Natalie Franke
Welcome back to The Independent Business Podcast. Today we are talking all about wealth. I am a millennial, which means I am a part of the generation that makes up the largest cohort in the current workforce. However, millennials control only about 5% of total wealth. For millennials to have the same amount of wealth that baby boomers did at this age, we would have to quadruple what we have today. The reality is generating wealth and retaining wealth is harder now than ever before and today, we are sitting down with a dear friend of mine who I have known for several years Dominique Broadway. She is a provocative financial literacy trailblazer who is on a mission to make wealth attainable for everyone. As an award winning personal finance experts speaker and the founder of finances demystified, Dominique has a strong passion for working with young professionals, entrepreneurs and people of all ages to bring their dreams to reality. Her financial expertise comes from a lengthy history of studying, practicing and teaching personal finance. She began her career working at major corporate brokerage firm, such as UBS and Edelman After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business and finance. Eventually, she walked away from clients investing 10s of millions of dollars and set out to use the knowledge that she had to transform the lives of everyday people, including independent business owners, conversations that were once reserved for Wall Street are commonplace in Dominique’s world. And so today, we are bringing her knowledge to the independent business podcast, I can’t wait for you to listen to this episode. It is a powerful one. And you might even want to replay it a couple of times. Hey, everyone, this is your host, Natalie Franke, and you’re listening to the independent business podcast, more people than ever are working for themselves and building profitable businesses in the process. So on this show, I sit down with some of the most influential authors, entrepreneurs and creators to break down the science of self made success so that you can achieve victory.
Natalie Franke
Dominique, thank you so much for joining me today.
Dominique Broadway
Thank you for having me, Natalie. I’m like, so excited to be here. But also just congratulations to you for launching this amazing platform that’s gonna, as you know impacts so many people’s lives. So
Natalie Franke
you’re so kind i We’ve we I will never forget, I’m going to kick us off at the story here. We were roommates. We were paired up as roommates at a conference many years ago. I had never met you prior to that yet. We both were at the time. I think we’re both living in Maryland. I don’t think I had moved. Yeah, so both Marylanders but had never really crossed paths. And I’ve been following your journey ever since. And for folks who aren’t familiar with Dominique, I just need you to know not only is she a true genius, and I mean this sincerely a true genius. But you also have this heart of gold when the pandemic hit, you know, three years ago now. And the entire independent business world was just thrown into chaos. We didn’t know what to do. All of us were concerned about cash flow, as we saw, you know, cancellations happening left and right, we were not able to work and there was so much fear and so much uncertainty. And I will never forget reaching out to you and being like, Hey, are you up for just coming on a video with me? And let’s just talk to the community. Let’s just, let’s just talk, let them ask questions. And you were like, Absolutely, I’m down, just say what you need. I’ll be there. And so I say that to be like She not only is a genius in this arena, but she has fought fiercely as an advocate for independent business owners for a very long time. And so having you here is such an honor just such a true honor. I want to kind of kick us off by talking about your journey with generating wealth with understanding wealth as a concept. What led you to all of this, you know, what is your background? I shared a little bit in the intro, but I’d love for you to kind of walk folks through
Dominique Broadway
it. Yeah. So it’s funny every time you have you go back to the background, like I got it. I kind of take it back. How did I How did I get here? Right? I feel like that’s a question we probably all ask ourselves, often, this so I actually as you say I am I’m from Maryland. And I actually started, I would say started the process of building wealth. So I started teaching myself how to trade and invest when I was 16 years old. And I was just really, really, and I don’t like to use word obsessed, but I was really obsessed at that time was like trying to figure out how to build wealth and how to get rich. I had always been an entrepreneur, you know, selling bracelets when I was like five years old to selling candy at school and getting suspended for it to becoming the chief operating officer or one of my friends companies when I was about 14 or 15 called Kids interactive data systems, and we would teach kids how to use computer programs, because they weren’t teaching it in schools at the time. And so that was Like, I was always really interested in business and just figuring out how to grow my money. And like many teenagers, right, we have a lot of jobs. As as teenagers, I worked at Target and like picture people and like all these different jobs, and I was tired of just exchanging hours for dollars, because you know, then we were making, I don’t want to age us, but like 575 $6.25.
