March 19, 2025 • 51 mins
Fred and Lane speak with third generation owner of Gross Electric, Laurie Gross, about her continuing role and passion for what she does. Our second guests are Wayne Maslyk and Andrew Brewer of Great Lakes Benefits and Wealth Management who explain the importance of long range planning, fiduciarys, and CFP's when it comes to your investing. Links below.
Gross Electric
Great Lakes Benefits/Wealth Management
Gross Electric
Great Lakes Benefits/Wealth Management
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to a Heart for Business. I'm Fred Lefever and
along with Lane Months, President CEO the Better Business Bureau
of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, we'll highlight a local
business weekly. You'll discover why these small local business owners
have a passion for what they do and why the
(00:25):
Better Business Bureau has a Heart for Business. Now here's
Lane Months.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Thank you, Fred, and welcome everyone to the program. This
is episode number six of a Heart for Business podcast,
by the way, to the best of my knowledge, the
only Better Business Bureau podcast in the continental United States
so far. Anyway, We're recording today deep from the bowels
of the WSPD flagship station. Fred Lefever is behind the
(00:51):
big board and as I always say, Fred is there
to keep me from crashing the ship of this podcast
up onto the shore.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
You've been very, very close to crash a number of times.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now it's the drinking and that's the problem. Fred. So
we are here next to the Toledo mud Hens Stadium
and world famous Toledo mud Hens in the heart of
downtown Toledo, A beautiful, beautiful downtown it is. I'm here
today with my first guest, Lori Gross of Gross Electric.
And if you are a listener in the northwest Ohio
and southeast Michigan area, you will be very aware. If
(01:22):
you've ever had a project, or you're in the construction
industry or the construction supply industry, or you've just driven
down Reynolds Road in Toledo, you have eventually passed Gross Electric.
It's been there for a long time. Laurie, welcome to
the program.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Thank you very much. Lane and Fred yep.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And so the first thing I want to talk about,
because I know Fred does not know this, and he
will be impressed by this. I do believe how old
is Gross Electric?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This is our one hundred and fifteenth anniversary this year.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I thought I was doing good celebrating forty five years
in radio.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
The other day.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You've probably been in your location more than forty five years.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
We've been on Reynolds Road since nineteen sixty seven, I
think somewhere in the early mid sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Were still in high school.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Then, yeah, and we were downtown where Ford Industry Square
is for sixty five years.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
We were you really, yeah, used to be in Ford
Industry Square, right.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
My dad's the one that worked on making that whole
black historic black so they couldn't tear it down in
the early seventies. He and I can't think of this right.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Probably Fraser reams.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, no, uh sorry, I can't think of it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That's okay.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well they did that, yeah, and then they he's the
one that sold it to the guys who first developed
Ford Industry.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's awesome. So my studio was up on the fourth
floor there at Ford Industry Square. We had a beautiful view.
I had no idea that they were at one point
considered tearing that down.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Right, And my dad's office was right behind where the
new clock tower is. I remember that clock tower being
out there all the time. Pictures of our showroom down
there we had. We were in three buildings, four floors.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, that's pretty cool. So BBB in this area. RBBB
started in nineteen nineteen. So is that the same year
that Gross started. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You're got your beat?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, no, no, she's.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Got your beat.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, my grandfather that you might. I might have to
look this up. At some point, you might be the
longest surviving business in the Better Business Bureau. And that's
you know, we've got almost six thousand businesses. You might
be the longest continuous business. And I know, I know
you didn't found it, Lori, you were second. You mentioned
your debt, your third generation, third generation business. So I
(03:42):
just love to hear that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Fred.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I think you do too.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You love to hear that, Ed, I have a business
on air dibbling floor covering down in Mommy third generation
owners too, and they started back just after World War Two?
But is this what you imagined you were going to
be doing? So, well, let's go back. You know you're
twelve years old, you're just having a grand all time.
Did you think you were going to end up in
(04:05):
your dad's in grandpa's business.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
There was no way I was going into business. I
had no desires.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Happened along the way? Did that?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Actually? My major in college was radio, TV Film?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Was it? Really?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
My first job was working for a radio station in Toledo.
I don't even remember which one it is anymore, but
I worked at a radio station here, and when I
graduated college, there were no jobs, and so my dad said, well,
you can come work for me. And we all know
that media is not necessarily the best paying job. So
every time I got offered a job, my dad said,
(04:41):
I'll pay you more than that and that's the way.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Dad had a plan even if you didn't have a plan.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So okay, so you couldn't get into radio, probably a
smart move. Where did you start engross electric? Did he
didn't give you a position right away? Did he? I
bet he started.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I was doing marketing. I worked downtown on Summit Street,
and I was doing marketing, and then I people within
the company got sick or moved and I ended up
doing every single office job there was. And we had
a store in ann Arbor. We've been in ann Arbor
since nineteen sixty seven. And our manager decided to quit
and he said, all right, well, why don't you go
up to an Arbor and try sales? And if you
(05:23):
don't like it, I won't make his stay anymore. And
once I got into sales, I was it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Was it really love saying why why did you love sales?
Because I did sales for radio and I hated it
because I hate all the nose you get when you're
selling in radio. Why did you like sales?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well? The difference is people are walking in our store
for a reason, so I just have to figure out
what that reason is and sell them the best product
for that.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Okay, so it's not.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Like radio sales where you're going and trying to convince
them to buy from you. They're walking in already and
they need something. I just need to figure out what
it is.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Plus, if I can offer an observation, Lorie's on the
board of directors. I believe your dad was a chairman
of the board of directors at the BBB at one time.
If you know Laurie at all, she probably didn't get
a whole lot of no's anyway. She probably didn't have
that traumatic experience that so many salespeople you've got.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Are we going to contribute that to your forcefulness as
a salesperson or your likability as a salesperson?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I'm not. I will plead the fifth.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Could you take the fifth on that, Lauri? Either way?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So I just think, you know, when I heard about
how long Gross had been around, and of course I
was familiar with it, but not not as familiar as
I have since become about it, I'm like, one hundred
and fifteen years, we got to have we got to
have that business. So, I mean, that's that's tremendous. I
mean to predate the BBB, which is one hundred and
five years is really something, and that had the same name,
(06:49):
the same family to be a mainstay in the community.
To me, that's what a heart for business is all about.
I just love to hear that story. So, so Fred's
already gotten you to tease out some you know, tease
out some of your story. What do you like best
about it? And what do you be honest? Now, what
do you like least about it?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
My showroom people will laugh because every time I'm just
totally frustrated with everything on the computer and I'm tired
of working my emails all day. The first thing I'll
do is go out and start waiting on customers on
the showroom floor. Really because I love selling lighting. I
love selling anything, but I love selling lighting, and I
(07:27):
love working with contractors on projects and bidding jobs. There's
very little about the sales end of the business that
I don't enjoy. Why do I enjoy least?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Careful?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
We'll see it just to remind you we are being
we are recording people wear it.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Now you know, I really like every
part of the business. There's I know it sounds, but
there's times I like to sit there and go through
the numbers and figure out how we can be doing better.
There's time. I'd rather just have lunch with some of
our people and talk through love, brainstorming, love marketing.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
What about this? What about when a contractor comes to
you and says, Laurie, we're building this house and we
forgot to send the customer and we don't have any
of the lighting picked out, and we got to have
the house ready in the next twenty one days.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
That's not a problem. Actually, my most unfavorite thing is
I've spent all the time and energy, or my team
has spent all the time and energy. We've bit a job,
we've designed the job, we've worked with a contract or,
our homeowner, a builder, and they we find out they
just went onto Amazon and took all of our products
that we picked with them and just said, okay, we're
(08:39):
just gonna buy it online because you know, they beat
you by one hundred dollars. What So, if you ask
me my most unfavorite, it's when customers don't appreciate all
the service and everything we've done and just say, well,
somebody's price is lower.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, that's a fair comp I think that's a fair comment.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, And a couple of things you just mentioned I
wouldn't have guessed that you did. I drove by it
one hundred times, and I always thought that you just
sold lighting, that you know sold lighting fixtures, or that
you are the guys that have installed all the wires
and everything for Then I see your website, which is
gross electric dot com, and I see besides the fixtures,
(09:22):
and you just mentioned designs. So you're involved right from
the get go. If I'm building a home, I can
come to you and say, here's what I'm building. I've
got this many rooms.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
What you can you ring in your blueprint and we
will help you lay out the lighting, will help you
decide what you need. Do you want to use recess,
do you want to use decorative? What style do you want?
We have actually we have a number of people who
are actually have design degrees on staff. But everybody is
certified by the American Lighting Association.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm pretty sure the audience would have no idea that
you can become certified by a trade organization in lighting, Like,
what does that mean? Exact?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
So it means that you've taken classes. You have to
have so many hours of education, you have to pass
a test. We have a huge book. It's about a
three inch book, just talking about all the difference in lighting,
you know, really say, it's interesting. People think lighting is
a commodity. Hey, I just go online. I look for
a black pennant. That's it. I say. True lighting is
(10:23):
a combination of science and design. It's art and science.
So we're sitting in Fred's studio here.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I was just going to ask you, what do you
think it's perfect?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's very well lit. You've got you know, led going
around the side, so there's not glare on your computer screens.
Someone took a lot of time and effort, but it
still looks nice.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, and when I walk in, well, when we leave,
this will turn itself all off.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Right, and so we carry all the controls and everything too.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
And when I come in, it comes on it and
then I have it bright right now. But in the morning,
if I don't want it this break because I'm just
waking up. Controls allow me to bring it down. And
if I have a guest that doesn't like it this bright,
I can bring it down. So this is a good design.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It's a very good design. And actually what you just
talked about is one of the hottest topics in lighting
right now, really, which is circadian rhythm lighting, particularly for
schools for assisted living or you know, independent living or
nursing homes circadium rhythm lighting because people haven't really paid
attention to lighting, even though it's everywhere around us. Nobody
(11:29):
pays attention to it. So you walk in and it's warning.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Unless it's bad. No, if the lighting is bad, then
you pay attention to it, but you don't know why
you're paying it. You're like, you don't know why it's
setting you on edge. The beautiful light design job is
the one that you don't have to think about because
it complements you, your body, your mood perfectly. That's my anyway.
You're right.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
So in the mornings, do you really want to wake
up in your bedroom to five? I'll call them like
the old fashioned fluorescence, five big fluorescence going boom, wake up.
I know you want something that gradually gets cooler. In
the midday, you wanted a cooler color. As the night
comes on, you wanted a warmer color. So there's a
ton of science going on right now with circadian rhythms
(12:12):
and what people need to do.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So no more comfortable. I'm a little older, I'm seventy three.
I'll be seventy four this year, and I've noticed, and
I didn't know it's called circadians, but I've noticed. I
don't like the glare later at night. I want things
to be a little bit cooler at night as I
get ready to go to bed, because I need to
get you know, five hours of sleep at least tonight.
(12:37):
Are we finding? Is the science showing that it also
involves age?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Well, so the science on age is there already. As
we age, our eyes get a little more yellow. We
can't see So you and I aren't that different in age.
We can't see colors, we can't see brightness, We can't
see any of that the way say Lane does.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Or a twenty year old and your eyes you're drying
too as you're giving you don't think I'm I'm not
a twenty You don't think I'm a twenty year old.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Want I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give you a
billion dollar lighting idea. Are you ready? I'm gonna blow
your mind. Lourie lighting that makes hair look thicker for men.
