last however many years, the actual assets they have and what those are worth, so on and so forth. And y- you're talking about, you know, a $20 million business. Real money, okay? Yeah. That $40,000 that this person put on their tax returns at the end of the year is because they wrote off every expense that they have against the business, including children's braces and things like that. So the long story short, the long, long, the, the, the long story of the long story is when, if there's a business involved in a, in a divorce, and it's not just a, a true side gig, right? Like, if, if you're selling baseball cards on eBay, you know, and making $2,000 a year, you probably don't need to worry about a business valuation. But if you're, if you have, you know, two, three, $5 million in top line revenue, that is no longer a hobby. That is a real business, and it has to be factored in. And you, and that's where leveraging professionals can assist with it. So that's the... We, we can dive a little bit deeper 'cause there's, I have so many thoughts about this. Yeah. But that's the gist of the story.

Stoy Hall 6:45

Man, and I'm sure, like, you know, from our perspective, when we start seeing something, we start peeling it back, everyone says like, "Oh, don't go down the rabbit hole." Di- diving into those rabbit holes uncovers, uh, just a tremendous amount. And what people understand and don't understand is like, yeah, on the outside, business looks somewhat simple. They're, they're, you know- Mm-hmm you see what you see. But there are so many things that legitimately you can hide, right? Air quotes for everyone that's listening. You can hide in your business, and if your spouse or, uh, who names it isn't, you know, privy to what a tax return looks like or the P&L looks like, you can really get away with a lot. And in, in your case, if she didn't have you, I, I'm sure if she...

Prenups Get Pierced. Here's How to Protect a Business.

Stoy Hall 7:30

There are attorneys out there who would be able to see it too, but like realistically, probably just would've went with, "Oh, it only makes f- you know, we only make 40K." Yeah. "Maybe some assets here, but not 20 million," right? There would've been no way- Yeah that valuation- Yeah would've popped up, um, in regards to that. So let's get through some of that, right? I wanna dive back into that, but I wanna get to a little precursor to that, right? Our noise- Yeah versus truth a little bit. Mm-hmm. In that, in this sense, right? And, and, and I know every state's different, and we have to deal with that, but-

Jamie Lima 8:00

Yeah

Stoy Hall 8:01

in this mindset of, hey, now it's a $20, $20 million, uh, business, is it always true that it's automatically 50/50?

Jamie Lima 8:13

No, absolutely not. Um, and that's, that's kind of how it shook out in this particular case. I think, I think in, when all was said and done, and, and here's the thing about this business, right? It's, it's, it's a paper valuation, right? They don't have $20 million in cash. They don't have... Like, every- everything is tied up into liquid assets because of the vehicles, so on and so forth. So we had to get strategic with, okay, like, what are we gonna settle for and, like, how are we gonna handle this over... 'Cause obviously he's gonna have to pay you out over time. He's not gonna be able to do, you know, just go get a loan for t- you know, whatever the number, $10 million in this particular case and give you half. It's not, just not gonna work. It's not feasible. And I don't think the, I don't think the courts in this particular case, even though I'm not attorney, I don't think the courts would've pushed for that either. So it's like, all right, like, how do we handle this, right? Um, and, and in her particular case, I, I forget exactly what the, the bo- the end result was as far as the, the dollars and cents go, 'cause it was about a year ago. But, you know, let's call it, like, six or $7 million paid out over however many years based on, you know, revenue of the business. She became a liability to the business effectively is what it came down to. But, you know, it's not, not split 50/50. And, and there's also the, the, the sweat equity component of it, the, like, you can't... If, if he... I, I forget exactly how many employees he had, but, you know, if, the reality is is, like, you know, he dies tomorrow, a lot of that business goes away 'cause of the knowledge transfer, right? So, um, it, it's not always 50/50. We get, try to get pretty close, but at the end of the day most states, save for the ones that are community property states, aim for, you know, fair and equitable versus 50/50

Stoy Hall 9:50

Well, but prenups save everything, right? Mm-hmm. Prenups protect it all. Um, how true is that? Because when businesses get involved, I, I've seen them laid, just not involve the business in general, but talk us through the pren- having a prenup or having the wrong prenup when it comes to affecting the business, um, splitting.

