From Homeless to Millionaire

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In this episode of Wealth Made Simple, Karlton Dennis sits down with Jermaine Jones, a self-made entrepreneur who built a multi-million-dollar tax business from the ground up — starting with nothing but a hotel room, two laptops, and a relentless drive to change his life. Jermaine opens up about his humble beginnings growing up in Orlando, the challenges he faced as a young father, and how he went from being unemployed and nearly homeless to running 28 tax offices across six states.

Jermaine shares the pivotal moment that pushed him out of corporate America and into entrepreneurship — when he discovered the potential of the tax industry through a chance conversation. What began as a desperate leap of faith became a structured, community-driven business model that thrives without traditional advertising, relying instead on grassroots marketing, local relationships, and a focus on accessibility and trust. His story is not just about making money, but about reclaiming time, creating opportunities for others, and redefining what’s possible with limited resources.

The conversation goes beyond business success and dives into the emotional and mental toll of rapid growth, financial freedom, and facing inner demons. Jermaine talks candidly about overcoming depression, battling alcoholism, and ultimately emerging stronger, with a renewed purpose to help others find financial independence. Whether you're looking for inspiration, practical advice, or proof that you can start where you are, this episode delivers a raw and honest roadmap to building wealth on your own terms.

#wealthmadesimple #jermainejones #taxplanning

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:04

All right, y'all. Welcome to Wealth Made Simple. I'm here with Jermaine Jones. I'm super excited to be here with you, man. You flew all the way down from Orlando for me to rip this podcast. Yeah. And we met in person only a couple weeks ago, but we did it in a big way. We went to F1, man. I'm glad that we got to we got to sit down and do this podcast. Thank you for coming down.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hey, I'm I'm honored, first of all, that you would invite me, you know, especially with me being like a new guy on the scene. You know, there's so many people who've been out here teaching and coaching and popping their stuff and you know, blazing trails for like years on Instagram, you know. So for you to be getting this thing going and to bring somebody like me in when you have the opportunity to bring anybody, it means a lot.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

You know, and um, this is not really a far trip for me, man. This is a 30-minute flight, bro. I do this anytime. I'll do it just to hang out, come and get dinner, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, I'm gonna do it. Well, no, I'm glad you came on.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

I'm glad you came on because I immediately connected with your message on Instagram when I started seeing you talk about tax and sharing with other people that you can start a tax business. Yes, I got inspired. So I kind of want to break that all down. But before we get down that road, talk to me a little bit about your journey. You grew up here in Florida. When did you decide to go into entrepreneurship? And is that something that all your family members are in, or is or is it something that just you did?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

So um, you know, the crazy thing is my dad was an entrepreneur, right? He owned the cleaners in the hood in Orlando for many, many years, you know. And I watched him take care of so many people and look out for his community in a major way. He never made um a crazy amount of money, you know, but he always looked out for his family and he looked out for his community. So, you know, subconsciously he was programming me. Not I'm never even thinking that I'm gonna be an entrepreneur because I thought I was gonna be a rapper. Wow. Right? I can I'm cold. Okay, okay. We're not doing it right now, maybe on the next podcast. Right? All right, but you know, I thought I was gonna be a rapper, you know, or an or or an actor or an entertainer. That's what I thought I was gonna be. So entrepreneurship wasn't necessarily, even though that is kind of entrepreneurship like this type, it wasn't in the cards for me. You know, it wasn't until I left, I grew up, I left and I went to school. I went to Florida State. Okay. Um I was studying marketing and finance.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah. Um was that double major or you? Double major. Okay, wow.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

I'm up there having a great time. I'm just at the time, FSU's number one party school in the nation, FAMU is the number one HBCU, and TCC was the number one community college. They're all in Tallahassee. Like, so we are going crazy up there. And um I remember just hanging out, having a good time. Some years passed. I applied for a job at Coca-Cola. I actually went out to Irvine.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

That's where I was interviewed at. Yeah. Stayed there for like three days, you know, a sales job job, did a paper interview, sales job. Okay. Yep. Um, did a panel interview, did like they had like create made some fake mixer just to see how we would network with people and watched us. Yes. Like it was a cool experience. Offered me the job, get back. They called me to work. I'm like, I'm not done with school yet. And they're like, uh, well, we thought you were done with school. So they rescinded their offer.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

And I'm like, yo, I need to check and see what I'm gonna finish. I went and looked. I had already been done. I'm just at the school having a great time taking classes. I'm not even focused. What? I finished in three years. You know what I'm saying? I was a smart kid, bro. But I but I'm a socialite, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:22

So how did you not know you were you weren't done with it?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Not even keeping track, bro. Just up there having the time of my life.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 3:29

But I came back home. Um, I ended up having a daughter while I was up there. So that's how I have my first daughter who's actually at FSU now. Wow. Next year, she's going to law school, so that's major. No student loans, which is amazing. Because in my family, we don't have doctors, lawyers, we don't have any millionaires, we don't have any hyper-successful people at all, whatsoever, across the board. We never took a vacation in our life, never went on a family vacation. The only time we left Orlando was for a funeral or a family reunion. And that was it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Um, seven brothers and sisters, and a three-bedroom home. You know what I'm saying? The whole house 1,300 plus square feet. You know what I'm saying? So, like, this is where I'm coming from. Yeah. So I don't have many examples of success. I had a great example of love, right? My parents, still married, still together, right? Um, but not many examples of success.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So had a dollar, daughter early, come back home, get a job at Sprint. Okay. Doing um retention. At that time, Sprint and NextTale just merged. So the bottom is falling out for Sprint. Like people are leaving left and right. They created a department just to when people cancel, your job is to try to talk them in the stand. Right? So I'm talking about when the phone rings, it's boop, I hate you, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're trying to talk, and then phone rings again, boop, this is the worst first third. You know, I'm dealing with that all day. Wow. You know, so I went from there, B2B sales. Right? Now I think I'm doing okay. I'm making decent money for myself. You know, I'm I'm I'm working like a grown man. I got the black boss finally, you know. So, like, he's more than my boss now. He's my uncle, he's my work dad, he's my mentor, he's everything to me. You know, he's like the guy that protects me, you know, in the corporate environment. So I remember one day, new girl gets hired. I go and talk to her, she tells me how much she gets paid. Her base salary is 10 grand higher than mine. I've been here five years. I'm like, yo, I want to talk to him, like, yo, what's going on? Well, he was like, Oh, well, she got hired from the outside, so we had to pay her the market rate. You were a transfer, so it's different. And he's trying to explain it to me, and I'm like, listen, it's not making sense. So, um, work dad, I'm gonna need you to hook me up with a raise. Yes, get me together as soon as you can. Opportunity came around, the raise didn't come. Wow. And that's at that moment where I was like, oh man, this is not, this is not for me. Yes. They don't love me. Okay, you know, and that's the moment when I started thinking, what can I do? And my thought was, this was my thought. I said, whatever I'm gonna do, I need to do it now because I don't want to be that old guy pulling up in a Ferrari with all around all the young girls trying to stunt because he missed his younger years. He didn't get a chance to do it when he was young. Yeah, you know, and he looks out of place. I want to do it while I'm young and I'm healthy, right? So I gotta start something now.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

