Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Brand Building: They built the largest Black-owned tax preparation service in the U.S., scaling to 1,000+ virtual locations.

Transcript

Brand Building: They built the largest Black-owned tax preparation service in the U.S., scaling to 1,000+ virtual locations. · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: My gas or gas are The co founders are the
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Rowing group. They used to be in LC now there
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: it's called I'm gonna ask them about that and division
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: areas behind. One Stop Tax is the largest black owned
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: tax preparation service in America. Were more than one thousand
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: virtual locations nationwide and the creators.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Of the Black Tax Festival.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: They have expanded their business portfolio into restaurants, real estate,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and hospitality.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Wow, we got a lot to talk about.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: This is a money making conversation for real Please work
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in the Money Making Conversation Masterclass.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: Sharina and Muwbray Rowing. Thank you so much. We're glad
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: to be here.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So you guys are entrepreneurs, Yes, sir, I'm gonna start
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: with you.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: And so it means to me entrepreneurship being able to
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: set your own path. It means being a servant to
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: other people. And that's what I define entrepreneurship as finding
• 0:54
  Speaker 4: a service, finding how you can serve people, and then
• 0:56
  Speaker 4: you can ultimately build a business around around their service.
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: And so I just try to be better at that
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: than most people.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: Now.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Seraina, when he says that building a business, yes, you
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: guys are partners.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that business first.
• 1:13
  Speaker 6: He's definitely.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: I always feel that you gotta have a business to
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: expand the business, right, that's all scaling. So you guys
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: are scaling now, but in the early stage, what was
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: your vision for the business?
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: Well, Mowbray is our visionary. Mowbray is the big idea guy.
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: He always is coming up with the way. He's a
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: big idea guy. Right, He's always like, Babe, I got it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: And for me, I'm the implementation person. I'm going, Okay,
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: if we're going to go from A to Z, this
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: is the way we have to get there. And so
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: that's kind of how our dynamic dynamic has always somehow, somehow.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: She complimented herself in that and that, like you, you
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: always got these ideas, but she got to come in
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and clean up.
• 1:55
  Speaker 6: What it was.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I'm glad you said it. Say that, but.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: That's a good thing because my wife does that to me.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And I would tell you, I don't want to listen
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: to her. She'll talk about Rachelle, you're just slearning your words.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: You're talking too fast. I go whatever, but whatever, whatever,
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm taking notes. I'm taking notes I'm taking notes,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you know, not on here, but I'm taking notes.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: How do you know?
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: I always tell the look, I know you're going to
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: figure out how to do it, but let me get
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: the vision out first, right, and then once I get you,
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: then start asking me questions.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: But how you gonna do it? How is it gonna work?
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: I ain't thought about all their parts here.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: I'm just trying to see if I want to do
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: it first, and so yeah, I kind of cast the vision,
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: make sure that there's something that I know we want
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: to do, and then we start figuring out the pieces
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: of it. She want to figure the pieces out before
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: we get the idea out first.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I agree with her, you know, because a lot of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: people jump out there on faith. But I would say
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that's cool, but please jump with a plane. That's right,
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Please jump with a budget, because I would tell people
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that when you start a business, there are three things.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: You should have an accountant, lawyer, and if you have
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: employees HR those are and people want to cut corners
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: on all three of those. Now, being a person, Marlberick,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: you know you're you're expanding along with SHARENA outside of taxes,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: which means that you're picking up employees, real estate, restaurants.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get into individuals and also gonna get to
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: the Black Tax Festival, which is another contractors and all
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: those things. And I know that I'm not looking at
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: just two people, y'all, not the two main operations. So
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: when I say the word accountant, I say the word
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: our CPA, our bookkeeper, I say the word legal, I
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: say the word HR.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: What do you say back to me? You know, I say,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: it's got to have it all.
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: And you know, you talk about scaling what we have
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: when we first started the business ms McDonald and what
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: we have to have now we have. Now we have
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: to have a new attorney. Now we need a new CPA.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Like the same thing that works at one million dollars,
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: it's not the same thing they work at ten million, fifteenth.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: And every stage I didn't realize either. At every stage
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: we needed to kind of up the team a little bit.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, and so we had to allow people
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: that you know, to even know more about certain things
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: that us to can kind of help us with some
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: in some of those arenas. We needed a big time attorney.
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: We had to get a different CPA as we grew
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: the business and stuff. So those have been key key things.
