April 15, 2026 – EY Entrepreneur of the Year Tracy Holland and Too Smart to be an Umpire Jack Oujo

0:04 Intro 1 : Broadcasting from am and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award winning school for startups radio where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion. Jim Beach,

0:27 Jim Beach : Hello everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for startups radio. We got a fantastic show for you today. I am proud to put it out. First up, we have Tracy Holland. She built a $750 million cosmetic beauty Empire, and one Entrepreneur of the Year from Ernst and Young. That is the most prestigious award you can get. In my opinion, we are very lucky to have her. And then Jack ojo is with us. He was an umpire, didn’t make it to the big leagues. I didn’t know anything about this, that there was a whole system for umpires. Anyway, he decided, after, oh, I guess, about 10 years of working his way up, he wanted to have a real job, and became a money manager, and has become one of the most successful in the country. So we’ve got an amazing, great show to we’re going to go ahead and get started right now. Here we go. Please welcome Tracy Holland to the show. Here’s my favorite thing about her. She was an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner. Again, if you’ve ever heard me talk about that, that is like winning the Academy Award for Best Movie. In my opinion, it is the ultimate Entrepreneurship Award, and she won for growing a $750 million retail business in the cosmetics and beauty space. Company was called hatch beauty, and it had several different brands, some of them you may know. Maybe the most known is new ones by Selma Hayek. She is now taking all that knowledge and putting it into a podcast and a community accelerator and a brand system her groups or her efforts now or the potential to powerhouse podcast and the inner fifth community accelerator. Tracy, Welcome How you doing today. Congratulations on being an Academy Award winner.

2:26 Tracy Holland : Ah, thank you, Jim, thank you for having

2:29 Jim Beach : Me also. You’re in the c2 100 group I saw right I am and in YPO, did you know that I was number 201 and did not get invited. I was 200 and first, and so I got excluded from that group.

2:48 Tracy Holland : No, that’s too bad. I think you would have been excluded because it’s women only, but I know it’s nothing personal.

2:58 Jim Beach : Jim, well, I just know I was number 200 and once that’s I’m gonna hold that personally against you. You know what number you are. Are you like number two or 10? Is it like specter and James Bond? Does number one get to kill people?

3:14 Tracy Holland : No, it’s not that. It’s not that exciting. In fact, I think there’s probably 650 members now, so I don’t know. I think when it was first founded, back in the 70s, there was a group of powerhouse women CEOs and executives, chairmans of boards, etc. And there are very few and far between in the 70s. And so they gathered, and I believe there were about 200 of them across the country, and so they called it c2 100. But thankfully, since the 70s, when they were first founded, it has now grown into 600 plus women, entrepreneurs and executives and chair, Chairman. And we are thrilled, because the more we can bring women up and show them the path to what’s possible, the more exciting and better it is for everyone

4:09 Jim Beach : Couldn’t agree. Or tell us about 2008 2009 as you started to build, hatch beauty and grow that business. Tell us the birthing story of that, please.

4:24 Tracy Holland : Where’d you get the idea? Well, I think, yeah, I think it was a matter of watching retailers struggle with finding independent brands and unique opportunity. It was also, you know, all of the large CPG companies like Unilever and PNG are sometimes slow to innovate and incubate and bring newness to market. It can take them up to four years to launch something, and we really believed there was a nexus between the. At that time, celebrity driven awareness brands, celebrity driven opportunity, and meeting that with fast to market speed to market innovation. And so we pressure tested the idea in 2008 with Costco and Kirkland Signature. We pressure tested in 2009 at CBS with a brand we co created with them, and then we officially launched hatch beauty in 2010

5:31 Jim Beach : In Costco.

5:35 Tracy Holland : Our first client in 2010 was a grocery as officially as hatch beauty was a grocery chain outside of Vancouver, Canada called overweighty, and then going into 2011 Trader Joe’s was a second large client of ours. And in 2012 CVS was a very large client with Nuance.

5:58 Jim Beach : Salma Hayek, how are you introductions? Tracy, how are you getting into these incredible brands, these great retailers.

6:07 Tracy Holland : You know it is. I had had a long history of knowing retailers doing different types of innovative products. So I brought the first to market microfiber product into accessories and hair towels and hair turbans and wraps and robes, etc. We brought the first microfiber fabric to the pet industry, and did dog towels and fun pet accessories and and then I also introduced the first scented nail polish to the US, as well as the first silk hosiery that came in a can aerosol based silk hosiery. And so all of these innovative products gave me access to retailers and introductions to retailers on a first time basis, and gave me quick and upfront and personal connection to decision makers inside of retail, and that really was the catalyst to hatch beauty and really knowing that there was a need in the market for innovation.