Natalie Franke
I remember, like, it takes so long
Dominique Broadway
just to make $100. I remember like my stepfather, my mom would have like, all these black enterprise and entrepreneur magazines laying around the house. And I would just start picking them up. And I’m like, Well, how are like, you see all these rich people? Like, how are they getting this money. And then on the weekends, my mom would drive me around to Potomac, Maryland, and she would show me all the big houses. And we would also go to Annapolis, and she would show me all the big houses on the water. And she was like, you know, if you work really hard and work really smart, one day, you can have a home like this, if this is something that you want. And so I’m like, at this time researching, like, okay, so how are rich people getting rich? Like, how, where do rich people come from? You know, and so it was really two ways. It was, Well, really, I would say three, most were entrepreneurs or, you know, created some sort of business or new idea, real estate and investing. I didn’t really have any money to get into real estate. So I was like, let’s try this investing thing. So I went to my grandparents at the time, it was my grandparents and said, Hey, my, my mom and my aunt, also my dad, and like, hey, I want to I want to invest, I want to invest the money I have. So I can, you know, put in the stock market. And they’re like, we don’t really know much about investing. And I’m like, Okay, well, do you have retirement accounts, I’m reading about these retirement accounts, you know, and they’re like, We have them, but I’m gonna be honest with you. We don’t know how they work. And I’m like, Okay, so my grandfather gave me his TSP, which is, which was a thrift savings plan at the time, he was the chief of it for for the Department of Defense and DC, he gave me his tsp and said, figure it out. And come back and tell me, and so I just started scouring through trying to understand what the C fund was, and the G fund and the F Fund and the AI fund. And these were all government investment accounts. And then my grandfather bought me investing for Dummies, and we didn’t have YouTube, but that kind of feel so old saying this, we didn’t have YouTube at the time, you know, I would go to the library, my mom still has a screenshot of the first book that she bought me on Amazon, which was how to invest in stocks. When I was this was I think this book she had bought me like my first year in college. And this was when before there was Amazon Prime. So it took like, you know, like 10 days to get your your items. And so we were laughing about that. And I just went head in. And I bought my first two investments. The first one was Apple, because I was like absolutely obsessed with my iPod because I remember the day that I had to walk around with a Walkman. And the fact that I could have 1000s of songs and this little thing was like Bush mind blown. Yeah. And then I went and then I also purchased Joan Soto, do you remember Joan? Zota?
Natalie Franke
I do. Yes. I was obsessed with so good.
Dominique Broadway
Okay, so the green apple soda specifically I loved and so I’m like, Okay, I’m going to start investing into companies that I love apple, and Jones soda. I’m 16. Right? I don’t have a lot of a lot of death yet, right. So those are my first two investments I took about 25 Put about $25 into each. And then over time, like as I had birthdays or made money, I’ll just keep adding more and more and more and more and more. They started accumulating to 1000s of dollars. You know, by the time I got to college, and then once I was in college, I went to Bowie State University, which is an historically black college and blue Maryland. Majored in banking and finance ended up getting a internship with this company called UBS financial services, which I joke about because when I got the internship, I ended up there out of default because I originally wanted to be at Morgan Stanley, but they cut their internship program. The weekend, the week actually the week before I was supposed to go, but I ended up at UBS started managing while interning, I was just interning and they were focusing on high net worth individuals, which is what I had never heard of them. So clients I had 1,000,002 million 2030 $40 million in investable assets. And so I did that internship in New York. They loved me. They offered me a full time position in New York, but I actually had to finish college. So I went back to college. I finished my last year of college, I started working at the UBS in Bethesda, Maryland, bought my first house before I graduated college, graduated college a semester late and then had to commute from my new condo in north bethesda to buoy a few times a week to finish my last class. So I ended up graduating I always joke I ended up graduating college a semester late and with like a 2.8 GPA, so I barely got out of there, but I didn’t really care. I had a job like whatever. And so basically did that for a while and realize, you know, after working all these different firms, I was at UBS financial services, Edelman financial services, United capital, which is now Goldman Sachs. And realize there was a huge gap in information right. My friends kept coming to me asking me for financial advice. And I had to keep telling them no, I’m like, you don’t have enough money, right? So become clients of the firms that I’m with you And after a while, I was like, this is silly, right? People are asking for help. In their say, and I have to say no, and I’m one of those people is always asking for help. The least I can do is try to help but because of my licenses, like I couldn’t legally help them. And so I got that that itch that entrepreneur itch came back. And I realized, you know, that I, I need to help everyone else, right? So I went to my mentor at the time and said, hey, you know, I, I want to I want to help everyone else. Basically, I’m like, You guys are all targeting the 1%. I want to target the 99%. And he told me straight to my face, you will never make money helping people that don’t have money. You need to stay here. And I’m like, No. Now this is a challenge. So I quit my job, and then started started my company. And so that was really, you know, that transition for me. And then from there, you know, it was that was, I will say, just really quickly the rougher times of my life, right? So I had done a decent job of saving investing. Like I said, I bought my first house at 22. I had an investment portfolio, I had a little over my years worth of my salary saved when I quit my job. And like many entrepreneurs, I started my company. And I didn’t price myself, right. I was under charging, undervaluing what I was providing the services that I was providing to my clients. And they were thriving. Clients are buying their first houses, they’re investing, they’re saving. They’re buying investment properties and all the things and I look up about two years in and I’m dead broke. Like maybe a year and a half ago. I’m dead broke. My house is in foreclosure. A beautiful little condos in foreclosure. My cute little BMW got repossessed, and I am getting sued by my condo association. I am defaulting on my Amex defaulting on my Navy Federal Court, like everything. And I was just like, stunned because you know, well, that was what I was choosing. And I’m like, this is this is this, I decided to quit this job because I knew I was going to help people. And I feel like because I’m help, I’m going to help people that I will be financially compensated well, and I was I wasn’t, but that was my fault, right? Because I wasn’t pricing myself, right. And as working with people one on one, there’s only so much you can do, right. And so from there, I had to do one of the hardest things I’ve probably ever done was admit how much I had messed up. And that meant I needed to tell somebody, because I was hiding it. And I was getting stressed out and depressed. And I’m just like, God, Why’d this happened to me. And I forget, I went to I went to my mom, because I couldn’t take it anymore. And, you know, I sat in the car with her. And I’m like,
Natalie Franke
bawling, oh, my God, I’m a failure, and I’m bored of you.