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: It's surrounding with a real quality team as a business
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: begins to scale, because it's hard to scale without it.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: He's pretty calm and cool. He sharna talk to me
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: about your.
• 4:31
  Speaker 6: Oh my goodness.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: So originally I was the HR, the attorney, right, it
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: was all me.
• 4:39
  Speaker 6: In the beginning.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: Like you said, Esentially, you get to the point where
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: you realize, hey, we need professionals in here. And I
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: got to fire myself from some of these jobs, and
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: so that's what I started to do. It's like, hey,
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: you know, we need a team. And you know, over
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: the years that team.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: He said years, talk about years.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but when you really started being you know,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you all started with a party in too.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: You got to start this the roots.
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when you start bringing people out.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: What was that year that it clicked kicked in?
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: So we started doing taxes in twenty ten, okay, just
• 5:11
  Speaker 5: mom and pop motory and I. We had an office
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: in Memphis, Tennessee, and we were just you know, learning
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: how to do this industry. We didn't have a ton
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: of support, we didn't have a ton of training, but
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: we had a lot of drive, right, and so we
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: got to work put our heads down for a few years,
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: and the business was growing, but.
• 5:27
  Speaker 6: Not at the rate we wanted to.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: We knew we wanted to scale, but we knew that
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: that wasn't going to be just us going out and
• 5:33
  Speaker 5: getting more customers.
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: So by twenty fifteen, we had the idea.
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: Of saying, hey, listen, it's not just us that want
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: to make a lot of money during the first part
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: of the year. Taxes is a different industry from a
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: lot of things we've been able to see, right, And
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: so when we found that concept, we said, what if
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: we put a system in place to show other people
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: how to do this, And so we started one Stop Taxes,
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: the franchise model. We started teaching people how to do taxes,
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: how to structure their companies so that they could be profitable,
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: how to find customers in their marketplace.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: And it grew from there because we said a thousand
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: virtual locations. Yes, now now we're talking about you said
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: twenty ten, you said twenty fifteen. Were those were those
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: brick and mortar stores at the time. Yeah, okay, talk
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: about the brick and mortar financial model versus the virtual
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: financial model.
• 6:24
  Speaker 6: Oh, it's night and day.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: Right Starting out, it was you know, paying all the
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: money out upfront, trying to figure out if the tax
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: season was going to be able to sustain you for
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: the rest of the year.
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: Right, right, Yeah, So those were things that's kind of difficult,
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: you know, trying to you know, you got a virtual
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: a brick and mortar business, right where you got three
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: months you got to make money, but you got to
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: pay these bills for the rest of the year.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: So it's just.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Like that.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: So it's hard to scale with that type of model,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: and it's hard to teach someone else how to start
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: their model when it costs so much money out of pocket. Right,
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: And so that's where we came what a franchise franchiser?
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: But what if we can remove the doors and windows
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: and make it to where you can do everything online,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: do it all from an app.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Now we're talking visionary talk now, right.
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: Right, because I'm thinking I'm talking about this before you
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: got apps, before people.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Got smart phones. This visionary talk.
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: Before people even trust taking pictures of their documents on
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: a cell phone.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: Right, visionary talk come with are you crazy?
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Right? What are you talking about? Yeah?
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: Ball, anybody nobody gonna take youay documents and sending stuff
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: in you andybody, I ain't sending my ID on them
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: stell phone anybody and nobody going.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean? Posing no money right exactly.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Right the phone.
• 7:34
  Speaker 6: Nobody's gonna trust you right.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: Before everybody started doing it. This sounds crazy.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Let's go to faith now's faith comes because because you know,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: when you're a visionary, people tear it down. So where
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: did y'all go where they were tearing down when it
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: was called you crazy? When they would call it but
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: still borrow money for.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Somebody.
• 7:56
  Speaker 7: You don't want to miss an episode of Money Making
• 7:57
  Speaker 7: Conversations Masterclass, So right now follow a subscribe to Money
• 8:02
  Speaker 7: Making Conversations.
• 8:03
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• 8:11
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• 8:13
  Speaker 8: We'll be right back with more Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: Welcome back to Money Making Conversations Master Class with me
• 8:22
  Speaker 8: for Sean McDonald.
• 8:24
  Speaker 4: Process one stop, one stop Texas went from brick and
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: mortar to virtual. Right, ok, mom and pop, let's talk
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: about twenty fifteen. You expanded, when did the virtual aspect?
