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How to Not Blow All Your Money in Solar - Austin Underwood
49 Plays4 years ago
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Solarpreneur podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level. My name is Taylor Armstrong and I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fail. I teach you to avoid the mistakes I made and bringing the top solar dogs, the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals. What is a Solarpreneur you might ask a Solarpreneur is a new breed of solar pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
What's going on Solarpreneurs, we're back with a another episode, and this is another feature we have with our recent sponsor on the show, and that is pipes in to get. So we've got the man behind kind of the, I would like maybe like the scientist behind the scenes working on the backend of all this. So he's going to give us yeah, just get a stoked about pipe syndicate. Tell us a little bit more about what's going on. So we've got Austin Underwood on the show, Austin. Thanks for coming on with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, thanks for having me today. Yeah, so we I came on to talk about a company that we've been involved with and Taylor's been doing some stuff with called PI syndicate. It's basically a program that we've decided as a mastermind to help solar wraps any real wrap in the door door industry, but primarily solar. I mean, you get all these kids that are coming in to do quite a bit of money all of a sudden, and they don't really know what to do with it, or maybe they're not as smart as they, as it could be. And they don't really know that. And so we help them manage and kind of help really just manage that money. So we're, we're helping them utilize our skills to make that money go further for them as they're, as they're younger and they don't know what to do with it, or they just don't know how to get into certain aspects of, of the investment pools that they want to.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
And then a big portion of that is tax mitigation. So we help mitigate the taxes on your income side. And we do that a numerous of ways. I mean, we really just decided that we needed to start something that would help out the reps. I there's so many different companies that come in and help the owners, the CEOs, the high level executives. Everybody wants to take care of those guys, but nobody's really talking about, you know, that, that new rep that just started in solar, that you know, is going to crush it and make, you know, 250 K this year, that just came out of nowhere. And and nobody helps that kid, right? He, he gets his tax bill. He goes to a CPA. He thinks he's doing everything the right way. And he doesn't really know that there's a different way to do it, or there's more opportunities than he really thinks there are.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
And so we wanted to start something that would really help, not only the companies, because we have corporate memberships, we have memberships that include CEOs and owners and things like that, but we wanted a lower level package for the reps. So I rapped could afford it. And a rep could come in and, and say, Hey, I don't know what to do here. I don't know how to file these. I don't know what the right expenses should go, where we just take care of all that for you. We've designed it to be a white glove service. That'll just take care of it for you.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
That's awesome. And it's cool. Cause you guys have, you know, different packages, different levels. So there's really no excuse for anyone not to being, be getting help from you guys financially. Cause yeah, I mean, yeah, they're lower packages. Maybe it's just the taxes you want done.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah. Well, an
Recommended
Transcript
Taylor Armstrong's Sales Success Story
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
00:00:08
Speaker
My name is Taylor Armstrong.
00:00:10
Speaker
I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in a year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
00:00:19
Speaker
I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro, and closing more deals.
Defining a 'Solarpreneur'
00:00:31
Speaker
What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
00:00:33
Speaker
A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
00:00:42
Speaker
What's going on, solopreneurs?
00:00:43
Speaker
We're back with another episode.
Introducing Pi Syndicate with Austin Underwood
00:00:46
Speaker
And this is another feature we have with our recent sponsor on the show.
00:00:51
Speaker
And that is Pi Syndicate.
00:00:53
Speaker
So we've got the man behind kind of the, I would like maybe like the scientist behind the scenes working on the back end of all this.
00:01:00
Speaker
So he's going to give us, yeah, just get us stoked about Pi Syndicate.
00:01:05
Speaker
Tell us a little bit more about what's going on.
00:01:07
Speaker
So we've got Austin Underwood on the show.
00:01:09
Speaker
Austin, thanks for coming on with us today.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me today.
00:01:12
Speaker
Yeah, so we...
00:01:14
Speaker
I came on today to talk about a company that we've been involved with and Taylor's been doing some stuff with called Pi Syndicate.
Financial Management for Solar Reps
00:01:21
Speaker
It's basically a program that we've decided as a mastermind to help solar reps, any real rep in the door-to-door industry, but primarily solar.
00:01:29
Speaker
I mean, you get all these kids that are coming in to quite a bit of money all of a sudden, and they don't really know what to do with it, or maybe they're not as smart as they could be, and they don't really know that.
00:01:41
Speaker
And so we help them manage and...
00:01:43
Speaker
kind of help really just manage that money.
00:01:46
Speaker
So we're helping them utilize our skills to make that money go further for them as they're younger and they don't know what to do with it or they just don't know how to get into certain aspects of the investment pools that they want to.
00:01:58
Speaker
And then a big portion of that is tax mitigation.
00:02:01
Speaker
So we help mitigate the taxes on your income side and we do that in numerous of ways.
00:02:06
Speaker
I mean,
00:02:07
Speaker
We really just decided that we needed to start something that would help out the reps.
00:02:10
Speaker
There's so many different companies that come in and help the owners, the CEOs, the high-level executives.
00:02:17
Speaker
Everybody wants to take care of those guys, but nobody's really talking about that new rep that just started in solar that is going to crush it and make $250K this year that just came out of nowhere.
00:02:28
Speaker
And nobody helps that kid, right?
00:02:31
Speaker
He gets his tax bill.
00:02:31
Speaker
He goes to a CPA.
00:02:32
Speaker
He thinks he's doing everything the right way, and he doesn't really know that
00:02:36
Speaker
that there's a different way to do it or there's more opportunities than he really thinks there are.
00:02:41
Speaker
And so we wanted to start something that would really help not only the companies, because we have corporate memberships, we have, you know, memberships that include CEOs and owners and things like that, but we wanted a lower level package for the reps.
00:02:55
Speaker
So a rep could afford it and a rep could come in and say, hey, I don't know what to do here.
00:02:59
Speaker
I don't know how to file these.
00:03:00
Speaker
I don't know what the right...
00:03:02
Speaker
expenses should go where we just take care of all that for you we've designed it to be a white glove service yeah that'll just take care of it for you yeah it's awesome and it's cool because you guys have you know different packages different levels so there's really no excuse for anyone not being be getting help from you guys financially because yeah i mean yeah they're lower packages maybe it's just the taxes you want done
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, start small.
00:03:24
Speaker
Yeah, when we do the three packages, there's about three main ones and we do them for a reason is we really want, you know, we go anywhere from 5000 to 3000.
00:03:31
Speaker
And we do that because we know that there are different needs for different people.
00:03:35
Speaker
Some people aren't in a place this year, you know, some of those new reps aren't in a place to need all of the benefits with a 15 or $30,000 package, but they
00:03:43
Speaker
definitely needed a $5,000 package and vice versa.
00:03:46
Speaker
Some guys are too far.
00:03:48
Speaker
But what we do allow is as you grow, we grow with you.
00:03:50
Speaker
So you eventually can move into those spots and not have any problems.
00:03:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:03:55
Speaker
So yeah, we're going to talk more about that and get into more detail here.
Austin Underwood: From Humble Beginnings to Entrepreneur
00:03:59
Speaker
But I wanted to hear from you too, Austin.
00:04:01
Speaker
We were talking yesterday and you told me your background.
00:04:03
Speaker
What's really cool, Austin has just kind of the rags to riches story.
00:04:07
Speaker
Grew up in pretty humble beginnings and all that.
00:04:11
Speaker
So I wanted to see if you would tell our listeners kind of like your upbringing, your story with that, and then how you got more involved in like, you know, door to door and like financial side of things.
00:04:20
Speaker
So, yeah, absolutely.
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:21
Speaker
So we, we, we grew up in Utah, so we're from Salt Lake City, Utah, but we grew up in a little sub, a subsidiary section in a net called Magna, super far West.
