The Everyday Millionaire Show
The Everyday Millionaire Show
Cliff Nonnenmacher's Journey from Golf Balls to Franchises
Journey with us as we welcome the remarkable Cliff Nonnenmacher to the Everyday Millionaire Show, where he shares his captivating story of entrepreneurship and finance. From his determined beginnings in New York, where he discovered his entrepreneurial spark by raking golf balls, to building a diverse portfolio of several companies in Florida, Cliff's journey is nothing short of inspiring. He opens up about his leap into the world of day trading and his transition to Wall Street, providing valuable insights into the financial industry's evolution and the nuances of wealth management.
In our conversation, we explore the unexpected crossroads of criminal justice, forensic science, and real estate, revealing Cliff's pivot to real estate investment and the compelling allure of franchising. Join us for an engaging episode that promises to reshape your understanding of entrepreneurship, finance, and personal well-being.
Welcome to the Everyday Millionaire Show with Ryan Greenberg and Nick Kalkis. Alright, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Everyday Millionaire Show. We're here with Cliff Nonnemacher. Did I get that good? You nailed it Alright. Sometimes we got people with easy names, sometimes we got people with hard names. That one's not that bad, though. Cliff. Where are you coming from today?
Speaker 2:I live in southeast florida, so I'm a boca del rey area of florida. I'm a new york, new york transplant, but I live down here now.
Speaker 1:Just like many, I am also a new york transplant, but I didn't make it that far south. I uh yet. Well, kind of, I have a house in tampa, uh, but I we live in Maryland, but my race this weekend was just in Miami, so I wasn't too far from you.
Speaker 2:Nice. Yeah, it's a great area.
Speaker 3:How long have you been down?
Speaker 2:there I lived in New York. I moved to Marco Island, going to the Gulf Coast in 1988. And I became an investment banker in that area. I was with Solomon Solomon Smith Barney at the time, which is now Morgan Stanley, and then I had an opportunity to purchase my first franchise and I bought the master franchise rights for the entire state of New York and Connecticut, moved back to New York, sold it, built it, sold it and then moved back to Florida in 2011. So, back and forth, more than half my life, uh, has now been in in florida yeah, that's new york's a tough place to to stay.
Speaker 1:Just the people, the weather it's it makes it. It's a great, it's an infectious place, but it's tough to stay there for a life full life.
Speaker 2:Listen, I have a rule. Look, this is a wealth show, right. I have a rule and the rule is I will never reside in a state with a state income tax. It's like never going to happen. So, I don't care how beautiful the state is. Ie California. I will never reside there. I will never invest in that state. I won't put a dime into it in any capacity.
Speaker 1:Luckily, nick and I don't make any money because we're real estate investors, so that's how we do it. But yeah, maryland's not exactly the most tax friendly, but there is opportunity here, so that's why we stay, listen exactly Once you figure out.
Speaker 2:okay, this is the hand I've been dealt. I like it here. Raising a family here. How do I navigate around the tax inefficiencies of the state? You guys nailed it right 1031, all your tax exchanges and all your creative ways of not making or not paying taxes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly Good for you guys. That's it, man. So, starting on Wall Street, that's like, that's like a grind right. We've we've done a couple of interviews with some wall street guys and they all, they all kind of have the similar story what, what's kind of your? How did you get up into finance? Did you go to finance school and that was always your track, or did you kind of fall into it? Yeah, great question, right now.
Speaker 2:So I've been an entrepreneur my whole life. I've been an entrepreneur since I was a kid. I used to rake golf balls at eight years old out of country club you know ponds and lakes in the woods and sell them, and I've always been entrepreneurial. I've owned 12 companies. I'm now I'm going to be 53 soon, so I'm dating myself. But now I'm going to be 53 soon, so I'm dating myself. But no, I was not a good student. I did not like school. I hated the idea of college. I skipped it, made an investment, started buying some water sport concessions I've owned, you know, like parasol boats and jet ski rentals and all catamaran tours, and I was very heavy into the water sport business. I started what. I wasn't smart enough, but I started what is now an Uber Eats in Marco Island. I used to deliver food for 16 restaurants, pharmacy on Marco Island, which led me to the water sport business. That's how I actually got in that business and then continued to scale. I was a national distributor the Fun Noodle, that little polyneoprene tube you float on back in the 90s. So like different things over time.
Speaker 2:But I was making money at a young age and I invested in a satellite. It was a DTN network this is before satellites were even a thing and attach it to the side of my house and it gave me level one, level two, level three insight into buy sell side on a stock. So I started day trading. I was so early in day trading my handle was blue chip, not blue chip 157. My handle was blue chip, which is just crazy. That's how early I was in trading. I was probably 1920. And I loved it.
Speaker 2:Started trading stocks, started making money, took my portfolio to Wall Street. I got offered jobs by every member firm, from Raymond James to Merrill Lynch to Smith Barney, and I accepted a position with Smith Barney. So I got involved in it by becoming a day trader, which, of course, they shit all over what I was doing. They hated it, right yeah, because they're all by hold. They don't believe in timing. They don't believe in any of that. Meanwhile, fast forward, everything's algorithm, everything is right. Everything now is all about timing, trading, millisecond trades. So this is what they say. They say one thing and they do another on wall street, as you know. But that's how I got involved in it. I actually was with a team. We managed around $250 million, which in today's dollars would probably be close to $400 million in assets, mainly some institutional money like retirement money, but mainly high net worth individuals in Naples. Florida is a very wealthy area.
Speaker 1:So do you think nowadays somebody could go to Wall Street and get a job without a finance degree like you did?