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Was that before more covid because COVID has been a
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: landmark of all conversations I've had with small entrepreneurs or
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: any business. Did you do it before COVID or after COVID.
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: So we started in twenty ten wanting to be virtual.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: So even when we had the brick and mortar stores,
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: we always had a virtual component, okay, right, we always
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: had people other places singing. So it was kind of
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: slowly transitioning to a from twenty ten had the brick
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: and mortar locations, and then we realized we opened up
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: brick and later locations and people weren't coming in them.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: This when I realized too about marketing just opening up
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: a store. People don't just come into a store because
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: you open it. And so we opened up brick and
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: mortar stores, no customers came in, right, And so we
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: was like, that ain't the way to go, babe. All
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: this costs, you know, customers, it's not it you know
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: what I mean, Son, that.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Was your clientele or minorities or so they have that
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: block mentality, you know, first quarter, don't worry about the
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: rest of the year, you know, especially, So that's a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: problem too, right, So you have to deal with your
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: income being shuttered maybe eight months out of the year, right.
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: Right et absolutely really so again, tax season is a
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: very seasonal business. But again for us, as we started
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: to grow the franchises twenty fifteen, we started with a
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: few stores. By the time we got to twenty nineteen,
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: there were one thousand franchises in the system, and pre COVID,
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: you know, the world shuts down and we're already in place.
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: We already have all these stores that are primed and
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: ready everything, And so that just kind of changed the
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: game for us, and it helped so many families within
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: our ecosystem not have to have the same struggles as.
• 10:18
  Speaker 6: That everywhere experiencing virtual Yeah.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Virtual own became virtual right world became zoom world became
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I don't mind looking at you talking about my business
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: over a small over a phone or or monitor. Now
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: you're talking about you have one thousand virtual locations.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: How does that work?
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: So from the very beginning, we wanted to make it
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: to where people could be at home. I can sit
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: at home on my couch, get my taxes done, and
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: if Mr McDonald's my tax person, I can send him
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: my documents.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: He can prepare them from the house. I can sign
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: from my house.
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: And neither one of us have to go anywhere, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: so we built out a platform that does just that.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: I can take the pictures on my phone. I can
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: selecture aim in an app. The documents are going to
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: come to you. You can prepare them right there, send
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: it back for signature.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: I can sign it.
• 11:06
  Speaker 4: My files is in my in my inbox, in the cloud,
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: and neither one of us has left home.
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: I got my cash advance in my pocket.
• 11:15
  Speaker 6: My stuff is done, tax refund deposit.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: No waiting in line, no no driving in traffic, and
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: the const.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Oppressive because accounting is neither of your background, correct, right,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Not really?
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: I got a business degree. I took some accounting classes,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: but I was terrible.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, So we talked about a business model.
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly did you guys create it?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: But from an advanced standpoint and it's from a standpoint of,
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: like they said, from personal experience, how could I make
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it easier for me and then share it through a
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: business model? And that's why I, you know, I have
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: to commend that because that takes a.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Lot of goods. Yeah, talk to me.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it took a lot of goods to be able
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: to give people something they never heard of before. Because
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: when you tell a person we own a virtual tax company.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: They're like, what is a virtual tax book? Like, what
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: is it? Yes?
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean. People still, like I said, right,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: heard it all, and I'm aware.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of aware of it because you know, AI
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: apps and stuff like that. But especially when you two
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: guys would start, you know, they were just you know, hey,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: social media was kind of still ramping.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Up, wrapping up.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we started before social media, right, we started, So
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: we started where which is good though, because we know
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: belly to belly. These kids they don't know billy to
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: belly anymore. Right, even in the app world, even in
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: the AI world, you still got to go talk to people.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: You still got to understand some belly to belly billy
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: relationships with people. And so we can teach people the
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: old school side of it, and we know all the
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: new school stuff and AI to tech and all this
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: stuff as well too, But in order to make it
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: really successful, you really got to be do all of it.
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: And so that's kind of how we hedged our bit.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: We win and show people how the old school way
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and the new school way, and then you put it
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: all into an app and a platform, and they just
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: took off COVID happen.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I'm speaking to the co founders of the Rowing Group,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: the visionaries behind the one stop the largest black owned
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: tax preparation service in America with more than one thousand
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: virtual location These are franchises, Yes, sir, How does one
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: get involved?
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: How do they contact you?
