0:01 good afternoon and welcome to the way to wow people making money uh I'm your host Kevin baumel and we're here every week Wednesdays 12 30 p.m Pacific Time 3 30 p.m eastern time and as I say an hour in for Central and mountain and you're probably wondering what's what's with the Navy flight suit so uh yeah I'm not in my normal uh you know collar shirt and vest so today was career day at my daughter's school she goes to high school and uh so they asked me if I
0:36 would come and talk about um you know lie about what it's like to be in the Navy and uh so I did and actually uh it it was great we I was part of a group that had um uh two young Petty officers and a Marine Corps staff sergeant and then we had a uh uh an EMT firefighter and a police detective with us so we we got to talk about what it's like to have a job job where um you um shall we say overtly serve uh your community um because as I've talked about before on this show
1:12 um while I I think it's it's it's Noble what uh First Responders and people in the military do I think there's lots of ways to serve our community serve our our um fellow citizens as you will and and my guest today is an absolute prime example of that and it's why I'm so excited to have Norm Mitchell on with me um he's got some of his colleagues on the meeting here as well um so uh Norm Mitchell welcome to the way to wow show how are you hey thanks Kevin I am fantastic sir appreciate it
1:48 glad to be here yeah that's good and uh look I can see you're a Cowboys fan right America's team isn't that that what they say every classy person is a Cowboys fan so I will tell you when I was a young lad um living in Dallas Texas my dad was a big time Cowboys fan and one of his greatest Joys was to have his son sit and watch football with him and uh it's where I learned to dislike beer because as a kid of I think I was seven or eight he said there try some of this beer and I'm like oh this is foul which I think
2:23 was was the aim of the exercise um but I but the beer never reflected on the Cowboys this was during the days of uh Tom Landry and and Roger Staubach and and those great teams back then so I I have fond memories of the Cowboys watching him with my dad so so let's let's uh let's get right into this so um I've known Norm for uh gosh I think about a year now um Norm um is uh an army veteran and uh who transitioned in the financial services uh industry and you know we're gonna as
2:58 we do talk about out um I'm calling him Ron what am I talking about Norm Norm was it was in the Army and uh and then got into financial services and we're gonna we're gonna sort of Trace Norm's uh professional Arc and see what lessons there are for us that we can learn so so Norm um let's let's start you know as far back as you'll go um in what what was your motivation for for joining the Army um and and when did you join the Army was was it out of high school or what
3:33 was what was that all about uh that's actually a Kind of a Funny Story in a way I was one of those guys that you know it was going to be like join the Army or go to jail kind of thing right but uh I grew up in a very small town uh it's called Marble Falls it's about an hour uh outside of Austin Texas kind of in Central Texas uh After High School I went to Junior College and uh studied radio and television Broadcasting did some work in radio I was a disc jockey at a couple different stations and uh got a job as a nightclub assistant manager one of the more
4:08 popular clubs in our area and all of a sudden kind of started hanging out with the wrong crowd doing the wrong things you know this is back in the early 80s when a lot of people did the wrong things you know kind of like in the 60s and uh it's a tragedy but uh on New Year's Eve of 1984 going into 1985 in the club on the Dance Floor one of my very very very best friends died in my arms of a cocaine overdose and that kind of was one of those oh my goodness moments and it really was a
4:45 blessing in disguise not for him obviously but it woke me up and uh less than 90 days later I was at basic training I was kind of a uh a dream come true for a recruiter because I just walked in and said what do you got with a bonus and after a couple of things I picked one and off I went and I had no intention of staying in the Army for very long but I kind of excelled did really well uh mate 87 in 11 months in 11 years I traveled the world I was part of Desert Shield Desert Storm I went to Korea Germany you know
5:20 just had it had a great great time and then uh in 1998 I went to Korea and honestly that was kind of the last straw of a 16-year marriage uh that didn't make it to 17. when I came back in 1999 gas station back at Fort Hood Texas which is where I was before I left and uh not too long after I came back my mom passed away and so my ex-wife and we were good friends it was a very amicable divorce I
5:55 mean it wasn't and it was like we pretty much both knew it was coming and uh so my ex-wife and my two sons were still living here in the Fort Hood area uh my father was back in Marble Falls again about an hour away not in very good health and so I was looking at the man I probably shouldn't think about getting out of the army even though I only had four years to go to retirement I was at 16 years at the time uh brand new since I had already been at Fort Hood for a while there was no way that I was gonna stay there for the remainder four years of my career and that meant leaving my
6:30 kids and leaving my dad which were not obsoleted my kids was not an option for me at that time so uh back then the Army used to have a a program called acap it's now called SFL tap and they're the guys that help you put your resume together and that kind of stuff and so I was putting my resume together and I was a supply guy Logistics that's what I did which really kind of translates into Walmart Distribution Center in the real world no nothing real fancy nothing high paying that's for sure and uh out of frustration one day I had
7:06 this little um little uh Asian counselor that was helping me out her name was I'm sorry Hispanic her name was uh Dana Garza and she asked me one day she says Norm if you could just pick anything any career field take the lid off the Box what would you want to do I said well that's that's an interesting question and uh because you know we're kind of programmed to do what we've always done and I said well Dana quite frankly I've always been interested in the financial services industry and she said well why didn't you tell me that like a month ago when we started this whole resume process I said Dana I