Speaker 1:Probably not yeah, I was going to say that because that's an interesting like you know anybody that you hear now I feel like that we talked to have been to like the Wharton School of Business or you know wherever they had to get their degree. And then they go. And I'll tell you what. I went to college to be a teacher. That lasted for a couple of years. I was a teacher and I don't use any of those skills that I learned in college now. Nick, you went to college to do what? Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I went to college, I got my bachelor's in criminal justice and then master's in forensic science, high technology, crime to deal with cybercrime, and didn't do anything with it.
Speaker 2:But at least your degree applies to our current situation, right, I mean that degree could be implemented like right now. I mean, who knew, who knew back then that cybersecurity would, that cybersecurity would be what it is today?
Speaker 3:It's yeah, and it was, it was that degree, they do nothing with it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it was a brand new program at our school so, like even the professors at that time were just trying to like, get through it and and try to teach us, at the same time, they were learning what was going on with it. It would have been a great career to get into it. To be honest, with all of the cyber stuff that goes on nowadays and everything is online, but I saw real estate as something, you know, much bigger than than that for me at the time.
Speaker 2:I love real estate.
Speaker 1:It's funny because my actually now an equity partner in our brokerage is um, and and a part of my business. He was in the air force chase. He's usually here with us on the on our pods. He does like a lot of stuff with us and, uh, he went to the nsa for cyber security and then lasted a couple years and now he's full-time real estate. So it's uh, yeah, real estate's, real estate's our game. So that's what we like talking to people like you in stock game, because I have my stocks and stuff, but I don't know much. I don't do trading and I don't think Nick does either. We kind of buy stuff.
Speaker 3:And yeah, besides that, you know, 2020, 2021 boom, where everybody, everybody was just trying to get into the stock market. They saw something happen and everyone had money at that time and and they were just trying to put money in. A lot of people lost money, including myself, just by holding too long, and then it went back down. I did get into a group that was day trading and it would be like, you know, sell and I would hold and I got screwed in the end of that. And then cryptocurrency obviously that was taken off around that same time and then it went dead for a while. And now here it is again, again coming back around for another cycle and everyone's talking about crypto now I'm staying strong.
Speaker 1:I'm staying strong.
Speaker 3:I'm like I'm not doing it again, I'm not getting sucked in, I'm not dropping time was before people started talking about it, before you know, a month or so ago. When everyone starts talking about it again, bitcoin hit an all-time high today at 94 000000.
Speaker 2:94.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I'm really interested in your franchising and what you've done with franchising, because it's something that I always. I have what they call sometimes the shiny object syndrome and I've built my companies and we're making good money and we're supporting our families and stuff. But I always see these things and I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I go to this place called the Stretch Zone once a week where it's a franchise. It actually started in Fort Lauderdale and you basically go in there and you get stretched and the person will strap you down on a table, essentially, and manipulate your body in ways you can't do yourself and they're like a personal stretch trainer and typically they're trainers that came from like sports teams and stuff like that and you know that's what they do. But it's a franchise and you can buy a franchise and the lady that owns this has like three of them, uh, in our area here and they're all booked and she didn't come up with like I had to build our business. I had to build it from the ground. I didn't have any help or support. What's the benefit to buying into a franchise?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question, right, the million dollar question. So I can relate to everything you said because I started out with me. So the worst advice I've ever been given, the most suppressing advice anyone can ever give someone. There are two things that are told generation after generation which keep people poor and suppress people. Number one is if you want something done, right, do it yourself. Total bullshit, guaranteed you'll be poor, guaranteed. Second thing is don't count your chickens before they hatch, because they don't understand the law of attraction, right, thoughts become things and what you think about you bring about. So apps, those two things, right, there are.
Speaker 2:Like the beginning of well, maybe I should just start something on my own and I did that and I did okay, right, I didn't kill it. I'm not talking about generational wealth, right, everyone has a different opinion on, or a different feeling on, money and what they want and what they use it for. Like to me, I wanna be stupidly wealthy, right, like, not just comfortable, but very wealthy. It just it means something to me. It's not just security and it's not just a scorecard and it's not just the fruit of my efforts and labors, it's just something that's important to me and and it equals a lot of freedom and you're a health guy so you can relate to it like my doctor is a thousand an hour. I don't use modern medicine, modern medicines or shit they have no credibility anymore.
Speaker 1:I do the same thing. I we actually had a whole episode about this. Now I go to a. Now I go to a private doctor. I have health insurance. My wife still works, she's a teacher. Like I have health insurance and I don't use it. I go to a private med spa, basically.
Speaker 2:Exactly Right, Not one. I'm 53 years old. Not one doctor in my life and I already know the answer to this. I'll just tell you Not one doctor in your lives ever told you to go get your hormone levels checked, your testosterone levels checked. Testosterone is everything. It makes a man a man who we are Like, so what they'd rather do. Oh, you don't feel good? Here's a prescription for an antidepressant. Meanwhile, you know, your T levels down.