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: We used to come from a network marketing background, you know,
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: when we were in our twenties. That was one of
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: the first businesses that we were in. So there were
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: a lot of things that we loved about that industry.
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: So when we created the platform, we created it with
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: that model in mind, and so we don't have any
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: startup costs to get going. We train for free, we
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: provide all of the tax software. We put people in
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: the system because we believe that if you truly take
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: what we're teaching you, you'll go out and you'll make
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: money and then we can split up on the back
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: end and you know, it's no problem. And so that
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: has really been one of the reasons that we've grown
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: so fast, is that we've lowered that barrier, that point
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: of entry barrier for most people so that they can say, hey,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: if I have a lot of drive, but I haven't
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: found the thing that will work for me.
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: Maybe this is it.
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: And so once op taxes has been there for a
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: lot of people over the years.
• 14:16
  Speaker 4: Well, you know the websites absolutely one Stop Taxes dot com.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: It's one to.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Stop Taxes dot com. Yes.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And when you go to that screen or go to
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that website, what's the process what.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Do they click?
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: It's going to right in the middle of stage. It's
• 14:29
  Speaker 4: going to say build my business online. It's right as
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: soon as you go in the middle of the page,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: right there, and you can get clicking on the about
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: if you want to just get more information. Our direct
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: phone numbers and everything is on there as well. Our
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: phone numbers are our Instagram and if you want to
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: just go in there and just sign up and get started,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: you can do that as well too.
• 14:45
  Speaker 7: And it's like if you don't want to miss an
• 14:47
  Speaker 7: episode of Money Making Conversations Masterclass, So right now, follow
• 14:51
  Speaker 7: a subscribe to Money Making Conversations.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: It's free and you can find.
• 14:55
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• 15:00
  Speaker 8: you get your podcasts.
• 15:02
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• 15:03
  Speaker 8: We'd be right back with more Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
• 15:09
  Speaker 8: Welcome back to Money Making Conversations master class with me
• 15:12
  Speaker 8: for Sean McDonald.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Now, when you started, you're an LLC, Yes, sir, now
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: you're an S group it's Court.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: I apologize.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: That's cool. Why did you shift? Well? Initially, yeah, well
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: initially it was just her and I.
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: So we didn't have any employees, we didn't have any
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: k on's, we didn't have anything that needed to flow
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: up to us or anything like that. And so as
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: we begin one business, you know, you know, just two
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: of us entrepreneurs. But as we began to have all
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: these other entities, Black Tax, Fitts, Marti Garard and Memphis,
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: the restaurants, multiple restaurant groups, and.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: So then we have to start having k one.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we got all these entities that we have, and
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: so the case we needed something where all this could
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: flow back up, and we had to change the whole structure.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: And so there's all types of tax advantages when you
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: when you switch to es Court.
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: But when it was just us too, you know, we
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: know is just LLC in the beginning, right, and so
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: a lot of people, most.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: People, let me give me a business.
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: LLC is better than nothing, right, But as a business group,
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: we have to also again have to change with.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: It, you know, So how does one market a virtual.
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: Tax company virtually?
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: And so we teach people how to one tap into
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: their warm market, because we believe that, again, your customer
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: base should start out at least a little bit warm,
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: familiar people that want to support your business. So we
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: teach them how to approach that warm market. But then
• 16:31
  Speaker 5: we start teaching them how to go out and align
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: strategically with other people that.
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: Can send you more customers.
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: If you're in the tax industry, you have a lot
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: of different industries that can funnel and feed into that
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: customer base. And you can also help those customers or
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: those businesses.
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: As well with your customer base.
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: And so we teach people how to go strike up
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: partnerships with a dealership, a car dealership, or daycare or
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: an apartment complex and different places where people often come
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: at a certain time of year and say, hey, I
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: need a lump sum of money.
• 17:03
  Speaker 6: I need to be able to have a down payment for.
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: A car or moving expenses, and now we have a
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: resource to be able to get that to them.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: So is there an onboarding process to get a virtual
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: one stop?
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So we built in this platform a whole learning
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: management system, so you actually go through all the different
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: steps from how to prepare taxes, how to get customers,
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: what do you do, how do you work the system?
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: So yeah, once you go through this complete training, then
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: it's all online at your own pace. Then we go
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: ahead to issue you out all the email addresses and
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: give you access to the software and we kind of
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: finish your your onboarding process.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Once you complete the training and orientation.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Let's go to something big. Like I said, we're not
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: gonna talk about the morticle. That's first time I hurt bart. Okay,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: but Black Tax Vest Yeah, how many years?