00:04:32
Speaker
And yeah,
00:04:33
Speaker
It's a really humble little city.
00:04:35
Speaker
I mean, it's really small compared to most cities in Utah.
00:04:41
Speaker
We struggled a little bit with financial matters, and, you know, it wasn't like I ever went without things for the most part.
00:04:47
Speaker
I mean, there was a few times that, you know, things got a little sketchy, but...
00:04:52
Speaker
For the most part, you know, we made it work.
00:04:54
Speaker
And, you know, I think for the time and the era, you know, my parents were bringing in like $30,000 together, like both of them working full time, multiple jobs at one point.
00:05:04
Speaker
And, you know, it's just hard to figure it out, right?
00:05:06
Speaker
You know,
00:05:07
Speaker
And you're not that old, so that's... Right, yeah.
00:05:09
Speaker
Because some people are like, oh, maybe Austin's like 60 years old.
00:05:13
Speaker
No, no, so yeah.
00:05:14
Speaker
That's good money.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'm only 25, and I just decided, like, you know, at a young age, I'm not going to live like this.
00:05:20
Speaker
I can't do this.
00:05:21
Speaker
This isn't for me.
00:05:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:23
Speaker
not even just the money, but just the security behind what the money brings, right?
00:05:27
Speaker
It's really not about the money.
00:05:28
Speaker
It's I wanted to be able to first off utilize how to use the money.
00:05:31
Speaker
So what do I need to do to keep the money that I'm going to bring in, right?
00:05:34
Speaker
Not just trying to generate millions and millions of dollars like I think most people think, right?
00:05:39
Speaker
You can have a million dollars, but use it the right way and still have more money than somebody with $5 million that uses it the wrong way.
00:05:46
Speaker
Right?
00:05:47
Speaker
And so that's kind of where
00:05:49
Speaker
where I started out and I really was just like, yeah, there's gotta be something I can do.
00:05:53
Speaker
So actually one of my first jobs is I went around to local restaurants and things like that.
00:05:58
Speaker
And I was like, hey, that disgusting garbage brick wall thing that you guys keep your garbage can in, I'll scrub it out.
00:06:06
Speaker
You know, for like 20 bucks an hour.
00:06:07
Speaker
I'll come every Saturday and I'll do it all.
00:06:11
Speaker
I just ride my bike over there and you know, I was like 13 years old and I needed money for something.
00:06:16
Speaker
Oh, I wanted to go on a trip to New York City to visit my uncle.
00:06:19
Speaker
We were never really able to go on any sort of traveling trips.
00:06:22
Speaker
I didn't really start to travel until I got into my early 20s when I could pay for it myself.
00:06:27
Speaker
The most I had ever really traveled is we would drive somewhere.
00:06:29
Speaker
Anywhere we could drive, we could kind of go, but that was it.
00:06:32
Speaker
I didn't get on an airplane until I paid for my ticket by myself, and I just happened to be 13 years old.
00:06:39
Speaker
But I just went crazy all summer, and I just hustled as hard as I could.
00:06:45
Speaker
So I started doing that, and I got that company up pretty good.
00:06:48
Speaker
I think I was doing, at one point, like 50 restaurants riding my bicycle.
00:06:57
Speaker
So there's a big street if you drive out to 5600 West.
00:07:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:07:01
Speaker
Where it's just lined with restaurants up and down both sides of the street.
00:07:04
Speaker
So I just went and talked to every single one that I could.
00:07:08
Speaker
And I had an uncle that was in the franchise world.
00:07:10
Speaker
And he was like, well, yeah, you can come do, you know, mine.
00:07:13
Speaker
And I was like, okay, you'll let me come do these.
00:07:16
Speaker
You already agreed to it, but here's the catch.
00:07:18
Speaker
I don't have a car.
00:07:19
Speaker
I can't drive.
00:07:20
Speaker
I'm 13.
00:07:20
Speaker
So you got to come get me and take me to all these things.
00:07:22
Speaker
So I made him come and pick me up and go do that.
00:07:25
Speaker
And so that's kind of where I realized like, okay, so if I do this something by myself, I'm obviously going to make a lot more money.
00:07:31
Speaker
I don't have to rely on anybody else.
00:07:32
Speaker
I can do the work myself.
00:07:34
Speaker
And so that's when I kind of was like, I got to a point where I actually had a little bit of money.
00:07:38
Speaker
And so I thought I have to figure out how to manage this money the right way.
00:07:43
Speaker
And so I started just kind of doing, taking some small classes, doing some college stuff, you know, some community stuff, kind of going through and figuring out like,
00:07:51
Speaker
you know, how do I do this?
00:07:52
Speaker
How do I do that?
00:07:53
Speaker
What's the tax side?
00:07:53
Speaker
I mean, you know, what does the tax sides of these mean?
00:07:57
Speaker
That's cool.
00:07:58
Speaker
Most people, most people aren't thinking about that.
00:08:00
Speaker
They're not right.
00:08:01
Speaker
And I think that's the problem is that I don't think that there's enough education for people available.
00:08:07
Speaker
I mean, cause it's out there and you can find it, but how hard is it to find?
00:08:09
Speaker
It's a lot easier to find a dumb video of, you know, a super rich kid online doing something stupid with his money.
00:08:16
Speaker
So that's the envisioned people have in their head.
00:08:18
Speaker
And I knew that that's not real.
00:08:20
Speaker
And so I was like, I have to figure out how I can manage this money the right way.
00:08:23
Speaker
Do you think that came just from like your upbringing and seeing that you guys weren't growing up?
00:08:27
Speaker
So you're like, okay, I want to figure out how to like actually keep holding.
00:08:30
Speaker
I don't think my goal in life when I decided that I wanted to be able to make some money, my goal was never to be the richest man in a room.
00:08:37
Speaker
My goal was to be stable.
00:08:39
Speaker
That's all that I wanted.
00:08:41
Speaker
There's so much instability growing up in a poor family and things just are all over the place.
00:08:46
Speaker
So I wanted the stability of what the money could bring.
00:08:49
Speaker
And so my idea was never to make a lot of money.
00:08:52
Speaker
I mean, in theory that happens, I guess, where you do make good amounts of money being pretty strategic and smart and cautious about what you're doing.
00:09:01
Speaker
But for the most part, it's really just I wanted the strategic ability to be safe and content.
00:09:10
Speaker
Right?
00:09:10
Speaker
Savings, accounts, things like that.
00:09:11
Speaker
That most people are like, not important.
00:09:14
Speaker
I can do that later.
00:09:14
Speaker
Well, that's not true.
00:09:15
Speaker
You need to be doing that now.
00:09:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point.
00:09:18
Speaker
I know.
00:09:18
Speaker
That's cool.
00:09:19
Speaker
And so you were in, were you already in college at that point?
00:09:22
Speaker
Or was this still in high school you were doing all this stuff?
00:09:25
Speaker
No, so it was still in high school.
00:09:27
Speaker
So the high school that I went to had a secondary program where they'd ship you out to a college campus, just the slick campus, the community college campus.
00:09:36
Speaker
So I was doing some classes from high school to try and get some of that knowledge that I wanted for that.
00:09:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:41
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:42
Speaker
And so, um, yeah, especially I'm sure you can agree with social media and everything.
00:09:46
Speaker
Like you're saying, you're just seeing people flash the big cars and how many people, um, I mean, I have people I know that just go out and like rent fancy cars and all that, just go show it off on social media and then they're not actually making that type of money.
00:09:59
Speaker
Well, yeah, exactly.
00:10:00
Speaker
It's funny.
00:10:01
Speaker
Cause you, you really see the difference between somebody that has a lot of money and somebody that doesn't, right?
00:10:06
Speaker
Like you can tell the difference.