7:42 don't have a degree in that you know I don't have any experience in that and she and thank God she sent me to a uh an interview with a company that if they she says this is the one of the best companies out there in the industry if they hire you they will give you all the training and help you get your licenses and all that and I was like wow awesome so before we before we continue with the transition talking about your time in the Army you mentioned that you really excelled in the Army what helped you what what was it what was it about the environment in the army that
8:19 um you found conducive to excelling and and how did you excel in that environment um that's an easy answer and and I know this is going to sound super cocky but I don't mean it to me but it's leadership you know that's one thing that and some people skills one thing I've discovered is a lot of people are just they're scared to death to make a decision they just go with the flow they don't want to Buck the system so to speak they don't want to stand out from the crowd and and I'm kind of the opposite of that
8:54 you know every single place that I went my immediate goal was okay how can I make this place better what can I do to make this place better and Excel one of my pet peeves I can't stand well we've always done it that way oh that's like nails on a chalkboard I mean when people say that well we've always done it that way and we you know that that won't work how do you know you've never tried you know even in Korea people say well you know you're only going to be here for less than a year before you go back what kind of difference can you make man you can make a big difference in a year huge you know so I always try to look at things like how do I make
9:30 improvements how do I stand out and then number two was for me it was always about my soldiers and taking care of them one thing I've always understood is this human humans people are your number one asset and it doesn't matter what kind of organization you're in what kind of industry you're in whether it's a company or some people are the number one asset of every organization in the world and if you treat your people right you're going to excel you know I'm a big call it what you will I'm a huge believer in what goes around comes
10:06 around you know and the Bible it says you reap what you sow you know you get what you put out there however you want to word it you know and I've seen that my entire life that that you get what you put out there yeah so I think that's what helped a lot and then just you know obviously having a good work ethic and not just wanting to Coast you know and again which goes back to just wanting to make a difference so I I think and it's interesting because like I said I was at my daughter's um career day and so these are high school students and their
10:43 um perception of the military is it's it's very sort of high-bound um you know that that that thing all we this is the way it's always done that kind of thing where did your um desire to um to improve things to if necessary kind of break the mold where do you think that came from probably my dad uh honestly my dad was retired military well he was also Logistics in fact he was a quartermaster
11:18 instructor at Fort Lee when I was a child so you know I spent a lot of time at Fort Lee in Virginia and you know he always taught me work smarter work not harder you know he always taught me growing up you know trying to work with your brain not your back so to speak although I did a lot of back breaking work don't get me wrong and everybody in the military has I pretty much I don't care what you do um but he just taught me that work ethic I mean I had my first job at like 11 or 12 years old worked all the way through high school you know so my dad instilled that that work ethic in me and uh and he said you know always look
11:54 at things from the angle of do it right the first time so you don't have to redo it and and then not just do it right but try to try to make it where somebody else has to come on you and do something later make it easier for them you know in other words don't just do it but teach it to other people so that it's easy for everybody you know the old you know the it's a cliche but you know many hands make light work you know so in the Army there's two kinds of leaders there's the ones that say all right go get it done and then there's the ones that say okay
12:29 let's get it done I like to think I was the second one 99 of the time you know I didn't I didn't watch my guys do something I was right there with them you were you said you were an E7 Master Sergeant is that it or first sergeant well first actually Sergeant First Class but I actually served as a first sergeant a couple of times okay and and so um you know I I'm I'm guessing similar to the Navy you were you had responsibility for training the junior enlisted people but um I suspect also
13:05 um the junior officers who were coming in generally speaking pretty green they have a college degree probably right um and they've got their shiny we call them in the Navy butter bar right that that for a second lieutenants bar right but but they don't know a whole lot about um leadership or or command or anything so what was it like to be in that sort of middle position where in essence you were training the people Junior to you but in some ways also training to people uh senior to you as well that that's probably one of the things I enjoyed most about the military was
13:41 teaching and training other folks you know see seeing that moment in somebody else that that when that light bulb actually goes off and and they get it and you know they got it uh to me was always extremely rewarding uh but as far as butter bars go um I had some uh interesting experiences with some some were phenomenal um some of them needed a lot of work you said you know to put it mildly um but what I was trying to do is just like look I'm gonna I'm gonna set you up for Success you know obviously you you know technically you outrank me
14:16 but at the same time you don't know you're left from a right so if you'll allow me to help you then then we'll do some great things together and thank goodness almost every single one that I ever worked with was very receptive to that idea and uh you know I even probably the probably the only one that wasn't uh I worked really closely with uh for a little bit with the West Point graduate and I thought I don't know how you get out of West Point man I'm not even one of those guys this particular guy was super I mean he was a great person probably one of the most
14:51 smartest book smart people I ever knew didn't have the common sense of a rock now what at the same time he was he was pretty coachable he kind of got it after a while he's like okay I get it you know you go do your thing I'll do my thing we'll meet at the end of the week and see how it went and ended up being pretty good but they definitely have a learning curve you're right and it's really yeah I told the high school kids a story about when my dad um you know got out of Officer training and he reported to his first ship uh you know a brand spanking new Ensign and