• 17:50
  Speaker 6: So this is our tenth annual event.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, why did it start?
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And why was their need for the Black Tax Festival
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: which is in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: Collect right, So that we started it because we all
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: of our stories are virtual for the most part, and
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: so a lot of them, you know, they would sign
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: up virtually all across the country. We never met them before,
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: and so it was we needed something to bring everybody
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: together where we could be able to meet. We can
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: we can put our arms around and we can give
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: them recognition for what they've done and we get to
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: hear their stories.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: And I'm telling you, well, you.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: Hear some of these stories of where these people were
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: when they heard about this business and what has happened
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: in their life because of it. I mean, it just
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: melt you down. I mean, is it is an amazing thing.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: And so once we started doing that, it just became
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: important for us to do it every year and it
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: just kept getting bigger. But now people push and work
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: hard because they want the recognition in Black taxes.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Right. You know, people don't get recognition on their jobs. Right.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: You don't get home a lot of times right now
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: with the words recognition, how are you recognizing people?
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: So there's a whole award show that we do, right.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: So it's a Black Tax Festival and there's an award show.
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: Yes, So two days is all conference content. We have
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: the Iris coming out to give updates.
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: We have so many different speakers coming to share business opportunities,
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: to share their secret sauce on how they've been able
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: to grow and scale their businesses. And so we curate
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: this room so that it can be a resource to
• 19:13
  Speaker 5: everyone that attends, whether you're in the tax industry or not.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: If you're just an entrepreneur, this is a great room
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: for you to be in to just soak in the knowledge,
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: network with people on a high level and hopefully leave
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: with better than we found you. And so that's always
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: our goal at Black Taxs.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Okay, so if I'm looking for a tax person, I'm
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: looking for entrepreneurship, I'm looking for a bank law, I'm
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: looking for anybody that can help me at scale. Those
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: are the type people that's going to be at the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Black Tax verst. I was assuming that, but I think
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: that's the purpose.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: Coreer sir, absolutely, yeah, and so yeah, we definitely want
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: to attract all those types of people, and like we're
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: bringing you out our bankers from Chase to be able
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: to talk to people about actually, how do.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: You kind of banking you need?
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: Because one of the problems with us, and it just
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: pays me so much, but we are left out of
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: the rooms because we don't have the proper paperwork, we
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: don't have the proper financials, and so we're underserved, we're
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: under insured. And so we're going to bring out people
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: within these different alliances so we can start kind of
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: helping bridge some of this wealth gap. And so that's
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: a big part of Black Tax Fest because us, as
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: tax professionals, we're the ones that help bridge the gap.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: Why because we're the ones do the tax returns for everybody.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: What does that opening day look like? Walk me through
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: each day.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: On Thursday, we'll start with what we call Breakfast with Bosses.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: It's a networking breakfast with some of the amazing business
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: leaders that we've been able to meet here in the
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: Atlanta area. So Thursday and Friday is full of content
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: like that, activations, things that people can can go to,
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: breakout sessions, get workshops in how to.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Use AI and business these types of things.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: So to your point of just all types of different
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: business owners, Like we talkt we go through how do
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: you really use AI in your business? How do you
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: regardless of the industry, Like how do you take it
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: and help you scale your business? Like how are you
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: using SEO to become an expert in your market right
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: and to come to the top for Google searches? And
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: so it's a lot of things. How you use in
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: business funding? What kind of bank accounts that you have
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: business financials? Like how do you really go get business
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: credit as an entrepreneur, Because there's a lot of things
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: floating around of what business credit looks like, which is
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: we access to funding which all of.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Our business owners need. But what do you really need? Right?
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: Do we know what a personal financial statement is? You
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: know the tax returns is needed, profit law statements that
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: you got to have. Like we start teaching us really
• 21:26
  Speaker 4: what's needed to go into these banks and go be bankable.
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: I think we start moving the needle. So that's what
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: we kind of do those first two days. Last day
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: we bring it off with the gala and we have
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: a little fun. We're gonna bring Rick Ross is gonna
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: be our keynote that day. Q Parker is gonna come
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: in and you gonna come in and do some QQ
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: did our wedding for us, one of my good one
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: of my good buddies, and he's gonna come you know,
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: bless us, you know, with some music, you know what
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: I mean. But yeah, yeah, So the last day is
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: the awards. We get recognition to all types of people.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You know, categories are there. How many awards are distributed
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: in one of the.
