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Graham Stephan
What is dadication?
Louis Flor
The thing that drives me every day as a dad is Dariona. We call him Dae Date for short.
Jack
Every day he's hungry for something, whether.
Louis Flor
It'S attention, affection, knowledge. And there's this huge responsibility in making sure that when he's no longer under my wing that he's a good person. I want him to be able to sit back one day and go, we worked together.
Jack
We did a good job. That's dadication.
Graham Stephan
Find out more@fatherhood.gov brought to you by the U.S. department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.
Jack
Is this your Ferrari? Yeah, it is. What do you do for living out of Houston, Texas, to be able to afford a Ferrari? I'm an entrepreneur. I wasn't always the smartest person in the room, but I was always the one person that refused to quit. My company will do 300 million this year in revenue. The intestinal fortitude it takes to start something out of nothing every single day. Massive obstacles are going to come your way. Setbacks are going to come your way. I can guarantee you. I've taken years off my life building this business.
Louis Flor
What are you seeing these days in terms of a potential recession coming on?
Jack
So in my business, we have a front row seat to when things are going well and when things are about to turn really bad.
Louis Flor
What secrets do you know in terms of terms of business?
Jack
There's one mistake that's guaranteed to put people out of business, and that's.
Louis Flor
Louis. Thank you so much for coming on the Ice Coffee Hour. I. I first found you on a channel school of hard knocks.
Jack
Yes.
Louis Flor
Came up to you on the street in a TikTok video. Asked you what you did for a living. You said in that video your company was doing about $300 million.
Jack
That's correct.
Louis Flor
And that video got 20 million views.
Jack
Mind blowing, right? Last thing I ever expected to happen. For sure.
Louis Flor
So we're here in your garage. How many cars do you own currently?
Jack
Currently, embarrassingly, we have 28 cars in the collection. I think there' currently another eight incoming. Of those, eight will only replace two. So we will net gain six over the next 12 to 15 months. So that'll put us at what? About 34 cars total, but 28 in the garage at the moment.
Graham Stephan
What's the total value of your collection currently?
Jack
Our. Our current value is about $31 million.
Graham Stephan
So it's more than a million dollars a car?
Jack
Roughly, yeah, if you average it outright. Obviously there's some big hitters here. F40, F50. LaFerrari that's. Those are big chunks, right? Even the car right behind you, the 599 GTO, that car is more than doubled in value and it's rid between a 950 to a little over a million dollar car today.
Louis Flor
So I'm curious, what are the logistics of owning something like this? How much does it cost? Let's, let's just start there.
Jack
Well, you know, that's a crazy question and crazy time you would ask that. A video that we just put out, we went through and we, I, I had not consciously added it up in total what we're spending to maintain these cars. But we went through the video and I went spoke about individually and currently we have spent about $800,000 on the cars that you see in this garage today to get them at the level that they're at. The. The reality is that I'm kind of doing both things with cars. There's guys that have driver's cars and then there's guys that have more like concourse level cars that never get driven. I want both, which is very costly to do to maintain cars at a concourse level. As you know, we were talking as soon as you came in. There's some cars in here that are have one platinum at. @ the Cav. The Ferrari Cavalino show. They're 100 cars, but I also drive those cars. I mean the F50. Right. My wife and I road trip that 1200 miles from Houston to Palm Beach, Florida where they host the Cavalino show at the Breakers Hotel, then showed the car and not only won platinum in that car, but but one best F50 overall.
Graham Stephan
And then what's the hundred point rating that you're referencing?
Jack
Okay, so there's a show called the Catalino show, Big car show. They host it every year at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. It is the most prestig car show anywhere in the world for Ferrari only. Okay, so on Saturday, it's only Ferraris that are there. It's a very curated group of cars. You've got to submit your car. A lot of documentation has to come along with that submission and then they have to approve your car just to be in the show. Then when your car's in that show, they have the most. The knowledge these judges have are absolutely insane. I mean, it's unreal the knowledge that these judges have of these cars. So they come around and they judge everything. I mean, they open the front bonnet up, they open the rear engine up. They even so much just get down into where the little tool Tool kits that come with some of the older cars. And it's got the bulbs and, and, and fuses and things like that. They pull them out to make sure they still look pristine and clean. And some of These cars are 30, 40, 50 years old. So yeah, we actually had to get somebody to sit down and get the toolkit out and use a navy jelly to hand polish these tools and the little ends on the bulbs and, and all those things. But they go through those cars to that judge them and they, they, they rate them. So you start out on 100 points and every flaw, blemish or something that's missing or something that doesn't work right on the car, you lose points depending on what it is. Some points, some things are half points, some things, full points, things will be two points. And as long as your car, when it's all said and done has 97 points or more, it would be awarded platinum. Okay, so that is the most rigorous, highest level for Ferrari. Only judging that there is anywhere can.
Louis Flor
You make changes on the spot. Like let's just say, hey, there's a little blemish here. Could you say, hold on one second, have a guy come over, like just fix it. Unfortunately, really what's there is there.
Jack
What's there is there.
Louis Flor
What did your car get?
Jack
So I know that it got platinum. They don't give you your scorecard. I did request it. Right. But the F50 that we have did win platinum. So it's at least 97 points. I think it's, I think it's actually 100 point car. Reason I think that that is there were some amazing f-50s there in class, really amazing examples of that car. And let's remember there's only what, 349F50s in the world and there's only 31 yellow ones ever made. So we have one of 31. And. But then we were awarded the best F50 in class. And actually what made as special as that was, what made it even more special is that Enzo Ferrari's great grandson actually is the one that handed my wife and I that award. So that was a really, really cool moment. Life moment.
Graham Stephan
So what's the value of that car?
Jack
So currently that car, you know, speaking to, to the brokers that, that know my car really, really well, we were just having this conversation last week because we had to insure the car because we're sending it over to Italy because this is 2025, it's the 30 year anniversary of the F50. So Ferrari is actually arranging an F50 only cavalcade through Tuscany and whatnot. So we have to get the car appraised and insured and they' minimum 6.5 closer to 7 million because of the pedigree with the car.
Graham Stephan
So you drove a 7 million car 500 miles.
Jack
1200 miles.
Graham Stephan
1200 miles.
Jack
3. Why, why did you do? Why not?
Louis Flor
Cuz the value that, that you're maybe losing by putting that extra mileage on the car, like how much do you think realistically putting 1500 miles on that car values it?
Jack
Well, I don't think it did. And this is my reasoning. Okay, so I've been collecting cars for a very long time. And in the last seven, eight years, my wife and I really got into collecting older cars. And what I have found is that the older cars that sit around and they're show queens or garage queens, they don't get driven. They're full of problems. They're absolutely full of problems. Nowadays when I go to get an older vintage car, whether it be Ferrari or any other brand, you know, our Countach is another great example. Right. I want a car that's been driven a few thousand miles. I know that the engine's still running, the seals are not dried out, the hose hoses aren't dried up. The car's been maintained to this point that it's still running and driving reliably. And I get a car with a lot less problems. So in my opinion, number one, I'm going to drive and enjoy my cars. Right. My primary intention of my car collection is not the ROI of the value. It really is not. This is my passion, this is what I enjoy doing. These cars bring me a lot of joy in life and they're kind of my reward to me for what I've accomplished in business and in life. And I'm, I'm having a blast on these. It's my toy box, if you will. Right. So for me, I won. I'm like, what is the coolest way to show a, a extraordinary rare car at a car show? Road. Road trip. The darn thing there. Make some memories along the way. My wife and I road tripped it together. Had an absolute blast along the way. Met some amazing people along the way. So rather than just being the stuffy guy that shipped this incredibly valuable car to this prestigious car show, wore them, got awarded my trophy, and then loaded it back on the truck and shipped it back home, we made a life memory out of it that my wife and I will cherish forever. And that carries much more value to me than whatever value is on the car. Now to answer your question though, I think it increased the value of the car that is now known as the F50. They got road trip, 1200 miles to Cavalino and won best F50 overall.
Graham Stephan
Okay, and then when you're driving this $7 million car, are you just like white knuckled and eyes focused on the road?
Jack
Absolutely.
Graham Stephan
Caffeinated to the max.
Jack
I'm caffeinated to the max now, that part is for sure. Now I will say I was white knuckled for about three and a half hours. I think that was a Saturday morning portion of the drive. It did nothing but poor. So I'm driving this 30 year old supercar. No trash control, no nanny's assist whatsoever. You know, F1 V12 engine in the back, a true F1 derived V12 engine, gated manual, no, no ABS, none of that kind of stuff to help you in pouring down rain. So there was a white knuckle portion of that. Other than that, you know what, I drive these cars hard.
Graham Stephan
So what's the most amount of money you've lost on a car?
Jack
Oh, goodness gracious. We have done very, very well with the vast majority of cars. I hate to, to admit it, it's painful, but everyone, you guys have all seen where the SF90 values have just dropped dramatically. And we lost almost $400,000 on our SF90.
Louis Flor
How much did you buy it?
Jack
We, so we, we paid I think 8, 15 for the car and I traded in and I got 400,000 for it. So we lost $450,000 on that car.
Louis Flor
Yeah, and that was the peak of the market for that car. Right.
Jack
It actually got a little bit higher than that. I mean I remember maybe 2021 going into 2022. Somewhere in there, there, there were some of those cars trading over $900,000, you know, and, and they just, boy, they just plummeted.
Louis Flor
Why do you think that car took such a big hit?
Jack
You know, that's an interesting question. I get asked that quite a bit and you know, I have to guess because, well it's, it's an educated guess. I say guess because I've had a great experience with that car and, and I'm on my second one. I have the Spider, my SF90XX is in production now. It'll be here hopefully in the next two months. I'm very excited about that car. And that car is actually trading way over MSRP. I just saw a car last week, 977,000msrp sf 90xx coupe trade for 2.1 million. I just saw it myself last week, so it's not rumor mill saw it myself which is amazing to me that the XX version, the light version or special version is trading more than double MSRP when you could get the coupe base model version for $400,000 right now, maybe even a little bit less. So what I've seen with that car is there's a lot of people that don't understand how to use that hybrid system. So believe it or not, there's a little setting in the menu that you have to put hit charge on the, the generator to charge the hybrid battery. So I personally know of three guys that thought their battery went dead on the car and we're just done with it, we're going to sell it because they didn't want to be bothered with it. And when I talked to them about it, they had no idea that you had to hit to tell that car to recharge. So it was a little self induced. I could actually say that. I think that a lot of the sales guys that were presenting those cars when they were taking delivery, customers were taking delivery of them. They weren't that well educated on how that hybrid system worked too. That was new from Ferrari. Other than I love Ferrari, which that system's completely different than what's in the SF90 or even the 296. So I don't think that a lot of guys were explaining that very well at delivery or they just didn't retain it because that's new to the customer too. And so they just didn't really understand that hybrid system. They had a lot of problems with that due to not understanding. And I've, I have not seen any SF 90s. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I personally have not seen any that have actually had any sort of hybrid system electrical system failure. Yeah, I'm sure it's happened. I haven't personally seen it but I think that that rumor just got around and it scared a lot of people and I think it just turned the market. I think like the financial markets are a lot of time driven based upon emotion and, and, and once people start seeing a little bit happen, they think oh, these guys know something I don't know. And then they start selling or they all start buying and it can drive the market up and down and it had nothing to do with actual factual business. Right. And so I think that happened with that car.
Louis Flor
What's the most that you made on a car?
Jack
On any one, I have made a little over a million dollars in one car that I did transact. Now, there's cars sitting here today that have increased much more than that in value, but I haven't transacted the car. So it's. I guess it's on paper, if you will. Right.
Louis Flor
So what's the biggest paper gain you have so far?
Jack
It's. It's close right now because when you look at. With the F80, that's out now, Right. Obviously, the reaction to that car has been mixed, to say the least. And what that has done is it's really driven up the values of the F40, the F50, the Enzo, and even the LA Ferrari. So, for example, our LA Ferrari, right. Now I know what, what we paid for it, right. It was January of last year. So in just a little over a year, two cars that I saw transact in the last two, two to three weeks, we're up about 1.2 million from what we paid for this car. Right. Our F40 were up at least 1.7 million from what we paid on that car. And then the F50 for what we paid for it were up about 1.5, closer to 2 million on that car. And those are in very short periods of time. But I do have to agree that that's directly driven because a lot of the guys that had different aspirations for what the F80 would be have backed away from that, and now they're chasing these other cars because they realize that's never going to be produced again.
Louis Flor
So you recently did an interview where you talked about what you do for a living.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
The top comment of that video is Lewis might have some secrets. What secrets do you know in terms of. In terms of business? It seems like it's a positive thing. Maybe not.
Jack
Oh, yeah, I haven't read that comment. Yeah, that's entering. Lewis might have some secrets. That's interesting.
Louis Flor
So I'm curious what secrets?
Jack
Okay. So, you know, it's kind of funny, the longer that I'm in business, not only myself, I know what lessons I've learned, right. And then I know what, what attributes I think I contribute most of my success to. But. And that's what's kind of been really cool about being in the car community. You meet other guys that have pretty similar stories. A lot of them are entrepreneurs, A lot of them have started businesses of some sort. And the more we get to talk and you start realizing just how similar a lot of those attributes are. And not only how similar, but what I kind of find a comical is really how. How basic and simple it really is, at the end of the day, secrets. So one of the things that really drove my business model, although really quick.
Louis Flor
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Jack
The idea that I had for my business model is an interview I saw back in my early twenties of Warren Buffett where someone had asked him what does it look for in businesses that he chooses to buy or invest in. And he says, really quite simple. I look for companies with a clear competitive advantage in their industry. That really resonated with me because, you know, I wanted to. I knew that I didn't know what my business was going to be before I started it, but I knew I wanted to start something that within 30 seconds I could say, we're in this industry and this is what makes us different than everybody else. Here's our competitive advantage, right? So that really resonated with me and I believe that we've done that with our business. And most of the people that I meet, they understand that if they're going to build a business, it's going to be successful. They need to have something that makes them stand apart from everyone else that's in that same industry or space or niche or whatever, that's number one. Number two, and it's no big secret. And I tell my kids this all the time. Anybody that comes to me that that's looking for advice about mentoring or, or should they start their business or what do I think of their business idea or things like that. And I love those conversations because I'm at a place in life now where I've kind of done my thing in terms of professionally and I'm getting much more joy by being in a position where I can give people hopefully some good, sound advice or direction and hoping that I can positively impact their future, even if in many times it is. That's a great idea. That's never going to work. So I'm saving them from themselves, right? But like I tell people and I tell everybody the same thing, it's really some basic elements. I wasn't always the smartest person in the room, and I'm even to this day, I'm not the smartest person in the room, but I was always the one person that refused to quit. I just once I locked onto something, and I do that with anything in life. Even to this day. At 46 years old, whenever I lock in on something, I grind and grind and grind away at it until I feel like I've gotten to being the best that I possibly could be with whatever that is.
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Graham Stephan
That's rocket money.com/iced. Once again, rocket money.comiced. thank you so much to Rocket Money for sponsoring this episode. So you said all of these other high level entrepreneurs, these very successful people that you've spoken to, you guys have shared attributes. Would you say that's the main one?
Jack
Absolutely. Perseverance is absolutely the main one. That is for sure. Absolutely.
Graham Stephan
What other similarities?
Jack
So definitely perseverance. Okay. And then all these people, I found they're very good with, with other people. In other words, they're very, very good at motivating and inspiring others around them. Because none of us that. When I speak to people that have built really large companies, it's one thing to be self employed and have a small mom and pop company. That's great. You can make a great living at that. I'm all about it. But the, I'm talking about the guys or gals that have built large corporations. None of us could have done what we have done alone. And we had to have the ability to inspire others to not only see our vision and our dream, but to want to be a part of it, to want to be an impact and be a part of making that dream and that vision a reality. So their ability to motivate and inspire and influence others around them. Also all of us, I think, attribute a lot of our success that we were able to make people feel very appreciated and valued for the impact that they're having on, on our business and the goals that we're trying to achieve. Those are absolute attributes that I think any successful entrepreneur, those are must haves, perseverance, people skills, ability to influence others.
Graham Stephan
So for a viewer out there, maybe they don't have those people skills and ability to motivate people, but they're still really motivated to build a massive corporation. Would you say that those people skills are something that you've had for your entire life? And you could easily look back to when you were young, you had the ability to like rally the troops and get something done. Or is that something that was kind of a byproduct of running this business? You were forced to learn these skills.
Jack
They certainly got honed over the years, there's no doubt. And you grow and mature and you learn. But absolutely, if you look back, you know, it's funny raising kids and then you see groups of kids, their friends and whatnot, and you can start pinpointing who's got some of those attributes, who's that natural leader. Even if it's on a playground, it's that one kid that comes up and he's. He or she's got the idea of what the whole group's gonna do, and they're kind of taking leave with the whole thing. And you can see people naturally just kind of flocking to that one person as. As the leader of the group. And. And so I do believe that those are innate skills. I think you can hone and sharpen leadership skills, but having that innate ability to inspire and lead others and people that want to be a part of whatever it is that that individual is doing, I think that's really innate. I really do.
Graham Stephan
So one thing that was really attractive about your interview with School of Hard Knocks was just that $300 million per year income. You hear that?
Jack
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Completely blows your mind. It's just an absolutely incredible number. It was still kind of hard to figure out exactly what it is that your company does.
Jack
Okay. Yeah.
Graham Stephan
So if you were to explain very simply how your company makes $300 million a year, what is it?