What time, what how old were you when you when you had this happen? You were meant to get this raised and then do it.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

I was 30 years old.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

I was 29 going into 30 years old. Yep, right? So, and then keep in mind, and then keep in mind this timeline too, because like a lot of people feel like, oh, I'm so far behind. Yeah. Listen, man, I was 30 when I was just having the thought of trying to figure out I want to do something. Right. You know what I'm saying? So to all you 20 somethings that are feeling like, oh, you're so far behind from where you want to be, you got plenty of time. Oh, but uh, so keep going, right? Boom. I remember I was promoting clubs at night while I was um working the job, right? Okay, and I seen these guys who used to come to the club, and in the beginning, they were like regular dudes. Like I remember I would promote the party, they would like try to ride the coattails of the athletes into the VIP and stuff and take pictures with their bottles and do all that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

And then about two years past, these guys are pulling up in Porsche's and Bentley's and Lambos. I'm like, yo, what they what's going on?

SPEAKER_03 7:19

They went from fake flexing to real flexing. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

So I'm like, yo, what's happening, right? And this is the sad part. First thought, you see some black person doing good in a short amount of time, I'm thinking, man, they gotta be selling drugs, they gotta be scamming, right? And this is it's it's a shame that that's our first thought, but that's what it was at the time.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Because we didn't know any young black people that were getting to it in a legitimate way, if you want an athlete or a rapper. So boom, I meet up with one of them in the daytime, and he tells me I do taxes. And that's when the light went off. Mmm, I can do this because I'm looking for something that gives me time and money. Yeah, right? I don't want to be the guy who works sunup to sundown, comes home, he doesn't have the energy to make love to his wife, and he doesn't have the energy to play with his kids. He goes to sleep, he wakes up, gets in the sports car, and goes back to work every day to the outside world. He looks super successful, but to the people that matter, he he's not there for them.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

I didn't want that, right? So I'm like, I need time and money. And he the guy told me they only work for four months, and then they close the offices and then they're done. So I'm like, oh wow, this is this might be for me. But he says, look, I got an opportunity. Training starts in three weeks. The office I need you to run is in Atlanta. You're either gonna come or you gotta wait till next year. And I was so desperate to leave that I abandoned my job. I abandoned my job, I cashed in my 401k, I only had a couple brands in there. I paid my last couple months of the rent up. I told my roommate, hey, I'm out of here. Yeah, um, he didn't pay his, ended up getting an eviction. And in Orlando, you get an eviction, you can't rent anywhere. So now, boom, red flag. I'm like, man, this is I just put myself in a bad situation. Anyways, keep going, right? I get up and I go to this training and I move to Atlanta.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

I'm living in a that's that's you. Did you move with were you together with your spouse at the time that you had your baby? Where was this situation at?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

No, no, no. So watch, and that's that's crazy, right? I remember when I when I did all of this, everybody was looking at me like, yo, what are you doing? You're throwing your life away.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

You're just making the worst decisions of your life. So now I got in this eviction and I moved to Atlanta. I'm living in this empty house, mattress on the floor, two suitcases, no furniture, no TV, no internet, no nothing. Just boxes of marketing material, flyers and yard signs. And I remember calling my daughter's mom and asking her to borrow a hundred bucks.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

And at that moment, she felt like I was a bum and she disappeared with my daughter. That turned into six years of me not seeing my daughter. All kinds of terrible things happened during that time. You know, so that was a very dark time for me. So now I'm up here. I can't find my daughter. I left my job. So my resume is crap. Right. The only job I had outside of college. I got an eviction, and everybody is against the decision that I just made. And I have to go to work with this every single day. So I'm up at six in the morning, Atlanta is cold. I go with my, put on my sweatsuit. I'm running up and down the stairs, apartment complexes, putting the flyers inside the doors, putting the business cards on the cars. Then I show up to the office with my Zara suit, my shiny suit, and it's all I had. You know, and um I would put the boxes of marketing material on the ground because at the time we did not have furniture in the office. It was on Godby Road in Old National. In Atlanta, that's the slums. Yeah, that's where TI came up, that's where Waka Flocka came up. Like I all the stories are true. Yeah, right? And I in them office is in the trailer where a WIC office used to be, like a you know, government assistance office used to be. Yeah, right? So not even no sign on it. I'm like, yo, I'm calling this dude. Like, bro, you're gonna put a sign on my office? You got me up here looking crazy. Yeah, we'll get to it. He never even shows up, right? So boom, I'm hiring people while I'm out marketing, build a team. Long story short, I ran this office, sun up to sundown, seven days a week, 14 hours a day. And one day I go back to the office and the locks are changed, all the computers are gone. And there's a phone number on a piece of paper that's taped to the door.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Uh uh.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

And that's how it ended for me. Nothing. Daughter's gone. Eviction? No, no, no. He took everything and left me. Left me. Yeah. You know? So now I'm crying, driving back to this empty house. Like, what did I just do? My whole life is over. You know, I don't know where my daughter's at. Where am I gonna get a job? How am I gonna find a place to live? I was so embarrassed to go home that I just went back to Orlando, put all my stuff in the storage unit, and I would just park my car in visitor parking on the college campus like apartments and just crash in the car. I would go to whoever's house would let me stay. I would crash on the couch, I would go to the gym, shower up in the gym, go back to the storage unit, open it up. I had an iron in there, they had a plug on the ground, I'll plug it up, I'll iron my clothes right there, put my stuff on, and go on about my day and try to figure out my life, you know. And I remember getting a customer service job, saving up about 800 bucks, and I opened up my first tax office because I ran that office. So I knew what to do. Yeah, I knew enough. He didn't teach me everything about the back but back end, but I knew enough. And I opened up my first tax business in a hotel room.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Yeah, right by the floor of the mall, right across from Best Buy. If you live in Orlando, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It used to be a nice hotel, it's run down now. Yeah, on the inside, they have units, they rent them out to junkies on the outside. They just let random businesses rent month to month in the units, like to do whatever they want. So I had enough to get a month. I had two tables that I basically stole from IKEA, and I had two laptops I stole from Best Buy, and um I opened up, printed out my flyers on Microsoft Word, cut them up, went to the bus stop where the mall is at because everybody used to line up at this big bus stop, pass out flyers, and I begged everybody I knew to come and file taxes with me. And I took that opportunity, and with years and years of just good decision making, trying the best that I can with no mentor, no help, nobody to tell me if what I'm doing is right and wrong, just falling and getting up. I've now scaled it to 28 locations in six days.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

28 locations? Yeah, starting off in a hotel room. Absolutely. All right, so reel is back for me. So you went to school for marketing. Yes. No tax degree. No, I didn't even get a tax degree either, which that's for another conversation. But you started your tax business in a hotel. How do you get people to show up to a hotel room and give you money and transact with you? Was this them giving information on some type of online portal? Did we even have those at that time? Like, what would make people trust you to show up to a hotel room and let you file their returns?