7:16 Jim Beach : How are you so creative in coming up with all of these incredible things? I remember life before microfiber, and it’s just not anywhere near as good as it is now. Microfiber has made the world so much better. What the hell is microfiber?

7:33 Tracy Holland : I know, and it started off Funny enough, as a as a fabric, innovative fabric for laboratories and microscopes for clean rooms. That’s why it was originally invented. It was invented from a factory in Japan called Tajin, and they decided they needed a special kind of fabric to carefully clean their micro the microscopes. And when they realized that that fabric also had a wicking ability and wicked water away from the point of contact, there was an opportunity to get exclusive access to that tasian factory to provide that for the beauty industry. But the truth is, like every business I’ve built. I’m not the inventor of the product. That is not my skill set. My skill set is driving awareness and building a speed to market and a go to market strategy in a profitable

8:33 Jim Beach : Way to drive awareness to then

8:37 Tracy Holland : They find me, or I find them through research. I mean, at this point, I have a reputation, so people with innovation call me and say, Hey, I’ve invented the XYZ item. Would would I be able to work with you? And could we consider launching this together? Or I do research and I come across something, and I go seek it out, because I always want to, I want to touch and feel the product. So I think you know, Jim, the life, the mission in life, if you’re an entrepreneur, is to surprise and delight your customer, no matter what it is you do, and if you can under promise and over, deliver on experience. You are going to be successful no matter what the category is.

9:30 Jim Beach : That is great advice. So, you know, I don’t know this part of your history at all. Tracy, it’s not in any of the research that I’ve done. How did you get started? You know, out of school and stuff like that. How did you position yourself to become the microfiber lady

9:49 Tracy Holland : I when I graduated? Actually, while I was in graduate school, my business partner wasn’t a chemist, a forensic chemist for the Department of Justice. This. And she invented scented nail polish. She actually figured out how to read, establish the base formula for nail polish, how to make sure it quick, dry, Dawn chip and then adding fragrance and adding essential oils. And that was incredibly innovative. And so I took the product that she had invented and I commercialized it. And then I built out about 3000 doors of distribution from JC Penney to Bloomingdale’s and Spencer’s gift and many others. And then we built and we built that business and we sold it. And that was my first realization that intellectual property and unique point of view on intellectual property was a really important catalyst to getting distribution and getting awareness for your product.

10:57 Jim Beach : What’s the value proposition for scented nail polish?

11:02 Tracy Holland : Well, today I would say it’s a fad, knowing now what I experienced, but at that time, just like anything, when you when you take two independent categories that are relatively boring and you merge them into one and innovate, you know, it’s the surprise and delight again. So I think you could turn around and take a look at any category of product and say, How did Poppy, the probiotic? Good for you, soda just sell for 1,000,000,002 How did they do that? I think what they took was basic probiotics and kind of boring gut health product, and they merged it with delicious, sweet, yummy soda and made a super drinkable, functional beverage that tasted like soda, but had the benefits of probiotics. And I think in every category, as you look at opportunity for creating wealth and excitement and surprising and delighting your customer. It’s finding categories and innovating them.

12:13 Jim Beach : How long does scented nails stink?

12:17 Tracy Holland : They can last up to five to seven days. Wow. So it depends on the fragrance of those fragrances that are in the flower family, the scent burns off or evaporates after two to three days. But if it’s a heartier fragrance like chocolate or gasoline or grass, it can last up to five days.

12:42 Jim Beach : I’m my youngest daughter is right now in the nail phase. For the first time, I’m going to have her and all of her little friends do a really good smell up on their nails and then send them all home. That’s a good idea. See if I can get the smelly nail trend restarted again. Tracy, for you, I would love that. Jim do that for me, would you try that this group of nine and 10 year olds is the perfect place? Yeah, they’re all trendsetters in their own mind, so they would love to do this amazing career. Tracy, wow, just amazing. I am so impressed you have done it all right. Talk to me now about the efforts that you’re doing to give back and the organization that you’ve built for that.

13:36 Tracy Holland : Sure. I am a big believer that there are a lot of women out there. Most businesses, you know, 54% of businesses now are started by women in the United States. They’re entrepreneur entrepreneurs who are out there building companies and supporting their families, etc. But only 4% of women exceed a million dollars or more in a year, in a single year. So 54% of businesses, but only 4% exceed 1 million or more a year. And I find that almost impossible to understand, and it’s really because women are not giving themselves the bandwidth and the room to connect with other women. I find that most of my success has come from knowing someone who knows someone and puts me in front of the right people, and I know how to speak to people who know like and trust me and convert them into customers. And so inner fifth is a focus for accelerating women entrepreneurs into other areas of business so that they can forge a path to break and exceed that million dollar mark. And really that, to me, is the thing that keeps me passionate and and focused. I also have a pod. Cast that I love to talk to other women, entrepreneurs and successful women, just to ask them their own version of how they built it.