Speaker 2:We have 30-year-olds in this country, low T, low sperm count, can't have babies. For the first time in history, you have two presidential candidates talking about the economy and what else? Ivf when in the history of America has a candidate discussed IVF? Why? Because we can't have babies. What's going on right Now? This doesn't answer your question.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of going on a tangent here, but it all does matter because it all brings us back to when you start out on your own. You're right, man. You're doing the heavy lift. You have to figure everything out. You cannot leverage collective intelligence. You can't call anyone in your business. It's your business, it's unique to you. I found the fastest way to create wealth, the fastest way to scale, just the fastest way to what I call collapse time, Because time is the only commodity you can't recycle right. Time is not our friend at all, it's our enemy. So if I could collapse, time and I can scale wealth. It has a force multiplying effect. Franchising provides that. They give you the blueprint, the roadmap, just execute flawlessly and off you go. So when you ask me what's the benefit of it, I have found over the years I'm able to pick up the phone and call guys like you. Hey, do you have a minute? Yeah, Well, listen, we share the same brand. It's on the same corner of our shirt. Do you have a minute? I want to ask you you're doing 7 million a year. You're doing 15 million a year. I just want to ask you a few questions about how you compensate your managers. Hey, what are you doing to acquire new customers? What is your cost to acquire a customer? Hey, do you mind sharing your cost of goods with me? What are you paying in rent? How many square footages is your location? And you start writing this shit down. You're like you know what I'm doing this wrong Overpaying my manager. I'm not doing this right. I'm fishing in the wrong ponds.
Speaker 2:Franchising is huge, not just for the franchisor. Forget the franchisor. It's talking to guys like you and doing what we're doing right now, we're leveraging collective intelligence. You doing right now we're leveraging collective intelligence. You're sharing things with me, I'm sharing things with you. We both walk away from the table. We start implementing these changes in our life. Some of it has to do with health, Some of it has to do with wealth. Either way, we win right. That's what I love about franchising it's just winning, and it's winning at a higher probability than being an independent business owner, which has the highest failure rate of any business opportunity would be going independent. So do not discount leveraging collective intelligence. It's huge my ability to reach across the phone and call a guy in California, in Maryland, wherever, to say, hey, can you help me out? I'm struggling with a business issue. Oh, Ben, they're done that. Love that man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's great, I think, like you mentioned, like having that framework in place. That franchise has other other businesses, other shops around the United States, and it's it's very helpful to be able to reach out to those people, ask questions and just having that framework, versus if you're just building a business on your own, you're just fumbling through, maybe asking you know your friends around you if they own businesses, but it may not be very similar if they own different businesses. So that is great. Do you also buy, I guess, aside from franchises, do you buy, like you know, mom and pop businesses that maybe you know you can tweak, because now it's more of a. Maybe they've run their business how it used to be run back in the day and now you can come in there and basically buy it for a lower number and the technology and the technology to get it to a greater level.
Speaker 2:I've looked into purchasing a mom pa and converting it so you could grow organically or you could grow through acquisition, right. So growing that way. I've not been successful doing that what I have been successful doing. In the very beginning of my career, I used to buy. As Warren Buffett says, you buy when there's blood in the street and you sell with the bugles, right. So I would look for blood in the street and my specialty was buying failure because I viewed myself as a turnaround specialist, so I wasn't afraid of buying this beaten up, abused business. One of my best deals I've ever done was in your backyard in Annapolis and Stevensville. So I actually started with my business partner, justin. We started by buying failing gyms.
Speaker 2:Gyms are a unique business model. The average customer walks in the front door and out the back door in under 10 months. Right, I was never long and of course, this may age or may not age. Well, it doesn't matter. I tell all my clients I'm not long gyms and I never have been. And they're like, why? Like, didn't you buy gyms? Yeah, I buy them, I build them, I sell them for a nosebleed multiple and then I buy them right for 10 cents and a dollar and I build them, turn them around and sell them for another nosebleed multiple. They're like why don't you just keep them? Because I am not long fitness and I was never long fitness back a decade ago and I'm definitely not long now with the invention of GLP disruptors, semi-glutides, the Ozempics and Wagovis Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:You're seeing the unintended consequences of these weight loss drugs in the shopping cart at Walmart. You're literally seeing the butterfly effect, like what happens when a girl in Maryland stabs herself in the stomach with Ozempic once a week. What happens? She loses weight. Keep going. She has less in her shopping cart, the grocery store. Keep going. She cancels her gym membership. Keep going, keep going.
Speaker 1:So you wouldn't believe man.
Speaker 1:It's interesting. You say that because I one of my actually first that's my second private investor that I got when I started buying real estate. He, um, I was actually a boat captain, so that's how I met a lot of people. Uh, I ran boats, private boats for people. Um, yeah, I was a coast guard licensed master captain and I went and worked in the summers and traveled around on people's boats, basically, and drove them around, drove around rich people, and I got to be in their ear and hear their stories and blah, blah, blah. But he, during COVID, when I was kind of doing business with him, he bought, he sold a cybersecurity business, ironically in Northern Virginia, and bought during during COVID, like 40 something golds gyms. And the reason he bought it? Because he had a lawyer that was able to renegotiate all the commercial leases and change the NOI and then basically packaged them all up and boom, boom, bam, couple M's in your pocket, you can resell them. Bam, a couple M's in your pocket, you can resell them.
Speaker 1:The thing that I feel like that is changing, though, where I feel and maybe it's because I'm more in the space now and Nick maybe isn't he can maybe weigh in this I do feel like people are more into fitness and health, like I wasn't a big drinker but I stopped drinking this year because of my Ironman training and stuff like that. And I feel like now and maybe it is because I'm just in the ethos but I feel like a lot of people are getting into their health now. I feel like a lot of people are running like I do. I have a run club and people are just, I feel, like taking it more seriously than they were before, taking it more seriously than they were before.
Speaker 1:The one problem with those drugs, those GLP-1 drugs that you were saying, is that people take them and they don't do the weight training, so they're losing a lot of muscle mass and that's a really dangerous place to be. When you lose a lot of weight, your body is naturally gonna eat that muscle first, so you become what they call skinny fat and it's really, really unhealthy. So I don't know, nick, maybe you can weigh in Like do you feel like, now more than ever, people are like getting into their fitness or no? Is that just me, because my algorithm is fucked up, because I trained for Ironman?