Jamie Lima 10:08

Well, that's the main thing is, is having the wrong prenup, right? Um, I'm, I'm a big fan of prenups. I'm a big fan of, like, if you're, if you're going into a marriage and you have some sizable assets, you know, you should, like... I, I, you know, growing up in New England, I'm a huge fan of Tom Brady, right? So, and for, for, uh, for obvious reasons. But, um, you know, the, the o- he's a case study and he, you know, he and Gisele are a case study in having these prenups because, you know, they both brought assets, they both brought income, they both, both brought all this stuff into the marriage and, and when all was said and done with their divorce, since it was so ironclad and done the right way, like, there was no fighting. It was just like, "Hey, we've already agreed to this, and, and now we can just, like, if it ever happens, well, here we are, and now we can, now we can move on." Uh, it's, it's those that are, you know, the, the term we use is, you know, being able to p- pierce the veil, right? Like, you have these, these prenups that are in place and they were, you know, they were drafted on LegalZoom or they were drafted by an incompetent attorney or whatever it is, and there's so many different, uh, you know, issues with them. Uh, i- I've reviewed several of them, uh, over the course of the last year, and some are s- like, there's like no wiggle room. Others it's like, wow, there's, there's huge gaps in this. And it's, it, it's challenging for me because I can't give legal advice. I'm not an attorney. I don't wanna step outside the bounds of the financial, um, so I can't like speak to like, "Here's the, you should have this clause in there and you should have that clause and this, that, and the other." But I c- I can say, um, they're not always, um, as ironclad as, as we expect.

Stoy Hall 11:47

What can someone do to protect, like, like I had said earlier is we don't all come into our relationships owning a business per se. Mm-hmm. Some of these businesses pop up while you are married, um- Mm-hmm and they go from there. How do you then protect the business in that sense? 'Cause that'd be after a prenup really. That'd be after- Mm-hmm you know, a few years after and no one's really thinking of a business. Um, what would be your advice generally, uh, to protect the business after the fact?

Jamie Lima 12:15

Well, and, and this is especially more, gets especially more complicated when you go into business with your spouse, right? That then it can be very, it's like a whole other can of worms and that you, that you have to deal with. But I mean, in, in general, the, the, um, the... I'll just share with how we've handled it, right? So with the two businesses that we have, you know, the, the beneficiary of those businesses by way, the, uh, is our trust, right? So we have a trust that's established and, you know, the shares that I own in SecureSplit and the, uh, ownership that I have in Allegiant Divorce Solutions or Allegiant Solutions is all, if anything happens to me, there are contingency plans that are in place. There are people that need to kn- know exactly how to step in, how to effectively unwind that if it's, if the, if the company is sold, those shares and those proceeds can easily be passed along in, you know, by way of our trust, which is good, good estate planning if you're a, if you're a business owner. Does that answer your question?

Stoy Hall 13:17

Yeah.

Jamie Lima 13:17

Uh, yeah. Yeah,

Stoy Hall 13:18

when you're married together. Now when we're, what about they're separate, right? What if, what if it's, you know, like my, my wife and I, and we started, I started a business, but she wasn't involved, doesn't really wanna be involved. What would be- Mm-hmm the best steps for me to protect my business that isn't just like, well, just because we were married, you, you're, you're privy to 50/50? And it, we have, you know, maybe a prenup was already done. What can we do when I start the business now?