Dominique Broadway
I’m gonna be homeless or like, you know, just, you know, dramatic, but that’s how it felt right. And I think many of us have been in financial situations, and we feel like we’ve hit this rock bottom, and there’s no coming out, you know, in my mind, I was gonna get sued, and I was going to go to jail. And let me you really feel that way. That’s how debt collectors make you feel. And so that was kind of the downtime for me. And the big turnaround for me, honestly, Natalie, which is made me literally making the decision that I’m only choosing wealth from here on out and I realized that I had thought myself broke. And then I feel like I thought myself rich. So it’s like, all these little decisions that I made. That put me there that put me in that situation that made me broke within there’s all these other this other decisions that have put me where I am right now. Right. And so yeah, just know, that was kind of long. But that has been really, really the story of my life. And also, as I, you know, may that kind of confession to my mom, I went to my grandfather who actually passed away last year, but I went to my grandfather, and I said, Hey, like, I’ve messed this up, and I need you to help me because he’s always been really good at his finances, just like my mom. My mom was an accountant. But I was like, I need you to treat me like my client. Right? And so he’s like, alright, we’ll just come over with everything. So I come over his house with a big bag of envelopes of like stuff that I was refusing to open. He’s like, What is all this? I’m like, Oh, this is the mail over the last three or four months. But I’m, like, scared over. So we sit down, we open everything up, and just go through it and created a plan. We sat down and just created a plan and we started calling my debt collectors, you know, negotiating. And the funny thing is, and I always say I feel like the debt that I had was like, and this is not a number obviously, but it felt like a million bajillion dollars. Right. It was like $25,000 just wasn’t a huge amount, which is still which was still a lot at the time. I’m, but it wasn’t the million bajillion dollars that they’re going to, you know, put me in jail for, it really just started creating a strategy from there. And then I had to do the thing that many entrepreneurs don’t want to do, I had to get a you know, a BJ or bridge job, and get this bridge job and consulting opportunity with a young lady of nonprofit in Bethesda, Maryland, that was paying me about 3k a month and 3k a month may not sound like a lot, but it was the game changer for me, because it took away a lot of the financial pressure that I had, and it gave me the cushion that I needed to pay the bills, and then I could still run the business and use that money to put down towards extra debts and then start saving again. Right. And so I had to put my pride to the side and all those things. So that was the story. I would say of just like how I started, so to mess it up to starting to rebuild
Natalie Franke
hoof. In that story, you covered so many different areas where I relate personally, where I know independent business owners relate personally. Because there are, you know, so many, both mental and physical challenges that we deal with when it comes to wealth when it comes to money, the knowledge around it, for instance, so so, so much. And so I would love to hear from you. Like, can you share some of the reasons you think that it’s hard for entrepreneurs, for business owners for somebody striking it out on their own going independent leaving that job, just like you did to generate wealth? What are some of the hurdles you see us facing?
