The College Funding Truth Financial Advisors Won t Tell You Joe Messinger EP 50

Welcome back to another episode of Business Journey Locked. I'm joined today by Joe Messinger, founder and CEO of Capstone College Partners, co-founder of College Aid Pro, also partner and director of college planning at Capstone Wealth Partners. Joe works closely with families and financial advisors who are navigating one of the most complex and emotionally charged financial decisions parents face. How to fund their children's college education without robbing their own retirement or saddling graduates with unimaginable debt. Joe, thank you so much for joining me. I'm going to turn it over to you since you'll explain yourself far better than I ever could. Yeah, thanks for having me. I like the journey aspect. It's certainly been a journey to get to where we're at now with just different tentacles that are created through creating different businesses, different partnerships. Yeah, it's been a journey from graduating from Penn State. We were talking before we went live, going to school there was a the start of the journey, but I went there for hospitality school. I started my journey working in restaurants, mostly in the kitchen as a chef. That is a grueling business for those that do not know, but it teaches you a lot about everything. I think people say, how does that parlay into personal financial planning? I'm like, well, if you think about it, when you work in a kitchen, you're managing people and products and everything, hospitality, and you got to make sure the experience is great. That led to being in the service industry, which is personal financial planning. Started with big box firms and then migrated and started our own firm 16 years ago, went fully independent. It kind of leads us to where we're at today with Capstone Wealth Partners and the other pieces of the puzzle for writing and speaking and helping other advisors understand how to navigate college funding within the financial planning space. I completely agree with what you're saying about the service industry. I, too, myself was in it for a bit of time, so I clearly understand your standpoint, but as we briefly touched on before going live, the average debt nowadays for the average American is about $80,000 worth of debt. That's just unimaginable because for some people that could take decades. A lot of people are mismanaging their money, so what's kind of strategies that you have within your environment to kind of help mitigate such risk? I think the big thing, what we try to do is help people not get into that problem, so proactive instead of reactive. There's advisors that specialize in helping you with your student loan consolidations and repayment. Our plan is to help parents that have high school, college-bound students, not get into that mess. We do that by saying, hey, this is what this school is likely going to cost you out of pocket. I don't say it's a misnomer, but averages can be misleading at times. When we talk about average debt or average cost of a student, we try to be laser-focused on what will you pay for this degree from this institution. If you've got 10 schools you're looking at, the sticker prices become irrelevant. The average private school is discounting tuition over 56% as of the last study, so 56% off tuition. They're competing with their peers. They're charging $80,000, $90,000, $100,000, but the sticker price really is irrelevant, but you've got to understand where the aid comes from is either need-based financial aid based on your financials or it's merit scholarships, and different schools approach that totally differently, and I think that's where we crack the code with our software and with the different things that we've built is to say, where are you going to get a discount on college? Because some schools flat out don't have scholarships. All the Ivy Leagues, they don't have scholarships. It's all need-based. They'll meet 100% of need, but if you're talented enough to get into that level of school, you're going to pay full price if your family makes $350,000 plus, so it's just understanding. It's nothing against you. It's just how they run their business, and there's other schools that will give you $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a year scholarships, because if you're talented enough to get into an Ivy, there's lots of schools that will pay for you to come, so it's understanding that every student is a snowflake. You're all unique. Every family situation, even two kids in the same family have different opportunities based on their academics and where they can go get discounts, and I always say, don't listen to your uncle. Don't listen to your neighbor. They got a full ride to Stanford. I'm like, well, that's great. That means that their family's poor. It's nothing. That's just what it is. If your family makes a significant income and has assets, you're going to pay full price, and they'll be happy to have you, so it's just helping families cut through the noise of understand you can't have the conversation with a 17, 18-year-old that just got into Penn that we can't afford. You need to have that conversation when they're a sophomore and a junior and create that conversation, understand what that dialogue is, because they've done everything you asked them to do, the student has, but if you go there and they get saddled with $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 of debt, it's not a great outcome. The college dream becomes a college nightmare. I enjoyed how you briefly touched on that it's also a business model as well. When people think of colleges, banks, they don't view it as a business, but at the end of the day, it is a business. To give you some insight on my personal experience with this, as an 18-year-old, you don't think of the financial burden that this can cost you five to seven years down the line. When I was getting my loans from NJ Class, FAFSA, my dad helped me with that. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, get my loans and we can go from there, but now I'm literally paying it off. I'm like, oh, wow, maybe I should have done it a different way. There's also a lot of people that go to universities and colleges and once they get the degree, they do a completely different field of work. It's like, did I waste four years or two years of my time getting my bachelor's or my associate's or even my master's? It's just the way that your life goes. It can really shift. People in that nature, it is a burden at that time because they feel like they wasted all that time. They would feel like they're wasting all this money for a degree that they're not using. They look at it as just a piece of paper. If you're not really actively going to go into your desired field, then yeah, you should think about going to college before going into it. So many people go to different colleges. They change their major so many times. If you don't know what you want to do before going into college, what's the point of going if you don't a full clear-cut plan? Yeah. I think a gap year is not a terrible thing, taking a year and figuring it out. Maybe go to a community college. I've always said there's lots of paths to get there. I think things are changing because of AI. All the people that built the AI models are out of job because they built them so well. So I think the trends are changing. I think there's an affordable path to a higher education, and the numbers are certainly there that show that with an undergrad degree, you're going to do much better than without. But I think the trends will be more designations and getting trained in certain models, like getting Adobe Illustrator. You don't need to go to Stanford for four years to be a graphic designer anymore. You just don't. You can go get these trainings and specialized things. So I think what you mentioned was, what's the finish line look like? What are you going to make from this college, from this chosen major? And if you have a crystal ball that says, hey, I'm going to go to the same school as my roommate, he's going to come out with a computer science degree and make roughly $100,000 a year. I'm going to come out as an educator making $40,000 a year. Well, the reality is he can take on more debt because he can repay it. So if I take on $100,000, I'm going to have a $1,000 a month payment. I can't do that on a teacher salary. He could probably do that on that salary. So I think of those framing the conversation of what's the return on education is a big part of it. It feels great to get into some of these great schools, but I have a family, they're looking at TCU and they got a great scholarship, $30,000 off per year. They're going to TCU for that cost, but it's going to still cost them about $250,000. And there's another school that's giving great scholarships, it's going to cost them $100,000. So it's $150,000 more. I'm like, are you that much better off for going to TCU than this other college? I don't think so. You can take that $150,000 and put it in the bank today. When you're 65, it's going to be worth $4 million, $5 million. So it's like those framing conversations when you look at what's that return on education. You'd be hard pressed to show me that you're going to have this job, getting your job out of this college is going to get you that much more money at the end of the day. I do agree. People tend to not look at the ROI on what could actually benefit them. Now, there's so many colleges and universities now that have courses and programs tailored to AI, all this machine learning. So yeah, that's great if you want to do something in that nature. Because I do truly believe that AI could enhance. And the way that it's being developed now will be a lot different where it's going to be six months from now, let alone four years. I mean, the rate it's just going is just unimaginable the way it's going. And how it's going to integrate it into businesses. And the interesting thing that I'm learning from just my relationships with college admissions folks and people in the financial aid offices, I think there's going to be a rise back of the liberal arts education. Because what they're asking, employers are asking is like, how are you teaching your students how to use AI and implement it and spread it? So the liberal arts education is more based on solving complex problems and having worldly knowledge. And we're in a Twitter generation. We've got 30 second spans. So people that can really dig in and kind of focus, but then leverage the AI. And I think that kind of that liberal arts education, where that shift is happening is like, you're going to learn a lot of this stuff, but then you're going to learn how to apply it and take it to the workplace. So I think it's an interesting, we're in a really interesting period right now. If we listen to this podcast five years from now, it's going to be like, oh, AI, well, of course that's everywhere. It's everything. But like right now it's still, a lot of people are still not familiar with it. They're not using it. And I think it'll be, it's here to stay. Let's just say that. It's not going anywhere and we got to use it for leverage. But obviously in your line of work, shortcuts are tempting. Family want fast answers. Advisors want quick wins. Personally for you, what's one principle or discipline that you refuse to compromise within your businesses when guiding families through college funding, even it might slow down the process because you've seen the costs of getting it wrong through other people. I think the approach we take is you can't look at college in a vacuum, meaning that you have to take it in terms of like, hey, you've got, this is your first kid. You've got two more and you also would like to retire someday. So you got to look at it in terms of what are your trade-offs. So I think like giving good personal financial planning advice, it isn't just about college. We try to say, hey, look, let's, we got to balance this with your current needs, multiple children and your other retirement goals that are down the road. Because for most people that's 10 to 15 years from when their kids are done with college. So we say like the uniqueness of what we can do is like, how do you thread that needle? You know, get the kids to and through college onto a comfortable retirement on time, debt-free. So that is a complicated problem. So, you know, solving for that, you know, what if you spend, we were using that example we were using before, if you spend $100,000 or $250,000 on college, what does that mean for your retirement? Well, it's not $150,000. It's the time value of money. That's significantly more. Either someone's taking on debt or you're pulling from other resources to fund that. And I think that's where, you know, we get into the job of personal financial advisor, like doing it the way we do as a fiduciary. It's not going away. AI can't take that job. It just can't. It can't, you know, can't help thread that needle. Can't ask those complicated questions of, you know, well, what does this mean? Are you