SPEAKER_01 13:59

Um, I think a couple of things. For one, I think people always knew me to be a good person. So there was a certain amount of credibility that I had. It wasn't no extreme level of credibility, but it was enough to get a few people to give me a chance. And then after I did good by them, it was enough for them to tell somebody, right? And I just kind of built my client base like that. Just one person at a time, just begging people, asking strangers, like canvassing, going door to door, uh business to business, just passing out flyers, telling people I can help them out, and then just whoever would come. I didn't make any money that first season, I only made 13 grand. Yeah, that wasn't enough to get me back on my feet. You know, I it wasn't enough to get me in a place. You know, it was just enough to get my car out of repo status and you know, give me enough confidence to say, all right, I'm gonna move back home with my mom, you know. Yeah, and um so so what the way I was preparing taxes is I was not doing like high-level tax strategy, what you do, right? I was doing taxes for the everyday job. Okay, 1040s, yeah. The most basic stuff. And then maybe a schedule C here and there. Yeah, nothing else, maybe a schedule A here and there, nothing else. And the way it happened, they would come in, I would file their taxes on my software, yeah, and then I would take my fee out of their return. So there was no money that actually needed to be paid up front. And what it did is it gave me the opportunity to show them what I can do. Because look, you don't need to show up with any money, just show up with your stuff. I'll prepare it. If you like what I did, file with me. Yeah, if you don't like what I did, then I respect it. You know what I'm saying? Yes. So then I every opportunity I had to show somebody what I can do, I showed them the best. And I charged them a very small amount of money, and I would just beg them for referrals.

SPEAKER_03 15:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Beg and begging, begging, begging, begging, begging, begging.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

And so in that first tax season, how many returns did you say you filed?

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Less than 40.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

Less than 40. Okay, cool. So that probably got done in a couple weeks, maybe a month or so.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

Yeah, it I mean, it took me, it took me two and a half months, you know. Yeah. Because I'm coming from out of nowhere. I'm in a hotel room, first of all. Like, you know what I'm saying? Who wants to show up to the hotel to do their taxes? You know, and then like people like, you know, I'm coming from a dire situation. Like, you know, it's one thing when when you don't look like you need any help, that's when everybody wants to help you. Of course. That's when everybody wants to be there. Of course. But when you look like you need something, that's when people stray away from you. Right. So I was fighting that stigma. I was fighting rumors, I was fighting the appearance of me filing in a hotel room. I was fighting the fact that I'm not an EA, I'm not a CPA, I'm not an accountant, I'm none of the above. I'm just a guy who used to rap and was cool and threw parties and now I'm doing taxes.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

You know? So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

It was tough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Every single client was a journey.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

So when you got when you got that first bit of money, what did you do with it? Did you move back home with your you said you moved back home with that?

SPEAKER_01 16:58

I'll tell you what I did. I I I got my car to repo status. I I fixed it aesthetically. Like I fixed all of the buttons, like the shocks used to squeak, so I fixed the shocks.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

And I got it looking good and sounding good, and I sold it. And I got 10 grand. Okay, wow. Then I went and financed a car. It was a Chrysler 300, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

And I took the money that I had left and I went on Craigslist because my girlfriend at the time was the one that made my logo, and she did it on a crappy computer with a demo version of like um Photoshop. Yeah. Right. So I said, listen, we're gonna start a graphic business. I went to buy her a laptop on Craigslist with the real software so that we can do this. We're gonna be partners. We're this how we're gonna make money until the next tax season, right? So when I went to buy it, the kid that I bought it from was this dusty little kid, but he had this brand new MacBook state of the art in the box and with the plastics on it. And in my mind, I'm like, hold on, this ain't this don't sound right. You know what I'm saying? Because he's about to sell me this computer, it's a $2,200 computer. He's selling it to me for $800. I'm from the streets. So I know somewhere in the hood, somewhere, some Apple products and fell off the truck and you got some.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:12

So I hit him after I checked it out and made sure it was good, I hit him back, like, listen, bro, can you get more of these? He said, Yeah. I said, What's stopping you from getting a lot of stuff? Is it money? He said, Yeah. I said, Listen, bro, I promise you, if you take every dollar to your name and go back to the guy where you got that laptop from and buy everything that he has, I promise you, you won't have to see another customer but me. I'll you can come to me and I'll get it all off you.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

He said, okay. I didn't hear from him for a week. Didn't hear from him for another week. The third week he hit me back and said, Hey, I got some stuff. I pulled up on him. It was like 10 MacBooks, eight iPhones, six Google phones, all kinds of crazy stuff. I gave him like four grand for everything. I took it, sold it, made 30 grand. Did that two times. Did that two times. That's how I made the money to go and open up my first real office.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

Just flip, just flip products. Yep. That is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

I listed them back on Craigslist.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Ended up finding a guy. I went to a Burger King to meet a Venezuelan guy.

SPEAKER_02 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

And he was this, he did the same thing I did to the guy. He was like, you get more of this? I'm like, yeah. He's like, I'll buy everything from you. Right? He turns out to own a cell phone store and be a guy that would like send phones over to Venezuela. So I just would buy everything from him, give everything to him. Anything you didn't just get the money. I did it, brother. I did signatures. I was doing petitions while I was doing that. And selling snapbacks out of my trunk.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Anything.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Anything. Just to get me to the next tax season.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

Because you needed money because you're making money from January through April 15th. Yeah. But after April 15th, all the returns are filed. Yeah. So you got a solid eight months of no income. So you're hustling. Right. You're doing anything to survive. And selling products was something that you felt familiar with because you had a background in marketing. You understand that you can get this out. Yeah. And so you found some people that were interested in buying those, and you probably kept some of it for yourself for your business. Okay, so how did you how did you transition to an office space and what did the office space look like?