15:27 there's this crusty Old Navy chief petty officer in this you know the workspaces and uh he was a my dad was an anti-submarine Warfare officer and and that he my Dad shows up and and the chief looks at him he says Ah Mr bemel yes my dad says yes Chief and he says uh all right Mr bimble you have a fundamental decision to make right now uh you can let me run this Division and teach you what you need to know in order to be its leader or you can do it by yourself my dad says uh Chief I choose option number one and my dad would tell me so that's the
16:03 best decision I ever made you know as a Navy officer because oh this this Chief look he was one of these guys he'd been through World War II and you know he he really knew what was what and and and you know to to have that kind of experience in someone who's training you is is you know beyond invaluable so well so okay so so now you're um you know you're going through your transition out and and you're talking to your um you know your your transition uh officer who's who's getting into um financial services so um you know how did how did that
16:39 transition go because you know although this isn't a show only for military people um even for non-military people I find making a career transition can be very difficult um oftentimes we're faced with kind of cultural issues because we're used to life working a particular way and now we're in this other industry or whatever and it works completely different so what was that experience like for you it was really interesting and I have fond memories of the whole process really because when uh when Dana gave me that card uh for this one particular company
17:14 I gave them a call told them who I was they set up an interview and I went for an interview and for what what I thought would be probably a you know 30 minute interview ended up actually being almost three hours because the guy we got to talking and a lot of stuff that he was teaching me about the financial world was significantly different than what I had been taught by my financial agent of a different company that I was actually a client of previous to that for years and so uh everything was going really well with this interview and then the
17:50 gentleman said okay we take care of your school and all that kind of stuff but there is a 199 dollar fee to get started and for some reason I don't I guess because I had no frame of reference all the little whistles and bells and in my head started going off like scam scam rip off you don't I'm not paying you 200 to get a job so to speak kind of thing and you know but other than that everything was really well the guy in fact the guy that interview interviewed me was a retired Apache helicopter pilot for the Army super nice guy and he owned a local office and uh we
18:27 shook hands and and I went and I went out to the to my car and I called my agent of the other financial company that I was a client of and I and his name was Lee I said hey Lee tell me about this uh particular company over here and he's like oh man you don't you don't want to go work over there those guys don't know anything about just really just kind of bad-mouth them really negatively right and so I was like I mean I'm really glad I called you you know I could have made a mistake he goes well what were you doing over there anyway I said well I'm getting out of the military and I was you know sent over there by my acap counselor for an interview he was like man you need to come work with us
19:03 I was like oh I never thought about that working with the company that I was already a client of right and I said there's a novel idea so uh went over and saw him and he set up this thing and I had to take this test Kevin it was about a two and a half hour test like 500 and something questions oh personality attitude kind of test and at the end of it a person comes out in one of two categories and you're you either come out as a hunter which is kill kill kill sell sell sell sell close close get the money get the money get you know Grant Cardone kind of stuff or on the flip side you come out as a a
19:39 farmer which is touchy-feely relationships tend to Garden pick the weeds take care of stuff you know very people oriented all that kind of stuff right well I came out as a farmer they were looking for hunters right so he's like well you know don't don't give up yet sometimes we make an exception you've been a good guy blah blah leadership all that kind of crap right so I was like okay and so he set me up with a uh to go to a little group meeting that some guys from there from their corporate office in the Fort Worth area were going to come down
20:14 to to Central Texas and this this was all going on you know kind of a a haul like a month and a half process so I set that up and then as I'm continuing to get out of the military one of the things that they make you do is a psych eval so I had to you know check that box that you're not a psycho I went and got a 60-minute evaluation from a local psychiatrist psychologist whatever I don't remember what it was but uh during that little interview with that guy he says well what are you looking at doing when you get out of the army I said well right now I'm actually kind of looking at financial services but it's not going
20:51 real well so far and uh he says man that's weird we just had a guy in here yesterday that's looking for people and he gave me a card and that card was a company that's it was at the time it was called rbr Investment Advisors and so I called them set up an appointment my wife and I go over and visit with them they're you know about 40 miles away from where we're at I go into this building and there's it's just like on TV man there's this this electronic ticker thing going around the room you know with all the NASDAQ symbols and stuff on it and four or five
21:26 guys sitting there on the phones and cubicles and talking to people and I'm like oh this is this is kind of neat right and uh so the the main guy greets us takes us into a conference room and uh he gives me a sheet of paper one sheet of paper and he goes okay here's what I need you to do I need you to study this sheet of paper for five minutes pick up the phone dial the number on the bottom of the paper and sell me ten thousand dollars worth of stock in that company well that company happened to be TXU Electric so he left the room so my wife and I are sitting there and she's like