Speaker 3:So I do think it's like what you focus on expands, because you've been working out a lot in training this year for Ironman. It just appears that everyone else around you is doing that. For me, I don't other than you know seeing you and and you know other people that work out with you guys I don't see a huge change. I mean, I know health is very important, but I, I think, like, just like when I got into real estate, that's when, like everyone, became a real estate investor. But it might have just been because now I know more people who are in real estate, who are real estate investors.
Speaker 1:What's that called the red car syndrome? Do you know what that's called, cliff, you buy a red car Now.
Speaker 3:I just bought a BMW.
Speaker 1:I started seeing all these BMWs. Now I notice every BMW that's on the road. I don't know what.
Speaker 2:There's a word it's a it, there's a name and it's like Hoffmeyer's. It has a name where, okay, if I said something to you like did you see the new 2024 Corvette, and you're like, no, I haven't, when we hang up, you'll see like eight of them yeah yeah, and it's and it's an actual phenomenon, yeah, where?
Speaker 2:and it? And the question is is it a phenomenon where now the universe has placed corvettes in front of you? Or? Or, as tony robbins would say, like, look around my room for everything brown, right? Or? Or, look, you can see my thing, look around for everything green. And then I. And then you go, okay, I'm good and okay, tell me what's brown. And you're like, yeah, I wasn't looking for brown, I'm looking for green. Exactly, you're not looking for Corvettes. Now you are like why does society behave the way they do? Why does the herd do what they do? It's like a mean hoffer, uh, phenomenon there's a name for it.
Speaker 2:It's like a long term name yeah, it's like my last name, it's a. It's a name chat.
Speaker 1:Gpt will probably be able to tell you in seconds. I'll have, uh, I'll have my producer put it in the youtube video and we figure it out, so we can all figure it out together. But so, so just to quickly go back to Jim's the one Jim that I do wanna talk about, and it is a franchise. So I'm trying to full circle this here. The most genius Jim business model planet fitness. They, they market, they put pizza on their front, fucking donuts, the donuts pizza. They get you in there for ten dollars a month. Yeah, because they know that ten dollars a month is not enough to to cancel. You always have that thing that is oh, I, I'm going to go one day, I'm going to go next week. It's only $10 a month. If you belong to an Equinox, that's $300 a month. You're going to go. If you don't go, you're going to cancel.
Speaker 1:But Planet Fitness, they go to these shopping centers that have a lot of volume, a lot of traffic. They put a gym there. They have 10,000 members and 40 people maybe show up a week. That's right, that's, that's a real franchise. That's doing it. And they're doing it right Cause they have they. You go there, you get tanning. But one of my employees is a friend of mine first and became an employee now and he says I'm going to the tanning salon but it's just LA, it's just a Planet Fitness, and he doesn't ever go to work out, but he goes to go tanning and he uses $10 a month because they have a fucking tanning bed there and it's like that's a good business model. Like how do you, you know, do you buy a bunch of Planet Fitnesses because a bunch of fat people are going to say I'm going to go to the gym one day. And how did they think of that First of all? That's like that's a crazy thing to think about. I want to create a gym that nobody comes to.
Speaker 2:No one comes to.
Speaker 1:I was listening to Hormozy talk about that. It's like I'm going to create something that nobody wants to come to, but they'll pay for it and pay me for it, and never cancel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, is that genius? I guess I'm in my own way, because if I'm in the gym business, I genuinely want to help people and that business is designed to do the opposite. It's not meant to help anyone.
Speaker 1:It's meant to enrich themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's meant to enrich the shareholders and the franchise my neighbor owns three of them pays 150,000 a month in rent between the three locations. Covid literally put a nail in his coffin. He was selling his mclaren, he was selling everything and it's in your backyard he owns those locations in maryland, wow, and virginia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my covid destroyed him. Destroyed him because he got no rent abatement. It was deferral. So so, look, I hear you and I agree with everything you said. Just me, maybe it's my ethics, maybe it's just I want to be a responsible provider of my business. I cannot take that brand seriously, because I know that they really don't give a shit about people and that just flies in my face.
Speaker 1:So all of my businesses have been based around real estate, right? I have a construction company, I have a property management firm and we sell real estate. We buy, sell, flip, rent, whatever, everything. And that, to me, is the only thing we know, right? What businesses are you most focused on or think that you are long on? So you're not long on fitness. What things are you long on?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Great question. So, and I like what you're in, I like, I like your business, whether it's franchise or not. I like what you guys are building. Um, I focus on four categories and some of this is controversial, but just let me explain that because I themed it right. So my first theme is the feminization of men in America. Like what does that mean? I'm long anything regarding the feminization of men, which means men's health, because we're feminizing them, right. Women are now being emasculated and men are the opposite, so it's like what happened there. So I'm all in on anything. Ed. I'm on low t, so trt therapy franchises are huge. Average revenues are almost a million million plus. I am long anything involving the use of tools this fucking brand.
Speaker 1:Right here this is. Let me go on a quick tangent and go ahead. Maybe they'll sponsor the show or something, because I give them enough money.
Speaker 1:So I was telling you, I go to this, uh, med spa, life med, it's called life med institute here in maryland. There's a couple locations, three or four locations. So I was telling you, I go to the med spa, lifemed, it's called LifeMed Institute here in Maryland. There's a couple locations, three or four locations. You go in there and I went in there to get my levels checked. So I wanted to make sure my wife and I are trying to have kids and I just wanted to get checked.