willing to retire four years later if we did that? Take this education. Are you setting a precedent for your other kids that they can go wherever they want no matter the cost? You know, so I think those are the things that we can't, honestly don't waver on, but those are the things that, you know, we've got great technology. We use it to deliver a lot of advice, but having those real human questions, those are, because the college decision is emotional as much as it is financial. But if you allow it to be only an emotional decision, they'll take you for all you're worth. So that's kind of what we're, you know, helping provide and be a, you know, a guide through that whole process. You know, be a hero for your kids by not letting them get into debt and showing them a good example of what a smart financial decision is, and we'll help guide you through that. So that's something that AI and technology is never going to be able to do. No, I agree. And just having those transparent conversations with them, just a peer-to-peer conversation, just, you know, because you're trying to do your best to try to guide them in the right direction, you know, just having those options they should have. You know, there's a lot of people, me for myself, I put all my eggs into one basket. You know, I applied to one university. I got in and I went for two years, but then the other two years I did online because of some family issues. I had to relocate to Florida, but there's so many people that want to go into a singular direction, want to do just like one path. Not saying it's a bad thing because I did it myself, but just having those options, options in different fields, options in different universities and colleges to expand your horizon so you're not, I don't want to say guilted for not doing this one path, but just being like more realistic because within life there's always options and you don't know where life's going to be within the next couple years. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, and people always ask like, well, you try to attach the return on education, return on investment. And I'm like, well, yeah, cause you kind of have to, it's too expensive these days to not do that. At least have a starting point. It doesn't mean it can't change, but let's at least like, you know, that educator versus computer science it's, they're going to make, you know, 150% more out of the shoot in one major versus the other. So if you are going to go to school and it is like for what is the targeted training, like what's business school? What are you going for business? Like, okay, that's pretty broad. So I, depending on the students, I had a great conversation actually yesterday with a family that was, this kid's like already entrepreneurial. You know, he's the kid that's out shoveling snow, mowing lawns, fixing people's cars. Like he's that kid that's like, you're going, he's heading to a big university. I said, you really need to look into their entrepreneur program as part of the school because you are built to be an entrepreneur and that business school is not going to teach you entrepreneur stuff. It's going to teach you how to go work for a fortune 500. You know, that finance school is not going to teach you, you know, how to go do sales, marketing, operations, finance, all the things we got to do in our small businesses. So I, you know, just those kind of things I think are, you know, there's so many online academies for that stuff too. I mean, it's just, you know, there's, I think the kids that, those that are going to hustle are going to hustle because people are always like, you know, are you going to be that much better off by going to one college or another? I'm like, well, if you're going to go hustle, you're going to hustle. You know, that's, that's just the nature of it. So, you know, these in, in some of these students, they're not the straight A students. We all know the stories of the kids that were the 2.8s, but it's because they were doing other stuff. They were building things. They were, they were doing paper routes. They were whatever it took to go make some scratch. You know, it's an interesting thing when you talk to certain students. So it's, I think the paths forward are going to be very, there's always going to be corporate America, but you and I don't live in that world. So, you know, I left it, I left big finance and shoot, what was it? 2000, 2009, I guess. And I'm not, I've never looked back. Like I, I'm, I'm unemployable. So I mean, I couldn't do it. I like, I like to create things. I like to think outside the box and try things and take risks. And that's, that's the, that's the entrepreneur journey for me. Yeah. A hundred percent. I, you know, it's also touching on what you said that college doesn't really teach you how to own a business. It just teaches you how to be a worker in a sense. You know, there's, especially with the rise of social media, there's just so many different people, even younger than like 15 that are on their entrepreneurial journey. They're doing their hustle. You know, the other day I saw this 13 year old who runs a barbershop out of his garage, posting on social media and charging for the cuts and also promoting his content as well. He's got, I think 30, 50,000 followers, but that just shows you how the technology and social media there's good in that it produces hustle culture for people that actually want to be an entrepreneur who actually want to Excel. You know, there's so many different programs, academies, mentorships that you can go into besides going into college that would actually provide a real ROI, a real lifetime value. You know, for example, you know, high ticket closing, you know, that that's a very big field within, within my, within my line of work. And, but there's a lot of people that glorify it. So it's also doing your due diligence, doing your research before you go all in on one something, because you don't want to go all in on, on, you know, college or, you know, any of these online mentorships, if it doesn't actually produce the ROI that you're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's interesting. It's how do you, how do you quantify the, as you were talking, there's studies and like in the college stuff I do, and it's like, what, for high school teenagers, what's the number one career target? And like 30 years ago, it was like astronaut for like 50 years running something like that. But then it flipped and now astronauts number four and number one is YouTube influencer. Like that's the