September 1, 2024 • 22 mins
Welcome to the Beach Money Podcast, hosted by Jim Klauck. In this episode, Jim is joined by DJ Barton, a top earner in the travel industry, who shares his inspiring journey and the creation of Levarti, a revolutionary travel savings program.
DJ discusses how he and his business partner leveraged their combined experience to create a company that offers significant travel savings and unique benefits. Levarti allows users to travel for up to 70% off by stripping out commissions from travel bookings, making vacations more accessible and affordable.
Throughout the episode, DJ explains the concept of the "Dash Life" and how Levarti helps families save for vacations through a simple, disciplined approach. He also highlights the exciting affiliate program that offers additional income opportunities for those passionate about travel.
Listen in as DJ shares his personal travel experiences, the growth of Levarti, and how this innovative company is disrupting the travel industry. Whether you're looking to save on your next trip or explore a new business venture, this episode has something for everyone.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Beach Money Podcast. I am your host, Jim Clout.
Jordan Adler, thank you so much for letting me host your podcast.
I appreciate it. DJ Barton is joining me today. Hello, DJ. How are you?
Jim, I'm doing great. Thank you. How are you today?
I am doing very well. I like to tell people I'm living the dream.
(00:21):
My dream is to live my life the way I want to live my life.
I used to live it based on what my parents wanted and what my boss wanted,
and now I do my own thing. That's the best way to live.
I think so. Now I've just had to convince my wife. I'm kidding. She's on board with me.
She is on board. I like to travel backwards, which is good because that's what
(00:43):
Levarti is, right? I travel backwards.
Tell me a little bit about what you do and how you guys came up with the name.
Yeah. No, I was actually one of the top money earners of a company last year.
And the owners and executives made a lot of promises that they had no intentions in keeping.
(01:04):
And so we could have kept our head down and kept building, but truthfully, it's against our DNA.
And so we started looking at a lot of different companies and nothing aligned with us.
So my business partner came to me and said, hey, I've got over 30 years experience.
You got over 27 years experience.
Why don't we create a company from the field's perspective, but for the field?
And we put everything together that we like about our profession.
(01:27):
And then we wrote everything that we dislike about it.
And we created a company and a comp plan and a product and a vision around those two topics.
And we created a company called Levarti.
And we're excited. It's a travel program.
It's a travel savings program. And we also created a technology that pulls the
(01:47):
same inventory you can find on a public site through us.
But we stripped the commissions out so they can travel for up to 70% off.
So we got some great things going on. We're growing all across the world, Jim.
Yeah. You guys need to get into the automobile business as well.
You got Maserati, Lamborghini, Levarti. I don't know. It just sounds like an Italian car.
It does. It does. I like that. Yeah. Kind of a sexy name too,
(02:11):
really. I mean, it's interesting.
So you guys came up with the name by just inverting the iTravel. Is that right?
Yeah. So my business partner, Jake, we started just going back and forth on
a bunch of names. People get to know me. I'm just more of a builder personality.
And so I was at the point, I'm like, Jake, just pick a name that resonates.
(02:32):
It sounds good. It's catchy.
And let's go make a run. And he started writing down a bunch of things and saw
I travel backwards. And so let's do Levarti.
Yeah, no, I love it. It's a great story.
It's, it's a great name and I'm sure it wasn't hard to get.
Yeah. It was available. It was available and we're excited. We're going to run
(02:53):
it up the pole. So it's a lot of fun.
Awesome. All right. Tell me about your relationship with Jordan Adler.
Yeah. Jordan and I had the pleasure of meeting several years ago.
I've, you know, I've heard of Jordan for decades.
I've, I've read the book, listened to the audio beach money years and years
ago. And then our, we got introduced to each other.
(03:14):
He was putting together a group of successful entrepreneurs in the network marketing
space to put some books together called Momentum Makers.
And I was one of those co-authors with him. We hit it off.
We did some trainings together, some workshops, some Zooms, and we just gelled.
And it was an amazing relationship.
We were together last week in Vegas, hanging out a little bit and having fun.
(03:35):
And now we chat on a consistent basis and building a true friendship,
which is an honor to be able to do.
So you know that Jordan likes cigars, right? He does.
In fact, I had the pleasure of getting a great gift for Beach Money Cigars and
a nice leather case for them. And we were able to enjoy one together.
That's fantastic. So tell me how people can get involved with Levarti.
(04:00):
There's a number of different ways they can use it as a product.
And I want to hear about the product, but then there's also kind of a business opportunity as well.
So why don't you talk about the actual product? how can people use this?
Yeah. So there's two things we did. We wanted to solve what we believe one of
the biggest problems in the world, because life is short.
We know that you're born, you die.
That middle ground is your dash life.
(04:23):
In fact, our core product, Jim, is called the dash life.
And we're creating a movement around it. And what we realized,
there's a lot of people in the world that want to travel. They want to create memories.
They want to create experiences that'll last a a lifetime.