Jack
Well, we don't. We generate that in revenue. We don't make that in profit. I wish we did. That's revenue. And then, of course, all of our operating costs come out of that. Then there's a net profit. So what we do is we partner with companies. All my clients are in some sort of manufacturing or distribution, assembly business, things like that, and they outsource their labor force to us. So we become the full employer, and we handle everything from recruiting, onboarding, training, and then the management of that entire labor force. So what I'm doing is, because of our scale, not only am I getting my. My customers out of the people business so they can focus on their business. Right. Their core competency, whatever widget it is that they're producing, if you will. Right. And I'm providing that labor force back to them at cheaper than they could do it themselves. Right. Which makes them more efficient and profitable as a business. And when they're more efficient and profitable, they're able. That gives them a competitive advantage to grow their business.
Louis Flor
Okay, so let's just say Jack and I want to hire a hundred people to help us on the podcast. We go to you and say, hey, we don't want to spend all this time hiring. We're going to go to your company.
Jack
That's right.
Louis Flor
Find us these hundred people. How much do you charge for that service? Like, what would I. Would I pay you a percentage? Is it a flat fee?
Jack
Yeah, it's A percentage of over the payroll that, that you use each week. So you got 100 people working on your podcast. Right. And whatever their job's doing, we, we generate that payroll. We're paying them, you know, probably every other week in this scenario. And whatever we're generating for the payroll, the labor that you have used, we pay the employees, they're our employees. Okay. And then we bill you back that payroll plus a markup.
Louis Flor
Got it. So I'm not hiring the people, I'm hiring you.
Jack
That's right.
Louis Flor
Right. So I'm paying you and you pay them.
Jack
That's correct.
Graham Stephan
Are the people then legally your employee?
Jack
They, they're 100% legally our employees. And there's a huge benefit to you, the customer, and to the employee in that scenario. Right. Because of our scale. Right. First of all, I'm. My cost per employee are going to be far cheaper than you only having 100 or 200 or 300 employees. Right. We have some clients where we're providing, you know, over 2,000 employees too. My cost per capita is going to be much cheaper, number one. Number two, we're far better than you are at interviewing pre screening and training people to do this job because this is all that we do. Right. So we're going to bring the, the expertise of all of our clients from all these different industries on how we've been able to take people and onboard them, train them and get them up to a maximum efficiency to run your, your facility at full capacity.
Graham Stephan
And what if someone, an employee of yours wants a raise then, and do they then go to you or do they then go to the, the establishment in which they're working?
Jack
Right. And that's where I was going to talk about the win. There's the win for the company. Right. Because of our scale, we're able to provide that labor force at a cheaper cost than they could do it themselves. And what that allows us to do, where the win for the employee is, Right. Is that our job primarily is to train these people and, and, and set them up to, for the best career advancement opportunities they, they can have. And that's what we're really good at. Right. That's, that's our space. And so when there is opportunity for promotions or raises because we have lowered the labor cost to our clients, that provides much more money for raises and promotions and increases for the labor force. So our clients win and the employees win as well. Long term.
Louis Flor
How do you get started doing that?
Jack
Wow, that's a great question. So when I got in this industry, I Didn't even know it existed. I fell into it by complete accident. I got kicked out of college at 20. Or as I like to say, I got out on the early release program.
Louis Flor
What did you do most?
Jack
Just being bored and doing silly shenanigans on. On. On campus.
Louis Flor
You got to tell us what you.
Jack
Okay, we may have to edit that out. Okay, so I will tell you the story. You guys decide what you do with it. Oh, I don't know if I want to tell you the story. It's not bad, but it's.
Louis Flor
I'm sure we're going to find it funny.
Jack
You'll definitely find it funny. All right, so at the university I went to, there was a statue of the. The namesake of the university in the middle of campus, right? Campus square. And it's like a waterfall. So he's kind of standing there. He's got one foot up on this rock, and he's got this long out in the distance, stoic look on the statue of his face. Right. And. And then the water flows from his feet and the rock into the fountain below. And everybody used to soak the fountain when we were in college. And that was just kind of lame. Of course, as with everything I do in life, I kind of have to take it to the next level. So we soaked the fountain, but then we took a summer sausage, a big, long summer sausage. He said, where this is going. Ran a rope through it, tied it around his waist, and then put a jeep pink G string over his head. So it is really funny.
Louis Flor
Yeah.
Jack
This was what, late 90s, I think, 1998. And there was a little thing that was getting to be much cheaper to have and much more prevalent that we didn't take into consideration. Security cameras. And so because the university was tired of kids soaping the fountain, they put security cameras in. And we were one of the first to.
Graham Stephan
And what was the. What were the repercussions?
Jack
So suspension. Right. So I got suspended and so got suspended from college. Fun fact, when you get suspended from a state university, you're suspended from all state universities in the state of Texas. So I couldn't go to any other state university.
Graham Stephan
Well, suspended or expelled?
Jack
Suspended. So. So I say kicked out kind of loosely. It was a suspension. Right. What was amazing, though, is through other goofy shenanigans on campus, mostly me being bored. Right. Of course, I didn't realize at the time I was. I was a kid. I got. I. It wasn't my first time to sit down with the dean. Right. And so finally, during this situation, he Said, listen, Louis, he said, service suspension. And he said, if I were to give you. And he said, you know, I've been doing this for, you know, 30 some odd years, whatever it was. He said, he said, you know, if I could give you some advice. He says, don't go back to college. He said, this is not where you need to be. He says, you're going to be an entrepreneur because I have no idea what kind of business you're going to end up in, but that's going to be your space. You're truly wasting your time. Continue to go to college. It sounded like really, it felt reassuring because I knew my heart was not in college, right? It wasn't in that at all.
Louis Flor
Did you have other businesses going on? Like, why would he say entrepreneur and not just like, hey, just stay out of jail?
Jack
That probably would have been good basic advice. So, you know, no, I didn't have any, the business going on. You know, I was involved in a lot of different things on campus and I think he, he saw that I had, as we were talking about those innate natural leadership tendencies and qualities and, and I think just from over 30 years of seeing people come through the door, he, he probably knows the type. Somebody that's going to, you know, be an entrepreneur and going to do their own thing and, and, and kind of blaze their own trail, I guess, if you will. But that was the advice that he.
Graham Stephan
Gave was this the first business he.
Jack
Started in short order. I had to get a job when I got home, right? And I originally, I, even though he gave me that advice, my dad's like, you're getting your butt back in college. You're going to finish. That's what every parent would say, right? And so I, for whatever reason, just thought I would get a job bartending at this TGI Fridays here in town so that I could serve my suspension for one semester and then have a night job to, to maintain while I go back to school. That was, was originally the idea. And the next day, so I went to go interview at TGI Fridays for the bartender job. And so I did the interview with the manager on duty. She says, you know, come back tomorrow at 2 o' clock, meet with our general manager. So while I was waiting for that, that, that, that interview, I decided to go get a haircut, literally at a Super Cuts in a strip mall. Right next door was a temporary staffing agency and a buddy of mine from high school was with me and he's like, listen man, you should go in and they can find you a job. I'm like, listen, I don't need a temp job. I need a, a real full time job, right? And after him, you know, lecturing me there for a little bit, I reluctantly went ahead and went into the savage next door. The regional vice president happened to be visiting that office that day. She interviewed me, asked me, you know, what skills I had. I'm like, you know, I can sell, right? And that's, that's really about all I got. I was 20 years old. Lo and behold, she hired me as a salesperson in that branch office, right? I had never even heard of the staffing industry before this, right? And the training was really sophisticated. Just hand us a yellow pages if you guys remember that. And it was just smile and dial. Call these companies, see if they, they have a need or for some short term employees or temporary employees or whatever. And that was it. So just started beating away at the phone. Actually ended up doing very, very well in a short period of time. But I quickly realized, like, there's a downside to this business. Like, like we're only staffing our comp, our clients for temporary needs. And although that is a, there is a value there, I'm like, we have. I understood because I was pricing the business, so I understood how the pricing worked and I started talking to some of my customers about what their payroll costs were, what their legal exposures were relative to unemployment claims, workers compensation claims, EEOC type claims and all that kind of stuff that they're not really that well versed and that equipped to, to manage and mitigate and, and prevent by, you know, a lot of these times they get sued for honest mistakes because, you know, they're too busy running their business, they don't know all the employment laws and they get themselves into trouble inadvertently, right? Most people are, do the right thing, okay? And I'm like, not only are my payroll costs cheaper because I know I had to understand what our payroll costs were to price out, you know, the, the employees we're providing our clients. So I, I quickly saw there's a huge by because of our scale, there's a financial opportunity here. And I go to these customers, I said, listen, you've got, you know, I started out kind of small, Maybe they had 30, 40 employees in their warehouse or in their distribution center or whatever it was. I said, listen, you could, we could take over as an employer, right? Provide these employees better benefits than what you're getting them and save you money in eliminating all your liability because we're the legal employer and I love that. Because not only was I actually making providing real value to my clients bottom line and really making their businesses better, but we were able to provide much better benefits for the employees. Right. Because of our scale. So it was a win win. And it really worked well for me because rather than having employees working short term where I would get commissions and then those assignments end, these employees are on a payroll forever.
Louis Flor
How much did that business cost to start?
Jack
So I had that idea, started working really well, and then I started my business as soon as a few years later. And the biggest problem I had was I'm paying these employees each week, and then my customers want to pay me in 30 or 60 days. So I've got to be able to carry four to eight weeks of payroll before I get my first payment from my clients. So you need a line of credit to float that payroll and the payroll taxes on. And of course, to get a line of credit, you need to have equity in your business. Well, when you start out a company, you have no equity. I was 24 years old. It's not like I had some big assets that I could let the bank leverage against to give me some sort of line of credit. So I had to factor my invoices, which is one of the roughest things that.
Louis Flor
What does that mean?
Jack
Okay, so factoring is. Is basically you generate the invoice to your customer, and then I call it loan shark money. Because the rates are outrageous that they charge you when you. Back then, I don't know what they are today back then is this. And they're very good at hiding the fees. Well, there's a buy rate, then there's these processing fees. The interest rate they show is not that bad. But when you add all the fees together and you divide that and you average it out by your apr, your annual percentage rate on how much you're borrowing is closer to 21%. It's outrageous, right? And so they will. But these, these factoring companies, you generate the invoice to your customer, they buy that invoice from you. So legally they own that invoice from you. And they set up a lockbox, okay, at a bank. So when your customer sends their payment in, it goes straight to that lockbox. The financial factoring company that loaned you the money on that invoice takes their money, their fees out, and they give you whatever's left over. Which considering that payroll and payroll taxes are by far our largest cost of goods sold, and then you put 21% on top of that, it just destroyed my profit margins back Then. But it was one of the greatest things that I've ever gone through and I'm extraordinarily grateful for it because it taught me a very valuable lesson. I see so many entrepreneurs make today, and I think social media has driven a lot of it too, because there's so, so much glamorization on social media of, oh, I've got this new car, I've got this new watch, or I'm taking this exotic trip here or there. As soon as someone starts a business and they start making more money than they've ever made before, okay, great, you've got a successful business. That's awesome. They start spending that money, living that lifestyle, right? And not understanding that, they're robbing themselves of a future. You've got to reinvest that money in the business, you've got to build up your balance sheet, you got to build up your retained earnings in that business or you're a, you're never going to grow that' one number because it costs money to grow. Number two, every business is going to go through hard times. Every business is going to go through hard times, and you've got to have the cash to get you through those hard times, okay? And these, these people are, I see it far too often, are not doing that. So going through what I went through, it forced me every week, whatever profits we made to leaving the business, so that next week I had to borrow a little less and a little less and a little less. But then, of course, I kept growing, the business was growing. So. So that was a really difficult part emotionally and managing financially because I'm having to borrow more and more and more to fund the growth because my growth far exceeded how fast my cash flow was catching up. So it took probably the first three to four years of taking. The only thing I took out of the business was just enough to pay my household bills, right? And the hard part, if you guys saw the school hard Knock interview and I saw a lot of the comments that people don't really quite understand what I was talking about and that's my fault. When I talk numbers, I tend to go fast because I've been doing this my whole life. But when you're making that profit as a business, people think, well, if you didn't take the money out of the company, you don't pay income taxes on it. That's not the way that works. That business, it's an llc. So whatever profits the company made flows to your personal income tax, whether you took it out of the business or not. Doesn't matter.
Louis Flor
Better.
Jack
So when you look at. And I referenced it in that the gentleman on school hard knocks asked me, have you ever been broke before? I'm like, every entrepreneur has been broke before. But the, the brokest I'd ever been. I was actually making a lot of money at that time. I was 28 years old. The company made about $3 million. Okay. I was not able to take very much of that out of the bank at the time. I had $10,000 in my personal bank account. Right. That was it. But because the company and me, because we're one in the same in terms of as the IRS had made 3 million bucks, I owed like was it $950,000 in income taxes and Uncle Sam doesn't care that your money's tied up in the business. And if you take that cash out, you're bankrupt the next week because you can't make payroll for all these employees. That. And that's how we generate revenue. Like I said, our revenue is a percentage of the payroll. Payroll. So I've got to go generate that payroll. Right? So that was one of the most difficult financial times I went through. But all that to say I'm so grateful I went through those years because it gave me a lot of financial discipline to never rob the company of its cash, build up the company cash, and also to live far below my means.
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Jack
We grew really fast, you know, so I, I'd been in the industry for about four or five years before I started my own company. So I had some relationships that once my non compete expired, which was a 12 month non compete, I was able to, to leverage those, those relationships and grow the company very quickly. So for example, our first year we did really, really well. I'm very proud of it. We did $14 million in revenue. Okay. I think we did 22 million the second year. I know the third year we did 31 million. Okay? So it was growing. Those are large percentage chunks, right? And then by our fifth year, we were just over $70 million in, in revenue at the time.
Graham Stephan
Was it the same strategy that brought you to $10 million, the strategy that you implemented to go to 300 million? That's incorrect or what was.
Jack
It was. No, it is. It absolutely is. You know, I think I've had people ask that question or similar way they asked the question and I, I still stand very firm on this. Growing a company to say a million, right? Depending on what it does. But let's just say it's growing to a million is one thing. Okay. And you probably don't have to really scale that much to get to a million in a year in revenue. Okay, maybe even 2 million. But to go from 2 to 10 or to 20 million, you have to learn how to scale whatever that, that, that, that that foundation of that business is doing. Right? That's where you learn how to scale. Okay? And once you understand how to scale your business, then yes, it's, it's taken that same strategy, the same mindset that, that it took to scale that business from 1 to 10 or 2 to 20 to get it from 10 to 300. And of course, you know, I, I am very proud of the size of the business it is today. That number kind of pisses me off, to be really honest with you guys, because you know, the goal is to get it to a billion. Billion. I wanted to do that before I turned 50. That's four years from now. We'll see. We'll see. The team's working very hard to get there.
Louis Flor
What do you have to do to bring it from 300 million to a billion? And I think it would be cool, 365 million. So that way you could say a.
Jack
Million million a week or. Yeah, a million a day in revenue or whatever. Yeah, that would be cool. We're not there yet. We're just this tad over 300. So what do we got to do? You know, it's really a matter of, of continuing to do what we do, but we've got to really ramp up the. And this is where it's gotten tougher over the years. Technology has actually made this harder because this is a business to business sale. Okay. And our business model, we're extremely proud of it. It's so beneficial. The clients win, the employees win, and of course we win as a business as well. So it's a tremendous scenario where everybody wins. We don't have any direct competitors that do exactly what we do because we're not a temporary staffing agency or that kind of stuff that people see. That's not what we do. Not knocking it. That's just not what we do. So it's a matter getting in front of decision makers. And with technology that's getting so much harder because people are much more mobile now. Right. So getting a hold of them, everybody just assumes whenever our new business development team is trying to reach out to them, it's just another salesperson or it's another temp agency which they have no value to them for any of that. And I get that, I get that perspective. So getting in touch with someone, getting in front of them to be able to drive down what the value proposition is. The business has gotten much harder in the age of technology and everyone being so mobile, no one's tied to a destination desk anymore.
Louis Flor
What do you think about AI taking people's jobs? Like do you have a concern that all of these people that you employ could theoretically have a percentage replaced by robots or artificial intelligence or you have some humanoid that's going on like putting something together?
Jack
Absolutely. I mean that, that is a strong reality. Right. And, and I don't know where all that shakes out. Where, where's the right balance? Right. I mean the companies need automation, right. To reduce their labor spend. I mean all my customers labor is either number one or a to shortly behind raw material for their cost of goods sold. So they have to seek that competitive advantage as it becomes readily available and, and reliable, a reliable real resource. So you know, I do see that that is a reality. And then, and then what comes of that? Right. You know, so if, if companies, they're going to have to leverage it because their competitors are going to do it to remain competitive. They have to do. It's not the companies are trying to be evil. They have to do it. The market says hey, hey, this widget is only worth X dollars and if somebody's able to do it cheaper customers are going to buy from that person. So if that person's leveraging AI to reduce its cost and ultimately it's cost of its product, they're going to do that. So, but we're, what is, what does that do for, you know, employment in our country, really any country. Right. How many thousands or maybe millions of people? I mean, you look at our company, right? You know, we, we, we process about 34,000 W2s a year. Year. Well, what if, you know, a third of that was able to be replaced through automation? Just my company alone, you know, that's nearly, you know, 1112. Between 11 and 12,000 people. Just my one company. Multiply that by however many thousands of other companies are out there. You know, does that result in a massive unemployment situation? You know, I, I mean, if we just think, you know, logically and analytically, that's a strong possibility. Right. So it'll be interesting to see where all that shakes out. Where we have to value what's good for humanity and society and then how AI impacts that. Let's hope that we find a healthy balance and the AI is able to. What I'd rather see AI do is allow people to do more with the effort that they put in so they're able to produce more, they're able to be more efficient. There's less risk for, for bodily harm or, or for any sort of workplace accident. And I really hope that AI focuses in that so that we're actually enriching the lives of, of employees.