15:12 Jim Beach : All right, here is just a real stupid question for you. Tracy, are there no such thing? Oh, you don’t know me. Are there anything that’s different for female entrepreneurs that they need to do differently than males? And then we’ll talk about the million gap or the million dollar plateau in a second, because I’ve certainly experienced that as a male. Are there anything that women need to do different focus on something else, whatever.

15:43 Tracy Holland : Listen, I think men do a really good job asking for help. I think they do a really good job. They’re team sport mentality. People, when they have an issue, they generally call their buddy or people they know, and they say, Hey, do you have any ideas? Can you help me with this? And women tend to work in silos, and they work independently until they figure it out, and we tend to just hunker down and try to get to the answer. So I think we have a lot to learn from men, and it’s really in our best interest to not only leverage and utilize the success patterns that men use in order to build network, but we also should be leading on men to help us build our own businesses, because if you just reach out and you ask, you will likely get a door open or a referral, and it just means making yourself available and asking. So inner fifth is about teaching some basic business principles around some of the things that I’ve done to roadmap my success over hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade, where I needed to get in front of an executive at Walmart, and let’s say I didn’t have a relationship there yet. And so I would pick up the phone and call people who know me, who trust me, who like me, and ask them for personal introductions. And those introductions got me in front of the people who mattered, and those people who mattered actually said yes. And so it’s really that simple.

17:20 Jim Beach : Decades ago, Tracy, I was starting a program, and I was told that I needed one of these three people to sign the program, and one was in Nepal. One was a known recluse, and the other was dying in the hospital, and I had to have one of those three people.

17:41 Tracy Holland : Hmm, how many three? There you go.

17:48 Jim Beach : You mentioned right basic business principles right before you said that, do you have some principles that you stick to? For example, I’m obsessed with cash flow, and I’m not a big fan of creativity or passion, I’m, you know, just don’t spend more money than you got. Buddy, you know, that kind of a philosophy. What are your basic business rules?

18:11 Tracy Holland : I think, like launching off of what you just said as your basic business rule, in terms of spending, you know, don’t spend more money than you have. I think knowing your cash flow, understanding your turn on cash, your margin and your true overhead, and ensuring that your week over week numbers, our revenue numbers are meeting your KPIs and exceeding is really important. I’m a huge advocate of having your team be aware of the goal of what you need to hit. So for example, I have one company, and my burn rate in that business is about 35,000 a month. And so I tell the team guys, if we’re not hitting 40,000 a month, or if we’re not hitting 10,000 a week as a startup, we’re not hitting 10,000 a week on an average run rate. That means we have to do things differently, pivot quickly, or double down and figure out how to fix it, because we don’t have enough cash flow to just run indefinitely on a loss. So every single person should know in the business, how much have we shipped this week? We’ve only shipped $2,000 it’s Wednesday. Uh oh. What do we have to do? We have the rest of the week to hit our numbers. How are we going to do that? And everybody on the team is really aware of what the objectives and the goals are and I think it’s mission critical to continue to do that, because that type of transparency on your team goals and expectations is what’s going to really move the needle, right? And so that’s one of my points. To founders. The other point is that founders tend to hire too late, and their momentum gets stopped or squashed because they’re doing too many things in the business, and they’re too risk averse to hire and delegate, and so there’s holding on for dear life to all of their shackles and not hiring people who can step in and do some of the basics. So I have a very excellent overseas team of vas. I have a group of them. I probably have five or six of them now, and they each have their own responsibility. Maybe customer service. It may be checking email, it may be doing the invoicing and receiving it may be tracking of shipments and making sure inventory is received in properly. And that team is a very inexpensive relative to hiring a US based group. What country? Tracy, I use the Philippine resource, yes, because I think they’re all incredibly smart, well trained, well educated, hard working, diligent, good, good folks. But listen, I have people in Romania. I have people in Brazil, I have people in Pakistan, I have people in India. I definitely build my businesses with excellent, best in class remote workforce. Because I think the old days of running, and I used to have a $9 million a year payroll at hatch beauty that was in the time in which I was doing about 100 million in revenue a year, 9 million in payroll. Jim that up at night, especially on a cash flow basis, I know where your your cash flow? Yeah, cash inventory, cash flowing shipments and receivables, and all I can say to you is knowing what I know today, utilizing my tools on AI, utilizing my Asana workbook and work stream, and utilizing my overseas team, my same my same infrastructure is probably costing me

