How A Music Career Built An Insurance Entrepreneur

Rod Powell didn’t wake up planning to work in insurance. He spent two decades building a music career, learning the hard way how the business really works, and discovering the one lesson that translates everywhere: if you don’t own the asset, you don’t control the outcome.

We talk through the economics of the music industry in plain language, including what it actually means to own your masters, why stems matter, and how sync licensing for film, TV, commercials, and games can create real residual income. Rod connects that creative grind to entrepreneurship, showing how relationship-building, comfort with uncertainty, and discipline are the same skills that power sales and business growth.

Then we get into the unsexy but essential side of building a company: commercial insurance, risk management, and employee benefits. Rod breaks down how coverage protects what you’re building, why one lawsuit can change your entire trajectory, and how smart benefits design helps attract and retain talent when good people are hard to find.

The conversation goes deep on financial literacy and generational wealth, with a clear breakdown of term life insurance vs permanent life insurance, whole life, and indexed universal life. We also explore cash value life insurance and how borrowing against a policy can provide tax-advantaged capital for investments, plus the often-missed Black history of insurance as a foundation for banks, businesses, and community power. If this helps you think differently, subscribe, share it with a founder friend, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Cold Open And Welcome

SPEAKER_03 0:04

Welcome to the You Can't Afford Me podcast, where it's Gif The Fluff and straight into the real entrepreneur, real trouble, and the Unfiltered Jordan is. Let's get into it. Hey guys, thanks for joining us on another episode of the You Can't Afford Me Podcast. Now, this gentleman I was introduced to by my best friend, shout out to Javon Coker. And I think for years he's probably saying we needed to connect and never actually connected us. And then finally did a couple weeks ago. And second we started talking, man, we were like, yeah, this the vibe. Like we don't we're on the same wavelength here. I'm not even going to butcher everything this man does because he does so much. So I'm going to kick it over to him and allow him to introduce himself, give us a quick rundown. But uh today we have Rod on the podcast. Rod, how are you doing today, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Hey Sam, man. I appreciate it. Glad to be here.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

You want me to give it a short time?

Meet Rod Powell And His Work

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and jump into it, man.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

Okay, all right. Um, Rod Powell, uh entrepreneur, author, educator. I just start there, uh, agency principal, Encore Insurance Group, World Full Service, uh Risk Consulting and Commercial Insurance Plan. We specialize in employee benefits, commercial insurance solutions, as well as personalized home and auto. Um been in that industry uh nearly, you know, nearly two decades at this point as an advocate as well. Um I've written four books, uh all industry related.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

I know it's four.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Four books, uh three of them dealing with uh black history of insurance. Also a university professor uh in the uh School of Risk Management and Insurance for Virginia Commonwealth University. And um, you know, I love I love what I do. I have a passion for life, and uh peace is the pathway to joy, so I always try to maintain it.

Chasing Music From Age Thirteen

SPEAKER_03 1:44

I love it. And you you my kind of people, man, because I like people that are doing like four or five things at one time, man. That's that's how I write it. Four or five? You're like, I remember my first part-time job. So let's let's start at the very beginning. So, like before all this started, did you like following high school? Did you go into college? Did you go straight into the workforce? What was the situation?

SPEAKER_00 2:03

It's crazy, man, because um when I was ever ever since I was 13 years old, I thought I was gonna be an RB singer. So let's just just start there. Um, I remember seeing Jodice, you know, in their um uh Forever My Lady video, they're standing by Tell me, what you mean? Well, that's the Drew Hill. So you're having my baby.

SPEAKER_05 2:22

Oh yeah, and it means so much to me.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

You know what I mean? Forever my lady. You know, so I'm seeing that video and I'm like, I'm seeing these cats by the pool and they got the white shorts. I'm like, yeah, I want to do that with my life. So uh for about 20 years, that's actually what I did. You know, I pursued a career in the entertainment industry as an artist, as a music publisher. Um, I ran an independent label. Uh, we had distribution through a a couple of different major uh outlets, Universal through Warner, eventually through um a company called Nia, which was distributed through Cox Music Group, which is the largest independent music distributed in the world, had had a record chart on Billboard, had music and films, TV, toured internationally, had some amazing experiences in that space. And when my youngest son uh was born uh in 2012, I was like, man, I gotta figure out a way to be home. I gotta come off the road. And uh after having those phenomenal experiences, I also realized that this industry doesn't create the most stable lifestyle either. There's a lot of ebbs and flows. So I had a lot of fun, yeah, but I didn't make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

So let's pause right there because I'm glad I'm glad you said that. We're gonna pick up on your story from there. But like every kid wants to be an artist. Like every kid sees Usher or like whoever the new ones are today. I don't listen. I'm I'm at that age now, I ain't listening to all the new stuff anymore. I can't keep up with everything.

unknown 3:42

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

My kids, man, stuff they listen to us anyway.

Streaming Reality And Business Skills

SPEAKER_03 3:45

I'm like, yo, this garbage. I'm sorry. I'm gonna go. I'm like calling what it is. Yeah, I'm like, our music was way better. But looking at that business, like you just hit on like you ain't gonna make a lot of money. Talk to us about what those deals looked like then when you were in the industry. Obviously, things have shifted dramatically, but nah, you were saying in 2012 was when you got out.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

2012 is when I s when um I released my last commercial project in 2012. Okay. Um I produced uh concert events. I still toured all the way up through, I really toured all the way up through, you know, 2015, but I was still working in the insurance industry at that time. So when I got my I got my life and health insurance license in 2012, and that's when I started to kind of phase out of the industry.

SPEAKER_03 4:31

So you were you were in the music industry when streaming and everything like that was popping off.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

When it was starting. Yeah. This is listen, so my record that I released in 2012, Ready to Live, and I and it was under the name Gerard Anthony. So if you want to look it up, feel free. There's music videos out there, it's all kind of stuff. But that record charted on Billboard on the RB charts, and uh, I was touring, working around the country, and I realized that with streaming coming in, I was like, you know, I'm getting a lot of press, and people are really talking about this record, but we're not really getting the money a lot of records. I'm not gonna make a lot of money here. So um I said, man, you know, maybe there needs to be a pivot. It it is a tough industry, but I'll tell you this, Sam. What it did for me, um, I started as an artist when I was 13 years old, right? Had some great got to play the Apollo theater all the time. I had some amazing experiences. But what it really gave me a passion for was for business. Because throughout my time in music, because I spent the majority of my time independent, I also learned about music publishing, I learned about PR campaigns, I learned about radio campaigns, I learned about consignment, wholesaling, international distribution, contracts, contracts. I learned about all of these other components that artists typically don't deal with in this space. So not only did I uh continue to cultivate a passion for, you know, just performance, but uh and and writing primarily, but also for the business itself. And I think that's what made my transition uh into the industry I work in now, which is insurance risk management, you know, so so easy. Because what music did do whereas there wasn't because there wasn't a lot of money, uh, you did have to create scenarios where it looked like a lot of money, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:10

So when you're trying to create- I saw the docs, like these rappers have fake money that they're using in videos and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

Yeah, and I I never use like like fake money, but you know, you you're it's entertainment.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah, right? You're renting the somebody's leasing you the vehicle for the day for the video.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

You know, it might be leased, you know, some of the clothes you wear, like you know, may come from a designer who's let you borrow it, you know, for a little bit. But even when you go out on the road, you want to make sure that you know you're put together well, you know, that you're presenting in a way that that makes sense, you know, that makes you desirable as a product, because that's what you are. And those elements, the work ethic that went behind doing that, yeah, calling the new, setting up tools, working with promoters, going out with high levels of uncertainty, developing an extremely high risk tolerance, those are things that actually work to my benefit when I transitioned. Yeah because when I came into the insurance industry and I started as an agent with a uh a work site marketing company dealing primarily with employee benefits, working with business owners. And you had to go out and talk to business owners about what was going to be uh what would be uh valuable to them and also what would be valuable to their employees at the same time. But I didn't have inhibitions about this because I already was used to putting myself out there. Yeah. So for other individuals who may have thought it was difficult making a transition or coming into the space, not to say that it was difficult, I just feel the same apprehension because I was already used to not knowing where I was gonna sleep if I went to the city, you know, changing the promoter realm.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Which is what top scale said that any entrepreneur needs to have going out is like, man, I'm cool with sleeping in my car, like to build my dream.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Food, hey, what's what's food?

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Yeah, you know I had it down to a science. I made that Lil' Caesars$5 pizza. Yes. I had two slices for breakfast, two slices for lunch, and two slices for dinner. Because I found out if you wait, if it goes past 24 hours, that pizza turns on the cardboard.