Louis Flor
What are you seeing these days in terms of a potential recession coming on or higher unemployment? Because I feel like you would see it before anybody.
Jack
That is, that is 100. Correct. I tell people all the time I have a front row seat to when things are about to be really good and when things are not, not to, to be not so great. Right. Because the companies be began hiring when they are anticipating growth.
Louis Flor
Right?
Jack
Right. So I see that before the market sees it because the growth hasn't come yet. But they know that they've got business coming their way so they've got to ramp up their, their employment. Same thing when they see out in the distance, whether it be a year from now, two years now, or even just six months out, that hey, new business is starting to slow down, coming our way. Right. They start to trim down the labor force. Right. So we have a front row seat to see when. And that's going one way or the other. And absolutely right now, listen, wherever you stand politically, it's got nothing to do with it. It's just reality of the marketplace and we are across the board seeing a slowdown. That is an absolute truth. And again, my Customers are in many different industries, isolated.
Louis Flor
You're seeing an overall slowdown on average?
Jack
Absolutely.
Louis Flor
How big of a slowdown we right now?
Jack
I would say almost, I would say about 12, 13%. Just from January through right now, mid March.
Louis Flor
Fast.
Jack
It's fast. It's very fast. Yes.
Louis Flor
I was expecting a year ago through today.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
Not January.
Jack
We ended fourth quarter really strong.
Louis Flor
How much of that correlates to the stock market?
Jack
So because my customers are all manufacturing some sort of widget or, or, or something, or refurbishing some for an electronic whatever, ours is really driven by consumer spending. So I really look at the, the, the consumer spending index, cpi. That's what I really look at. But I do think that's directly correlated because when people see that their 401ks are going down or however they're invested in the marketplace and the market's down overall, right. They start to tighten up their, their discretionary spending. Right. And they start stretching their dollars a little bit more. And that's what we're seeing right now. So it is indirectly related to what's going on in the stock market because that's directly related to people's personal wealth.
Graham Stephan
How much do you think this has to do with the tariffs?
Jack
I think it is directly related to the tariffs. You know, it absolutely is. I mean, I don't have one client right now that's not looking at and already factoring in the, how the tariffs are going to impact their business. Because all of my client, listen, we are a global economy. That's a reality. Right. There's very little to. Nothing happens just in a silo within any one single market or country. Right. Everything's globally impacted. Even my clients that are, you know, American made, American produced businesses where they're called, where the raw, where does the raw material come from, where's transportation and things like that have to happen. So there's a lot of raw material and things like that that have come from other countries right into our country to produce whatever it is that my clients are producing. So it is absolutely directly related to the tariffs.
Graham Stephan
I have a friend that runs a sheet metal manufacturing and laser cutting business in Southern California, and he was celebrating the tariffs because he said for his business specifically, they've really positively impact at him.
Jack
You know, I'm glad you brought that up though, because currently, yes, it's, it's having an impact. Okay. I can say that strongly. Very strong education. I'm seeing it straightforward. Okay. That's not my rumor mill. That's not. I didn't read it online, anywhere. I'm speaking directly to my customers, businesses. That being said, long term the, I think the goal of the tariffs is to bring much more of our production and manufacturing back to the United States. So I think this is a short term pain that even and I'm feeling the pain too but I'm willing to do that for the long term good of the country, a long term competitive landscape of where that puts us. Because if we bring more manufacturing and production and things like that back to this country, number one, it, I think it makes, it's good for national security because I think it makes us less reliant on other countries should God forbid some sort of world war breakout or something like that, but countries have less to leverage over us. I mean, you know, I was so shocked and I don't know how many people knew it but it was news to me when covet happened that, that nearly all, I think 90 of our vaccine, don't quote me on number but a very large percentage of our vaccines were produced in China. That's kind of scary to find out realizing that you know, medicines that we all rely on to protect our society is vast majority is being produced in another country. That may not always be our best friend.
Louis Flor
Do you worry that tariffs though, even though there could be a long term advantage will result in higher prices for everyday people? Because my thought is that if it is manufactured in the United States, right, more people have a job here, there's more opportunity right here but it's going to cost so much more money that at the end of the day, sure it might be produced here, but the cost could double or triple. Like if an iPhone were made here. I saw like some, there was some article that they calculated it would be like 4,000, $5,000 if they made all of the iPhone here. It's like some exorbitant cost.
Jack
Well that number is probably true when you don't consider all the other factors. When you start looking at the fact that we're leveraging the playing field for the global economy so prices will come down overall. Right. That's what you know, I, I think the tariffs will ultimately do. Now listen, I'm no economist, right. I'm just speaking by what I've seen and experienced in my, in my time in, in, in this business. Right. So I think that that would happen if everything remained the same. Right is what I'm saying. I think that with the tariffs it starts equalizing the playing field where everyone has to start lowering their cost of production to be competitive. Competitive. It's Kind of like resetting the. The global economy, if you will. Right. To where we're not getting taken advantage of. That's number one. Number two, if more production is done in the United States, that means there's more demand for employees. Guess what that means for people? Higher wage rates. Because. Because the need, the demand goes up tremendously. Right. I mean, look, look at what Covid did for wages. Right. So you look at our company, like I said, roughly 300 million in revenue. Revenue. Right. A very large percentage of my. Of that revenue is my, my payroll cost. Right. Well, just because of COVID when I average out the wages across all my different clients, how much they've gone up during COVID because of the demand, it's up 38% across the board.
Louis Flor
The counter to that is that, sure, wages might have gone up, we'll call it even 50%. But houses are now up 100%. The stock market is now 100% higher. Buyer groceries. Maybe not a hundred, but, but everything else has risen more than the cost of labor.
Jack
I haven't seen those numbers. I haven't seen my home value didn't double. I wish it did not double. The stock market has certainly had a tremendous run. That, that, that's a fact. But that's good for everybody. So if your wages were in the stock market, your wealth has gone up tremendously probably since 2019. Right. Just, just even if you were, I mean, if you're in the s and P500 hundred or even in, in safer positions in the market, you've gone up tremendously since.
Louis Flor
I think the argument, and again, I'm playing devil's advocate, is that a lot of the people don't have their money in the market or a house.
Jack
That's a fact.
Louis Flor
So if you, if you had your money in. Yes, absolutely. You came out on top.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
But for the people that didn't, I feel like they're further behind.
Jack
Listen, there's. It's not good for everyone. Right. And again, I, I can't say I'm not sitting here advocating for the tariffs. Right. I can't say that I would have. If I were president, I would have gambled with a trade war. Right. I can't say that I would have done that. Right. Do I think that we need to do something to equalize our ability to remain competitive in a global economy? Absolutely. Do I think we had to go this route? I'm not so sure. Right. I would like to believe maybe a combination of some tariffs, but maybe some renegotiations with some Trade agreements, I think would have been a far healthier way to go about it. But I'm no politician. I don't have that level of expertise. I, I do think it's right now, I think that we're slinging a sledgehammer and maybe we, maybe we didn't really need to, I don't know. But I, you know, I'm not in that position.
Louis Flor
I just feel like between an economist and you, I would trust you more because you have just a first hand experience and no race in the game really.
Jack
Right, yeah. No reason.
Louis Flor
It's just you're seeing what's going on on before an economist could even begin to recognize that data because you're seeing it in real time. They're seeing it 30 days out and just tracking month over month.
Jack
Right, right.
Louis Flor
Do you change at all your investment perspective based on what you're seeing?
Jack
Oh, 100.
Louis Flor
And so where are you placing your money these days, given what's going on?
Jack
So we're, you know, we're, we're being very conservative. Right. With the investing. I'm not in equities at all. Right. Right now. Right.
Louis Flor
Really?
Jack
I'm not in any equity. We were some, we probably had maybe call it between 20, 25% in equities of just what I have overall invested. Right. And we, we've pulled out of that.
Louis Flor
But when?
Jack
In January?
Louis Flor
No.
Jack
Yes. Listen, what made you do that? All right, listen, as soon as I knew that I didn't know that this administration was going to be all about tariffs, I really didn't know that. Maybe I wasn't really paying attention. I don't know. Right. I'm far enough down the game that, that we've been through. I've ran my business through so many different administrations that I don't really get all, you know, tied around. I don't get too uptight about all this kind of stuff one way or another. The idea is to find a way to continue to make money and run a business successfully and take care of those and pull that, make the business happen. That's what I care about. So when I found out that he was going hard on tariffs. Yeah, absolutely. I'm like, listen, this is a lot of uncertainty that's going to spark. I understand that all these companies are manufacturing, producing something, which means that this is directly going to affect their cost of goods sold. And so we pulled out of equities. Right. We just got very conservative just to.
Louis Flor
Kind of rise now. Like, okay, so you pull down, I'm guessing treasuries Right.
Jack
Lots of treasuries. Absolutely. Some mutual funds along the way as well.
Louis Flor
So then what's the, what's the plan? How do you know when to buy back in and then what do you buy?
Jack
That. You know what? I don't have that, I don't have that clarity yet.
Louis Flor
Okay, Right.
Jack
I really don't. I, I, I am waiting and seeing how this plays out because listen, there's a, we're not, it's pretty transparent to me that a lot of these tariffs are a lot of bluffing and, and negotiating terroristics. Okay. These are not going to be played long term. I mean, at the end of the day, whether you voted for the guy or not, the one thing that is true, he, Trump is a businessman and he's a shrewd negotiator. I don't know that I would want to have to negotiate with Donald Trump. I, I really don't. I think he knows how to just beat you down and beat you down to where you're just like, okay, enough. Right. And I think that's really what he's trying to do here. So I'm going to let that play out a little bit. We're going to stay conservative until I start to see some signs that, that either we are starting to make some concessions or some of the other countries starting to make some concessions.
Louis Flor
Sure.
Jack
And, and depending on which countries are doing what and then, and based upon which companies are, are those countries would directly impact their business, then we'll slowly start easing back into equities.
Louis Flor
So if that's 25% of the overall portfolio, where's the other 75%?
Jack
I stay very conservative. You know, listen, I, I, I run a business. I've lived with risk for 25, six years. When I pull money out of the business, it goes in one of two places. Cars which bring me a tremendous amount of joy and have turned out to be very good investments. Right. And then, and then the rest goes invested. But, but I, because I live with so much risk being a business owner, I, I invest pretty conservatively. So like you said, a lot of treasury, mutual funds, things like that. So even when I am on the aggressive side, it's only like 25%. You know, I keep asking, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty conservative.
Louis Flor
So who do you think should not be an entrepreneur?
Jack
It's a tough question to answer because I don't want to paint in too broad a strokes. Right. But you know, people have to really have a hard look at themselves. You know, the intestinal fortitude it takes to start Something out of nothing, right? To create something that never existed before. Every single day, massive obstacles are going to come your way, setbacks are going to come your way. Let's put it this way. And, and you know, and I still consider myself relatively young. I'm 46 years old. I would not want to have to go through today at my age what I went through in my early mid-20s to get that company up and off the ground. You know, it takes an unbelievable amount of perseverance and tenacity to overcome situational setbacks and obstacles that come your way. And, and people have to have an honest question or honest discussion with themselves and say, have you really demonstrated throughout your life the ability to do that, do really have those innate skills? And also, how far are you willing to push yourself to make this happen? Because I promise you, one thing's for certain. However far you think that is, that you think you're going to push yourself to do it, that's half of what it's going to take.
Louis Flor
Do you notice any difference between, like Gen Z and Millennials and like Gen X? Is, is there a difference in work ethic between the two? You hear a lot of people complaining about Gen Z. Do you see it?
Jack
I, I absolutely do. You know, listen, they just have such a different mindset. And, and you know, they're, they're definitely used to instant gratification. You know, at 46, I didn't grow up with the Internet. I didn't have immediate access to whatever I wanted. I couldn't uber eat, deliver whatever I wanted to have for dinner that night. You know, and, and that's, that's the, that's the world they've grown up in. So they're looking for instant gratification. And there's just a reality that your career doesn't happen overnight. Business opportunities don't happen overnight. Right. These things take long time to develop. And so they have an expectation of how rapid things should happen for them. And, and they're, they're massively disappointed because business and, and career growth and opportunities just don't happen at the speed of instant gratification. And so I see them, like, struggle with that. Okay. And there's definitely a difference in that. And there's also a difference in when you look at, you know, the generations that come before, everyone by and large had understood that if they work hard and they persevere, that the rewards will come to them in life. And so they have a stronger work e. They're more methodical, they're more about being part of a team, a lot of the, the Gen Z. And again, not everybody. But, but, but painting with broad strokes. They're really more about what's in it for them individually than they are really about how can I make a bigger impact to the team? And then as the team wins, we will win together.
Louis Flor
And what about having a work life balance? Is that possible?
Jack
Yeah, they want a life work balance, not a work life balance. They, you know, um, I always joke around with, with, with them when they, when they say, hey, you know, I, I, I want six weeks vacation. And I'm like, okay, so basically you want to be gone a week every other month. If my company can fully operate with you gone one out of every eight to nine weeks, then then maybe I don't really need your position. Right. And, and most successful entrepreneurs run how to learn how to run a business very lean so that what, what profits and growth are, are, are available can be given back to those that really deserve it versus caring. So much fat and having to cover that massive cost. Right. So yeah, they, they, they definitely the work from home thing, you know. Yeah, I was about to say such bs. I'm gonna go on camera and say that. And I'm not ashamed to get a lot of hate. That's fine. Let me tell you something. Look at what's in your best interest for you working from home, okay. How are you getting mentored? Who's growing you? How are you getting career advancement sitting on your couch, banging away on a laptop? You're not, not, you're not. How are you growing leadership skills that we've spent this whole time talking about? So much of what I attribute the success of being an entrepreneur or in any sort of leadership position for that matter. You've got to have great people skills. If you can't connect with people and inspire them, they won't follow you. So you can't lead people that won't follow you. How do you develop and hone those skills sitting on your couch and you know, in your pajamas and a laptop? You can't. So it's not in the best interest interest for the employees that think that they want to work from home. Now listen, if you, the only way work from home works is if you're in some sort of productivity based role, right? Where let's say you're an account. I'm just gonna make up a position, say your account's payable. All right, well the bills come in, you get them, you key them into the accounting software and you know, you process the payment sheets week and we can measure your productivity. You're getting everything done on time and that, but that's a productivity based role. And, but if somebody wants to grow to become a cfo, how, how do they get there working from home right.
Louis Flor
Now, what about the people who work from home, get their work done on time, but they outsource it to somewhere else? And you don't know about it, but they basically taken the cut.
Jack
I got a real problem with that. That's an integrity issue, if you ask me. Right. I hired you because I thought you were the right man for the job. I thought your skill set, your background, the, the, the sense that I got of your integrity, your commitment to doing the right thing, to doing a good job for my company, the, the way I feel like you'll fit and, and, and contribute to our company culture. Because company culture is a major thing that you've got to have to have a company that's going to continue to grow and to continue to foster growth of the other employees. You got to have a strong company culture of everyone trying to lift one another up. I felt like you were going to bring positive contributions to all, all that. And they come to find out I'm paying you because of those things. I as a company committed that role and that salary to you and all the benefits that I'm providing to you. And then you turn around and you're outsourcing out the back door.
Louis Flor
But now what if that person's reviewing all the work? So like they, they send it out, it comes back to them, they look it over to make sure it's perfect and you notice that they're one of the highest performing employees, like in terms of quality, they're top notch, but they're outsourcing it.
Jack
I still find that be deceptive and I feel I still find an integrity issue with it. Do you think now if you were forthright with it, that's a whole different story.
Louis Flor
But let's say you're not forthright with it, but you come and you say, hey, how are you getting all this work done? And they're honest with you, say, hey, listen, I've been outsourcing this for the last two years. Would you give that guy a promotion saying, hey, you know what, I want you to look throughout the rest of my company and let's find a way we could continue doing this. That's like there's that saying to hire like the laziest person to do the job because they'll find a way to do it the fastest, fastest.
Jack
There's certainly some truth to that. And I'd have to really consider that because, you know, to trust someone to have broader influence on your business, I have to also believe in your integrity. Right. And again, had someone been forthright with me on that, I'll give you a great example. I'll give you a really great example. So I had a guy doing sales for, for our company, doing new, new partnerships development and he was very forthright, says, listen, pay me as. As a 1099 hire. I've got an LLC. Hire my LLC, because what I'm going to do, I've got five people, they're going to do all the, the research work, the cold calling, the appointment setting, and I'm going to take the appointments and close the deals. I was all about that, 100% all about that. But he was forthright. Right. And quite honestly, what we ended up doing, I learned so many lessons from how he had to struggle structured that we implemented a lot of that structure in our business. Right. And full credit to him. Right. So he got, I mean, not only did he, you know, come into the fold, but, but, you know, got a larger role in the business because I saw that this person had strong business acumen, understood how to maximize his efficiencies. So listen, I, I don't. My time is not mo best use making cold calls or research in the background of companies and who the decision makers are. It's being in front of as many decision makers. Paul Possible. And he came with his own little team to do that. Fantastic. Now we've built teams that do nothing.
Louis Flor
But that reminds me of Jack on the second channel. So this was years ago. Jack was editing videos on my reaction channel and he came to me and says, you know what, Graham? My time is better spent not doing this and I want to hire this out. And I was really concerned about it because Jack has such a good eye when it comes to videography work. Humor, doing the right cuts in the right spots. And at first I was really against it because I'm like, dude, why, why would I pay you when I could just then outsource it to someone else? And the more Jack brought this up to me, the more I said, you know what? Maybe how about this? If I don't know it's outsourced and I review the episode and I have no idea that you didn't do it. I'm good with it.
Jack
Right, but you're holding him accountable to that. Yeah, sure, no problem.
Louis Flor
And, but he was still forthright. I had. Oh yeah, he came to Way before integrity.