Dominique Broadway
Yeah, there are so many hurdles, I think one of the biggest hurdles was, I would say for me, was not having tons of people to talk to about it. Right? You know, it’s interesting, because my parents, actually, my mom, my dad, and my stepdad were all entrepreneurs. But it was interesting, because what I was starting, I was almost kind of mimicking a little bit of how my mom did her business and a one on one one on one capacity. But the marketing and the thing, the tech and everything was totally different from when she had a business, right. And so I felt like there was a lot of other entrepreneurs like now I have tons of amazing entrepreneurs that I can tap into. But being a black woman and being someone who, you know, the first really not, I don’t say the first time I failed, because my stepfather ended up creating a million dollar business. But due to not having the right information, he died broke, right. And so it’s even when I saw entrepreneurs who were doing well, they could make the money, they still didn’t know what to do with it once they got it, then so I feel like I feel like the pricing thing is still one of the biggest issues, I think that if we had more people to talk about pricing with I think if we had more people who was transparent with their prices, I don’t feel like I would have ran into that issue. So early on, I think I may have been charging, you know, $75 for a consultation or something crazy that is not sustainable. Right? You know, when I first started, and I think that that’s one of the biggest things, I think that many entrepreneurs, we are creatives, and we are but we also tend to have a lot of pride. And so we just like start our business, and we’re like, I can do this, and I’m gonna be so great. And I’m gonna be a billionaire by next year. And like, not necessarily consulting people along the way. I’ll also say I’ve never had a business coach, right. And now I have an eight figure business, I’ve literally never had a business coach. And I probably could have reached some of these heights earlier, if I had people that I could trust, you know, along the way,
Natalie Franke
the price secrecy issue has been huge. Like, I want to dig into that just a little bit for a second because I remember so vividly, when I first started my business, my first business about 15 years ago, it was very common in at least in the creative industry for people to want to hide their pricing. Yeah, post it publicly, publicly not share it. So if you’re getting started, you know, there’s no benchmark, there’s no way to understand how to price yourself and back then again, like there wasn’t as much access to education, resources, courses, even books were, you know, fairly outdated with how quickly things were changing in the landscape at the time. And, you know, I remember back then just thinking, Well, how is that not driving all of us down? Like if we if we don’t have this ability to talk openly about money, if we’re not able to share, you know, what is an appropriate rate for this type of service? How are we, you know, assessing gross profit at the end of the day with all the costs that go into it, and just having these types of conversations with other business owners. It’s just going to be a race to the bottom it’s going to be newcomers coming in and not knowing because no one has taken the time to help raise the bar right? Raise the tide. And so price secrecy has continued to be a problem. So for somebody that maybe feels afraid to be open with talking about money be open about sharing their prices and their rates. You know, even when they go to a networking event, they might feel hesitant or afraid A to admit how much they charge. Do you have any advice for us there anything that you can say to speak to kind of this price secrecy issue?
Dominique Broadway
You know, it’s it’s interesting. I don’t. So I think the price secrecy comes from years of just like you don’t the two things you don’t talk about, right? You don’t ask people they say you don’t ask people, you know what their political stances and you especially living in DC, right, you don’t ask people their political stance, or you don’t ask people how much how much money they make. And I feel like this is where this is all coming from. And it’s interesting, because nowadays, I feel like there’s still a lot of people who are scared to talk about what they make or what they charge. But I feel like the conversation is happening more and more. And that’s one of my personal missions, which is also why I am so open, you know, I’ll tell people like, Oh, this is how much I paid for my house. This is how much childcare costs, or this is how much the car costs, or this is how I did this, or this, how I did that. But I think that a lot of times, it’s a lack of confidence. And I feel like people who are confident, and you’ve seen someone who can confidently give you a number, they’ll just be like, yes, so my photography services are $5,000 for the wedding, and blah, blah, and you’re just like, okay, and when people give you a number confidently, you pay it confidently, because you’re like, they’re given me confidence. Right. And I think that a lot of times nowadays, when when I’m seeing people who are scared to share their prices, it’s because they’re not confident in their prices, and they don’t feel like they’re worth that number that they’re vocalizing. So that’s when I feel like it comes back to because money is all mental, right? It really is. And so if you can gain that confidence, and not necessarily always, it’s not always necessarily about the number, it’s about being able to clearly articulate the value that you’re bringing, because if you can clearly articulate the value, whatever you whatever number you throw out, it’s gonna be like, okay, cool. I need whatever you’re offering, I want that result that you’re going to provide. I’m fine with paying you whatever number you say. And I think that a lot of entrepreneurs are battling with that, to be honest.
Natalie Franke
I think you’ve nailed it. You absolutely nailed it. How though? Do you become more confident in even just saying your rate, because when you were when you were literally walking through that I could hear the younger version of myself sitting down with a client. And the amount of fear I felt like very fear very, I was insecure to say, this is how much I charge you the same way. I think we’ve all been there. And even you know, as you raise your rates, as you move into different markets, you pivot, you try different things, that insecurity bubbles back up, is there like a tip that you have is, you know, how do we start that process of just becoming more confident and saying how much we charge for our services.