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Absolutely. So that was your your remedy, right? This is this is my this is my formula. And uh I've been I've been plant-based for 19 years. I've been vegan 19 years. So this is so prior to being vegan, it was Aldi's had a turkey ham loaf. I would get the turkey ham loaf, I would get um a couple of the uh tuna star kiss snack packs, cracker and a tuna together. I get a can of black beans, right? And then I get a bag of fruit, and we good.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

We good, we good for the week.

SPEAKER_05 8:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

We good because I can slice a piece of that ham, throw some beans with it. I can eat the tuna for lunch.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:46

You know?

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Skip dinner every now and then.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Skip dinner every now and then. No, I'm gonna come back to the ham because I can also get a loaf of bread and I can make a sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

You see, so you can you gotta get creative with these things.

What Owning Your Masters Means

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Have to get creative. And when you were in the music industry, we're gonna we're gonna transition over to the insurance side, but I want people to get the full picture of you. Um I'll never forget this quote from Nas where he was talking, uh, he wanted to do a song with Prince. And he ended up running into Prince of the Club, finally got two seconds to talk to him. He was like, Hey man, I really want to do a record with you. And Prince looked at him and said, Well, do you own your masters? And Nas was like, Nah. He's like, Come back to me when you're on your masters. So what explain to people what it looks like, what is owning your masters? Um, and how does that allow you to generate more income in this industry?

SPEAKER_00 9:33

You're right. Essentially, you know, your masters are your intellectual property, they're the physical manifestation of that intellectual property. And it's it's very important that you do because this is how you make money from that music without having to go on stage every single night and go around the country or around the world and burn your body out and wear yourself. Listen, it is so taxing to do that and live that lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03 9:57

Oh, people think it looks cool and glamorous, but like the rehearsals, the practice, like you're on your feet nonstop, like it's not a nine to five.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah. But your masters are the true intellectual property. So when you are copywriting music, you have the sound recording copyright, and then you have the actual published work copyright. So if you write a song, that portion is the creative work, the published, published work. Yeah, right? That's the lyrics, whatever the case may be. When you go into the studio and you put it down on a record, there's also a second part to that copyright, which is the sound recording copyright. So that sound recording copyright, this is what allows you to say, oh yeah, here, this movie, you can use this music. Yeah, this commercial, oh yeah, you can use this music. Or if I want to repackage it, re not re-record it, but if I want to repackage it, resell it, I want to put it on the streaming services, I want to be able to be the one that's the beneficiary of what's done from that, then I need to own those masters in order to benefit from it.

SPEAKER_03 10:55

So if an artist doesn't own their masters, and let's say uh a major film, Tyler Perry's about to drop a new film and he wants his song, the studio can sell the rights to use that in the movie, but the artist won't make anything from that.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Not necessarily. Now they may make a little bit from they may make a little bit from uh some of that publishing, right? Because you are when you're doing the copyright, you also have publishing, which is how you actually get paid from the copyright.

SPEAKER_04 11:23

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

So the publishing would say, okay, well, you wrote the lyrics to this song, and if the lyrics are used, we're going to pay you something. And then there's another portion of the publishing, which is the music or the actual administration rights of the music as well. And if you have that portion, then you get paid from that portion too. So you get paid from two parts. So if Tyler Perry comes and he wants to utilize some music, they're not just gonna say, okay, let me play the song. They're gonna say, Hey, send me the stems. And the stems are the broken out tracks. I want just the guitar, I want just the drums, I want just the vocals, I want, you know, the full instrumental, except for the chimes that I heard in there. If you don't own the masters, you can't provide the stems. Yeah, the way that you make money from film and TV is when you own those masters, those you get what's called sync fees. Sing fees are crazy. Sing fees could be ten thousand, it could be it could be small too. It could be five thousand dollars, it could be ten thousand dollars, it could be a hundred thousand dollars, it could be five hundred thousand dollars. You know, it and this is just for your song to play in a movie for maybe three or four minutes, or even a TV show. So the masters allow you to make money from the sync fees, yeah, video game placement, commercials, uh, once again, re-releases.

SPEAKER_03 12:46

Now, do you get the whether it's the studio or the individual, they get paid off of that. So let's take like uh a Christmas story that plays every single Christmas 24 hours on TBS. They get paid every time that movie's being replayed on TV.

SPEAKER_00 13:11

And probably are continuing, you know, to get some fees from that. Now they might have got a sync fee initially that was smaller, but they're continuing to make money from that.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Yeah, because I saw I saw a post the other day talking about uh actors and like sitcoms and movies who are making millions per year and they haven't acted in years. And like I think the top three were actually now I'm not sure if Macaulay Culkin was in the top three. He was he was definitely in the top ten. But with Home Alone, yeah, it was like after that. I'm talking about Home Alone one, yeah. Two or three, any of that. One pays him like$20 million a year based off of how much that's played at Christmas time. And then I think Seinfeld came in at number two. I think he's cashing in somewhere between I don't know the numbers, 50, 65 mil or something a year because of the reruns. Yeah. And then surprising to me, Friends was number one. Yeah. That cast makes more money off of reruns than anybody in television history.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

That's crazy. And it makes sense. Now, the thing about the the TV shows, they're also getting paid from the advertisement, too.

SPEAKER_04 14:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

So the advertisement is helping to fund. Now, on the music side, you're not getting paid for the advertisement, but you are getting paid for the right to use that music in that film or in that commercial, in that TV show.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

So I But the opportunities for that have exploded a lot more with like video games and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. And for any artist who might listen to this, yo, you don't make money selling records, you make money licensing music. This is how you make money. I had a uh song in a movie called Girls Trip, which was uh came out a few years ago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh they played four minutes of my record. Now, now publishing split up between like six guys, like there's a lot of split there, but I still get checks, you know, quarterly for that film in addition to you know an initial sync fee that they had in place. Um so there's opportunities to really build a living, and and I'm not listening I had my time, I spent 20 years in that space, I'm not actively in it now. So there are others who are who are gonna be more adept at what it looks like today. But what I can say is that it is very viable for someone to make a living making music without necessarily being for a while.

SPEAKER_03 15:19

Like they're there are cats right now making millions on TikTok because one creator took six seconds of their hook, and then that song gets spread around all over TikTok, millions and millions and millions of views, and they're starting to cash those checks.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Somebody DM'd me uh like last week from Brazil and was like, hey, you know, I discovered now this is something I gotta check on because they said they discovered in a show called Skins. I'm like, I ain't gonna sing for you guys. But um, they discovered like some of my music, the song called The Dream. I'm like, how you even find me here? Because on my social media, the Rod Powell, it doesn't say it's not, I'm not talking about music, you know. So I'm like, how you even find me here? And they were like, I tried you down because I saw the music, then I found Gerard Ethan, then I saw it was Rod Powell, and I just gave you a message here. And I was like, so I record I wrote that song, I wrote that song twenty eight years ago. You know what I mean? And still lives.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

That's the thing with any with any form of marketing. This is what I try to drive in people's heads when I'm trying to get their psychology right when it comes to marketing. You do the work once, yeah, and this is stuff that you can get paid off of for years and years, if not a lifetime. Like I remember uh E.T. the hip hop preacher, one of my favorite motivational speakers. Shout out. I remember when I found him online, it was this one video, it was this kid who I think he was a running back at LSU or something like that, and it was E.T.'s motivational speech behind it. And this kid was just getting it like in the waiver. But like literally, I would wake up every day and watch that video for like a straight year. Like it just got me so hyped up. But that one video that exploded E.T. to what he is today, yeah, that was sitting on YouTube for six years before that got traction. Wow. And so many people will post a video and in an hour it doesn't get a certain amount of likes or views and are like, let me take this down. I'm like, don't ever delete anything. Because you never know when something can take off. It's a great book called The Tipping Point that kind of goes into stuff like that. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yes.

The Pivot From Touring To Insurance

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Great book. Yes, it is. One of my favorite books. Now the transition into insurance. So let's just talk about the lifestyle and mindset shift.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Because that's gotta be a big shift. Like, I'm not trying to put your dirty laundry out there, but I'm sure like the women were probably right when you're on tour. Like you're you're you're there's this lifestyle of partying and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

Those on videos see my facial expression.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

We can never we can neither confirm nor deny. Neither confirm nor deny. This is the first time we're talking about this, so I don't know for sure. Uh, but that transition has to be massive from being out on the road and being on stage and performing to putting on a suit and being in an office. Was that a hard transition for you, or did was it something that came natural because you felt like this was something you were meant to do?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

It's an interesting question. There definitely was a difference in um in lifestyle approach. And frankly, by the time I got to that point, I was ready for a change. How old were you when you made the um 33?