Graham Stephan
Oh, I was asking him if I could do it for a long time and he's like, no, no, no, no.
Jack
I'm like, dude, I would beginning it's not worth it.
Graham Stephan
But then fortunately, after enough time, he yeah.
Louis Flor
And there, there were a few episodes that I was like, oh, this is really good work.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
And I posted it and then I think Jack told me, hey, for the last like month I haven't edited any of those videos and they've been outsourced. I was like, you know what? Good job. The quality is the same or higher. Doesn't impact me. Go for it.
Jack
Well, now he's chief editor. Chief editor.
Graham Stephan
I like that.
Jack
There we go, Jack. Look at that. Upward mobility in the company. Already see that.
Graham Stephan
Thanks.
Louis Flor
So what's the important of work ethic these days? And why do you think that so many people themselves as a victim of the system?
Jack
A victim of the system. I would have to hear how someone finds themselves to be a victim of the system.
Louis Flor
Like they're being oppressed by bosses who are too demanding of them, that they don't have a chance to get ahead, that things are too difficult, that maybe they're going to look at you and say, well, back in your day you had it easier.
Graham Stephan
It is technically more difficult for, for, for most people to have upwards class mobility. I feel like right now, because back in the day the primary wealth builder was the home. And the home is becoming less affordable relative to, to wage increases. And so there is, there is a valid argument there or just to grow financially.
Jack
That is a really interesting perspective. I don't know that people looking to your personal residence as the primary wealth group grower is, is a, is a very. I don't know. That's a real reality. Because when people look at that. Let me give you a great example. Okay, Great example. My wife and I had a second home that we bought, bought it in 2019. Okay. September 2019. We sold it May of last year. So huge Covid swing, right? Huge swing in value. Right. I born and raised in Texas. I've never seen real estate jump like that in my life. Right. So we benefited from it. But then we look at. So we sold it for about more than what we paid for the house. That sounds fantastic. Then you back out five years of property tax, maintenance, utilities, you know, repairs, so on and so on. Right. Upgrades that we did to the home. We really didn't, we made nowhere near 40%. We, we really didn't make much money. It really dollar for dollar was not a, A Very good investment. Now, where I also challenge you on that, though, that perspective. Listen, the. The stock market market moves so much faster now than it did when I was young. There was no day trading back then. Bitcoin. How many millionaires, multi millionaires have been generated because of bitcoin? And then, and then social media, you know, you look at all the different ways that people are making money via social media. Those avenues did not exist back in the day, so to speak. I'm not that old. But, but, but those avenues didn't exist. So. So it was only through traditional get a job, hard work, or start a business. Business, grind it out. That was the only way. I also strongly argue against the idea about it was easier back in the day. So you talk about work ethic, right? Back in the day, if you will, everyone could walk up to you, shake your hand, look in the eye, carry on a conversation. Had decent, at least relatively decent social skills, personal accountability, you know, and, and today, you know, because people spend so much more time online or, you know, with. Through their phones and whatnot. Whatnot. I mean, listen, there's a reality that social skills have diminished. They truly have. I've learned that working on my YouTube channel. We got Anthony off camera here, but, you know, he's brought a couple of guys, they're good guys that they didn't even know to walk up and shake my hand and introduce themselves to me when they were going to come work for me. And, you know, and I literally walked over to listen, and the guy's a good guy, but he just didn't know. And I walked and I didn't know how to accept that. I thought it was extraordinarily disrespectful.
Louis Flor
How old is he?
Jack
I would say he's probably 21, 22. I mean, guessing 19. 19 year old young man. And by the way, a very nice young man, come to find out. But when he walked in, Anthony knows exactly what I'm talking about here. And I was standing over here in the warehouse. Guy walks in and Anthony goes, oh, that's Mr. Flory over there. He just kind of throws me the peace sign. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Louis Flor
The peace sign. Like this, Su man.
Jack
Yeah. Sup? And so I walk over. That's. That's what prompted it. So I walk over, I shake his hand, say, hi, I'm Lewis Flor. I like to shake people's hands and greet them in the eye.
Louis Flor
Should be doing this.
Jack
Yeah, no, yeah, yeah, yeah. We. We weren't doing any of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Said. And I was like, you know, like a real man does. And my wife was standing there and she was like, I should. I was looking for a dog to pet or something. She's like, it was such an awkward moment, right? And I'm making a joke. Well, that did happen, by the way.
Graham Stephan
How did you respond to that?
Jack
You know? Okay, here's the response. All right? My wife thought I was too strong in my response. It just happened. I didn't contemplate. It just happened. It came out naturally. I felt really disrespected. Worked with the guy that. That day and realize he is a nice guy. He just didn't know any better. Right? But then. But probably four or five months later went by, right? And he ended up working on a project with us again. He came up, hey, Mr. Flory, good to see you again. How you been connected with me, Spoke to me, looked me in the eye, shook my hand, and I didn't say it to his face. I told my wife about. About that, about that night. I'm like, he's now better. He's a better man for it, you know, and so I'm making a joke out of this or telling a funny story about it. But what I'm referring to, though, is when. When I was growing up and when I was younger in my career, everyone had that ability, right? Today, if you had that ability, you stand head and shoulders above everyone else. That is more like that young man that day that just doesn't have those level social skills anymore. And in a professional world, you've got to be able to connect with people in a professional setting, in a professional manner. And I just see such a massive degradation. So I tell my kids, quite honestly, I'm like, listen, if. If I were yalls age today, I would kill it. I would absolutely kill it. Because I don't see the motivation, I don't see the drive, I don't see the grit in this generation right now. I don't see the ability. Their social skills. Everything's so focused about them. They're very, very person centric, if you will, or I don't. Yeah, just person centric that they're not looking at. You know, how do I benefit others around me to build a team and rally around what I'm trying to achieve? And they're not focused on any of that. So, you know, and another person feels the exact same way as Dana White. He's like, he would be a savage today. And I agree with that, by the way, because the. The level of competition is, it's, it's lower when you in that frame now. There's certainly a lot of positive things I can say about this generation as well. I mean, they multitask very well. They're used to doing things at a much, much quicker pace. I think that if they can leverage the networking they do on social media into businesses and I've seen a lot of them do that very successfully. A lot of these people that, that, that have that act, that business acumen to leverage that. There's some of the, the wealth generation I was talking about earlier that I see that those, those opportunities weren't there when I was growing up.
Graham Stephan
It's so funny because you sound exactly like Graham every.
Louis Flor
Oh yeah.
Graham Stephan
Always going. It's so easy to get rich because the average is so, so bad.
Jack
It is.
Graham Stephan
People show up late, they don't complete their jobs on time. The quality of their work is really bad. Average is so bad. And if you're just good or better yet, great, you'll be completely fine.
Louis Flor
You know what I said all you have to do is pick up the phone when someone calls you and show up on time.
Jack
That's it.
Louis Flor
That's it. You're in the, the 90th percentile. Just those two things.
Jack
And when an entrepreneur sees someone that just does those couple of basic things, things, we latch on to them.
Louis Flor
Oh yeah.
Jack
Oh my God. Like it's so much harder to find that these days. So 100%, I, I, I think it's easier. Plus, you know, listen, there's another reality of it too. Look at the wealth generations that's happened over the last 15 years. Globally. Globally, right. I mean, you know, listen, we, we look at supercar channels, right? And, and the number of people that I remember when I, I was 28 years old, I bought my first Lamborghini, which actually is here. I bought it back and restored it. But when I bought that car, car, you didn't. In Houston is the fourth largest city in the United States. You didn't see Lamborghinis and Ferraris very much at all around town now they're everywhere. There's been so much wealth generation there. A lot of the avenues that I just talked about that didn't exist, you know, when I was younger. And so I think that's a great thing. It's, it's, it's giving much more opportunity for a lot of people these days. But, but, but yeah, having, going back to having those basic skill sets, sets there, there, there are a few I.
Louis Flor
Think is another one is Being able to talk on the phone.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
Versus texting. I think that's the biggest difference between. I'm going to put Jack on the spot here.
Jack
Jack. Jack's really taking some wrath here. Poor guy.
Graham Stephan
For it. Go for it.
Louis Flor
You hate taking phone calls and you. Sometimes you just need to hop on a quick call to bang it out versus texting back.
Graham Stephan
Not going to bang it out with you, Graham. Okay, first of all, I'm not going to do that.
Louis Flor
Second of seconds.
Graham Stephan
That's all you need, man.
Jack
He's paying for that. That's what he needs. Right. You know, listen, that's a good point of the day. To, to Graham's point. Like, I get so annoyed when I look up and I'm like, I've exchanged 27 texts with this person that a three minute phone call would have resulted. The other big thing, too, with texting, or it's really texting these days, not so much. Email is tone and intention gets lost. Right. People read it not the way you intended to say it. Say it. And, and, and then sometimes that can certainly have a negative effect.
Graham Stephan
So for clarity.
Louis Flor
Yes.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. For a couple things, I'm gonna.
Jack
Jack, I'm gonna start calling you once a week just to force you to answer. Good luck.
Graham Stephan
The phone's always on. Do not disturb.
Louis Flor
No, but it is.
Jack
Everybody your age is on dnd.
Graham Stephan
Yeah. But here's the problem is we have so many people reaching out. I had. Graham is actually pushing through my do not disturb. But then, but then we couldn't figure it out because it would only ever ding. And it was. It was becoming an issue when we were recording podcasts for some weird reason. Yeah. But we like voice memos. And I think a lot of the viewers that are younger can attest to this because in voice memos you get like the tone that you're trying to cross. And also with our employees, it makes it so much easier. If they're trying to call me, it's either a call or they don't transmit the message, whatever information they're trying to relay to me. Right. But instead if I miss that phone call, then it's gone and I have to then inquire about what it. Whatever it is that needs to be tended to. But if they just send a voice memo, let's say I'm in the middle of doing something, we're having a meeting meeting. Or maybe we're doing a sponsorship read or this or that, or I'm reviewing something. I don't want to break focus. As soon as I do Break focus and I go and I use the restroom or I go and I get a drink. Then I can pop open my phone, listen to the voice memo and then send a voice memo right back.
Louis Flor
Yeah, I would say I'll give a you for that. In Jack's fairness, that's a good one. Half of the phone calls could be a text, but the other half, it's better for the phone call if it.
Graham Stephan
Could be a text and it's a phone call. That for me, I'm like, like it just breaks my focus and I already have a really hard time breaking focus and getting right back in. So if I'm hyper fixated on like a work activity, that's all I want to be doing at that moment.
Jack
You know, I'm listening to you give this, expand upon your answer and I'm going to have to go and own it. That if you call me for something that is simple text. Thank you. I'll be really honest. That is right.
Graham Stephan
That is 99% of it right there it is. If you could have just texted me. Yeah, Boom. Or another thing that you do a lot not to just completely air out all of these issues.
Jack
Listen, let's get a third issue going here. We can really work this out.
Graham Stephan
You'll be like, hey, is there any chance Gavin can do this? And I'm like, why don't you ask Gavin? Why are you asking me to then ask Gavin? Because if I don't, if I don't, if I'm not on my phone, because we text way outside of like, we'll text at like 11pm at night or we'll text early in the morning whenever a thought comes in his brain. And then if I, I don't get, if I don't get to that in three hours. Right. And then I texted to Gavin and Gavin doesn't get it to it in three hours. That's six hours of delta between when the thing needs to be solved and when it actually gets solved. But if instead he could have just texted Gavin directly, which it should happen, that would have been so much better.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
It's made me very selective when I call Jack, I don't call him. If it could be in a text, unless it's something I need an answer like pretty quickly on something. So I've got very selective.
Jack
That's the balance.
Louis Flor
And now I know when I call it, Jack will pick up. Unless he's like in a truly in the middle and just can't pick up.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
So it made me very, I'm very conscious If I call you, it's usually something.
Graham Stephan
Yeah, I'll pick up the phone call. If you call me, I'll pick up.
Louis Flor
Bang it out.
Graham Stephan
Bang it. Well, find a private space.
Jack
I think we just bang that whole thing out too. Yeah.
Louis Flor
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Louis Flor
So I'm curious, why did you start a YouTube channel? Because it seems like you, you got everything figured out from a business perspective. You don't need to be making videos. You're not trying to do this from money.
Jack
That's right. So that's a really great question. And, and this is when I talk about, you know, people that come to me about, you know, business advice or opinion on, on whether it be a business that they have, they're trying to scale or business or think about starting. That's really food for my soul to give whatever experience and hopefully a positive impact to them. I really love that brings a lot of joy in life these days for me. The cars are also in that same vein. You know, I grew up extremely humble background and you know, a lot of people say that. So we went and made a video where we actually drove where I grew up. So like listen, this isn't some, you know, feel good story. Here's a reality, right? The area was so bad they had to tear down and move, move the elementary school because crime was so bad in that area. The elementary school I went to. But, but back in those days one of the things that really drove me in, in, in really aspiring for, for something more than what I'd ever seen in life. Because again going back to those days, you know, there wasn't social media, there wasn't the Internet. So we didn't have a lot of exposure to what levels of wealth or opportunity or possibilities are even out there. And I was living on my grandparents farm. And so that all started for me though when I won a poster of a Lamborghini Cross Countach. I didn't even know what the hell that was. I'd never even seen it like that before in my life. But obviously the car just looks so extreme. Hell, that car looks extreme today. And that poster was on my wall and, and, and it became like wow, I didn't even know that levels of success existed in the world. And I just kind of thought why not me? What, what, what says I can't achieve something like that one day? And that is what that poster became to mean to me. And, and it drove me to reach beyond, beyond anything I'd ever seen before in my life. To levels of wealth that you know, not only that I've gotten to today, but obviously there's people far more wealthy than me, but it was a strong motivation for me. So now when I would go to some car shows and we don't really do a whole lot because I've been busy raising kids and so on. Weekends are usually, you know, whatever kid activity we have going on, that's where I was at. Now that my kids are getting a little bit older, my weekend's a little bit more free. And I would do some car shows here and there and I would see kids and I would see, see just how enamored and, and just wide eyed they were to see some of these cars. And it just hit me, I'm like, oh my God, I could be inspiring some, some young person today like I was with that one poster and, and, and then by way of doing it on a YouTube channel. Listen this. The cars are my passion today. A lot of my time in my life is doing different things with these cars events and, and chasing cars and things like that. Whatever it is, I'm doing things, these cars. So Phil, I'm already doing these things anyway and then bringing people along and showing them what's possible. If you really hone in on some of the attributes that we talked about earlier, that, that if someone like me can come from their grandparents farm on welfare to sitting here with a $31 million car collection, if I could do that, so can you. And I'm really hoping, and that's kind of our little tagline, is that we're driven to a inspire. You know, cars are driven to inspire. I'm really hoping that we can inspire that growth or, or that next young, young person to believe in themselves, take a chance on themselves, bet on themselves and make something happen out of their life that they never even dreamt possible before.
Louis Flor
So how did you know if you had enough money to buy your first Lamborghini?
Jack
It was a matter of, of cash flow, right? In, in, in the business, right? So it was a matter of being able to say, hey, you know, the, the business cash flow is good, we're in a good spot cash flow wise. Took care of some, some personal things, you know, for, for personal financial securities. Was able to start doing a little bit investing to start building a load of the family nest egg, if you will. And now I couldn't really take the money out to go buy a brand new Lamborghini at the time. But I did. I bought a, a 2005. So at the time it would have been, I think it was 08 or 09. So it was either three or four years old when I bought the car. So I bought it, you know, used. And so knowing that I, that I had enough money for it, I knew that I could take that money out of the business, not impact the business, not impact the financial security of the family and reward myself with, you know, an exotic car, a little toy.
Graham Stephan
Can you just say how much money you had at the time or how much you were making at the time to justify this purchase?
Jack
Yeah, well, so at the time I was probably making somewhere between 3 to 5 million dollars a year or something like that.
Graham Stephan
Like personal income?
Jack
Yes.
Graham Stephan
So it was just easy.
Louis Flor
No, that's way higher than I expected.
Graham Stephan
I thought you're gonna say three to 500,000.
Louis Flor
Yeah, I was like, oh, wow. Yeah, stretching it. That seems like a no brainer then with the income versus the cost of the car.
Jack
How much was the car at the time? I think I paid, gosh, 195,000 for the car.
Graham Stephan
And so your next egg was probably a few million bucks.
Jack
No, no, no, guys, you gotta understand. Yes and no. Yes. But it was tied up in the growth of the business. Remember? Think about this, okay, Right, because you.
Graham Stephan
Need a whole different story.
Jack
Talked about the growth of that business growing, you know, 10, 17, 30, and then, you know, what was it year, I think was your four what it was, you know, we were doing a little over 70 million in revenue. So, you know, I was funding all that growth with that cash and then having to pay income tax on the income, which was extremely difficult to do because my, my business is a very cash intensive business because you got to float those receivables for so long. Floating those payrolls is a lot of, of money, you know, and so, you know, even right now, you know, the, the, the company's carrying probably close to $20 million in receivables. That's cash.
Graham Stephan
Is that every month?
Jack
Yes. Well, that's weekly.
Graham Stephan
That's weekly.
Jack
That's weekly, yeah. That's what we're carrying on the books. Right. And you know, we've gotten ourselves away from, from debt. So that's all, you know, through the years. I continue to build my returns and I finance it with my own cash.
Graham Stephan
Was this when you had paid off all of the debt?
Jack
Yes.
Graham Stephan
So this is after you paid off.
Jack
All the debt at that time. You got to understand you, you pay off that debt at that time, but it's not static. Unless your company stops growing, right.
Graham Stephan
Once you take on more clients, then you need to take on more debt. Unless if you have the cash.
Jack
Unless you have the cash. That's right. Okay, exactly.