00:10:07
Speaker
Um,
00:10:09
Speaker
And I think that's just my analytical mind thinking.
00:10:15
Speaker
My thought process is the dude that has more money lives in a normal-sized house, drives normal cars.
00:10:21
Speaker
He's not spending money on frivolous things that he doesn't need.
00:10:23
Speaker
The ones that need to feel like they have more money than everybody else.
00:10:27
Speaker
push out the other way.
00:10:28
Speaker
And there's nothing wrong with that.
00:10:30
Speaker
If that's the life you want to live, do it.
00:10:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:32
Speaker
By all means, just make sure you can really afford it.
00:10:35
Speaker
I know.
00:10:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
And what's cool is you guys are, we'll talk more about this, but you guys are teaching people that like kind of have the best of both worlds.
00:10:40
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:10:41
Speaker
You got your clients that have the nice cars and all that.
00:10:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:44
Speaker
Well, you know, getting it probably off of a passive income, they're using it like is void taxes, things like that.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
Well, and then that's, yeah, we, we definitely don't want to refrain from people buying the things that they want.
00:10:55
Speaker
Like that's our, our goal isn't to say, live, live, live, live
00:10:58
Speaker
you know, as frivolously as possible.
00:10:59
Speaker
Like we, I, there was, I had a conversation with a guy yesterday and I was like, you know what?
00:11:03
Speaker
I think the best idea of what you should do is go buy $140,000 car, go buy that Tesla model X, you know, that new plan version just launched.
00:11:11
Speaker
And,
00:11:12
Speaker
We went through why it was something that he wanted.
00:11:17
Speaker
And I went through why it was actually tax advantaged to him to do that.
00:11:23
Speaker
And so we go through both sides of life.
00:11:25
Speaker
Obviously, there's a fine line to walk amongst.
00:11:29
Speaker
But we're definitely not a group that's going to say, you know, go buy the Corolla over the Tesla.
00:11:35
Speaker
Like that's not something that we want to do.
00:11:36
Speaker
We want to help you get what you want, get it when you want it, and make it better.
00:11:41
Speaker
work for you the best.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:11:44
Speaker
And yes, and so Austin, how did you get more involved in kind of like, you know, the door-to-door space?
00:11:48
Speaker
And I know you've worked with door-to-door experts all those guys for a while.
00:11:52
Speaker
So how did you, you said you got in the kind of the financial education.
00:11:56
Speaker
How did you transition into kind of helping the door-to-door space?
00:11:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I was actually out consulting some other companies
00:12:05
Speaker
on financial footings and things like that.
00:12:08
Speaker
The financial foundations.
00:12:10
Speaker
I actually just wrote a book about it that's going to be launched with a PR company out of Alabama.
00:12:16
Speaker
Okay.
00:12:17
Speaker
So I was kind of doing that.
00:12:18
Speaker
I was...
00:12:21
Speaker
I was consulting those other companies on the financial structures, like the very beginning basics, right?
00:12:27
Speaker
Like the foundations of the financial processes that they were missing.
00:12:31
Speaker
And I had a guy that I knew that was working at the DDD Experts.
00:12:35
Speaker
He was their intro CFO.
00:12:38
Speaker
He was just kind of filling in as Sam was trying to find somebody else over at the door-to-door experts.
00:12:43
Speaker
And, uh,
00:12:44
Speaker
And he called me and he was like, hey, you know, this is a really cool opportunity.
00:12:46
Speaker
I really like this guy that I'm working for.
00:12:48
Speaker
You should come over and interview with me and see if it's something that you would even really think about.
00:12:52
Speaker
And I was like, okay, yeah.
00:12:53
Speaker
So I actually went over there to do that with him.
00:12:58
Speaker
And the position that he was looking for was actually just somebody to kind of help oversee his books and do some of this stuff.
00:13:07
Speaker
All internally.
00:13:08
Speaker
It was all internal when I first was over there.
00:13:11
Speaker
And I went to him and I was like, hey man, look, we've had these boot camps and they have these events that everybody's coming to.
00:13:16
Speaker
And I was like, I really think that there's a bigger market for the door-to-door industry that people just don't know about.
00:13:21
Speaker
I think all these company owners aren't realizing how much more they need to pay attention to the financial sides of things.
00:13:28
Speaker
Because I think, and I especially learned in learning as I'm going through the door-to-door industry more and more is
00:13:36
Speaker
they're so sales focused, right?
00:13:37
Speaker
Everything in their mind can be fixed with more revenue.
00:13:40
Speaker
More revenue, more sales, that's their job, that's what they're good at, that's what they know exactly how to do that.
00:13:46
Speaker
And so we're able to, I was able to say, look, there's a secondary system to this, the admin side's no fun, nobody likes it, but the admin side includes the financial footing, it includes the staff, the experience, all of these things, the operations that aren't as
00:14:00
Speaker
aren't as known or, or not as practiced.
00:14:04
Speaker
And so I, I was able to convince Sam, like we need to come in and do this and I'll go out and do this.
00:14:09
Speaker
And I started traveling, you know, to company to company.
00:14:12
Speaker
I was going twice a week out to Atlanta, then Washington, then Illinois, then Idaho, just kind of everywhere.
00:14:19
Speaker
And it really just started to blow up.
00:14:20
Speaker
And so it really became a, a staple to the, to the door to door name is like, Hey, we're not only a consulting company, but we're a consulting company that, that, uh,
00:14:31
Speaker
helps you with your finances, which is pretty unknown.
00:14:33
Speaker
Like you have to hire somebody basically just to take it over.
00:14:37
Speaker
I was showing these owners how to help them.
00:14:40
Speaker
So not just doing it for them and then leaving them and saying, well, if you want me to do more, it's, you know, another $10,000 or, you know, these, these companies, these CFO guys, they're expensive.
00:14:51
Speaker
And so if you could learn to do it by yourself when you want to,
00:14:53
Speaker
Right.
00:14:53
Speaker
I mean, we're all hustlers out here.
00:14:54
Speaker
That's what we're doing.
00:14:56
Speaker
You know, slinging doors is not an easy job.
00:14:57
Speaker
So anything else we can make that easier for that you don't have to cost you a fortune.
00:15:01
Speaker
You know, we wanted to be able to be a part of that.
00:15:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:15:05
Speaker
And so I'm sure you had a lot of experiences seeing what people were, I don't know, not focusing on mistakes.
00:15:10
Speaker
I'm sure they're making.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:11
Speaker
So a lot of these companies, they not even have CFOs and they were just kind of trying to do things.
00:15:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:15
Speaker
So a lot of these companies, they didn't have CFOs.
00:15:18
Speaker
They didn't have bookkeepers.
00:15:19
Speaker
They didn't have anything.
00:15:20
Speaker
Wow.
00:15:21
Speaker
So you'd help them set that up and run it?
00:15:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
So I would do a few different things.
00:15:26
Speaker
I think the majority of the companies that we went to either didn't have QuickBooks or some sort of CRM or not CRM, some sort of tracking tool for their actual books.
00:15:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:37
Speaker
And so I helped them kind of figure that out.
00:15:38
Speaker
Some of them did, but I worked with the systems they were using and they weren't awesome.
00:15:42
Speaker
And so I would either convince them to switch or I didn't.
00:15:45
Speaker
And either way was fine.
00:15:46
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:47
Speaker
I really have a bias towards QuickBooks.
00:15:49
Speaker
I just know it really well.
00:15:50
Speaker
I got my certification in it because I wanted to be the best at it.
00:15:53
Speaker
And obviously things have changed and I'm probably not the best at it anymore.
00:15:57
Speaker
But you know, you hit a point in your career where you don't do some of the things that you used to do really well.
00:16:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:02
Speaker
QuickBooks is pretty, pretty somewhat simple, right?
