Speaker 1: 0:00

Tom, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast, man. So if you guys don't know what aviation is, aviation is where you're selling private jets, and it's what Tom does. He's a founder of the Ultimate Jet Guide. I personally ran into him when I was in sales, specifically in starting. So Tom started as a youth pastor and my first question for you, tom, is what was the biggest impact from being a youth pastor that helped you in sales, specifically, man, from being a youth pastor that helped you in sales, specifically man.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Well, first of all, joseph, thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I really do appreciate it. In terms of transitioning into aviation sales, high-end ticket sales, luxury sales, I learned a lot from my time as a youth pastor. I think one of the things I learned was just time management. When I first started out, I was pretty much left to my own devices. The pastor and everybody at the church just kind of let me do what I needed to do to get the job done, and I think that kind of set me up for success well into my future, because I was able to handle time management. I was able to handle task management, get projects done and just do what had to be done, whether that was just knocking something off or it was going even further than what was expected of me. I learned a lot from that perspective.

Speaker 2: 1:19

At the same time, I also learned a lot about sales and marketing through youth ministry, because a lot of what I was doing was I was having conversations with students and with parents, and these were not just baseline hey come to the youth group but I was having conversations that were really impactful, conversations that had to go deeper than just the surface, and so when it came to selling private jets and the conversations I was having with total strangers as I was calling these high net worth individuals, you know I was not afraid to ask them the harder questions or just slow down and listen to them and not feel like I had to get my sales pitch across.

Speaker 2: 2:01

I feel as though my time in ministry helps me learn how to communicate in such a way where I could listen to somebody, let them feel like they're being heard and being respected, and then provide a response that wasn't just a canned response, because if there's anything people know is, teenagers are the ultimate lie detector tests. They can easily see through if you're not being authentic. And so I learned how to communicate effectively and authentically and I think that helped give me a leg up when I started talking to private jet owners.

Speaker 1: 2:41

No, and yet it's a big gap from not doing any type of aviation. Besides, when you were 16, trying to get your license, but you couldn't handle it, man. So I really want to go into, like, what gives someone the guts to go out there and start? And besides, because I know on accident you landed into the aviation space, which is take note is just always finding new opportunities, guys is Tom. He didn't have no experience. He thought he was just going to get another sales job. He didn't even know he was going to start selling private jets. After you find out, man, that you started you're going to not be selling. You found out that you just started out selling something you've never sold before. You thought you were just going to be a regular salesperson. Now you're selling private jets. How were you able to handle, first of all, that decision and, second of all, what were some things because you never sold anything this much? What were some things you did to prepare yourself for this battle you're going to go through?

Speaker 2: 3:35

Yeah, when I first interviewed for the job and found out that it was in fact selling private jets to me, I was surprised because I didn't understand that there was actually that much of a market, that there was enough volume in the marketplace for individuals who wanted to own a pre-owned private jet. I thought, if you wanted a private jet, you, you know, just went to you know textron or honda jet and you just ordered a brand new one. I didn't even conceive of, oh, there's probably a marketplace for aircraft that have been previously owned before. And so once they kind of explained to me how it works and the marketplace that existed you know, 70% of all aircraft transactions were happening in the United States and the fact that a lot of them were pre-owned while I was like, okay, well, there's, there's. Clearly, you know, success leaves clues. There's been brokers at this agency that have found success. They're expecting me to make six figures in my first year. So the product was cool, the business opportunity was cool, and so that's that's what kind of encouraged me to just jump in.

Speaker 2: 4:43

We had some money saved so that my family wasn't going to starve, and as the first year kind of rolled out, I invested a lot of time and a lot of money more so in year two and three but a lot of time and some money into becoming a better salesperson, into becoming a better marketer. So I had three days of training when I first started as a jet broker and that's all the training I really got, unless I had a question that I would bring directly to the manager. So I had to do all my own learning and growing kind of on my own. That was either going to happen on the phone, getting my teeth kicked in by owners and other brokers, and it was going to happen because I would go and pursue hey, how do I be a better salesperson? How do I answer objections, how do I present my offer in a way that is intriguing to a buyer and not just be an order taker and say, okay, what are you looking for?