Louis Flor
Now, what about for the average person, they want to buy a Lamborghini.
Jack
Okay.
Louis Flor
What would be your advice to that person? How much should they have to spend $250,000 on a car?
Jack
You know, that car purchase needs to not be a major life purchase, financially speaking. Okay. So when I say that to, you know, you going and buying that car should not mean that. Well, I'm gonna buy this $250,000 car. I'm gonna put 20% down, right? Or something like that. I'm gonna finance this. So, so I put, say, $50,000 down, and I've got, you know, $50,000 left over in the bank, right? So if you're taking half of what you had saved and putting that as a down payment on a car, probably not wise, right? I think that whether you choose to pay cash or finance is really a decision based upon what interest rates you're doing at that time and what you're doing with your money over otherwise. So if interest rates are low, there are times that I will throw debt on a car, especially back in the good old days where I could get 1.9 or 2.9% interest. Well, I wasn't going to take my money out of, you know, good investments to. To do that. But you, you, you need to be able to pay cash for that car very easily before you go spend that kind of money.
Graham Stephan
So how old were you when you first bought your Lambo?
Jack
28.
Graham Stephan
28. And did you have a girlfriend at the time or were you single?
Jack
No, I was married.
Graham Stephan
You were married by the time you bought your Lamborghini?
Jack
Married.
Graham Stephan
I was going to ask you if you got more attention from women once you started buying supercars, but I guess no, just from one.
Louis Flor
Maybe your wife is going to see this. So be careful.
Jack
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. And the answer is no. It's kind of funny, like, I don't really find at any stage of life where cars have got me much attention from, from females. It's mostly other dudes.
Graham Stephan
Graham wants to know. Yeah, is it other. So it's mostly other dudes.
Louis Flor
It's all 16 year old boy.
Jack
That's right.
Graham Stephan
Well, that's.
Jack
That's right.
Louis Flor
Really?
Jack
That's a fact. That's, you know, 60. You are the man when you drive by the high school.
Graham Stephan
Interesting.
Jack
That's all that is. So you Know, I always think it's kind of funny people have this. I think it's more of an older mindset because the younger generation I think accepts, you know, exotic cars so much more than, than, than older generations did. But the older generation was always like, you know, oh, so and so's doing it for attention or they're really insecure or this that I'm like the only attention you're getting is from teenage boys. So that's probably not feeding your ego very much at all. So truly these all any car I've ever owned has been because it brings me personally joy.
Louis Flor
Okay, but if you are trying to get girls, which car is the best?
Jack
That's a really great question.
Louis Flor
You had to pick one.
Jack
Wow.
Louis Flor
It doesn't have to be in this garage just like any car to get girls. If that's the primary objective and money is not a concern, no object, then.
Jack
You got to go big. You got to, you got to outshine every other guy out there that's got a hurricane con, you know, or a whatever.
Graham Stephan
So Mazda Miata.
Jack
No, you got. Yeah, yeah, you gota. But you got to outshine th. Those guys, right? So, so to show you're the real deal. Money's no object. So you're, you're obviously like they don't.
Graham Stephan
Even know, do they?
Jack
Listen, I'm pretty sure the average lady does know that costs much more than her Corvette or Corvette. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Z8 or whatever. They probably don't have any idea idea that it's three to five million versus. Oh, I bet that's a million dollar car versus a huracan, you know, is a couple hundred thousand.
Louis Flor
So you think of Bugatti would be.
Jack
I would say something to that level. Yeah, probably Bugatti. Now Kona's sake. They're not even know what that is.
Louis Flor
Right?
Jack
You're right. Guys don't.
Louis Flor
What about Pagani?
Jack
Pagani probably not. Probably not. I would. Bugatti probably would be the move. You know, that's weird, but yeah, I think you got to get a big car. Any Ferrari. Ferrari Ladies don't know the price difference between a la Ferrari and a 458. You know, it's just not their space. Right. And if they do, that may not be the girl you want to attract. Right.
Graham Stephan
If they do, they've had past experience that you don't want to compete with.
Jack
Yeah, that's a good point.
Louis Flor
My answer was going to be a convertible Porsche Turbo S. Now why is.
Jack
That the car you think gets the most girls?
Louis Flor
Porsche I think they just, they just know the name over Ferrari. Yeah. I would say just because I think the go to sentiment is that Ferrari he's trying to show off to people. What does he have to prove? Porsche in silver is a little bit more subtle. It's a convertible.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
Which is kind of fun. And it's a Turbo S. So it gets attention from car guys, but not from people who think that you're trying to show off. Because it's very under the radar.
Jack
Graham, a girl does not know the difference between a car Carrera and a.
Graham Stephan
Turbo S. But the Turbo S and a Turbo S, if I'm being honest.
Louis Flor
Maybe you should.
Jack
So, so, so. All right. Let's qualify the expertise of your opinion. Yeah. Married. Single. Married. Married.
Louis Flor
Yeah.
Jack
Okay. All right.
Louis Flor
And I don't have a Porsche Turbo. But, but I'm just saying if I was single and if I was right, trying to like, you know, do the dating scene, it would probably be a Porsche Turbo West.
Jack
I would absolutely go get some convertible Ferrari. That's exactly what I would do. If I was just in generally speaking, trying to get attention from girls. Right. It would be a convertible because a Ferrari is more, generally speaking, it's more classier, elegant, if you will, than Lambo. Lambo is says show off, got something to prove, all that stuff all day long. Right. And don't get me wrong, I love Lamborghini. But for just speaking from where the opinion I think ladies would have have the. The Ferrari is known as in my opinion, more of a connoisseur's car. Especially you know, when you look at the history of Ferrari and things like that. It's a more beautiful car. It's got curvy, more sexy lines like a beautiful lady would have. Lambo is every 14 year old's rendition of what they would draw of a supercar.
Louis Flor
Now what about if you want to ball on a budget and you have $50,000 and you want people to think that you've got way more, more than that.
Jack
50,000, I think a lot. Great option.
Louis Flor
Absolutely give him answer.
Jack
But I love that answer. I absolutely love that I. Listen, I was kicking around, you know, I don't know that Corvettes, even though, listen, I think, I think the new. Was it the zora Amir, the ZR1 and then there's a. I thought there was a project Zor something. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think they're doing phenomenal things, but it's always going to be a Corvette, you know. But you know, you get a C6 Corvette that's a phenomenal car. I would say that's balling on a budget. That's a, that's a badass car. That's a lot of car for the money. Especially these days. A Lotus 100 Lotus at least gives that exotic vibe. Right.
Louis Flor
You know, the funny thing is the sales tax on one of these cars would be worth more than the Lotus.
Jack
Oh God. Yeah.
Louis Flor
The sales tax, I mean, nuts. Now the first car I bought, like the first fun car was a 2006 Lotus Elise. I bought it in 2009 for $30,000.
Jack
Okay.
Louis Flor
And I sold it two years later for $30,000. Then the next one I bought was in 2014. It was a 2008 Lotus Exige S240. I paid $50,000 for it, drove it two years, I sold it for $50,000. And then in 2020 I got a 201010 Lotus Evora GTC with the body kit on it and everything.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
Still have it. Still have it, still have it.
Jack
What year is it again?
Louis Flor
2010.
Jack
Any problems? No, it's been solid. Right.
Louis Flor
So the, the only problems are, are self inflicted problems to the car because it's modded.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
And so the issues I have are stupid stuff because he redid the, the prior owner redid all the interior with alcantara. Like everything on the car is custom but the handle broke. So there was one time where I tried to get out of the car and the door handle wouldn't open with me in the car and I had to climb out the window. Little things like this. Or I had to replace some fuses on the car.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
Which requires you taking out a back panel and in fixing that fuse. Now the radio doesn't work.
Jack
Oh yeah.
Louis Flor
So it's like little things like this, it's little annoyances. Mechanically it's been perfect. All Lotus is have been perfect. So the oil changes, that's it.
Jack
That's a 15 year old car. Like there's just a reality to some of these older cars. Just things, silly things like they're gonna have just because of age. I actually think I'm going to update my answer. But we got to update the budget just a little bit if I want to ball on a budget. It's a really gorgeous car, super cool. And very few females would know the difference between this car and a super expensive version of that car. I don't get a 360 Spider. You could probably pick one up for 75, 80 grand H. That says Ferrari. It's convertible, it's gorgeous.
Louis Flor
What if you don't have the money for the maintenance.
Jack
You know, the maintenance isn't that bad on that car. It's not like this 355 over here where every three to five years you got to do the engine out and stuff like that. The maintenance on that car is not that bad. Especially going back to what I said. Don't buy the one that's got 3,000 miles on it. And it's a, you know, a 2002. Get the one that's got 15, 18,000 miles on it. The guy's been driving it, he's kept it maintained. So not a bunch of back maintenance or deferred maintenance on that car. He's probably kept it in good shape. It was probably his baby, took good care of it. And you buy that car for. You could probably buy that car for 70, $75,000. And you look no different to most ladies. Like the guy that's got the latest and greatest $500,000, you know, SF90.
Louis Flor
My vote, if you want a ball on a budget is any used Aston Martin.
Jack
Oh, that's an excellent.
Louis Flor
I used Bentley. The Bentley GT is a 2006 that you could pick up in the 30 grand range.
Jack
That's an excellent.
Louis Flor
It looks like $150,200,000 car. And they look almost identical to the new ones.
Jack
They do they. That is so true. That is absolutely so true. That's. Those, those are two actually.
Louis Flor
Really same thing. Mercedes S Class. You could now find them in like 20 grand for a used Mercedes S Class, like a 20102009 with 80,000 miles on it. And I see them with 200,000 miles on these cars. They just, they're bulletproof. They maintain them.
Jack
They' cars. Absolutely. And if you roll up in that S class, everyone immediately assumes it's at least $150,000 car.
Louis Flor
Yeah.
Jack
Because they don't look that different year to year to year. Right. You know, another one nowhere near that, that price point. But I laugh about the fact that like Rolls Royce, right?
Louis Flor
Oh, the phantoms, like the $70,000 Rolls Royce Phantoms.
Jack
You roll up in an old school Phantom like that. Wow. Like, I don't even care what you paid for it. You're a baller even in my book. I'm telling you, that's. That's a baller car.
Louis Flor
There was a Maybach that went for sale, I think it a matte black one and I'm looking at it and it's got like 10 hours left on the bid and it's like 40 something thousand dollars for a Maybach. And I'm just thinking to myself, if this sells for under 50, there's no reason why I shouldn't be buying this car. It's just a good deal.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
And I'm always a buyer of anything. If it's a good enough deal, even if I'm not in the market, if it's a good deal and I can make money on it, I'll buy it. I got it like 42. 2 grand. It's worth it to buy the Maybach.
Jack
Isn't that crazy how some cars do that? That's amazing. Bentley is one that really. I'm a. I'm a huge fan of the Bentley, the Continental gtc, you know, convertibles. Yeah, I. I had one. I sold it recently just really to make room for stuff. And there's more stuff on order and all that kind of jazz, but it's a car that I miss. It's a phenomenal car. But I've owned two. I had a. My last one, I think, was a 2022. I think it was. Bought it brand new. My first, first one was a 2011 or 2012. It was actually Robert Ori's car. Come to find I bought it used. Right. And the difference between those two car was minimal. Like if they were both parked outside, 99.9 of people wouldn't have no difference of the. Of those two cars. Yet one of them, to your point, is $40,000 today. You know, the other one was what, 303, brand new? There was. In terms of catching attention from Laser or even just making a statement, period. There was no ROI in buying the brand new one whatsoever.
Louis Flor
I agree. What are you finding right now with the car market? Are prices trending down?
Jack
Absolutely. Yeah. Things are definitely getting much softer, you know, depending on the car. Right. You know, listen, the blue chip stuff is still pulling crazy numbers, which kind of runs counterintuitive. I mean, no one's immune to the markets being down. Nobody's immune to a lot of things. We talked about what's going on economically, but, you know, I'm still watching blue chip cars trade at absolutely ridiculous numbers. I mean, look at the, the Ferrari SP3 Daytona. I mean, that car is changing hands right now between 6 and 6.5 million dollars. That's a 2.2 million dollars.
Louis Flor
What's the MSRP?
Jack
2.2 million. That's insane. Yeah, it's absolutely insane.
Louis Flor
Now, speaking of that, though, to be able to get that allocation, what do you have to do to get that car?
Jack
A lot. A lot. So to get to that place with Ferrari. And it's really interesting what Ferrari's done with their halo cars. You know, we talk about, like the Big Five, which is now the Big Six. I'm currently referring to allocations. The F80, when I talk about that versus the Icona cars. The Icona cars are the Monza SP1 and Twos and now the Daytona SP3, which I think is one of the most beautiful things to come out of Marinello. That cars. Unbelievable. Notice I don't have an allocation of any of the icona cars in my garage. And the reason for that is you could almost consider it kind of like a, a Y or a fork in the road with, with your path, your customer path with Ferrari. So. So the things you have to do and have to have done with Ferrari, okay, so to get the F80 allocation. And listen, this isn't written in stone anywhere. This is my understanding, my personal experience and the experience I've seen of many of my friends that are kind of in that same boat. Some that did and some that did not get allocations. The F80 and the iconocars, okay, you have to have, I would say probably 12 or 13 cars in your garage. Ferraris. Of those 12 or 13, I would say at least five to seven of them need to be limited edition cars. You know, a 458 Speciali Perta 5992, F12, TDF, things like that. Limited edition cars. You have to have a full order bank. And what I mean by that is that whatever Ferrari is producing right now, you need to have at least one of them on order. Pursangue, Roman, Spider296, Spyder, SF90, whatever. Whatever they're producing, you need to have one of those on order. You also need to be involved in participating with the brand. Whether you're doing cavalcades that they have, they host over in Italy or actually all over the world, like me racing in the Ferrari challenge series. So you need to be doing other things where you're. You're intimately and very much involved with the brand. And that's, you know, a lot of people want to hate on Ferrari with that. Okay, okay. We kind of have ourselves to blame because they didn't set the standard of what, the top five to 600. It's really the top 600. When they refer to Ferrari top clients, they're talking about the top 600 in the world. It's, it's what we as the marketplace have been willing to spend on the brand that continues to raise the level of what it takes to be in the top 600. So it's really not Ferrari going, you must check all these boxes. It's what everyone's been willing to spend with Ferrari that has risen the level of competition.
Louis Flor
How important is the relationship with the salesperson or like, at what point does the chain of command go up that like that person makes a decision?
Jack
So used to be it was much more about the relationship, relationship with the dealer. Ferrari is taking control, a lot of that. And, and guys can argue both sides whether that was a good or bad thing. But what it did do is eliminate a lot of backdoor under the table dealings that some people were doing with their dealer to get special allocation car. It'll level the playing field to say, all right, listen, we in Italy are going to look at the profile of each customer and we're going to dictate who gets the allocation of the really special stuff. So it evened out and I think it brought some integrity to who gets those allocations. Okay. Now with the Icona cars, all that I've done, I checked all those boxes, everything I named my wife and I do, and we participate in quite a bit. Not because we have to, but this brings us joy. We actually really love it and we love these cars. I don't buy anything I don't love. And but with the Icona cars, when the SP1 and 2 Monza came out, I didn't get it. I'm like, all right, it's an A12 with a body kit on it. It doesn't have a windshield. They weren't homologated at the time and couldn't be homologated in the United States. So I couldn't drive it on the road. I didn't want to buy something that's a garage queen. None of my cars are garage queens. I drive everything I have. And so my wife and they offered us allocation of the SB1 or 2, which one would to you like, like to have? And I'm like, listen, my wife and I are going to not going to go down the road with a helmet and cockles on in this car. And so we didn't take an allocation of it. Then the SP3 came out and oh my God, that car is just drop dead gorgeous. Open top V12 limited edition Ferrari. Yes. Across the board. Start reaching out to my dealer, start reaching out to those at Ferrari about, you know, is there anything I could do to potentially get an allocation and whatnot. And they don't directly tell you, but looking at it, the only way you get an SP3 are the guys that are high up with Ferrari and have an SP1 or two in the collection. And then you guys may know the SP4 and 5 is coming very soon. And the rumor right now that I'm hearing very strongly is the SP4 is going to pay homage to the F40. I think that's, that's going to be an unbelievable car to have. And then the. The SP5 is going to pay homage to the 250 GTO.
Louis Flor
So does that mean you're just out of luck?
Jack
Out of luck. You're out of luck. And what I'm hearing right now, listen, obviously anyone that follows my channel or knows me personally knows how near and dear the F40 is to be. And really my whole family, my wife, my kids. The F40 is really our car, pinnacle of our collection. The fact that they're going to do a modern interpretation of an F40. And could you imagine for a moment to do that car justice you'd have to put a manual gearbox in it so they twin turbocharged. Do a twin turbocharged V8 just like the original F40. Gated manual, no hybrid, no nothing. Modern interpretation of that car. Oh my God, we'd love to have that car. I mean any. And then of course it'd be veri Summer the 250 GT. 250 GTO, but it'll be a gated manual V12. I'm not saying they are going to do a manual, but I'm thinking if you're going to pay homage and do it right, you kind of gotta. Right. And if they do that. So I very much want to get in a position to where we get an allocation of an S4 on that you're mentioning a.
Louis Flor
Why you go down that one Y and let's just say you don't get that one allocation. Now the rest of that Y you don't have access to. But does that mean you could go through another series of cars and continue that trajectory, just not this one?
Jack
Yes or no? The only way for me to get an SP4 and 5, I've got to go buy either. Either one, an SP1 or two. I don't have to have both but one of and an SP3. And that's about a $9 million investment, maybe $10 million investment. Because SP3s are changing hands at 6 million between 6 and 6.5. Let's say we got one at 6 and the SP ones are more mid threes and an SP2 are changing hands right around 4 to 4.2.