SPEAKER_03 18:13

Oh yeah. Well 33. That's when men start to get smart in their 30s. Once we hit 30, we start to wake up.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Listen, I I I still don't know if I'm as smart as I should be. I'm still trying to work in that direction. But uh yeah, I was 33, and uh my my youngest son was about a about a year old. And the transition for me was one where I just wanted to be able to come home every night. You know, um, you know, had had a family, you know, I wanted I just wanted to be able to be at home and I wanted to be there to be there with my with my boys.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

Just being on the road isn't as glamorous as people think. Like sometimes you're just like, man, I just want to sleep in my own bed, dude.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah, I'm just trying to get home. And uh all the other things, you know, they kind of they kind of you know take their you know, they take their place and kind of run their course. Remember, I started this when I was 13 years old. I started that when I was 13 years old. So that went all the way up until you know that 33, yeah, 34, even after I was producing some some events and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

So you had your film.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

I I had plenty of experiences. I I I I had experiences when I was a younger person, like no Diddy experience, let me just make that clear, you know. But I had experiences as a as a younger person that most adults don't have, you know, and um you know I can't imagine, like when I look at my youngest son is 15 now. So when I look at him, I'm I'm like, I know I was at when I was 15. And I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

You're like, I lived a whole lifetime by the time I was your age, boy.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

By the time I by the time I was his age, you know, by the time I was his age, I played the Apollo. I've been in the offices of major labels, I'd had, you know, people approach me, grown women approaching me in ways that were inappropriate, you know. Like there was there was many, there were many things. I was hanging out, you know, kind of late. I was I'd done some some really interesting things. I and I and thank you guys for allowing me to get through everything. But um the mindset shift was really one where I didn't think about the difference between being out or being on stage. What I really thought about was how can I take what I have cultivated from a work ethic and discipline standpoint and transfer this into another place, right? My my my ri like I said, I had the same degree, same risk tolerance, and I also thought, man, how can how can I approach this in a way that I don't see other people approaching it? You know, can I be maybe a little bit more personable? Can I show you know more of my personality um and and the way that I communicate and talk to these things? Oddly enough, Sam, I still ended up being on the road because it was just in Virginia. So it's like, okay, instead of instead of going to uh Atlanta, you know, and trying to come back, you know, I could go to Reno and come back, you know, so a little bit a little bit different. But um it was just more of a the the shift in lifestyle was just just more of a a time shift. Yeah and and it actually was was appreciated.

SPEAKER_04 21:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

It was really appreciated to be to be very very very frank. I I had a great time in the entertainment industry. I had some great friends, I still have great relationships there from people that I've known uh and and met and have worked with. Um I've worked with some amazing folks, man. So you know, uh one of them not from Richmond, but from Virginia, you know, Nate Smith. He just won two Grammys. He's playing at the uh I don't know when this is coming out, but you know, he's been playing at National, you know, looking forward to supporting his his show. I had worked with him, worked as another gentleman from Heavy Boys O did some stuff with him. Um Also won a grant me working with Mask Hughes, um, worked with Lonnie Lyson Smith, who was the father of Jazz Funk Fusion, you know, on a record. Um just have worked with some amazing people. Like I I could I could list some folks, but amazing people. I did meet Diddy one time. This is the FYI. He poured me a glass of uh Moet. He he probably wouldn't even remember this, but this is at a place called the Tunnel up in New York, which was an amazing club back in the day. Um but I didn't go to a party.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

I just did you see did you see too many bubbles in the glass?

SPEAKER_00 22:33

Nah, no, I didn't see any bubble. All right, cool. So just enough bubbles in the glass. It was it was a it was a it was actually a great great experience um going to that club and and feeling like I was in a uh a hype Williams video. If you were around in the late 90s, early 2000s. Oh, hype was killing all of that. Every video with all the lights and he was a Quentin Tarantino of music videos. Yes, he was, yes, he was. So that's what the tunnel felt like. It felt like a hype Williams video, but uh I had some great experiences there. And uh by the time I made the shift, um, I was I was more than happy to start making the shift.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Now, why why insurance as the vehicle? Because a lot of people will look at that and think those are two dramatically different, you know, industries and systems. And a lot of people, like when you look at things in the financial sector, and I I can find interest in anything, but a lot of people will look at that and be like, man, aren't you bored compared to what you were doing before? Like, why was that business was the route for you, but why was insurance the vehicle?

SPEAKER_00 23:29

It's crazy because I never thought about the insurance industry. What happened is you know, I there was a uh a panel that I just moderated last week um coming out of, you know, coming out of Black History Month. I moderated a panel for Black History Month, and one of the conversations that came up from uh friend and panelist, uh Richie Henry, who is the chief operations officer for Markel, he said, you have to have skills that are transferable. You have to have skills that are transferable. Focus on cultivating skills that are transferable. And as I mentioned, you know, some of the skills that I developed in the music industry did translate into the insurance industry. Now, this is how this came about. When I put together my resume and I started to list out the things I had done, I started to get calls from insurance companies. I started to get calls from insurance companies because the commonality between what where I started, which was as an agent in sales and the music industry, is it mostly is about building relationships.

SPEAKER_03 24:33

Yeah, communication and relationships.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

You can develop the technical skills. When I was a recording as an artist, I I released six projects. I mean, people have really uh given me platitudes about the music that I've created, which I appreciate, but I never considered myself to be, you know, the greatest artist, the person who made the best or dopest music out there. But I was good at building relationships with people. And because I was good at building relationships with people, when there were opportunities, people thought of me.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

And that pushed me ahead of even others who may have been more talented, you know, because of the relationships that I cultivated. So I think what the the commonality was, you say, okay, well, you see that you are able to basically create and cultivate relationships from scratch, and those relationships are mutually beneficial, right? And if you're able to do that here in one segment, yeah, you can do that in another segment.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Easily.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

The only difference is what's the tool that you're using?

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Okay, I'm using a guitar and a microphone over here, right? I'm using, you know, the policy language, you know, and a pen or a laptop over here. But it's still me. You know, it's still me communicating who I am. So what I found was this is this is when I went to my first interview for an opportunity in the insurance industry, what I found was okay, you're meeting people, communicating with them, educating. You're obviously building building a rapport, building a relationship, but you're educating them on something that's going to bring value to them, to their business and their employees. Uh then after that, um you are uh receiving some degree of compensation if the value you add uh makes sense. And the thing about the insurance industry that I thought was very similar to the music industry was the residual uh income as well, because I was used to the concept of music publishing.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Write the policy once, get paid for years.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

When I learned about renewals, yeah, you know, purely from like just a business sense, I was like, oh well, that makes sense because that's like publishing.

SPEAKER_05 26:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

I wrote the song once, okay, I'll still get a check from Harry Fox, and I have gotten two cent checks before too. But I gotta get a check from Harry Fox or from CSAC.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Pennies can add up to dollars, though.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Hey, I've gotten some nice ones too, though. You know, I got some nice ones too. But I was like, okay, well, it works in that same capacity, and you know, you still have the freedom to go out and express yourself. So where you if you're writing a song and you are expressing yourself that way in that creative sense, that's one way. But you're still going out to express yourself on the insurance side because you're delivering well, you're gonna deliver the information in a compliant way, but you're still delivering it with your personality. Yeah, you're still communicating based based on who you are, and you still get to see new places, which I got to know in music. Um still got I got to see new places in insurance, you know, you get to meet new people in different industries, in different spaces. Same thing that I did in music, that I did in insurance, and like I said, at the end of the day, um, any business you're in, it doesn't matter what you do, whether it's music or media or insurance or law or medicine, it's still a people business. Yeah. You always dealing with people at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

And I think too, like, because I I was never I never had the gift of of the pipes. Like my mom and dad could sing their butt off, man. Like my dad was a pastor, they sung in church all the time. Yeah. Me, I'm I'm great in the shower. Outside of that, man, I I can't hold a tune. But I did acting from like fifth grade to my senior year. And I I found that similarity in people that have strong sales skills, they often were in some level of performance, whether it was music or acting or whatever it is, because just getting used to being up in front of a crowd of a hundred, five hundred thousand people, when you sit across the table from somebody one-on-one, that ain't nothing. And the fact that you being able to control the room, yeah. So to have people sitting on the edge of their seats, because as a performer, me as an actor, like I know we both know certain ways that we can conjure the tone of our voice, how we deliver something that can get somebody to kind of lean in and know that they want to get more of this. So I think that's salesmanship. And I highly believe that's the number one skill set of any entrepreneur. Like, if you if you strip me down and said, Hey, as a CEO, an entrepreneur of this company, what's the one skill set you want to keep and what you want to continue to do? It's always sales, dude. I love sitting across the table from somebody who may not think that they need me or like they may just be taking this meeting out of pity, and then by the time I leave that table, they can't see themselves taking their business to the next level without me.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Where was I before?