And people try to budget and save money every single week or month to go on
that vacation every year.
(04:44):
But we all know life gets in the way. Cars break down.
Somebody's AC unit goes out. Their kids need braces. Whatever it might happen,
there's more month in paycheck.
And eventually, they keep pulling the money back into their everyday account.
And then they never go on vacation. And then they look up 20 years later,
and they've made excuses that entire time. So we created a travel savings program
where you pay a monthly membership and at the end of the year,
(05:08):
you get more than you put in.
So at the grand scheme of things, as long as you go on a vacation every year,
it's not going to cost you anything, but we help you save that money.
And at the same time, we give you free access to our booking engine where you can get up to 70% off.
So we've got different levels of memberships based upon if they want to just
go to a hotel, stay up to seven nights or add a cruise into it.
(05:32):
We've got four cruise lines that participate in our program as well.
Yeah, I love this. So let me see if I've got this right. You help people with
the discipline of saving.
And then because of the leverage you have, they can get a better bang for the
dollar that they've been saving.
They just can't do that on their own. Do I have that right?
(05:53):
Yeah. So let me give you a real simple example. Our lowest entry point is 25
bucks a month, 300 bucks a year.
At the end of 12 months, we give you a $1,500 credit.
You can stay up to seven nights at 3,000 properties, whether it's a staycation. I live in Arizona.
In my backyard, there's a half a dozen properties, or I could go up to Sedona
or jump in a plane, go anywhere around the world.
(06:14):
I always tell people there's no gotchas, there's no gimmicks,
there's no timeshare presentations, there's no blackout dates.
They're all three and a half, four and a half star properties,
and they're for two adults and two children under 12.
And they got 30 months to use it. And for some reason, if they don't find the
time to use it, they can gift it to somebody as well.
Speaking of timeshares, do you get a lot of people who don't know a lot about
(06:37):
your business, DJ, saying, do I have to sit through a 90-minute to two-hour
presentation where I get a free night stay somewhere or a jacket?
Because I've been through these things. My wife will not sit through another
timeshare presentation.
I love doing it, and I'll tell you why, because I'm a salesman.
I love watching these people work.
(07:00):
But do you get that confusion? Yeah. A lot of people have a perception versus
reality thought process.
And so a lot of people always ask, is this a timeshare? No, it's not a timeshare.
That's like so 1985, right? It's just, you don't need a timeshare in this day, in my opinion.
There's other ways to travel and see more at significantly less price points.
(07:25):
Yeah. This sounds like an excellent opportunity for a family,
let's say, who wants to plan a trip, a vacation somewhere, hasn't been able to.
It's kind of like having a coach. Yeah.
You hire a coach or a therapist or something to help you through things.
Maybe you want to lose weight.
(07:47):
Maybe you want to build muscle.
In this case, you want to go on a darn vacation with the two kids and the spouse,
and you just can't seem to get it done year after year.
$25 a month, $50, $100 a month goes away.
The end of the year, you have this nice little lump sum, but it's worth more
(08:08):
than that dollar. the face value is worth more than the dollars, right?
100%. And if you would like, I can share with you how it works behind the scenes
because then people are like, aha, I get it. Okay.
And one, we own our own post-travel agencies and we do millions a month in bookings.
And so we have leverage, but we all know that if there's an empty hotel room
(08:32):
or an empty cabin on a cruise, those companies make $0. dollars.
And so they use it as a loss leader. We have leverage because of buying power.
And when they go check into the hotel, they might go to go to the spa or they'll
eat at the restaurants. They'll go to the gift shop.
They're going to buy excursions. Same thing on a cruise. They're going to upgrade
maybe from an inside cabin to a balcony cabin. They're going to get the wifi package.
(08:57):
They're going to gamble at the casino. They're going to, you know,
upgrade to the nicer, uh, you know, restaurants and maybe get the drink package
and get excursions in the spa.
And so ultimately it's a loss leader for the hotel or the cruise to get them on.
So they start spending money and that's where they make it up for them. So, yeah.
(09:17):
And I mean, I've gone on a number of cruises on a number of vacations and,
you know, cruises are a big one where if there's an empty cabin,
I know the cruise line rather have a couple in that cabin to your point.
Now, the food's generally a loss, but it's not. They throw out food all the time.
(09:38):
I mean, they're making food by the thousands, right? They're feeding people
at the trough. So that's not really a loss.
You know, the room has to be clean, but generally that's covered by tips anyway, right?
And so the cruise line itself is now. And then if they drink, ding, ding, ding.
And if they go on an excursion, ding, ding, ding. But here's what's really cool. Cool.
(10:00):
If you, as the consumer, want to go on that trip for minimal dollars and you
don't drink, you can drink the water and some juices and you can eat for free.
You can't go to the upgraded restaurants, but you can actually get away with
a nice cruise for next to nothing.
And the cruise line wouldn't win in that instance, but you would.
(10:21):
Right. Yep. That's exactly it. And all our clients have to do is pay the port
fees and taxes and take care of everything else, which is great.