Louis Flor
But do you have to buy through Ferrari or you could buy secondhand?
Jack
You can buy secondhand. You absolutely can. And then just ensure that it gets entered into your profile with Ferrari. So Ferrari knows you have those cars.
Graham Stephan
Is it still then not guaranteed though?
Jack
It is then still not guaranteed. That's correct. Like I said, no one, these, these, these are what we as consumers and, and participants, heavy participants of the brand have been deduced. Let's say it this way. If you don't have an Icona car, I don't care how big your collection is, you're not going to get a future iconic car. That's for sure. That's guaranteed. No way. No matter. Even with all the, the brand participation that my wife and I have done, even with all the cars that we have, all the stuff we have on order, I do not believe there's any reasonable chance that we're going to get an allocation of an SP4 and 5 unless we make the investment to get the 1 and a 3. And I say 1 and 3. Just, just do the math. They're. They're going to make probably 599 of the SP4 and SP5 just like they did the SP3 which was 599. Well, if everyone's already got a SP3. Right. But then some guys have an SP1 or two. Those are going to be the ones that get those. This I think has a very strong chance of getting the four and the five.
Graham Stephan
How much is the, the F40 vehicle going to be? The, the one that pays OD?
Jack
I do not know that that's. I, I. Listen, had you asked before the, the pricing schedule the F80 came out, I would have said similar to the SP3, about 2.2, 2.3 million is what I would have said. Everyone was surprised to say the least at the pricing of the F80. No one expected that to be a almost $4 million MSRP car. Right. And Ferrari is clearly looking at the success of their halo cars, the market growth. We've been talking a lot about wealth generation generation. I mean, listen, there's been so much wealth generation, even Ferrari recognizes it within their own financial outlook. Because up until about, I don't know, even just a few years ago, the top clients, it was the top 500 in the world. Well, there's so much more wealth generation in the world now that Ferrari expanded it to be 600. Right. So they're now looking at what these cars are changing hands secondhand. Well, for an artist public, Ferrari is a publicly traded company. They're going to maximize their roi.
Graham Stephan
Why don't they just increase prices though? If, if things are constantly trading like. I know, isn't it a constant thing though, that if you get an allocation for a Ferrari, let's say you pay like a million bucks for it immediately, you could turn around and sell it.
Jack
For like 1.5 most of the times. But that's what they've done with the F80. A lot of people would argue that's what they've done with the F80 versus selling it to us at 2.2 like they did with the SP3, and seeing that the market will absorb, absorb another $4 million of cost because people are buying that car at 6 million. Ferrari's going, well, look at, look at the love Ferrari. Okay, that was what, a 1.6 to 1.7 million dollar car, depending on your spec. Okay, that's a, that's a 4.3 to. I just saw a black one change hands last week at $4.9 million. So Ferrari's recognizing that there's much more demand at a higher price point in the marketplace. And so the F80 ends up being almost $4 million. So to answer your question, I really don't know where the SP4 and 5 are going to be priced. I would bet strongly it'll be far more expensive than what the SP3 was because the market's changed so much.
Louis Flor
Here's what I think is you have to make people work for it to value it. And if it's just money, a lot of these people just throw money at it and get the car. But as soon as values start falling on those cars, the entire market cracks apart. Because then people get into precedent of, well, you know, if I'm going to pay 5 million bucks, but it's, it's going to sell for three. I don't want to take a $2 million hit.
Graham Stephan
There's something special about them selling out.
Louis Flor
Every single time about selling out, but also them giving you, hey, here's $2 million of equity. No one else could get this and you worked hard for it.
Graham Stephan
It's like a reward that makes sense.
Louis Flor
That's how I see it.
Jack
Well, that's an absolute fact. But also remember, that is a fact. And also remember the mindset of the people that are, that are, that are the foreign customers. You know, as we said, the vast majority of these people with that level of wealth are business people. They're entrepreneurs of some sort.
Louis Flor
What, what would you say is the median net worth of people buying those Ferrari Halo cars?
Jack
The Big halo cars, probably 100 million or more.
Louis Flor
And what does someone have to do if they're starting out today, they got a little money coming in and they want to work their way up the Ferrari chain. How would they do that?
Jack
I just laid it out. Like I said, you're going to have to. First of all, you got to have a full order bank. Listen, if you go by, let's just say you went and bought a 5 to 9 GTO, F12 TDF. Let's just say you went, bought a love Ferrari or an F40. Those are all used. Good for you. Ferrari made $0 off of you because those are all secondhand. Ferrari is a business just like any other business, right. So you need to have a full order bank. So you need to be ordering one of everything that they have that's basic because there's a lot of guys out there doing that. So that doesn't make you special yet. Okay. Oh, that's nice. You bought every, you know, production car we have going on right now. That's not going to get you a special car because there's too many other guys that have done that plus have some of the special edition cars, Halo and Halo cars in their collection. So it shows the commitment to the brand, the enthusiasm of the brand. And Ferrari's trying to reward the people that are really passionate about what they're doing because they know to your point, these Limited, the SF90XX, now they got the 296 version speciality coming out, right? That car is going to do very, very well. I think it's. I think that car will probably do even better than the SF90X because every guy that's a real driver knows that the 296 is a better driver's car. So the version speciality, the, the light version track version, whatever you want to call it, is going to be an even better car. So I think the car will do. So they know that, that when they reward people with these cars there's a big upside. So they're trying to reward their most loyal customers to it. So yeah, you're going to have to make a very large investment. If you want to get in a position where you're getting some of these cars, you're going to have to have a full order bank. You're going to have to have about 13 minimum. I think about 13 cars in the garage and about six or seven are going to have to be. Be limited edition.
Graham Stephan
Just curious, what do your children drive?
Jack
Oh, I so much for me to catch so much Hell, their dad's a car guy.
Louis Flor
Okay, how old are your kids?
Jack
All right, my daughter's almost 21 and my son's 18. Okay, okay. So my daughter was really. Talk about ball. And on a budget, I bought my daughter. Now she's almost 21. Now in my house, I painted myself into a corner because these are all the cars that I have. I don't really have an average daily car. So in Texas, when kids turn 15, they can go to driver's ed and, and get their learner's permit and start learning to drive. And my wife's like, you have to buy. My daughter was the first. She's the oldest. You're going to have to buy our car at 15. I'm like, that's absurd. I'm not buying a 15 year old. Get a car. She goes, really? What are you gonna teach her how to drive on? And I thought, oh, crap, I really did this to myself. So I went and bought her a. A very used Mercedes. I think it's a. I think it's called a 330 GTC. I got it for $34,000. It was used. It had 28,000 miles on it. So the little Mercedes SUV and, and she just came over.
Louis Flor
GLC.
Jack
GLC. Thank you, thank you. 330 GLC. And. And that's been a phenomenal car. Every time I get in that car, I think dollar for dollar is the best car I've ever bought in my life. It's reliable, it's fun, it's peppy, it's classy, it's comfortable. And, and it's a beautiful little car. And it's. We've had zero problems with it. And she's driven it now for going on six years. My son's first car was a little Subaru brz. And then he started a little pressure washing business in the summers. And because he wanted to mod the car and I like, look, buddy, I bought the car for you, but I'm not paying for the mods and set and the other. So he came up with the idea to start a pressure washing business. Did really well. And he's put probably 18, $19,000 worth of mods into this car. You know, he got the pro Charger on it, heavier clutch, airbags, exhaust, you know, you name it. Body kit, wrap the whole building.
Louis Flor
How do you teach your kids about wealth and make sure that they appreciate all the work that you put in, understand where you came from and not have them just be entitled or spoiled?
Jack
That. That. I think that is the key Thing as a parent, any parent that, that has done well in life. When you're raising kids, you've, I think it's one of the, the strongest obligations you have as a parent. It's also one of the trickiest ones to navigate because you want to do a lot for your kids. At the end of the day, you know, it's about the, the expectations of, in the home, nothing's given, right. And so like for example, you know, my son, it's a Subaru brz. That's not a super expensive car. Nothing flashy about that car at all. And then if he wanted to do mods on, he had to work and, and, and do those. So he knew that, that getting a little local hourly job was never going to be able to save the kind of money you need to, to do that car. It was his idea to come up with starting his own business. And then he comes to me, he says, dad, I'd love to start this pressure washing business. I said, son, I think it's great, a great idea. That's a lot of hard work too. Plus it would force my son to really come out of his shell, socially speaking because he's not the big extrovert. His personality is not really that much like mine. So for him to go knocking doors and try to make cold calls. Yeah, so I was all about it and I said, well, where are you going to get the money for the equipment? And so we talked about a little bit and I said, I'll tell you what, I'll make you a business, business loan, interest bearing, right? And you got to pay it back. And so he's all excited about it. He researched it and he got kind of, he was very particular with, with, with his choice of what equipment he bought and he said to be reliable, but knew he didn't want to go into too much debt with dad to start his little business. Now. He was 14, well, 15 years old at the time. Excuse me. So he comes back downstairs, he's all excited. He's been researching equipment and he goes, he goes, dad, I. How do I get to and from my jobs? And I'm like, that's a problem. You don't have a driver's license and I don't have a car that we're throwing a pressure washer in the back of. Well, at the time we had a little golf cart that my kids would drive around the neighborhood on. So he comes back downstairs about an hour later, dad, I researched it. I can, I can get this little trailer and this little hookup on the golf cart, the whole assembly was like 600 bucks or something like that. So I made him a small business loan and he went, we went and got the equipment, was charging him interest on the loan. And I was like, listen, you can either carry the debt and pay the interest, which is going to cost you more money over time, or you can earn money and pay the debt down quicker, but much less of your money is going to go in your pocket right away. Much like the lesson I had to learn when I started my business. And so he had to go knock doors, which was way outside his comfort zone. But he's in debt, he's got to make money now, right? And he started knocking doors. The kid made $14,000 thousand dollars that first summer pressure washing. And he sold his first couple of big jobs where he needed help and getting his other, you know, 15 year old buddies to come show up and do this because this manual labor in the middle of Texas summers was hard. So sure enough, one of his buddies was supposed to show up and help him. Didn't show up that morning. He's got to get to this job. And it was, he knew it was going to take him like 9, 10 hours to this job. So his first employee helper was me. So I actually have a video of me out there dragging this hose and moving this pressure wash while he's up there pressure washing the back patio and the planter pots and everything. But it was so awesome. It taught my son hard work what it means to start a little business. I set him up a little financials, a little balance sheet. He could, you know, log in his revenues and his operating cost, pay down his debt, build up the assets and minimize the liabilities on his balance sheet. I also go over the company financials each month with my kids of, of our main, main company.
Louis Flor
Yeah.
Jack
I want them to understand how businesses run, how you manage the finances of a business, why I make some of the decisions that I make, financially speaking relative to the company, how I determine what the company's cash flow needs are going to be, the casual health of the business. So they understand that and they understand what it takes to make, make those things happen. The other thing too is like you got to look at like what their jobs are. Right. They don't have jobs when they're growing up, but their job is there's, there's chores to be done around the house. You don't, I just don't believe in giving an allowance for nothing. You earn your money, right, so there's no allowance. But but, and, and by the way, making your bed and doing the dishes, that's for free. You're, you know, I'm not paying you to do that kind of stuff. But you know, if my son wants to pressure wash the house because we get the, you know, whatever's going on, we'll do that. But their job is also school and applying themselves to, to, to school education and whatever extra extracurricular activity they're going to have. And they got to have at least one. I prefer two to three because I need to be working hard. A lot of different areas, lot of different areas. I, I, I, I'm a big fan of them doing team sports. They learn how to win together, lose together, rely on others, have others rely on them to do their job. And, and also leadership gets built a lot in team sports as well. I think a lot of those really. And I still, I still consider them traditional values. And that shouldn't change whether you as the mom or dad have been financially successful or not. I think it's what I see and it's not very often, but once in a while I see kids that are like, we're talking about that they grew up very entitled. There's, there's one person I know that, that comes to mind that he's in, he's mid-30s, you know, grew up very successful families and you know, is about as entitled as they come. I can't stand him. You know, just, it's a real problem. But I can tell that, that the parents kind of gave this person everything they wanted, everything kind of was handed to them. They didn't want to work hard. They come to expect people to, what's the right word? Cater. Thank you. They expect people to cater to them because of who their mom and dad was or whatever this situation was. And that's when, I mean, what good could come out of that, right? So with, with us and with my family and the other thing too is here's a really big thing, especially when you're a business owner. Remind my kids, listen, when you're a business owner, you never know what tomorrow brings. This can all be gone tomorrow. And so value it. Be wise with, with what you've earned, what you do, how you treat others, and hopefully be wise with securing your future.
Graham Stephan
At what point did you feel like you were rich?
Jack
Any other stuff? 2. I look at being rich and being wealthy is two very different things, right? I probably considered myself rich probably right around the age of 30 where the majority of the company's cash flow caught up a good chunk of what we were making I could actually take out of the company and deposit into my personal bank accounts and start developing my own personal financial portfolio. Right. Investment portfolio, having money not in the business but in my personal investment accounts. That's when I really started to feel rich. And, and really I didn't feel rich until I had like, like a million dollars in my own personal bank account and investment portfolio. Then, then I felt like I was a rich person because it's weird because like you make all this money in a business but you can't take it out because especially when you're in a cash intensive business business, you don't feel the benefits of that money because it's not in your pocket yet. Right. Taking it out of the business. And, and so yeah, so as I think that through it was probably right around the age of 30 when I had about a million dollars in the bank personally. And then what about wealthy probably when my net worth exclusive of the value of the business because again the value of the business is one thing that's great on paper that can diminish quickly if you have a few down down years that can go away very quickly. So I've never really considered that me determining myself to be wealthy. When I looked at that number it was really when I looked at my, my personal assets outside the business, everything inclusive, you know, real estate, cars, you know, my investment portfolio, things like that at about $50 million is probably, probably where I started. Like that's a different 50 million.
Louis Flor
Is there anything at 50 million that you still couldn't afford like flying private jets or buying a yacht or anything?
Jack
Well, yacht, I don't know. I mean there's some, yeah, two 300 million dollar yachts and more out there. And fortunately that's a direction I've never gone, I've never gone the yacht route. But, but private jets, you know, I've certainly done over the years. But, but to answer your question, you know, and that's, that's, that's what I, I tell people. And, and, and, and it's kind of hard to understand that or, or visualize that, but I should say conceptualize that there is a number right after which you, you can continue to, to add to your, your, your personal wealth that doesn't change your life. Okay. And absolutely. Listen, if you've got $50 million worth of assets, you having $300 million worth of assets probably isn't going to change your life at all. Having a total net worth of a million dollars versus having a total net worth of 50 million is a very different scenario, Right. That difference is huge.
Graham Stephan
When would you say the, the law of diminishing returns really kicks in?
Jack
Probably around 20 million.
Graham Stephan
20 million.
Jack
Just think about it. At $20 million, right? Let's just say you have $20 million invested in various different avenues, whether it be real estate that's paying your return invested in the market or, or some sort of any other asset that's driving income cash flow, okay. Whatever that may be, if you've got 20 million doing it and it's doing, say, let's just use easy, 8 to 10% per year, right. And you stop earning a living, otherwise those assets are still paying you between 1.6 to $2 million a year. Passive income, that's. Your passive income's paying you that kind of money a year. Pretty wealthy. Yes. You can, I can show you how.
Louis Flor
Well, sure, you know, ultra luxury goods.
Jack
For sure, for sure. But, but, but you're, you're lively. Your life is so secure at that point. Right. So where I'd say you're. And that's. I'm speaking of being wealthy, right? Rich. Well, let's back that number way down. You know, if you've got $5 million. Right. Drive. And I'm just talking about being rich, okay. You've got $5 million of assets that are driving cash flow or, or some sort of return to you for a passive income that's probably paying you in the neighborhood of four to five hundred thousand dollars a year. That is, there's nothing you can't do without getting into ultra luxury stuff. With that kind of income per year that's going to significantly change your life whatsoever.
Graham Stephan
How did your life change? Going from being growing up very poor to growing to like being wealthy. What were the main differences that, that you noticed?
Jack
I guess two things. One, it got me to this place where I'm at in life now where I've got nothing left to prove to myself. So a lot of inner peace knowing that what I believed I was capable of, I actually have now done. And that brings a whole another level of happiness that unless you struggle with, with that you can't really appreciate. And that was probably one of my biggest things in, in, in my, my younger years, especially through my, my twenties. So I'd say late teenage years through my twenties, that I had expectations of what I, I demanded of myself, but this massive fear of not having the ability to achieve it and that, that, that, that put, it really put a massive fear not only in me, but gave me a lot of anxiety and it probably drove me maybe a little bit to an unhealthy level, was I just didn't want to look at myself in the mirror one day and not feel. Feel like I'm looking back at myself in the eye. Because you can't lie to yourself when you look yourself in the eye. Did I actually achieve what I know and believe my potential really is? Okay, so having achieved that really brought me a tremendous amount of inner peace. I'm not really chasing that, that, that mindset anymore. The other big thing, too, is it allows me to be in a space where I'm sitting here with you guys today, and there's zero benefit to me. I'm hoping that, hey, we have a wonderful chat. I. I make, you know, wonderful new friends. But also I hope that people watching this video, I hope I can make an impact on their lives. I hope that there's something that they see, whether it be from my background or my perspective on things in life or whatever advice that. Or opinions I've shared here today, I hope it helps someone enrich and. And better their lives, because having the ability to positively impact someone else's life, I think is one of life's great, great joys.
Graham Stephan
Do you want to become a billionaire?