Dominique Broadway
So I like to, to I tell entrepreneurs all the time, like, take a second to if you need to get confidence a lot of times with the confidence is because they a lot of times entrepreneurs don’t clearly see the value that they’re providing. So I tell entrepreneurs to create, you know, and we do these in our webinars all the time, but a value stack for yourself, make a list of all the value that you’re bringing to someone’s life, right. And so in some of the things may be priceless, right? That you’re bringing, let’s say even me, if I’m like, Hey, you’re signing up for my investing course. And this is the value you’re going to learn how to invest if you learn now, let’s say if you had learned this information years ago, and invested $1,000, this $1,000 could have been worth $20,000, if you had invested into the s&p if you learned about it 10 years ago, so boom, there’s a $20,000 value that you’re probably going to see minimum over the next few years. If you invest. Also, you’re going to learn this information that’s gonna allow you to create generational wealth, and now your children will have investments, my children are on track to be multimillionaires by the age of 16. Doing these specific tactics, I’m going to give you those tactics, how much is that worth to you? Right, so then if you’re saying, Hey, I’m going to show you how to grow your portfolio by X amount percent, how to build a portfolio for your children. So they have at least at least probably six figures if you’re if they’re young like mine. Now I’m showing you that I’m bringing you honestly just listening to things hundreds of 1000s of dollars in value. So the course is $2,000 You’d be like course, Sign me up. So if you and this is a short value stack, but I typically go you know longer. But if you can list that out and say hey, you know, this, this is you’re gonna get this result and this result and this result, and this is minimum what these results are worth, it makes it very easy for you to confidently say your price at the end. So I would tell anyone make a list of the value that you’re bringing, you know, three to five items and then total it out and say what that’s worth and then put your price beside it and nine times out of 10 your price is going to be a very small percentage of the value that you’re actually bringing in
Natalie Franke
phenomenal. Do you have any money mantras or like money affirmations? Because as you’re talking, I’m like, yes to all the value. But I also wonder what do you say in the mirror in the morning? Oh, what is the affirmation? I need to know. I know. It’s,
Dominique Broadway
I say affirmations, not just every day, but throughout the day, because even now, and I’m so proud to say now sitting here as a multimillionaire, I still battle with doubt, worry, financial stress, like, I’m all my biggest fear is going broke again. Right. And so I have to say affirmations all the time. So the ones that I say, like, literally every day, is I’m a money magnet. I’ve made the decision to become wealthy. I am wealthy in more than one way. And that was really important because people think that wealth is just money. It’s not money is just a tool. I am wealthy because I’m healthy. I am wealthy because I’m surrounded by friends and family that loved me. To me, that’s more that’s worth more than the money. The money just makes life a lot easier. And it’s more complicated in some ways. But those are my favorite affirmations. So I’m a money magnet. I’ve made the decision to become wealthy. I am wealthy in more than one way I say those three things every day. So the other day I was really excited. I’m not sure if he’s on Instagram, I found $10 in the in like this little book, and I was about to get in the car. And I was like, see, I’m a money magnet.
Natalie Franke
money flows to me easily even when I’m just getting in the car.
Natalie Franke
I love it. I love it. We’re in the you
Dominique Broadway
know what’s interesting, though, that that $10 My nanny’s daughter, it was her birthday. So the $10 that I found, I took that and gave her $50 Or I gave her $10 plus the $40 and put it and then I gave it to someone else, because money is supposed to be circulated. Right? And so what you’re putting out, you’re gonna get back. And so yes, I’m a money magnet, but I’m gonna take this and I’m gonna bless somebody else with it.
Natalie Franke
I love that that was one of the biggest kind of unlearning that I personally had to do with money I grew up and I always kind of equated money to greed, like I thought, okay, wealth is greed. And you must reject greed at all costs. And, you know, remain kind of humble in what you have. And I didn’t realize at the time, okay, but when you have wealth, you generate wealth, you actually that like that gives you the power to make tremendous impact. Power changed the world as a business owner, it means you can hire people, you can, you know, it’s so powerful. You
Dominique Broadway
see, when I tell you really quickly, I’m sorry, the definition of humble. Do you know the definition of humble? Give it to me? So one of my good friends Felicia Hatcher said this on stage recently, when I tell you, it blew my mind. I want you to know the definition of humble I just pulled it up so I won’t mess it up. The definition of humble is having or showing a modest or low estimate of one’s own importance. Isn’t that crazy? So I told you don’t be humble because you don’t want to be showing a low estimate of your importance. So there’s no reason to be humble also, when we talk about that greed. Do you remember growing up cartoons? Yes, Mr. Burns, Mr. Burns was the richest man in Springville. But he was the villain. But Mr. Burns was also employing most of Springfield. Okay, he gets some credit for that. Right. And Scrooge McDuck would sit in his vault and throw up his coins all the money.
Natalie Franke
Yes. And you’re fine. That means we’re gonna find that Yes.
Dominique Broadway
But Mister, I’m like, people really don’t like Mr. Burns. But Mr. Burns is literally employing most of Springfield. He’s literally the reason why most people in Springfield are eaten, including Homer. Right? And it’s like, why is he bad? So it’s interesting, but we are we are literally raised in all cartoons reflect the rich people as the villains.