22:02 like she doesn't know what to do right so I'd like oh I got five minutes man so I'm studying all this and making some bullet points and five minutes later I call that number do do the best that I can to to you know fundamentally pitch this guy and try to get him to buy ten thousand dollars of TXU stock and uh had the conversation hung up he opens the door I did not know he had me on speaker out there where all those other people listening to me and they're all like clapping and stuff right he's like man that was really good and I'm like okay if you say so he goes yeah we
22:39 would definitely love to have you working with us and he goes in and so here's our system and he gave me this big old thick book Kevin he goes okay you'll get your insurance license first and then we'll get your series seven license and uh just read this book study it take the test once you take the test let me know the uh the first uh 50 clients that we develop those are going to be mine for training you I got nothing off the first 50 clients he said from 51 to 100 we're going to split those and then 101 on they're all yours
23:17 okay I didn't know any difference right I figured that was normal I didn't have any difference right right no reference on the way home and by the way they were all cold calling right off of lists and stuff and uh on the way home my wife's like I don't have a good feeling about that company and I one thing I learned about Teresa is she's got a sixth sense that's ridiculous and I said yeah I'm not really sure about that either you know the guy seemed a little way too salesy for me you know remember I'm the farmer Hunter position and so on and uh I'm
23:54 looking at the the other company they set me up with the thing I go in there and I didn't like that either and so kind of a long story short a little bit I'm sitting on the front porch swinging at my at my dad's house down in Marble Falls and we're just kind of talking and you know I'm sharing man you know Dad I don't really know what I want to do and you know here's my dad he's like well let's just review the one company oh and by the way the second company that that I was actually a client of they had over five thousand dollars of monthly expenses that you were responsible for from day one
24:31 because they had the whole floor of this office building and they all share and share like in the rent they share and share a like in the secretary and the printer and all the expenses so you had about five thousand dollars per month of expenses immediately well my dad said I don't like the sound of that and I said yes that that's you know kind of crazy and plus you had to have like this 5 000 wardrobe because they all wore suits and ties which I owned like two suits right I just didn't count and uh and then he says so so the other company hit the 100 people he goes I definitely
25:06 don't like the idea of that and I said yeah Teresa didn't like them either and he said so the other the first company you went to the one that the counselor told you to go to you said they're going to pay for your school and all and your license and everything right yeah he goes well what was the problem there did you like the guy and everything you get a good a good feeling I had a great feeling great guy I said but it was 200 to get started okay the other company's five thousand dollars to get started basically the other company is 100 clients and Kevin I don't know I hope nobody takes offense to this but as only a dad can say he says look dumbass
25:45 you need to go and then again it was it was a God moment my dad goes look you need to go with that company if out if it doesn't work out I'll give I'll give you back the 200 bucks now it wasn't 200 you get that I had money it was just the concept right I was like yeah you're right okay so I called him got started the next day got my own franchise in in less than a year and a half been here now I'm in my 23rd year the one company with 100 clients they don't even exist anymore
26:20 the other company that was looking for hunters they've done they've had so many lawsuits from the military and soldiers and stuff because they that's what they do is they specialize in tattooing and screwing soldiers and Veterans they've had lawsuits Galore and our company just came out as one of the most trusted companies uh in North America again so it was a whole God thing man I looked back and go God was all over that I just really wasn't listening but he kept putting people in my path to you know here listen to me man you know
26:55 so it was amazing the way I describe it is you know God will tap us on the shoulder and we're so busy you know running our lives we brush him off so then finally he's gotta like you know like this and then we're still brushing them and off and finally he's got a really suck Us in the in the face and then we go oh gosh I guess I should be listening so so um talk if you would for a few minutes why Financial Services what it what did you find interesting about financial services well you know when again that goes back to when Dana asked me she goes well why
27:30 you know what is it she asked me that same question I said look Dana it's pretty simple from what I know they they make a lot of money and they work indoors that was it that was my whole motivation you know and plus having been a client it was It was kind of it was pretty interesting you know I remember vividly back when I was stationed in Germany I was in E5 Supply Sergeant for an MI company and I had been doing the things that I had been taught you know I had money in a CD you know because it had a better interest rate than than uh you know savings account and kind of you know
28:06 what I had been taught and my lieutenant and our company XO were outside of my supply room and I heard him talking and they they were basically bragging to each other and I overheard about they were talking about these insane rates of return on their you know my mutual fund got 20 something percent well mine did 28 and blah blah blah and I'm like I step out there and go LT what the heck's a mutual fund I'm sorry come here Sarge they sat me down between the two of them and gave me a little mutual fund one-on-one I was like oh my God I didn't know even
28:42 though they existed and this was in 1992. 93 somewhere yeah 92 and uh well I came back you know you couldn't buy anything over there but as soon as I got back to the United States in 93 94. I bought five mutual funds out of the I picked them out of money magazine it was it was like t-row price and Vanguard and uh something with it uh Janus fund Janice was a company for like five mutual funds
29:18 probably the worst five mutual funds in the history of the world because I had no idea what I was doing but I know they work so if you know how to if you know how to pick them so my first experience was was not good um but I learned you know like okay it's like a car sometimes you get a lemon if you don't know what you're looking for right yeah yeah I mean I used to tell people when I started my first business I think I lost you know more money than I made the first year or two and I'd blow a deal that should have made me whatever you know twenty thirty thousand dollars
