16. Helping Farmers One Policy at a Time

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Welcome to another episode of Wealth Without Bay Street. And we're joined today by our Amazing Co host, Mr. Richard Canfield and the one and only, and we do mean the one and only, Mary Jo Erman, who authored a couple of amazing books, Farming without the bank and Wealth without the bank or Wall Street. Now, we're talking about Wealth Without Bay street today, but we'll include Wall street in there too, because they're basically the same for Mary Jo.

They just have on one side of the border, they just have a few more A's.

Now here's where. So we've been trying to introduce this onto our podcast. So this is day 682,423 of the COVID 19 lockdown and.

We'Re introducing selling on our podcast. So we're going to do the big sell right now. So the big sell is buy these.

Books right now because they're awesome.

There's a link, but if you're driving, obviously you're not going to see the link.

Don't do that.

So how does a person know if they're driving how to buy the books?

I think that we can trust that the people listening while driving are smart enough to know that they can go back at a later time and click on their phone app and click on the link and buy the book. So let's just have faith that they're wonderful, amazing people because we know that they are and we'll just trust the process.

Okay, let's do what Richard just said.

You agree with that, Mary Jo?

I do agree with that. And Mary Jo, if it's an easy enough link, they'll remember it, right?

Yeah.

Yes, I agree with that. I have to say, like Mary Jo is the, and I'm not just going to say for the United States, I'm going to say for North America, she is the number one most trusted, sought after expert on how to help farmers change their financial story. Did you like that? It's like when somebody, you know, you're always wondering if someone interviewing you is actually going to do their homework. And here we are with Mary Jo. Mary Jo, you are awesome. And for anybody listening to this podcast, throughout the interview, if you find yourself thinking the same thing, then you'd be really well served. Getting your hands on a copy of these books, adding them to your library, especially in the farming agricultural community, people who have gone through the book, they continually come back with that resoundingly positive feedback. It's an easy read. It makes perfect sense. How do I get started? How can this apply to me? So, Mary Jo, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

Listeners are like, wow. After the 47 minute intro, we're finally getting to the interview.

So, Mary, we finally get to talk.

Yeah.

I didn't even get to share how much. I think that Mary Jo's like one of the most fun people to be around, period. And she's an absolute firecracker. And I just appreciate and love hanging out with you. You're a blast.

That's awesome. My family doesn't think I'm a firecracker.

Well, your extended family does. Mary Jo winning so, Mary Jo, what inspired you to write the book Farming without the Bank? Can you take our listeners through a bit of your journey and what led you to creating these wonderful books?

I would love to. So I just like, let's just go back to the beginning maybe. So I was born on a farm ranch operation and that's where I grew up. My dad was a purebred breeder and he farmed. And then we dispersed in the mid-90s, got out of cows, went strictly to farming. So now he and my brother farm about, I think I was home two weeks ago and they're up to like 7,000 acres. So not that they now all those people that think, oh, they're big farmers, that's a whole nother conversation. Listeners, they, you know, it's when you're a good farmer, people come to you and want you to farm some land. So nonetheless, I understood what's going on in the farming industry. I understood the struggle that we're getting anywhere. You know, we're borrowing anywhere from $150,000 a year to 3,4 million dollars a year to operate. Just depends what size you are. But doesn't matter. Everybody's going to the bank. Everybody's livelihood is collateral. And so when I came across Infinite Banking concept, I was like, oh my gosh, this is a no brainer. This can help farmers. But what I found is that a, not a lot of people understand farming and So I was told early on, no, farmers don't have any money. Well, yeah, they don't really have any liquid money, but they've got money and it's just all flowing. As we teach in infinite banking, it's just all flowing. How are you going to utilize it? So I approached them and I showed them and they told me I didn't know what I was talking about because they just looked at the numbers. And there's one thing that I know farmers do and they read and they educate themselves, everything. So I thought, fine, if you don't want to believe me, I'll make you read it. So I wrote the book and now they have to read the book before they'll even meet with me. So they should have just believed me. It would have been simpler for them. But you know.