number one career target for these kids. I'm like, I'm like, okay, that's, that's great that you want to do that. Do you understand how hard those people work to get that those followers? Like it, those are, you know, these are, I mean, I've been self-promoting for a long time and like, you know, these people that have 30,000 for it, like it, they are, they're hustling. They're working 20 hours a day. I promise you they make it look easy because that they're trying to sell the lifestyle a lot of times, but that they're working hard. I mean, that's, that is not for the faint of heart to get in and self-promote whatever you're promoting. And I think it's, whatever you're promoting, it's like, what's the hook and then what's the sale? And I think that's kind of the thing like these people like YouTube, like the people that are famous and we could rattle them off, people that have big podcasts and people that have big YouTube followers, like pick your channel and kind of go from there, pick your medium. So, you know, if you're a good writer, blog, if you're, if you like to do more like this, do a podcast, if you're, you know, do a book and do a blog, if that's your thing. So I think a lot of people get stuck in their own heads thinking like, uh, thinking it has to be perfect. It doesn't have to be perfect. You got to get a minimum viable product out and then go from there. Exactly. Exactly. And just cut the noise out. Sitting where, where you are working with families nationwide, training financial advisors through your FPA course, what's one shift you think both families and advisors are underestimating right now when it comes to college funding? Um, interestingly, when I meet with people, I always ask them, how do you make big financial decisions? Um, do you work with an advisor? And if they say yes, and say, well, tell me what, what's their approach been to the college funding? Like, well, they told us to save, we've got $20,000 in a 529. I'm like, so what's their next, what, what, what's next? And I think that, um, most advisors just ignore it to be very frank. They just don't talk about college funding. They'll help you save for it, but they don't help you pay for it. Um, so, and I think that's the shift I think is, um, if you're not going to help them as an advisor, they're going to go find somebody that can. So, uh, and I, I, I've been, I've been talking about this in front of advisors for over a decade. Uh, and still, you know, I meet with people every week that, yeah, my advisors, they don't, they said they don't do that. I'm like, well, how do you, so my, my question, I think the shift is how do you call yourself a fiduciary if you're in the, well, like we are a registered investment advisor, we're helped with the account of an attorney or a CPA. Um, how do you call yourself a fiduciary if you're ignoring probably the biggest expense they'll have outside of their house? If you've got three kids, you're looking at a, you know, a hundred to $400,000 each. If you're not advising on how to get there and how to not just save for it, but pay for it. I don't, I don't think you can call yourself fiduciary. So that's the shift. I mean, I'm, I'm kind of beat my drum, but like, you know, either, either do it or outsource it. And that's where the college aid pro team comes in is because we have folks that will support advisory practices and, and be that source of, you know, here's how you delegate this and get, but have, have a resource and have a understanding of how, how to help families get not just to college, but through college with manageable debt and understanding like the financial aid process. And that's the ecosystem that we created because we've learned that most advisors don't want to do it because they're, they're like intimidated by it, or maybe their big box firm doesn't allow them because it's too complicated. So that's the shift. That's pretty interesting that you touch on that. And it is a little scared to actually hear that because you know, again, they just want to get you in, but they don't really show you how to manage it during and after there's so many people within college that don't even get jobs. You know, they might do internships, but that doesn't pay anything. Sure. It helps them with it within their career path they want to go to, but when they actually get out and if, you know, for example, for, for what your example was earlier, if they have a hundred thousand dollars and, but they get a 40k teacher salary, it's going to take them years to pay this off on top of the other added expenses that they have within their life. So it's hard to juggle everything together. And then you can talk about debt consolidation, which you briefly touched on earlier, or, you know, the national debt relief that all of these other programs are going, but that does harm you for, for a little bit, correct? Yeah. I mean, the only solution that's been offered for student loans is just stretch your payment out for 25 years and pay us three times the interest. You know, literally you're going to pay tens of thousands of dollars more in interest and it'd be in debt until you're 50. So, you know, the way that our technology reads, and it's like, we want you to see this in plain language. Here's where you're going to go. Here's your debt. Here's your loan payment. Here's the 10 year repayment, which is standard. Here's the 25 year. And here's the interest you're going to pay. If everybody sees like the life of loan costs, they're not going to make that decision. They're not going to let their students make that decision, but it's, it's romanticized to get you in to college. Like this place is awesome. We have a lazy river. We bring puppies out for finals week. Like it's like, oh, this is totally going to be worth the $70,000 they're going to charge me. Well, is it? Or could you go get the same education for a fraction of the cost and go get the same job? You don't need to go to a $70,000 a year college to go be an educator. You just don't. You just don't. So, but it's romanticized and they're good at their jobs. So you got to understand like they're pulling on those emotional strings and that the, you know, there's an enrollment manager at every college and man, they're good at their job. There's billions of dollars spent on marketing to attract and acquire students. It's a business. It's $600 billion a year in higher education. So that's all across, you know, higher ed as well. So the big loans come from the grad schools and, you know, people that are doing advanced degrees, but