29:53 and I'd say okay well that was a you know a semester at the Wharton School or something because in many ways that real life experience I I thought was more valuable than you know sitting in a classroom even one of the top Business School classrooms based on what I wanted to do so uh you know we make these mistakes but but they turn out I think to be very valuable you know down the road even even if they're costly so um so um talk about if you would um what you do in financial services so what is kind of you know a typical day
30:28 and you know in in the life of uh you know Norm Mitchell as he you know works on his business is he um deals with his his clients customers what what is well actually I'm sorry before you get there which would you talk for a few minutes they put you through a training program so what was the training like for all of that what kind of training do you have to do well initially um the first license that everybody gets in our industry uh pretty much is an insurance license and so we have you know and I was still in uniform I was still actually active duty I had actually started part-time uh until I
31:03 got my ETS date came up and I was able to get out and never miss a beat but we had a class you know Friday night six to ten all day Saturday all day Sunday the following weekend again Friday night so it was a 40-hour class you know two weekends in a row you go take your state exam pass that immediately started studying for the investment license took what they call the 6 and 63 for your Investments took those two back to back on the same day which you could do back then and they don't let you do that nowadays but I did that so I had every license out there within 90 days of
31:39 getting started and uh you know my whole goal quite frankly you know as an E7 back in the in the in 2000 you know my income was 40 Grand a year that's where the E7 made back then you know 23 years ago my entire goal Kevin was if hey if I can if I can make forty thousand a year and and pretty much set my own hours see my kids go to sleep in my bed every night I'm a happy dude I mean that I was that was that would be a dream come true for me you know to replace my income and not
32:14 have to leave my kids and go overseas for a year and stuff like that man I'd be a happy dude and uh of course like anything else everything every business takes off a little slow you know the first few months I was averaging between fifteen hundred to two thousand dollars a month 2500 a month kind of panicking because you know like I said I had gone through the divorce so I had child support mortgage I still had the bills you know just because you got the Army doesn't mean the bills stopped and I was like okay this needs to go a little faster and uh but I kept on going kept on going had a conversation with my trainer
32:50 several times about man is this gonna work is this gonna work he says you're doing all the right things just keep doing it and in my ninth month I made 11 Grand in one month and I thought yeah wow that was like dude this is awesome you know wow and I thought okay this works this is cool um but but there's a there's a there's a concept well it's not a con it's the way the whole financial World works it's called profit sharing well it's like real estate you know if you're the broker of a of a you know a Keller Williams or a Century 21 office you're
33:27 the guy that owns it and your agent goes out there and sells a house well you know the the commission on the sale of that house is split 50 50. the agent gets bit you know it's a six percent commission but the agent gets three percent the broker gets three percent well Financial Services is kind of the same way you know so the at the end of the day the more money I was making the more money the guy that owned the office that I was working out of the more money he made and and I didn't care because he was bending over backwards to help me make money it didn't come from my money you know the company paid him but I had
34:03 no expenses see he had to pay the rent he had to pay the electric bill the water bill the phone bill the internet service he paid all the overhead I didn't pay anything that's a pretty fair deal as long as it don't come from my money a lot of money right absolutely I got curious that that month and I made eleven thousand dollars I said okay Jerry it was and I said what was your profit sharing off of what I did eight thousand dollars so I made 11 and you made eight and you didn't do anything I want your job
34:40 and I said how do I get to where you're at right and all you got to do is hire and train people now think about it if you're the broker owner of a Century 21 office what's your only job hire and train real estate agents well in the financial world if you want to have your own agency your own practice your only job is to hire and train not real estate agents but Financial agents financial advisors so he I said well how many is it what's
35:15 a good number to get to where you're at fairly quickly and he said three he said you need to hire three people every month teach them the business and within six months you'll have your own agency hmm quite good and I did wow exactly right so I started training people about you know what I knew and you know of course not everybody's stuck because some people are not Farmers they're hunters and Hunters need to go sell used cars instead of dealing with people right
35:50 but it worked out just like that and so I got my own office and uh man it's been amazing so originally to answer your question I know it's a long answer you know I started office really focusing on the customers and the clients and doing a great job for them and and uh being that you know the best basically the best financial advisor I could be and then decided hey I want more out of this because there's more available you know if you're going to do something why not go for it right and so then I just you know kind of kind of Switched a little bit into the training leadership
36:25 mentorship hiring and training role which is where I'm at now and here we are you know 23 years later we have licensed agents in 29 different states where we started on you just you know Colleen Texas right by Fort Hood you know you know just it there was just me now we've got we've got hundreds of people like I said in 29 States so it's been a wild ride man it's been phenomous food we're so blessed my wife and I so blessed so