You figure that out, you're golden.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
That and figuring out retail store traffic. That would be
the other billion of the idea. But we can't see
as well, and we're much more sensitive to glare. So
as you look at older people in a facility and
you have younger people working in the facility, but they're
taking care of older people, they're not necessarily paying attention
to that. Or in your home, you know, the hot
(13:40):
product out there has been clear glass pendants with clear bulbs.
You put that in you're my house and we're going,
oh my god, oh my gosh. You know, you walk
in and it's like this beacon of light in your
eye versus someone who's in their twenties who may not
bother at all because they're just not as sensitive.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So as and we're using the computers more. Every night,
I'm in front of my laptop for two to three
hours with either the lighting on the top of my
den ceiling or you know one of those goofy three
bulb torch lamps sitting next to me facing down on it.
And you're absolutely right, it bothers the hell out of me.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
That's right. So that's part of the science. But everybody says, oh,
this is the style. So I'm going to put these
three pennants over my kitchen. They walk in my showroom
we're all varying ages, and we don't necessarily shower age.
But I will turn the light on it and I'll say,
how does that look to you? And let's says and
they go, oh my god, that's so glary. All right, well,
(14:40):
you just showed me three pennants like that for your kitchen.
If they hadn't walked in, they would have bought them
on Amazon. They would have hung them up, and then
they wanted to walked in and go I don't like
the way my kitchen looks because nobody stay out there
and said to them, hey, you need to be aware
of this. Take a look at it. We should be
doing maybe more of a white glass or something that
(15:01):
the ball isn't obvious to us. So those are the
little things that are the science behind lighting, not just
it looks pretty. Let me throw it up.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Was it always like this? Or when did this start?
When did people start to realize this? And when did
you guys start to realize this and work with your
customers on it.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So I would say that, you know, if we go
back fifty years, and I've been in my business just
a little longer than you have, But if you go
back fifty years.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
One hundred and fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, right right, yeah, but the lighting everything was incandescent.
It was all soft. The fluorescent didn't even come out
till the fifties, so it was all Although the original
light bulb was a glare bomb, let's be clear. But
still people were putting shades on things. They had white glass.
(15:49):
You look at all these old fixtures, they're all white glass.
If you think about old gas lamps. We started as
a gas appliance business, meaning we sold gas fixtures, lighting fixtures.
That's our first name was Toledo Gas Appliants. Oh wow,
in nineteen ten, there wasn't a whole lot of electric
cat But you think about it, nobody looked at a
gas chat. They needed a white glass in front of
(16:11):
it to protect it. Then the light bulb came out
and you still had the white glass to protect it.
Now people have all these LEDs and they are super bright.
They need to be protected. But everybody's like, give me
a ton of light, give me a ton of light,
give me a ton light, and thinking about the true
effect of what that light is doing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because you know
my kids are in their twenties and I turned the
lights down in the evening, particularly after a long day
of working. Maybe I guess it's my age. I didn't
really realize that I'm like, I like a softer ambiyance
in my home in the evening. My kids will come
in for the holidays or whatever. First, then they do
blow those lights up to maximum. They turn them on.
They make fun of me even for turning them down.
(16:53):
Because I have dimmer switches. I'm more comfortable with that.
I would never have thought about what you said until
till you said it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So one of my big pet peeves right now is
all the blue light the people are putting into their homes.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, what's some put them hospital?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I'm in a hospital, Well you do, so there.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
People seem to think that if it's bluer, it's brighter color.
The color of your light has nothing to do with
how much light is coming out of it. So there's
it's called Calvin to Greek Calvin and sunlight is sixty
five hundred to Greek Calvin, and good old fashioned in
condescin is twenty seven hundred. So that's a huge range
(17:33):
of color. And what I'm seeing people put in their
houses is they say, well, I want it to look
like daylight. But the problem is daylight has a ton
of spectrum, and when you.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Put something's very layered, it's a layer type of light.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
And when you think of going outside at noon in
the sun, how much of it is about how warm
the sun feels versus how bright? Do you want your
house to look like a sunny day in the middle
of winter. When the people put these five thousand cave
recess lights in their homes or decorate halbs, it's like
going outside in the middle of winter. There's no warmth
(18:08):
to it. When you walk in people's houses that look
like that, you just feel like this house just doesn't
feel warm than cozy. I'll give you one more example.
When you go to McDonald's, how do you feel I
want to get in and out right? Well, if you
go to a really nice restaurant, until you know, if
you go to a Georgios.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Or something like that, it's quite a bit dark warm, yes.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Really warm, and stay there and be comfortable.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
J Alexander's is a perfect example.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
So do you want to put McDonald's out lighting in
your home? Because when you put those five thousand k
or those really blue lights in your home. You're putting
McDonald's lighting in there. And so I'm working with our
the Tech and Engineering department of our Lighting Association to
try and write an article people are talking about anxiety
that we're talking about depression, and I'm saying part of
(18:57):
that is because we're putting this blue life in people's
homes and they feel like, I got to be going,
I gotta be doing I gotta be doing this because
it's not warm, it's not relaxing, it's not comfortable.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
You know, it's weird Because one of my former hosts
was told he had sad yep in winter, right, and
so they convinced him he needed a happy lamp and
he had one at his desk and every morning when
he would come in, didn't have lighting like this, and
he would turn on his happy lamp first. Do those
things actually work? Is that part of the science.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
So what they say about seasonal effective, and we used
to sell those lamps. You're trying to trick your body
to have the circadian rhythm of summer. So the idea
is that in the morning, when we wake up now
and it's dark, if you turn that light on, your
body will feel more like it's normal summer because you're
(19:53):
giving it more light early in the morning, okay, and
then at night you try and extend your day a
little further. Instead of getting dark at five, you're turning
on that lamp so you feel like it's summer, and
that's supposed to help the sand. You don't keep it
on all day, No, it's just more about morning and
evening to try and trick your body into feeling like
it's still summer and there's more light around you.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Fred, if only Laurie really had a heart for her business,
If only Lauri really, I mean, we squeezed you into
this program, but I don't know if your views on
the world are consistent with a heart for business. I
just can't tell that.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I'm curious because you started, well, obviously quite some time ago.
You said you've been in the business longer than me,
and I've been here forty five years. Did that passion
start right away or did you kind of grow into
this because you seem really excited about all of these things,
and it doesn't seem like you've ever stopped learning about
(20:49):
any of these things.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's what's so interesting about lighting. There was some article
I think it was in the Blader somewhere where they
talked about people who get bored with their jobs. Right
that you're coming in and you're doing the same thing
day after day. Part of the fun of your job,
for it is no day is the same, never my day,
No day is the same. I'm waiting on different customers.
(21:10):
Led revitalized the industry every day. I learned something new
about lighting every single day. So people who say, well,
I know lighting, I look at them and I go, well,
you know, I just found out about this new recess light.
I bet you've never heard of that. No, what does
it do? Well, you know I can do this and
this on. So it's the advantage of our industry is
it's constantly evolving, constantly, and that's what makes it fun
(21:35):
because I've never stopped learning. I go to markets during
the year, I learn about new products. Where a fashion industry,
new lights are coming out four times a year, there's
new products, old stuff is being discontinued. And so you
asked when one of my first jobs. We also do
sell electrical supplies, pipe wire, switches, plug everything in your
(21:58):
house or your business.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
We see you sell stuff that it's really hard to
You'll never find it at one of the big box stores.
Happens never there's so much specialty equipment to install lighting
fixtures or for a particular application and a particular business,
you're not going to get at very many places. I
do know that Gross has always been the reliable place.
If you can't find that component anywhere else, you definitely
(22:21):
can get it from Gross.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Right, So we have over two thousand products on displaying
in the showrooms in our warehouse. Our warehouse and just
Reynolds Road is twenty thousand square feet and we stack
over ten thousand different products.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Oh my god, that's more.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I mean, I'm sorry. You walk down the aisle of
home depot they have, if they're lucky, a couple hundreds.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Well, and you're dealing with Gary who just got his
job last week and can point out where the boxes are,
but has absolutely no idea what the right fixture is.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
And so when you look at commercial like this type
of product project here we also do design work on
the commercial. When I first started in the company, I
actually was working on the commercial side. Banks. We were
helping design lighting for banks, oh or we were designing
lighting for warehouses or office buildings, And I remember working
(23:14):
on quotes and all that other. So we do all
that too. We do design builds on with electrical contractors
on projects they're working on. So some of the big
warehouses here in town that have been converted to condos,
we work with those contractors and help design the lighting.
So there's a ton of different stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I get the idea that you're like me. People always
ask me, what are you going to retire? And I said, well,
you know, every day is different. I have no why
would I retire. I love what I do. I enjoy
going to work. Is that how you are? And when
you finally do, is there another gross behind you coming
in to take.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That's a good question. That's a good question.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I like the second part I question the most.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah. So no, I have no desire, no reason. I'm
I love what I do in case you couldn't tell.
And I do have another generation. I have two nephews
in the business, and then my son has just gotten
involved in helping us with our website, so we do
also have a fourth generation that is now involved in
(24:16):
the company. My nephews have been with the company well,
they worked all through when they were young in high school,
but full time for the last so that.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So Gross will continues even beyond, LORI, Gross, Yes, I
don't know if they're going to have your energy level,
but maybe there's some pharmaceuticals they can take to help
boost it to that point.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I'll leave you. I'll leave.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
We've gotta we gotta wrap up, Lori. I'm gonna leave
you with this. If you're the listening audience, if you
do have seasonal effective disorder, this is what I would suggest.
Go to Gross Electrics front store where there's two did
you say two thousand? Did I get that right? Two thousand.
I'm telling you, when you see the fixtures there and
you feel that light coming down on you, you it
will lift your spirits. I speak from experience on that.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
I can't tell you how many people drive by the
store and then they'll walk in and they'll just say,
it feels warman, especially.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Winning it does it does?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You're gonna get a whole bunch of traffic and no buyers. LORI,
sorry about that. Yeah, they're just coming in to feel better.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, you can't get that online, but if you want
to go online, it's Gross Electric dot com. Gross Electric
dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
And let me remind the listeners if you'd like to
help out the podcast, you certainly can like, follow and
subscribe the BBB Facebook page. Facebook loves it when you
do that, and that will help us drive more traffic
to the podcast if you're not able to, if you're
not able to listen to the podcast right away, but
you have, if you've liked, subscribed or following it, then
(25:38):
you're gonna get notices of it, along with a whole
bunch of great information from the BBB about scam avoidance.
And if you'd like to be a guest, simply email
us at Podgoblin at toledobbb dot org, Podgoblin at toledobbb
dot org, or if you just want to say hi,
Podgoblin at toledobbb dot org. Thank you, Lori Gross, third
generation from Gross Electric. Thanks, thank you for being on
(26:00):
the program.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Did you know our area has over forty thousand businesses.
Some are old, some are new, but they all have
a story to tell about why they sell, how someone
took a chance once upon a time, someone with a
heart for business. Hi, this is Lane Monts, the host
of the Better Business Bureaus Heart for Business podcast. We
know a thing or two about our area's companies. After all,
(26:22):
we've been keeping tabs on them since nineteen nineteen. Join
me in Toledo radio legend Fred la Fever every week
as our BBB superheroes tell their origin story and share
a few industry secrets along the way. Welcome back to
a Heart for Business by the Better Business Bureau of
Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan. This is the second half
of the program, program number six.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I have in the studio with me from Great Lakes
Benefits actually Great Lakes Benefits and Wealth Management. That's right, yes, serious,
I have Wayne Maslick and Andrew Brewer. And Wayne, you
look like you're going to be in charge today. I'm
just guessing.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yes, I got the front microphone.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
There, you got the front microphone. The seat of honor
and ann Andrew.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Typically the way it goes is he gets made fun
of because he's the sidekick.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
That's the normal?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Andrew, You're the robin to his batman. Is that how
this works?