22:26 Unknown Speaker : A million a year,

22:29 Tracy Holland : Down from 9 million so and as productive, if not More more productive, to be candid, than what I had,

22:44 Jim Beach : Excellent, very impressive, yeah, yeah. Is the macro beauty industry changing right now, or is there anything going on at the macro level? You know, you say beauty industry to me, and I don’t know anything that happening there is it 100% online retail now Ultra. I remember dropping girlfriends off at Ultra, you know Ulta, I guess is Ulta, yeah, you know Tracy. I just, I wanted to tell you this. Remember how you were just talking about VAs remember, before the call, I was talking to you about the guy that I have helping me do the books. He is a Dartmouth educated Bulgarian who lives in Sofia, and I pay him the same rates as I do as a guy full time in the Philippines. Or a Dartmouth educated guy, and you believe that, yeah,

23:43 Tracy Holland : Yeah, I can. And before anyone jumps to conclusions and says, Well, that’s not a fair wage or whatever, you have to understand I pay, the average woman in the Philippines is making four times less than what I pay per month. So I pay four times more than what the average educated bachelor’s or master’s degree, educated woman in the Philippines, which she makes, I have it times four, 4x plus we do health insurance, vacation, all of the things, most of my team members have been with me for many, many years. So I don’t see I see it as a win, win. I think it’s imperative for companies to be as lean and financially frugal and thoughtful as possible, to conserve cash and preserve retail resources to be competitive, but also, you know, these people from all over the world are now, we’re in a digital world, and so utilizing these resources is really helpful as a business owner. So I’m glad to hear that, Jim. I’m glad. To hear you have someone to help you, because otherwise it would take you five times as long and five times as much money.

25:07 Jim Beach : Yeah, I think that, as you said, you need to have someone helping you much sooner than you think you can afford it. Because, right, amazing how much more productive I’ve been since I started permanently hiring someone there, as opposed to just on a project or need basis or something that. Tracy, when are you gonna write your book? Do I need to write it for you? You want me to

25:31 Tracy Holland : Ghost, right? You might, you might I have a title, Jim. That’s the well, I can’t tell you, otherwise, I would be letting it out of the bag to whomever is listening.

25:42 Jim Beach : Okay, I don’t, I don’t believe that. I think you should get your title out there as frequently and as early as possible to build the momentum so that you know no one to steal from you. They don’t have the chutzpah to do that, or the momentum, they don’t get off the sofa.

25:59 Tracy Holland : That’s right. I hope, I hope we’re wrong, but yes, I think it’s really about when we hear no and it’s not possible and you can’t do it, and it’s too hard and it’s never going to work. It’s, it’s, it’s absolutely a green light to go for it and do it anyway. How do we

26:21 Jim Beach : Find out more about you? Follow you follow you online all of that. Please listen to your podcast.

26:26 Tracy Holland : Oh, I would love you to come in and join and it’s free. You get to hear really cool stories about super successful women and how they navigated no or heard, heard something and did it anyway, and their success secrets. And I think when we can learn from others on their success secrets, it’s absolutely a fast track way to grow. My podcast is called potential to powerhouse Success Secrets of female entrepreneurs. And interface is interface.com we’re teaching this year Jim how to live stream sell using free tools like Tiktok and Instagram and Facebook to create multi million dollar businesses from home. And I love it, and it’s so much fun. And then you can track me on Instagram, on Tracy M Holland, and I’m on Instagram, and send me a DM, and I’ll send you something back.

27:25 Jim Beach : Fantastic. Tracy, thank you so much for being with us. Great, great story, and we would love to have you back. Thanks a lot.

27:31 Tracy Holland : I would love that. Thanks, Jim. I appreciate it,

27:34 Jim Beach : And we will be back in just a second.

27:42 Intro 2 : You Well,

27:50 Intro 2 : That’s a, that’s a, that’s a wonderful question, actually, oh my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim, wow, that’s, that’s, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question, and I don’t have a great answer, that’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. And that’s actually a really good question. School for startups radio,

28:12 Jim Beach : We are back in again. Thank you so very much for being with us. Very excited to introduce another great guest. Please welcome Jack ojo to the show. He is the founder of ojo wealth strategies, a 35 year CPA business that he has been running out of the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area. He has been a tax consultant and helping people with all of their long term financial planning. He is also an umpire addict and has written a new book called too smart to be an umpire, which I can’t wait to learn about. It sounds like an interesting story. Jack, welcome to the show. How you doing?

28:54 Jack Oujo : I’m very excited to talk to you today, Jim.

28:57 Jim Beach : Tell us about the book. Great title. What’s the story behind it?