Jamie Lima 13:45

Well, you can al- you can always leverage a postnup, right, if you needed to, or go to, you know, have a postnup drafted that includes, you know, the terms and conditions around the business. I, what I've seen, uh, work relatively well in these particular cases, and I don't know if this is the right way to do this, you know, from a legal perspective, but I've had people just simply draft agreements between themselves and, and do their best to keep those assets separate, right? Like, you have separate bank accounts. It's funded from separate monies. You know, it's, it's titled separately. You know, you're, it's, it's, you're, you're doing all the things you possibly can do by way of your state. Like, in the state of California, you can list, you know, your member owners of an LLC or, uh, the shareholders of, uh, you know, corporations and whatnot. You, you, you actually document that with the state, and if your particular state has those rules that are in place, that would be a fine time to document it with the state, so you have that paper trail. It's when, it's when you start doing the things like this gentleman did with the company, where he's running this, he, you know, she, she's not gonna go out there and run a backhoe, right? She's not out there, you know, you know, uh, digging ditches and installing pools and grading, you know, like, work- working the bulldozer, right? You just, it's just not gonna happen. But he started putting like, you know, if your vehicle that you're driving on a day-to-day basis that has nothing to do with the company, the work you're doing for the company, and that vehicle is a pers- you know, it's effectively a personal asset that's o- either owned or just run through the business, you're gonna have a hard time, very hard time when folks like us get in- involved of being able to actually paint the picture to the courts of like, "Oh, but no, that's, you know, the company owns that car." Like, okay, well, you know, she just drove 25,000 miles last year in, in the car. Any particular reason why? Like, you need to be able to answer those questions. So do whatever you can do to try to keep that, those,

Paper Valuation vs Real Money: Read It Right

Jamie Lima 15:40

those boundaries in place is, is essential if you don't want it to come back to bite you later

Stoy Hall 15:48

100% agree. All right, let's go back to your lens when we were talking about valuation.

Jamie Lima 15:51

Uh-huh.

Stoy Hall 15:52

Yeah. Um, and I think you, you nailed it, and I want everyone to really listen to this. Regardless of divorce, valuation of most of all businesses is a paper valuation, okay? Right? Mm-hmm. We see that Elon Musk is the, the richest man in the world, worth trillions. Congratulations, yeah, but he's not that liquid. So, like, don't think just because- Mm-hmm this valuation is super high that, that you're entitled to this or that they're actually worth that, because it's just not true. Um, to be fair, it's just not true. Uh, you need to be more looking at what's liquid and what's a- available, because otherwise- Mm-hmm it's either blue sky or it's just on paper, and that is vitally important. So in this, um, in that conversation with her, when you, you know, you saw the valuation, and I'm sure her eyes lit up, how did you explain that concept to her to get her to... And hopefully she... I mean, if she was already realistic, that's awesome. But- Yeah not everyone is that realistic. They really wanna stick to that point. How did that conversation go?

Jamie Lima 16:50

Yeah, I mean, I think it w- um, you know, I have a business valuation expert that I was working with at the time also, you know, in, in on that meeting with her. And, and the... If you, if you look at a true valuation, as, as you've, you've probably seen them as much as I have, but those, for those that haven't, if you, if you look at a true valuation, it's gonna dissect everything, right? Like the competitive landscape, the tax landscape, the, um, you know, the knowledge base that you need to be able to have to run this particular business. Demographic information, the appetite for this, like, all the stuff, like a- anything you... Like, if you were ever gonna go into a business and you haven't started the business yet, and you started building out your business plan, you need to gather all that information to build a true business plan so you can understand, like, okay, like here's the competitive landscape. Here are my, here's my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business, my SWOT analysis, right? And if you, and that's how these valuations are conducted, you know? So and then there's the mathematical component, like, uh, taking the last... It, it's a very young company too, which is pretty incredible about this, but, um, you know, taking the last three years' worth of revenue and extrapolating that out over a 5, 10, 20-year timeframe. And that's where like, you know, the, that's usually these businesses, as you know, like you're talking like 2X, 3X, whatever. You know, like that's... If you and I were, like when I sold my wealth management firm, we're looking at close to 3X. You know, and that's, that's roughly what you're gonna get as far as, you know, the, the valuation for a business. In this particular case, there were just these, the, the lack of competition in this particular area, uh, like a variety of factors that pushed it to like, you know, 7, 10X. Now, that, if they, if they revalue that business over, you know, say five years from now, that number could drop drastically, but the top line revenue's probably gonna go up as well based on the growth that they've seen. So we may sta- I mean, the, the valuation may stabilize over time, right? So for those of you that are listening that have experience in this area, like a 7 to 10X valuation is pretty exorbitant. But there were a variety of reasons why, you know, the, the valuation expert decided to, um, put that number on it. And, and that's effectively what I had to, had to explain to the client, is like, like you, you know, you and I initially in our first, you know, first planning meeting together gave me the impression, I think your understanding was that it was basically worth next to nothing because of all these expenses and everything else. But when you pluck, when you pluck out the cost of the cars and all these things in the, uh, we... You know, even though you're taking them out of the equation, we call them add backs, right? So what are your add backs for income, for support and so on? Like you've gotta take, you've gotta take all those things out and add them back to the bottom line to show exactly what's available for support, for what, what's up for division and so on. And I think when I walked her through the mechanics of this and, and tried, and it was more about education of like how this all works, you know, the, the light bulb went off. And You just need to understand how these things work. Um, and, and it's, if you're not dealing in this space every day, and, and not just in divorce, like in financial and stuff in general, it can get super confusing really quick.