Speaker 2: 5:39

Yep, yep, yep, okay, I'll go find it. Or yep, no, this doesn't do it, good luck, I'll talk to you another time how I'll go find it. Or yep, yep, yep, no, this doesn't do it. Uh, good luck, I'll talk to you another time. Like, how do I have systems and processes in place to follow up with people? You know if, if they're not ready to buy right now all that stuff. I had to invest the time and the money, uh, to learn how to do that at a higher level, so I could perform at a higher level.

Speaker 1: 6:07

Yeah, and that's. It's a hundred percent. I do agree, um, I know you're a big grant cardone fan also, uh, and I do want to mention that self-education is everything.

Speaker 1: 6:11

You go in to the world and by the time someone comes out of high school or college, they don't pick up another book in the rest of their life and I feel like we're missing that, especially in my generation. I try to read a book a day. Now I'm a different type of person. I'm still younger, um, I'm driven, so a lot of people don't have the mindset, but the way I was able to build my mindset, the way I think now and the way I perceive things was from self-education, and I know you're a big capture of that. So, like, besides writing your own book, man, which is amazing, you're an author. You want to a summary of your book.

Speaker 2: 6:49

I didn't get the chance to read it, but I'm definitely going to pick up my own after our call man. So tell me a little bit more about the book. What inspired you to write it? Yeah for sure. So I've got it right over here next to me. It's called the Ultimate Jet Guide and I wrote the book specifically for individuals who wanted to buy a private jet.

Speaker 2: 7:02

There was, at the time, no other book out there that was explaining how buying a jet worked. Since then, now there's two or three out there, but I wrote it because it was really a culmination of a lot of frequently asked questions that I was getting. I wrote it because, if there were any other books out there, they were very much from the perspective of speaking the language of a broker, so very much from the perspective of speaking the language of a broker. So they came from the perspective of using words like acquisitions and programs, and what they were explaining and expressing was accurate and correct and very wise. But it wasn't as approachable as I would have liked if I was a buyer, because I came into this. I'm only right now, four or five years, into the industry, and so if someone's coming into buying their very first jet, they probably don't even have any aviation knowledge.

Speaker 2: 7:57

So I wanted to write a book for people that didn't have any experience with aviation, and we broke it down really simply Should you charter, rent it, should you buy one, or should you invest in one? Where you buy one and lease it back to a charter company? And what does it look like? What are the basic steps to do that and make it really accessible? I mean a buddy of mine, big Earn, flying with Big Earn on YouTube. I just did a podcast with him a week or two ago and he said he read it in a day or two.

Speaker 2: 8:25

So that's exactly what I wanted. That's how I process information. I want to make a purchase, whether it's technology or real estate or whatever it might be. I go, I learn within a day or so and I just kind of, really, over a weekend or something, hammer into the information. So I wanted to make a resource that someone who was a reader even though me I'm personally, I'm more of a video guy but I wanted to make the information accessible for someone who preferred to read, and that's what became the ultimate jet guide.

Speaker 1: 8:55

I love that man. I'm also avid reader, so I I I love going through, and the problem with visual is you only can watch a video two times X Reading. If you're an accelerator leader like myself, you can go through something in a couple hours and that's one of the good things, but you come off. You write the book because you already know you had the problem. Like I'm starting this, no one else did this. Why hasn't anyone? This is a big problem. People need to understand how to do this and you solve that problem personally and it's phenomenal, man. So I really want to go into your selling points. No-transcript.

Speaker 2: 9:54

Yeah. So I think my background in youth ministry kind of lent itself to being predisposed to wanting to coach others, to wanting to be a mentor, to wanting to show others. My whole tagline is pulling back the curtain on private aviation, and so that can work from the buyer's perspective and telling people how to buy a jet, or from the broker's perspective. What I found was in 2022, when I left my former brokerage and started out on my own, one of my go-to tasks was creating content, content marketing, and I just found a lot of people asking me hey, how did you become a jet broker? Can you teach me how to be a jet broker? And so I saw an opportunity there, and I happen to like teaching A lot of brokerages. They're really good sales guys, but when it comes to making the sales skills duplicatable, they kind of will fall short there, and I think that's at the shortcomings of the brokerage, because if you can duplicate yourself, then your business can grow, it can scale, and so I think, while my business I'm not doing transactions at the level I was when I was just a broker I'm taking a step back to train people. But I think in the long term it will make a huge difference. And so, at the end of the day, I just think that I have a gifting of communication and I have a passion for helping others, so that coach, mentor role really appeals to me. And so, because I just started with no aviation background only a few years ago, I understand the struggles, I understand what they're going through and I understand how to get through them and what it looks like on the other side of that. And so when people go to my social media pages and they find me and I show them how to become a part of the Circle community and learn how to be a jet broker, I just think there's a lot of opportunity and it's not just.