37:01 um how how long into your financial services career did you I mean it's it's almost like you went from being kind of you know a private or a PFC to be in that you know that that uh first sergeant again right because as a first sergeant now you're taking care of all your people as opposed to you know having primary responsibility for you know for for getting for getting the work done so to speak so how how long did that that leap take for you to get to that kind of next level a year and a half year and a half 18 months yeah yeah it's
37:38 in well in our in our company it's a two-month qualification period to get your own franchise and so in my 17th and 18th month I'm I'm at the qualifications got my franchise been an owner ever since mm-hmm and you say you've got you have a couple hundred agents now is that it yes sir and uh we have about 210 with about 141 that actually have a license and then the others are in the licensing process different states so so talk now about what is your you
38:14 know as the person who runs a Financial Services Agency what what do you typically do these days um you know as you as you go through you know your average your average day my average day uh is mostly can mostly conducting interviews for folks that are interested in this career uh making determinations whether I feel like they're going to be a good fit uh you know and and I'll just tell you that that I work almost exclusively with veterans uh not just because I am one uh because
38:49 I understand where they're from um I appreciate veterans and First Responders probably more than anybody else uh again not not only is my dad retired um my father-in-law from my first marriage was retired military my current father-in-law my wife and I have been married almost 23 years now I actually got out of the army got remarried and started this business in the same month you know my current father-in-law is retired he's a Vietnam vet Purple Heart so it's just I'm very passionate about helping people that are veterans active duty and and not just because of what
39:26 they've done but you know I look at the fact that I was given this chance and I want to give it to other people you know so many people that I meet and Kevin it's to me it's so sad that somebody out of the military says well I'm a truck driver that's all I know how to do well I could have said I'm a supply person I'm a logistics person that's all I know how to do and as I said at the top I'd probably be stuck in some mediocre existence at the Walmart Distribution Center or or God forbid a
40:01 government contractor that's constantly worried about losing a contract and and I would never have the financial Independence never have the freedom never have had the life but again praise God when my counselor gave me this card and said they will train you hey I'm I can learn something new if you teach me and train me I can learn something new and so I always tell veterans man I prefer people that have no success I don't know experience I don't care what your background was in the military I don't care if you were Army Navy Air Force Base Force I don't care
40:36 can you learn something new do you want to control your own life and most importantly do you have a heart to help other people and make a difference in their life that's the person I'm looking for so on a daily basis I'm looking for that person and then if we if I find that person then I spend the time teaching them and training them mentoring them along with the rest of our business on a weekly basis and empowering my leaders so that's a I'm a big fan of John Maxwell I'm sure you're familiar with John Maxwell you know one of the things
41:12 is talks about you gotta Empower your leaders you know so I spend time I have a breakfast every Friday morning with my leaders that are local that can make it and we just you know I I share a lot of stuff with them I give them the opportunity to to ask me anything about anything and you know so I'm trying to empower my leaders to become franchise owners of Their Own and I mean if you if you own one McDonald's you want to have just one or you want 20 or 30 of them you know so I'm trying to I'm trying to give other people the same shot the same
41:47 opportunity that I was given that's what that's what my life is about right now so um and you mentioned um you know some of these I think just a moment ago but what are the qualities that you think make a successful um Financial Services agent or financial advisor um I mean because people hear that I think well gosh I probably have to be really good at math or I got to be really good at sales you know those kind of things how how do you how do you see
42:23 some of those issues and and and and you know if a person is sort of self-evaluating what what questions would you encourage them to ask themselves well that's a great question Kevin so uh first of all I can't stand sales people I won't hire a salesperson um I'm not in sales and being in the financial world it's not a sales position sales people will not make it here okay for for various reasons the number one and I think this is probably true for hopefully for all businesses uh to
42:58 me the number one most important character trait that a person has to have is integrity uh bar none I mean if people can't trust you they're not going to do business with you ever you know they've got to trust you and you've got to be and and you've got to earn that trust you know and once that trust is gone it's not coming back so you got to have integrity and I mean a high degree of Integrity doing the right have character you know uh and then number two is you gotta be friendly you know you got to be you got to be
43:33 you've probably heard the old cliche people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care you know just you got to be friendly people don't people get enough negative negative the world's full of negativity people want to be around people that are positive that are motivated that are friendly you know one of the one of the best things that I was taught years and years ago was whenever you come into another person's uh existence like if I come into your presence and then I leave your presence you should be you should feel better for me having been there if you and I are engaging in and I walk
44:09 away and you feel worse for me having been in your presence that's not a good thing you know so just Integrity being friendly and and then one thing I like to brag on our on my personal business that I teach constantly is we call it outrageous customer service every one of my clients every one of my advisors everybody gets my cell phone number I don't want them calling an 800 number and sitting on hold after pushing 15 buttons and you know push one for Spanish and two for English and all that you get my cell phone number right that