Speaker 5 (27:10):
Going to make him look good?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well, so far it's working, Wayne good hiring the way
to bring him up, way to set that cultural tone
right there?
Speaker 4 (27:19):
Your switch seat here?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Is that how it works in the office. Is one
of you the founder of the company and one of
you got hired into the company or you co founders?
Speaker 6 (27:29):
Yeah, I'm the founder of the company. And Andrew is
a junior advisor. Studied to be a Certified Financial Planner. Ah,
and it's always wanted to be in the business. And
he's a friend of the family and perfect fit.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Excellent. Now are you a CFP? He said you studied,
So yeah, not yet.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
I don't have all the hours and I haven't passed
the test.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I know there's a lot of hoops you have to
jump through because I've talked to cfps and I was
told how important it is to have that designation. So
there's a big test that you have to take a
certain number of hours.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Yeah, you have to have four thousand hours apprenticeship man,
so it has to be. That's what I'm studying under Wayne.
He's a certified financial planner, Okay, and that's how I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So is that like Wayne, Is that like four eight
hours a day for however many days it takes to
get four thousand hours.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
Yeah, it's brutal. You know the CFP board that puts
on the designation. It wants to differentiate themselves, you know,
from the other financial professionals around, and they want the
CFP designation to be the gold standard. So the test
you have to pass is brutal.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
You know.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
It covers areas of property and casualty, insurance, taxes, estate planning, investments,
you know, law, investment law, being fiduciaries to people, you know,
making recommendations and putting the client first, not the company
or the products that you present. So it's the gold
stand or in the in the financial services industry.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you must consider it pretty important to get this
guy on board with the CFP as your one yourself.
Oh absolutely, Why is that important to somebody listening?
Speaker 6 (29:11):
Well, you know, there's a lot of people in the
financial services realm. I guess people that work at banks
or brokers, different financial institutions that they kind of.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Are salespeople, right.
Speaker 6 (29:24):
They sell stocks, they sell bonds, they sell mutual funds,
they sell annuities. Where we take more of an advisory role,
you know, we help the folks with their budgeting, their
retirement budgeting, their income planning, how they're going to pass
assets to their loved ones, their heirs, how they're going
to lower their taxes. We're very proactive with tax planning, right,
(29:45):
we just don't want to get a surprise in April,
right as tax time now. Too many people don't even
think about their taxes until you know, they're dump off
this pile of paper at their CPA's offers April. Yeah,
and then you know, hopefully the fourteenth of April, Yeah,
hopefully they town gets it done. But you know, we want,
we like our clients that know their tax position before
the year's out, right for December thirty first, so we
(30:08):
can make different moves and adjustments. You don't just want
to be surprised in April. And other financial professionals don't
go to that level, right, They just sell investments a
lot of right, That's just not what we That's part
of what we do. We offer investments and money management
right in the market and portfolios, and we also have
other things that are safe like CD's annuities, government notes,
that type of thing. So the full gamut of everyone
(30:29):
Adam out there, and many people don't do that as
a financial professional.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Okay, so Wayne, tell us a little bit about your story.
I don't know how long Great Lakes has been around.
I think I know that you have been doing it
longer than Great Lakes. But tell us, tell us how
you got into the business, why you got into the business,
and what it's all about.
Speaker 6 (30:50):
Yeah, kind of not to make it boring, but I
started at a large insurance company, John Hancock.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Many of you ever heard of that.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
I had a friend that started at Crudential and we
are at the same time. And after about five years
he left his company, I left mine and we started
this company.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Where are you located?
Speaker 6 (31:08):
So we have a few offices a Sandusky area where
we have a broad range of client you know, the
radius along the lake all the way to Toledo and
then all the way to Cleveland. I have an office
in Aliria, and I have an office in Florida, right
Saint Peter's.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Can I come down and stay that office in Florida
after the condo down there next to it.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Or put them in the waiting room and just keep
have the secretary He'll be right with ye.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Office does overlook the golf So it's kind of a yeah,
what am I doing here? Right?
Speaker 6 (31:41):
But yeah, so, uh, after that five year period, you know,
we you know, I kind of learned I didn't want
to offer just what the company pushes right, sell this,
sell this, do this. I wanted to have the freedom
to offer to my clients what I felt best suited
them for their particular situation. And you can't do that
(32:01):
working for a firm. You have to be you know,
you have to be the one that costs the shots.
So started the company. The company is about twenty five
years old now and I've been in the business right
another five so thirty years, and I'm an independent certified
financial planner.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I own the company. Buck stops with me.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
No excuses, and I make sure that we treat our
clients with their best interests first.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Well, and when it comes to money, I think that's
pretty key. You need to establish a relationship with people
that come in the office, right.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
Yeah, And then you know, I want to know about
their family, their situation, their history, what they like to do,
their hobbies. Do they have grandkids and it's an important
to leave an inheritance to their heirs. Do we have
to make sure there's money left? Are they concerned with
lowering their tax liability? Are they concerned with taxes at
death right? A lot of people save a lot of
money in four one k's and retirement plans and they've never.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Paid the tax on it? Right? So are they do they?
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Are they okay with their kids doing, you know, paying
that when they pass or do they want to have
a proactive plan to address that now? Right before they pass?
We make sure their estate documents are in order, right, wills, trust,
power of attorneys, a living will?
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Right?
Speaker 6 (33:15):
Do you want your plug pull? Do you want to
be necessitated? Oh that's important.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I just found out about that a few weeks ago.
As a matter of fact, So do you have a
in Sandusky, in Saint Petersburg and wherever the other offices are.
Do you have a relationship with local attorneys that So
if I come to you and you say, well, do
you have your power of attorney? Do you have your will?
Do or have your health papers? And I say no,
you say, well, here's a couple of recommendations. I work
(33:41):
with this guy and Alway's really good. He'll take carry you.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Yeah. I try not to promote any one attorney.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
We do have a CPA. We promote that we have.
We offer discount of tax service too far clients ninety bucks?
Oh well yeah, I pay the difference, so I subsidize
the difference. My clients love that. It's good to have
a good, real relationship with your certified financial planner, your CPA, right,
your accountant, and of course you're a good attorney. But yes,
(34:07):
there are attorneys at each location in my office. Is
that I can send people to that I know will
treat them right. But you know they don't work for
me or with me. It's just I just know they're
going to be they'll get their calls returned, they'll be
charged a fair.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Price because Wayne, and again I way back when I
was younger. I mean, I'm an attorney by trade, and
I can't tell you I worked at a private firm.
I can't tell you how many times, maybe once every
couple of months, a family or someone would come in
and they had gotten into the red zone on their
financial affairs, right, but they couldn't get it into the
(34:45):
end zone. They got into this, they got into the
red zone, but not into the end zone. And what
happened is somebody passed away, or there was an unexpected
divorce or something happened and they hadn't quite either completed
the legal documents, or they hadn't done the forward looking
tax planning, and it was a do disaster. They saved
all this money, they worked hard, they did supposedly did
everything right, and at the very end there was a
(35:06):
big problem. And you know who mostly benefited from.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
That big problem, the government. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Well, and there's a second class of people, my former friends.
I'm not going to name them, not going to name names,
but oh right, yeah yeah. But it was so sad
to see that. And then the family would turn on
each other and it's.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
Just I shake their head at right, Grandpa or Dad
that messed it all up? You know he was a
respected person, But how could dad do this? How could
he leave.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
These things un addressed? You know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (35:36):
And it's important to cover all aspects of your financial life,
you know, your financial house, not just save, but control
the taxes, control how the money and assets passed your heirs,
control your income and your income plan. And of course
on the back end, a lot of people don't think
about the nursing home, the home healthcare, the assisted living bills.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Those all need to.
Speaker 6 (36:00):
Be addressed, and a good financial plan covers all of
those areas most.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
And as a CFP, though, you're bringing all that stuff
together and you're making sure that none of those major
areas get missed. Is that Is that a big part
of what you're doing.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
Yeah, I would say that. I guess more precisely that
the clients. My clients are aware of all those I
don't miss talking to them about it and talking about solutions. Ultimately,
it's up to them to implement the certain things that
are needed to address each one of those areas.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
And some people know what they need to do.
Speaker 6 (36:36):
Or should do, but they procrastinate, or they just say
we're just not going to do that, or they just
never get around to it.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Nobody wants to think about this, right, I mean, I'm
going to be seventy four this year, and wow, quite frankly,
until last year when my guy told me, hey, you
really need to do this, I never thought about it.
I never thought about, Okay, I've got money invested, what's
going to happened to when I leave? I just thought assumed, oh,
my wife will get it all. Well, that ain't what happens.
(37:05):
We had to write everything down so that if she
was gone first and then I went where with the money?
And you know, all that kind of to people don't
I don't think they want to face it. Is that
what you find?
Speaker 6 (37:17):
Yeah, not everyone, but some, right, the ones that kind
of keep procrastinating and put things off, you know, they
it can be a big problem. And some of some
families too. Another issue is the daughter in laws or
the son in laws of the people, right, the clients
that have the money. You know, those in laws can
wind up with his money. Yeah right, once mom and
(37:38):
dad passed. And you know, I won't get into how
that can happen, but we've all probably heard about it.
That can all be addressed and protected so that doesn't happen.
There's things that folks worry about in retirement and as
they get older and further into retirement that can be
addressed and solved, but they have to work with somebody
that knows how to do it that key, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
If they're just selling a product and moving on, you're
probably not going to get that holistic approach. And you
won't just tell the audience how devastating can it be?
If you save this money, you think you're doing the
right thing. You do it for thirty or forty years,
but you haven't gone the extra step to have a
forward looking tax minimization plan. I'm not Those are words
(38:22):
I'm making up. I have no idea. It sounded good anyway,
it sounded good I thought, But it could be totally
made up, So don't don't fact check that. But how
devastating can it be?
Speaker 6 (38:35):
It could be very devastating. So just to give you
an idea, say somebody had saved a million dollars in
their company retirement plan. That's not uncommon for someone that
you know, saved for thirty forty years. That's the money's
never been taxed. So they a couple of things could happen. One,
they could make the beneficiary or contingent beneficiary of this
pile of money. They're revocable living trust. That's an that's
(39:01):
that's usually a no no.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Right.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
An IRA is an individual retirement account. That's what a
trust is, not an individual So that can be a
huge tax time bomb.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
They call it.
Speaker 6 (39:11):
So if that gets dispersed in the wrong manner, right,
a check it's made payable to that trust, or a
ten ninety nine is issued for this million bucks and
we know that's going to be at the highest tax
bracket and the taxes is owed all at once, or
if it was done properly, that the tax liability on
that money could have been stretched out over a ten
(39:32):
year period.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
So I could absolutely see somebody looking at their four
oh one K they're getting close to retirement, or maybe
they're even past it, and they say, well, I'm just
going to have all this money dumped into a trust,
a trust, and they download the trust from a from
online online or they use some online service. Then they're
not getting any personal help with that. And you're saying
that could be really bad even though it looks easy
(39:55):
to do, that could be a bad choice.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
Yeah, because you know the custodian wherever the money's at,
if it's Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard, and the beneficiary
designation says the Smith Family Revocable Living Trust. That's how
the track's getting made. So it'll be cut to the
Smith Family Vocal Living Trust and now it gets deposited
in that trust bank account. Right when dad dies or
mom passes, a ten ninety nine will be delivered.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
So, Andrew, how much of this are you understanding?