Natalie Franke
Wow. No, I know. And I struggle with that myself. I really did. And even now, it’s something where, you know, I think I, in my own journey have had to remind myself No, like when when I thrive, I have the power to then empower others with whatever I’m able to generate. And that is more valuable than me avoiding money, being afraid of money running money, right? And instead flipping that mindset and you’re 100% right mindset is so powerful. I love the affirmations. were stealing those. We will add those to the show notes for sure. So folks can incorporate those throughout their day. I want to talk a little bit for a second about younger generation. Yeah, I’m a millennial, you’re a millennial. What year were you born, by the way? So I think we were we might share 85 Okay, okay, I’m 90. So we’re very we’re, you know, right in there, right? In the core of that millennial generation. We are, you know, the largest kind of subset of the workforce at the moment. But the reality is that baby boomers are the ones who own a lot of the wealth in our country. And so I’m really curious, like, where does this leave millennials and Gen Z, we’re in this really weird moment like real estate prices, and, you know, the cost of living and inflation is so many elements
Dominique Broadway
right now, like, you know, it’s, as I was telling you, I’m I’m considering moving back to the DC Maryland area, and I’m looking at and I’m like, these places have never cost this much. You know, it’s, it’s a really interesting time. And I don’t, I don’t want to say scary, but it is scary. And it’s scary, because I think about, like you said, the baby boomers, which are, I guess, our parents generation, and then like my grandparents, right, so my grandparents, my grandma worked at the United States postal office office until she retired, you know, she worked in the back office. And then my grandfather, as I mentioned, was the Chief of our team. For the Department of Defense. He, I think he gets like, he got like, 80% of his salary till the day that he died. That was a part of his his pension. And he also was in military and in received other benefits from that. So they had a very comfortable retirement. And now with the baby boomer generation, they were also really heavily impacted by the last recession, right, and then they also been impacted by the pandemic, and that is lining us up for a lot of wealth, that will be transferred to us with a lot of wealth that won’t be transferred. And that’s because so many of our parents have lost so much in the markets by not having not understanding what to do not investing when they should have been pulling out when they shouldn’t have, etc, etc. So it’s putting millennials and Gen Z in a situation where it’s like, you really got to get to the bag, and you really have to secure your future. And you also can’t just have one job, you have to have multiple streams of income, you have to invest, you have to have your money working for you, you can’t just depend on your 401k. And as we’ve all noticed, we can’t even depend on our jobs that we have, you know, right now, layoffs are happening every day. And it’s unfortunate. And so with that being said, I feel like that means that we’re going to have to work not just harder, but smarter. Right. And we’re also though, I will say the upside is we are positioned with technology. So we have technology, and we have the internet that the baby boomers, and let’s say my grandparents did not have. So we’re also in a really unique situation where we have the ability to create more wealth than they’ve ever created or ever seen. Easier. And in shorter timeframes. So that’s going to mean that, just because you made $1, you don’t need to go spend the dollar, you need to figure out how to take that dollar, break it up, invest a piece of it, have some Here, have some there, you’re gonna have to be smart with your money, because there aren’t going to be any pensions. Word on the street, there’s not going to be any social security. So whatever you’ve have, that’s all you’re going to be able to live on. And so that’s why I tell people, it’s going to be very important to be educated on all things finance, and also making sure that you’re being strategic with your money, not trying to keep up with the I used to be Joneses now the Kardashians or whatever, and not trying to keep up with everyone on social media and living and doing what’s best for you, and your family or whoever, you know, you may be potentially supporting. But also keeping in mind, this is a new thing I’m seeing a lot of friends having too, because I’m 38 now, right, but a lot of my friends like their parents are in their 60s or 70s. And they’re having to take care of them. Yeah, yeah. So there’s an added pressure there that a lot of millennials did not see coming. So that’s why I’m like, it’s even more important to make sure that we’re being good stewards of our finances.
Natalie Franke
Absolutely. I think, you know, one of the things there around retirement just reminded me that so much of the infrastructure, when you kind of grow up, you are encouraged go get that w two job. And as part of that, you get a lot of benefits, right the system, the system is not set up for the independent business, it’s set up for the W two worker, you get your health care through your W two work, you get your retirement set up through your W two work, I could keep going on and on parental leave, but I’ll leave, I’ll leave with those three. The purpose of saying that is because when you do run an independent business, things like saving for retirement, become your sole responsibility. Nobody’s going to come find you and remind you to save for your retirement. Nobody’s going to save you if you don’t save yourself by putting that money away. Yeah.
Dominique Broadway
And if you’re not even contributing to Social Security, you’re not going to get those credits either if you’re not filing your taxes and making those contributions as well.