Yeah. And they love, and they start telling their friends about it.
And then the ripple effect starts going viral. And every year they look forward
to putting that money in that travel savings account and get something at the end of it.
(10:42):
It makes so much sense for people to work through your organization to do this,
because even if they tried to work the system themselves, they don't know the ins and outs.
They don't have the leverage. and just the discipline of saving is really helping them.
Um, it, we get it in our own way. That's why, you know, we don't lose weight.
(11:08):
That's why we can't stop shopping. That's why we don't go to the gym.
What? I mean, we, we, we're horrible. We're human.
We're, we're flawed. So if you can get into a system, it's kind of like saving money in your 401k.
If you can just put $25 away every pay period, you know, 40 years later,
you'll have something at retirement and you don't really feel it. It's the same thing.
(11:30):
Yeah. It's hard. People don't understand the long game. You know,
unfortunately with social media technology, everything's condensed time.
We live in this instant gratification society. I mean, I don't know about you,
Jim, but if I microwave something and there's three seconds left,
it's the longest three seconds of my life.
And a lot of times I pop it open at one because I am tired of waiting.
(11:52):
And that's how a lot of people are today. They got living that instant gratification world.
And ultimately we are training them and giving them a benefit and it's out of sight, out of mind.
And 25 bucks a month for most people is disposable income.
We have a $65 option where you get the whole, you know, the travel resort and
the cruise, you can bundle it and things like that.
(12:14):
But ultimately, at least 25 bucks a month, people can save that and it won't
jeopardize their, you know, financial situation.
Let me ask you a question. Do you make it fun for these families that are saving?
Because, you know, I think one of the most exciting things about going away
on a vacation, whether you're going to the beach, cruise, skiing,
whatever it is, is the anticipation.
(12:36):
So during that process, do you guys do anything to get them all excited about what they're doing?
Yeah, we have emails that go out and countdowns, and we're actually implementing
a thermometer on their login so they can see every month that it's going to the top.
That way, they're 10% closer, 20% closer, 30% closer.
They see it actually growing. Just like when you log into your E-Trade account
(12:59):
or some type of investment account, you can see the numbers hopefully growing
and see what you have going on. Yeah.
Sometimes with your E-Trade account, it might be going down,
but it would really not be going down with their LaVardy account because unless
they've taken something out, it can only go up.
Yeah. And that's the best part is it's locked, so you can't take it out.
(13:22):
And it's 12 consecutive payments at the end.
You do it. We do have some annual options that give people a discount and they
can get it within four days if they want to go faster too. So it's pretty nice.
Yeah, no, it's a really neat program. So you have an affiliate program that
you can plug into this. How does that work?
Yeah, we realize that we live in what I call the gig economy now, right?
(13:45):
A lot of people are looking for multiple streams of revenue,
side hustles not out of the norm, having one hustles that is awkward these days, right?
But a lot of people are out there driving Uber, Lyft, DoorDash,
Amazon, getting their real estate or insurance license, or they're doing something working from home.
So we created an affiliate model where they can sign up and you leverage all
(14:07):
of our sales funnels, our tools, our resources.
It's a turnkey, like a franchise where they can market our product.
We do a hundred percent of the support, the payroll, the commission to the back
office, and they can actually make some income.
Uh, so that way they can even pay for their flights and all the different things
and make some extra money along the way. So it's a really neat model.
You know, we're, uh, we're Nate, we're worldwide because it is travel and we
(14:31):
got a great opportunity for people to supplement their income.
Yep. So, you know, this is something that's really not available in stores, right?
It's It's one of those things that you kind of hear from someone else about,
and it kind of travels that way, no pun intended, but it moves along through word of mouth.
Yeah, I mean, no different than how Uber started and a lot of these other apps.
(14:55):
I mean, I don't know if you remember the first time Uber came out.
I actually learned about it because a friend of mine, we were going out to eat,
and they said, let's get an Uber, and I didn't even know what it was.
I saw him go through the process, and once he was done, he sent me a referral
code or a link. And I registered and people, I started using it and talking
about it at restaurants and it just started going viral.
And that's how our model is as well. It's a referral based. A lot of people
(15:17):
do some great things through social media marketing.
And we do run some ads as well on Meta and Google and a couple other areas and
do some traditional marketing as well.
On average, how often do people go on vacation now?
It seems like Americans are traveling a lot more, because I'll tell you,
the cruise lines seem to be really busy.
The airports, they always say, breaking records, more people flying than ever.
(15:40):
So it seems like a lot of people are traveling.
Travel is here to stay, I can tell you.
I will tell you that I've traveled a lot over the last several months,
and airlines are double booked. You know, the restaurants, the gift shops are
full, the hotels are full, the cruises are full.
The average family spends about 14 days a year traveling.
(16:03):
They spend annually about $6,200 per family a year.
So even just joining our club, and you can get up to 70% off on hotels,
resorts, all-inclusives, and the average family spends $6,200.