Farmers tend to be, farmers tend to be very independent thinkers. So there we go. So I wrote Farming without the bank and then a lot of farmers have kids that don't work on the farm and they said, Mary Jo, could you please write that for non farmers? And so that's where wealth without Wall street or wealth without the bank or Wall street came from.

Wow, nice.

Really interesting. And I think we both remember the first time that we met Mary Jo, and that was at the annual Infinite Banking Think Tank conference in Birmingham, Alabama, which happens the week after super bowl every year.

One of my favorite, the most favorite things to look forward to every single year and even still to this day because I get to hang out with some wonderful people like Mary Jo and our friends. And also it's a great opportunity to connect and collaborate with like minded individuals. So if you're, if you happen to be an advisor in the industry and you're listening to this and you know, we'd encourage you to try to register for that event and join the practitioner program because it's phenomenal.

Be glad you did for sure. So Mary Jo, what are you seeing right now in the farming community? And you know, knowing that so many people, obviously, you know, in certain cases industries are disappearing altogether and we're reading all kinds of stories and seeing all kinds of media reports about, you know, dairy farmers that are having to dump inventory, cattle that are, they're basically saying, hey, look, like if you want to come right to the farm and buy some steer from us, we'll do that. But you know, it's really impacting the industry quite severely. And so what are you seeing in your interactions with prospective clients and existing clients?

I'm actually seeing lots of success as crazy as that sounds. I have talked to probably five feedlots in the last week, and they are selling their feeders. So there's a market. They're not. They're not selling them all at once. Their trucks are going out every week. And so it's not as dire as what. I don't. I don't believe it's as dire as what's being shared online. I think that it's dire. I mean, there's issues. I know. I know of hog operations that they've had to sell hogs They've had. You know, they're trying to get rid of them rather than euthanize them, rather than just bury them. I do know that there's. That. I know that people are. You know, you have butcher shops that are out processing plants that are out six months to a year, so nobody can even get in to take any in. So some of that's there. But we have to keep in mind the clientele that I am serving are people that already think differently. So they don't come to see me after reading the book because they're just sitting back waiting for somebody to take care of them. They're coming to see me because they're already three steps ahead of the average guy. And so we've got. I've got people that are. It's crazy because right now I would say the majority of my farmers are selling direct to consumer anyway. And they are so out of, like, they don't have enough animals, and so they're out of meat. They're increasing how many chickens they're buying. They're in. They're trying to find butchers so they can butcher more steers, and they've got steers, or they're buying steers and they're selling them direct to consumer. Because what we don't know is that a lot of farmers right now are going direct to consumer. And I look at this as not an issue. I mean, obviously it's an issue, but where. What are we going to change coming out of this? And that is what we're going to change. We're not going to. We're not going to just depend on the processing plant to just take loads of cattle. We're going to see more people selling direct to consumer and changing the way they've operated for 100 years.

I'm so glad to hear you say that, because what I'm. What I hear you identifying is. This is something we talked about on some of our previous podcasts, you know, talking about the COVID epidemic is that there's going to be all these amazing hidden opportunities in what the new world will, will look like. And it's almost like it's, it's now in this environment. It's not new world. It's going back to a really much more traditional model where you would locally go and pick up your, your, your meat and etc from a local farmer direct. And I think there's a lot of a trend of people wanting to go back to that and maybe just not well now because of this pandemic, they've had to go and do that research and reach out to farmers locally and find a way to go and get the, the products that they're looking for that they can't go get on a grocery shelf. And so it sounds like that's a, that's a golden opportunity really for many farmers who are able to now start selling direct and, and, and break some of those chains of dependency on, on the, the food chain model at the system that currently exists.

Well, it's, it's, yeah, it's a way for so many to advance through this COVID 19 pandemic versus retreating.

And it's a. Farmers haven't had, farmers have always struggled, but this is a different kind of struggle. Right. And so with the struggle comes a new way of thinking. Just like Nelson and I tell people this all the time. He started in the worst part of the 80s. You could start in like the fact that pain is what created the infinite banking crisis concept. Without the pain, we wouldn't be sitting here today talking about this.