Stoy Hall 19:55

Yeah, it's definitely not as simple as, "Oh, it's, it's valued at 20 million and give me half." It's- Yeah there, there's a lot that goes into it, and I, I think that's an important piece for everyone to understand of a, a business valuation or when you see the value of a business, it's not as simple as you, you would, you would attempt to see. Exactly. Now, publicly traded stuff, that, that, a different valuation- More transparent is what it is. But- Yep, yep for the private side, it really is a, a tool. And they're not cheap, right? To get your business value isn't a, a cheap process or slow. It, it is a lot of steps and it's very important. And I think you hit- Mm-hmm a really good point that we're gonna highlight specifically in the newsletter of when you are a new business owner, you're starting a business, you should learn what all of that is so that way you can build it properly for what you're wanting to get done. And I think that's a huge- Yeah piece that many business owners do not do, is building your business to be sold or for the highest valuation is probably the best route because then you can at least flexibly do something later if you wanted to. But re-transitioning in the middle of it and trying to fix things does cause problems, organizational problems, logistical things- Huge you name it. But that definitely is a, a different episode from that perspective. But let's get into a tool that I know we use all the time in, in business ownership, and that is the buy-sell, right? Yeah. Um, uh, there are a lot of different ways to build a buy-sell, but I know specifically buy-sells are gonna come into place specifically when you have a spouse, whether that is you're both owners and what happens when one of you dies, or I'm a partner with you, Jamie, and we have cross-purchase sales for both of us and our, and our, and our wives. Talk us through, not in super detail about buy-sells, but how buy-sells can be affected in a divorce situation and from y- you know, your opinion, how to deal with those situations.

Jamie Lima 21:47

Yeah. I mean, it can, this can get really complicated really fast too. But, um, you know, the, i- i- if you're a business owner and you don't have this type of agreement in place, especially if you have, you have partners or you have, you know, a co-founder like myself and so on, or even a spouse as, as a partner, um, it's definitely something to consider, right? Like, you know, that along with key man insurance and all the other stuff that we can get into, we could spend a whole podcast on. But- Yeah um, you know, even those, even those buy-sell agreements, you know, have value, right? 'Cause you know that the, the business will be a going concern if, if something, if something happens. So- If you, if you go through, if you have the unfortunate experience of going through a divorce, the... Especially as a business owner, you, the, the main thing is like, how do I protect this asset? Because it is an asset, right? And if you have a business that is supporting you and s- going to be supporting your soon-to-be ex-spouse, having this, having this type of, uh, instrument in place, it can be, can be amazingly helpful because if something, you know, if, if you decide later that you decide you want to walk away from the business and you have this agreement in place, then you have... There's a mechanism in place for like who's going to get the right of first refusal if I happen to sell. You know, if I, if I decide I want to retire, I want to walk away, or if the business puts me in a position where I need to liquidate and I need to be able to pay off my ex-spouse. So, um, I don't recall in my particular case that we're talking about if there was... I don't, I don't believe there was a buy-sell agreement in place. Um, that, so that was a, a, a little bit of a, a boo-boo on his side. But, um, having, again, having this instrument in place, especially if there's a liquid- liquidating event that's needed, can be super helpful because then you've already, you've already basically, you know, outlined what those terms are, who you're, who has the right of first refusal on that sale and so on, uh, versus trying to scramble later and figure out, okay, like, all right, I have to come up with $7 million, $10 million. How the heck do I do this? And who am I going to go to first?