Imagine cutting that down by 70%. Now you might, instead of traveling 14 days
a year, 28 days a year, right?
(16:24):
Because you can travel more because you're getting it for less.
And so it's great. I mean, there's websites out there like Flight Tracker.
You can see all the flights going on live stream all over the world.
And there's tens of thousands of flights on a daily basis around the globe that
you'll see in action on a 24 to 40 hour basis. It's unbelievable how much people are traveling.
(16:46):
Yeah, I know something about it. My wife has been flying as a flight attendant for close to 30.
Oh, wow.
Um really not many families flew
or not as many there's a big thing
(17:08):
for business travelers they travel for business a
lot and now everybody's traveling it's it's really like years ago there was
something called you know greyhound or trailways people took buses places they
took trains you know short distances like you know from let's say houston to
dallas they'll fly now from Houston to Dallas,
(17:29):
which it's like a four-hour drive, but no, we got to fly.
Everyone seems to be getting in that tube and flying.
And it's a popular thing. So I would imagine that your business is growing at a pretty great rate.
Yeah. We're excited. We're blessed. We pre-launched actually in September of
last year, and we fully launched February 25th of this year.
(17:53):
We self-funded of the whole thing. We're debt-free and we're just reinvesting.
We've got already about 1,600 active users on the platform and we're not even six months old.
And so we're excited with what we're doing and just going up from here.
How often do you travel? For pleasure. For pleasure.
Yeah, I was in Cancun July 20th to the 24th. I was in Minnesota July 27th to
(18:18):
the 31st And I was in Vegas from August 2nd to the 7th of this month.
So I've been traveling quite a bit.
I'm going to take a break for a few months and then we're going to do it again around the holidays.
Yeah. Travel's great. Um, you don't want to do it all the time because it's less special.
So if you can go away once or twice a year and have LaVardy help you out,
(18:39):
I think it's, it's, it's awesome.
I, I, I understand your system. When I first heard about it,
I'm like, okay, I get this. it's,
it's better than a 401k because a 401k doesn't give you that 70% ever.
But you're saving it on a regular basis. And then when you want it, it's worth so much more.
(19:03):
It's, it's almost the opposite of what the dollar does. The dollar is usually
worth less in the future.
In this case, your dollar is worth more in the future because of your leverage and relationships.
That's right. And we all know, Jim, it's not what you know, but who you know, right?
And being in the right rooms in the right circles. And that's what we've been
able to do and establish over our 27-year career in the space.
(19:25):
For the people who are watching this, who are interested in becoming a member
and using the system, what is the best way for them to act on that?
You know what? I would have them reach out to me on social media.
That way I can have a conversation with them to find out how often they travel
to give them the best value based on what product would be best for them.
(19:46):
Whether it's on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, those are my main channels
that they can find me on. Okay.
Then they can search for you there. I'll also put in the show notes,
your contact information, as well as your website.
And then if someone's interested in the affiliate, same thing.
Yeah. Have them reach out to me. We've got a great onboarding system.
(20:07):
It's minimal to get started as an affiliate and we can get the,
you know, map out the plan and get them making money right away.
I think that'd be great for someone who really is involved in the travel industry.
Maybe someone who used to be a travel agent or something. Because it's in their blood, right?
Yeah. We actually have our own host travel agency as well, where we bring on
(20:27):
travel agents that come work with us also.
So a lot of travel agents love our business model with what we've done.
We've created a co-op around that.
And I know that industry has changed a lot. Back when I was younger,
there was a travel agency on every corner in a town, or at least every town had one.
And, you know, for those of you who are really young, you'd walk into the travel
(20:49):
agency and you'd sit down at a desk and they'd pull out brochures and behind them would be,
you know, a picture of Hawaii or a cruise and they'd go through stuff manually
or maybe pull out a computer at some point.
And that's how you book trips back in the day.
It's interesting you say that because in our presentations, I always talk about
when there's a big disruption, on the other side, there's huge opportunity.
(21:13):
When you look at what Uber and Lyft did to taxi, disrupted them,
destroying them. You look at what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.
Same thing with Spotify and Pandora, with Circuit City. Nobody goes and buys a CD anymore.
The travel industry has never been affected or impacted or disrupted in a big way yet.
(21:34):
I mean, the only change to your point is we used to go into a brick and mortar
and sit across the desk with a huge computer and tell them what we like to do.
And they would go search and find deals.
We would write a check. If you remember that, then they would send us our tickets
once they got them, right?
Paper tickets. These were printed
paper tickets in an envelope with your itinerary. You remember that?
(21:56):
And then all of a sudden the online world giants,
the Expedia's Travelocity, the bookings.com came around and they just wiped
out the brick and mortar, created a click and order, and they sold us on their
marketing to that they give you a better deal, which they don't.
It's the same price. They're a retail shop.