44:45 never happens in the financial world a lot of companies won't even work with people unless they have 250 300 400 500 000 to invest I'll work within you got fifty dollars a month you want to put in a Roth IRA or you've got fifty dollars a month you want to open up a kids college fund call me I'm happy to do that because not everybody you know I I like working with normal people Merrill Lynch can have the one percent I don't care I want to work with real people veterans teachers nurses First Responders the people that make a
45:20 difference in other people's lives you know so just being friendly sales people that want to just here's the other thing I was taught early on too that the minute a person sees dollar signs in your eyeballs is over you know so you got to want to just do the right thing and think I always teach my guys you got to think long term you know being in a military Town especially one like Fort Hood which is the largest military base of anything in the whole world and and you know this as well as a veteran the military Community is very small
45:55 you know yeah there's over a million of us but but it's a small community so if I if I got somebody who's stationed down let's say Fort Bragg North Carolina and he's in the Army and that person's got orders to come to Fort Hood you don't think he's going to ask a bunch of people at Fort Bragg hey who do I need to go see who do I need to stay away from at Fort Hood oh stay away from so so and so right well that never happens with us because we do the right thing we take care of people so that when somebody does come here that oh yeah you need to go see you know Norm Mitchell in the Mitchell Group that kind of thing right
46:31 and vice versa it's a small community so you you gotta Focus costly on just doing the right thing don't worry about sales it's not sales I mean if I can save you sixty dollars a month on your car insurance that's not a sales I'm helping you save money you know everything we do has to be better for our customers or they don't become our customers you know you're not going to pay me more for car insurance hopefully not right so so what would you say um to let's say you know you got kind of oh here here here's a good example so I
47:08 um when I was with uh the submarine Squadron down in Point Loma so we had these young guys you know they're they're they come out of nuclear school they maybe just spend a million bucks you know training them right and and they get they they got a signing bonus sometimes as much as fifty thousand dollars and the next thing you know they're driving up in our you know S-Class Mercedes and you know they're just like they've like piled it on right and and and these you know I get these Sailors coming to my office as a Chaplain and they're like Javelin I don't know what to do I said what's up man they're like I can't afford my insurance I can't keep up my
47:43 carpet you know I mean they they don't they don't have 50 bucks you know to to buy food that week what what would what do you tell you know someone who's in that situation um you know who who really is in pretty Dire Straits self-imposed probably but still you know they were young maybe foolish okay but we probably all were young and foolish to a certain extent right so what do you tell someone like that well the first thing we got to do is is put a plan together a plan of action I mean we in that scenario that you just
48:19 described the number one overarching thing has to be debt elimination you know and and in that process identifying okay who is your car insurance with for example let's see if we can save you some money if we save you forty fifty sixty dollars we're gonna put that towards your debt you know who is your life insurance with can we save you some money there so we're going to try to find ways to save them money and everything that they're doing okay what are you spending money on that you don't need like you don't need those three thousand dollar rims on the six
48:54 hundred dollar car you know seriously man you've seen it there's a couple of places here in Killeen I don't understand it but it's called rent attire what do you mean Rent A Tire okay I don't I don't get it but so you know you got to look at what can we get rid of and then hey let's tackle that debt let's get you debt free and get them on a plan to get them that way as fast as possible without destroying their credit score which they've probably already done you know and then and then once we get
49:31 them out of debt now we can work with them to start an emergency fund get that funded so an emergency fund will keep them out of debt hopefully from going back in it and then we can start some midterm accounts and some long-term retirement accounts but it's hard to say for retirement when you're worried about the light bill being you know paid or not right so so getting people out of debt and just figuring out ways to save money and eliminate waste what would be step number one of course absolutely so we've got about 10 minutes left I want to um open it up here
50:07 there's uh about uh I think nine or ten of your colleagues here uh in the meeting with us um do you folks have any questions you want to ask uh uh Norm that uh you you know maybe you've been dying to ask him and and you know didn't want to put him on the spot you can do that now because right uh you know this this isn't his uh this isn't his room this is mine so or if there's just something you think would uh that that he hasn't covered that that uh you think uh people would be interested in knowing about we got any takers there just go ahead and unmute yourself and ask away
50:43 we'll see if anybody chimes in oh everybody's quiet all right well while you think about that I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you another question um you mentioned that you um you got uh married left the Army and and gone into Financial Services all the same time so what has it how how has being in financial services struggling to start that business in the beginning how did that impact your your marriage um because especially you know newly
51:19 married that can be a very you know tough time in a relationship so kind of taking this into a little more personal if if that's okay how did that how did that impact your your uh you know your marriage great great question Kevin um and and my wife will tell you had had I been her first husband who was a train wreck she would have said no way dude but we had already been dating and kind of together for about eight months before we did get married and uh she brought a a wonderful stepson
51:55 into my life who was about the same age as my youngest son so um it was a blended family of three boys that was fun um but she knew my work ethic and and she just had that confidence that I was going to do what I said I was gonna do which is one of the things that I preach like crazy to people you know be a man of your word do what you say you're gonna do um but like I said it was rough you know the first probably six months uh like any business you know most businesses don't really turn a profit until five years you know thank God this one's a whole lot faster