00:16:05
Speaker
It's super simple.
00:16:06
Speaker
I mean, it's just really intuitive.
00:16:07
Speaker
Like it knows what the customer experience should be.
00:16:10
Speaker
And so I really like that, especially with owners that don't want to push a budget to a financial footing or a financial team.
00:16:17
Speaker
It really just makes it easy for them to be like, all right, I can set up all this automatically and then I never have to go back in here.
00:16:22
Speaker
It'll just kind of do it by itself.
00:16:23
Speaker
And so it's really easy to do.
00:16:24
Speaker
You just have to know what you're doing.
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:16:27
Speaker
And so cool.
00:16:28
Speaker
I know you gained a lot of experience doing that, working with Sam, seeing other companies, I'm sure, learning from their mistakes, things like that.
00:16:34
Speaker
And now you're a CFO here at, that's the name, your energy co, right?
00:16:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:41
Speaker
And then Pi Syndicate as well.
00:16:43
Speaker
And so, yeah, you guys are doing incredible things.
00:16:47
Speaker
We just talked with Josh and Jerry on the podcast, who are also part of that.
00:16:51
Speaker
And, yeah, it's been really cool seeing how you guys have things set up, structured, and you're really focused on teaching these reps.
00:16:58
Speaker
I was just talking with Josh about not just, like, selling, but all kind of aspects of it.
00:17:03
Speaker
And I think you teach your guys the finances, you teach them the social media, you teach them the recruiting stuff.
00:17:08
Speaker
That's really cool to see.
00:17:09
Speaker
And so what gave you, I guess, why did you guys start Pi Syndicate and what's kind of your
Creating Pi Syndicate: A Mastermind for Financial Education
00:17:17
Speaker
whole goal around that?
00:17:17
Speaker
I know you talked a little bit in the beginning.
00:17:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, yeah.
00:17:19
Speaker
So I would say the main reason is that –
00:17:23
Speaker
is that me and Jerry have been around enough companies to know how much is truthfully going wrong, even without people knowing what's always wrong.
00:17:32
Speaker
And so just being able to compile, I've probably consulted upwards of 200 companies by now.
00:17:39
Speaker
So being able to see that many different companies doing that many different styles and that many different types.
00:17:45
Speaker
Um, I think it's really drove the pie syndicate drive because we were, we were sitting in a room and we were talking about, uh, we were actually in a St.
00:17:53
Speaker
George at, at Jefferson, JKR's office.
00:17:56
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:57
Speaker
Uh, well that's where we first started talking about pie syndicate and doing some of this stuff is, uh, is out there with Jefferson.
00:18:02
Speaker
And, uh,
00:18:03
Speaker
We were just talking about, you know, there's so many mistakes that are being made every day that I don't think people know that they're doing anything wrong.
00:18:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:09
Speaker
And so how do we create something that not only can be an outreach program for them to learn about it, but something that, like a mastermind, that will really help them learn.
00:18:17
Speaker
And so we developed Pi Syndicate off of all of the bad things that we've seen happen in solar.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:23
Speaker
And in pest and in roofing, like we took all of the bad things that we could find and all of the things that people didn't know or that we had seen, even if we only had sought once, we still brought it to the table.
00:18:35
Speaker
And so that's kind of where we got the drive for Pi Syndicate.
00:18:38
Speaker
And what we want to do with it is really get the knowledge out there.
00:18:41
Speaker
You know, there are masterminds all over the place and they're all great.
00:18:47
Speaker
And so I thought, you know, it's not going to be that hard to push one more thing.
00:18:50
Speaker
That really is something that truthfully helps people, that really makes them, you know, learn and experience things in a different way than they ever have before.
00:18:58
Speaker
And I mean, it really is something different.
00:19:00
Speaker
And so we even are so confident in what we're doing.
00:19:04
Speaker
You know, we went into the drawing board and we said, look, we want people to know exactly what we're here for.
00:19:09
Speaker
And so we actually do something very unique.
00:19:11
Speaker
You know, when was the last time you were able to go to your CPA and say, hey, if you don't save me more money than I'm paying you, I'm out, right?
00:19:18
Speaker
Right.
00:19:19
Speaker
Yeah, that's a pretty strong guarantee.
00:19:21
Speaker
Pretty strong guarantee.
00:19:22
Speaker
That's the first time I heard it.
00:19:23
Speaker
So we actually guarantee our pricing.
00:19:25
Speaker
So if we cannot save you more than what you paid us, we'll pay you the difference in what we don't save you.
00:19:33
Speaker
We're willing to put our own money up to bat to say, we know what we're doing and we know we can do this.
00:19:38
Speaker
Let us show you.
00:19:38
Speaker
And if we can't do it, then you're right.
00:19:40
Speaker
And here's that difference back.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah, that's incredible.
00:19:43
Speaker
It's like, why wouldn't you do it with that guarantee?
00:19:45
Speaker
You don't hear that from CPAs or finance people?
00:19:47
Speaker
No, never, never, never.
00:19:49
Speaker
And so we wanted to be different.
00:19:50
Speaker
We wanted to be able to push our name out there differently, and that's how we've decided that not only do we have the knowledge, and we know that we do, but a lot of people don't put their money where their mouth is, and so we thought, you know, we're going to be the first to do that.
00:20:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:02
Speaker
No, it's really cool because I've heard a few just, you know, Mikey, you guys hopping on calls with people.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:09
Speaker
And it seems like it's almost the same exact things they're hearing from their CPA, the exact same thing.
00:20:14
Speaker
Oh, they told me to do this.
00:20:16
Speaker
I'm going to owe this much in taxes.
00:20:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:18
Speaker
And then you guys are just telling them, you know, it's the same stuff they hear from everyone because all that is pretty standardized advice.
00:20:24
Speaker
I mean, they're going to tell you the same
How Pi Syndicate Differs from Traditional CPA Firms
00:20:26
Speaker
stuff over and over.
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah, we actually, we make jokes and we say, you know, CPA firms are like our silent partners.
00:20:32
Speaker
every time they go and talk to a CPA firm, they always come back and follow up with us and see the difference and switch over.
00:20:38
Speaker
And so we, we, we, we joke and we call them our, our silent partners, but, but it's true.
00:20:43
Speaker
I mean, we were actually just having a conversation with a guy the other day, yesterday actually, and he went to a CPA and he's like, okay, you've got to spend 150,000 to $200,000 to save 60,000 in taxes, but you're still going to have to pay 40.
00:20:51
Speaker
And me and Jerry, uh,
00:20:58
Speaker
just dropped.
00:20:59
Speaker
We didn't even know what to say.
00:21:00
Speaker
We were, I mean, we were stunned.
00:21:02
Speaker
We were like, that's an incredible observation to give somebody spend $200,000 to save 60, but, but you still have to pay 40,000 taxes at the end of the year.
00:21:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:14
Speaker
Hopefully you have a lot of money.
00:21:15
Speaker
I don't, yeah.
00:21:16
Speaker
Well, I'm like, that's, I mean, you're, you're talking about, okay, well, if you go spend $260,000, then I can get your tax bill down to 40.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:26
Speaker
How does that make any sense?
00:21:28
Speaker
Who would want to do that?
00:21:29
Speaker
Who thinks that that was a good idea to offer it as a vice?
00:21:32
Speaker
And it's just something that you see every day.
00:21:35
Speaker
CPAs are doing everything they're supposed to.
00:21:37
Speaker
They're not doing anything wrong.
00:21:38
Speaker
And I'm not talking about it in any way whatsoever.
00:21:43
Speaker
We've just dedicated and prided ourselves on monitoring the changes that happen.