And so we feel like we're disrupting that industry because we're pulling that
(22:18):
same inventory, cutting out the commissions, charging a small monthly membership,
and we make it up in volume so you can travel at wholesale instead of retail.
Yeah. That's a great idea.
I'm excited for you. And I really appreciate your time for coming onto the podcast today.
Yeah, it's an honor, Jim. Thank you. And Jordan for allowing me to be on here
(22:39):
today with you guys. I appreciate your time.
Absolutely. Thank you, DJ. Thank you.
Welcome to the Beach Money Podcast. I am your host, Jim Clout.
Jordan Adler, thank you so much for letting me host your podcast.
I appreciate it. DJ Barton is joining me today. Hello, DJ. How are you?
Jim, I'm doing great. Thank you. How are you today?
I am doing very well. I like to tell people I'm living the dream.
(00:21):
My dream is to live my life the way I want to live my life.
I used to live it based on what my parents wanted and what my boss wanted,
and now I do my own thing. That's the best way to live.
I think so. Now I've just had to convince my wife. I'm kidding. She's on board with me.
She is on board. I like to travel backwards, which is good because that's what
(00:43):
Levarti is, right? I travel backwards.
Tell me a little bit about what you do and how you guys came up with the name.
Yeah. No, I was actually one of the top money earners of a company last year.
And the owners and executives made a lot of promises that they had no intentions in keeping.
(01:04):
And so we could have kept our head down and kept building, but truthfully, it's against our DNA.
And so we started looking at a lot of different companies and nothing aligned with us.
So my business partner came to me and said, hey, I've got over 30 years experience.
You got over 27 years experience.
Why don't we create a company from the field's perspective, but for the field?
And we put everything together that we like about our profession.
(01:27):
And then we wrote everything that we dislike about it.
And we created a company and a comp plan and a product and a vision around those two topics.
And we created a company called Levarti.
And we're excited. It's a travel program.
It's a travel savings program. And we also created a technology that pulls the
(01:47):
same inventory you can find on a public site through us.
But we stripped the commissions out so they can travel for up to 70% off.
So we got some great things going on. We're growing all across the world, Jim.
Yeah. You guys need to get into the automobile business as well.
You got Maserati, Lamborghini, Levarti. I don't know. It just sounds like an Italian car.
It does. It does. I like that. Yeah. Kind of a sexy name too,
(02:11):
really. I mean, it's interesting.
So you guys came up with the name by just inverting the iTravel. Is that right?
Yeah. So my business partner, Jake, we started just going back and forth on
a bunch of names. People get to know me. I'm just more of a builder personality.
And so I was at the point, I'm like, Jake, just pick a name that resonates.
(02:32):
It sounds good. It's catchy.
And let's go make a run. And he started writing down a bunch of things and saw
I travel backwards. And so let's do Levarti.
Yeah, no, I love it. It's a great story.
It's, it's a great name and I'm sure it wasn't hard to get.
Yeah. It was available. It was available and we're excited. We're going to run
(02:53):
it up the pole. So it's a lot of fun.
Awesome. All right. Tell me about your relationship with Jordan Adler.
Yeah. Jordan and I had the pleasure of meeting several years ago.
I've, you know, I've heard of Jordan for decades.
I've, I've read the book, listened to the audio beach money years and years
ago. And then our, we got introduced to each other.
(03:14):
He was putting together a group of successful entrepreneurs in the network marketing
space to put some books together called Momentum Makers.
And I was one of those co-authors with him. We hit it off.
We did some trainings together, some workshops, some Zooms, and we just gelled.
And it was an amazing relationship.
We were together last week in Vegas, hanging out a little bit and having fun.
(03:35):
And now we chat on a consistent basis and building a true friendship,
which is an honor to be able to do.
So you know that Jordan likes cigars, right? He does.
In fact, I had the pleasure of getting a great gift for Beach Money Cigars and
a nice leather case for them. And we were able to enjoy one together.
That's fantastic. So tell me how people can get involved with Levarti.
(04:00):
There's a number of different ways they can use it as a product.
And I want to hear about the product, but then there's also kind of a business opportunity as well.
So why don't you talk about the actual product? how can people use this?
Yeah. So there's two things we did. We wanted to solve what we believe one of
the biggest problems in the world, because life is short.
We know that you're born, you die.
That middle ground is your dash life.
(04:23):
In fact, our core product, Jim, is called the dash life.
And we're creating a movement around it. And what we realized,
there's a lot of people in the world that want to travel. They want to create memories.
They want to create experiences that'll last a a lifetime.
And people try to budget and save money every single week or month to go on
that vacation every year.
(04:44):
But we all know life gets in the way. Cars break down.
Somebody's AC unit goes out. Their kids need braces. Whatever it might happen,
there's more month in paycheck.
And eventually, they keep pulling the money back into their everyday account.
And then they never go on vacation. And then they look up 20 years later,
and they've made excuses that entire time. So we created a travel savings program
where you pay a monthly membership and at the end of the year,
(05:08):
you get more than you put in.