That's right.

And so with the pain of not having anywhere to take your fat cattle, well guess what? Now we have to figure out how to do direct to consumer. Those are all things we have to sit and do, which we didn't have to do before because the pain wasn't enough. And so my thing is that our farmers are going to keep. Our farmers are building an infrastructure and the general population and the consumers need to understand that the farmers are building this infrastructure which is not inexpensive to do. They're having to buy freezers, they're having to find a place to process cattle, they're having to buy the cattle, they're having to feed them. Right? Doesn't matter if it's cattle or chickens or milk or whatever it is, there is an infrastructure that has to be built. And today the consumer comes in and says, oh, I want your stuff direct from you, but let's not as a consumer get lazy and complacent when this is all over and go Back to the store and forget about the little guy that fed you while the store didn't have the food to do so.

Very good point, Very good point.

Absolutely.

And you know, one of the things that we're want to share with listeners and get your feedback on is so when, when a farmer decides, okay, I'm going to implement this process, what is the biggest early win that you see when farmers embrace this process?

It's a good question.

That's a good question.

Well, I come up with those every now and then, being a co host of a podcast.

What he didn't say is that it's Friday. He's been thinking about that one. All I've been thinking about scratching his noodle to figure, what kind of question am I going to come up with?

That is one you could have warned me about, but you'd have probably put it in your really long email and I'd have been like, whoa, way too much information. Not going to read that.

So, you know, really the earliest thing is just the freedom, right? Like I've got some freedom to get away from the bank. I don't care if it's $2,000, I don't care if it is. It's just the feeling of I am A, gonna start controlling my own finances and B, I've left some, I'm gonna leave something in some sort of a legacy so the next generation has some income to operate or to save the farm or to buy out a sibling. Because, and I talk about this all the time and I'm sure we'd get there, but I'm just going to go there on my own.

Well, I'll be out in the lobby if anybody needs me.

I'll just start scratching all my questions off the list right now.

I'll just take over your podcast.

You know, the biggest thing is the farmers. And it doesn't matter if you're a dairy, if you're a ranch, if you are a row crop operation, if you're growing vegetable and fruit, it doesn't absolutely matter what you're doing, but at the end of the day, you've worked really, really hard to build that. And what we're not doing is looking at how are we going to pass that off so the next generation doesn't have to buy it from the bank and you. Because they're essentially buying it twice. They're renting it from you because you don't want to sell it. And then you, they rent it for 30 years, which essentially they bought it and then they go to the bank. And they buy it again so they can buy out their siblings. And so can we leave some death benefit? Can we leave some discounted dollars so that that next generation has operating money, they've got money to buy out a sibling, they've got money to expand, whatever. So if I look at operations today that are struggling, they're carrying the financial weight of the generations before them that did not pass it down correctly. And that's where we're seeing, in my opinion now this is, I am not a doctor.

It's like it's compound interest, but working in the opposite direction with, with the transition over generations of the family farm, is what you're saying.

And there's, there's, there's just as much value when, when Mary Jo talks about the transfer. Well, there's just as much value in compounding knowledge as there is in compounding interest. And we see some of the early wins or the success stories is that when you look at the mindset of, okay, we produce revenue, but then we're all sitting around the table going, what's going to be left over after the banks are taken care of first versus that shift in thinking, which is we control it. So how are we going to manage this business knowing that we're not giving up control over the use and liquidity of money? Because most of the farmers that we meet, they're only handling capital. They're not really making it, they're just handling it. And so we have to change that. And your books do such a great job of speaking, especially farming without the bank, of speaking directly to that farming family.