Natalie Franke
100% And so I do have a big fear and I want to make sure like if you’re listening to this podcast, you should be saving for retirement. Pierre worried? Okay, I think for some, it’s very obvious. But I know there are a lot of independents out there who have put off starting a retirement fund, it is scary to them. It is scary to all of us. Like, this is the kind of conversation that we’re I hope it’s a little bit of a kick in the pants. And so to do that gentle nudging with a little bit of tough love, as I like to say, Yeah, where does Where does somebody start? If they are an independent business owner, they don’t have any kind of retirement setup that they’re pouring into? What are some of those options right off the bat, if you’re able to share, like, what should we be thinking about paying attention to.
Dominique Broadway
So I feel like if you’re like, hey, I haven’t done anything, and I will be, I’m gonna be honest, I used to be a financial planner, I was totally contributing to my retirement when I was working. But when I became an entrepreneur, I had to, it’s often because I couldn’t afford to write. And so now, you know, I’m back doing all those things. But I would say, if you’re like me, you got to stop. And now you want to start again, I would say the first thing you should do is open a Roth IRA. That’s the first thing you should do. I love Roth IRAs, because now you can put up to $6,500 A year into it, you don’t have to put the whole 6500. But something is better than nothing. And all the money in there grows completely tax free. That’s amazing, right. So I think that’s a really great first step for people, and then just focus on maxing that out every year. This is also something I do for my children, I have a one year old and a three year old, they have completely maxed out Roth IRAs for each year that they’ve once only been around for one year, but they’ve been around, because this account is going to allow them to have millions of dollars that they can access completely tax free. So I think that’s the first thing that you should do, if you’re able to max that out. And then I would recommend, you know, you might have to talk to your if you have like, maybe a financial person that use or a bank or something of that nature, because this could vary based on your how your business is structured. But you can open up a solo 401 K, you can open up just a traditional IRA, you can open up a SEP IRA, and which one is best. And I can’t give you advice on which one is best for you. Because it does depend on the structure of your business. But I would say at least start with a Roth IRA. Another thing that not to scare people. But this is something that’s important that I feel like people aren’t talking about enough is the fact that with our our retirement accounts, specifically our 401, k’s and things like that, that are what they call pre tax dollars, meaning that the money goes from your paycheck straight to the retirement account, and you haven’t paid taxes on it. So the upside is you get the tax deduction right now, but you haven’t paid taxes on it. So if you are in your 30s, like Natalie and I, by the time you get to 65, who knows what the tax bracket will be, it’ll be 30 years from now. So now that means that you may have, you know, hopefully maybe half a million dollars sitting in a lovely retirement account that your job and you think you’re about to retire and access all of it and the government’s like, you haven’t paid taxes on this. So what if the tax bracket then in 30 years is 50%. So you think you’re retiring with half a million, and then you only have 250,000, after taxes. So that’s why it’s really important to make sure that you have a strategy and a plan. That’s why we say start with the Roth. Because it’d be great to build that money over the over time. And you know, that you can access it without penalties, without taxes and things like that as well.
Natalie Franke
I love that. That is such tactical advice to kick us off and to take us into retirement conversations for sure. I do have one more question on the wealth side. And that is, you know, how can we start building wealth now with what we have? So we’ve talked about retirement? You know, are there other areas where you see an opportunity to create wealth? Beyond that, that you would recommend for independent business owners?
Dominique Broadway
Yeah, there’s so many ways, like, there’s actually a lot of ways, I would say the biggest thing is to look for assets that can produce additional income streams. I think that this is going to be even more vital than having just a retirement account. If you are able to create additional income streams that will pay you well through retirement and pass on and pay your children. That’s the way to go. Right? And so this can be done through investing, right? So opening up your investment account, investing money in there, but also making sure that you’re buying stocks that have good dividends, right, you can literally live off of dividend payments, they can create a quarterly income check for you, right. I’ve seen people who are able to build their portfolios up get 10s of 1000s of dollars every quarter. That’s amazing just because you’re holding the investment On top of when the investment goes up, outside of that, I still feel like real estate is the way to go. As long as we’re on this earth, I know I think we’re all probably moving to Mars sooner or something. But as long as we’re on this earth, we all need somewhere to live. And as long as we need somewhere to live, real estate will be a great investment. I think that there’s so many ways, especially as entrepreneurs, to leverage maybe what our business is doing or leveraging even first time homebuyer programs if your income isn’t super high, and you can purchase your first home or even an investment property. I’ll just tell you, when I bought my first condo, I told you, I was 22, I was still in college, I use this program called MPDU. It’s a moderately priced dwelling unit program, specifically in montgomery county. But most counties and cities and countries I’m not counting some states have these programs in their specific counties. And I was able to purchase a condo that was worth 320-320-5000, I was able to purchase for 167,500 Because I was low income. Right? I was still in college. At the time, I think my salary was 39,000. And that made me eligible to purchase this home with like, I think only put down like $1,000. And then I was able to sell that condo actually stayed there for 10 years and walked away with about $100,000. Right now, if I had retained it, I could have rented it out, etc, etc. But do you see just like those little things like because most people say, Oh, I’ll only make $39,000 I’m not eligible for anything. It’s like, no, there’s actually programs for you. If you make less take advantage of that. Right? Because three years later, two years later, after I bought that I wouldn’t have been eligible for that program. If I wanted to buy that condo, I would have had to pay the full price. So that’s where I would say, you know, don’t look at whatever situation you’re in, don’t look at it as a a disability, right? Or something that’s debilitating. You look at it and try to see like, how can you take advantage of whatever current state that you’re in, there’s something that can get you to the next level, no matter where your finances currently are. You just got to be resourceful. You’re listening to podcasts is the like the independent business and things like that. But there’s a lot of ways that you can start building building this wealth and looking for other streams of income. Hopefully that kind of answers the question.