Speaker 2: 11:46

This is one thing I would really want to make kind of clear for everyone. Being a jet broker isn't because you grew up with aviation and you just can't wait to sell private jets. For me, being a jet broker was just about making money. I wanted to make more money than I was making before. The vehicle that happened to drop into my lap was selling private jets. So even if you're not Googling, how do I sell private jets? But you just want to learn how to make more money, I'm telling you I have a vehicle in aviation sales that can help you make more money.

Speaker 1: 12:20

And I find that phenomenal, man, because a lot of people need that. A lot of people need to understand that you can do anything and it's just if you really put your mind to it and you come from that coaching aspect. So you understand, hey, you might not be great at the start, you might not be making money, but, just like any other sales, sales is everything. If you guys don't know, almost 90% of billionaires come from sales, 90% of billionaires come from sales. Sales is key. From the date, from the car you drive, from the person you date for the rest of your life, the person you marry, to the house you have, everything is a negotiation. Even this conversation is a negotiation. It's just much more passive. You guys understand that you can change your life and Tom specializes in that and I love that.

Speaker 1: 13:10

You come off the coaching aspect, man. I can tell you, when I was younger, I didn't have a lot of, I didn't have parents, so I had a lot of people trying to help me and trying to help me on my journey, on becoming successful, and when you have that as a person, you feel so much better Because at the end of the day, we're all human, we all have problems and when you have someone that's coming on there, hey, I want to help you. That makes you impossible as a person Now going into your team. Man, you're the, as I know, you're the first digital, only like decentralized private aviation company. How, how, how were your thoughts? Because first you never knew, you never did aviation. Then you're coming in your your, you're, you're changing the industry by doing this for the first time. What were your thought processes behind it and what were you trying to do?

Speaker 2: 13:50

because I find it fascinating no, I appreciate that and yeah, that's, that's true it is. It is a decentralized brokerage in many, in many ways. So when I started, when people started asking me, how do I become a broker, can I teach them? You know, I started thinking about, okay, well, I can teach somebody and then they can work with me. So what would the brokers that I would want look like? And a couple of points came out. Number one it would be agent focused. So I want what's best for the agent and I want to be able to train, educate and create brokers that would raise the bar of aviation, so that the next generation of aircraft brokers would be better than the current generation and better in whatever you want to. However, you want to look at that, whether that's more sales or that's better marketing, or for me, really, it was more just about in terms of professionalism. How much better can they be in terms of really holding on to that idea of what it means to be a professional jet broker and not being a slimy used car salesman kind of a vibe? So I wanted to raise that. So I wanted to make it very competitive in terms of the pricing, I'm sorry, the compensation for the broker. So I was dealing with a 40, 60% split when I was working at another brokerage. So if I brought in a $10,000 commission, I would get $4,000 and the agency would get $6,000. And that was the same for all three years of my career there. Even though from year one to year two I doubled my income, from year two to year three I doubled my income, my commission split was always the same. And so when I sat down to speak with the owner, it was just made very clear to me like you are a salesperson, so that's your job, we take care of all the overhead and just be content with the split, because it's not going to change, because the business model is based on. You are a salesperson and that's fine. I get it. It's definitely the majority of the brokerages out there. They have salespeople and they have their split and then, once the salesperson does really well, maybe they go out and do their own thing after a non-compete clause kind of a thing, or they go into another industry, or they move up and they go into a managerial position.

Speaker 2: 16:04

But I just wanted something for myself, right? I wanted to take control of my schedule. I wanted to try and do something on my own. That's why I started the brokerage, and so, when it comes to being a cloud-based brokerage, we very much model it off a similar, you know real estate models like an eXp right, so right. So I'm doing business all over the world right now. I've got listings all over the country, and so I even had a listing that's in Australia, so I can do this from anywhere with my clients.

Speaker 2: 16:36

So why would I expect my brokers to have to come to my place of business in Sarasota? It just didn't make sense. I didn't need the overhead. They don't need to uproot their lives. Why am I putting obstacles in between them achieving their dreams through aviation just because I want them in the same room as me? It just didn't make sense anymore to me.