Yeah, you're meeting them with the language that they understand and they talk about, especially because many farmers, they operate in cyclical incomes where their incomes are completely relevant to harvest or whatever that is. And so there's all these inconsistent periods of time throughout the year where they receive massive lump sums, amounts of money and they're waiting to pay huge bills that have been backlogged now for half a year. And so now with your work, you're able to help people start to see how they can start to contain some of that influx of capital before it starts to walk back out the door. And it's that containment of money to allow it to create that long term sustainable compound effect as just such an instrumental opportunity for farmers these days to be able to capitalize on. So, I mean, I'm, I think we're all blessed that you've put this, this work together. I know lots of Canadian, you know, there's a lot, you have your Amazing podcast. You've been featured on many other podcasts that are farming specific. There's some really cool, like, farming podcasts out there. And people are starting to hear the message in the farming community, I think, about your book. And, you know, they're reaching out and they're looking for someone who can assist them. And you, you've done an amazing job of directing people to the right resources that you provide and that you know of other people who can provide. So I think it's fantastic. And one thing I love intrinsically about your book, you give absolute credit to R. Nelson Nash. Yes.

Giving credit where credit is due. And if you found yourself thinking, wow, Mary Jo, sounds really interesting. The big sell. This sounds like a really interesting book. Now we're going to have one of the. We're going to have a custom little jewel that comes in the big sell.

The big sell. Okay.

So anyway, good. Get the link, get the link, get the book.

We'll ship it to you.

I'm just gonna add one thing to your big sell is that they shouldn't be buying just my book. They should be getting Nelson's in conjunction with my.

Honey, you mentioned that it should actually.

Be probably a bundle.

The bundle.

Well, if only there was a way.

You could put that into some kind of a incredible box.

We're going to do a bundle right now. Bundle. Mary Jo's book, farming without the bank, and R. Nelson Nash's book, becoming your own banker.

Okay.

We're going to call it a bundle, and Rich is going to write that.

Down so that we make your site out. Tell post production that we're putting that in.

So thanks, Mary Jo.

Because. Because my book does not replace Nelson's book.

Right.

It just helps understand Nelson's book for very simple people like myself. And so if you put the two together when you go see Jason and Richard, you're going to understand at a much better level what we're trying to accomplish.

Thank you, Mary Jo. That's very true. And can you share with us maybe just an example of whether it's the most common implementation of the process that you see something that, you know, establishes the premise that, hey, if we have farming families that are listening to this podcast and saying, well, you know, I don't. I don't suspect that they feel like, you know, they want to go out and conquer Rome in a day, so to speak, this is a process. It takes time. But what is some of the most common things that you see farming families implement this process with? Like, whether it's the purchase of inventory, equipment, all the above.

So the first thing that they want to do. Just going to clarify that because I have opportunity to do so. The first thing that they want to do is use it for operating because that's the example I have in the book which please, please use your imagination, reason and logic. You just do not need it for operating. So it is hard because we have such a huge operating loan and so a lot of times what we're first using it for is it depends obviously how much money we're putting in the policy. But maybe you're going to buy a side by side, maybe you're just going to go buy a couple cows, maybe you're going to go buy 20 or 30 cows, maybe you're going to buy a tractor, maybe you're going to buy a baler, I don't, maybe you're going to pay a credit card off. It's all going to depend on what is going on in your operation. But a lot of times I actually discourage them from using it for operating because there's so many ins and outs and when you don't really understand the policy, it's hard to have so much rolling money because with operating it's an in and an out and an in and it's just constant. And so it's easier to buy a tractor and pay that back over five years or it's easier to buy a side by side and pay that back. Or maybe you just need fertilizer and you can pay that back. Or maybe you are starting a direct to consumer operation. And so now we just need to buy a freezer which I learned are very expensive the other day. So maybe we need to buy some freezers and just pay that back. So it's a little bit easier to start with something where you have a little bit of freedom to make payments back rather than these huge lump sums right away.

Well, and the key being that.

The money that you're paying back is you're putting that back into making it available in the sense of. So what you're describing is you've got what we call cash value. So it's a growing pool of financial value that builds up inside of a policy or a system of policies. You're accessing a policy loan from the insurance company, no qualifying it's an unstructured.

Loan, no nosy bankers asking you about your farming operation.