29:02 Jack Oujo : Well, the book is my story. It’s about about myself being a college student. I officiated my way through college, and when I graduated from Seton Hall University with an accounting degree, a lot of people were encouraging me to try out to be a professional umpire. I thought they were nuts, because I thought the major leagues were a pipe dream, just the lottery ticket, but not wanting to have any regrets in my life, I decided to go to umpire school and try out. And they took me, and I ended up doing eight years in the minor leagues, going through the lower minor leagues, very quickly, I made it to double A after just two years, which is almost unheard of for an umpire, I got to triple A after four years, and then I was released after a power change took place in my eighth year, and I found myself at age 30, out of a job with a pregnant wife and no money, and over the next few years, I Reen. Been it myself through hard work, a lot of continuing education, I got my CPA, CFP, a master’s degree in taxation and securities and insurance license, all within three and a half years, and I started a wealth management business that grew into a multi million dollar operation. I was a number one advisor in my firm for most of the past decade, using math, and I thought it might be a good story to give to the public.

30:28 Jim Beach : Interesting. I didn’t know about this umpire system. What do you mean you got released? Is that obviously, the same thing is getting fired, but released sounds like you were with a team or something.

30:41 Jack Oujo : No, well, let’s, let’s go back an umpire. It’s the same way as a player. You go through the minor leagues and you travel, you’re a vagabond, and you make no money. The players make no money in the minor leagues either you have poverty wages and you’re evaluated every year. It’s kind of like being on a television show, survivor. The end of the year, my first year in baseball, there were eight umpires in my league, five of them got fired. The next year, there were 10 umpires, seven of them got fired. So you’re you’re trying to go through this funnel into the major leagues, and it’s very difficult. Me not getting to the major leagues is like asking an appellate judge why did you didn’t get on the Supreme Court. It’s very difficult numbers game, especially back then. So I realized it was a lottery ticket, but my big fear was, what if I ended up doing a long time in the minor leagues only to not make it? Then what would happen? Because they’re prime development years, between the ages of 22, and 30, and that’s exactly unfortunately what happened? But, you know, I did reinvent myself, and things worked out Excellent.

31:46 Jim Beach : Well, let’s talk a little bit more about the baseball in the reinvention before we move into the wealth management, the career of an umpire. I just had no idea about this. How long does the average umpire work before they get into the majors and eventually, do they make enough money to have a real good profession, honorable income out of it?

32:11 Jack Oujo : Sure you you probably do about seven to 12 years in the minor leagues before you make it to the major leagues. And Major League umpires make anywhere from 200,000 to $500,000 a year. Um, year. They had a really good pension plan. I know that because about a third of them were clients of mine. So they walk away with about 150 to $200,000 a year pension, plus the 401 K savings. They do very well for themselves if they get to the big leagues. All right?

32:41 Jim Beach : And what does that determine on what makes a great umpire? And Oh, that guy’s got to go to the bigs.

32:47 Jack Oujo : Well, now I, now, I It’s hard for me to answer your question, because right now, if you can tell if the pitch is a ball or a striker safer out with your phone or using artificial intelligence, I don’t know the value of a human being anymore, but back in the day, it was calling a consistent game behind home plate, calling a good strike zone that would be accepted by the players and managers and getting getting having mutual respect between the players and the umpires, having good timing, good judgment, being able to handle people on their worst behavior. There were tremendous amount of lessons I learned as an umpire that I was able to take to the business world and and to my to my great benefit, I also have taught a youth umpire class in New Jersey for for 20 years, and I think the kids that went through that program also learned a lot about handling people and handling situations. So there’s, there’s a lot of benefits from being a sports official, in my view.

33:48 Jim Beach : And is AI going to take away most of the role of the umpire?

33:53 Jack Oujo : I think so. I think you’re already seeing it in the major leagues. They have the ABS system, which automatic ball strike technology, which is questionable because the strike zone is a prism, and the technology they’re using is linear, so that needs to be developed a little bit more. But I also think in baseball, the fact that gamblings Come in, that like the public now has a financial interest in the games, and taking the human element out of it is is becoming more prevalent, not just in baseball, but almost most things in our society.