Natalie Franke
It really answers the question, I want to close this out with one question that I love asking all of our guests, and this is a podcast all about the science of self made success. So I would love to know from you. What do you believe, is the biggest differentiator between the businesses that succeed? And the ones that fail? Hmm,
Dominique Broadway
that’s a good question. The biggest differentiator I think that people give up too soon. I think they I think they give up too soon. There’s like this meme. And the guy is like hacking at the rock. And he’s like, literally one hit away from the goal. And he stops. I feel like that’s the big differentiator. This year, my business will be 10 years, 10 years old. And we didn’t cross seven figures probably until year seven. Actually, I had tons of reasons to give up tons of people that wanted me to give up and go get a job. And I’m so glad I didn’t. I’m so glad I didn’t. And I really feel like also to because I was I was also very passionate. I think that’s another thing. Another reason why businesses don’t succeed is the owner isn’t passionate enough about the business. This is my life’s work, I would do this if if if I could do it for free. And that’s my plan to be able to provide these the same education for free. That’s my goal. I can’t do that right now. Right? Because I have bills to pay. And also people, people when people pay for something they show up because they have a vested interest into it. But I think that’s what it is. I think that people give up too soon. And I hate to see it. And I see a lot of his businesses who fail or business owners who give up and I’m like, you were probably one one knock away, you know, one knock away from from the million or whatever it is that you were looking to accomplish.
Natalie Franke
Well, Dominique, thank you so much for sharing all of that knowledge and wisdom with us. I hear you have a book that is launching, that we know our listeners are going to want to buy and to read and so could you share, you know, with everybody? Where can they learn more about you? And what is the name of your book? How can they find the book?
Dominique Broadway
Yeah, so the book is called the wealth decision. And I’m really excited because I feel like all of these little decisions that we’re making every day is gonna get us closer to being wealthy or further away from being wealthy. So that’s something I want you to ask yourself when you’re going throughout the day is this decision not to get me closer to my wealth goal or get me further away. But you can find me on social media at just at Dominique Broadway, the book is also at the wealth decision.co. And so yeah, and I want to really quickly, just thank you again, Natalie. Like, as Now Lisa, we met, we were roommates speaking at a conference, and when I tell you, you know, now you’ve had such a huge impact in in all my life, especially even as a black woman, you are constantly saying my name in rooms that may not have a lot of people that look like me and and, and so I’m like, I appreciate that, like, I’m gonna motional
Natalie Franke
it just be It really means a lot to me. And I just want to I just want to thank you, because ever since I met you, you’re you’ve literally always, you know, say, hey, Dominique, can you can you do this or we’re doing this out honey book or, or just something, you’re always just setting me up for success that I appreciate that?
Natalie Franke
Well, I’m honored to call you a friend. And I’m blown away by all the lives you have changed by doing what you do. And using your gifts and talents. Tim and I will usually
Dominique Broadway
crown podcast but well,
Natalie Franke
I, oh,
Dominique Broadway
I just want to say do I really do appreciate you. And it’s like I said, it’s very hard being a woman, being a mom as a CEO. But there’s this added thing, you know, being a black woman, and it’s always great when someone that doesn’t look like you that’s that’s vouching for you.
Natalie Franke
I’ll always fight for you. I love you. I really do. I love you. And I love the impact that you continue to make in the world. Thank you. And thank you for just agreeing to come on to this podcast. idea. I am so so grateful. And I can’t wait to get my hands on your book. And I can’t wait for everybody to get their hands on your book. domine you’re amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Natalie Franke
That ends our episode of The Independent Business Podcast. Everything that we’ve discussed today can be [email protected]. Head to our website for access to show notes, relevant links and all of the resources that you need to level up. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss our future content. Drop us a review and leave our guests some love on social. Thanks again for listening.