Speaker 1:I train like a crazy person. I'm doing 15 plus hours of cardio a week, weight training the whole night. I wanted to be checked out. You go in there and you spend a couple hundred bucks for a consultation and they just swag you out. They give you shirt, shirts, sweatshirts, these fucking cups that I'm. I have four of them now because I go every week. I get b shots and, uh, now I wear their shirts, like, like. I wear my own shirt, like I wear it because it's a nice shirt and they're taken over. If you go to any gym around here, how many life ventures do you see now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's. It's pretty often that you see somebody wearing one. And every time you go in there at the um the airport and we saw somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, girl, a lady had the same exact shirt I had on. We were traveling to Cabo and we were like this place is blown up and all these people go there and they have health insurance, but they're still. You know, anybody with a little bit of money can go to this place and they treat you better. They take the time, like the consultation that I had when I first went to my insurance-based doctor when I first started this like health journey that I'm on. He basically was 10 minutes. I was in and out of that office. I didn't get anything that I didn't know already. I went into this, this med spa place. I guess that's a med spa, I don't know really what to call it. It's a concierge doctor and you get your blood work done, you sit with them for as long as you're willing to pay them and you get as much information as you're willing to pay for. And unfortunately, that's just. You know you get what you pay for, but these places are blowing up and you can't walk in there without spending a couple hundred bucks.
Speaker 1:And then they give you 10 shirts. Literally they'll give you five, ten shirts and you and you wear them and it's, it's genius. So sorry to interrupt you, but no, not at all.
Speaker 2:I completely agree.
Speaker 1:I've been using like crazy and they do trt, they, they're doing therapy absolutely trt anything you want anything you want, but you go in there and you get your levels checked, like they check that and I had deficiencies in certain things and that's why every week now I go get it's called like Powerhouse Max. They have, like it looks like a cocktail menu or a wine list at a restaurant and it has all the vitamin shots, iv bags, whatever. In that case, if you qualify based on the provider, you go in there and I go every week and I get a shot and it makes me feel better every week.
Speaker 2:A shot or an IV bag.
Speaker 1:I get the shot because I'm a pansy when it comes to IV stuff, so I just do the IM shot of. It's called the Powerhouse Max. It's got, like you know, 10 different vitamins taurine, b12, not the B12, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:I do them all the time. We have a brand called here in town called Forever Young and, like you said, whole menu I do it. I'm a big skier. I got a place out in Park City. I go out there all the time. I love skiing and I love to that out. That altitude will get you when you live where I live below sea level Right and I'm hanging out at like 11,000 feet above. So love to get a bag. I do feel a difference in my performance, my ability to handle the altitude, no altitude sickness and you know some pretty hardcore skiing all day. So I I completely agree with you. You know, you say this and I want to make a comment and go back. Number one I and a bizarre, just kind of throwaway line, would you believe. I'm a hundred ton captain, not anymore. I let my life. I have never met another captain in my career.
Speaker 1:That's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, once you leave that world, where are you meeting?
Speaker 1:captains. Yeah Right, I keep my license because I work too hard, I know.
Speaker 2:I, I, I, I screwed up. I let it lapse. I focus so much on trading and wall street. I let that thing go and I do regret it. I'll be honest with you. So don't let it lapse. Keep it current. And you're right, it was a lot to go to maritime school and get that license. But yeah, I used to own parasail boats. So if you're going to hire, if you're going to charge people to be on your boat, you have to be a captain, that's right when you said that.
Speaker 2:It's like I've never heard anyone say that yeah but I want to go back to my masters.
Speaker 1:It's funny, good for you.
Speaker 3:Nice, but you made a comment about gyms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you made a comment about gyms and I just want to say that and I agree with what Nick said a little bit where I think it's the world you're living in that it's appearing that more people here's what I'm seeing and we're talking about it right now. I'm seeing more and more people talking about Huberman, more people talking about biohacking, gary Brekka. I'm hearing more people talking about that cup you're holding in your hand and getting a and moving money, almost like sector rotation. They're moving money from a traditional gym and they're saying you know what? That place isn't cheap. I'd rather get an IV bag than join Lifetime at $210 a month or Equinox, to your point. So I'm seeing money moving into sensory deprivation, red light therapy, trt, peptides, nacs. I'm seeing money moving into all these other. I'll just call them as an umbrella statement biohacking versus.
Speaker 2:Did you do your cardio today? Did you do your strength training? People are starting to figure out another part of their health by listening to the Huberman pod and really getting in tune to just your saccania rhythm just waking up, turn the devices off, get natural light in your eye, go to bed. It's like little life hacks instead of just the gym. So I am seeing, I agree with you on. Don't you see a difference in behavior? When? When did anyone challenge you know sodium, some sodium borate or some chemical in Froot Loops? Now you got RFK on national television telling you you're being poisoned.
Speaker 1:I'm a huge fan of him and what he's doing with that I'm a huge fan.
Speaker 1:I think he was a great part. I think he's going to be a great part of this next upcoming. I don't like to get political, but I think he is the perfect example of what we need to show people, because the stuff that we are eating is truly, truly poisoning us. And I'll just say it here and I haven't shared this with a lot of people, but when I went to the first test that I got, they did say I had low testosterone for my age.
Speaker 1:And if you look at me and you saw a picture of me, you wouldn't think I had low testosterone. I mean, I got a six pack. I'm jacked, but it's a thing that doesn't show and I hate to sound like a dick, but it's true. And I asked the lady. I said does it look like I have low? I don't feel like I have low testosterone. I it's true. And I asked the lady. I said does it look like I have low? I don't feel like I have low testosterone. I just ran a 10K this morning for warmups, like she's, like it's showing in younger and younger males and she says I don't want to get. She literally said like I don't want to get political, basically, but we think it's in the food, that's. That's what she said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we, we know it's in the food. Everyone has autism. Now Like it's like a thing now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was that was another interesting stat.