undergrad is not as much of the problem, but it certainly can be. So it's, these are the kind of things I'm just like, if we, if we had a rational conversation where we can have that college money talk with students, students are becoming more aware of the student loan crisis. Young adults, they really are. And I think if we just have, this is a real opportunity to teach some personal finance measures of, Hey, if you take a loan, here's a repayment. If you stretch it out, they'll, they'll love you because you're going to pay them all this more interest. They'd love to have you on the rolls for 25 years. So, but you know, just understand like, understand what you're getting into. And I don't, I don't think that most people have a clear picture because they look at one year, not four or five, because most students are, the graduation rate's less than 40% at that four-year institution. So that's pretty horrible. But I don't think of it as a five-year proposition. People ask me all the time, like, well, yeah, but I hear a lot of people are going for five. I was like, I'm not, you're not going to undergrad for five years. Go somewhere and get you done in four. That's real expensive. So these are the kind of things that, that I try to instill in people to help them understand, like this is, you're making a commitment for four years, not one and not five. Yes. And just instilling the financial literacy as well. I had a client of mine when I was working at a financial institution a couple months back who got his master's in his forties and he's 50 something right now, I believe 52. And he said with all his loans and debt that he has, he's not going to pay it off until he's about 95. And I'm like, well, don't you want to reconsolidate or, you know, do whatever he's like, no, no, no, leave it, leave it as is. Cause once I, once I passed away, then that's it. He doesn't want to waste all that money. You know, it's just, it's a lot harder, especially when you're in your forties and your fifties, you know, going to college, taking the risk to become a business owner when you're in your twenties. And when, you know, you, when you're in your late teens as well, going to college, taking that risk within the business, you can come back from it if it doesn't work out. But once you get up and higher up in age, it becomes a lot more risk than reward. So for people that do go to university and colleges, I do commend them because they want to go for a reason. They want to excel, you know, their, their livelihood, their personal and professional development, but it also, you got to weigh out the risk on, again, as we touched on what the ROI is. Are you actually going to pay this off? Or are you going to wait until my example with, with my, my client, who's going to be until 95 to pay off all his loans? Like that, that's a horrible way to look at it. And, and at the time he was, he was out of a job too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was, it was a boondoggle in, um, in the, the, the great, uh, you know, a recession of 2007 to 2009, the people, so, so the government came in and said, we're going to take over all the loans because nobody could lend because the markets were a mess. So the federal government says, we're going to, we're going to back all these loans. And if you want to go to, we've got your back. If you need to work, if you've got loans, you can stretch your payments out for 25 years. Awesome. We're, we're going to make three times as much interest the government is. And then they also said, if you need, if you want to go back and get a advanced degree, we're going to have what's, what's called unlimited graduate plus loans. And you can take out as much as you want up to the full cost of attendance, no questions asked none. So that, that has been adjusted a little bit here recently with some new legislation, but, but that created, that created the student loan. We were already in one, but since then, you know, we've gone from 500 billion to almost 2 trillion. So in that, that three, four year window where people, they they're like, what do I do? I guess I go back to school because I can't get a job. So I'm going to go get a law degree or an MBA or whatever it was with unlimited funds from the government. That's, that's probably your, the colleague you're talking about probably was in that period of, I can't get a job because nobody's hiring. So I'm going to go back to school and I'll just use loans and figure it out later. So, but there's, so my big idea has always been like college pre-approval. Like you should be pre-approved for college, just like your mortgage. I mean, that's, that's, that's the big idea. I think that's the way it should work. That only in a perfect world, right? We have to self-administer it because the, you know, the, the colleges aren't going to, they're not your advocate. They're not going to tell you you're spending too much on college. They're trying to get you to buy their product. So you got to do it yourself. It's a lot easier to acquire a student loan as opposed to, you know, as an entrepreneur getting a business loan. It's a one, two, three, as you mentioned, no questions asked, you know, given when you were in your late teens, early twenties, at that time, people that were going to university were people that want to become a doctor, a lawyer, a judge, you know, any, anything that really requires that higher educational experience and knowledge. But over time, as you're aware, the government realized that they can get college degrees from people in a lower tier and have all these other companies and all these other fields of work say, Hey, you know, great, but you need to have a college degree. You know, you see entry jobs nowadays, wants a master's or a bachelor's having four or five years of experience. How does that help anybody, especially coming out of college, which is why they go back to college as we keep talking about, you know, it's just, it's just a loop and never ending loop. That's where are they going to go? It's never ending loop, which reoccurs more and more debt. Yeah. It's, um, I thought there's like the three bad wolves. Like you've got, if you look at higher education, like you've got higher education itself, right. You've got the, they're, they're the ones that are now charging a hundred thousand dollars for one year of undergrad. Some of them get higher ed. You've got the federal government who gives out most of the loans and we've got 2 trillion and they collect it. It's our, most people would be shocked if