Speaker 5 (40:23):
Oh, I've been with Wyn for going on two years now,
so I've sat in and on plenty of meetings and
seeing how this affects people.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So you've taken your classes already to get to the CFP,
and you'll end up passing your test at some point
and then putting in the hours and stuff. So why
because I got to tell you this stuff boggles my mind.
I hate this kind of stuff because I just I
never wanted to think about it, and I don't think
most people do. So where did you get in? How
(40:54):
did you get into this?
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Well?
Speaker 5 (40:56):
I think it goes back to my grandpa. He was
always into finances and managing money, and he's a dude
to yourself for and he always did a really good job.
But I always joked. My first memory is watching the
ticker go by on the news, you know, watching the tickers.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Remember when they used to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, so Fred remembers when they were on paper.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, I remember when I used to come over over
the ticker machine.
Speaker 5 (41:21):
So I think it was kind of imprinted at a
young age. But as I got older, you know, I
was good at math, and then I knew I wanted
to help people. I just didn't know how yet. And
then you know, through knowing Wayne and asking questions like that,
I was able to discover that the CFP would be
a good path for me. And then I ended up
studying that at the University of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Really bear Cats.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
Yeah, go Bearcats. So that's that's kind of how it
came about. You know, I was good at math and
some influence from my grandpa and then Wayne.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
So this is where you're going to end up obviously.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
Yeah, this is my long term plan. I really enjoy
what we do and I think we, you know, make
a huge impact on people's lives, and that's a good feeling.
Speaker 6 (42:06):
He's got to be what ten fifteen years younger than you, right, Yeah,
Andrew's about twenty five and about twenty five years about
fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Okay, when you bring someone on like Andrew, and what's
the thought in your head? Are you acting as a
mentor for him and for the other people that you
bring into the company.
Speaker 6 (42:26):
Yeah, so definitely a mentor, right. I want to show
him the loop, the bring him in the loop, show him,
you know, how the business works, Introduce him to my clients.
I want to be able to travel and go to
Florida and spend a lot of time out of the office.
So my clients need to know they'll be taken care of.
And I have staff too, right, We have staff at
the office.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
So there's a level of trust obviously, and other people that.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
You're trust and building trust. And you know, ultimately, you know,
business owners need a business succession plan, and clients are
also concerned with, hey, what happens if you die or retire?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Way and the listing audience, many of whom will be
BBB businesses. You do need a succession plan.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
You have to.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
You got to have an exit plan if you're a
business owner. One of the most overlooked things I think
in business.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, never thought about that. What happens is, you know,
if you didn't have a succession plan, then the same
thing happens to you that would happen.
Speaker 6 (43:17):
To me if I didn't have one, right Yeah, it's
even worse because my clients are left on, you know,
without without support. So you know, I'm a registered investment
advisor in the state of Ohio, right so that makes
me a fiduciary. I don't I don't get paid commissions
for securities, right so, but as the division securities in Ohio,
(43:38):
they require that you have a business succession plan.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
Oh so, and you know right now.
Speaker 6 (43:44):
Ultimately, you know, Andrew works in the office, but he's
not an official right part of the succession there are
other people involved right now, but eventually if things work out,
you know, over time and the older I get, you know,
that's the plan is to have a young person like
Andrew professional to be able to take over the reins
sure and take care of our clientele.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
It sounds like you focus a lot of both Andrew
and Wayne on what's good for the client. As a producer,
you have to do that and as a CFP, yes,
you have to do that. How do you establish that relationship?
What's the first step in all of that?
Speaker 6 (44:21):
Well, take it slow so you know there there's usually
a half a dozen meetings that I have with clients,
usually an hour at a time in my office. Right,
I don't go to Euple's homes anymore. It's another reason
why Andrew. Andrew will travel, Right Andrew, who doesn't mind
going to folks homes?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Andrew, you will travel? Not? You might or may travel?
Did you catch that? Yes?
Speaker 1 (44:45):
And I do.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Yeah, I do a lot of driving.
Speaker 6 (44:48):
So you know, I look at myself as an educator
when I teach folks about retirement planning and go through
the steps. So there is no like, there's no sales, right,
it's all teaching them. It needs to be done A
big thing is expensive. They need to know their their lifestyle,
what it costs. That's the biggest thing before retirement. But
when you learn about their lifestyle and if they fish
(45:11):
or boat or travel, or they spoil their kids, their grandkids,
you know, I want to know where the money's going.
Are they going out to dinner every night? Or you
know they spend in one thousand or fifteen hundred a
month on food or their grocery bill. We need to
know what a cost for them to live and then
we can put together their income plan. But when you
learn about a person and their family and what's important
to them, and then you have multiple meetings before any
(45:31):
money gets managed, there's a level of trust and a
level of a relationship with those folks. So I'm not
just a or we're not just a mutual fund salesperson
right or in a new salesperson or a CD sales
person at the bank. You know, we're an advisor. We're
a trusted advisor, and that's what we pride ourselves on.
That's what we shoot for, all.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Right, Because everybody's different, everybody has a different risk aversion,
and there are people who don't want to be involved
in say the oil industry, you know, for whatever reason,
environmental reasons, whatever, and you need to know all of
that going into it to make correct decisions for that.
Speaker 6 (46:07):
Yeah, how they want to invest or do they want
to be you know, socially responsible with their money?
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Or you know, do they not want to risk? Right?
Speaker 6 (46:13):
How can they make a good rate of return and
not have to gamble with their money?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Right?
Speaker 6 (46:17):
There are people that don't want to be in the market,
and we have solutions for all that. You know, is
it important to leave the kids or grandkids and inheritance?
Speaker 4 (46:24):
You know, they saved this.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
Much money, we had eight hundred nine hundred million bucks.
Do we want to make sure there's a big trunk
of this left for our family?
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (46:31):
You know, the husband may be like, now we're we're okay, right,
We're gonna spend it to buy the boat. Yeah, you
know where the wife may be like, I want my
grand babies to have such right.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
So something that you said spoke to me because, of course,
over the course of my career, I've met with different
financial planners and I've had different ones in my life,
and there definitely were some that did not as you
use the words exact words take it slow. And the
ones that I felt comfortable with that I felt maybe
I wasn't getting as much value, but I think I
was getting the best vat you were the ones that
(47:01):
took the time to understand the whole situation and not
just rush to conclusion on something that feels like that's
got to be critical to your business model.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
It's critical to our business model, but you know, it's
not critical to the industry. It's their business model. There's
a lot out there that push it, you know, they
you know, they just boom, boom, make it, make it,
you know, in the first meeting, sometimes second meeting, and
then they move on to their next client and the
next client, the next client, and it's just like the
people are numbers, right almost like now when we go
into a doctor's office, right, we feel like there's a
(47:30):
number anymore. I don't want my clients to feel that way.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So how would somebody that's meeting with the financial planner,
how would they tease that out or figure that out?
What are some tips that you can give the listeners
if how am I going to be finding a financial
planner that is going to take some time with me
and not just rush to a sale. I mean, if
they could they ask directly, is that going to be helpful?
Or do you have to look for? Are there signs
(47:53):
to look for?
Speaker 6 (47:54):
Well, like on our website, you know it's Today's retirees
dot com. You know, people can go and see our process.
They could see first meeting, is this second meeting?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (48:03):
So that's one way you can look at their website.
You can ask them what is your process?
Speaker 4 (48:09):
You know, how long?
Speaker 6 (48:09):
How many meetings are we going to have before you
want me to make a decision on if I'm going
to use you or not, or if I'm going to
move my money to you. You know, that person may say, well,
I expect you to do that by the next meeting, right, wow?
Or some of these they'll say, hey, if you know,
if we come to a point where you feel comfortable
with my recommendations, will you be able to make a
decision at that point to move your money? They actually
(48:30):
look for that commitment. These other advisors out there, I
just don't do it that way, you know, just no pressure, zero,
no sales.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
When I'm ready, I'm ready, when you're ready.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
You're ready.
Speaker 6 (48:39):
Yeah, you know this isn't like the car sales business,
or you want to feel this is your money, this
is your livelihood. You want to make sure you make
the right decisions and don't make wrong ones, and you
want to feel good about it.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Should they also look and since it's critically important for
some of this stuff, if the person they're dealing with
is a fiduciary and if they're a if they have
CFP designation, and they can also check online right at FINRA,
s I p C.
Speaker 6 (49:06):
Or feral advisor check broker check right, there's all these
you can look. You can google, you look at you know,
you google someone's name. You see what's out there, if
there's any lawsuits or complaints. But you know, if they're
a CFP s for AFI financial Planner professional and they're
fiduciary a register investment advisor not a broker like a broker,
so gets commissioned for like mutual fund stocks and variable
(49:28):
annuities and stuff. They need to be tied with a
broker dealer, right instead of just being independent, and then
they have to you know, account to that broker dealer, right,
not the client to the broker. So you want an
investment advisor. In my opinion, a CFP is a huge plus,
and it's.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
Always good to talk to clients too.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
Some of these advisors, like myself, we have events, right
and we have okay people. You know, we haven't bring
guests and sometimes we do like workshops and things like that,
and you just want to to me, you just keep
you take it slow. You make sure the person has
the designation the CFP in my opinion, and their investment
advisors are not brokers. And that's a good that's like
(50:12):
probably seventy percent of your question.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
That's good starting spot.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
I just think that also, that approach Wayne, it just
works for this part of the country. You know, we're
not on the East coast, we're not on the on
the left coast. We're not in a big city Chicago,
and we have good Midwestern Great Lakes common sense. People
do take things a little slower here, or they prefer
to they prefer to think through it, but then when
they make a decision, they stick with it.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
It's not a revolving door. So I just think that
that's that business model makes a lot of sense for
where we live. Fred's giving me the signal, all right, already,
Fred's giving me the signal that we're out of time,
but I would like to have you back sometime to
talk more, maybe get into the nuts and bolts of
some different parts of the process that if you're willing, Oh,
of course, this is great.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah. If you want to establish a relationship with Wayne
and Andrew, go to Today's Retirees dot com Today's Retirees
dot com. You'll also find them on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Thank you Wayne, Thank you Andrew. Look forward to seeing
your on take Care for Lane months.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
I'm Fred Lafever. Thanks for listening to this episode of
A Heart for Business. Remember you can listen to this
podcast and any other podcasts at iHeartRadio or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts.
Welcome to a Heart for Business. I'm Fred Lefever and
along with Lane Months, President CEO the Better Business Bureau
of Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan, we'll highlight a local
business weekly. You'll discover why these small local business owners
have a passion for what they do and why the
(00:25):
Better Business Bureau has a Heart for Business. Now here's
Lane Months.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Thank you, Fred, and welcome everyone to the program. This
is episode number six of a Heart for Business podcast,
by the way, to the best of my knowledge, the
only Better Business Bureau podcast in the continental United States
so far. Anyway, We're recording today deep from the bowels
of the WSPD flagship station. Fred Lefever is behind the
(00:51):
big board and as I always say, Fred is there
to keep me from crashing the ship of this podcast
up onto the shore.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
You've been very, very close to crash a number of times.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now it's the drinking and that's the problem. Fred. So
we are here next to the Toledo mud Hens Stadium
and world famous Toledo mud Hens in the heart of
downtown Toledo, A beautiful, beautiful downtown it is. I'm here
today with my first guest, Lori Gross of Gross Electric.