And you co own the insurance company, you participate in all the insurance company, you're still able to achieve all your financial objectives from a farming perspective. And the word payback now becomes savings. The late Bob Shields told us many years ago, he said the best way to save money is make policy loan repayments. Isn't that interesting because literally you're replenishing an accessible pool of financial value that.

You can just reutilize again when the next important freezer needs to be purchased or the next, you know, there's a, you know, you're looking at the market prices and say, okay, great, it's, now's a great time to go buy some more, more cattle. We need some bulls and you know, whatever for this use so you can be able to make. And I'll give you an example. I have a client who has a small honey operation and recently he used a policy loan to basically had. He had to make a payment for what's called a CAL loan. It's a government sponsored loan that he has and it's a one time a year payment. But the timing of the payment and the timing of the market price for when it's the best time to sell his honey reserve, they just didn't match. They're about 60 days apart. And so he would have had to sell at a discounted, reasonable discounted value in order to make the payment. So he was able to take the policy loan, use that to make the payment, sell at about a 30% higher market rate and keep the difference. Well, the ROI on that is, you know, is quite substantial. And that control, to be able to make that decision, that rational business decision, understanding your internal market, what's your marketplace, you know, what's the price of what you're selling and when is the best time to do that, to be able to have the autonomy of making those decisions and not be beholden to some banker. What, what an impressive amount of control and the feeling that you get creating in your life when you have that ability, it's unbelievable.

And it's the same you. It doesn't matter if it's honey or calves or corn. If my note comes due in December and corn is at $2 a bushel, well I can decide am I going to hold it or are they going to make me sell it? And cattle are the same thing right now. Cattle prices are horrible. Well, I got guys that are, they're okay, they can hold those calves. They don't have to sell them. They don't have to sell feeders right now. They can hold them. Granted, you can't hold them forever because you got to feed them out. But you can hold them and wait for that market to come back because you Owe yourself that money, not the banker breathing down your neck.

So good.

So good. And, Mary Jo, you have. We're going to post some links to some of the content that you put together that's out there on the Internet. And so we'll get that out to folks as well. If you want to stay in touch with Mary Jo and. And the content, you know, that she puts out there, which is. Which is just awesome.

I see us having a snippet reel of just you calling, talking in everything in plurals. The Internets, the Facebooks, the. Yeah, we're just going to have little, like, we're going to create like a snippet reel of just Jason talking about all the different plural areas where you can go and get information.

Now, Mary Jo, when somebody reads your book, what should they do next?

They should call you, right?

Yeah.

I mean, you can't call me. I mean, I would love to talk to you. If you're in Canada, if you're in the U.S. please call me. If you're in Canada, I would love to see you and I'd love to visit with you, but I'm not licensed there, so therefore, you need to call Jason and Mature town.

Oh, thank you.

I thought she was going to say Reed Nelson's. That's.

But.

Well, I'm going to assume that they already did that because they bought the bundle, right?

They got the bundle because we created that four minutes ago.

We do things like this.

Mary Jo, here's something that I wrote a note down here from something you were talking about a little bit earlier. And I think it's so interesting because I grew up in a small farming community as well. And although I wasn't a true farmer, I certainly was connected to it. You know, I grew up in a town that had 300 people living in the whole community. So it's pretty small. And what's interesting about the small town environment and farmers, because you need so much land, you have these neighbors that you know, but they live miles away from you, but you know your neighbors even though they're miles away. And whereas a lot of people who sometimes live in the city, you might not even know your neighbor, because people transition quickly in and out of properties in a larger center much more frequently. And. But to me, I really, really resonate with the community side that comes from that smaller. That farming kind of community. And so you're always going, and you're going to your local hall or your. Your local church. Like you're going to these places where you're really getting to know people in your local community very well. And so I think that farmers really resonate with the community mindset that infinite banking brings. And when you are operating with a mutual insurance company, you're effectively part of a larger community. And Nelson says it on page 85 of his book that you could be in free contract with other free people, which is the voluntary option by which insurance is built upon. And in a mutual environment, essentially you become part of a community of voluntary people choosing to participate in the mutual benefit that's created by pooling capital together to make sure money is available when somebody passes or needs that capital to show up. And so I get the sense from the farmers I speak to that they really resonate with that message because it's, it's almost just like, it's just like operating in their local community and other areas that they do. Have you ever had conversations like that with some of your clients?