Speaker 1:It was, I think maybe I shared this on the podcast before, I don't know. We talk so much shit on the podcast, but the numbers were like in the early 90s it was like one in 37 people got diagnosed with autism. That's right. Now it's one or one in 1500. Yeah Right, one in 1500 people were diagnosed with autism. Now one in 37 people are diagnosed with autism.
Speaker 1:Peanut allergies, low testosterone, low sperm count All of these things spiked in the nineties. Interestingly enough, and we're going to get like our tinfoil hats on here but it's when the tobacco companies came in, got the food business. Got the food business because they couldn't put any money into marketing when we made. I guess it somebody's going to fact check me on this, I hope. But they made it illegal to market cigarettes, like they couldn't put commercials out. So the tobacco companies had this surplus of money. They bought the food companies. So the tobacco companies had this surplus of money, they bought the food companies. Now the tobacco companies own all the food companies and the same people that were making the cigarettes addicting are now making the food addicting. And then we saw the spike in all of these chronic illnesses and then basically we become dependent on only a couple of distributors that have that control of all the food. They have all the food pesticides, all the stuff. So now we're full tinfoil hatting.
Speaker 2:But I think it's true. It needs to be. That's the problem People start everything out with. I want to be sensitive to your feelings. No, fuck your feelings. They're killing us. What does this have to do with feelings in politics? They are polluting our food. Our children are chronically ill. We're the richest, most powerful, sickest, fattest country in the world. There's something wrong here.
Speaker 2:I don't need RFK to tell me. I just need someone in a high level position to confirm our suspicions that our food is polluted. Well, guess what it's confirmed? I have an app. It's called Yuka.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you're into them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, All right man, come on Absolutely Like, please, you can't buy anything. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So we were in. We were just in Cabo two weeks ago. You get a bag of potato chips Lays same brand, three ingredients, three ingredients. It it says papas sal and there was some like oil. That's it three ingredients. You get a lays bag here. There's 76 ingredients in it. That's right like not. I'm not saying exactly.
Speaker 2:No, I get your point, but yeah, there's all these the, the remember we had the oreos yeah like we all said, that they taste different.
Speaker 1:something's different. The chips taste different, and that's. I don't want to shit on Mexico, but they're not as rich as us. They're not, as they're not as high in the world economy as we are, and they have healthier food than we do. The fruit is natural, it's organic because they have no choice. That's what it is, it's, they just grow it. You know that's what it is, they just grow it. So I do think that it's funny. You were like short on gyms but long on health. That's an interesting dynamic you have there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, almost like a dichotomy, right, it's like man, that's like jumbo shrimp, it's like what did you say? Yeah, Short on gyms, but you're right, I am a very long on health. I think this administration is going to flip the script on everything that we've been doing. I think it will be make America healthy again and I think a lot of these companies are in deep shit. The things that they've been feeding us are just absolutely frightening. It's criminal and people need to start going to prison. People need to start being held accountable. I mean, look at fluoride. I mean, what's fluoride? You got to go all the way back to Dow Chemical. It's an industrial byproduct. Where do you put industrial byproducts, right? Ah, we'll put it in the toothpaste. You want to talk about two stories? That can't be true. Toothpaste do not swallow Drinking water, enjoy it, Wait a second. They both have fluoride in it. Toothpaste is saying don't do it. Drinking water is like go right ahead. Ah, you calcify your pineal gland.
Speaker 2:No big deal you just be a little dumber next year. So all this stuff is now coming to the surface. All these quote conspiracy theories are now being fact-checked and now we have leading scientists that are no longer being censored, that are able to now speak freely about what's going on, and I think it's great. I think it's long overdue. I'm excited. You're young guys. You'll have a longer life. Can you imagine looking at you two Like your generation will not outlive the prior generation. That's the first time.
Speaker 3:That's ever happened in history. That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. Your longevity is not longer than your grandparents or your parents. That should really piss you off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I finally um, I had to make a huge change in my life. Luckily, I'm blessed enough where I had the time and the finances to do so, but people need to open their eyes and actually make a change, because once this stuff gets hopefully blown up, when this new administration comes in and RFK actually takes that role and runs with it, I think there's going to be a lot of change. I hope, I hope, I don't think. I hope there's a lot of change, so, yeah, so, so what? So what kind of businesses? So, besides these like med, spas and stuff, what other kinds of businesses are we looking at?
Speaker 2:You, you mentioned it and then you and I have been doing a great job going down like bunny trails, right, so I'll? I'll bring us back, because I'd never even finished your first question. There are four things that I focus on. One is the feminization of men. Men can't use tools. Men have poor health. I am long on any business requiring the use of a tool roofing, siding, HVAC, flooring, drywall, window replacement, garage door repair If it requires a tool to perform the service with feet on the street. I'm long and I truly believe in an era of AI. Your local plumber. These guys are going to own the world going forward, Because I think AI is going to annihilate white collar jobs, and I mean annihilate, and I'm not alone on that statement.
Speaker 2:Even Goldman thinks 300 plus million jobs could be eliminated globally just from AI. Next category we humanize pets and animals, so I'm long anything involving pets and animals. We're not repopulating. I'm happy to hear that you and your wife want to start having a family. That's great, because that's not a common conversation with our youth today. They're not repopulating. They're buying pets and now they have acronyms for them, right, like people who have dog, moms yeah right, yeah, right.