you're listening to this podcast. The largest asset of the United States of America is the student loan portfolio. It's close to 40% of the United States assets, the interest that they bring in from us taxpayers and everybody's back in repayment now and everybody's getting charged interest again. That went away a little bit during the pandemic, but it's all back and the lights are on. So loan forgiveness ain't happening. It's too valuable to us as a society. So you've got higher ed, federal government will give you the loans, stretch them out for 25 years, that whole story. And then you've got wall street that'll back them up if you need private loans. So, and that's, that's all a continuous loop. Those three higher ed, uh, private, you know, higher ed, uh, you know, the wall street and, and, and they're all there. Talk about the loop. That's it. That's the three bad wolves. Yeah. I've had a lot of CEOs, founders, operators come onto the show and all the challenges that slow down growth boil down to a couple of key areas, sales, lead generation, fulfillment, and delivery. You're running three connected businesses as of now, coming from a business perspective, what's one area you're looking to fix, whether that's on the, you know, advisor adoption side, software scaling side, or even direct client acquisition side. Um, I think for me, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's the age old entrepreneur, uh, dilemma of work on the business and not in it. So like with college aid pro, I stepped out of that business. I was a CEO there for five and a half years, um, brought in professional leadership. Um, then Kevin's doing a great job and they're growing that business. Uh, I don't, I don't work there in a day-to-day capacity anymore, but that business continues to grow, um, continue to be a shareholder. And, um, and I love what they're doing. I'm their, I'm the biggest fan, I would say, and I refer business there frequently. Um, so that's, that's the, the strategy. And then the same with, uh, uh, with the, the writing, the speaking, the training side, it's getting, um, it's great to be wanted and go speak at conferences, but it's not scalable. So doing more online course things that are work while you sleep, that's kind of the strategy there. Like just put things out there that are evergreen, um, so that it's not as much wear and tear on my body or on the time. Cause you know, you go to a conference to speak for an hour. It's, it's nice to get a little check, but that's three days really out of the office. Cause it's getting there, it's getting home. It's, you know, it's, it's up and down. Um, and I've, I've had weeks or years where I did that, you know, 25, 27 weeks of the year and you're just shot and that detracts from other areas. So I'm like, if we can train people in a scalable way, um, that, that's how I'd prefer to do it. Um, through channels and finding partnerships, like with the financial planning association, if they'll distribute a course for me, that's, you know, that's, that's great. Um, they report all the CE, um, it's all recorded, you know, I see that there's just a recurring revenue. Um, we've got to update it once, once a year, but that's, that once a year, instead of 20 weeks a year, uh, going to speak. So, um, and then, you know, with, with, uh, and, and all of it, um, Capstone Wealth Partners is, you know, the, the oldest business of them. Um, and it's, uh, it's, it's really hitting its stride in year 16. I mean, where we're, we're thinking about now, like focusing on only bringing in ideal clients. So this is a more of a focus of, you know, our, our current clients are more valuable than the next client. And that's a real mind shift, uh, for, I think a lot of business owners, when you have a recurring revenue business is how do we retain, how do we add value to those existing because they continue to grow with us. So those are the, those are the, the mind shift as we look at, like that, that particular business that are registered investment advisory business. There's, there's a reason that, uh, private equity and these different firms want to buy into our firms. That's because we have very sticky business, 98% retention and, you know, focusing on that, retaining people as opposed to going out and finding the new one. I think most business owners that might be listening to this know that, uh, but if you're in a truly renewing, uh, revenue business, you got to keep those, keep those clients on the books. So focusing on that as much as getting the new ones, especially when starting out to you're more accustomed to say yes to everybody. But as you keep growing and expanding, you're only going to bring in those ideal clients and retain those previous clients that you have. Cause if you can retain those clients, then that really shows that you actually have a business model that's worth keeping and worth expanding on to provide additional value. That's the best thing. But you've advised families, advisors where the downside is real. You know, we're talking about retirement savings at risk, debt decisions that follow graduates for decades. Let's say hypothetically when there's no clean data and no safe option, what decision principle do you personally trust most to guide you in making the best decision? Like my North star, like as an Yes. Um, I think one thing that we say to those that would be ideal clients, the best thing for you is to work with us. And so if, if, if that's not true, um, and we're not able to solve their problems, cause that's what we do. We solve problems for people. It's all we do all day. Um, you know, if it's an investment problem or a inheritance problem or an estate problem or insurance issues, like we're, we're the one call. So when we, like we need to be a, we need to be set up for, to be able to help people and we're not for everybody and being okay with, you know, attracting those that come to our website, man, this, this is for us. Um, but in some people will, you have to be okay with repelling some people, potential clients. Cause it, you know, it can't be all things to all people and be like, well, if I don't specialize in this and like, I can't, you know, in our business, like, yeah, I work with small business owners and couples and families and dogs and cats. And like, you're like, you work with everybody, but you don't work with anybody. So I've said like, you know, if we might, the North star is like, can we look them in the face and say the best thing for you and your family is to work with our firm. We're going