No.

I don't.

I have, I have not experienced them to say that or to look at that. The one thing that I can tell you that is a little bit different is I will do finance conferences here in the States. And so I did a, just a general wealth conference and it wasn't exactly farming related. And then I did a farm finance conference three years ago. And it is day and night difference. Exactly what you're saying. We had a social the night before the conference started just so everybody can get to know each other. Right. Social started at 6. By 10 o', clock, 30 people were going downtown Nashville to go eat and drink and listen to music. I'm like, whoa, you just met each other? You know, and because in my on my wealth conferences that it's just more of your city type mixture of personalities and jobs. There was no mingling. Like everybody pretty much stayed just away. And they, you know, very surface level, you're right in the aspect that farming is very community driven. They understand each other, they, they can sympathize with each other, they can celebrate with each other, but it was, it's so. I've not heard that one on one, Richard, but I have seen it firsthand just in conferences that it's a whole different group of people. Right?

Yeah, very interesting.

Yeah. You know, there's, there's really countless numbers of stories of clients who. It's a very high referring community of clients. That's been our experience. You know, we get phone calls and it's hey, you know, my next door neighbor told me about this, you know, process and he's controlling his loans and I'm not Really sure what that looks like. But he told me I need to look at it a little further. And he's a great guy and I trust him and I would love to meet with you and talk about it. And then we get the book in their hands and the whole process begins. Right. So it's, you know, it's such a wonderful group of people to work with, and I think we take them for granted. You know, you walk into a supermarket and you look at, you know, all of the staples that you expect to find, right? The milk, the eggs, the butter, the bread, all that. And you can easily take those things for granted. And so we, you know, our hearts go out to all of the farming families who work so hard from dawn till dusk and love what they do.

Yeah. And produce the things that we need, because without farmers, we're kind of hosed.

And so helping them implement this process is by proxy helping all the people that they help.

But we're losing in that community, we're losing family operations and we're losing farmers, and we're losing them for many reasons. One might be mismanagement of money. One might be that the next generation doesn't want to come back because we're not doing any estate planning. We have to look back to see why are we losing them. And just as I was saying before.

We'Ve got the generation, the earlier generation who didn't hand it down, and the current generation having that financial stress on their shoulders. And today we're seeing record numbers of suicides and in the farm community. And in my opinion, and I am not a doctor, but in my opinion, could we be a limit? What is the solution to that problem? Right, there's a problem, and the temporary solution might be that 800 number, but what caused it? And so I'm always more practical than sympathetic sometimes, which is not always ideal for most people. However, when I look at it and go, well, let's stop the madness, like, we went through this in the 80s, we're going through it again. What is the problem? And the problem is money. Like, nobody is in. From what I can tell, nobody's committing suicide because they hate farming. They're committing suicide because they don't have the money and the bank has their livelihood as collateral.

It's the pressure.

Can. Yes. Can we hand down some money to keep that farm going?

Estate plan. I don't know why you're getting up every day to build it. Like, I don't get up every day to build my business. So it falls apart. I get up to Hand it off.

You're putting the work and the effort in. You don't want to. You spend a lifetime building something up just to see it torn down. And that's not just, just limited to farmers. It's all business owners, right? You know, your business becomes your baby. Your farm is like your baby. And you put all this effort in and you want to see it grow and tend to it. But then you, sometimes you don't. You lose sight of what's, what's the end result down the line. And if we don't lose sight of that, then we're always in the grind and we're never actually taking a proper view of how we can solve the problems that we don't even know we're creating.