34:29 Jim Beach : Very true. That is going to be a challenge. All right. Well, congratulations on your baseball career that is fascinating and interesting to learn about. How did you transition. So you said that you went back and got lots of education. Talk to us more about that. How did you decide where you were going to go, what field you were going to go into? Sure. Well, first

34:51 Jack Oujo : Of all, when I was in baseball, I realized that, you know, getting released was always a possibility, even though I was on a very good track for the May. Release. So when I first got released, I was I was devastated. I remember staring at the ceiling and thinking I could feel sorry for myself for the rest of my life. I would try and create a new path. And my wife and I sat down and we created a plan, a four year plan, where I would seek out jobs in public accounting, and we sent out back in the day, you sent out resumes, and within two weeks, I had four job offers, two from local firms, one medium sized and one from Ernst. And young, now rebranded as EY. Ey did the audit for Major League Baseball. I think that helped me get my foot in the door there. So I worked at Ernst and Young in New York doing tax returns for famous and rich people, and then we decided that the top line for our family budget needed to go up, and that would only go up by me getting a lot more education, not knowing where it would lead. I didn’t even know wealth management was a business when I undertook this. So So I remember when I was going for my master’s in taxation, one of my professors I had a drink with after school one day, and he said, You know, when you’re done with our program, you’ll not only catch up to other CPAs, but you’ll pass them by. And then John star been at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, and it really motivated me to put this knowledge together. And when I found when I graduated, when I ultimately went into wealth management, I just started recognizing issues all over the place. I don’t know where it came from, but I was able to really figure out finances for wealthy families, estate planning, insurance, investments, what have you. And I think the fact that I was an umpire and I was kind of assertive yet respectful, helped me a lot. It just seemed like wealthy families started throwing their money at me and investments at me. And I was just shocked, going from poverty to within six years, I would say I was making more money than the highest paid umpire in the major leagues. Let’s put it that way. And so there was a four year, four years of going in the abyss, if you will, with schooling and education, every every night, every weekend. There was studying in school. There was no baseball. We had two children right away, a boy and a girl. They were both living in the same bedroom because we had no money. And again, once I opened up the doors to wealth management, things started rolling really nicely.

37:23 Jim Beach : And why do you think you’ve been so successful at it? Why are people throwing their money at you?

37:29 Jack Oujo : Well, the way to get I learned in baseball, again, about mutual respect. And so the process that, that I created, involved at the beginning, I figured, why would somebody, why would somebody invest a million dollars or more with me when they don’t know me, other than maybe through a referral? And I was thinking, I need to get this person’s respect very quickly. And so what I decided to do was engage them in a in a fact finding Tour, where they would give me a ton of information, probably would take two hours, and then I would write a financial plan for them for free, going over the issues I saw in their life, making an analysis and a specific recommendation, and I would send it to them in writing so they could study it, go on the internet, talk to their lawyer, what have you, and then come back if they were interested. And in 99% of the cases, the people came back, and I was able to close most of those transactions once they became a client. I worked. I took the position that I had a job where I was on call, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, somebody called me, the call was returned. If they emailed me, the email was promptly returned, and I tried to create an overwhelming level of service, like a four seasons type of service that would create raving fans. I consider myself a nerd. I’m a nerdy accountant, and by creating these advocates for my practice, it just grew exponentially because I was getting referrals all over. The old phrase, more business than you can handle, is what happened, and as time went on, I remember at about the 10 year mark, I fired any accounting and tax client that was not using me for wealth management. Five years later, we graded all clients A through F. Anybody that got a C minus D or F was fired as a client, and we ended up having what I would call a boutique firm. We’re only working with people that we really liked and wanted to deal business, do business with. You know, when you had saw the caller ID, you wouldn’t dread seeing that number, that name, come up only that had mutual respect for myself and our staff.

39:39 Jim Beach : So how did you grade a client who’s paying their bills and give them the heave ho? That is an amazing story. Talk to me about giving the grades, and what did I have to do to get it?

39:53 Jack Oujo : You had to get it. You got to do your an F by not doing the things necessary in your own life to. Get to the next level. Okay, if you were a small business owner, and we advise you to have a pension plan, and you decided to go out and spend your money and not do the pension plan, not basically take the advice that we were giving you to help yourself. That was, that was basically the reason somebody could have a small amount of money. But if they had a good attitude, and we’re trying to get to the next level, we would absolutely work with them, and over time, received tremendous job satisfaction in their success. More it was more about attitudes of people than how much money they had, if you will. Obviously, the more money somebody has, the more money you make. But we got rid of clients that had a lot of money, if they only, if they’re really abusive to the staff. Because of my baseball background, I have a pretty thick skin, so I could deal with difficult clients, as long as they were fair. If they were fair, I had I had no problems. I think I’m a tough guy as far as that stuff is concerned, and it’s very counter it. You don’t want to be doing things like that. I’m not bragging about it. I’m just saying we did it because we wanted to have a nice, fun business, and my employees came first. The people that worked in our office came before clients. Again, I learned this in baseball, how not to treat people, and I really wanted to empower the people that worked in our office. And I think it worked, because there’s many people there that worked there 20 to 30 years in their career, and and people wouldn’t leave. So so it was, it was, it was fun. We had a lot of fun and help people Excellent.

41:30 Jim Beach : And how did you create that environment where people didn’t want to leave? So obviously you gave them a lot of respect and protected them from the bad client. But what else?