Stoy Hall 23:55

And I wanna hit upon a point. It was like, when we say buy-sells, in our industry, there's the side that is only insurance-focused, right?

Jamie Lima 24:02

Mm-hmm.

Stoy Hall 24:02

Part of it, and then there's, like, the actual agreement. Um, here we're talking a little bit about both, but mainly the agreement, right? It's, it's, it's a policy of- Correct. Mm-hmm what happens- Mm-hmm in the event of this happening, this happening, this happening- Mm-hmm this happening.

Nobs Wealth 24:14

Yeah. Correct.

Stoy Hall 24:15

Um, and that's kind of the agreement that we're talking about. So those listening, like, yeah, there's life insurance of funding it and dealing with it or disability and funding it. We're talking about- Mm-hmm the agreement in itself because there's mechanisms in there that can come into play. Like for example, I can valuate my business as a buy-sell and say, "You know, realistically it's worth $2 million," and that's gonna be in the agreement for someone to buy even though 10 years, 20 years down the road it's not. We have already predetermined our agreement- Valuation. Mm-hmm what we've decided to do, and that's important caveat for those listening. Like, we're not just talking about the funding mechanism, we're talking about the agreement itself. E-

Jamie Lima 24:52

exactly, but, and you brought up the good point about the insurance piece, too, right? So, uh, we see this happen a lot, and business owners will tend to drag their feet when it comes to insurance and not have proper insurance in place, and that's where the, you know, the key man comes in, right? Something happens to you, you happen to pass away, and maybe you're the, uh, you're the, the, the main, you know, uh, operator of the business, and if you, you pass away, you still have employees to pay, you still have overhead expense, you have all the other stuff that are, that are associated with it. That insurance will cover a lot of those costs. Um, and it'll also put your, you in a position where if you do have support to pay, or in this particular case, if there's a buyout over a period of time, and I, again, I forget exactly the terms, but let's say it's, you know, I don't know, uh, $500,000 a year for 10 years or whatever the number is, and you don't have that cash on hand in the business, and that's an obligation. And, and, and in this particular case, the, the wife is, uh, a creditor of the business, that the money is due to her. Having that insurance in place to be able to cover that in the event of your demise unfort- you know, unfortunate demise, uh, would go a long way in protecting her as well. So we always, in, in, obviously not related to the business, but in all of our cases, when support is owed, we will always ask, you know, to, to at least explore the option of putting insurance in place, uh, to be able to cover those, those, uh, payments.

Stoy Hall 26:15

Absolutely, and it's not like we're insurance salesmen only. Like, it's part of a plan, right? It's a big- 100%.

You Can't Hide the Money. Know What You Own.

Stoy Hall 26:20

100% it's part of the plan. It's not just getting you insurance to get you insurance. Like, it is part of the plan. What is one hard truth that you wanna tell the business owners right now or the spouse that's listening, um, about a situation like this? Just a very hard, blunt truth that they need to know and it might not feel comfortable for them.