SPEAKER_01 20:12

All right. Okay, so look, I remember after I had my little coins together from doing that, I was driving around the city looking for an office.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

A guy that I was cool with at the time, he was like, I know the perfect spot for you. Right? So keep in mind, this is after my dad's cleaners had shut down at this time. Like the there's some shady stuff happening, and the guy that owned the plaza kicked him out of his unit because he wanted to split that unit in two and charge higher rent. And my dad had like some old rent from back in the day, and it was way below market. So he just he kicked my dad out, right? So I'm driving back around the corner from the cleaners that my dad used to own in the hood. And there was this crack house that'd been sitting on the corner of Ivy Lane for years, abandoned. Grass three feet high, barrel in the back with a fire in it, dogs in there, the fence got holes in it, you know, where crackheads come in and out, dogs come in and out. But I'm looking at this location and I'm like, there's a bus stop right here, there's a daycare across the street, there's four churches down here, there's the guy that sells barbecue right here, there's the lady that sells fried fish right here. This is a gold mine. So there was a phone number like on the front outside of the building. I called that number. Somebody actually answered that number. I wasn't expecting anyone to answer. That house has been there for years, abandoned.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Called her, told her I wanted to rent it. They said okay. I came in, I cut the grass up. I went in that house. There was cobwebs, linoleum, old wallpaper with flowers on it and stuff like that. I took that furniture from that hotel, I put it in there, got a couple more chairs and tables. I put a carpet over the linoleum. I tore up the uh the wallpaper, primered it up, painted it yellow, painted the whole outside of the house yellow. And I had a guy from my church come and Spray paint safe tax on the side of it. I got a picture. I have a picture somewhere in my phone of him spray painting that out there. Wow. Right? And that's how I opened my first office. Wow. And it still didn't go good. I think I only made like 80 grand that season. Wow. Because my first employees ran out on me. Right, right, right. Ran out on me. So I had to do it all myself again. You know, so I think I only made like 80 grand that season.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

But it was better than last.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

And you learned a lot more. Learned a lot more. So what did you learn from first season, second season?

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Man. I learned the value in like the appearance and the aesthetics and how you present yourself. Yep. You know what I'm saying? 100%. Because I'm the same person, but just because now I'm in an office, even though the office was raggedy, it's better than the hotel room. Right? And then I had invested in getting like a shirt, mate. Well, actually, no, I didn't have shirts at that time. You know, I had a decent car, I was, I was doing better for myself. And, you know, my flyers looked better, everything looked a little better. Just that change alone, I didn't change the way I spoke to people when I was outside marketing. I didn't change the type of service I was doing. I didn't change anything else. Just that change alone let allowed a lot more people to trust me. Yeah. So I was like, okay, wow, so this actually means something. I need to invest in making this office look as good as I can make it look. Yeah. Especially in this industry. This is a trust-based business. This is not a convenience. It is a trust-based business. We all drive by a tax office that's right by our house that we'll never see the inside of. You know what I'm saying? Why? Not because they don't do good work. Because if somebody didn't refer you, if somebody that you know didn't go there or whatever the reason may be, like you're not going in. Nope. Yeah, I don't, I'm not going to give you my personal info just because you're right by the house. Nope. Right? You know, so that was the biggest thing that I learned there. And then I also learned that I can't do it alone. I have to figure out a way to get people to trust me enough to work with me and get my resources to a place where I can build a team.

SPEAKER_03 23:58

Right. So talk to me about building a team, right? Because I've learned about building a team over the years of struggles of finding the right type of professionals and just learning how to work with people. How did how did you learn from the mistakes that happened with the first employees that kind of ran out? And when did you get your next employee? And was that an employee that stuck with you?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah. So what I was what I would what would end up being a lesson that I a problem that I would not be able to solve for years is how to find good help. Yeah. Right? That ended up being an uphill battle for me. Yeah. So I didn't solve it from that season to the next season. It was for several seasons after that my turnover was super high, and I'm bringing people in that I thought were good and it just didn't pan out. Yeah. You know, I'm looking for certain characteristics and people that I think that would translate over, and you know, I'm not doing a good job of picking. That ended up being an uphill battle for many, many, many years, right? So it was just something that I started working on that I never stopped working on. Yeah. You know, so that was like the main thing. Um, my next employees came very fast because while I'm out passing out flyers and business cards, I'm like, hey, I can do your taxes. And if you need a job, I know someone that needs a job, I'm hiring, right? And I'm doing that to everybody that I meet. So eventually I just found a couple people that needed a job desperately and they came to work for me.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

And one of them stuck with me for years.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

And he ended up being like my mentee. When I got my first apartment, I moved him in. I let him stay with me for free for years. I put clothes on his back. I put his first blazer on him. I put nice shoes on him. Like I really molded this guy. And then he even started to look like me. People would think we were brothers, you know, because we were wearing the same hair and the same type of dressing the same, you know. And it ended up being a rough situation because there was a point where he ended up doing something very shady, and um, it hurt me a lot, and I had to separate from him, and it kind of messed up my trust. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? It messed up my trust.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Yeah, could you let him in?

SPEAKER_01 26:03

I did, I did, but it didn't stop me. I kept going, you know. So to say some more employees came fast, I didn't necessarily solve the problem right away. It's been an uphill battle for years, and I'm still working on finding the perfect mix of people, right? But it's now at a larger scale.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

You know, because in the season now I might have 380 um preparers working for me. You know, so on a larger scale now, I'm trying to figure out the recruiting um situation. But yeah, man, that that is like, and I think for anybody's business, man, that is like a probably one of the biggest problems that need to be solved. Yes. How to find good talent, where to find good talent, and how to like discern the people that you're how to vet the people that you're bringing in.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

You know why I think it's one of the hardest things that business owners struggle with is because as a business owner, you don't put enough emphasis on recruiting the same way you put emphasis on sales and marketing. I think most people think the lifeblood of a business is sales and marketing. But if you're running a true organization, you understand over time sales and marketing are just byproducts of what you have to do. Recruiting becomes one of the pillars that you really spend your time focused on. Absolutely. Because you need the best people around you at all times. And if you're running a large enough organization, churn rate is inevitable. You will have people that will find other things or different circumstances will arise. And if you don't have key people to fill in for when those people leave, you're just going through storms every single year. Yes. And brother, I like I like when it's sunny. That's how I came here to Florida, bro. I want to see the sun all the time. I live between here and Cali. The sun's got to be right. And it wasn't right for me and my business until I went all in on recruiting. Right now, fast forward us to stabilizing the first business to the point where you felt comfortable to start a second one. How did you get one business to a point where, okay, I don't have to do anything anymore, I can go start another.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

I had a good team, and and and I spend a lot of time pouring into my people and developing my people. I would take notes on them, on what they're struggling with. Like I had like a little note page, and like it would have each employee's name on it. And I would just take notes when I see things that they struggle with. Oh, this person struggles with this, this on the Schedule C. Oh, they're not good at outside marketing, you know. This person is, and then I would work on their weaknesses with them. And I built up over time, developing the people that I had into a good enough team to where it was like, I feel like everybody in here could potentially run an office. And I remember one of my employees was like, hey, I gotta move back home with my mom up in um Orangeburg, South Carolina, and I don't know what I'm gonna do up there. And I'm like, I know what you're gonna do. Don't worry about anything. Don't get a job, I'm gonna open an office for you. And that's what you're gonna do. Open an office for her. She ran it successfully. She ends up purchasing a home, purchasing two cars, purchasing, starting a restaurant, a food truck. It changed her whole life. And everyone in that office that was there with me, they all ended up running another office. And that's how I started to grow with the people that were right up under me when I was in that office the last year managing for myself.