to be a great fit. And you know, when we're making these decisions, providing people with options, not telling them what to do, providing them with some options. Um, and that, that to me is that that's good advising. Like we can go, you know, there's a couple of different options we can go with, uh, provide them with options, help them be informed and educate them and let them make their own decisions, you know, educate, inform and push. No, don't push them in one direction or another, but like give them the options and help them understand that they have options. I think that's kind of, kind of like how I help, you know, I think guide and make good decisions for people is that following that principle. Like if we're not, if we're not the best thing for you and your family, I'm going to advise you to go elsewhere and provide you that opportunity. Give them a referral. You know, if we're, if we can't solve this problem, here's somebody I think can. And that's beautiful because it truly shows that you actually care about them and not care about getting their, their money. Because at the end of the day, if you truly enjoy what you do, the money will follow you. You got to learn to say no to people because they may not fit your criteria, but especially when starting out, anyone listening to this, that is just starting out in any business type, you know, it's, it's ideal. It's good to dip your toes in a couple of different areas, but once you dip your toes and you're going to figure out what actually you want to fall face first in, and it may take time. It may take a couple of months, but that's how you learn, you know, it's AB testing. Got to figure out what, who you are within the market, what you're selling and what you can provide to clients. That's the biggest thing. That's just one-on-one business. Yeah. Yeah. It's developing that trust and, and then knowing, I think what you enjoy. So one of the things we do with, with staff and with other people, it's like you find the quadrant of, you know, what do you love to do? What do you hate to do? What are you good at? And what are you not good at? And you want to find that sweet spot for everybody on the team of, you know, I'm really good at it and I love doing it. And that's like, I love working with this client and I'm really good at it. So finding that unique space where you live. And it took us, you know, a while to find like our college funding niche. Like we're financial planning and we do wealth management, but our hook is I love working with families to solve this unique challenge that most people don't have the tools and resources to do it. So, you know, can you solve a unique problem within a big industry? And that's kind of what we found our, that's how we found our niche. And yeah, that's a big part of this to be able to repel people. And I, people like the reason I've been able to have any success that I've been able to enjoy and I'm always reaching for more, but it's, it's having, I've had a great business partner for 20 years. He's, he's operations and, and all that. And I do all the sales and marketing. It allows me, they, they work with the, their planners. I've, they work with clients. It allows me to do the sales and marketing because I know that operations and finance is taken care of. You know, I don't have to, I haven't outsourced it. I've got a great partner. He's the, I'm always like, let's go, go, go shiny things everywhere. But he's the one that's like reels me back in. It's like, Hey, we can't do all 12 things you want to do next month. And so, you know, it's kind of like, and Hey, we only have so much capacity for clients. We need to, we can't start a new client for a month out because you've done a great job with what you've done. But like, so, but having that partnership, it's yin and yang. It's, it's a, for me, that's been the key to, I mean, any success I've had, it's been because I've had a great partner along the way that supported me in doing other endeavors, you know, saying, yeah, go, go for it. Cause it all kind of leads back to home, like what we're trying to build with our wealth management firm. But you know, having that partnership, if you, if you don't have it finding people that are good at things that you're not good at, if it's fractional, uh, CTO, fractional CMO, whatever those things are, if you're not good at it, go find somebody that is. Um, and I think, uh, like thinking back to like, we should, we probably should have hired sooner. We should have had a better plan for when we hired, but now we've got an operations, uh, Susan on my team is, is awesome. So, you know, she's, uh, eight years coming up on eight years with us, I think. So, you know, hiring that was a, it was a great hire, but when she first started, like we didn't even know what she was supposed to do, but we figured it out. Um, but you know, having, having that team, building that team, investing in people, I think it's, you know, now we've got, you know, another team member that's come on as a great financial planner. So we just continuing to, I don't say like, um, for me, it's like, I love the, being able to work on the business and not in it. Cause a lot of the operational and all that stuff is, it's just not, it's not, I look, I look in on it certainly. Um, but, um, I'm allowed to focus and create value in the business and in the way that what I'm good at. Um, so that's, uh, I think something, you know, for entrepreneurs, like, you know, trying to figure it out, like, what do you really love doing? Well, my business partner hated going to networking events and hated, didn't want to present in public. And I love that stuff. You know? So it's like, Hey, find somebody that's like, loves to do the grinding part. And, and, and that you can go, if you're at the front of the house, I say he always tells people, well, Joe's front of the house, I'm back at a house. It's a restaurant thing. Cause you know, he's, he's back there making the sausage. I'm the one out there selling it. And that's, that's been a, that's a, that's a great partnership, um, to, to have somebody that's good at things you're not good at. Cause that, that's been the key to all of what we've done. I agree. I have a similar partnership with somebody else and, you know, I do what we're doing right now and he does, he's the baker, but you know, it's really hard in the beginning to find your business partner, develop your team. But as time goes on, you do find the right people. Sure. There might be a couple of bad apples you meet along the way, but as