And if you are a listener in the northwest Ohio
and southeast Michigan area, you will be very aware. If
(01:22):
you've ever had a project, or you're in the construction
industry or the construction supply industry, or you've just driven
down Reynolds Road in Toledo, you have eventually passed Gross Electric.
It's been there for a long time. Laurie, welcome to
the program.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Thank you very much. Lane and Fred yep.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And so the first thing I want to talk about,
because I know Fred does not know this, and he
will be impressed by this. I do believe how old
is Gross Electric?
Speaker 3 (01:49):
This is our one hundred and fifteenth anniversary this year.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
I thought I was doing good celebrating forty five years
in radio.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
The other day.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
You've probably been in your location more than forty five years.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
We've been on Reynolds Road since nineteen sixty seven, I
think somewhere in the early mid sixties.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Were still in high school.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Then, yeah, and we were downtown where Ford Industry Square
is for sixty five years.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
We were you really, yeah, used to be in Ford
Industry Square, right.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
My dad's the one that worked on making that whole
black historic black so they couldn't tear it down in
the early seventies. He and I can't think of this right.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Probably Fraser reams.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
No, no, uh sorry, I can't think of it.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
That's okay.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Well they did that, yeah, and then they he's the
one that sold it to the guys who first developed
Ford Industry.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
That's awesome. So my studio was up on the fourth
floor there at Ford Industry Square. We had a beautiful view.
I had no idea that they were at one point
considered tearing that down.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Right, And my dad's office was right behind where the
new clock tower is. I remember that clock tower being
out there all the time. Pictures of our showroom down
there we had. We were in three buildings, four floors.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, that's pretty cool. So BBB in this area. RBBB
started in nineteen nineteen. So is that the same year
that Gross started. That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
You're got your beat?
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, no, no, she's.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Got your beat.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, my grandfather that you might. I might have to
look this up. At some point, you might be the
longest surviving business in the Better Business Bureau. And that's
you know, we've got almost six thousand businesses. You might
be the longest continuous business. And I know, I know
you didn't found it, Lori, you were second. You mentioned
your debt, your third generation, third generation business. So I
(03:42):
just love to hear that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Fred.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
I think you do too.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
You love to hear that, Ed, I have a business
on air dibbling floor covering down in Mommy third generation
owners too, and they started back just after World War Two?
But is this what you imagined you were going to
be doing? So, well, let's go back. You know you're
twelve years old, you're just having a grand all time.
Did you think you were going to end up in
(04:05):
your dad's in grandpa's business.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
There was no way I was going into business. I
had no desires.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Happened along the way? Did that?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Actually? My major in college was radio, TV Film?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Was it? Really?
Speaker 3 (04:19):
My first job was working for a radio station in Toledo.
I don't even remember which one it is anymore, but
I worked at a radio station here, and when I
graduated college, there were no jobs, and so my dad said, well,
you can come work for me. And we all know
that media is not necessarily the best paying job. So
every time I got offered a job, my dad said,
(04:41):
I'll pay you more than that and that's the way.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Dad had a plan even if you didn't have a plan.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So okay, so you couldn't get into radio, probably a
smart move. Where did you start engross electric? Did he
didn't give you a position right away? Did he? I
bet he started.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
I was doing marketing. I worked downtown on Summit Street,
and I was doing marketing, and then I people within
the company got sick or moved and I ended up
doing every single office job there was. And we had
a store in ann Arbor. We've been in ann Arbor
since nineteen sixty seven. And our manager decided to quit
and he said, all right, well, why don't you go
up to an Arbor and try sales? And if you
(05:23):
don't like it, I won't make his stay anymore. And
once I got into sales, I was it.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Was it really love saying why why did you love sales?
Because I did sales for radio and I hated it
because I hate all the nose you get when you're
selling in radio. Why did you like sales?
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Well? The difference is people are walking in our store
for a reason, so I just have to figure out
what that reason is and sell them the best product
for that.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Okay, so it's not.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Like radio sales where you're going and trying to convince
them to buy from you. They're walking in already and
they need something. I just need to figure out what
it is.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Plus, if I can offer an observation, Lorie's on the
board of directors. I believe your dad was a chairman
of the board of directors at the BBB at one time.
If you know Laurie at all, she probably didn't get
a whole lot of no's anyway. She probably didn't have
that traumatic experience that so many salespeople you've got.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Are we going to contribute that to your forcefulness as
a salesperson or your likability as a salesperson?
Speaker 3 (06:22):
I'm not. I will plead the fifth.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Could you take the fifth on that, Lauri? Either way?
Speaker 3 (06:26):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So I just think, you know, when I heard about
how long Gross had been around, and of course I
was familiar with it, but not not as familiar as
I have since become about it, I'm like, one hundred
and fifteen years, we got to have we got to
have that business. So, I mean, that's that's tremendous. I
mean to predate the BBB, which is one hundred and
five years is really something, and that had the same name,
(06:49):
the same family to be a mainstay in the community.
To me, that's what a heart for business is all about.
I just love to hear that story. So, so Fred's
already gotten you to tease out some you know, tease
out some of your story. What do you like best
about it? And what do you be honest? Now, what
do you like least about it?
Speaker 3 (07:06):
My showroom people will laugh because every time I'm just
totally frustrated with everything on the computer and I'm tired
of working my emails all day. The first thing I'll
do is go out and start waiting on customers on
the showroom floor. Really because I love selling lighting. I
love selling anything, but I love selling lighting, and I
(07:27):
love working with contractors on projects and bidding jobs. There's
very little about the sales end of the business that
I don't enjoy. Why do I enjoy least?
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Careful?
Speaker 2 (07:41):
We'll see it just to remind you we are being
we are recording people wear it.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Now you know, I really like every
part of the business. There's I know it sounds, but
there's times I like to sit there and go through
the numbers and figure out how we can be doing better.
There's time. I'd rather just have lunch with some of
our people and talk through love, brainstorming, love marketing.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
What about this? What about when a contractor comes to
you and says, Laurie, we're building this house and we
forgot to send the customer and we don't have any
of the lighting picked out, and we got to have
the house ready in the next twenty one days.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
That's not a problem. Actually, my most unfavorite thing is
I've spent all the time and energy, or my team
has spent all the time and energy. We've bit a job,
we've designed the job, we've worked with a contract or,
our homeowner, a builder, and they we find out they
just went onto Amazon and took all of our products
that we picked with them and just said, okay, we're
(08:39):
just gonna buy it online because you know, they beat
you by one hundred dollars. What So, if you ask
me my most unfavorite, it's when customers don't appreciate all
the service and everything we've done and just say, well,
somebody's price is lower.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Yeah, that's a fair comp I think that's a fair comment.
Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, And a couple of things you just mentioned I
wouldn't have guessed that you did. I drove by it
one hundred times, and I always thought that you just
sold lighting, that you know sold lighting fixtures, or that
you are the guys that have installed all the wires
and everything for Then I see your website, which is
gross electric dot com, and I see besides the fixtures,
(09:22):
and you just mentioned designs. So you're involved right from
the get go. If I'm building a home, I can
come to you and say, here's what I'm building. I've
got this many rooms.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
What you can you ring in your blueprint and we
will help you lay out the lighting, will help you
decide what you need. Do you want to use recess,
do you want to use decorative? What style do you want?
We have actually we have a number of people who
are actually have design degrees on staff. But everybody is
certified by the American Lighting Association.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I'm pretty sure the audience would have no idea that
you can become certified by a trade organization in lighting, Like,
what does that mean? Exact?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
So it means that you've taken classes. You have to
have so many hours of education, you have to pass
a test. We have a huge book. It's about a
three inch book, just talking about all the difference in lighting,
you know, really say, it's interesting. People think lighting is
a commodity. Hey, I just go online. I look for
a black pennant. That's it. I say. True lighting is
(10:23):
a combination of science and design. It's art and science.
So we're sitting in Fred's studio here.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I was just going to ask you, what do you
think it's perfect?
Speaker 3 (10:34):
It's very well lit. You've got you know, led going
around the side, so there's not glare on your computer screens.
Someone took a lot of time and effort, but it
still looks nice.
Speaker 1 (10:44):
Yeah, and when I walk in, well, when we leave,
this will turn itself all off.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Right, and so we carry all the controls and everything too.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
And when I come in, it comes on it and
then I have it bright right now. But in the morning,
if I don't want it this break because I'm just
waking up. Controls allow me to bring it down. And
if I have a guest that doesn't like it this bright,
I can bring it down. So this is a good design.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
It's a very good design. And actually what you just
talked about is one of the hottest topics in lighting
right now, really, which is circadian rhythm lighting, particularly for
schools for assisted living or you know, independent living or
nursing homes circadium rhythm lighting because people haven't really paid
attention to lighting, even though it's everywhere around us. Nobody
(11:29):
pays attention to it. So you walk in and it's warning.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Unless it's bad. No, if the lighting is bad, then
you pay attention to it, but you don't know why
you're paying it. You're like, you don't know why it's
setting you on edge. The beautiful light design job is
the one that you don't have to think about because
it complements you, your body, your mood perfectly. That's my anyway.
You're right.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
So in the mornings, do you really want to wake
up in your bedroom to five? I'll call them like
the old fashioned fluorescence, five big fluorescence going boom, wake up.
I know you want something that gradually gets cooler. In
the midday, you wanted a cooler color. As the night
comes on, you wanted a warmer color. So there's a
ton of science going on right now with circadian rhythms
(12:12):
and what people need to do.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
So no more comfortable. I'm a little older, I'm seventy three.
I'll be seventy four this year, and I've noticed, and
I didn't know it's called circadians, but I've noticed. I
don't like the glare later at night. I want things
to be a little bit cooler at night as I
get ready to go to bed, because I need to
get you know, five hours of sleep at least tonight.
(12:37):
Are we finding? Is the science showing that it also
involves age?
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Well, so the science on age is there already. As
we age, our eyes get a little more yellow. We
can't see So you and I aren't that different in age.
We can't see colors, we can't see brightness, We can't
see any of that the way say Lane does.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Or a twenty year old and your eyes you're drying
too as you're giving you don't think I'm I'm not
a twenty You don't think I'm a twenty year old.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Want I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give you a
billion dollar lighting idea. Are you ready? I'm gonna blow
your mind. Lourie lighting that makes hair look thicker for men.
You figure that out, you're golden.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
That and figuring out retail store traffic. That would be
the other billion of the idea. But we can't see
as well, and we're much more sensitive to glare. So
as you look at older people in a facility and
you have younger people working in the facility, but they're
taking care of older people, they're not necessarily paying attention
to that. Or in your home, you know, the hot
(13:40):
product out there has been clear glass pendants with clear bulbs.
You put that in you're my house and we're going,
oh my god, oh my gosh. You know, you walk
in and it's like this beacon of light in your
eye versus someone who's in their twenties who may not
bother at all because they're just not as sensitive.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
So as and we're using the computers more. Every night,
I'm in front of my laptop for two to three
hours with either the lighting on the top of my
den ceiling or you know one of those goofy three
bulb torch lamps sitting next to me facing down on it.