SPEAKER_03 29:22

Yeah, you run this off the offices for them.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

I opened all the offices.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Not partnered with them, but you opened the offices.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

I opened the offices for them and you know, I would give them a profit share. So what I would do is I would give them a base salary, yeah, and then based on their goal, I would profit share with them and give them a percentage. Yeah, you know. So now that we're at a place now to where we're doing pretty well, I have managers that make upwards of $200,000 in four months working for me. That's working.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

You know, and I have affiliates which are people that I brought in, they would they were probably friends or family that saw me doing good and wanted some help. And I said, come on, I'm gonna open up an office and I'm gonna teach you how to open up an office. And I have some of them who make seven figures now in four months, you know, and then and then we close up.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

So talk to me a little bit about how the business grew if you're not there, right? Because you did the marketing, you got the relationships, but then now you're opening up offices in other places. How did you how did you build relationships in these other locations if you're not physically there?

SPEAKER_01 30:27

So, for one, the first thing I did was make sure that my model was solid, right? Okay, I had a model that worked. And as I started to grow, I realized that no matter where I put this, it works. As long as the people behind it are the right people. Gotcha. You know? Okay. So then I had confidence in my model. And once I had confidence in my model, I just started to seek out places that I felt like were good markets that I wanted to start building a footprint. And I would always go behind the personnel. So, like if I knew somebody in Atlanta that I felt like was talented, that needed an opportunity that I could trust, I'm gonna open up an office for you.

SPEAKER_02 31:05

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:05

That's where we're gonna go. Orangeburg, I'm gonna open up one. Columbia, I'm gonna open up one, Tampa, I'm gonna open up one, and then the list goes on, you know, and that's how I started to grow. I would always wait until I found somebody that I felt confident in that I can trust, that I could build around, and I would open up an office for them and put them in. Got it.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

So talk to me about the model then, because you you you figured out the type of people that you need. And then you you knew that you had this model so you can go and run it. But what is the model?

SPEAKER_01 31:34

So, for one, we don't do any modern marketing whatsoever. Okay, we don't do any ads. Okay. We don't do any affiliate marketing, we don't do any radio ads, we don't do any billboards, we don't do anything whatsoever. There's no money going there. The only thing we do for marketing is spend money on flyers and business cards, right? That the employees are passing out themselves. That's it. Right? So that helps us to be able to take home a lot of money because marketing can end up being a big expense. Right. Right, and we build our base of clientele off of the three F's friends, family, and followers.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:15

Right? And we put a huge emphasis on our referral uh pipeline. Right. We have a special way that we go about building our referral pipelines. And we go to the people direct, right? We're not mass marketing at an event with a big sign up while people are talking and hoping that they see us and trying to set up an activation. No, we're going into the communities, we're going into the stores, we're going straight to the people's houses, we're going into homes and we're dealing directly with the people. Yes. And when you treat the people good, the people talk about it. Yes. Right? And they will bring you your next client. And then it becomes a never-ending revolving door of bringing in somebody and then they bring in somebody, and then you get somebody and then they bring somebody and you get somebody and they bring somebody in. Yes. And that's what we do. And then because we're focusing on the simplest taxes, nothing complex. These transactions are 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Yeah. And then they're gone, and then we're going to the next person. That's a volume gain. How many times can I get somebody in front of me for 20 or 30 minutes, right? In a day. Yeah. So if you got eight employees in an office and all eight employees do, let's just for the sake of some numbers, right? Let's say you got five employees. Yeah. And all of them bring two people in in a day. That's 10 clients.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Okay. And let's say your average fee for those preparers or for those returns are 500 bucks. Right? That's $5,000 in one day. Right? And let's say you're open seven days a week, $35,000 a week, multiply by four weeks. It's $100 and $100,000, $30,000, $40,000 a month. Yep. Right? Four months. $400,000, $560,000. That's just two clients a day. That's if everybody's only five people, bring two people a day in a whole 12-hour, 14-hour day that the office is open. And then from there, how many offices can I do? Yes. Right? And then there's things that you can do to affect your margins, how you manage your business, how you manage your payroll, how much money you're spending on flyers and stuff, and office supplies and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? Like your rent, your overhead, different little different little things that you can do to kind of you know the expenses a little bit. Cut the expenses. And then on top of that, there's things you can do to upsell, right? So if you come in and it's like, okay, you want an advance. Okay, so I can give you up to $7,000 of your return today. When you walk out of the door, you'll get a text message, and you'll either be able to come in here and pick up a check or you get a direct deposit the next day with your $7,000 of your money. Okay, cool, that costs, right? That's an upcharge.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Okay, do you want a um do you want the balance of your return five days before your IRS date? Sure. Okay, cool. That's an upcharge. Yeah. Right? Do you want your refund on a tax debit card?

SPEAKER_03 35:02

These are kind of like microloans that you're providing. And if you're giving somebody a microloan, you charge interest on that. Absolutely, absolutely. They may need that money right away because they have other circumstances that it's preventing them from being able to move forward. So they're coming to get that tax return done. Right, right. So do you want to do this mobile?

SPEAKER_01 35:18

You want to do this from the comfort of your home and do it all digital? Okay, cool. Upcharge. Cool, right. And then next thing you know, your average fee can go up from 500 to 800 to 900 to whatever the situation calls for, depending on what the situation is.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

And so if you have the right people in the office that understand this model that you're building, they're not just going in there filing tax returns for friends, family, and what's the other Followers and followers. They're going in there and upcharging friends, family, and followers and getting them back uh their refund faster, um, possibly through that micro loan strategy. Right. And then if they need to get upsold into what? What else are they getting upsold into?