00:21:48
Speaker
when they happen, categorizing expenses correctly, what the mileage's write-offs are, things like that that just most people don't think to dive deep into that are a really big difference that make a huge difference to not spend the 200K to save the 60, right?
00:22:04
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's really cool.
00:22:05
Speaker
And do you think, I mean, like you said, there's a lot of good CPAs out there.
00:22:09
Speaker
And I know they're doing, you know, the best with their resources and everything.
00:22:13
Speaker
But do you think it's that they don't have that knowledge on these things?
00:22:16
Speaker
Or they don't want to, like, necessarily tell them to do these things?
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:21
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:22
Speaker
Honestly, I think that there are definitely CPAs out there that have the knowledge to do it.
00:22:27
Speaker
I do think that the CPA certification itself gives them some pushback on what they can and cannot do.
00:22:36
Speaker
offer people to do.
00:22:37
Speaker
And so one of the things that we really do differently is we actually have our CPAs on staff.
00:22:43
Speaker
But me and Jerry are not CPAs.
00:22:45
Speaker
So we run everything through CPAs.
00:22:47
Speaker
Everything is done the right way.
00:22:48
Speaker
Everything is above board.
00:22:49
Speaker
We're uber transparent with everything that we do.
00:22:52
Speaker
yeah to a frame from any sort of auditing or if you do get audited it's knock in the park yeah every if as long as we've been in it long enough and we're doing everything that we're supposed to be doing the right way i mean there's no way that you're going to fail an audit there's just not yeah um every once in a while there's one weird little thing that that gets passed or you know something that they find that's just really weird and random but you know for the most part it's it's pretty solid yeah um
00:23:18
Speaker
But I do think that, I think that that's really, I don't think that still they don't have all the information.
00:23:22
Speaker
I don't even think that they don't want to share the information.
00:23:24
Speaker
I think that there are certain things that they just can't do or they're not allowed to talk about because they have specific certifications and they don't need to get their certifications taken away.
00:23:33
Speaker
I mean, that's not worth it to do that for them.
00:23:35
Speaker
And I wouldn't suggest they do that either.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's good stuff.
00:23:39
Speaker
Yeah, because it's like I've worked with a lot of CPAs too, and some of them have finance coaching too, the type of stuff they do, but the disconnect I've seen too is a lot of times they're not all communicating with each other.
00:23:52
Speaker
Like you're talking about how you guys have your own internal CPAs, you're communicating with them, so everyone's on the same page.
00:23:58
Speaker
Oh, they gave me this advice, this is what's going to happen.
00:24:01
Speaker
Where other CPAs I've worked with, yeah, I get advice from one thing, but their CPA is not going to necessarily help me do that.
00:24:11
Speaker
Me not having good financial knowledge necessarily, I don't know necessarily how to explain to them, well, hey, I want to do this or this is what's best because they're just telling me the one size fits all stuff.
00:24:22
Speaker
It's interesting.
00:24:23
Speaker
One of the things that we do differently than that as well is we're pretty limited on the capacity we want to grow at.
00:24:30
Speaker
Because I think that's the problem.
00:24:31
Speaker
I don't think that they're not communicating.
00:24:33
Speaker
I don't think that they don't know what they're doing.
00:24:35
Speaker
I think that they just grow so rapidly.
00:24:37
Speaker
They really just say like, okay, you're one CPA, you handle these 50 clients.
00:24:41
Speaker
But then this other CPA is going to handle these 50 clients.
00:24:43
Speaker
And when this guy goes on vacation, this guy's kind of picking up that slack.
00:24:47
Speaker
But then there's the disconnect because it's not his actual client.
00:24:50
Speaker
So I think the scaling is just too fast.
00:24:52
Speaker
They just don't know how to keep up with it.
00:24:53
Speaker
They might just, you know, and some people do it great.
00:24:56
Speaker
I mean, there are massive CPA firms out there that just,
00:24:58
Speaker
crush it.
00:24:59
Speaker
H&R Block is huge.
00:25:02
Speaker
They're nationwide.
00:25:02
Speaker
They're everywhere.
00:25:03
Speaker
Obviously, they scaled at a very scalable rate.
00:25:06
Speaker
But I feel like for the most part, those are just generalized CPAs.
00:25:10
Speaker
They help random regular people
00:25:12
Speaker
you know, do their taxes and stuff.
00:25:14
Speaker
So they're not really going to go that extra mile for somebody, you know, like you, who's on the doors, who's knocking, who's got, you know, LLCs and things like that, that are quite a bit more to actually function through the actual filing.
00:25:26
Speaker
And so they, you know, they don't really want to do any of that.
00:25:28
Speaker
So they don't push that extra mile to do that, which is fine.
00:25:30
Speaker
They probably don't get paid to do that.
00:25:31
Speaker
Honestly, they don't.
00:25:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:33
Speaker
And it's what's cool.
00:25:34
Speaker
You guys are guaranteeing it too.
00:25:35
Speaker
So I'm sure if you guys back in it, it's like, you want to know that.
00:25:39
Speaker
Right, but then that's why we do, you know, that's why we limit our capability of growth is because we know how much we can really truthfully take on and still keep trucking the way we want to.
00:25:51
Speaker
And so we're pretty particular about who we want to let in and where in the stages that we have.
00:25:58
Speaker
And so it's more along the lines of we definitely want to help everybody that we can help.
00:26:03
Speaker
But we want you to come to us or
00:26:06
Speaker
and say, hey, look, this is what I've got, this is what I have.
00:26:08
Speaker
And then we would literally sit down and do a call with you and say, you know, this is the plan I think you should be a part of.
00:26:13
Speaker
This is why.
00:26:14
Speaker
This is what I think we can help with.
00:26:15
Speaker
And this is how fast I think we can get it done.
00:26:18
Speaker
In addition to the filing and the bookkeeping sides and the white glove service of it all, right?
00:26:22
Speaker
Mike, he offers some specific coaching with it that he does with these guys.
00:26:26
Speaker
I mean, he's been on calls with these guys every day, seven days a week.
00:26:29
Speaker
I mean, he'll talk to anybody whenever they want to talk to him.
00:26:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:32
Speaker
I know.
00:26:32
Speaker
He's helped me a ton, and that's what's so cool about it.
00:26:34
Speaker
You guys have so much personalized attention.
00:26:37
Speaker
It's like weekly follow-up says, how's this going?
00:26:39
Speaker
And, yeah, I've never had this much just financial help, attention from anyone I've worked with.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah, and we do some other cool stuff as well.
00:26:48
Speaker
You know, we really want to...
00:26:49
Speaker
to be able to get in person with these people, meet them face to face, have these conversations one on one.
00:26:53
Speaker
And so we were down here in Las Vegas and and we'll invite people down and want them to come and experience this with us and do these events with us.
00:27:02
Speaker
And the purpose of that is to have those one on one conversations, have the ability to sit down and have a personalized conversation about something that's a pretty uncomfortable topic to talk about to most people.
00:27:11
Speaker
Like you don't want to tell people how much money you make.
00:27:13
Speaker
You don't want to tell people how much trouble you're in or debt.
00:27:17
Speaker
And that's why we need that personalized edge side to not just be the CPA that they kind of have to tell.
00:27:24
Speaker
But we want to be there and have a friendship aspect to it to be like, listen, dude, we got you.
00:27:29
Speaker
We're going to be able to handle it and take care of it.
00:27:32
Speaker
And we're going to be able to make sure that you don't ever have to do this again.
00:27:35
Speaker
But we have to have you tell us the truth.
00:27:37
Speaker
And so we need to be able to build that relationship to be there.
00:27:40
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome.
00:27:41
Speaker
And so walk me through, you guys have people coming on and like if someone wants to start working with you guys, what are some common things you see that like almost no one has set?