And you're absolutely right, it bothers the hell out of me.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
That's right. So that's part of the science. But everybody says, oh,
this is the style. So I'm going to put these
three pennants over my kitchen. They walk in my showroom
we're all varying ages, and we don't necessarily shower age.
But I will turn the light on it and I'll say,
how does that look to you? And let's says and
they go, oh my god, that's so glary. All right, well,
(14:40):
you just showed me three pennants like that for your kitchen.
If they hadn't walked in, they would have bought them
on Amazon. They would have hung them up, and then
they wanted to walked in and go I don't like
the way my kitchen looks because nobody stay out there
and said to them, hey, you need to be aware
of this. Take a look at it. We should be
doing maybe more of a white glass or something that
(15:01):
the ball isn't obvious to us. So those are the
little things that are the science behind lighting, not just
it looks pretty. Let me throw it up.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
Was it always like this? Or when did this start?
When did people start to realize this? And when did
you guys start to realize this and work with your
customers on it.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So I would say that, you know, if we go
back fifty years, and I've been in my business just
a little longer than you have, But if you go
back fifty years.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
One hundred and fifteen years.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Yeah, right right, yeah, but the lighting everything was incandescent.
It was all soft. The fluorescent didn't even come out
till the fifties, so it was all Although the original
light bulb was a glare bomb, let's be clear. But
still people were putting shades on things. They had white glass.
(15:49):
You look at all these old fixtures, they're all white glass.
If you think about old gas lamps. We started as
a gas appliance business, meaning we sold gas fixtures, lighting fixtures.
That's our first name was Toledo Gas Appliants. Oh wow,
in nineteen ten, there wasn't a whole lot of electric
cat But you think about it, nobody looked at a
gas chat. They needed a white glass in front of
(16:11):
it to protect it. Then the light bulb came out
and you still had the white glass to protect it.
Now people have all these LEDs and they are super bright.
They need to be protected. But everybody's like, give me
a ton of light, give me a ton of light,
give me a ton light, and thinking about the true
effect of what that light is doing. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because you know
my kids are in their twenties and I turned the
lights down in the evening, particularly after a long day
of working. Maybe I guess it's my age. I didn't
really realize that I'm like, I like a softer ambiyance
in my home in the evening. My kids will come
in for the holidays or whatever. First, then they do
blow those lights up to maximum. They turn them on.
They make fun of me even for turning them down.
(16:53):
Because I have dimmer switches. I'm more comfortable with that.
I would never have thought about what you said until
till you said it.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
So one of my big pet peeves right now is
all the blue light the people are putting into their homes.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah, what's some put them hospital?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
I'm in a hospital, Well you do, so there.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
People seem to think that if it's bluer, it's brighter color.
The color of your light has nothing to do with
how much light is coming out of it. So there's
it's called Calvin to Greek Calvin and sunlight is sixty
five hundred to Greek Calvin, and good old fashioned in
condescin is twenty seven hundred. So that's a huge range
(17:33):
of color. And what I'm seeing people put in their
houses is they say, well, I want it to look
like daylight. But the problem is daylight has a ton
of spectrum, and when you.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Put something's very layered, it's a layer type of light.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
And when you think of going outside at noon in
the sun, how much of it is about how warm
the sun feels versus how bright? Do you want your
house to look like a sunny day in the middle
of winter. When the people put these five thousand cave
recess lights in their homes or decorate halbs, it's like
going outside in the middle of winter. There's no warmth
(18:08):
to it. When you walk in people's houses that look
like that, you just feel like this house just doesn't
feel warm than cozy. I'll give you one more example.
When you go to McDonald's, how do you feel I
want to get in and out right? Well, if you
go to a really nice restaurant, until you know, if
you go to a Georgios.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Or something like that, it's quite a bit dark warm, yes.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Really warm, and stay there and be comfortable.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
J Alexander's is a perfect example.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
So do you want to put McDonald's out lighting in
your home? Because when you put those five thousand k
or those really blue lights in your home. You're putting
McDonald's lighting in there. And so I'm working with our
the Tech and Engineering department of our Lighting Association to
try and write an article people are talking about anxiety
that we're talking about depression, and I'm saying part of
(18:57):
that is because we're putting this blue life in people's
homes and they feel like, I got to be going,
I gotta be doing I gotta be doing this because
it's not warm, it's not relaxing, it's not comfortable.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
You know, it's weird Because one of my former hosts
was told he had sad yep in winter, right, and
so they convinced him he needed a happy lamp and
he had one at his desk and every morning when
he would come in, didn't have lighting like this, and
he would turn on his happy lamp first. Do those
things actually work? Is that part of the science.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
So what they say about seasonal effective, and we used
to sell those lamps. You're trying to trick your body
to have the circadian rhythm of summer. So the idea
is that in the morning, when we wake up now
and it's dark, if you turn that light on, your
body will feel more like it's normal summer because you're
(19:53):
giving it more light early in the morning, okay, and
then at night you try and extend your day a
little further. Instead of getting dark at five, you're turning
on that lamp so you feel like it's summer, and
that's supposed to help the sand. You don't keep it
on all day, No, it's just more about morning and
evening to try and trick your body into feeling like
it's still summer and there's more light around you.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Fred, if only Laurie really had a heart for her business,
If only Lauri really, I mean, we squeezed you into
this program, but I don't know if your views on
the world are consistent with a heart for business. I
just can't tell that.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I'm curious because you started, well, obviously quite some time ago.
You said you've been in the business longer than me,
and I've been here forty five years. Did that passion
start right away or did you kind of grow into
this because you seem really excited about all of these things,
and it doesn't seem like you've ever stopped learning about
(20:49):
any of these things.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's what's so interesting about lighting. There was some article
I think it was in the Blader somewhere where they
talked about people who get bored with their jobs. Right
that you're coming in and you're doing the same thing
day after day. Part of the fun of your job,
for it is no day is the same, never my day,
No day is the same. I'm waiting on different customers.
(21:10):
Led revitalized the industry every day. I learned something new
about lighting every single day. So people who say, well,
I know lighting, I look at them and I go, well,
you know, I just found out about this new recess light.
I bet you've never heard of that. No, what does
it do? Well, you know I can do this and
this on. So it's the advantage of our industry is
it's constantly evolving, constantly, and that's what makes it fun
(21:35):
because I've never stopped learning. I go to markets during
the year, I learn about new products. Where a fashion industry,
new lights are coming out four times a year, there's
new products, old stuff is being discontinued. And so you
asked when one of my first jobs. We also do
sell electrical supplies, pipe wire, switches, plug everything in your
(21:58):
house or your business.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
We see you sell stuff that it's really hard to
You'll never find it at one of the big box stores.
Happens never there's so much specialty equipment to install lighting
fixtures or for a particular application and a particular business,
you're not going to get at very many places. I
do know that Gross has always been the reliable place.
If you can't find that component anywhere else, you definitely
(22:21):
can get it from Gross.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Right, So we have over two thousand products on displaying
in the showrooms in our warehouse. Our warehouse and just
Reynolds Road is twenty thousand square feet and we stack
over ten thousand different products.
Speaker 4 (22:37):
Oh my god, that's more.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I mean, I'm sorry. You walk down the aisle of
home depot they have, if they're lucky, a couple hundreds.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Well, and you're dealing with Gary who just got his
job last week and can point out where the boxes are,
but has absolutely no idea what the right fixture is.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
And so when you look at commercial like this type
of product project here we also do design work on
the commercial. When I first started in the company, I
actually was working on the commercial side. Banks. We were
helping design lighting for banks, oh or we were designing
lighting for warehouses or office buildings, And I remember working
(23:14):
on quotes and all that other. So we do all
that too. We do design builds on with electrical contractors
on projects they're working on. So some of the big
warehouses here in town that have been converted to condos,
we work with those contractors and help design the lighting.
So there's a ton of different stuff.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
I get the idea that you're like me. People always
ask me, what are you going to retire? And I said, well,
you know, every day is different. I have no why
would I retire. I love what I do. I enjoy
going to work. Is that how you are? And when
you finally do, is there another gross behind you coming
in to take.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
That's a good question. That's a good question.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
I like that.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
I like the second part I question the most.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
Yeah. So no, I have no desire, no reason. I'm
I love what I do in case you couldn't tell.
And I do have another generation. I have two nephews
in the business, and then my son has just gotten
involved in helping us with our website, so we do
also have a fourth generation that is now involved in
(24:16):
the company. My nephews have been with the company well,
they worked all through when they were young in high school,
but full time for the last so that.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So Gross will continues even beyond, LORI, Gross, Yes, I
don't know if they're going to have your energy level,
but maybe there's some pharmaceuticals they can take to help
boost it to that point.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
I'll leave you. I'll leave.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
We've gotta we gotta wrap up, Lori. I'm gonna leave
you with this. If you're the listening audience, if you
do have seasonal effective disorder, this is what I would suggest.
Go to Gross Electrics front store where there's two did
you say two thousand? Did I get that right? Two thousand.
I'm telling you, when you see the fixtures there and
you feel that light coming down on you, you it
will lift your spirits. I speak from experience on that.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
I can't tell you how many people drive by the
store and then they'll walk in and they'll just say,
it feels warman, especially.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Winning it does it does?
Speaker 2 (25:04):
You're gonna get a whole bunch of traffic and no buyers. LORI,
sorry about that. Yeah, they're just coming in to feel better.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Well, you can't get that online, but if you want
to go online, it's Gross Electric dot com. Gross Electric
dot com.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
And let me remind the listeners if you'd like to
help out the podcast, you certainly can like, follow and
subscribe the BBB Facebook page. Facebook loves it when you
do that, and that will help us drive more traffic
to the podcast if you're not able to, if you're
not able to listen to the podcast right away, but
you have, if you've liked, subscribed or following it, then
(25:38):
you're gonna get notices of it, along with a whole
bunch of great information from the BBB about scam avoidance.
And if you'd like to be a guest, simply email
us at Podgoblin at toledobbb dot org, Podgoblin at toledobbb
dot org, or if you just want to say hi,
Podgoblin at toledobbb dot org. Thank you, Lori Gross, third
generation from Gross Electric. Thanks, thank you for being on
(26:00):
the program.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Did you know our area has over forty thousand businesses.
Some are old, some are new, but they all have
a story to tell about why they sell, how someone
took a chance once upon a time, someone with a
heart for business. Hi, this is Lane Monts, the host
of the Better Business Bureaus Heart for Business podcast. We
know a thing or two about our area's companies. After all,
(26:22):
we've been keeping tabs on them since nineteen nineteen. Join
me in Toledo radio legend Fred la Fever every week
as our BBB superheroes tell their origin story and share
a few industry secrets along the way. Welcome back to
a Heart for Business by the Better Business Bureau of
Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan. This is the second half
of the program, program number six.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I have in the studio with me from Great Lakes
Benefits actually Great Lakes Benefits and Wealth Management. That's right, yes, serious,
I have Wayne Maslick and Andrew Brewer. And Wayne, you
look like you're going to be in charge today. I'm
just guessing.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Yes, I got the front microphone.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
There, you got the front microphone. The seat of honor
and ann Andrew.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Typically the way it goes is he gets made fun
of because he's the sidekick.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
That's the normal?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Andrew, You're the robin to his batman. Is that how
this works?