So at the grand scheme of things, as long as you go on a vacation every year,
it's not going to cost you anything, but we help you save that money.
And at the same time, we give you free access to our booking engine where you can get up to 70% off.
So we've got different levels of memberships based upon if they want to just
go to a hotel, stay up to seven nights or add a cruise into it.
(05:32):
We've got four cruise lines that participate in our program as well.
Yeah, I love this. So let me see if I've got this right. You help people with
the discipline of saving.
And then because of the leverage you have, they can get a better bang for the
dollar that they've been saving.
They just can't do that on their own. Do I have that right?
(05:53):
Yeah. So let me give you a real simple example. Our lowest entry point is 25
bucks a month, 300 bucks a year.
At the end of 12 months, we give you a $1,500 credit.
You can stay up to seven nights at 3,000 properties, whether it's a staycation. I live in Arizona.
In my backyard, there's a half a dozen properties, or I could go up to Sedona
or jump in a plane, go anywhere around the world.
(06:14):
I always tell people there's no gotchas, there's no gimmicks,
there's no timeshare presentations, there's no blackout dates.
They're all three and a half, four and a half star properties,
and they're for two adults and two children under 12.
And they got 30 months to use it. And for some reason, if they don't find the
time to use it, they can gift it to somebody as well.
Speaking of timeshares, do you get a lot of people who don't know a lot about
(06:37):
your business, DJ, saying, do I have to sit through a 90-minute to two-hour
presentation where I get a free night stay somewhere or a jacket?
Because I've been through these things. My wife will not sit through another
timeshare presentation.
I love doing it, and I'll tell you why, because I'm a salesman.
I love watching these people work.
(07:00):
But do you get that confusion? Yeah. A lot of people have a perception versus
reality thought process.
And so a lot of people always ask, is this a timeshare? No, it's not a timeshare.
That's like so 1985, right? It's just, you don't need a timeshare in this day, in my opinion.
There's other ways to travel and see more at significantly less price points.
(07:25):
Yeah. This sounds like an excellent opportunity for a family,
let's say, who wants to plan a trip, a vacation somewhere, hasn't been able to.
It's kind of like having a coach. Yeah.
You hire a coach or a therapist or something to help you through things.
Maybe you want to lose weight.
(07:47):
Maybe you want to build muscle.
In this case, you want to go on a darn vacation with the two kids and the spouse,
and you just can't seem to get it done year after year.
$25 a month, $50, $100 a month goes away.
The end of the year, you have this nice little lump sum, but it's worth more
(08:08):
than that dollar. the face value is worth more than the dollars, right?
100%. And if you would like, I can share with you how it works behind the scenes
because then people are like, aha, I get it. Okay.
And one, we own our own post-travel agencies and we do millions a month in bookings.
And so we have leverage, but we all know that if there's an empty hotel room
(08:32):
or an empty cabin on a cruise, those companies make $0. dollars.
And so they use it as a loss leader. We have leverage because of buying power.
And when they go check into the hotel, they might go to go to the spa or they'll
eat at the restaurants. They'll go to the gift shop.
They're going to buy excursions. Same thing on a cruise. They're going to upgrade
maybe from an inside cabin to a balcony cabin. They're going to get the wifi package.
(08:57):
They're going to gamble at the casino. They're going to, you know,
upgrade to the nicer, uh, you know, restaurants and maybe get the drink package
and get excursions in the spa.
And so ultimately it's a loss leader for the hotel or the cruise to get them on.
So they start spending money and that's where they make it up for them. So, yeah.
(09:17):
And I mean, I've gone on a number of cruises on a number of vacations and,
you know, cruises are a big one where if there's an empty cabin,
I know the cruise line rather have a couple in that cabin to your point.
Now, the food's generally a loss, but it's not. They throw out food all the time.
(09:38):
I mean, they're making food by the thousands, right? They're feeding people
at the trough. So that's not really a loss.
You know, the room has to be clean, but generally that's covered by tips anyway, right?
And so the cruise line itself is now. And then if they drink, ding, ding, ding.
And if they go on an excursion, ding, ding, ding. But here's what's really cool. Cool.
(10:00):
If you, as the consumer, want to go on that trip for minimal dollars and you
don't drink, you can drink the water and some juices and you can eat for free.
You can't go to the upgraded restaurants, but you can actually get away with
a nice cruise for next to nothing.
And the cruise line wouldn't win in that instance, but you would.
(10:21):
Right. Yep. That's exactly it. And all our clients have to do is pay the port
fees and taxes and take care of everything else, which is great.
Yeah. And they love, and they start telling their friends about it.
And then the ripple effect starts going viral. And every year they look forward
to putting that money in that travel savings account and get something at the end of it.
(10:42):
It makes so much sense for people to work through your organization to do this,
because even if they tried to work the system themselves, they don't know the ins and outs.
They don't have the leverage. and just the discipline of saving is really helping them.
Um, it, we get it in our own way. That's why, you know, we don't lose weight.