SPEAKER_03 29:28

Yeah, yeah. That's the game, dude.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah. I I I agree. I think with I think with sales, you know, it gets a I won't say sales gets a a bad route, but I think it gets a misunderstood interpretation by most people because the reality is in everything that you do in life or everything you aspire to do, there's going to be some sales component, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:46

And more of salesmanship is listening versus talking.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Absolutely. If you want to date someone, yeah, you're you're selling yourself to get that date. And if you want a second date, you better have a good sales date to that first date. Absolutely. Right? You know. Um, if you're interviewing for a job, you're selling yourself to get that job. Right? And then you better continue to sell yourself and your performance, you know, to maintain that job. I I think where the the the misinterpretation with sales is comes from some of the psychology or you know, a a perceived persuasion that may be happening. And and to your point, I think if you are utilizing a tone or an inflection, you're using a lot utilizing that tone or inflection to uh emphasize the point that you want to make with genuine intention.

SPEAKER_03 30:38

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

Because the true objective of a salesperson who is doing it the right way is I know that I want to offer you value. I see maybe what you don't see. Yeah, and I have a solution for what you don't see. So I have to educate you that on the fact that, hey, this is something that is going to help you at the end of the day, right? Absolutely. So so when someone is approaching it from that standpoint, you know, it makes all the sense in the world. And to your point, I also agree that it is a skill that every entrepreneur should have, and it is the best profession uh that anyone can step into. And I would encourage any early career professional, regardless of your path, try something and say, go knock on some doors.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

That will wait. My biggest fear. So the second business I ever started was Cycle, it was a valet laundry service. And in order to get the word out, I was like, we knew certain neighborhoods that we wanted to target. So me and my business partner, he was living out of town. I was running the Richmond operation, and we came up with this idea, we're printing off a bunch of flyers, and he was like, Alright, man, you need to go hit these neighborhoods and go door to door. And man, I was willing to do anything, but not that. Like, because I had built up this uh scenario in my head that I I don't even get to touch someone's door. I go to knock on it, and they open up the door and they got a big old shotgun. They're like, What the hell are you doing on my property type thing? I'm like, yo, I'm just trying to sell laundry services, like, get the hell off my property. Like, that was just always a fear in my head. And I knocked on countless doors, and you know, not that did not happen, not once. One time. Matter of fact, it was generally the opposite. People are like, oh damn, I actually need a service like this. Like, this makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Most of the fears we have are it's all up there. We we we play through these crazy scenarios of these coulda, woulda, shoulda's.

SPEAKER_04 32:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

And none of that is what the actual reality is. It's it's hilarious. We all deal with it. So yeah, I mean, go go and face it, right?

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Um because no matter what field you go into, if you develop salesmanship, I don't care if you're an accountant, I don't care if you're an employee, whatever it is, you gotta sell yourself to get that next raise. That's right. You need those skill sets.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

You better be able to justify it, otherwise it's not coming.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

You know? And I'll tell you what, being on the other side, as you are, like being the business owner, is like, listen, we're trying to keep the ship afloat here.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

Yep. But I can also appreciate it when somebody comes to me with the right pitch, I'm like, I know. Hey, I got you. Yeah, right, right. You're coming correct. Like, I really gotta consider this.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

That's it, that's it. So it's um it's one of those, it's one of those skills that I believe is is truly you know underrated and uh underutilized. Yes, you know, knock some doors, you know. If you're in college, go sell some cuckoo knives or something or some free club, you know.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

It'll also help you in the dating world because if you get used to somebody slamming the door in your face, for sure. Then when you go up to a girl at the club and she says, get out of here, you ain't thinking nothing of it, you right on to the next one.

SPEAKER_00 33:45

So, so talk going back to the music piece, as as much fun as I had in in that industry, that industry is filled with rejection.

SPEAKER_04 33:53

Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:54

So I got really numb to rejection. I got my skin just became like really thick to it, so it didn't really matter if somebody told me I was numb. I mean, because people tell me, yo, no, you suck. You know, I'm like, okay. I mean, if somebody don't think that's good. Other people think I don't. I'm still, you know, I'm still getting gigs, I'm still selling records.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

Plus, when you get into that system, you understand, hey, in general, I'm averaging for every 20 no's I get, I get one yes. So at that point, you're just looking like how quick can I get to the next no so I can get to that yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

And that one yes makes all the no's yeah, you forget about all that. You forget about all of that when you get that yes. Yes.

Commercial Coverage And Employee Benefits

SPEAKER_03 34:32

Now talk to us about the because I have some questions on the insurance side. Talk to us about the particular insurance products that you offer.

SPEAKER_00 34:38

So um my our firm, Moncore Insurance Group, uh, as I mentioned, we'll full service. So we work primarily with businesses. Uh we work with them on their commercial insurance solutions. So not only protecting their property and their assets, but also protecting them against liability exposures, uh, which businesses can be subjected to. Uh we all we always uh like to emphasize that wealth accumulation and asset preservation are in the same category. Yeah, right? Because you can you can earn, things can be rolling, things can be going well, but one wrong occurrence, one lawsuit, one situation can bankrupt you, can change the entire trajectory of where you intended on going. Uh so we let we say utilize your insurance protection as an asset to protect and grow your business. Yeah, right? Protect what you are building, protect the value that you're creating in the marketplace. Uh we also work with uh companies on their employee benefit plan design. Uh typically, you know, small to mid-sized businesses. We're showing them how to introduce employee benefits into their strategy of attracting and retaining employees. Yeah. Because that is really what employee benefits is all about. It's easier to keep high-quality people on your team than to go out and find new high-quality people because we know what the talent uh chase race market is like. It's tough to find good people, let alone get them up to speed inside of your organization. So we show businesses, hey, this is how you leverage these employee benefits to keep them around, to guaranteed, maybe guaranteed issue programs. Guaranteed issue, like guaranteed issue life insurance is huge because life insurance can be a hassle to purchase individually, but if it's offered through the job on a guaranteed issue basis, you can avoid it bypass on underrated. Helping businesses to avoid potential workers' complaims by leveraging, you know, accident insurance. So you can say, hey, look, workers comp if it ha if it does happen on the job and you need a workers' complain file, then yes, it's going to happen. But if somebody's playing ball on the weekend and they end up getting hurt, but then they come and it's slippery outside and say, Oh, well, I maybe that's how I got hurt. Then you got a claim that it wasn't necessary. So put an accident policy in place for those individuals so that they can have that as a recourse that is not going to impact the business. What does that do for you? That helps you to become a more competitive, more attractive employer employer, uh, an employer of choice, if you will. And then individuals say, you know what, I'm staying here because I have the security of having these employee benefits in place. I had done a uh I had done some analysis around this and the average onboarding cost of a new employee was about$50,000 a year in addition to the actual compensation. Whereas the expense for that person on an employee benefit plan on average for that one person, the employer's contribution on average for that person will probably be about$5,000 for the year. So would you rather keep spending$50,000 or would you rather spend this$5,000 and keep this person around? So those are the types of those are the types of conversations that we're having. Once again, you know, we help people with their individual needs as well, uh, as far as their home, their auto. We do some concierge service, you know, for higher net worth individuals on their risk management planning as well.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Uh but um some of that include life insurance as well too.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Some of that does include life insurance when working with businesses, key person, executive bonus compensation plans. Yep. Uh to uh to help you know not only protect themselves if something happens to those key employees, but once again, in retaining that high talent that somebody else is calling.