Jack
Yes. And I don't care. Yes, I do, because I know where my company stands in the marketplace, and I understand that it's right in front of us, my business to be doing about a billion a year in revenue. And once you're doing that revenue, it's only a matter of time that the personal net worth gets to a billion. Right, through retained earnings. There's another part of me that doesn't care because it's not gonna change my life. Right. And that's not really what I spend every single day driving for anymore. You know, the. The last, you know, I would say four or five years of my life have really been more about maximizing my time as a father. And, and for the first time in my life where the business. I don't wake up, and that's the first thing on my mind. So I've really. That. That is not the primary priority that I have in life today. Right now. It's. It's family, family. It's. It's. It's life experiences and then hoping that. That everything I do, the people that I meet, I hope that I can make a positive impact on them and that that's what's really bringing me joy today.
Louis Flor
What do you think is a big waste of money?
Jack
Oh, my gambling. I don't gamble. I Can't stand to gamble. Yeah. Yes. It's just, I think it's just a massive waste of money. You know, I tell my kids all the time when we'll go to Las Vegas. Vegas. And listen, I love Vegas. It's fun. I love the shows, I love the meals. My wife and I, you know, we'll do some shopping or whatever out there. I, I, I want to see F1 this year in Vegas. It's a good time. Right. But you will not find me throwing down large amounts of cash at the crafts table or on blackjack. I'll play a little bit just for fun, entertainment. But like I tell my kids when we walk down the, the, the Las Vegas Boulevard, the Strip, these big beautiful casinos and resorts were not big built on us winning. The odds are stacked against you. Right. That's just a fact. So I think gambling is a massive waste of money, believe it or not. And oh boy, I'm gonna, this is controversial, but it's just a fact because I understand what the markup is in these things. But, but jewelry does not hold value. It does not. You know your markup on diamonds, what like 300? Horrible. It's horrible.
Louis Flor
Yeah.
Jack
I joke with, with, with, you know, obviously I love watches and those are usually authorized dealers that are a jewelry store. And I joke with my, that are my friends that own there. They are the authorized dealer that's, Listen, the only time jewelry is a good investment is if I'm on your side of the counter. So I don't, I don't really spend a whole lot of money. Buy my wife, you know, listen, she's got a beautiful diamond ring and earrings and fortunately for her, she really doesn't care about that stuff either. And she has the same perception I do that, you know, there's some sentimental pieces that have meaning, meaning behind it. But does she want me to lavish her in diamonds and do I go buy a bunch of diamonds and stuff like that?
Louis Flor
No, it seems like a lot of those are best spent secondhand. Absolutely. Because you could buy them for like 20% of the value new and they always go down in value.
Jack
Always, always. Diamonds are not nearly as rare as your jeweler wants you to believe.
Louis Flor
Now, speaking of that though, let's switch to watches.
Jack
Yes.
Louis Flor
How similar is the Ferrari buying experience to getting a high end Role Rolex?
Jack
There's a lot of similarities there. Right. So you know, again and, and again the market has done, has made this happen. Right. There's such a demand for Rolex watches today. Right. That the jewelers or the authorized dealers have got it aside. I've got, I've got, you know, a hundred people on this waiting list for the next Daytona, right? Stainless steel Daytona. How do I decide who gets that watch? Well, how much money they spent with me in other ways? How big of a customer customer is that to my business? Do they, are they part of some of the, the events that we try to host and things that we try to do to grow and build our, our jewelry store and things like that? So it ends up being not as competitive, but there's a lot of similarities in there. So.
Louis Flor
So how do I get a Rolex Daytona from Rolex? How do you do that?
Jack
So you're probably gonna have to a. You got to find a good, a good authorized dealer. You're gonna have to establish a relationship with them. You can't just be another person walking the door asking for daytona. You're the 30th guy walk through the door that day asking for a stainless steel Daytona. Okay? A great thing too. Little known, little cheat code here. Guys have a much more demand and interest in watches than ladies. Go buy your wife a couple of ladies watches. They don't move near as fast. You're helping the dealer out, right? And they will greatly appreciate that. And then you're probably going to have to buy a little bit of jewelry along the way just to kind of up your profile profile with the overall dealer. But I would say if, if you went and bought your wife, which is good for you as well, or any of us that are married, buy her a Rolex, you're helping the dealer out. Like I said, they don't move nearly as fast. Buy her a bracelet or a necklace or something like that. Be patient, be a good dude, participate some of their events. You'll probably eventually get a.
Louis Flor
How much do you think you have to spend?
Jack
You know, that's okay. So my wife and I travel a lot. Okay. So the answer would be very different if, if when we're in New York City, because look at the market there, right? There's millionaires and billionaires everywhere, right. Houston's a very large market as well. There's a lot of wealth in this town versus you know, maybe I'm in some small town usa, but it's big enough to, to support a Rolex dealer. My spend will probably be a lot less to get a Daytona. If I, and I'm just guessing here, okay, you're probably spend at least $50,000 for that jeweler in some form or fashion, which is why the great market Although it has calmed down, a lot is done so well because a guy goes, listen, I could pay $10,000 over today and get the watch I want today versus spending 50 grand with a, with a dealer hoping someday that my name rises to the top of that list. And I get that call, so I get it right. But that's short term and it depends on what your goal is. Is your goal to have one Daytona or is your goal to collect many Daytonas and sky dwellers or whatever it is that you're after? If it's only one, I say go buy it. All the great, be done, get what you want, pay a little bit over and be done with it. If it's, hey, I want to start getting into the watch collecting game. You don't want to keep paying over retail, Spend a little money up front, do the couple things I suggested and then you'll start getting watches slowly but surely.
Louis Flor
The one thing I never understood is that vintage Rolex watches I think are so much more unique, so much more rare, and they're about the same price as a new one. MSRP from the dealer. I don't get why those aren't going to up in value more.
Jack
I don't either. I, I, I, I agree with you 100%. And that is exactly where the market's at. They're, they're not, it's like the new stuff has risen on the secondary market tremendously. Right. Even though it's calmed down a little bit. And I say it's probably down from about, about 30, 35% from where it was peaked at, maybe even closer to 40%. But because the numbers got so crazy, I mean, you look at what a John May or Daytona was selling for. What, that's, I'm trying to remember what MSRP is on that watch.
Louis Flor
40. It was like 42 grand somewhere in there. Okay, 30s maybe.
Jack
Right. I think it's like 37, 30. Of course, Rolex raises their prices every year, but I mean, I remember at one point that watch was like 160, $170,000 on this, on the gray market, which is crazy. Now it's, I think it's come down, I think maybe you could buy them probably around 70, 75 somewhere in there. Still an excellent return if you bought it. Msrp, Right. So you would look at that new stuff with these crazy. But, but you know, my dad, you know, had a, had a, had a Rolex growing up, right. And still has it. So Gold day date back in the day, he probably bought it and I don't know, 91, 92. Right. That watch didn't go up in value tremendously at all, but you know, all the new stuff did. So that's a phenomenon. I, I don't know if it's just driven by everybody wanting to leave the latest and greatest but not caring about the older stuff, which is different in cars. Right. Because the value of new stuff and then you look at older stuff, I think older cars have riven. Risen dramatically in value, whereas, you know, there's a lot of new stuff you can still lose a lot of money on.
Louis Flor
Yeah. Does this differ with Patek? How are Rolex and Patek different so it comes to allocations?
Jack
Well, let's look at like this Cubitus came out. Who.
Louis Flor
How do they decide who gets that new Patek?
Jack
Yeah. If you're getting. So you're going to have to have been pretty loyal to the brand for quite some time. You know, you got to remember Patek only makes what I think 72, maybe 74,000 pieces a year. That sounds like a lot. But then you remember that Rolex makes what, 1.4, maybe 1.6 million pieces a year. That's a dramatic difference. Okay. And what's crazy about Patek is that, you know, even going back, I bought my first Patek in 2016. It was anonymous. 5726 stainless steel. Right. Walked in, I was on a cruise with my wife and we were in St. Thomas. Walked into an ad there. I bought that and a 5960 stainless steel. Bought them both the same day. Right.
Louis Flor
What was the cost of that? Like 30 grand.
Jack
So, so the 5726 I think was around maybe close to 40ish. Okay. And, and then I think that the 5960 at the brand new, I, I'm guessing it was, this was, you know, nine years ago, but I think all in all done. I think I, I wired like $92,000 over for both.
Louis Flor
Was that just on a whim?
Jack
You just a guy. Never met me before in my life. I never walked in that shop. Right. No big deal. If you can afford it, it's in the case you can have it. Right. And, and that will never happen today ever. Right. And so, so the demand for Patek has just exploded and I really think it's mostly because of social media. Listen, in 2015, being I was always been a watch guy, Right. I was in a Rolex. I thought that was really it. You know, then a little bit of ap. You started seeing, seeing. I got in the a Long and Sohn, pretty heavily phenomenal watches. That's a watch that's not really gotten its due on the secondary market yet. I think it eventually will, but it hasn't yet. Why? I don't know. Because it's a phenomenal watch.
Louis Flor
It's not trendy.
Jack
It's not trendy.
Louis Flor
It doesn't have the trend.
Jack
When did Patek become trendy?
Louis Flor
When rappers started wearing it.
Jack
Exactly, exactly, exactly. Right.
Louis Flor
I think it was Drake. I think Drake rapped about a lot of these watches. He brought a lot of it in. Yeah, that's what I think. When you see him like doing this and he's talking about, got the, you know, the, the Patek on the ap.
Jack
Right. But, but otherwise, raise your hand at home if you were even aware of patek fleet in 2010, 2013, 2014. No. So when did Drake come out with that song?
Louis Flor
Probably it was, it would probably be huge rapping about these, like 2014-18, give or take.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
But it became. He started getting it out there. I think people started thinking, oh, wow, he's got this million dollar watch on.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
Who wear who, who makes that one?
Jack
Right, Right. And so I think it's the awareness and then going back to the wealth generation that we've seen in the world since say 2010. Right. The last 15 years have been phenomenal. Wealth generation worldwide. So much more, many more people can now afford but is sustainable. That's where I don't, I, I don't know about that. Right.
Louis Flor
I don't think so. I think there's only so many people that will buy that watch at that, that price before eventually everyone's already bought it. They're making 75,000 excess watches a year. Patek is one of those things that doesn't. You just don't throw it away. What do they call it? You only own it. It's only yours for like this generation because it's meant to be like passed on, curator of it or whatever there's.
Jack
A term they use for it.
Louis Flor
You're taking care of it only for the next generation.
Jack
Right.
Louis Flor
So it's like there's always going to be 75,000 more Pateks every year. Always.
Jack
Every year.
Louis Flor
They don't get destroyed. It's not like a car. They, you know, they get crashed and, you know, they degrade over time. I'll watch ye.
Jack
How many, how many, how many gold nautiluses have they made in the last 10 years?
Louis Flor
Right. So I think it's, it's a bit of a bubble that has to contract. It's actually a bubble, a normal level.
Jack
It is absolutely a bubble. There's no question. And listen, we're already starting to see things starting to soften and you know, okay, that's an excellent point. You say, and I can not only theorize it, but prove it. So my wife and I were on a trip too. We got ago, had a little bit of time to kill. We walk into a Rolex dealer never bought anything in there before. And a year ago you walk in, there's all the display only nothing for sale, right? Nothing for sale. And we walked in and without saying much at all. Now we both were wearing some sort of whatever we were wearing that day, but a nice watch. So they knew that we were into watches, right? She immediately showed us six pieces that were available for sale that day. Immediately I'm like, proof positive the bubble is bursting.
Louis Flor
Are they nice pieces or are they just like the standard?
Jack
There was, there was a sky dweller, right?
Louis Flor
What, what color dial?
Jack
I, I can't remember now, but, but there was one that is a very special piece that I was shocked that I'd ever even seen again that I, I did buy my wife two years ago for Christmas. It's a very rare, it's actually an off catalog piece. They had it in the window and it was for sale. They would have allowed us to buy it.
Louis Flor
What was the watch?
Jack
So it's, it's a, it's a ladies day date. All diamond with the Tiffany colored dial. All diamond and then the Tiffany colored leather band. So I, I, I don't remember the reference number of the watch or whatever it is. I had never seen another one of those. And not only did they have it, but if we would have wanted it, it was for sale. That's how, I mean, that's insane. With the way the watch game has.
Louis Flor
Been lately, do you think if you walked in with a replica Rolex or a replica AP to, to an authorized dealer, would they be able to tell? Like if you're trying to impress them and get sold a watch, like, is that a good $500 investment? You walk in, they think, oh shit, he's wearing a $50,000 AP. Yeah, we should sell this guy something.
Jack
Probably not. All right, okay, listen, I have seen some really good fakes for 500 bucks. I don't think it's gonna be a very good fake.
Louis Flor
Okay, let's say a thousand.
Jack
Okay, yeah, you have a good fake, whatever it costs. And I don't know what they cost. Let's just say you got A really good fake. At a minimum, it will get the conversation across the counter going. They will assume you're a true watch collector, a watch connoisseur or whatever. They will assume you have the wealth to buy that watch. They will assume that not only could they potentially sell you a watch of that caliber, but we can sell you some other stuff because they really want to sell you the other stuff. Remember, the margin in watches is only about 40 points. Well, only that's still very, very good. Yeah, but when I say only because the margins in jewelry, like we just talked about, about 300 points. Right. So they really want you to buy your wife that necklace or diamond tennis bracelet or another ring or whatever, so they can really make some money. And then maybe we'll get you that, that, that $15,000 Daytona that you really want.
Louis Flor
So if someone's buying their first watch, what do you recommend they buy? There was a well known thread on Twitter, by the way, where the guy said, if you're a man between the ages of 18 and 25, sell everything you have. Max out your credit cards, do whatever you can to buy a Rolex Submariner, because that is going to give you enough attention from other guys in terms of the watch status that they're going to give you a chance on other things that are going to make you take ten times more. And that is just going to get your foot in the door for so many opportunities.
Graham Stephan
All right, As a man that.
Jack
Yeah.
Graham Stephan
Is wearing a Rolex Submariner.
Louis Flor
Credit cards, two of them.
Graham Stephan
Don't do that. Don't max out your credit cards and sell everything.
Louis Flor
It was a very divisive thread. But, yeah, yeah, but half of people believed in that and said, absolutely. If I'm, if I'm a salesperson, I'm wearing a Rolex Submariner. Yeah, I get more sales at the.
Graham Stephan
Rolex also when you do that, please hit up this link down below in the description where you Submariners.
Jack
There you go.
Louis Flor
Find the threat.
Graham Stephan
I just want to say I don't, I don't wear watches all too often. I have two submariners and I maybe wear a watch. How often? Once every, like three weeks.
Louis Flor
Begging Jack to wear once every three weeks.
Graham Stephan
Honestly, maybe once every two.
Jack
So watches are not your thing?
Graham Stephan
I like watches. I just don't wear them. Like, I love having them, I love collecting them and looking at them.
Jack
Oh, I got you.
Graham Stephan
But I don't really, I don't know, I just like the, on my wrist. It doesn't really. Plus I have like a lot of arm hair. And so it gets caught in the. In the. I don't want to be like a leather strap guy, you know. Anyways, I don't get attention from guys because of this watch. I don't know if I've actually ever had a single comment.
Louis Flor
Jack's hanging around the wrong crowd.
Jack
So I have to say, well, I.
Graham Stephan
I wear this during the right opportunities. Like when we do something fancy like this. This is when I wear the.
Louis Flor
Anything about like. Like we. We've been to a few events where I've pointed out, oh, that's the. You know, the 5711. And that's from this year. And they're really. How did. How did you know that? Oh, well, I really like. And it gets the conversation going. And then they're like, what's that? I'm like, it's a 1969 Zenith El Primero.
Graham Stephan
I just don't think, like anyone's gonna do that with a submariner.
Louis Flor
It gets you in the door. It says I. I like watches enough where I. I'm sophisticated.
Graham Stephan
Not over the top, but this is financial advice. If you're listening. Listening to Graham. Sell everything.
Louis Flor
Max out the credit cards.
Graham Stephan
Buy a submarine.
Louis Flor
I think it's certain industries. It'll help you. I think in sales, it. It could absolutely.
Graham Stephan
Whatever happened to buying a 300 fake? That was something that you vouched for.
Louis Flor
I would still vouch for that.
Jack
I think.
Louis Flor
You know what, between maxing on a credit card and getting a fake, you got to get a good fake.
Jack
If you get a good fake, you're still getting the same roi, though. Yes, actually, a far greater roi. Excuse me. Yeah, you're getting the same effect, but a far greater roi.
Louis Flor
Yeah. I would say if you have to max out credit cards and sell things, get the fake.
Jack
All right. I'm going to tell every young man and lady out there, don't go into debt over luxury stuff. Please don't do that. Okay, Public service announcement there. All right. I love submariners. They are such a classic. Okay, do I. Has a submariner ever opened a door for me? I don't really think so. Now if I walk in and you know this 5990R, that says a very different statement. I don't know that it open doors you for me, but, you know, it does make a different statement. If that's what I was after and I wasn't. I love. I think it's a phenomenal watch and I think it's absolutely gorgeous. If I was telling a young man, because I'll speak to the young men right now because most of the time it's young men looking to buy that first watch. Most ladies watch was probably their husband bought it for them or it's not a big. It's not important to them. Right. By and large the best watch you can buy that I think think phenomenal. Far better ROI than even the. The Submariner. Okay. And does make a statement that says you're not just the, the the comic Johnny come lately or, or hopping on the bandwagon or just another guy with a Submariner. When I see someone wearing this watch it tells me they're intelligent, they make independent decisions and they're very wise with their money. An Omega stainless steel Speedmaster.
Louis Flor
Dude, you're going to say that.