00:27:50
Speaker
And I can tell my experience too, kind of how it's been to kind of get on board and start working with you guys.
00:27:55
Speaker
But if someone signs up, buy us in to get tomorrow, what are kind of the steps you have them go through just to give people a demo and
00:28:01
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely.
00:28:02
Speaker
So first thing that we usually have everybody do is do a consultation call with Mikey.
00:28:06
Speaker
Mikey kind of evaluates where you're currently at, what you're really thinking you're needing, and then what we think we can do for you.
00:28:15
Speaker
So Mikey will do an introduction call.
00:28:17
Speaker
He'll go through everything that he has in his list to go through.
00:28:21
Speaker
Are you budgeting?
00:28:22
Speaker
Do you have the right account set up?
00:28:24
Speaker
Are you utilizing QuickBooks or some sort of tracking system?
00:28:29
Speaker
Are you...
00:28:31
Speaker
are you budgetizing out everything or just personal, you know, separating out credit cards, things like that.
00:28:37
Speaker
He just goes through all of it with you.
00:28:39
Speaker
Just on the surface, touching base, making sure it's getting done, right?
00:28:48
Speaker
And that's where we kind of start.
00:28:49
Speaker
And so that allows us to build out a financial blueprint of sorts to be able to say, okay, well, you know, I think...
00:28:58
Speaker
Knowing this information, I think it needs to be in this package.
00:29:00
Speaker
And so then we go back to the client and say, okay, this is what we suggest.
00:29:04
Speaker
Obviously, they can say no or they can want a different package than that.
00:29:09
Speaker
And we can have that conversation with them.
00:29:10
Speaker
But we give them our best thought of where they should be and what needs to be done next.
00:29:14
Speaker
Kind of creating that financial blueprint plan in steps.
00:29:18
Speaker
And so that's kind of where we start.
00:29:19
Speaker
And the onboarding process is actually really good.
00:29:23
Speaker
We've brought on a few other guys.
00:29:24
Speaker
We have a VA.
00:29:25
Speaker
We've got some other guys in Utah that does like three times a week check-ins, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, really just trying to make sure you're keeping up on
00:29:37
Speaker
on all your updates, making sure that you know everything that we know at the same time.
00:29:41
Speaker
And then as well, we utilize a really great app that we really love called Pronto.
00:29:46
Speaker
Maybe you've talked about that before, but we really love it.
00:29:48
Speaker
And we put in me, Jerry, Mikey, any bookkeeper, the CPAs, yourself, all within that Pronto group.
00:29:58
Speaker
So any questions you have, anything that could come up, somebody in that chat will be able to answer that.
00:30:01
Speaker
And you have access to that chat 24-7.
00:30:02
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:30:04
Speaker
And then we also do some other cool things where we've thrown in a little bit of perks with that in the onboarding process.
00:30:08
Speaker
You get to,
00:30:11
Speaker
You get access to an attorney.
00:30:13
Speaker
We've started a partnership with a company that'll help with legal troubles, things like that.
00:30:21
Speaker
It doesn't happen super often, but if it ever did happen, it's something that you want that most people don't really think about.
00:30:28
Speaker
What 22-year-old kid has her lawyer on retainer?
00:30:30
Speaker
Right, none.
00:30:32
Speaker
So we supplement that out with some of that stuff.
00:30:36
Speaker
It's cool.
00:30:36
Speaker
When I was talking to Mikey, I didn't even know all this stuff you were offering.
00:30:40
Speaker
was like just all these different things you got the attorney he's telling me um i'm gonna get like some uh some like body test then he hands me like his biome kit he's like yeah we're gonna have you do like a yeah a gut test see where that's at i'm like man i thought you guys were just like doing my taxes or something at first mikey starts going down the lane he's like you're getting attorney you're getting you know body tests
00:31:02
Speaker
You're getting access to all that.
00:31:03
Speaker
You're getting crypto advice.
00:31:05
Speaker
You're getting investment advice.
00:31:06
Speaker
So it's just like a whole stack of things.
00:31:08
Speaker
And I know that's not in, you know, every package, depending on the package, things like that you get.
00:31:12
Speaker
But yeah, so as far as like investments, things like that, what are, yeah, what are some, how do you get these people started on investments?
00:31:20
Speaker
I'm sure you see what their situation is.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:22
Speaker
So yeah, we take what their situation is, what maybe what capital they have on hand or what they plan to have.
00:31:26
Speaker
Maybe they have a big pipeline or something like that on the back end that they're waiting for.
00:31:29
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
But there's a few different plays that we have.
00:31:31
Speaker
We've developed a really good relationship between me and Jerry on partnerships out there with specific investments.
00:31:38
Speaker
So right now, a really big one that's just really hitting really hard is self-storage.
00:31:44
Speaker
So we'll actually, anybody that comes into us with money, we'll actually, another guarantee that we have is a 10% guarantee that we're year over year.
00:31:53
Speaker
on your investment.
00:31:54
Speaker
And me and Jerry are willing to back that with our own money because if we're going to put your money somewhere, we're obviously going to trust it 110%.
00:32:01
Speaker
We wouldn't put our own money in it if, we wouldn't put your money in it if we wouldn't put our own money in it.
00:32:05
Speaker
And so we really, really pride ourselves on that as well.
00:32:07
Speaker
So we actually do that 10% guaranteed our year over year for any money that you invest with us.
00:32:14
Speaker
And we put into solar projects, we put into
00:32:18
Speaker
um, self-storage we put into Turo, anything that you really want to be a part of, we can help you figure out a way to get into that industry.
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:25
Speaker
That's so cool.
00:32:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:26
Speaker
You guys are putting your money where your mouth is.
00:32:28
Speaker
I mean, you're all, you're doing these investments.
00:32:30
Speaker
I know Mikey has the Turo going.
00:32:32
Speaker
Um, you guys are in real estate, you guys are doing all these things.
00:32:35
Speaker
So it's cool that we're not just hearing from people that are like, Oh no, this should be a good idea.
00:32:40
Speaker
It's like actual investments you're doing yourself.
00:32:42
Speaker
And depending on the package, you get the opportunity to be able to go in on the investments, which is awesome.
00:32:47
Speaker
And I mean, I know all you guys are super successful, got money.
00:32:51
Speaker
So that's for me, that's where it is.
00:32:53
Speaker
It's like, go work with the people.
00:32:55
Speaker
who have the money, your CPA, they're probably not going to be the richest guy in the room.
00:33:00
Speaker
I don't know.
00:33:00
Speaker
And it's really cool because, you know, Jerry's, our backgrounds are so different, right?
00:33:05
Speaker
Obviously, Mikey and Jerry are huge in the solar space, but, you know, most of Mikey's investments are nowhere near solar.
00:33:11
Speaker
It's in Turo's, it's in real estate, it's in franchises, it's in all sorts of stuff.
00:33:17
Speaker
And Jerry's knowledge is in a completely different aspect of it, right?
00:33:20
Speaker
So Jerry's knowledge really reaches out into solar.
00:33:23
Speaker
He started a very successful solar company.
00:33:25
Speaker
He's done multiple other companies.
00:33:28
Speaker
And so his range is really something completely different.
00:33:32
Speaker
And then mine is on the other end of the spectrum where, you know, I definitely have some experience and knowledge in the franchise world.
00:33:39
Speaker
But, you know, I love the tech investments.
00:33:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:42
Speaker
They're high risk, but man, the rewards are just so much better.
00:33:44
Speaker
Nice.
00:33:45
Speaker
And so they're not for everybody, but, but, you know, I just recently did a big test investment that, you know, could pay off exponentially well if it works.
00:33:52
Speaker
But, you know, what my point is, is that all of us are in such different realms of the investment that we're good at.