SPEAKER_04 38:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

You if you like them, oh they're calling. Somebody else is calling.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

Yeah, they're calling. So you've I've seen that first hand.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Right, right. So you so you want to find, oh, and listen, I I I've seen it. I've been the callie uh and the caller.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Yep. So it's like whatever they're doing over there for you, man, I'll double it. Come on, come on over to this side.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

So uh I I understand you know what what those things look like. I understand the struggles. Just as a like I said, as a business owner myself, uh I understand what it's like, you know, to keep the ship afloat. I understand what it's like to build a flame, build a plane while you're flying it. Absolutely. And to not only look out for the best interest of the people who are working with you on your team, but also you know, looking out for the best interest of the bottom line of the business. Absolutely. So those are the solutions we look to to provide.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

And I know we got a lot of entrepreneurs listening to the show. Like, y'all need to lock in on this part of the conversation because this this isn't the glamorous side of like what we have to do every day. Like the account, like, man, all the stuff that ain't cool that comes with being a CEO, like, we have to do. Like, I'm I gotta get back from my account and I still own some documentation for our taxes this year and stuff like that. Like, I've been putting it off. Like, this ain't fun stuff, but it's very necessary.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah, it's not it's not the Instagram stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

Not the Instagram stuff, but this stuff is very necessary to run a business. Um, hitting on that employee retention piece that that you talked about, like yeah, today's employment, and we're seeing some things shift in the marketplace in terms of like uh unemployment rates and people getting laid off. Like, I think was it Amazon like dropped like 20,000, 50,000 jobs or something like that. And this is just the beginning phases of all this, so we're gonna see that begin to escalate. Um, so to go out and get that talent, and when I say this, y'all, listen to me. I've been I've owned this business for 11 years, and I've probably had six or seven different full crews in here. The team I got right now is by far the best I've had in 11 years, and I'm doing everything I can to make sure these people are happy. Like two of them had a birthday within the last week. Yeah. One of my staff members, she's in the Pokemon cards. I said, one of our clients who used to serve uh Grey Bows cards. Like, I know he was the top guy in town who knew about that. So I was like, yo, I'm bringing my team by. I need you to hook it up. Yes, tell me what I need to get her, sort of thing. Uh I was just sharing with you, Slade, our one of our videographers. He's a golfer, so I took him to Golf Galaxy yesterday. Let's let's get a new glove. But I try to pull them to the side, get quick 15 minutes with him every week. Hey man, how you feeling? Yeah, like what's stressing you out? Yeah, what do you need from me? Yeah, like all those different things, and then to add on the additional benefits to that. Like, you have to put in a good amount of effort. Like, I mean, we got video game arcade machines here, like I got TVs and everything. I'm like, yeah, I want y'all to be comfortable here. I want I want you to walk in here every day, be like, who because that's the feeling I get when I come to the office every day. I I can't wait for Mondays. Monday's my favorite day of the week. Man, I love this place.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah, yeah. No, it and it's a beautiful space to come into. It's comfortable, you know, it has a calming kind of energy to it. Yeah, you know, so you can come in here and you can focus, and especially for for your business, for Inso, it's like you have to have a space where you can create, right? Yes, where your mind is open to that. Um, and it and it's an important point that you brought up by creating and curating that kind of environment because when you think about employee benefits, sometimes people confine it to insurance. But as a consultant, we look at what's the bigger picture outside of that? You know how what are you doing outside of purely just insurance and salary? Are there maybe memberships, you know, to a golf club? Yeah, yeah. You know, are there gym memberships potentially? You know, do we have maybe you know, once a quarter have a masseuse come in?

SPEAKER_05 42:14

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

You know what I mean? And do some things, do some things like that. So we're always looking at what are the solutions, not just insurance related, but beyond that, in addition to what you're doing, and maybe everything you're doing is is correct, right? But you want to keep morale high because high morale equals high productivity.

SPEAKER_03 42:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

We want it to, right? But typically it does. That morale is gonna go to productivity because there's a thing called quiet quitting, too.

Wealth Preservation For Families

SPEAKER_03 42:38

Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah. You know, I've experienced that with some team members too. Now I know the signs. Yeah, because I now I pick up on it. I know exactly how to how to do that. Let's transition over to uh the phase in your life of being an author. Um talking about like the financial literacy piece and and for me in particular, people of color. Like I think it's more important than ever. Because we've, as black people, we've now figured out how to make money.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

We gotta keep it.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Keep it.

SPEAKER_03 43:04

We gotta keep it.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

We gotta perpetuate it.

SPEAKER_03 43:05

Yeah, because like right now, BET isn't even owned by a person of color. It's not. It was it was sold off. Yeah. Um, so I look for these opportunities to educate our people as much as possible on how we can preserve this, how we can continue to build that generational wealth. Um, and I look at something like um life insurance. And I want you to break this down because I think so many people don't truly understand what life insurance is. And the thing that pains me the most is I I drive through the projects and I see BMWs and Lexus' lined up. I see people with new J's on their feet, but they ain't willing to spend$25 a month to have a life insurance policy. When the life expectancy living in those areas may be in your 30s or 40s, somebody gets shot, you get a check for 250 grand, your whole family out the hood. But it's no one, like once you get that money, because I believe majority of lottery winners, when they win the lottery, they end up within the next three to five. Years end up being more broke than they were before they. So getting access to money isn't a problem. It's the educational and the understanding of that. So I want you to first break down life insurance and how people can use that as a wealth building tool.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

No, it's it's a it's a great question. First of all, let's just talk about the name. It's called life insurance. What do people think about when they think about life insurance?

SPEAKER_03 44:18

They think it's death insurance.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

It's not death insurance, okay? There are specific products for that. It's life insurance, is to preserve the quality of life. What life insurance is, in essence, is to protect against the financial risk of premature death. So if you're saying to yourself, I plan to make$10 million, but something happens to you before you made that$10 million, that life insurance policy can get to that$10 million on your behalf. Okay. So it is to protect you against the financial risk of premature death. The second thing is, and this is the the other side of life insurance, life insurance is a financial vehicle that is utilized to build wealth as well. So there's pri there's two primary types of life insurance. You have term and then you have permanent. We call it perm. So we'll say term and perm. Term policies are a terminating benefit. That's why it's term. It's a temporary policy. So you can do that.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Yeah, I was gonna say you can do that for like 10 years or something.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

10 years, 20 years, 30 years. That policy, once again, if you say, hey, I'm going here, but you don't make it, the policy will make it on your behalf, whether it be for income replacement, whether it be for education, whether it be for your debt, whether it be for your mortgage, whether it be for just an uh an instant estate liquidity, right? So let's say you're in a situation where you're not necessarily a high income earner, you know, but you want to create a uh an advantage, you know, for your family should something happen to you, that 250,000 and 500,000, that can change the trajectory of the next generation's. Absolutely. It can be the difference between someone starting a business, someone going to school. You can be that pitcher that's on the fireplace, you know, above the mantle that says, hey man, if it wasn't for grandpa and grandma having a life insurance policy, let's let's talk about some real real life real life examples. Well, first, let me finish explaining. So you have term, which is a terminating benefit, it's temporary, okay? Larger expenses. Great for people with young families, new professionals. If you have a mortgage, somebody still has to pay it. If you die, if they want to keep that house, you know, term policy is for that. It's a large amount of insurance for a smaller premium. The second part is permanent insurance.

SPEAKER_03 46:34

Well, with that term, too, isn't it good? Like, let's say someone never got life insurance and they're now 55, 60 years old. Typically, would they go towards a term versus uh a whole life policy?

SPEAKER_00 46:44

If they're if they're over 55, they're gonna be looking more towards a permanent policy.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

The reason they're gonna be looking more towards a permanent policy is because with a term policy, when that term ends, it has to re- It's it's gonna it's done.

SPEAKER_04 46:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

If you try to renew that policy, it's gonna be a lot more. It's gonna be a whole lot more if you qualify.

SPEAKER_03 47:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

Which you might not.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

So grandpa was planning on living until he was 90, but now he's 92.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

And I tell you, my dad, he had a term policy that ended the month before he died. Now, luckily, he had a uh permanent policy that he had purchased from me about four months before he died. Isn't that crazy? That's the policy that ended up reimbursing the cost of his funeral.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

And that and that's the piece with black folk, is I heard this old saying is that black families grieve twice when we have to bury a loved one. You grieve for the loss, but then you grieve because of the the checks you gotta write for the funeral.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

And who's writing them? Who's writing them? Oftentimes you have you know families arguing over who's paying for what, and and that's where you see the GoFundMe accounts popping up on Facebook, like necessary.

SPEAKER_03 47:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

When me and my me and my siblings, we have a great relationship, but when my dad died, um, even though because of because he died within a two-year time span of the policy existing, it goes into what's called contestability. So they had to make sure that it wasn't something that was pre-existing before he died, which they did and they took care of it, but it took some time to get that claim process. But the funeral home run to get paid today.