Speaker 2:Everyone has these furry babies, and so we literally humanize them, where people almost care more about animals today than they do, maybe even their neighbor.
Speaker 1:My in-laws own a big veterinarian practice. They're all vets, and my brother's a vet. Everybody's a vet, and since COVID it's exploded too. That's right, that is a good. So we're two for two here. Okay, what's next?
Speaker 2:I don't care if you're grooming, I don't care if you're boarding, I don't care if you're training. I'm not long on retail because I think retail belongs on the web. I just don't think anyone should be brick and mortar retail. I think those days are over and you're at the top of your bell curve and if you buy those things like, lower your expectations. Category number three this country is aging. In the next decade there will be more adult diapers sold in America than baby diapers. That is frightening. So the aging, great great. We're going the same way. Japan went during ancient civilization. Look at the Japanese if you want to know what's about to happen to America, if it wasn't for illegal immigration and people just walking in here. We're not repopulating. We don't have a future of youth to care for our elderly. So I'm long anything assisted living, anything non-emergency medical transportation. I'm all about home care. I'm all about mobility. I've got guys that own mobility brands doing millions just renting, repairing and selling scooters and wheelchairs and assisted chairlifts and striker beds.
Speaker 2:My next category has a lot to do with what we discussed at the top of this call, which is anything involving beauty, vanity, biohacking, the desire to look youthful. You're seeing a trend. We're not repopulating, we're an aging grain of America. And now I'm talking about anything involving beauty and vanity, whether it's Botox, whether it's just like we talked about sensory deprivation tanks or red light therapy or any type of biohacking, whether it be IV drip therapy. I think all that, or nail salons. Show me a nail salon that failed during the housing crisis. You won't be able to find one like those. Things are tried and true. Anything involving my favorite line with spending with women is never bet against the spending habits of a female, especially when it comes to wanting to look youthful and beautiful and feel confident and sexy and all that stuff. I would never bet against the spending habits. So those four categories, by the way, are AI proof and they're Amazon proof all of them, and that's what I'm all about.
Speaker 2:I'm all about try true local. If you need a service, if you need a product, you can only get it here. I don't want to hear I could get it on Amazon. I don't want. Now I'm here in Teemu. I don't want to hear I could get it on Teemu. I see these people open up CBD oil businesses. It's like you're out of business and you just don't know it. Yet no one needs a CBD oil brick and mortar brand in their town. That's just crazy to me.
Speaker 1:It's funny. That's the whole line.
Speaker 1:Both Nick and I have home services companies. He started as a landscaper, still owns the landscaping company. The grass is going to grow, no matter what. My home remodeling, my home remodeling company I'm doing a lot of flips for myself and a lot of construction for investors. But I'm also building kitchens, I'm building bathrooms, I'm building additions, I'm doing roofs. I'm doing all that. That stuff and AI, if you use it. That's the other thing that I'm super long on taking. And we were talking about buying mom and pop businesses.
Speaker 1:My project manager a couple of months ago maybe a month or so ago came to me and he said did you know that you can upload? So first you can take your phone, polycam. I'm going to give everybody a hack here. Take your phone, download Polycam, pay a hundred bucks a year, scan the room. It tells you how big the room is. It gives you a picture. You upload it into chat, gpt and say how much drywall do I need, how much trim do I need, how much flooring do I need, and it'll spit you out in five minutes a spit you out a material list and exactly how much it's going to cost you.
Speaker 1:Wow, I've completely cut out basically 90% of my estimating time by using two apps, both AI based, and Nick's doing a demo job for me right now One of my flips. Another app is called Company Cam that uses AI to I walk through the house with it recording and I'm just snapping little pictures talking to the phone, just as if it's a person. I'm saying just remove that piece of furniture, throw this away, demo this and that's all those notes. That's all AI. It's all AI. That's writing the notes, taking the pictures, and then I send a link and it goes to Nick and he can forward it on to his guys on site and it's a full scope of work and I didn't do a thing. All I did was talk to my phone and the AI did the rest.
Speaker 1:Where before I was sitting there taking a picture, writing down on a computer or typing in, ai has completely taken over. There are people in my industry I know I go to the gym with a couple of guys, one guy that used to be competing I would say competing with me but we do the same, we're in the same industry, right? And there's no way he can keep up with me because I am on technology, I am doing everything on the cutting edge of AI technology in putting it into the business that the older generation is not either willing to learn or willing to implement because it's scary or it's new, it's clunky sometimes, but when you are willing to put that time in and learn the system, I can put so many people. If I really wanted to take the time and give up on my health again, I can put so many people out of business right now by just implementing a couple pieces of technology and just taking over and that that I'm. I'm long on that AI stuff.
Speaker 2:Completely agree with you. Yeah, I, I a hundred percent agree with everything you're saying and I agree with those like what, like, what is your advantage? Right, it's not always just being smarter. Smarter is just irrelevant, right.
Speaker 1:I was a gym teacher. You're leveraging everything PE property management. I was a gym teacher, that's what that means oh, is that what that means? Yeah, we do $10 million a year.
Speaker 2:That's great Good for you guys, great.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:I love residential or commercial.
Speaker 1:All residential. I don't touch. I do very little commercial. I know the residential game. I like 30-year mortgages. Nick and I are in the same game. He has 100 houses 100 more.
Speaker 3:How many do you have?
Speaker 1:93. 93 houses. So we're all long game. 30-year mortgages I don't really like the commercial space as much.