(11:08):
That's why we can't stop shopping. That's why we don't go to the gym.
What? I mean, we, we, we're horrible. We're human.
We're, we're flawed. So if you can get into a system, it's kind of like saving money in your 401k.
If you can just put $25 away every pay period, you know, 40 years later,
you'll have something at retirement and you don't really feel it. It's the same thing.
(11:30):
Yeah. It's hard. People don't understand the long game. You know,
unfortunately with social media technology, everything's condensed time.
We live in this instant gratification society. I mean, I don't know about you,
Jim, but if I microwave something and there's three seconds left,
it's the longest three seconds of my life.
And a lot of times I pop it open at one because I am tired of waiting.
(11:52):
And that's how a lot of people are today. They got living that instant gratification world.
And ultimately we are training them and giving them a benefit and it's out of sight, out of mind.
And 25 bucks a month for most people is disposable income.
We have a $65 option where you get the whole, you know, the travel resort and
the cruise, you can bundle it and things like that.
(12:14):
But ultimately, at least 25 bucks a month, people can save that and it won't
jeopardize their, you know, financial situation.
Let me ask you a question. Do you make it fun for these families that are saving?
Because, you know, I think one of the most exciting things about going away
on a vacation, whether you're going to the beach, cruise, skiing,
whatever it is, is the anticipation.
(12:36):
So during that process, do you guys do anything to get them all excited about what they're doing?
Yeah, we have emails that go out and countdowns, and we're actually implementing
a thermometer on their login so they can see every month that it's going to the top.
That way, they're 10% closer, 20% closer, 30% closer.
They see it actually growing. Just like when you log into your E-Trade account
(12:59):
or some type of investment account, you can see the numbers hopefully growing
and see what you have going on. Yeah.
Sometimes with your E-Trade account, it might be going down,
but it would really not be going down with their LaVardy account because unless
they've taken something out, it can only go up.
Yeah. And that's the best part is it's locked, so you can't take it out.
(13:22):
And it's 12 consecutive payments at the end.
You do it. We do have some annual options that give people a discount and they
can get it within four days if they want to go faster too. So it's pretty nice.
Yeah, no, it's a really neat program. So you have an affiliate program that
you can plug into this. How does that work?
Yeah, we realize that we live in what I call the gig economy now, right?
(13:45):
A lot of people are looking for multiple streams of revenue,
side hustles not out of the norm, having one hustles that is awkward these days, right?
But a lot of people are out there driving Uber, Lyft, DoorDash,
Amazon, getting their real estate or insurance license, or they're doing something working from home.
So we created an affiliate model where they can sign up and you leverage all
(14:07):
of our sales funnels, our tools, our resources.
It's a turnkey, like a franchise where they can market our product.
We do a hundred percent of the support, the payroll, the commission to the back
office, and they can actually make some income.
Uh, so that way they can even pay for their flights and all the different things
and make some extra money along the way. So it's a really neat model.
You know, we're, uh, we're Nate, we're worldwide because it is travel and we
(14:31):
got a great opportunity for people to supplement their income.
Yep. So, you know, this is something that's really not available in stores, right?
It's It's one of those things that you kind of hear from someone else about,
and it kind of travels that way, no pun intended, but it moves along through word of mouth.
Yeah, I mean, no different than how Uber started and a lot of these other apps.
(14:55):
I mean, I don't know if you remember the first time Uber came out.
I actually learned about it because a friend of mine, we were going out to eat,
and they said, let's get an Uber, and I didn't even know what it was.
I saw him go through the process, and once he was done, he sent me a referral
code or a link. And I registered and people, I started using it and talking
about it at restaurants and it just started going viral.
And that's how our model is as well. It's a referral based. A lot of people
(15:17):
do some great things through social media marketing.
And we do run some ads as well on Meta and Google and a couple other areas and
do some traditional marketing as well.
On average, how often do people go on vacation now?
It seems like Americans are traveling a lot more, because I'll tell you,
the cruise lines seem to be really busy.
The airports, they always say, breaking records, more people flying than ever.
(15:40):
So it seems like a lot of people are traveling.
Travel is here to stay, I can tell you.
I will tell you that I've traveled a lot over the last several months,
and airlines are double booked. You know, the restaurants, the gift shops are
full, the hotels are full, the cruises are full.
The average family spends about 14 days a year traveling.
(16:03):
They spend annually about $6,200 per family a year.
So even just joining our club, and you can get up to 70% off on hotels,
resorts, all-inclusives, and the average family spends $6,200.
Imagine cutting that down by 70%. Now you might, instead of traveling 14 days
a year, 28 days a year, right?
(16:24):
Because you can travel more because you're getting it for less.
And so it's great. I mean, there's websites out there like Flight Tracker.
You can see all the flights going on live stream all over the world.
And there's tens of thousands of flights on a daily basis around the globe that
you'll see in action on a 24 to 40 hour basis. It's unbelievable how much people are traveling.