SPEAKER_05 48:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

You know, so you know, my like I said, me and my siblings, we have a great relationship. But in in our case, it was like, look, yo, here's a check, you know, and we'll figure that out on the back end. Everybody doesn't have that luxury, you know. So they're trying to figure it out with these GoFundMe. Now for the second portion of the perm, because that act the permanent policy is because that kind of goes into this 55 and above. If someone's 55 and above, they would do a final expense policy typically. A final expense policy is a permanent policy. In fact, a final expense policy is a whole life policy. A whole life policy is the oldest permanent insurance policy. A whole life policy is the policy that is utilized to create cash value that can then be leveraged for future uh uh investments, uh for maybe uh uh a vacation, maybe a future expense, whatever it might be, whatever you want.

SPEAKER_03 49:17

That's the piece that people don't know.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Whatever you want. And there's some other dynamics to this, but whole life being the oldest, this is what James Cash Penny used to keep JC Penny afloat during the Great Depression. He used the cash value from his whole life insurance policy to keep that company moving. It's what Walt Disney used to start Disney World initially, the cash value policy from that whole life insurance policy to create what we now know as the entire Disney brand. You know, it's what um who else used it? Ray Croc used to buy the McDonald's uh intellectual property and brand from the McDonald's brother. He used the cash value from a whole life insurance policy to create what has become, you know, the McDonald's brand worldwide. Absolutely so these use cases for cash value life insurance are so powerful. And oftentimes, you know, when people are speaking to me about life insurance, they're saying, Oh, well, I don't want a term policy, I want a whole life policy. My question always, why? Yeah, you know, what has kind of created that that interest? Because if your interest is in protecting it, protecting income or taking care of the large expenses you have, you probably need a term policy.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

However, if you're utili if you want to utilize that policy to make money, then we are going to talk about a permanent policy. Because when we're talking about a whole life policy or an index universal life policy, which is the most current iteration of permanent policies that's designed to kind of be a hybrid between what a traditional whole life policy has been and a variable policy, which is a policy that builds value based on stock performance. The index universal life is kind of sitting in the middle of that, right? So you don't have the risk of losing money, but you also have uh the opportunity to participate in market gains that are available as well.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

And you got the option to have both, too. I think I have whole life and term.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

Listen, first of all, you you should have multiple, right? All you're doing, all you're doing when you buy a permanent policy is buying money.

SPEAKER_04 51:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Because when you're paying that policy premium, let's take, for example, an index universal life policy. And an index universal life policy may grow and be credited interest based on, let's say, SP 500.

SPEAKER_04 51:37

Yeah.

Cash Value Life Insurance Explained

SPEAKER_00 51:37

When you're paying the premium into that policy, the there's a portion that is the cost of insurance, and the rest of that is going towards building cash value. So the interest is continue to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow over time. At a certain point, that interest is going to supersede the amount of premiums that you paid into the policy. In which case, the company is now paying you to keep that policy. Now I'll take it a step further, Sam. Let's say you've had that policy for some time. Let's say you've had it for 10 years, you've been paying that premium, and and and and there's$50,000 in cash value sitting there. There's$50,000 in cash value sitting in this policy, and you say, I want to buy a subway franchise. Right?

SPEAKER_05 52:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Okay. No, let's go more specific. You say, I'm gonna franchise Enzo Media, and we're going to, and I need$50,000 to set that up and start building out other locations around the country.

SPEAKER_05 52:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

You call the insurance company, there's no loan, you're not going to the bank to apply for a loan, right? They're not trying to kind of check your debt to income ratio and your credit. And listen, if you're a business owner, that can get very tricky.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:46

Okay, because you're trying to pull these tax returns and you're trying to write stuff off so you can keep your income low. But at the same time, you need to make sure it's hot enough so you can buy something if you need to buy it. Yep. Right.

SPEAKER_03 52:56

So I'm playing that game right now because we're we're about three years from building our next house. So like my accountants and CFO knows like, okay, starting next year, I need you to show them more income on it.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

So now I know I need to pay some extra to retain some earnings here. So when you're doing that kind of when you're doing that kind of dance, let's say we're expanding out this franchise, we're gonna call the insurance company. Hey, can you deposit$50,000 in my account? I'm gonna take this on. I'm gonna I'm gonna borrow this. I'm gonna take this on all. No problem, Mr. Anderson. Here you go. In two days, money's in your account.

SPEAKER_02 53:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

First of all, this money is in your account tax-free. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Keyword tax-free.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

And we'll say tax advantage, right? Yeah. Just in case anybody's listening. We'll say it's tax advantage. The money does not exist. It's not income. Yeah. So now you have this money, this capital in your pocket that you can utilize for whatever project you need. Okay. You're going to go out, you're going to spend$50,000 launching these new franchises. Those new franchises are they're going to generate you$100,000 in new revenue over the next year or two. Now, along the way, you're still paying the premium and the policy. But here's what actually happened when you borrowed that money from the policy, you didn't borrow your cash value.

SPEAKER_04 54:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

You borrowed the insurance company's money. And because you borrowed the insurance company's money, where's your cash value?

SPEAKER_04 54:13

Still in there.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

It's still sitting in your policy, growing and accumulating that interest.

SPEAKER_03 54:19

So just like borrowing money against like stock options or land or property or something that you have.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Exactly. The different difference being now that land is still accumulating. Maybe the stocks are too, right? In that policy, let's say your interest rate was 4%.

SPEAKER_04 54:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

But you're still being credited, your growth is 10%. So you've now arbitrage that 6%. That means you made 6% on the money you borrow that's in your pocket that's still growing inside of that account. So when I'm saying, hey, utilize multiple, multiple policies, if you just want to simply buy money, just keep setting up those policies. The one thing that people have to understand about life insurance, and it's it's always interesting that people are like, oh, well, I don't know about life insurance. Well, life insurance is a luxury product.

SPEAKER_04 55:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

You have to qualify for it. You can't just go get it.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

You got to go through the whole underwriting process.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Yeah, pee and a cup, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

If it was something that was designed to simply just take your money, then there wouldn't be a qualification process. They would say, hey, yeah, everybody can have this. Yeah. Everybody cannot.

SPEAKER_03 55:20

So I can I give people a real world example. All the stuff you listed, I can make it extremely personable. Um Our Mutual Connect Javon. Yes. Uh this is at a time. Oh, yeah, for sure. A couple years ago, uh I was getting hardcore into investing in some property. Yeah. And I was looking at the second property I wanted to buy, but I was also dumping some money into the business here. And I'm like, I found this property, and I was like, I know I have to own this property. And I'm sitting racking my brain, man, where can I pull the cash out? I don't want to sell any stock. Like, that's on the rise. Like, I don't want to dip into savings here. I don't want to do this. And I started getting on the phone with Javon in chat, and he's like, bruh, you have like five life insurance policies. You got one on yourself, one on your wife, uh, one on your mom, and you got two on your kids. So I was like, All right, let me look at tapping into the kit. I was able to pull the cash I needed out of that, and that investment has now, this is maybe going on three years, that investment has grown 10x that I use that money for my life insurance policy.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Real life.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Yeah, and that's actual cash in my hand. Like I can I can go sell that property today and I will make 10x off of what I borrowed.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

See, see, see, and here's what you did. You took the action to establish these policies and funded them so that that opportunity was available to you. It's like playing the game cash flow.

SPEAKER_04 56:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:39

You know what I mean? And it's like taking that money and saying, hey, I'm gonna put it into this financial vehicle. Because the thing, the other thing about permanent life insurance is you're not just spending the money and tossing it somewhere. All you're doing is just transferring this money to another asset.

SPEAKER_03 56:54

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

You're not leaving it in your bank account to die.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Because that's what it's gonna do sitting in the bank. So take that, transfer it to another asset where it can actually go to work for you.

SPEAKER_03 57:03

And I'd employ people like you heard me just list off all those names. Yeah. Um, so I my dad passed away probably three years ago. Um, and my mom and dad were married for 40-something years. Like there were certain things in the house my dad always took care of, so like now I've realized I'm the only son. Yep. Um, I'm gonna have to take care of moms. Uh, one of the first things I did within the first year of my dad passing away, and now she's on the single income. I'm looking at that, I'm like, mom, what's the life insurance policy like? And we start digging. I get Javon jumping into her stuff. And she got some little rinky dink policy at her company that she thinks is what she needs, but like that thing's only gonna pay out like$20,$30,000. Yeah, that's barely covering the casket. Yeah. Like, so that ain't gonna work. Um, so we ran the numbers and I put a policy on my mom. I think I'm paying like$30 a month for a policy on my mom that's strong, six figures. Yeah. The kids, when they were, I think at the time both kids were three, was when uh one was three and one was four. I think that's when I put the insurance policies on them. That's the time to do it. Yeah, and there's their policies are the ones that I've uh been able to pull the money out and bar against. And then there's uh policy on my wife as well, too. So, like, luckily my in-laws have a good policy in place because I was about to buy one for them too, because I'm like, at the end of the day, once everybody like starts falling off, it's all gonna come back on my shoulders. Right, exactly. So I can either take care of this now the smart way or I can scramble and and grieve twice when all this happens later on down the road.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Same analogy as employee benefits. A little bit now and a lot or a lot later.