Speaker 1:Actually, we were just getting ready to buy a commercial building from Nick recently and we pulled out of the deal because of a couple of reasons. But the commercial game to me is something that can come and go really quickly. With the cycle of rates and the residential stuff it can only get better. You can only refinance. I'm only going to refinance if it's better. I have 30 years to pay this thing down. I know I'm cash flowing now. I know the rents are probably not going to go down Not definitely, but probably not going to go down not definitely, but probably not going to go down over the next 30 years and my mortgages will be paid and there'll be tens of millions of dollars for me at the end of the rainbow. That, to me, is the game that I know. So I stay away from commercial. All the people that refinanced five years ago, four years ago, and they're eating there. There's a lot of capital calls going on right now in those commercial syndicates.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you that right now, billions Yep, yep. Absolutely, there's hell to pay in the commercial space, totally.
Speaker 1:What do you think, Nick? You're quiet over there.
Speaker 3:No, I mean I agree, going back to that, that the cam company, that was pretty cool. I didn't know anything about that, as I mentioned when I talked to that. The cam company, that was pretty cool. I didn't know anything about that, as I mentioned when I talked to you the other day, and when you sent me this link, I opened it up. This is really cool. Next thing I know I pop on social media and it's everywhere just because I clicked the link to open it up. But it is very useful tool because I would take pictures and I would edit it right there, type in what needs to be done, and it'd be annoying because I'd have to save it and then I want an original picture, so I'd have to take a screenshot of it so I can edit that picture instead of the original one. And when you sent me that and you were telling me how it works, I'm like that's incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of technology If you use it, I think.
Speaker 3:Saves a lot of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, use it, I think saves a lot of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and if you're not willing to use it, like a lot of these older companies, you're they're going to die.
Speaker 1:Those companies are going to die and I'm I'm trying to eventually once I once I really fully Dave Shannon this this weekend said seventh leveling my company, when I can really take away myself from the company and it's still grow. I would love to buy an HVAC company, a plumbing company, an electric company, because I'm spending millions of dollars a year on those three things. And those people some of them are old and they are not going to want to run their companies for forever and there's nobody to take them over. The problem is there's nobody to work for them either, because the younger generation is incentivized to go to college to take on all this debt, to do something that isn't going to pay it back, when they could go to trade school for free, like my old HVAC guy is like I'm trying to go to trade schools telling them I'm going to pay for your school if you just work for me for four years and he can't find he can't fill the positions.
Speaker 3:And the problem, and I think that a lot of those companies who don't have anyone and they're getting older, they want to get out of business. Instead of them selling their company, a lot of them will just go out of business. They might not even view that as an option to sell because of where they think that their business is mentally in their head, but in reality somebody can come and scoop it up if they happen to establish clientele and they can lift it up off the ground and move it forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. Hvac is one of those industries that is literally aging out and no one is backfilling that talent and no one is backfilling that talent. We had a guy on our show that bought a. He acquired multiple four states Total acquisition was about 4 million and he wanted to scale HVAC and everyone said what we're talking about right now. So he ended up going to high schools and vocational schools and he started recruiting. This guy built a $350 million HVAC company, sold it to a private equity firm. Today they're doing over 800 million a year in HVAC in five states.
Speaker 2:So you're right, we have an issue with the trades. We have shit all over the trades. For years, mike Rowe did all these shows dirty jobs. Everyone's like I want to go to college. They come out of college. They're not ready. I don't know what they're doing in college, but they're clearly not learning what you're supposed to be learning to be a productive human being. And now I think you're going to see a change. After all those presidents of Ivy League schools testified in Congress, I do believe now you're going to start to see a lot of people embracing the trades and saying you know what the plumber's making? 350 a year. That's more than some of these guys at Goldman are making, and I have no student loans.
Speaker 1:The blue collars are turning white.
Speaker 2:I listen. I really do believe that maybe I'm in my own way with it, but I do believe I feel there's a tone change. I also felt like when Obama was running. Remember Joe the plumber?
Speaker 2:the guy's like that I go to college, I'm a plumber, I'm making a couple hundred grand a year. Why would I? Why would I go to college? You get one hundred fifty thousand dollar student loan, yeah. And now, now they're forgiving the loan, what does that tell you? It's like listen, listen, we know the degree has no value. Now, I'm not talking about when you went to school, I'm talking about now. Yeah, yeah, right now. If you said harvard to me and you graduate in the last few years, like that means absolutely nothing to me, other than I feel bad for you and I'm not, and I'm sure, hopefully, parents?
Speaker 1:yeah, hopefully. Yeah, you know rich parents they.
Speaker 2:I hate this I hate to say it, but I do do believe that. So the trades are back. It's amazing Like there was no pre-interview for this call. There's quite a bit of alignment, which is interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, we do have another show to get on, but I feel like we could sit here and rap for a while, but we got to get on another episode, or if you have a show we'll have to pop on, because I do feel like we we have a lot, uh, a lot in common, a lot, a lot to talk about.
Speaker 2:I'll come back one day. Yeah, I can always come back.
Speaker 1:I enjoyed uh meeting you guys and thank you so much for your time. Yeah, absolutely for having me on cliff. Uh, we'll definitely be in touch and we'll send you all the links and stuff. How can people, uh, get a hold of you and you know that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If anyone listening has an interest in exploring franchising as an investment vehicle, give me a call. You can reach me at 561-277-3710. You can visit my website franocitycom. F-r-a-n-o-c-i-t-ycom.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you spelled that. I'm not a good speller, so I'm glad you spelled that.
Speaker 2:You guys are great, great show man, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thanks, cliff, we'll see you next time.
Speaker 2:You got it guys. Bye now.