Jack
Yes. Oh that is such a classic watch. Sorry. Rolex. I love the brand, love what you're doing. That Speedmaster is an amazing movement. There's a reason why all those Speedmasters have a clear caseback. So you can look at the movement the Daytonas don't of the exception of the new platinum one or whatever. But other than that for all these decades they, they really didn't. And Omega's always proud to show off their movement. It's a phenomenal watch. It's about 554-500, maybe $5,000 cheaper than that. And, and the, the submarine mariner tells the time and you may or may not have the, the date bubble on it. Right. That's relatively simple watch movement at what is that 12 5, 127 these days. Close to 13 for that watch. I think. I think MSRP is at least 12, five, maybe more. MSRP.
Graham Stephan
MSRP. I don't know what MSRP is.
Louis Flor
Manufacturer suggested real time.
Graham Stephan
I know what it stands for. I just don't know what the MSRP price is.
Jack
It's at least I'm on camera. I'll tell you right now off top of my head. It's at least 12:5. Okay. And, and you can get the Speedmaster. It's around. It's in the $8,000 is range. Right. But that's a chronograph which a far more complicated watch. So to me it's, it's someone that made that decision for themselves. They bought it for themselves. They didn't buy it to impress others. They're well researched and they make independent decisions. So I'd love to see that on a young man.
Louis Flor
What else do you think is a great thing to spend money on that you found you've got the highest offer.
Jack
ROI from listen cars and watches have been very good to me. Right. I'm very passionate about both of them. We were talking about this off camera. Most all car guys are watch guys. So that those passions go hand in hand. Those interest, that mindset goes hand in hand. And, and by and large I have done very, very well buying things that I really enjoy. Bring me true enjoyment in life that have done well from a value standpoint. Outside of, of that, when you're looking at luxury brand stuff, it doesn't have.
Louis Flor
To be luxury brand. It could be a first class plane ticket, good food, just like in general, maybe that the, that most people watching would be able to purchase if they saved or might have access to.
Jack
That's an excellent point. Okay. With that, with that, with that question framed that way. Spend your money on things that make memories. Memories because that's value. That's true cherished value that you take with you the rest of your life. So, so spend and save and go on a very nice vacation. Go see places in the world that you've never been to. Go to Italy. Italy is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The culture there, the people there, the food, the history is unbelievable in Italy. I was so grateful when the first time my wife and I went to Italy, two months later, my kids were super in school at the time. Two months later they were out of school for the summer, we went back to Italy. We've been several times. It is literally one of our favorite places in the world to go visit. So outside of cars and watches and things that I think could potentially bring value, spend money, see in the world, live your life and make memories with those you love.
Graham Stephan
Just curious, if you were to go back in time, would you have done anything different? Maybe ease your foot off the gas pedal a little bit near those, those last years where you were really grinding, are you content with the weight way you did things?
Jack
No. I'm so grateful. Today. I live the life I live today because of how hard I worked back then, how much I grinded, how much I. I stressed and, and agonized and, and pushed myself to, to reach what I felt like was my potential. And now not just me, but more importantly, you know, my family gets to live, live a financially secure life. And I've afforded them to be able to go for the things that, that they dream of in life, whatever their expectations are of themselves. I've built that ability for them. And it took me going through all that. I went through the level of stress. I have no doubt in my mind I took many years off my life building a business of that magnitude. But I'm ever grateful to make that sacrifice for, for the benefit, long term benefit of my family. The only thing I would have done different seeing what I do admire about a lot of young people today is they're very good about reaching out for people to mentor them. And I wish I would have done some of that in my earlier years. I wish I'd have gotten involved whether, whether it reached out to someone that I really believed in that I thought maybe could have mentored me. It probably would have helped me to figure a lot of things out quicker. I probably would have avoided some, some business mistakes that I made along the way just out of not knowing, lack of, of experience. But the other thing too is, is I wish, I wish I would have joined a group where no one's in the group is there to sell anything to anybody. Those just annoy the hell out of me and they're a huge waste of time and, and, and, and I get no value out of it. But if I'm sitting around a room with a bunch of other young entrepreneurs and we're all going through a lot of the similar things at the same time and we can bounce ideas off each other or collaborate or, or hey, I had that same problem. Here's some things that I've done to overcome it. Having. And even just even if you don't have the answer. Knowing that I'm not the only one going through this right now with my business is gives you such reassurance.
Louis Flor
It's funny. I just started something like that. Exactly like that.
Jack
Okay.
Louis Flor
By the way, and I'll put a link down below in the description but we, we've spoken to some of the people on the list and it's incredible how similar they all are.
Jack
Absolutely.
Louis Flor
And we're starting at a point of the list where they're making more than 10 million a year. Year. And it's literally the copy and paste of the same people with the same problems with the same concerns. And I'm actually most surprised about that group. When we're interviewing those people. None of them said they wanted to make more money. It was all how do I make sure my kids grow up? Well adjusted Tax planning is a big one.
Jack
Oh yes.
Louis Flor
Asset protection is it big infrastructure. And then it's also, I think about finding relatability that a lot of them say I have problems that come up in my life and I've had the same friends but they don't understand the problems that I'm going through from my Perspective.
Jack
Yeah.
Louis Flor
And I just don't have access to other people outside of my industry.
Jack
Yeah. I mean, unless you've gone through something, you can't relate. Right. You know, I mean, most of my buddies that I hang out with, Right. We play a lot of golf together and we go do a lot of goofy stuff together, whatever it is, guys, trips here and there, whatever that case may be, you know, we can all relate on the level of. Of dads being a father. Right. Well, most of them, only a very couple, two or three of my friends that I genuinely hang out with, just as friends, own or run a business and could ever relate to any the things that you go through when you're trying to run a business, trying to grow employees, incentivize employees, get people to think about or look at the business the way that you need them to be looking at the business. Because you can't do everything. Everything can't run through you if you're really scaling a business, all those kinds of things. So that's the one thing I wish I would have done in my. In my 20s and my early 30s. I wish I would have spent more time with that. And I just. I just didn't. For whatever reason, I just felt like no one's going to relate. I'm just going to grind it out and figure it out myself and kind of, you know, went about it my own way. And I think I could have got a lot of value out of it. Maybe that's why, like, I enjoy mentoring people today so much, because I know how much that would have meant to me back in those days.
Louis Flor
I think the same thing applies, at least for me, with YouTube, is just reaching out to other creators who are doing what I'm doing and just asking them. And the amount of help that we've gotten from other creators has saved us so much time. And we do the same thing back. Like, we had someone on the podcast recently who was telling us about some of his issues with his channel. We're like, oh, that's easy. Just do this and this and this. Oh, yeah, don't do that. You're wasting. Like, we probably save. We could either saved or made him like a hundred thousand thousand dollars with five minutes of a conversation.
Jack
I will, I will take those five minutes for our channel.
Louis Flor
Oh, 100. Yeah, no, whatever. I could help too.
Jack
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But, you know, but having that, you know, that's really what's been very different for me. Now that we're doing a little bit of social media stuff, is it's so different for me than, than being in business. Right. And obviously social media is, it can be a business, but, but you know, in the traditional sense of, of business, my, my, my peers were my competitors, so we weren't collaborating together and we weren't sharing advice and, and, and guidance with one another whatsoever. We were there to outdo one another. Right. But in the social media space, everybody wins together. It's not a competition. Just because someone's your subscriber doesn't mean they're, they can't be my subscriber too. So if, if we work together, collaborate, I'm not taking subscribers from you. And so we both win. I've got subscribers that, that, you know, now discover you. You've got subscribers and now discover me. And we both win with that exposure and collaboration long term. So it's a really cool space for a guy like me that's been in a hyper competitive business space his whole life to kind of be in this. Hey, we can, we can all be friends and benefit together.
Louis Flor
Yeah. I found on YouTube especially, the better other people are doing, the better you're doing too. And people find you through other channels that are doing well.
Jack
That's right.
Louis Flor
And so if they're doing well, chances are a small percentage is going to find you in that amazing percent from you is gonna find someone else. And it just, it trickles down.
Jack
Yeah. And it's so different than traditional sense of business. So, so it allows me to still have fun, you know, while doing a little bit of the social media stuff as well. It's like, oh, it's collaboration. It's not competitive. We're not at each other's throats. We're, we're really there to help one another along and have a good time doing it. So it's been cool, man.
Louis Flor
I got a link in the description. I got one more question for you.
Jack
Okay.
Louis Flor
What's your workout routine?
Jack
When we're home and my wife and I travel a tremendous amount. Okay. But when we, when we're home, I'm pretty hardcore about diet and exercise because it takes both. Right. Especially at 46. Listen, you know, I can physically, I can do everything I could do at 20. At 46, it just, it hurts more. But so I eat when I'm home, I eat five meals a day.
Louis Flor
Five meals a day.
Jack
Five meals a day. That's right. I'm very strict about the diet. Okay. Because you could put all the work in, but if you're not eating right, you're never going to get the results that you're after. So for example, if I to go, go back. So, so two years ago, before a lot of this travel and really a lot with racing in the Ferrari challenge series requires a lot of travel and some other things that we're doing with the brand. And then of course now my kids getting a little bit older, we're, we're seeing more of the world. Up until two years ago, you know, I, I consistently maintain between 9 and 10 body fat. Right. That requires a strict diet. So ate five meals a day. I was very strict about what I was doing, was very intentional. 40 came from protein, 40 came from carbs, 20 from fats. Okay. And eating every two to three hours, your metabolism is just burning like crazy because your body knows we're gonna get fed again two or three hours versus you know, you go 10, 12 hours out eating the, the metabolism slows down. So five meals a day, very intentional about my macronutrients and caloric intake. And then workout regiment. I work out seven days a week. When I'm home, I do a, what I call a three day split. So I work, I lift weights, I work two muscle groups a day. I lift weights for about 50 to 55 minutes working two muscles. So for example, day one will be chest and back and then I do, then I run three miles when I'm done. Day two, it's shoulders and legs, run three miles. Day three, biceps, triceps, run three miles. Day four, I don't lift at all to give the muscles a day to recover. But I run between six and seven miles miles that day. And then day four, five and six, I'm sorry, five, six and seven are repeat of days one, two and three. Wow. I know. I ran it up fast.
Louis Flor
Have you always been like that or is this a recent development?
Jack
Well, I mean, so I grew up loving sports. You know, I, I played football and I kickboxed. Right. So I've always stayed, I guess, pretty physical, I guess you'd say. When I got out of college and started working my career, I didn't touch a gym for like three years. I just wanted nothing to do do with it. And then I slowly started realizing I needed some sort of release right from, from the mental stress. And so I got back in the gym really just to kind of get something that I had to focus on and get my mind off work or whatever I was stressing about or whatever. So I got back in the gym and started working out again. And then I, and, and so yeah, I've, I've stayed physical pretty Physically. Try to stay physically fit my entire life. At the end of the day, I love my life. I want to live it as. As long. Long as I can. And to do that, we got to take good care of ourselves.
Louis Flor
Are you adopting, like, would you consider another. Like a grown son?
Jack
That's a very kind. I'm bringing on new close friends, let's say it that way. But nothing more than that? No.
Louis Flor
Nothing that could sneak into a will.
Jack
No, that's going to happen. Absolutely not. Yeah.
Louis Flor
The trust.
Jack
The trust fund and the will has been locked down. No new additions.
Louis Flor
Okay. Not a chance, though.
Jack
Unfortunately, no. Unfortunately, no. But we'll definitely hang out more.
Louis Flor
I loved it.
Graham Stephan
Yeah.
Louis Flor
Is there anything else you want to mention or.
Jack
You know what I did want to say? The fact that you guys spent time to look at the content we're putting out there, take an interest in my story, and. And to make the effort to come here, spend time and have this conversation. I mean, not only has been tremendously enjoyable conversation, but I'm incredibly humbled and honored that you guys sought enough of my story to make the effort to come down and spend some time with me. So thank you very much.
Louis Flor
100 man.
Jack
Absolutely. Thanks, Jack. Appreciate it.
Louis Flor
Yeah.
Jack
Yeah, we're out.
Louis Flor
Oh, we'll link to all of your information in the description. I found your video. I think it was four months ago, you did a tour, and I was thinking to myself, or maybe it was the F40. Okay, who is this guy? What does he do? And this is before you did a lot of the interviews. Yeah, but I was just watching the channel thinking this is a insane collection.
Jack
Oh, thank you.
Louis Flor
There's got to be more to it. So this is something that I've wanted to do since then.
Jack
Well, pleasure is all mine, and I'm honored that you reached out.
Louis Flor
Thank you so much.
Graham Stephan
Thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for being so generous. Thank you.
Louis Flor
Thank you.
Graham Stephan
Thank you guys for watching.
Louis Flor
Till next time.
Podcast Summary: The Iced Coffee Hour – "From Broke To $300 Million - The Underground World of Exotic Cars, Watches, & LOTS of Money"
Release Date: May 25, 2025
Hosts: Graham Stephan and Jack Selby
The episode kicks off with Jack Selby showcasing his impressive Ferrari collection in his Houston garage. With a current collection valued at approximately $31 million and comprising 28 cars, Jack provides an insider's view into the world of exotic car collecting.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [02:13]: "Our current value is about $31 million."
Jack delves into his entrepreneurial journey, emphasizing resilience over intellect. His company, an outsourcing firm specializing in labor services for manufacturing and distribution sectors, is projected to generate $300 million in revenue this year.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [00:28]: "I'm an entrepreneur. I wasn't always the smartest person in the room, but I was always the one person that refused to quit."
Maintaining such a vast and valuable car collection is no small feat. Jack reveals that $800,000 has been invested in bringing his cars to pristine condition. Unlike many collectors who keep their cars as showpieces, Jack actively drives his vehicles, blending passion with practicality.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [02:41]: "The reality is that I'm kind of doing both things with cars. There's guys that have driver's cars and then there's guys that have more like concourse level cars that never get driven. I want both, which is very costly to do."
Jack candidly discusses the volatile nature of his industry, sharing his most significant financial setback: a $450,000 loss on a Ferrari SF90. He attributes this loss to misunderstandings surrounding the vehicle's hybrid system, highlighting the importance of thorough knowledge and customer education.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [10:05]: "They think their battery went dead on the car and we're just done with it because they didn't want to be bothered with it."
A recurring theme is the essential traits that drive successful entrepreneurs. Jack emphasizes perseverance, people skills, and the ability to influence and inspire as pivotal for building and scaling a business.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [20:13]: "Perseverance is absolutely the main one. That is for sure."
Given his vantage point in the outsourcing industry, Jack has a "front row seat" to economic shifts. He anticipates a potential recession, citing a 12-13% slowdown from January to mid-March. Tariffs play a significant role, affecting his clients' manufacturing costs and overall business operations.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [46:24]: "I was 24 years old. It's not like I had some big assets that I could let the bank leverage against to give me some sort of line of credit."
Responding to economic uncertainties driven by tariffs and market volatility, Jack adopts a conservative investment approach, divesting from equities and favoring treasuries and mutual funds. This strategy aims to preserve capital and mitigate risks associated with market fluctuations.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [54:22]: "We've pulled out of equities. Right. We just got very conservative just to."
A spirited discussion unfolds around the perceived decline in work ethic and social skills among younger generations. Jack critiques Gen Z for their inclination towards instant gratification and work-life balance, contrasting it with the Gen X and Millennial dedication to perseverance and team-oriented leadership.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [58:44]: "They're very person-centric, if you will, or they’re not focused on how can I make a bigger impact to the team."
Jack underscores the importance of hiring individuals with integrity and a strong work ethic. He recounts experiences where honesty and transparency, such as outsourcing tasks or seeking innovative solutions, have either strengthened or strained professional relationships.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [63:19]: "But I have to tell you, having that... having that conversation, set those expectations, and seeing their integrity, that's what builds successful teams."
Jack shares his unconventional path, including a suspension from college due to a prank involving a university statue. This setback redirected him towards the staffing industry, where he identified a lucrative opportunity by transitioning from temporary staffing to full outsourcing services.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [26:48]: "I got kicked out of college at 20. Or as I like to say, I got out on the early release program."
Beyond cars, Jack is an avid watch collector. He articulates a clear distinction between cars and watches as investments, highlighting how limited editions and brand loyalty (e.g., Ferrari and Rolex) drive value appreciation. He also discusses the market dynamics influencing secondary sales and the role of social media in shaping desirability.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [107:08]: "There's such a demand for Rolex watches today. The jewelers or the authorized dealers have got it aside."
A strong emphasis is placed on Jack's approach to parenting, where he instills financial discipline and work ethic in his children. Through hands-on experiences, such as supporting his son's pressure washing business, Jack ensures his children understand the value of money and hard work.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [120:04]: "And I have to say, it was my family's happiness and prosperity that really drove me to do, to sacrifice, and to put everything into the business."
Despite his substantial success, Jack remains ambitious, setting sights on a $1 billion revenue milestone. He discusses the challenges of scaling further, particularly in acquiring new clients amidst increasing competition and the evolving technological landscape.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [40:25]: "I think we've been through. We've been through a few different administrations, and I still stand very firm on this."
In his concluding remarks, Jack reflects on the true essence of wealth and success. He differentiates between being "rich" and "wealthy," emphasizing personal fulfillment, inner peace, and the joy of positively impacting others over mere financial accumulation.
Notable Quote:
Jack Selby [127:37]: "Having achieved that really brought me a tremendous amount of inner peace. I'm not really chasing that, that mindset anymore."
This episode of The Iced Coffee Hour offers a deep dive into Jack Selby's multifaceted life as a successful entrepreneur and passionate collector. From the intricacies of managing a $300 million revenue business to the meticulous care of an exquisite car and watch collection, Jack provides invaluable insights into achieving and maintaining success. Additionally, his candid discussions on leadership, generational shifts, and personal growth present a holistic view of what it takes to thrive in today's competitive landscape.
For more insights and detailed discussions, tune into "The Iced Coffee Hour" podcast and explore the full transcript of this episode.