SPEAKER_03 58:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 58:31

You know what I mean? A little bit now, a lot later. And the benefit in return still equates to being the same.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

Because a high quality person on your team, that's gonna generate revenue for the company.

SPEAKER_03 58:42

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

A being able to take care of you know the the the life of a person that you care about, or being able to establish a policy that's gonna generate cash value for the policy that is taking care of the family.

SPEAKER_03 58:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

You know what I mean? So those are those are conversations that that we definitely find ourselves in in.

SPEAKER_03 59:02

And the younger you are starting a policy, the cheaper it is.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

Well, you talked about your kids and say, hey, look, this is I borrowed the cash value from the kids' policy. Well, the cost of insurance on the children is like this.

SPEAKER_03 59:11

Oh, I ain't paying. It's like$15 a month for each of them.

SPEAKER_00 59:14

The vast majority of money that you put in, you can put in extra money too. So the vast majority of money you put in is really going towards accruing cash value.

SPEAKER_05 59:21

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 59:22

You know what I mean? So it's all about how these things are structured. So you do have the term, you do have the permanent term. Okay, I know that there's a place that I might need to get to financially. If I don't make it, the term policy is gonna get there for me in that certain period of time. And then permanent, hey, I either I want to stabilize premiums, i.e., you know, final expense, maybe a smaller, you know, whole or index universal life policy, or I am looking to use life insurance to make money. Point blank.

SPEAKER_05 59:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

Matter of fact, I would go even further. When you're setting up this policy, what you really want is you want to say a permanent policy. How much how much can I put into this policy with the smallest death benefit possible? Yep. So the vast majority of my money is going towards building cash back.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:13

Yeah, people people gotta understand this is a wealth building tool. This is a wealth-building tool, and it it pains me because this should be the first step to uh creating generational wealth. It is. Like, because I think our population now, I think young black men are actually the fastest growing demographic for investors now in the stock market. So I'm glad we're starting to catch on to that. But I mean, when I tell you guys I'm spending 15 bucks a month each on my kids' life insurance policy, and that's six figures coming our way, God forbid something happens. But we don't know what's gonna happen in life. That's why it's called insurance. Like, this is insurance policy, it's there to protect it. Exactly. And you gotta look at all of these things when you're building an empire because a lot of times we kind of categorize these things like a work's over here, here's my business, here's my family over here. No, those things mesh. Like now I got my wife working in the business, so like we're all the way intertwined with that. Um, I just need people to understand, like, I mean, you could insure your whole family for less than a hundred bucks a month. Yeah, you talk, I know we all can people complain about like, well, I don't have money to buy NVIDIA or Netflix or whatever. You can't tell me you can't find a way to find$20 a month.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

You can find a way to prioritize what you feel is important. And look, everybody's situation is not gonna be real.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:27

But that's two cups of coffee from Starbucks a week. If you could pass up two cups of coffee, that made me one.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Because I'm trying to think, you know, that mogulada.

unknown 1:01:39

That's a two.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:40

But it's those things like making that mind, because I truly believe that's what it is. Because we're we're in the information age. Like, if you want to know something, it's there at your fingertips. At this point, you're choosing to be ignorant.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:51

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Like, because we get everybody can sacrifice. Luckily, I'm not a coffee drinker, so this doesn't apply to me. But it ain't that hard to sacrifice two cups of coffee a week. Uh not even a week, over the course of a month, yeah, to prov put something like this in place and have a wealth-building tool that's actively building for you. And the beautiful thing is you don't have to be that knowledgeable, you just talk to individuals like you who run you through the game, and like this is kind of set it and forget it type thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:14

The biggest thing that uh any individual has to be willing to do is just to take action. Because the scary thing about where we are in the social media age is like you see something, you get that dopamine hit from it, and you feel like you did something.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

But you didn't.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:28

You ain't do jack.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

You just haven't done anything. Yeah, so you don't get hype about it and be like, okay, yeah, I need to get this when you're watching the 60-second clip and then it just falls to the wayside.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:38

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:39

Take the action, move forward, make it happen.

The Near Breaking Point Story

SPEAKER_03 1:02:42

1000%. Man, as we wrap up here, I like to ask every entrepreneur on this show one specific question. Um, walk us through the most difficult time in your life as an entrepreneur and how you overcame that moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

Wow. So many.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:01

There's no shortages of those stories. Um but that one where you thought you were gonna break, like where this is this is kind of the end. Because I think one of the big things we struggle with as entrepreneurs, like at some point we all have imposter syndrome. Like, man, am I really the dude disqualified to be leading this organization doing that?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:20

For sure. Robert, for sure. I I'll tell you that um early in my career, I uh did some work, and it and it wasn't I can tell you some stories, you know, from the music time too. I can tell you some stories of, you know, sleeping in the car, sleeping on park benches, you know, different places. Um but what I will say is um uh I'll talk about this particular industry that I'm in right now. And uh there's a there's a few stories, but I'll take you back to one that's fairly early. Uh I remember I was uh dri I I used to go and work with uh school districts, and with those school districts, uh we would do a drawing. Our marketing, our go-to-market method was come see us, get educated, get a gift, get into a drawing. It's it's not rebating because it's you're not you it's not for purchasing a policy. Just come let me tell you and I'll give you something. I'll give you a choske or like a umbrella or something. Our drawings at the time were like flat screen TVs.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

The expense of the TV was on me. I mean, because this is 1099, I'm on I'm 100% commissioned as an agent. As an agent, the vast majority of my career I've been 100% commissioned. I did spend some time in corporate for a short amount of time, but I will remember preparing for that enrollment and my bank account had, I don't know, maybe$30. TV was$120. But the ATM would allow me to take out more than I had. So I remember taking the money out and overdrafting my account to buy this TV. I already had the other stuff, but I remember buying this TV, and then I had uh I think I took out$150, I put$20 in the car for gas because I had to get there. And I went to this T I went to this this location. I remember driving along the way, and uh I was listening to motivational uh uh messages. I might have been listening to some ET during that time too. And I remember that video you're talking about. Yeah, um, I think I was listening because some ET was playing, some Les Brown was playing.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:35

Oh yeah, oh Les Brown was that dude.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

Yes, listen. I'm the one, you know? Man, I'm I and and I'm driving, Sam, I'm bawling out of con I'm bawling while I'm driving. I'm I it it kind of brings some tears in my eyes right now thinking about it, getting back to that place. And um there's no guarantees for doing this stuff, and I didn't know what was gonna happen, but I I remember I got to that, got to the location. Once I got there, obviously tears gone. I'm putting on the happy face. And this is the thing you never know what somebody is going through in the background, like where they were right before they seen you. Because when I walked into the location, nobody would have known that I was on my way, like bawling out. Like I was driving there, bawling out of my in my car. Even the people that worked around me, my family didn't know you know any of this stuff. But I'm like having this intense moment. And I get to that location, I walk in, I do what I need to do. Hey, how you doing? Meet everybody, set up, and um end up, you know, writing enough business to to make about a thousand dollars that day. You know, and uh look at God. Look at God, look at God, and and and it and from that moment I was like, okay, this can happen. You know, we we we can keep going.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:46

See, and I always feel like most entrepreneurs have that breaking point story where it was like, you got a choice, because I had to make a similar decision for myself, where it was like I could have easily eased back into the comfort of another job. For sure. Or I could have stayed the path and continued on my entrepreneurial journey. And I think when you have to take that risk, and I mean it's in biblical teachings as well, too. Like, give me your all. Don't come with half. Give me it all. Give me give me everything. Prove it.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

Yeah, prove how much do you want this?