00:33:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:58
Speaker
That we really just cover so many different aspects of it and,
00:34:01
Speaker
And so it really just is a really good team to say, you know, what is it that you want to invest
Investment Opportunities and Personalized Support at Pi Syndicate
00:34:05
Speaker
in?
00:34:05
Speaker
We'll figure out how to get you there.
00:34:06
Speaker
We know somebody.
00:34:07
Speaker
Somebody knows somebody that we know, right?
00:34:09
Speaker
Everybody wants to be that guy.
00:34:10
Speaker
Mike was talking about that yesterday.
00:34:11
Speaker
Like, everybody wants to be the guy that's like, oh, I know.
00:34:13
Speaker
I got a guy.
00:34:14
Speaker
Oh, I know a guy.
00:34:15
Speaker
Oh, you need this?
00:34:15
Speaker
I got a guy.
00:34:16
Speaker
And we want to be that guy.
00:34:17
Speaker
We want to be that for everybody.
00:34:19
Speaker
And so that's kind of where we've developed why, who is in the world.
00:34:23
Speaker
or excuse me sorry that's that's why who's in pi syndicate is who's in pi syndicate is is because of the knowledge and where that scope looks yeah i love that and it's cool because you guys like you said are doing it mastermind style too so you're not just we're not just learning necessarily from you guys but we're interacting um with other people they're super super successful we got guys making hundreds hundreds thousand you know in the millions and all that in the group
00:34:48
Speaker
So I like that it's a network and we're all hearing about each other's investments.
00:34:52
Speaker
And I'm just starting on it.
00:34:53
Speaker
So I can't wait to follow up on this around a year, see where I'm at.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, we'll have to do another podcast in a year and say, okay, so from start to now, how do you really feel?
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, my before and after.
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's right.
00:35:05
Speaker
Yeah, broke picture and then, I don't know, picture with all my Teslas and stuff.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah, let's see.
00:35:11
Speaker
But yeah, no, so it's cool just to be able to interact with you guys and have, you know, that community too.
00:35:16
Speaker
I think it's community based and I haven't done events.
00:35:19
Speaker
You guys, you said the package, how many events you guys plan on doing for kind of the high level?
00:35:26
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a few different ways that we've looked at it to do it.
00:35:30
Speaker
So we're really open.
00:35:32
Speaker
We want people to feel like they can come as often as they need.
00:35:36
Speaker
So I think what we've decided is probably once a month we'll invite you guys down to Vegas or somewhere to just get some FaceTime and have those conversations.
00:35:44
Speaker
Cool.
00:35:44
Speaker
And then we're...
00:35:47
Speaker
We are going to do two big trips every year with, with some of those highest pride member packages.
00:35:54
Speaker
And either, you know, in, you know, the Bahamas to buy cryptocurrency or it'll be a mixture between, between a good relief, you know, fun trip, but a knowledgeable trip.
00:36:05
Speaker
So we'll go out and buy cryptocurrency with you guys, or we'll, we'll bring in a heavy hitter in, in this specific finance field.
00:36:11
Speaker
Like we'll kind of do some of those things that, uh,
00:36:14
Speaker
that we've been talking about doing a lot of these trips.
00:36:16
Speaker
We haven't really done any of them yet.
00:36:18
Speaker
We're just kind of starting to get the ball rolling, but that's definitely the phase two of where we're going with this is to just blow this up and make this something that we can scale to a really big place and make everybody a lot of money and help with the investment side, help with the tax side, mitigation side, everything.
00:36:33
Speaker
And then the trips will just be a bonus that we're like, okay, everybody every year is going to be looking forward to the Pisces and it could trips.
00:36:39
Speaker
They'll just be those kind of trips that everybody's like, man, the Pisces and it could trips coming up.
00:36:42
Speaker
That's going to be so great.
00:36:43
Speaker
That's sweet.
00:36:44
Speaker
I love that.
00:36:44
Speaker
And no, I know, I know you guys can't, um, I mean, the cool thing about this, you're probably not going to be able to run it at this level forever, depending on how many people get in.
00:36:53
Speaker
Cause I imagine you get, you know, hundreds of people on this can't be that level of attention.
00:36:58
Speaker
So, um, for our listeners, if you are wanting to get, you know, this type of level of attention to getting wallets, um, at this price, that's the other thing I know you guys will have to eventually increase prices and all that too.
00:37:10
Speaker
So, um,
00:37:11
Speaker
You heard it here first.
00:37:12
Speaker
If you want to get in while they're still, you know, able to give this level of attention, have these guarantees and all that.
00:37:20
Speaker
I know you probably always have the guarantees with what you're doing.
00:37:22
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:37:23
Speaker
But get in on this.
00:37:24
Speaker
And I don't think you're going to find this level of attention, this level of financial literacy advice, all the stuff that's going on here.
00:37:32
Speaker
So that's our invitation for our listeners.
00:37:34
Speaker
And Austin, I know you're, you got guys going out on the doors and getting to hit doors and things like that.
00:37:39
Speaker
So what's cool is you're still involved, you know, in the solar side.
00:37:43
Speaker
So Austin has a ton of, yeah, yeah.
00:37:46
Speaker
He has a ton of understanding of solar space and,
00:37:48
Speaker
He's out knocking, you know, putting his feet to the floor here after this.
00:37:53
Speaker
But for our listeners, those that do want to get in on Pi Syndicate and maybe, you know, get on a call with you guys, hear more about it, where can they do that and how can they connect with you to be able to do that?
00:38:04
Speaker
Yeah, so there's a few different ways.
00:38:06
Speaker
You know, we've actually got a lot of guys that just, they already follow Mikey Lucas on Instagram because Mikey Lucas is the solar man to be.
00:38:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:13
Speaker
And so a lot of people are just DMing Mikey Lucas on Instagram.
00:38:16
Speaker
Cool.
00:38:16
Speaker
At Mikey Lucas.
00:38:18
Speaker
But we also have a webpage that we developed and created just at 314syndicate.com.
00:38:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:22
Speaker
And...
00:38:27
Speaker
That's a good place we can run through.
00:38:30
Speaker
You can kind of give a good look for how we're doing.
00:38:32
Speaker
The website should be live next week.
00:38:34
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:35
Speaker
We went through and reiterated all the content and kind of did some of that stuff and how the web guide built it out for us.
00:38:40
Speaker
Cool.
00:38:41
Speaker
And so next week or so, it should be live.
00:38:44
Speaker
But there's a consultation link in there as well.
00:38:48
Speaker
Okay.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:50
Speaker
And then you could always even just reach out to Taylor, reach out to somebody on the podcast and say, hey, I want to get a phone number.
00:38:54
Speaker
Call us.
00:38:55
Speaker
I mean, we're just that open with it.
00:38:57
Speaker
Like, we'll let anybody give out our phone number or our email addresses because we want them to be able to have that touch point that they want to have.
00:39:04
Speaker
So, you know, if somebody's like, hey,
00:39:06
Speaker
I was listening to your podcast.
00:39:07
Speaker
I want to, you know, get Austin's phone number, like give it to him and let him call me and we'll have a conversation about it.
00:39:13
Speaker
Cool.
00:39:13
Speaker
All right.
00:39:13
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:14
Speaker
You heard it here.
00:39:14
Speaker
Austin, we'll let you call him every day.
00:39:17
Speaker
But yeah, especially if you're in the group.
00:39:18
Speaker
That doesn't mean I'll answer every day, but you can absolutely call every day.
00:39:22
Speaker
yeah so yeah we'll link to all that in the show notes so if you're interested definitely go check that out and at the very least go do a call with you get with these guys because um that's what's cool is even before i had the attention intention of getting in on this just a call with mighty and you guys yeah help me realize hey at the very least talk to your cpa about this or like yeah get yourself aware of things come to a consultation and and we'll tell you like you know
00:39:45
Speaker
Take what our consultation is.