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Um you can get the balance of your return five days faster. Well, you can get a refund transfer, the refund sent to a debit card here, split up and sent to two different places, like this and that. You know, if you need to, if you want to get your stuff done virtually, you're virtually.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

Virtually. So you guys can go to somebody's house as well and file the return at their house.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

Yeah, or we don't have to. We can send you a link, right? You open up the link, you take pictures of your documents, you type in your information, you send it when the open when it hits our computer, it populates in the return already filled out. Well, we just prepare the return, we send it back to you, you get it, you like it, you sign on your phone, that's it. You get a copy, we get a copy, move on.

SPEAKER_03 36:31

Easy enough.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

So that means we can file you anywhere.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Anywhere in the country, we can file you.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

And and my contractors who like, for example, people who got good career jobs and they're not ready to dive headfirst into entrepreneurship. I offer them an opportunity to become a contractor to supplement their income a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 36:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

And here you go, you get off of work, you got four or five people to file. They don't live anywhere near you, they're on a whole nother state. You got your laptop at home. You're 10 on your down here in Miami. You're you're you're you're kiki on the river. You you're eating oysters and you're filing somebody's taxes. You you just paid for your whole trip and a 30-minute transaction. Yeah. One 30-minute transaction. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 37:08

Yep. Mobile entrepreneur. Yeah. Right then and there. So now it's time to build the army. And when you say, when you say it's time to build the army, I want to know where are you at right now in your your phase of growth? How many years have you been in the tax space? When did you go from one office to a second office? Was it like in 2020? When did that happen? And where are you at now? So I started this 12 years ago, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:33

And you got to think, when I'm starting, I'm starting with nothing. Yeah. Right. So in the beginning, there wasn't much growth. In the beginning, it was me digging myself out of a hole, just trying to stabilize myself, have a place to live, have a car. You know what I'm saying? Just have the basic necessities of life. And then you got to keep in mind too that I don't have anybody that's farther along than me that's like coaching me and telling me where to go, what to do, don't do this, don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

I don't have anybody that I look at that I respect and I admire in the space that I can model myself after. You know, so I'm really just figuring this thing out every day, just messing up, getting back up, messing up. And then whenever I mess up, I learn the lesson. Yep. Get up with empowered, ready to go again, mess up, learn something new again. You know what I'm saying? So it wasn't until like my fourth year, fourth or fifth year in that I was like, okay, I'm ready to start scaling now. Yeah. You know, and keep in mind the recruiting thing is hard. So I'm it's hard for me to pick the right people. And then I'm doing all of this out of my pocket. So I didn't have any loans, I didn't have any investors, I didn't have any business partners. So every office that I open that is cash money that I'm taking out. Every person that's getting paid is cash money.

SPEAKER_02 38:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's like it would I did this the hard way, dog.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Yeah, bro. This is self-made.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

The hard way. This is some self-made. You know what I'm saying? And there is like nobody, everybody that was around me, all they could do is give me words of encouragement and open up their hand because they need help.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

They couldn't give me anything. No. You know what I'm saying? So I had to do it this way. And I wouldn't suggest anybody do it this way, especially now. It's so easy to get funding, it's so easy to get money, it's so easy to it's way different now. This is back before social media was even a huge thing like that. You know what I'm saying? So I'm doing this and nobody even knows. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 39:16

It's nuts. Because you have now, what, over 20, you say? Yeah, 28, yeah. So how many employees are does that add up to your between employees and contractors?

SPEAKER_01 39:27

So like it's usually between like three and four hundred, right? So like 380, 360, 40, you know.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

You're managing three to four hundred staff members. Absolutely. Yourself.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah. Well, no, I have a team now. Okay? Yeah. It's it's in and I'm at the place now, right? And this once again, I'm gonna go ahead and take this opportunity to give Carter and George their flowers. Yeah. I really appreciate them, boys, for pushing me to do this, right? Because I would have stayed comfortable and just stayed in the shadows and just not posted on social media. And like, if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't. And it's just whatever. I don't need to grow no bigger than that.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

Shout out to George and Carter for getting this man's message.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

My guys, man. Those are my guys, melanin the money, man. Those are my guys. But um, yeah, man, after they pushed me into the limelight a little bit, and I started sharing my story and sharing what I'm doing, and I've seen how many people would gravitate to me, how many celebrities, how many influencers, people like yourself. You know what I'm saying? That I look at and I respect, and I'm looking at you like, man, this guy is killing it. Like, if I do it, I want it to look like that, you know? And then you DM me one day, and I'm like, wow, this is crazy. Like, this is just me being myself, not knowing what I'm doing. Just putting it out there. I'm like, you know what? There is a whole nother world out here that I have not explored that is ready for me.

SPEAKER_02 40:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

So now I'm like, you know, I'm ready to see where I can take this thing.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

You know what I'm saying? That's kind of where my mind is at now. But, you know, so so keep before this moment, I was never in that mode to where it's like, I'm gonna make this as big as it can be and as crazy as it can be. That's where I'm at now. Yeah. Right. And that's why I'm connecting all of these dots now. And that's why I'm opening up these opportunities for other people to come and join me now. Yeah, right. As a contractor, if you just want to supplement your income, come on, I can show you how to do it.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:13

I had a contractor, which was my little brother, by the way, um, make 168 grand from a laptop. He has four kids.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

How old is he?

SPEAKER_01 41:22

Um, he's in his late 30s. Yeah. Four kids that he raises himself, a single dad, and he, I'm talking about going to basketball practice, doing everything that he does, he made 168 grand from a laptop, right? Contractor. A virtual office owner, right? Yeah. You ain't got the budget to go and do the big brick and mortar thing like that. Okay, cool. Virtual office, right? Let me show you how to get a shared office space. And let me show you how to get contractors, people that got career jobs to work for you and you get an override off of what they do. And then you as long as you got a place to receive mail and take a meeting here and there, you can operate like that. You can make three, four, five hundred thousand dollars like that, right? Just one person. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then the the brick and mortar office owners, you know, people that had the guts and the wherewithal and the resources to go and dive all in and try. It's limitless what you can do. Yeah, you can make a million in one office, you can open up a hundred offices, you can do whatever you want to do. And now here I am, right? On this amazing platform that you have, ready to offer people that opportunity to come in and get involved with me so I can help set them free and they can live this four-month-on, eight-month-off lifestyle. This, this, it's just the biggest blessing.