41:41 Jack Oujo : Well, we’ll start with when we were developing paid time off policies, holiday schedules, I would call a meeting, and I basically keep my mouth shut, and I’d let the people that work there basically come up with the policies for paid time off all kinds of benefits plan. Basically our staff came up with the benefits plan, and then on my own, one thing I did was I came up with a quantified bonus program where our employees would be paid quarterly bonuses using math, not feelings. So at the end of the quarter, the numbers that we did for the business were disclosed. The people that work there. Most business owners would never do that. This is how much we we took in. This is the bonus formula. Here’s your cut. Congratulations. And they ended up making a lot more money that that way than they probably would working for anybody else. And so to an employee, money comes first. And the people that work in our office were very well paid. And I said, we have the number one office in the country with our broker dealer. I want you to be paid like you’re the number one person at that particular job, and in exchange for that, I was not a clock watcher. If, if one of their children had a game at three o’clock they wanted to go to they can go as long as they check their voicemail and email I didn’t have when they worked. There’s, there’s not anybody that worked with me for 35 years, they can say he was on me about my time. I didn’t care about the time. I cared that the clients were happy and and so I wanted to work with adults and and again, this whole business again, from baseball with the umpire, mutual respect between me and the people that work in our office, people that work in our office and clients mutual respect was, was what the business was all about,

43:27 Jim Beach : And was there a formula or a bias toward your investment strategies? Do you have a particular investment philosophy that runs through every decision that you make Jack, yes.

43:43 Jack Oujo : And I met, and I mentioned this in, in my book too smart to be an umpire, there’s a chapter called it’s the income stupid, where John D Rockefeller said the one thing that gives him pleasure is to see his dividends coming in. Again, from my baseball background, I believe in preparing clients finances for worst case scenarios, worst case scenarios. So for a retiree, for example, I’m a big proponent of most Street, not everybody, not but for most people, I like to see their debt paid off, no mortgage and retirement. That’s counter to what a lot of CPAs would recommend. No debt protects the downside, especially in down markets, and I like to see people having more income from their investments than what their lifestyle is. So if they spend $80,000 a year, the interest in dividends need to be greater than that to make sure that they’re okay and survive bear markets. Every client that I have come in, I show them how they would do over the next 1020, years, if we have worst case stock markets like the depression, 1929, to 4419 99 to 2008 what would happen in these worst case scenarios? And it makes people feel very comfortable. I’m not there. Promise. Saying eight to 10% a year, because that’s foolhardy. I don’t get phone calls when the stock market goes down. We kind of embrace those opportunities. I think most human beings, by nature, are cautiously greedy. I think everybody likes to make money and nobody likes to lose money. And I use math and numbers to show clients how they’re going to make it, which most people just want to know, am I going to be okay? I don’t want to outlive my money, and I’ve never had a client run out of money on my watch. I know that.

45:32 Jim Beach : Where do you think the market is right now? Are these oil prices going to affect things I do a long term basis. Where do you think the market is?

45:43 Jack Oujo : Well, that’s short term oil. If we settle the thing with Iran, the stock market will rally on that news. And anytime there’s a setback in the negotiations, the market will will go down. Okay, ultimately, at the end of the day, I feel that will get resolved. I believe that the market’s been a little bit overvalued for probably the last five or six years, but we’ve still maintained equity positions. And I believe, because historically, the market has an earnings yield of about six and a half percent. It’s probably at about four and three quarters right now, so I think it’s a little overvalued. But if somebody owns equities, God knows, I’d certainly hold all of those positions. And if there’s a sell off, I think you have to have money in cash or short term bonds to be able to take advantage of those opportunities. So I think the market’s a little overvalued. If I was putting in new money, I would do it slowly. At the end of the day, everything is about earnings, and we’re coming into earnings season right now. We’re starting to get earnings right now and, and at the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. Companies are valued based on how much money they make and are projected to make, and, and so you find those numbers out at the end of every quarter. And, and again, the market, in my opinion, is like watching your favorite NFL team on Monday morning, if you’re if your favorite team wins, they’re going to the Super Bowl. If they lose, you want to fire the coach. The stock market tends to overreact to everything, and a good investor wants to take advantage of those overreactions. Fans of the TV show Seinfeld remember an episode where the character, George Costanza, was successful by doing the opposite of every instinct he had. And I think most people would do well for themselves if they did the opposite of every instinct that they had. I’ve had clients call me. I got my statements, everything’s going up. I want to send you more money. And I go, No, when the when the statements are showing that they’re going down, that’s when you want to be adding money that don’t make this phone call, you know? And I would not berate them, but I’m trying to change their attitude. Is that we want to be counterintuitive with most things in stock.