Well, Mary Jo talks about that in chapter six of her book, you know, the bank control and you know, your livelihood is collateral. And you know, again, just another great reason to get your hands on the book and to where Mary Jo expands on those things. And what other advice would you have, Mary Jo, for the farming community? And what recommendation would you make to them in terms of how they educate themselves about this process? Knowing, of course, that the reading material is there. But we always share, for example, we share with people. Please don't proceed with this process or implement it unless you have clarity, unless you're working with a coach who practices what they teach. And of course, we all do here. And so what did. What other advice would you provide aside from me getting a new microphone? Stan, what other advice would you share with listeners?

You know, really, I think, yes, you need a coach. Yes, you need somebody that's going to be able to walk you to help you through that process. And you need, if you're going to read the book, if you want to implement it, for heaven's sakes, do not just go to your neighbor who sells life insurance or Uncle Bob or Aunt June, or, you know, my best friend from high school. Talk to somebody that understands infinite banking, that certified in infinite banking because they're this. The concept is not life insurance, right. But the strategies that come along with it. And you guys have the same strategies that I have because we all fight, think differently about the utilization of money. And so not everything is in Nelson's book. Not everything is in my book. And so when I'm helping, when I'm helping farmers, it's a strategy session. Because if you're buying the place from, if, let's say mom and dad are retiring and they're like, well, geez, I don't want to Pay capital gains. So I don't want to sell. Well, why not do a contract for deed for the kids at 5% interest? Or neighbor John is having to sell because he's going into the nursing home or he's having to sell just because he's done and his kids don't want to come back. Well, why not do a contract for deed? And so many people eliminate that option. And so we talk about all of those different things. And yes, life insurance and infinite banking might be part of that conversation. But when we're talking about advice and you asked what can they do differently? Just think differently. What we've done for a hundred years is not working. And so can, can mom and dad slowly buy out the operation? It's amazing. Canada, U.S. it doesn't matter if you can finance somebody and double your money at 5% interest over 30 years. Are you, let's just say you have a 2 million dollar operation. You can sell it to me for $2 million and pay capital gains on it and taxes or you can finance me for 2 million, make 2 million of interest and go hire an attorney. Do you think you could find an attorney for $2 million to write up a contract?

Hopefully a little bit less than that.

That is good, but that is stuff we're not doing. And so instead what do we do? We go to the bank and we buy it from the bank and we're subject to the bank. And there's many ways to do that, but those are all things you guys are going to be able to help them with. And then if I buy out mom and dad and I have a contract for deed with them, guess what I should have on them? Life insurance.

Insurance.

Insurance so that.

Oh my God, you two are never serious for more than like 10 minutes.

That's kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, I think.

Yeah, Mary Jo.

I completely resemble that remark.

So you know, it's good because if you have insurance on mom and dad now, when, if, let's say that you have a 30 year buyout and mom and dad die in 20, well now you have life insurance at your 20 that you can either buy out the other 10 years of the estate or you can pay the sibling off or you can just take over all the operating or whatever that looks like there's a million different ways to do it. But we're not thinking about that. I had a, I had a guy tell me I was trying to buy some storage units about three months ago before COVID And the guy's like I said, well Will you own or finance me? And he's like, well I don't know. My accountant told me that's a bad idea. I'm like, well your accountants, an idiot. Do you want to sell them to me for 2 million or do you want to make 4? Like you can take 2 million and pay the taxes or you can, can give you another 2 million in interest over 30 years and there's retirement. He's like, oh, you never told me that. And so accountants who I do beat up on, obviously accountants are not thinking of the, the interest that you could have made. And they're so worried that I'm going to default on my payment. Well, guess what, you get the land back to sell it again. You get the business back to sell it again. And so under certain circumstances, like a farmer, for example, like how bad can I destroy your land? Like I could maybe not put some fertilizer on or I could maybe, you know, just completely let it go. But in all reality, like it happened to my parents in the 80s, my dad bought some land, paid too much for it, let it go back to the guy that financed him, contract for deeds. Guy got it back, sold it again. Second guy had to give it back. He sold the same piece of land three times before he finally got paid for it all.

That's a bum deal. I can't think how that could have worked out well for him at all in that scenario. Right, so Nelson talks about buying timberland with that one policy loan that he took and then selling it, I don't know, 10 or 15 years later and self financing it at 15% interest for 10 years. And then he took the payment stream and he used it to go buy more policies. More policies.