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: Eight categories of the Tax tight and Awards. So everything
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: from top Revenue extream to Marketing Guru and everything in between.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: There's a thing I like about interviewing people who are
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: have a visionary approach to what you guys are doing
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: is that you're scaling outside the original plan.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: You're also into real estate, you're also into restaurant.
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Why right, So after the tax business got to a
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: place like we felt like it was time that where
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: we could start beginning to diversify, right, And then so
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: we started looking at different restaurants because we you know,
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: we love to travel, we love to you know, service
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: people provide great experiences with people. And so we bought
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: the fat Tuesdays they went off ready bring and well
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: that us you where. So we bought one and we
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: took it to Memphis, Tennessee. But we we purchased the
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: last franchise before they stopped franchising. Okay, so we bought
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: the rights to the Tennessee market. Shortly after that, two
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: chains in his group and Snoop started franchising Esco here lunchally.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you bringing up so many days, Snoop, Snoop
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: be there, She's gonna be there.
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: And so yeah, Snoopy, two chain start franchising Esco. So boom,
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: we bought one of those, and then we took that
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: to Memphis as well too, and so again just kind
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: of going back there, giving back to our hometown. Even
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: though we live in Atlanta now, we still go back
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: there and we give back.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Well, the beauty of going back to a community customer
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: service business they don't normally have, knowing your market share,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: being a big fish in a small pond.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: All those things, all those things.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Marketing is cheaper, right.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: The brandish cheaper Snoop couln't believe the right that we
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: was playing at right next to the fed exploring.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Right, because yeah, I know, right across the street is
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: like the hotels right across the street exactly where you
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: really all.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: This is what you're paying.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And fed Ex's right there are constant floor of traffic
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: and you're right there.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: And Atlanta you'll be five times Oh.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, and let alone trying to advertise, let alone
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: insurance and all that good stuff.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: So with that being said, what is the future for
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: your brand?
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: Oh goodness, so many things coming down the pipeline. We
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: have a few restaurants over in the Dominican Republic and
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: so we love being over there.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah that's thing.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: But yeah, we we have some restaurants over there, and
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: we bought a yacht over there to be able to
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: rent out for experiences to people as well. And so
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: you know, as we look at the next few years,
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: you know, we're trying to convince the kids.
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: Now, hey, you know, what do you.
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: Guys think about going and hanging over at the beach
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: for a little while for a few years.
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: But you know, who knows, who knows? Always moving on.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I've been I've been doing money by conversation match classes.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Twenty seventeen, first black couple ever came on Shall said
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: the word yacht. It just blew right past it like
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: they said it like because they've said it a lot.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: They've said it, ball brids Sarena have said the word
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: yacht so much they just like saying pento, Okay, continue
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: with the stoat.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And so like now we're a place where we really
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: want to drill down into the restaurant scale. And so
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: as we scale, we want to kind of dig into
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: because their first restaurant, Esco Restaurant, I mean, I mean it,
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: we did a million dollars the first six weeks.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Congratulation opened up.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: And so now I want to be able to see
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: how do we take these restaurants, what's when new concepts
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: can we get We're gonna finish developing all the restaurants
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: in front of the FedEx Form and so we'll own
• 25:38
  Speaker 4: that entire strip there of restaurants in funding fed ex Form.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: There's three three total restaurants that we're gonna open there
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: in the next twelve months.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Before we go one stop taxes. How we reach out
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: on that, How we reach out for one stop taxes?
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: Start your own virtual franchise with one stop taxes at
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: one Stop Taxes dot com. You can give us a
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: call at eighty five two one to eight ninety three
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: if you have any questions. We have a great team
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: there to answer anything. Yet.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Congratulations and thank you for a lot of we to
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: have a great honist conversation and you're talk about your
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: business and realize that hey man, hard work, planning.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: And love and.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: Faith it's right can get you there.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Well, we thank you for having us. It's been awesome.
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming on Money Making Conversations Masterclass.
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: Awesome. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure. Now.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: If you want to be a guest on my show,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Money Making Conversation Masterclass, please visit our website Moneymakingconversations dot
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: com and click to be a guest button. If you're
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a small business owner, entrepreneur, motivational speaker, influencer, a nonprofit.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: I want you on my show.