47:51 Jim Beach : What about AI investments? Are you seeing them overpriced as well?

47:56 Jack Oujo : I think AI is a thing of the future. I think what the smart person would do, just like when the internet was coming up, is who benefits from Ai, besides buying all the big name companies, look at which companies will benefit from artificial intelligence and take advantage of that. I’m a big dividend grower. I’m a boring guy. I like dividends. I like dividend growers. And companies need to show me something before I invest with them. I believe you can be speculative with some of your money, up to five 10% of your money, you can be speculative, but you don’t have to be throwing money at every AI firm in the world. So somebody had a million dollars and they wanted to take $50,000 and buy some AI stocks. I have no problem with doing that. I’m not a Bitcoin person at all because I don’t know how to value it. I believe in the Charles Schwab philosophy of core and explore you have a core portfolio consistent with your goals and objectives, and then you could play with some of the money. I think shows like CNBC during daytime hours or like financial pornography, it’s, I think it’s lunacy to watch the stock market every day, to see it go up and down. I just the stock market is long term. It’s not short term. And and I tried, and I’ve successfully coached my clients through that. I remember playing golf last week with funderman when the market was selling off, and he looked at me, and he goes, this doesn’t bother you one bit, does it? I go, No, it really doesn’t. I hope it goes down more so I can buy some stuff that I might have missed out on before. And he goes, good. That’s what I want to hear.

49:37 Jim Beach : All right. Great strategy. I love it. I love it. Yeah, Jack, what’s the key to running a successful agency? What are the key things to you being a great boss?

49:50 Jack Oujo : I think every business starts at the top, and I think when clients walk into an office, they can sense if the person at the top has created a good culture. So. Number one, having employees. Hire the best people, the smartest people. Don’t hire the cheapest employees, create a culture of what you expect in terms of their ability to handle the public role. Play with them, coach them. Be nice to them when they make mistakes. So having a staff that understands your culture comes first. If you if you’re a bad person and a bad boss, you’re going to have a bad business. Seek out constructive criticism from your employees, because if you own a business and you hired a business consultant to come in and analyze you, the first thing they’re going to do is sit down with all your employees and they’re going to say, I’ll tell you what’s really going around here, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those employees need to feel that they can come in and talk to you and have those, those conversations. I believe you need to pay them well, have good benefits. And again, I use this bonus strategy, which, which, I think empowered things. So I think it starts with that, and then I think you need to have a service model where clients receive an overwhelmingly great, great level of service. And I think it’s important to speak to your clients and find out what their experience is like dealing with you and seek their feedback. A lot of changes I put into my business over the years came from clients. I think you need to be doing this, that or the other thing. And we would, I’m like, That’s a good idea, and we would implement them. And to our benefit,

51:29 Jim Beach : Jack, how do you raise third, fourth generation, wealthy children that aren’t useless?

51:38 Jack Oujo : Well, I’m a person of deep face. I believe I’ve said to my clients, especially the wealthiest one, I believe your financial rather, your report card in life is how those kids are doing and how those grandkids are doing. It says tremendous things about you, and I know with our clients I’ve had, I’ve welcomed children to come into meetings, a lot of clients have said, Please, you tell them what we have and how all this works. And I’m very proud by the work, by the way, the work we’ve done at this our top 10 clients, like the wealthiest clients, I can look at every one of their kids, and every one of them is just a tremendous human being and and they know the money their family has because it’s been disclosed to them when it was appropriate, and they’re they’re living their lives in a very good way that I’m glad you brought up that question, because values are a big deal in my personal life, and I’ve tried to impart that onto my clients. Some of them have so much money I’ve said, you know, we need to set up a charitable foundation here. It would be really hard for me to blow this money for you and your children and grandchildren are going to have more money than they know what to do with. We need to, in a smart way, give back to society here. And they’ve been, they’ve been very good with the charitable giving that we’ve done in a smart way.

53:02 Jim Beach : Fantastic, Jack. How do we find out more? Follow you online, get your baseball predictions and find out how to invest.

53:11 Jack Oujo : Yeah, they can go to ojo wealth strategies.com o, u, J, O wealth strategies.com and my book, too smart to be an umpire, there’s a website for that too, too smart to be an umpire.com. Think if people read the book, they’ll it’s a really easy read, about 200 pages, and they’ll learn how I did what I did, and they’ll see some funny baseball stories in there, and what the road is like to go from rags to riches, so to speak.

53:38 Jim Beach : Fantastic. Jack, great, great information, great story, and thank you so much for being with us and sharing it. Great stuff. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me, Jim and we are out of time, but back tomorrow, be safe, take care and go make a million dollars by now you.