SPEAKER_03 42:32

Yeah, bro, that's incredible because I'm running a tax strategy firm. I have no off. Like our firm is 365 days. Sure, do we file tax returns during tax season? Yeah. And then do clients go on extension? Most of them do because most of our clients are in investments and you know they're waiting on K1s. Yeah. But then as soon as they file their returns, come, you know, August, September, it's tax planning season all the way till December 31st. Yeah. Brother, we are busy during Christmas. Like, yeah, no vacations for my team during Christmas because that is when we're saving lives. Yeah. But like you're teaching an entirely different model. And, you know, as a business professional, in my mind, I didn't know that it was possible to make that type of bread when you're just focused on one thing. Absolutely. I thought you had to go into advanced. You had it had to be more sophistication over time in order to make more money over time. Because in my mind, I thought, you know, as a business scales, it has to scale its knowledge and services and customers that it's working with. And you're teaching a completely different model.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

I simplified it. That's all I did. I simplified it and made it easy. Not because I wanted to, I had to. I didn't know what you know.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

I didn't know auto tech strategy, right? So I can't teach it, right? I didn't have the resources to do all these amazing things that I have the resources to do now. Yeah. Right? So I had to figure out how to do it without demarketing.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

I had to figure out how to do it the way that I did it. And it and Ended up being something that turns into a blessing, you know, not just for the owners and the financial perspective of it, but the lifestyle part that's the part that is priceless. Yeah. Because I can spend as much time as I want with my kids, with my parents. We can take whatever trips we want to take. I'm going to Europe next week for like three weeks, bro. Let's go. I'm taking a couple people with me. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 44:22

That's the best feeling, being able to do things for family and friends.

SPEAKER_01 44:25

South of France, Lake Como. Are you going? South of France? Yeah, man. I'll be in Monaco. I'll be, yeah, I'll be out there. I'll be in Saint Tropez. I'll be in Monaco. I'll be in Saint Tropez as well. Yeah, bro. Are we linking up? That's what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

It sounds like I'll be out there from the 21st through the 27th. Okay, so I'll be there through the 15th through the 27th. If you're going to be in San Trope that week, we're linking up.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

I'm in San Trope that week.

SPEAKER_03 44:51

It's done, it's locked, I'm staying. All right. It's booked. I'm there. Let's go. Oh, I'm so excited. That'll be fun, man. We're gonna worldwide with it. Yeah, we'll just expand on this conversation. But all right, so for somebody that's trying to figure out where to start, they obviously don't have to get it out the mud the way you did. So where would you tell them to start? To start a virtual business, to go brick and mortar. They don't have no tax experience, they've never filed really tax returns other than their own, maybe on turbo tax. So mentally they're thinking, how do I have how would someone trust me? How would I have the qualifications to go into a tax and accounting business?

SPEAKER_01 45:23

So, I mean, so the thing about it is this it's gonna depend on your budget, your time, and what type of sacrifice are you willing to make? Right? Because I'm gonna go ahead and be real with everybody. It is tedious work and it's very long hours, right? If you're cool with that, then this is the industry for you. And the second thing is what is your budget? Can you afford to do a brick and mortar? Can you afford to do um a virtual office? Can you, or do you, or are you just not ready for it and you just want to supplement your income a little bit for a season or two so that you can make that step. That's gonna determine where you start. I can teach you how to run a tax office in a week. In one week, I can teach you how to run a tax office. Give me seven days, eight to ten hours a day, I'll teach you how to run it. I provide support, right? We have coaching calls every week, once or twice a week, where I'm coaching you through the season, what to expect. Yeah, we look at what you're doing, I give you the audibles to call, I tell you how to maneuver through different situations, right? We have at my headquarters where we help everybody with the high-level customer service issues. So one of your preparers filed someone's taxes, they put the wrong number on the bank account, their money went to somebody else. What do you do? Call my headquarters, Ray, Cordeen, Nairobi. They'll help you out. We can go and get that money back. You know, and then we also have a call center, right? So for all of your preparers, so that they don't have to come to you. Hey, what is this form? I don't know what to do with 8332. You know, what is this? I don't know what to do with this and that. Okay, cool. Call the hotline, they'll answer, they'll tell you how to enter the form, and if it's just too hard for you, they'll remote into your computer and do it for you. You know what I'm saying? Wow. So all of the support, all of the layers are there, and then we have our own community, right? It's kind of like our own company, Facebook, where every office has its channel, each channel has all of the employees of that office in that channel. We can see all of the channels, we can communicate with all of you, we can do it in like as a mass channel where we have everybody in communicate separately with you so that you're always in touch with us. Communication is always open, and we hold your hand from the moment you start in perpetuity. I love that. Right. So every single person that's ever done this with me has been profitable. Wow. 100%. How many students do you have? Um, so I don't have students, right? I've up until now I've had only my affiliates. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? So it's probably been over like the last six years, probably like um about 20 different affiliates.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

And they're all successful. Some of them have made it into the seven-figure territory. All of them have touched six figures multiple times over. You know, and this is consistently, season after season after season after season. I have watched people's lives change. I've seen houses get purchased, I've seen supercars get bought, I've seen trips get taken, I've seen all of this happen from taxes.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Now I'm opening it up to everybody. Yeah. So, students, come on, come in. You want to come? I'm gonna ask Carlton how he puts his school together, and I'll put together a school and come on. You know what I'm saying? And I'm gonna teach you guys how to work for four months and have vacation for the rest of the year.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

You have to do that, brother. I'm gonna hold you to it. Yeah, that's that's mandatory.

SPEAKER_01 48:26

Well, I haven't been living this life, brother.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

I've been living it. Yeah, and and and maybe tell us when did when did the millionaire status happen? Was it year three, year four of running the offices? Like, did you have a big break that pushed you? Did you even notice you were a millionaire when it happened?

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Um I remember the moment it happened. First of all, I've never had a break, right? I never had this hit, this huge hit, because you know, I never did any crazy marketing, I never leveraged social media, I never did anything. I was just coasting through and I was trying to figure this out on my own, right? I didn't have anybody to tell me anything. So everything was experimental. And um, so it was just good decision making, turning a dollar into 10, into a hundred, into a thousand, into ten thousand, into a hundred. Like for years of doing that is what got me where I'm at. You know, and I remember when I first got my first million. I remember I had my first apartment, I was downtown Orlando, um, in a condo, and I remember waking up because the way it happens is every time those returns get funded, you get like a little email with a fee deposit. Oh, okay. Right? So, which is super, super satisfying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

To wake up in the morning and just see you know what I'm saying. Seeing all that money, it's like a stripe, striper. I like my like my stripe account.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Like the money that you thought would change your life one day is now on your wrist. You know what I'm saying? And you're putting it on your wrist every year. Yeah. You know, like your whole concept of money changes at some point. But I remember I woke up and I got all those little notifications, and I rolled over, I looked at my phone, I'm like, okay, and I checked my bank account, and it was like one million and something, something in there. And then I was like, dang, am I a millionaire now? Because I got a million? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I'm like, man, who should I call? I gotta call somebody, I gotta tell somebody. And I was just thinking about who I should call, and no one came to mind. And I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna say nothing. Locked the phone, went back to sleep, and just never looked at it again and just kept going to the next one. Back to work. Just kept going to the next one. You know?