SPEAKER_03 1:07:15

And when you put that on the line and said, you know what, this is a big gamble, but the safest bet I think anybody can ever make is on themselves. Yeah. And you said, I'm gonna overdraft this bank account, I'm gonna overdraft, I'm gonna get what I need to get. And you showed up in the form that you're supposed to, and things happened.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:29

And it worked out. And uh, you know, it it thankfully it's you know continued to be a steady trajectory since. Not saying, it's not always easy to do. Oh, yes, because at every level gets harder. It gets harder. Like, there's been times even in running the business where it's like you're we're on the brink of insolvency, and then a case comes that changes the game, or you know, we're able to access you know some capital or something that came through the cane and gave us some more liquidity, you know, to keep going and keep you know making the payroll that we need to make. These things are happening all the time.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:02

It's it's not about it's not about you know it just being good or being able to show up in the bad times. It's all about being consistent. I remember one of my early mentors said, listen, you have good days, you have bad days. Some days, he said, some days you're gonna um you're gonna leave, you know, finish working for the day. You'll feel like stopping at every happy hour along the way because it's so good. Some days you're gonna want to leave and find the first bridge and jump off.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:26

Yep.

Black History Roots In Insurance

SPEAKER_00 1:08:27

He said, but you can't let your highs get too high, you can't let your lows get too low, you just gotta be consistent all the time. And that's really what entrepreneurship is all about. It's about consistency, yes, and it's about continuing to produce no matter what. You asked me about the books and and the life insurance, so I kind of combine those two. One of the things that I learned about in the li in life insurance and my in my study in that, and then as I continue to grow in the industry and and at and the way that I interact with the industry, I started to notice uh being at executive you know level, uh levels of leadership and and such, I'm like, man, there aren't many people that look like me in this space. So one of the the things that I took it upon myself to do was to I started to look for books about you know black professionals in the insurance industry and financial services. I could not really find it about saying one whole lot there. No, I couldn't really find it. Um eventually there's one book that I found by Lexa Henderson called uh about Atlanta Life Insurance. But at this time I hadn't even found that book. And I said, man, you know what? I can't find this book, but I know there are stories, I know we're stakeholders. And I said, I'm gonna just write the book. Now, one of the stories that I found growing up in Richmond, Virginia, was about William Washington Brown. William Washington Brown chartered the first African-American-owned bank in the United States. This was in 1887, 1888. Okay, started bank 1887, charted in 1888.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:52

Is that that block that we call Black Wall Street here in Richmond?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:54

It's it's in Jackson Ward, kind of off to the off to the side, uh, is where that banking institution was. Now, the reason that True Reformers Bank started, and this is a gentleman who was born enslaved in Georgia, came up to Virginia, he is he escaped uh enslavement, joined the Union Army during the Civil War, came out of the Civil War, uh, started a fraternal organization called the Grand United Order of True Reformers, which these uh fraternal organizations and mutual aid societies were very popular for protecting uh communities uh right after Reconstruction. And the Grand United Order of True Reformers created an insurance program for their members, a life insurance program. It was the first um black organization to use uh mortality tables to determine the premiums because this is how life insurance is determined. It's older, it's more expensive when you're older, just older versus when you're longer, younger, and these are based on mortality tables. So they were the first black organization to utilize immortality tables and uh the life insurance premiums that they collected uh from their members to help with the burial expenses should they die, uh, were the were the revenue that were utilized to create and fund this True Reformers Bank. So when we talk about, when you hear about True Reformers Bank, which most people don't even hear about True Reformers Bank, especially in Richmond, what we normally hear about in Richmond is Consolidated Bank. We hear about Maggie Walker, Consolidated Bank. But here's the thing Maggie Walker ran the uh Order of St. Luke's. The Order of St. Luke's also had an insurance program, and they started St. Luke's Penny St. Business loan from those proceeds, and she was inspired to do that by who? William Washington Brown and the True Reformers and their insurance program that preceded uh what she did by about you know 30, 40 years. So, and what she did, she just took it to another level, right? To start the first black and woman-owned bank happy women's history month, as we recorded in March, uh, you know, in the entire country. But those stories, William Washington Brown being one, Alonzo Herndon down in Atlanta and Atlanta life insurance, and what he was able to do being uh being uh also formerly enslaved, then becoming a barber, learning and listening to the individuals whose hair he was cutting, which were white businessmen in Atlanta. Uh he learned about real estate, was able to buy property, utilized proceeds from the property to buy a failing mutual aid company that ended up becoming a line of life insurance, which at one point was the largest black-owned institution in the country. A company that was thriving all the way up to the 1960s. Uh, then, you know, has has has now is now entering uh a bit of a re-emergence since Magic Johnson purchased them a couple years ago to North Carolina Mutual and the entire Raleigh Durham area being built by um the found John Merrick, who was the founder there, and CeCe Spaulding, who's an incredibly successful and well-known businessman from the 1930s, 40s, 50s, uh called the most influential black man in America in the 1950s, as a matter of fact, working for an insurance company, uh, all the way to A. G. Gaston down in Alabama, uh, starting Booker T. Washington uh insurance company, and that insurance company creating the foundation for his funeral home businesses, his hotel businesses, his restaurant businesses to become Alabama's first black millionaire, and one of the primary funders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was Martin Luther King's organization that he started, and the Gaston Motel served as the headquarters for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when they were doing their protests down in Alabama. You know, so all of these are rooted back to black-owned insurance companies, life insurance primarily, that were funding staff, funding the funding uh the community, protecting the community, providing uh uh structure, comfort, and helping to fund some of the civil rights initiatives that we hear hear about, you know, to this day. Because we hear about civil rights, and you know, we even heard a couple things about the banking institutions. We don't hear about the insurance participation. Yeah, no. So I wrote three books, you know, really to deal with that. Black pioneers of the American insurance industry, black innovators of the American insurance industry, and black visionaries of the American insurance industry. And I'll take, I'll give you one more. First, black Fortune 500 CEL. You know who that was?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:24

Not Robert F. Smith?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:26

No, no, he was not. He was not. Uh even before Robert F. Smith, you had um you had um, what's my guy? Reginald Lewis. Oh yeah. But it wasn't him either.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:36

Why should white guys have all the fun? Right, right, right. It was Which my dad went to college with him at uh Virginia State University. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:43

Did he play football? Did your dad play football?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:44

Nah, nah, he was a track guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:45

That's what's up. Um the the first Fortune 500 CEO in America was a gentleman by the name of Clifton Wharton Jr. Clifton Wharton, that Fortune 500 C that Fortune 500 company was T I A Cref, which is the life insurance and annuities companies that is utilized by educators around the country. So the first black Fortune 500 CEO was the CEO of an insurance company.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:10

Yeah, I gotta go get the book. If y'all listen to this episode and you don't call this man and get a life insurance policy right now, I don't know what you're doing with your life. Uh, dude, this is awesome. I'm definitely ordering those books.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

I I need you to uh look call me to call me to help you with your employees and your in your business. I want to see you grow and scare your business. Look, we we say we don't sell insurance, we sell vibes, you know, vision, integrity, bridges, efficiency.

Where To Find Rod And His Books

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

Oh, you gotta let me market that, dude. You gotta let me market that. That's too easy in my bro, man. We can kill that. Well, if people want to find more information on you, they want to work with you, they want to get the books, working to get more get in contact with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:45

So more more information on the insurance side, uh, just go to encoreinsured.com, E-N-C-O-R-E, I-N-S-U-R-E-D.com. I had to work on that. Yeah, I'm like that out. Encoreinsured.com. Uh you can reach out uh on social media uh for an Encore Insured. You can reach out on LinkedIn, Gerard J-A-R-R-A-R-D, Powell. There are two of us on LinkedIn, myself and my son. We're the only two powers uh on LinkedIn. Uh he does work in insured, so don't get us confused. But reach out on LinkedIn and uh if you're on IG, if you're feeling spicy, you can reach out to me on IG as well at the Rod Powell. T-H-E-R-O-D-P-O-W-E-L-L.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:29

And we gotta get you on TikTok, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:31

So I'm gonna talk to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

I'm gonna talk to you about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

But you know what? Here's the thing. So I I do have a TikTok page. It's it's not it's uh my platform because I also host a podcast, an insurance career-based podcast called You Should Get a License. Beautiful. Uh called Most Underrated Uh Industry and Business Today. And uh that is your number one source for information, education, and inspiration on the most underrated industry in business. Uh, you should get a license, the podcast, also the book. That's my fourth book. You should get a license, the book. We talk about insurance careers, what opportunities are available, the designations that you can pursue, as well as the associations and organizations that uh support uh transitioning professionals uh and emergent leaders in the marketplace. So you got the three books black pioneers, black innovators, black visionaries, and then you have the you should get a license book as well. So let's stay connected.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:19

Perfect. Love it, man. Appreciate you being here today, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:22

Appreciate you, man. Thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:23

Absolutely. We'll see you guys on the next episode.