long as you keep trucking away and keep going, then you actually will find somebody that's worth value. And you mentioned the woman, she's been there for eight years and your business partner has been there for, I'm not too sure how long, but probably a long time, but it just shows you just having those transparent conversations and connecting with like-minded individuals for, to form partnerships. That's the beauty of it. That's what actually make businesses grow because you can do it all, but you're going to burn out eventually. It's not going to go the way you want it to go. Then you're going to question, why didn't it work out? Well, you're doing 10 things all at once and you only got 10 hours to work on it because you've got to do something else. Or it's like, you know, we all have 24 hours within the day, everyone. It just depends on how are you actually using that time? Are you using it for value or using it for busy work? But busy work doesn't mean it's valuable work. And that's the difference that some people fail to realize. They think because they're busy that they're progressing within their business, but they may not be. Yeah. That's a great one. How do you attract the right type of business to your business? And it goes back to this ideal client. I mean, for me, it got down to the CollegeAid Pro and Capstone. We're both growing and doing well, but I couldn't do both. It's like having two families. I was like, I can't do that. So it just came to a point. And in retrospect, it was a great decision to step out of that role, have somebody step in, take over that CEO role, lead that company, still be a contributor there, but not be in the day-to-day because there's too many cooks in the kitchen. Giving up that control is really hard. But now I'm looking back, I'm going, okay, now they've got 16 employees. They've got 40 with contractors. They're growing. They grew by 25% last year. But I'm not there. So that was a good decision because it's hard to serve two masters. I love what I'm doing, again, back in my seat with Capstone and doing business development and partnering with schools and doing all the things that we do. But it's hard to give that up. But in retrospect, it's been almost coming up three years. And that was the right thing. It was the right thing for the company, the right thing for the other shareholders there to step out and go back to, not back, I never left, but back to just focus on growing Capstone. Yeah, just going down to focusing on your strengths. It is hard in the beginning to give up some control. But once you truly realize that it's actually more beneficial for the company, growing the company, stabilizing the company, whatever it may be, then it really shows the prominent ROI. And as you just mentioned right there, three years looking at it now, you're like, oh, thank God I did that because now I can actually focus on what I'm good at. And the company's growing 25%. I mean, that's beautiful to hear. And I think that is the whole idea of like, if your hourly rate's $500 an hour, and you shouldn't be doing $40 an hour work. So figure out how to get there, put a target on it. Like if you're working in like, when I talk to advisors, like when you know to hire, like, well, when you're bursting at the seams, you should start to interview, go start looking for this person's going to take you two, three months to get them on board if they're good. And, you know, just you got to, you got to start to delegate some things. And it's always hard to give up that control. But man, like people in our business now, like, I wouldn't know how to open up an IRA account if you put a gun to my head. Like, I don't know how to do that. Like my staff does. But I don't know how to do that stuff. So I'm totally cool with that. I don't need to know how to do everything. I need to make sure everything gets done. That's what I need to make sure that happens. So yeah, honestly, to be transparent, I wasn't a big fan of opening our IRAs or servicing them, because I was always fearful that I was going to do something wrong. And it just messes up everything. Right? I've heard I heard a horror story one time where somebody within my institution at a different location, merged both a Roth and a 401. And that, let me tell you that that caused a lot of headaches. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like, it's, it's kind of the adage of like, don't have too many cooks in the kitchen, give somebody ownership of that. And if mistakes are made, you deal with it. And it ultimately falls on myself and my partner in our business, but give them full ownership. And there's been mistakes along the way, of course there has. But you know, you fall on the sword and try to pick them back up and be like, Hey, what did we learn from this? You know, we just, we made this mistake. It could have happened again and again and again, but now we have a process in our workflow to make sure it doesn't happen. So, you know, like merging those accounts, double verify, like whatever the, whatever the redundancy needs to be in the workflow, they're doing it, give them ownership. And, and, you know, if mistakes keep happening, then, you know, you got to figure out if that's the right person or not. But like, ultimately people, people want responsibility. If they're the right person to be working with you, like they want that responsibility. They want that accountability. You know, they want ownership over things. And, you know, I, that's what I love about our team is if people make a mistake, they're not afraid to tell us that it happened. And then we just, we talk through it and we figure out what's the path forward to make sure it doesn't happen again, if there was an issue. So. I agree. For anyone who's listening or watching this and wants to connect with you and learn more about what you're offering, what's the best place for them to reach out? Just go to capstonewealthpartners.com. There's a, there's a book of call. So if you want to connect with me, that's probably the best place. And I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and really all the socials were fairly active on, but LinkedIn is probably my number one channel for other business professionals. And yeah, but visit our, visit our website, capstonewealthpartners.com to probably learn more about what we do. And joethemessenger.com is my other site for speaking and all that kind of fun stuff. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Jeff. Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. Be well, man.