Speaker 5 (27:10):
Going to make him look good?
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Well, so far it's working, Wayne good hiring the way
to bring him up, way to set that cultural tone
right there?
Speaker 4 (27:19):
Your switch seat here?
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Is that how it works in the office. Is one
of you the founder of the company and one of
you got hired into the company or you co founders?
Speaker 6 (27:29):
Yeah, I'm the founder of the company. And Andrew is
a junior advisor. Studied to be a Certified Financial Planner. Ah,
and it's always wanted to be in the business. And
he's a friend of the family and perfect fit.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Excellent. Now are you a CFP? He said you studied,
So yeah, not yet.
Speaker 5 (27:46):
I don't have all the hours and I haven't passed
the test.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
I know there's a lot of hoops you have to
jump through because I've talked to cfps and I was
told how important it is to have that designation. So
there's a big test that you have to take a
certain number of hours.
Speaker 5 (28:01):
Yeah, you have to have four thousand hours apprenticeship man,
so it has to be. That's what I'm studying under Wayne.
He's a certified financial planner, Okay, and that's how I'm learning.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
So is that like Wayne, Is that like four eight
hours a day for however many days it takes to
get four thousand hours.
Speaker 6 (28:19):
Yeah, it's brutal. You know the CFP board that puts
on the designation. It wants to differentiate themselves, you know,
from the other financial professionals around, and they want the
CFP designation to be the gold standard. So the test
you have to pass is brutal.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
You know.
Speaker 6 (28:41):
It covers areas of property and casualty, insurance, taxes, estate planning, investments,
you know, law, investment law, being fiduciaries to people, you know,
making recommendations and putting the client first, not the company
or the products that you present. So it's the gold
stand or in the in the financial services industry.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you must consider it pretty important to get this
guy on board with the CFP as your one yourself.
Oh absolutely, Why is that important to somebody listening?
Speaker 6 (29:11):
Well, you know, there's a lot of people in the
financial services realm. I guess people that work at banks
or brokers, different financial institutions that they kind of.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Are salespeople, right.
Speaker 6 (29:24):
They sell stocks, they sell bonds, they sell mutual funds,
they sell annuities. Where we take more of an advisory role,
you know, we help the folks with their budgeting, their
retirement budgeting, their income planning, how they're going to pass
assets to their loved ones, their heirs, how they're going
to lower their taxes. We're very proactive with tax planning, right,
(29:45):
we just don't want to get a surprise in April,
right as tax time now. Too many people don't even
think about their taxes until you know, they're dump off
this pile of paper at their CPA's offers April. Yeah,
and then you know, hopefully the fourteenth of April, Yeah,
hopefully they town gets it done. But you know, we want,
we like our clients that know their tax position before
the year's out, right for December thirty first, so we
(30:08):
can make different moves and adjustments. You don't just want
to be surprised in April. And other financial professionals don't
go to that level, right, They just sell investments a
lot of right, That's just not what we That's part
of what we do. We offer investments and money management
right in the market and portfolios, and we also have
other things that are safe like CD's annuities, government notes,
that type of thing. So the full gamut of everyone
(30:29):
Adam out there, and many people don't do that as
a financial professional.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Okay, so Wayne, tell us a little bit about your story.
I don't know how long Great Lakes has been around.
I think I know that you have been doing it
longer than Great Lakes. But tell us, tell us how
you got into the business, why you got into the business,
and what it's all about.
Speaker 6 (30:50):
Yeah, kind of not to make it boring, but I
started at a large insurance company, John Hancock.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Many of you ever heard of that.
Speaker 6 (30:56):
I had a friend that started at Crudential and we
are at the same time. And after about five years
he left his company, I left mine and we started
this company.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Where are you located?
Speaker 6 (31:08):
So we have a few offices a Sandusky area where
we have a broad range of client you know, the
radius along the lake all the way to Toledo and
then all the way to Cleveland. I have an office
in Aliria, and I have an office in Florida, right
Saint Peter's.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Can I come down and stay that office in Florida
after the condo down there next to it.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
Or put them in the waiting room and just keep
have the secretary He'll be right with ye.
Speaker 4 (31:34):
Office does overlook the golf So it's kind of a yeah,
what am I doing here? Right?
Speaker 6 (31:41):
But yeah, so, uh, after that five year period, you know,
we you know, I kind of learned I didn't want
to offer just what the company pushes right, sell this,
sell this, do this. I wanted to have the freedom
to offer to my clients what I felt best suited
them for their particular situation. And you can't do that
(32:01):
working for a firm. You have to be you know,
you have to be the one that costs the shots.
So started the company. The company is about twenty five
years old now and I've been in the business right
another five so thirty years, and I'm an independent certified
financial planner.
Speaker 4 (32:17):
I own the company. Buck stops with me.
Speaker 6 (32:21):
No excuses, and I make sure that we treat our
clients with their best interests first.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Well, and when it comes to money, I think that's
pretty key. You need to establish a relationship with people
that come in the office, right.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
Yeah, And then you know, I want to know about
their family, their situation, their history, what they like to do,
their hobbies. Do they have grandkids and it's an important
to leave an inheritance to their heirs. Do we have
to make sure there's money left? Are they concerned with
lowering their tax liability? Are they concerned with taxes at
death right? A lot of people save a lot of
money in four one k's and retirement plans and they've never.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
Paid the tax on it? Right? So are they do they?
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Are they okay with their kids doing, you know, paying
that when they pass or do they want to have
a proactive plan to address that now? Right before they pass?
We make sure their estate documents are in order, right, wills, trust,
power of attorneys, a living will?
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Right?
Speaker 6 (33:15):
Do you want your plug pull? Do you want to
be necessitated? Oh that's important.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I just found out about that a few weeks ago.
As a matter of fact, So do you have a
in Sandusky, in Saint Petersburg and wherever the other offices are.
Do you have a relationship with local attorneys that So
if I come to you and you say, well, do
you have your power of attorney? Do you have your will?
Do or have your health papers? And I say no,
you say, well, here's a couple of recommendations. I work
(33:41):
with this guy and Alway's really good. He'll take carry you.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
Yeah. I try not to promote any one attorney.
Speaker 6 (33:47):
We do have a CPA. We promote that we have.
We offer discount of tax service too far clients ninety bucks?
Oh well yeah, I pay the difference, so I subsidize
the difference. My clients love that. It's good to have
a good, real relationship with your certified financial planner, your CPA, right,
your accountant, and of course you're a good attorney. But yes,
(34:07):
there are attorneys at each location in my office. Is
that I can send people to that I know will
treat them right. But you know they don't work for
me or with me. It's just I just know they're
going to be they'll get their calls returned, they'll be
charged a fair.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Price because Wayne, and again I way back when I
was younger. I mean, I'm an attorney by trade, and
I can't tell you I worked at a private firm.
I can't tell you how many times, maybe once every
couple of months, a family or someone would come in
and they had gotten into the red zone on their
financial affairs, right, but they couldn't get it into the
(34:45):
end zone. They got into this, they got into the
red zone, but not into the end zone. And what
happened is somebody passed away, or there was an unexpected
divorce or something happened and they hadn't quite either completed
the legal documents, or they hadn't done the forward looking
tax planning, and it was a do disaster. They saved
all this money, they worked hard, they did supposedly did
everything right, and at the very end there was a
(35:06):
big problem. And you know who mostly benefited from.
Speaker 4 (35:10):
That big problem, the government. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Well, and there's a second class of people, my former friends.
I'm not going to name them, not going to name names,
but oh right, yeah yeah. But it was so sad
to see that. And then the family would turn on
each other and it's.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
Just I shake their head at right, Grandpa or Dad
that messed it all up? You know he was a
respected person, But how could dad do this? How could
he leave.
Speaker 4 (35:32):
These things un addressed? You know what I mean?
Speaker 6 (35:36):
And it's important to cover all aspects of your financial life,
you know, your financial house, not just save, but control
the taxes, control how the money and assets passed your heirs,
control your income and your income plan. And of course
on the back end, a lot of people don't think
about the nursing home, the home healthcare, the assisted living bills.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Those all need to.
Speaker 6 (36:00):
Be addressed, and a good financial plan covers all of
those areas most.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
And as a CFP, though, you're bringing all that stuff
together and you're making sure that none of those major
areas get missed. Is that Is that a big part
of what you're doing.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
Yeah, I would say that. I guess more precisely that
the clients. My clients are aware of all those I
don't miss talking to them about it and talking about solutions. Ultimately,
it's up to them to implement the certain things that
are needed to address each one of those areas.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
And some people know what they need to do.
Speaker 6 (36:36):
Or should do, but they procrastinate, or they just say
we're just not going to do that, or they just
never get around to it.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Nobody wants to think about this, right, I mean, I'm
going to be seventy four this year, and wow, quite frankly,
until last year when my guy told me, hey, you
really need to do this, I never thought about it.
I never thought about, Okay, I've got money invested, what's
going to happened to when I leave? I just thought assumed, oh,
my wife will get it all. Well, that ain't what happens.
(37:05):
We had to write everything down so that if she
was gone first and then I went where with the money?
And you know, all that kind of to people don't
I don't think they want to face it. Is that
what you find?
Speaker 6 (37:17):
Yeah, not everyone, but some, right, the ones that kind
of keep procrastinating and put things off, you know, they
it can be a big problem. And some of some
families too. Another issue is the daughter in laws or
the son in laws of the people, right, the clients
that have the money. You know, those in laws can
wind up with his money. Yeah right, once mom and
(37:38):
dad passed. And you know, I won't get into how
that can happen, but we've all probably heard about it.
That can all be addressed and protected so that doesn't happen.
There's things that folks worry about in retirement and as
they get older and further into retirement that can be
addressed and solved, but they have to work with somebody
that knows how to do it that key, you know, And.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
If they're just selling a product and moving on, you're
probably not going to get that holistic approach. And you
won't just tell the audience how devastating can it be?
If you save this money, you think you're doing the
right thing. You do it for thirty or forty years,
but you haven't gone the extra step to have a
forward looking tax minimization plan. I'm not Those are words
(38:22):
I'm making up. I have no idea. It sounded good anyway,
it sounded good I thought, But it could be totally
made up, So don't don't fact check that. But how
devastating can it be?
Speaker 6 (38:35):
It could be very devastating. So just to give you
an idea, say somebody had saved a million dollars in
their company retirement plan. That's not uncommon for someone that
you know, saved for thirty forty years. That's the money's
never been taxed. So they a couple of things could happen. One,
they could make the beneficiary or contingent beneficiary of this
pile of money. They're revocable living trust. That's an that's
(39:01):
that's usually a no no.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
Right.
Speaker 6 (39:03):
An IRA is an individual retirement account. That's what a
trust is, not an individual So that can be a
huge tax time bomb.
Speaker 4 (39:10):
They call it.
Speaker 6 (39:11):
So if that gets dispersed in the wrong manner, right,
a check it's made payable to that trust, or a
ten ninety nine is issued for this million bucks and
we know that's going to be at the highest tax
bracket and the taxes is owed all at once, or
if it was done properly, that the tax liability on
that money could have been stretched out over a ten
(39:32):
year period.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
So I could absolutely see somebody looking at their four
oh one K they're getting close to retirement, or maybe
they're even past it, and they say, well, I'm just
going to have all this money dumped into a trust,
a trust, and they download the trust from a from
online online or they use some online service. Then they're
not getting any personal help with that. And you're saying
that could be really bad even though it looks easy
(39:55):
to do, that could be a bad choice.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
Yeah, because you know the custodian wherever the money's at,
if it's Schwab or Fidelity or Vanguard, and the beneficiary
designation says the Smith Family Revocable Living Trust. That's how
the track's getting made. So it'll be cut to the
Smith Family Vocal Living Trust and now it gets deposited
in that trust bank account. Right when dad dies or
mom passes, a ten ninety nine will be delivered.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
So, Andrew, how much of this are you understanding?