00:39:47
Speaker
Come have a consultation with us after you talk to your CPA.
00:39:49
Speaker
Come locked and loaded to be like, hey, this is what my CPA said.
00:39:52
Speaker
See if we really know what we're talking about.
00:39:54
Speaker
See if we can really beat what your CPA said.
00:39:56
Speaker
Have those calls first and then have our consultation.
00:39:58
Speaker
But there's no harm in having a consultation because you might learn something that you didn't know, even if it's one thing.
00:40:03
Speaker
I mean, that's still a takeaway.
00:40:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
Or like what happened yesterday, I heard Mikey talking to a guy who I think was the guy who owed the 40 grand or whatever.
00:40:13
Speaker
So maybe you're getting ready to do your taxes.
00:40:15
Speaker
Maybe your CPA is telling you you're going to owe this much.
00:40:18
Speaker
Might as well talk to these guys and, you know.
00:40:20
Speaker
Yeah, if you had something wrong with, you know, something in your house and you knew that it was going to be expensive to fix, wouldn't you get more than one quote on something, right?
00:40:28
Speaker
Unless it's solar.
00:40:29
Speaker
Sign up now with me.
00:40:30
Speaker
Except for solar.
00:40:31
Speaker
That's right.
00:40:32
Speaker
That's right.
00:40:32
Speaker
But for anything else, you shop around a little bit.
00:40:35
Speaker
Exactly.
00:40:36
Speaker
No, but it's the same thing.
00:40:38
Speaker
It's like a dating experience.
00:40:40
Speaker
You're not going to love this first CPA that you ever find.
00:40:42
Speaker
You're going to have to find a few, talk to a few, work with a couple.
00:40:46
Speaker
It's dating.
00:40:47
Speaker
You're dating.
00:40:49
Speaker
And so we hope to win that last date.
00:40:52
Speaker
But yeah, have those consultations and then bring them to us and see what they say and see where it is because you never know what you're going to find out.
00:41:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:00
Speaker
Love that.
00:41:01
Speaker
Well, Austin, thanks for coming on the show today.
00:41:03
Speaker
And then last question before we let you go.
00:41:06
Speaker
Um, I don't know one like word of advice or maybe like some common mistakes that you've seen a lot of, uh, I don't know, solar reps or companies make with their finances.
00:41:15
Speaker
Any like final words of advice?
00:41:17
Speaker
I mean, there's just so much.
00:41:19
Speaker
It's so hard to pick down, which, you know, which is the best thing I would probably say, you know, one of the number one things that, uh,
00:41:27
Speaker
that I see is so many people fight for W2.
00:41:31
Speaker
They think W2's king and they're like, it's prepaid, it makes the filing so much easier.
00:41:36
Speaker
W2 is not king.
00:41:39
Speaker
There's so little that you can do to help mitigate some of these taxes if you're W2ing yourself.
00:41:46
Speaker
So I would say, you know, if you are W2, if it's something that you thought about doing, 1099 is the way to go.
00:41:52
Speaker
And then I would say, you know, the only way to do a 1099, the one thing most guys don't do is they're just letting their companies pay their 1099.
00:42:03
Speaker
We help, and one of the things I definitely recommend is having your own personal company with an LLC attached to a 1099 or something like that to pay yourself through.
00:42:11
Speaker
Most guys don't know how to do that or they question that, and we definitely bring that to the table, but it's not impossible.
00:42:17
Speaker
But that's probably the number one thing that I would say is the biggest overlooked thing is they're not utilizing their own things because their own companies or things like that for the write-offs and things like that.
00:42:28
Speaker
They're just letting them pay the 1099, and they're paying whatever they say they have to pay at the end of the year.
00:42:33
Speaker
And so I would say that's probably the number one thing of advice.
00:42:35
Speaker
The second word of advice is always strive to pay the least amount of taxes.
00:42:40
Speaker
Like the government already gets enough money.
00:42:42
Speaker
Do they really need any more?
00:42:44
Speaker
Not from you, right?
00:42:45
Speaker
They can have somebody else's money.
00:42:46
Speaker
They don't need my money.
00:42:47
Speaker
So the mindset change of...
00:42:51
Speaker
of not paying taxes is something that most people have to get used to.
00:42:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:54
Speaker
Cause it's something that people talk about quite a bit, right?
00:42:57
Speaker
It's everywhere.
00:42:58
Speaker
So that's great advice.
00:43:00
Speaker
And guys, I went, when I started in the industry for like my first three years, I didn't know any of this stuff.
00:43:05
Speaker
And I have like,
00:43:06
Speaker
I was getting paid $10.99.
00:43:07
Speaker
I didn't even have an LLC set up.
00:43:09
Speaker
None of that stuff.
00:43:10
Speaker
So that's probably one of the biggest things.
00:43:11
Speaker
That's probably one of the first things that we fix every time we come into somebody's books.
00:43:15
Speaker
Every time that we sign a new client on, one of our first questions is, okay, do you have an LLC?
00:43:20
Speaker
What state is it in?
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's the first question I got asked.
00:43:24
Speaker
So, and that's exactly, yeah, and it's the truth.
00:43:26
Speaker
So we definitely help utilize that.
00:43:28
Speaker
And so that's one of the biggest things that you can do because there's just so much that you can write off that people don't know about.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:35
Speaker
Just by simply opening up an LLC and having your company, whoever you're working for, pay that.
00:43:40
Speaker
That's it.
00:43:41
Speaker
Step number one.
00:43:42
Speaker
I mean, it really makes that much of a difference.
00:43:44
Speaker
You still have to know what you're doing and know where to put things, but I mean, it really does make a big difference to do that.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yeah, that's fire.
00:43:50
Speaker
So guys, make sure you're getting the right financial advice.
00:43:52
Speaker
Don't take advice from people that don't know what they're doing and look at their bank accounts.
00:43:57
Speaker
If they're broke, don't take advice from broke people, right?
00:44:00
Speaker
So that's what you're going to be doing.
00:44:01
Speaker
If you want to get in Pi Syndicate, you're going to be getting advice from people that are making fat stacks.
00:44:07
Speaker
from guys that are in the investments themselves, guys like Austin.
00:44:10
Speaker
So Austin, thanks again for coming on the show.
00:44:12
Speaker
And I can't wait to see how many people connect with you, but thanks for all you guys are doing for the industry.
00:44:16
Speaker
You're really helping us keep a hold of that money, which is the thing we want to do.
00:44:20
Speaker
Thanks for letting me come on.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:21
Speaker
If anybody has any questions or any concerns even about Pi Syndicate or anything that you can think of, feel free to...
00:44:28
Speaker
to reach out and don't be hesitant to ask your questions.
00:44:31
Speaker
Like we want to hear them.
00:44:32
Speaker
We want to know what they are.
00:44:33
Speaker
We want to help everybody.
00:44:34
Speaker
Much appreciated, Austin.
00:44:36
Speaker
Thanks again.
00:44:37
Speaker
And we will talk soon.
00:44:39
Speaker
Hey Solarpreneurs, quick question.
00:44:41
Speaker
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00:44:51
Speaker
For the last three years, I've been placed in the fortunate position to interview dozens of elite level solar professionals and learn exactly what they do behind closed doors to build their solar careers to an all-star level.
00:45:03
Speaker
That's why I want to make a truly special announcement about the new learning community exclusively for solar professionals to learn, compete, and win with top performers in the industry.
00:45:14
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And it's called Solciety.
00:45:16
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00:45:35
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00:45:41
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So go to soulcidity.co to learn more and join the learning experience now.
00:45:49
Speaker
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00:45:56
Speaker
We'll see you on the inside.