SPEAKER_03 50:26

Next mail.

SPEAKER_01 50:26

I I remember, yeah, I remember one time, like I kind of let my boys peek at one of my accounts. Like, I was down here in Miami, and we were getting ready to go to Tootsie's. And I'm like, you know what? There's a Bank of America across the street. Let me just get my own money out of here before I go in here and let them tax me for the money, them tax me again, and tax me again. So I went and got it, and then I had the receipt had a little balance on it, and I put it right here while I was, I count my money out of the ATM. I don't even trust the ATM. I don't trust nobody. I'm so I'm counting my money, and it was right there, and my boy was like here, here, here, all in the car and stuff. And I'm like, look at this. And I let look at it, it was like, oh, I didn't know you had it. You broke, you broke it. They were like, oh, I know you had it like that. You know what I'm saying? I'm like, you boy doing okay. Yeah, they're like, dinner's on you tonight. Dinner's on you tonight. Yeah, man, you know, so like that's kind of where it all, that's kind of where it all happened. I I think it was when I had my third office. Yeah. My third or fourth office, that's when the first million had finally came in. But you know, we figured out now how to get seven figures out of one office now.

SPEAKER_03 51:32

Wow. And you have 20.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

So half of them I own myself, and the other half are owned by my affiliates.

SPEAKER_03 51:39

That's awesome. Okay, cool. So talk to me a little bit about what money has done for you now. Like you're done with tax season, we're we're in June, you have the rest of the summer and winter to just chill. Coast? Yeah. Or what exactly do you do?

SPEAKER_01 51:56

So for many years, I just chilled and partied and worked out and partied and ate whatever, ate out every meal every day, seven days a week, eating nothing in the house. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? And I did that for years. And I'm not gonna lie, I found myself going into a very dark place because when you have that much time and resources, it can pull you to a dark place. Because then you can start doing whatever comes to your mind. Yep, you know what I'm saying? Yes. So I went there, I went through that, yeah, you know, and during that time, man, I battled with depression, I battled with alcoholism, I battled with self-doubt. You know what I'm saying? I battled with so many demons that I conquered in that space, and I've come out now, right? So now understanding money and what to do with it, and understanding myself and growing as a person and just knowing that I have conquered all of these things, and they can't defeat me anymore. It's like I'm not afraid to go to the darkest places to find that message or to connect with that person or to get that closure that I need to get because all of these demons, I've already conquered them, and to be honest, they don't want to see me again. You know what I'm saying? Alcoholism don't want no parts of me, depression don't want no parts of me. I'm too strong now, I know myself too much. But, you know, so now I've gotten to the point to where I'll find a good job for my money.

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

So that I can keep chilling. Yes. Because I don't want to stop chilling. No. So I'll put my money in crypto.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Um, I'll put my money in stocks, kind of like the portfolios that George puts together for Carter and stuff like that. You know what I'm saying? And all of his students. I will take the money and I will build um houses, single family homes, and then sell them. You know, and yeah, so I would I would do that with it, you know, and um, those were like the main things that I would do with my money. Yeah, you know, nowadays, you know, so that I can do what we're doing now and I can chill. Yeah. And go to France and go to Africa and hang out, hit all the islands, and hit all the parties.

SPEAKER_03 53:56

That is so crazy.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

I'm going to New York tomorrow, man.

SPEAKER_03 53:58

You living, bro. Are you heading out straight to New York?

SPEAKER_01 54:01

Um, I'm gonna go tomorrow morning.

SPEAKER_03 54:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

Yeah, tomorrow morning I'm gonna head out.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

What's in New York for you?

SPEAKER_01 54:05

Uh, my boy Darren. I'm not sure if you know Darren Hawthorne. I don't think so. Okay, okay. Well, Darren, he's another guy that you might want to have on here. Shout out to Darren and Golden Crust. Darren owns Goldencrust, which is the biggest black-owned restaurant franchise in the US. Well, right? 130 locations, right? He's already just killing it. You know what I'm saying? And him and his partners are opening up a lounge in New York called the Lavender Room, right? So, you know, when I show up, Darren, I need all of these cameras. I need bottles on the house, right? This is a shameless plug right here. I need bottles on the house. But um, I'm I'm gonna pull up and go and support his um his grand opening, his soft opening uh tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

Wow there. Yeah, well man, have some fun.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 54:53

Dude, well, it looks like we're gonna be uh partying in France for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

We are 100%.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

I'm excited, I'm excited. We'll talk tax strategy while we're out there as well, and uh how we're gonna take over, yeah, take over the rest of the United States one person at a time. Absolutely, bro. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people follow you at? Where can people find you at?

SPEAKER_01 55:13

So they can find me at IM Jones407. So that's I A M J O N E S 407 on Instagram, on YouTube, on TikTok, you know, um, most of my content is posted on Instagram, you know. So I'm working on the YouTube and the TikTok thing, but um, that's where you can find me.

SPEAKER_03 55:32

Yeah, you grew your following pretty quickly. Any tips for people out there that are trying to spread their message, trying to spread their voice?

SPEAKER_01 55:38

For sure, which is with the irony of a guy with his following asking me to tell people how to get followers. Right. But but I'll I will say this for one, make sure that every piece of content that you put out adds some sort of value. Whatever it is, right? If you're niche down or if you're not, just add value with your content. Number two, make sure that you're starting posting consistently. If you can do it daily, that's fine. If you can do it three times a week, that's fine. But just find what works for you. Start and then don't stop. And then the third thing I would say is pay attention to what the people actually like because you'll notice patterns, right? You'll notice that, man, when I'm outside standing by my cars with a bright colored shirt on, people are going crazy, right? Okay, stick with that, run with that, right? Don't stop doing other stuff, but go to what works. And I think those three things without giving people too much and overloading them, if you just start with those three things right there, then you know, and last thing I would say I would add is engage. Yeah, engage in your comments, engage in your DMs with people. And that's how you're gonna build that following, make people that stay and keep coming back and keep looking and keep talking. Because man, you don't know what it means sometimes when people comment on your page and then you hit that heart, and then on their notifications it says, uh, Jermaine Jones just like jump up. That right there, make them go back to your page. Yep. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 56:58

You have no idea what that does for somebody.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

I'm telling you, man. So those four things right there, I feel like are good to start with.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

Absolutely. Bro, thank you so much for the advice. Thank you so much for the tip. Can't wait to hang out with you when we get out to South of France. For sure. And uh just wanted to say thank you for being on. Appreciate it. God bless.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

Yeah.