Speaker 5 (40:23):
Oh, I've been with Wyn for going on two years now,
so I've sat in and on plenty of meetings and
seeing how this affects people.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
So you've taken your classes already to get to the CFP,
and you'll end up passing your test at some point
and then putting in the hours and stuff. So why
because I got to tell you this stuff boggles my mind.
I hate this kind of stuff because I just I
never wanted to think about it, and I don't think
most people do. So where did you get in? How
(40:54):
did you get into this?
Speaker 4 (40:55):
Well?
Speaker 5 (40:56):
I think it goes back to my grandpa. He was
always into finances and managing money, and he's a dude
to yourself for and he always did a really good job.
But I always joked. My first memory is watching the
ticker go by on the news, you know, watching the tickers.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Remember when they used to do that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, so Fred remembers when they were on paper.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, I remember when I used to come over over
the ticker machine.
Speaker 5 (41:21):
So I think it was kind of imprinted at a
young age. But as I got older, you know, I
was good at math, and then I knew I wanted
to help people. I just didn't know how yet. And
then you know, through knowing Wayne and asking questions like that,
I was able to discover that the CFP would be
a good path for me. And then I ended up
studying that at the University of Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 (41:42):
Really bear Cats.
Speaker 5 (41:43):
Yeah, go Bearcats. So that's that's kind of how it
came about. You know, I was good at math and
some influence from my grandpa and then Wayne.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
So this is where you're going to end up obviously.
Speaker 5 (41:55):
Yeah, this is my long term plan. I really enjoy
what we do and I think we, you know, make
a huge impact on people's lives, and that's a good feeling.
Speaker 6 (42:06):
He's got to be what ten fifteen years younger than you, right, Yeah,
Andrew's about twenty five and about twenty five years about
fifty nine.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Okay, when you bring someone on like Andrew, and what's
the thought in your head? Are you acting as a
mentor for him and for the other people that you
bring into the company.
Speaker 6 (42:26):
Yeah, so definitely a mentor, right. I want to show
him the loop, the bring him in the loop, show him,
you know, how the business works, Introduce him to my clients.
I want to be able to travel and go to
Florida and spend a lot of time out of the office.
So my clients need to know they'll be taken care of.
And I have staff too, right, We have staff at
the office.
Speaker 1 (42:44):
So there's a level of trust obviously, and other people that.
Speaker 6 (42:48):
You're trust and building trust. And you know, ultimately, you know,
business owners need a business succession plan, and clients are
also concerned with, hey, what happens if you die or retire?
Speaker 2 (42:58):
Way and the listing audience, many of whom will be
BBB businesses. You do need a succession plan.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
You have to.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
You got to have an exit plan if you're a
business owner. One of the most overlooked things I think
in business.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, never thought about that. What happens is, you know,
if you didn't have a succession plan, then the same
thing happens to you that would happen.
Speaker 6 (43:17):
To me if I didn't have one, right Yeah, it's
even worse because my clients are left on, you know,
without without support. So you know, I'm a registered investment
advisor in the state of Ohio, right so that makes
me a fiduciary. I don't I don't get paid commissions
for securities, right so, but as the division securities in Ohio,
(43:38):
they require that you have a business succession plan.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
Oh so, and you know right now.
Speaker 6 (43:44):
Ultimately, you know, Andrew works in the office, but he's
not an official right part of the succession there are
other people involved right now, but eventually if things work out,
you know, over time and the older I get, you know,
that's the plan is to have a young person like
Andrew professional to be able to take over the reins
sure and take care of our clientele.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
It sounds like you focus a lot of both Andrew
and Wayne on what's good for the client. As a producer,
you have to do that and as a CFP, yes,
you have to do that. How do you establish that relationship?
What's the first step in all of that?
Speaker 6 (44:21):
Well, take it slow so you know there there's usually
a half a dozen meetings that I have with clients,
usually an hour at a time in my office. Right,
I don't go to Euple's homes anymore. It's another reason
why Andrew. Andrew will travel, Right Andrew, who doesn't mind
going to folks homes?
Speaker 2 (44:39):
Andrew, you will travel? Not? You might or may travel?
Did you catch that? Yes?
Speaker 1 (44:45):
And I do.
Speaker 4 (44:46):
Yeah, I do a lot of driving.
Speaker 6 (44:48):
So you know, I look at myself as an educator
when I teach folks about retirement planning and go through
the steps. So there is no like, there's no sales, right,
it's all teaching them. It needs to be done A
big thing is expensive. They need to know their their lifestyle,
what it costs. That's the biggest thing before retirement. But
when you learn about their lifestyle and if they fish
(45:11):
or boat or travel, or they spoil their kids, their grandkids,
you know, I want to know where the money's going.
Are they going out to dinner every night? Or you
know they spend in one thousand or fifteen hundred a
month on food or their grocery bill. We need to
know what a cost for them to live and then
we can put together their income plan. But when you
learn about a person and their family and what's important
to them, and then you have multiple meetings before any
(45:31):
money gets managed, there's a level of trust and a
level of a relationship with those folks. So I'm not
just a or we're not just a mutual fund salesperson
right or in a new salesperson or a CD sales
person at the bank. You know, we're an advisor. We're
a trusted advisor, and that's what we pride ourselves on.
That's what we shoot for, all.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Right, Because everybody's different, everybody has a different risk aversion,
and there are people who don't want to be involved
in say the oil industry, you know, for whatever reason,
environmental reasons, whatever, and you need to know all of
that going into it to make correct decisions for that.
Speaker 6 (46:07):
Yeah, how they want to invest or do they want
to be you know, socially responsible with their money?
Speaker 4 (46:11):
Or you know, do they not want to risk? Right?
Speaker 6 (46:13):
How can they make a good rate of return and
not have to gamble with their money?
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Right?
Speaker 6 (46:17):
There are people that don't want to be in the market,
and we have solutions for all that. You know, is
it important to leave the kids or grandkids and inheritance?
Speaker 4 (46:24):
You know, they saved this.
Speaker 6 (46:25):
Much money, we had eight hundred nine hundred million bucks.
Do we want to make sure there's a big trunk
of this left for our family?
Speaker 4 (46:31):
Sure?
Speaker 6 (46:31):
You know, the husband may be like, now we're we're okay, right,
We're gonna spend it to buy the boat. Yeah, you
know where the wife may be like, I want my
grand babies to have such right.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:40):
So something that you said spoke to me because, of course,
over the course of my career, I've met with different
financial planners and I've had different ones in my life,
and there definitely were some that did not as you
use the words exact words take it slow. And the
ones that I felt comfortable with that I felt maybe
I wasn't getting as much value, but I think I
was getting the best vat you were the ones that
(47:01):
took the time to understand the whole situation and not
just rush to conclusion on something that feels like that's
got to be critical to your business model.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
It's critical to our business model, but you know, it's
not critical to the industry. It's their business model. There's
a lot out there that push it, you know, they
you know, they just boom, boom, make it, make it,
you know, in the first meeting, sometimes second meeting, and
then they move on to their next client and the
next client, the next client, and it's just like the
people are numbers, right almost like now when we go
into a doctor's office, right, we feel like there's a
(47:30):
number anymore. I don't want my clients to feel that way.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
So how would somebody that's meeting with the financial planner,
how would they tease that out or figure that out?
What are some tips that you can give the listeners
if how am I going to be finding a financial
planner that is going to take some time with me
and not just rush to a sale. I mean, if
they could they ask directly, is that going to be helpful?
Or do you have to look for? Are there signs
(47:53):
to look for?
Speaker 6 (47:54):
Well, like on our website, you know it's Today's retirees
dot com. You know, people can go and see our process.
They could see first meeting, is this second meeting?
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Is it?
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (48:03):
So that's one way you can look at their website.
You can ask them what is your process?
Speaker 4 (48:09):
You know, how long?
Speaker 6 (48:09):
How many meetings are we going to have before you
want me to make a decision on if I'm going
to use you or not, or if I'm going to
move my money to you. You know, that person may say, well,
I expect you to do that by the next meeting, right, wow?
Or some of these they'll say, hey, if you know,
if we come to a point where you feel comfortable
with my recommendations, will you be able to make a
decision at that point to move your money? They actually
(48:30):
look for that commitment. These other advisors out there, I
just don't do it that way, you know, just no pressure, zero,
no sales.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
When I'm ready, I'm ready, when you're ready.
Speaker 4 (48:38):
You're ready.
Speaker 6 (48:39):
Yeah, you know this isn't like the car sales business,
or you want to feel this is your money, this
is your livelihood. You want to make sure you make
the right decisions and don't make wrong ones, and you
want to feel good about it.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Should they also look and since it's critically important for
some of this stuff, if the person they're dealing with
is a fiduciary and if they're a if they have
CFP designation, and they can also check online right at FINRA,
s I p C.
Speaker 6 (49:06):
Or feral advisor check broker check right, there's all these
you can look. You can google, you look at you know,
you google someone's name. You see what's out there, if
there's any lawsuits or complaints. But you know, if they're
a CFP s for AFI financial Planner professional and they're
fiduciary a register investment advisor not a broker like a broker,
so gets commissioned for like mutual fund stocks and variable
(49:28):
annuities and stuff. They need to be tied with a
broker dealer, right instead of just being independent, and then
they have to you know, account to that broker dealer, right,
not the client to the broker. So you want an
investment advisor. In my opinion, a CFP is a huge plus,
and it's.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
Always good to talk to clients too.
Speaker 6 (49:48):
Some of these advisors, like myself, we have events, right
and we have okay people. You know, we haven't bring
guests and sometimes we do like workshops and things like that,
and you just want to to me, you just keep
you take it slow. You make sure the person has
the designation the CFP in my opinion, and their investment
advisors are not brokers. And that's a good that's like
(50:12):
probably seventy percent of your question.
Speaker 4 (50:15):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
That's good starting spot.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
I just think that also, that approach Wayne, it just
works for this part of the country. You know, we're
not on the East coast, we're not on the on
the left coast. We're not in a big city Chicago,
and we have good Midwestern Great Lakes common sense. People
do take things a little slower here, or they prefer
to they prefer to think through it, but then when
they make a decision, they stick with it.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
It's not a revolving door. So I just think that
that's that business model makes a lot of sense for
where we live. Fred's giving me the signal, all right, already,
Fred's giving me the signal that we're out of time,
but I would like to have you back sometime to
talk more, maybe get into the nuts and bolts of
some different parts of the process that if you're willing, Oh,
of course, this is great.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Yeah. If you want to establish a relationship with Wayne
and Andrew, go to Today's Retirees dot com Today's Retirees
dot com. You'll also find them on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Thank you Wayne, Thank you Andrew. Look forward to seeing
your on take Care for Lane months.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
I'm Fred Lafever. Thanks for listening to this episode of
A Heart for Business. Remember you can listen to this
podcast and any other podcasts at iHeartRadio or wherever you
listen to your favorite podcasts.
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