Jamie Lima 26:39

If you think you're gonna hide the money You're gonna be unfortunately surprised at what we can find, right? Um, when we go through the balance sheets and the profit and loss and, um, the, you know, bank statements and other records and so on, even just the tax return tells the story, right? You know, we have ca- a bunch of cases where, again, bottom line, you know, like, you're like looking at the total adjusted gross income and it's a couple hundred thousand dollars, but then you go back a few pages and the K-1 has retained earnings of 2.5 million, right? Like all that, all of that stuff is like, there's... You, you can't hide around the money. So, a- a- and you can't hide the money, right? So if you think you're going to and you're gonna be smarter than the average bear, the reality is, is you're gonna be unfortunately surprised at what we can find. And, you know, we leverage software, we can leverage AI, we can leverage, you know, OCR and all that other stuff to be able to, to parse out the, the information we need to be able to build a case, and we do it all the time

Stoy Hall 27:43

Love that. So don't try it. Basically, don't try me, um, is- Not even worth it.

Jamie Lima 27:48

Not even worth it. Not even worth it. Not even worth it

Stoy Hall 27:50

No, no, not at all. All right, as we get to every end of every episode, it's always about the plan. What can people do right now to either better themselves, get in a better situation or, you know, for those that are potentially going through a divorce to see something like this? What would you say is a very good next step for those that are listening to, um, move forward with wherever they're at, uh, to ensure either they're protecting their business or mainly protecting themselves in case of a divorce or a pending divorce?

Jamie Lima 28:20

Biggest thing is to know what you own and know what you owe. I have so many people that come to us and they don't know, they have credit cards all over, you know, 10 different credit cards, and they have, you know, a bunch of bank accounts and brokerage accounts and everything else. They have clueless as to what the actual balance sheet looks like, and it's very, very simple. So just know what you own and know what you owe, and that is a... If, if you can do that and then you, or you're up against the unfortunate experience of divorce, you're gonna be light years ahead of most people that come to me to get the help.

Stoy Hall 28:56

Love that, and I'll double down on it and say, if you are a spouse of a business owner, know at least their balance sheet and P&L, but get to know what's going on and what is what. Um, one, because mostly I've seen this, you're a business... You're probably an owner on paper for them and you don't even know it, right? So get to know- Mm-hmm as much as you can, ask the questions. You are privy to that information. At worst, get a tax return, go to a professional like us and we'll be able to, uh, peel that onion back like you had said earlier.

Jamie Lima 29:27

Exactly.

Stoy Hall 29:29

So without further ado, Jamie, again, I, I appreciate everything that you do. Um, look forward to catching more up again about your, your RV adventures and life on the road now. And everyone listening, again, thank you for tuning in. If you're unfortunately going through this situation, go ahead and reach out to Jamie and his team. If you are wanting just a little bit of feedback or understanding where your plan is, you can come reach out to us at Black Mammoth as well. But with, uh, without further ado, Jamie, again, thank you for everything. Uh, we look forward to next episode.

Jamie Lima 29:56

Of course, man. Thanks for having me.

Nobs Wealth 30:12

The preceding program was sponsored by Black Mammoth. Any awards, rankings, or recognition by unaffiliated third parties or publications are in no way indicative of the advisors, future performance, or any individual client's investment success. No award, ranking, or recognition should be construed as a current or past endorsement of Black Mammoth. Information regarding specific awards, rankings, or recognitions is available on the Black Mammoth website, www.blackmammoth.com. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. Investment strategies such as asset allocation, diversification, or rebalancing do not assure or guarantee better performance and cannot eliminate the risk of investment losses. There are no guarantees that a portfolio employing these or any other strategy will outperform a portfolio that does not engage in such strategies. This broadcast should not be construed by any client or prospective client as a solicitation to effect or attempt to effect transactions and securities, or the rendering of personalized investment advice due to various factors, including changing market conditions. The information discussed in this broadcast may no longer be reflective of current positions or recommendations. While information presented is believed to be factual and up to date, Black Mammoth do not guarantee its accuracy, and it should not be regarded as a complete analysis of the subjects discussed. The tax and estate planning information discussed is general in nature and is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Listeners should consult an attorney or tax professional regarding their specific legal or tax situation. Past performance is not indicative of future results.