52:30 you know because you learn as I like to say you learn as you earn or you earn as you learn you know I look you know where you're wearing glasses so you've been to an eye doctor before they got to go to school for four six eight ten years to become an optometrist they don't make Jack while they're going through school and at the end of that school they're in debt six figures in student loans okay well I earned money as I was going let's say that the financial services world is a two-year school before you get really good at it and start making some really good money well I went to financial services school for two years and within two years I got
53:07 my own franchise making six figures and but made money along the way that's a whole lot better program but the first six months is is the toughest and and again I had a really good coach when I started and there was a time don't get me wrong as I said I had some conversations with him you know is this going to work is this going to work uh in fact in all transparency in probably the third fourth fifth month area I was actually looking at at being a substitute teacher just part-time to to bring home a few extra hundred dollars here and there right because again that that child support and the mortgage and all that that was they're
53:43 still knocking on your door right and uh absolutely but thank God it just it just worked out and I never had to do that but you know the the my coach when I started he told me this he said Norm you're going to get ridiculously underpaid your first 18 months for the amount of work that you put in but the trade-off is you will get ridiculously overpaid for the work he put in the rest of your life and he was spot on he was spot on you know I'll probably make over thirty
54:20 thousand dollars this month and haven't haven't put in 20 hours in a week in years wow that's almost as much in a month as you were hoping to make in a year when you started out isn't that crazy yeah it is so I I one one last question for you what would you say to that person who you know they they they they want to move their life forward but um you know uh gosh my mean my life is a financial train wreck um and I don't know anything about uh Financial Services who am I to to be you
54:59 know advising other people on on what they can do when you know I'm a complete washout when it comes to any of this stuff what would you say to someone like that I would say you know the best people to help a drug addict is a recovering drug addict the best people to help people financially are people that have been bankrupt and have a testimony of how what not to do you know let me help you learn from my mistakes you know so like I said it doesn't matter if you've had a bankruptcy if you know I I had seventy four thousand dollars of credit card debt when I
55:35 started in this business all on plastic Kevin and I keep all of those 12 credit cards they're in my desk drawer right now wrapped up in a rubber band as a reminder of where I came from 74 I was a smart E7 I mean I was not you know I'm not the brightest bulb in the box but I'm not the dimmest either right but here I was in E7 74 000 in credit card debt wow so hey people who've been you you can't have a testimony if you haven't been put through a test
56:11 mm-hmm so people that are financially horrible make really good testimonies and really have that heart to help people avoid what they've gone through I think they're they're wonderful candidates well and and I think that um that's that's a good note to to end our talk on I we could continue for a long time I find that's always the case there's we've really in some ways just scratched the surface but our hour is is almost up here so so Norm first of all thank you very much for coming and
56:46 talking with us today I I think people are going to find this enormously valuable and and as is so often the case with the the people that I'm fortunate enough to to interview on my show really an inspirational story I mean this is this is sort of the classic you know American story right uh kind of Rags to Riches in in essence not maybe not literally but but uh you know someone who has really um exceeded far beyond their Wildest Dreams um and and and I think and tell me if
57:21 you disagree with this but it seems to me that while you're financially successful the the success that you value most is is all of the people that you've whose lives you've been able to positively impact um over the both your time in the Army as well as in financial services it strikes me that if if you were to list you know the the top four things that you think make you a success money is probably not going to be at the top no it's making a difference it's all about making a difference great and well so it's all about go
58:00 ahead now my grandkids have thousands of dollars in their mutual funds because Grandpa set it up for them when they were babies yeah I want to make a generational difference but not just in my family in other people's as well excellent excellent well Norm again thank you very much for joining me so um I just want to mention um next week um on every Tuesday now I do a second show it's called business lessons from the military and we are talking about
58:36 business lessons that we can learn from Marine Corps War fighting Doctrine so I think you'll you will be surprised to find out how much the sort of existential nature of War translates into business without the kind of danger that uh you know you get into when you're doing house to house fights and that kind of thing so I invite you to join me on Tuesdays 10 30 a.m Pacific uh 1 30 p.m uh Eastern Time and Again an hour in for Central and Mountain that's a half hour show and then we will be back here again next Wednesday at 12 30
59:14 p.m Pacific 3 30 p.m Eastern and my guest next week is going to be Anna Rourke Anna it has a business called gratitude and food and I think you will find Anna to be I hope it's okay to still say this enormously Charming as well as quite brilliant in the business that she has built I think in some ways on the same philosophy that that Norm has built where the basis of a business is is is how is helping people having a positive impact on people's lives so all
59:51 of you here in the meeting thank you so much for joining us if you're watching us on streaming thanks for for tuning in and uh we will see you next week and and as I always do I sign off by acknowledging a very important person in my life someone who was very very dear to me and and that is of course my dear friend Marie darling you are an ever will be my bell thank you all very much and look forward to seeing you next week
60:26 that was great thanks