And he talks about the unseen of infinite banking. And that's one of many examples.

Those things don't show up on an illustration. And as you identified the strategy session, it's in the questions and conversation that you have in those meetings where you're talking through what's possible. And it goes back to Nelson's. It's an exercise in reason, logic, prophecy. What's the other one? Imagination. And so it's in the conversations where you have those that you start to extrapolate that with the individual. And you're not coming up with the answers of the advisor and telling them what to do. Sometimes generally speaking, they're coming up with their own answer because they, they can now see what's possible. They're, you're, you're expanding the outer fringe of their, their capacity to think about what they can do with the process.

Right? And it's not about the question. Like, it's about the questions and the entire family. So when we talk about farming, it's not. I've had a different experience than when we talk to just an individual that might own a business that they're just operating solely and they're going to sell to somebody someday. Right. A family farm is generally the next generation working with mom and dad. And so I've had. I've had a couple of agents that I've been mentoring, and so they're writing down all these questions, you know, so they can kind of get an idea. They're like, do you know that you ask no less than 40 questions in a meeting? I'm like, I suppose it would depend on who it is. But that sounds like a lot, right? But if you're. If you go see Jason and Richard and they're not asking you about mom and dad and what happens when they die and how many siblings you have and.

What is your plan to take over and are you going to wait? Are you going to buy land? Like, I have so many questions around the family. And when I talk to clients who have gone to see other agents and I say, well, are you going to do a key man policy on mom or dad or your brother or your sister because you're farming with them, they're like, oh, I don't know. They've never. They didn't ask me about those things. Well, this is way beyond your family. Like, we are talking about an entire operation. And if we've got entire family farming together, I kind of want to know what mom and dad are doing. And if mom and dad aren't planning, then we need to plan. Because you can't just sit back and go, well, they didn't do anything, so it just is what it is. No, no, no, no. There's a plan B and you got to make the plan B. Right? So, like that. There's so many questions, and without the right person helping you through that, you're not going to get. You might get a policy, but is it the right strategy to implement that policy for long term?

Well, there you have it, folks.

Shazam.

The one and only Mary Jo Erman. And again, if you liked what you saw and you liked what you heard and you found yourself thinking, wow, Mary Jo is really interesting and I'd love to read her books.

We'll see how many times in the book. We'll count. She yells at accountants and I couldn't.

Find any in there.

But, well, you know, let me.

The next version.

I didn't yell at accountants until I saw what they were doing. So I've learned a lot, actually, since I wrote that book. And I've not made an addition because if I did, it would probably be another hundred pages.

So read the short version.

On that note, Mary Jo, one of the things that we do at the end of every podcast interview is we just talk about, and this will be familiar to you with us all, being in Dan Sullivan's Strategic Coach program to one degree or another. And what Dan talks about is he says not all heroes wear capes. And when you're adding value, when you're providing a benefit to somebody and you're impacting their lives in a really positive way, one of the things that we always ask our guests is, who do you want to be a hero to.

The whole farming industry, agriculture in general.

That's good.

That's probably the quickest.

That's the quickest hero response ever.

Let's answer.

And we will leave. We'll leave that what Nelson would say, the pregnant pause. We're going to leave that in there at the end just for extra effect.

Mary Jo, you've been awesome. We'd love to have you back.

Can we invite you back? Yeah, as long as we can't get comments and a lot of downloads on this episode. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just joking.

But yes, we will get letters from, like 10 accountants. Like, no, she can't come back on the podcast.

Hey, I don't. I like. I like accountants, but they just gotta think. Gotta think. Why are you telling people to buy things to avoid taxes. Probably not gonna like me if you're doing that.

One of my favorite people that I ever got the chance to know, he said, it's all about how you think. It's all about how you think. It's all about how you think.

Mary Joe, you've been awesome. Thank you so much for being our guest. This concludes another episode of Wealth Without Bay Street. Thank you for tuning in.

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