(16:46):
Yeah, I know something about it. My wife has been flying as a flight attendant for close to 30.
Oh, wow.
Um really not many families flew
or not as many there's a big thing
(17:08):
for business travelers they travel for business a
lot and now everybody's traveling it's it's really like years ago there was
something called you know greyhound or trailways people took buses places they
took trains you know short distances like you know from let's say houston to
dallas they'll fly now from Houston to Dallas,
(17:29):
which it's like a four-hour drive, but no, we got to fly.
Everyone seems to be getting in that tube and flying.
And it's a popular thing. So I would imagine that your business is growing at a pretty great rate.
Yeah. We're excited. We're blessed. We pre-launched actually in September of
last year, and we fully launched February 25th of this year.
(17:53):
We self-funded of the whole thing. We're debt-free and we're just reinvesting.
We've got already about 1,600 active users on the platform and we're not even six months old.
And so we're excited with what we're doing and just going up from here.
How often do you travel? For pleasure. For pleasure.
Yeah, I was in Cancun July 20th to the 24th. I was in Minnesota July 27th to
(18:18):
the 31st And I was in Vegas from August 2nd to the 7th of this month.
So I've been traveling quite a bit.
I'm going to take a break for a few months and then we're going to do it again around the holidays.
Yeah. Travel's great. Um, you don't want to do it all the time because it's less special.
So if you can go away once or twice a year and have LaVardy help you out,
(18:39):
I think it's, it's, it's awesome.
I, I, I understand your system. When I first heard about it,
I'm like, okay, I get this. it's,
it's better than a 401k because a 401k doesn't give you that 70% ever.
But you're saving it on a regular basis. And then when you want it, it's worth so much more.
(19:03):
It's, it's almost the opposite of what the dollar does. The dollar is usually
worth less in the future.
In this case, your dollar is worth more in the future because of your leverage and relationships.
That's right. And we all know, Jim, it's not what you know, but who you know, right?
And being in the right rooms in the right circles. And that's what we've been
able to do and establish over our 27-year career in the space.
(19:25):
For the people who are watching this, who are interested in becoming a member
and using the system, what is the best way for them to act on that?
You know what? I would have them reach out to me on social media.
That way I can have a conversation with them to find out how often they travel
to give them the best value based on what product would be best for them.
(19:46):
Whether it's on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn, those are my main channels
that they can find me on. Okay.
Then they can search for you there. I'll also put in the show notes,
your contact information, as well as your website.
And then if someone's interested in the affiliate, same thing.
Yeah. Have them reach out to me. We've got a great onboarding system.
(20:07):
It's minimal to get started as an affiliate and we can get the,
you know, map out the plan and get them making money right away.
I think that'd be great for someone who really is involved in the travel industry.
Maybe someone who used to be a travel agent or something. Because it's in their blood, right?
Yeah. We actually have our own host travel agency as well, where we bring on
(20:27):
travel agents that come work with us also.
So a lot of travel agents love our business model with what we've done.
We've created a co-op around that.
And I know that industry has changed a lot. Back when I was younger,
there was a travel agency on every corner in a town, or at least every town had one.
And, you know, for those of you who are really young, you'd walk into the travel
(20:49):
agency and you'd sit down at a desk and they'd pull out brochures and behind them would be,
you know, a picture of Hawaii or a cruise and they'd go through stuff manually
or maybe pull out a computer at some point.
And that's how you book trips back in the day.
It's interesting you say that because in our presentations, I always talk about
when there's a big disruption, on the other side, there's huge opportunity.
(21:13):
When you look at what Uber and Lyft did to taxi, disrupted them,
destroying them. You look at what Netflix did to Blockbuster and Hollywood Video.
Same thing with Spotify and Pandora, with Circuit City. Nobody goes and buys a CD anymore.
The travel industry has never been affected or impacted or disrupted in a big way yet.
(21:34):
I mean, the only change to your point is we used to go into a brick and mortar
and sit across the desk with a huge computer and tell them what we like to do.
And they would go search and find deals.
We would write a check. If you remember that, then they would send us our tickets
once they got them, right?
Paper tickets. These were printed
paper tickets in an envelope with your itinerary. You remember that?
(21:56):
And then all of a sudden the online world giants,
the Expedia's Travelocity, the bookings.com came around and they just wiped
out the brick and mortar, created a click and order, and they sold us on their
marketing to that they give you a better deal, which they don't.
It's the same price. They're a retail shop.
And so we feel like we're disrupting that industry because we're pulling that
(22:18):
same inventory, cutting out the commissions, charging a small monthly membership,
and we make it up in volume so you can travel at wholesale instead of retail.
Yeah. That's a great idea.
I'm excited for you. And I really appreciate your time for coming onto the podcast today.
Yeah, it's an honor, Jim. Thank you. And Jordan for allowing me to be on here
(22:39):
today with you guys. I appreciate your time.
Absolutely. Thank you, DJ. Thank you.
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