Speaker 2: 16:54

So, yeah, we were like okay, let's be remote, why not? That makes more sense. Let's change the commission structure so that if you sell more, you get more of a commission split, so our agents can make up to an 80% cut of the commission. You make a $10,000 sale, you're keeping $8,000 and we're only keeping, you know, a small portion of that. You know we have core values, one of which is education, and so we're doing daily training Like that's part of who we are as brokers. So I wanted to. I wanted to make that part of a culture of of who we are. So. So I wanted to make that part of a culture of who we are. So it was gonna be remote, it was gonna be competitive for commissions, it was gonna be rooted in training and education and it's been really cool to kind of watch it grow over the last year it's this phenomenal man and it's it's unique, it's valuable and I do see this a lot when people are able to destruct industries and make something new happen and innovate.

Speaker 1: 17:50

Innovation is key. Now, you might not see results in the first couple years, but when you innovate for a long period of time, play long-term games with long-term people nabal talks about this. He owns one of the biggest hedge, he works with the one biggest hedge funds in the world, he's the founder of AngelList and this guy's phenomenal. And when you have the ability to play long-term games with long-term people and innovate in that industry and be able to take charge, you can destroy, make more money lots of money, very lucrative and also make a bigger impact, which he's looking to do. So, tom, I want to go in. I know you're originally, so you live online. Am I correct? You grew up in New Jersey? Yep, that's right. So you grew up in New Jersey and tell me a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 18:33

As a kid, as a teen? So what kind of led you from the process? What was like as younger years? If you guys understand psychology at a higher level, a lot of your younger years inflict how successful you're going to be, like it or not. A lot of your younger years inflict how successful you're going to be, as like it or not. A lot of your, when you're growing up, your neural pathways are being made, so that's why a lot of people that have bad childhood trauma become successful, because they're always looking to seek validation or always trying to become the best, because they were never praised for their actions and my psychology will understand that. Tell me a little bit more about your, your place in your life, kind of tell me about what type of sports you play. Were you in business at the time? Do you start any side hustles? Tell me a little bit more about that time.

Speaker 2: 19:10

Yeah, I think, you know, growing up I grew up into a middle class family. You know, we definitely never wanted for anything, but we weren't rich by any means. We didn't buy brand new cars, you know, we didn't have a new car every year or anything. I lived in the same house for my entire life. My parents were older. I was very blessed because they were very financially secure because they were older, and so that led to that feeling of security and I grew up going to church every Sunday. So, I mean, the faith background was really important to us, although I wouldn't necessarily consider us super practicing, just faithful Catholics. I was an altar server and all that. I played sports, uh, as a kid I was, you know, I was into soccer.

Speaker 2: 19:52

Um, I went to a very prestigious, uh, private Catholic all boys school in um in Morristown, new Jersey, a school called Del Barton that you know later on I would find out was was as expensive going there as it was a college tuition. So, um, I mean we were definitely, you know, uh, I guess we'd say upper middle class and my parents really valued education and so I, you know, in some ways you can see that that, um, expectation for excellence was kind of placed upon me. You know we you didn't just kind of settle for things. You always, you know you strove to to do your best as kind of some of the things that my parents instilled in me when I was in school. I was, I got, I got good grades. You know I was really I was never like the most popular kid, but I was kind of friends with everybody and had good relationships. I grew up in a, in a town where we were able to, you know kind of old school latchkey in some ways, where we could just go ride our bikes around town for hours. We would play, you know, street hockey in the streets, we play, you know, baseball. We would just go ride our bikes all around town and just hang out unsupervised. So I think that instilled a lot of independence for me.

Speaker 2: 21:04

I didn't, you know, I definitely didn't grow up with helicopter parents at all and when I was a freshman in high school my father passed away unexpectedly after complications from a broken ankle. Obviously at those formative years throughout high school, you know, not having a father, I'm sure, I'm sure there were, there were impacts there, uh, but at the end of the day I think I just always found myself wanting to do my best, wanting to get good grades, uh and and and that kind of came naturally to me. And you know, again, I wasn't the most popular kid in high school, but I was friends with everybody. So I think that lesson was important, that it wasn't about popularity for me, it was just more about, you know, being a good person kind of in general.

Speaker 2: 21:49

I still had a very strong faith at that time and my faith was growing in high school to the point where I went to college to study theology and that you can start to see the path towards, you know, youth ministry, and I was in youth ministry for a little over a decade before I left it, and I was in youth ministry for a little over a decade before I left it. And so I think all of those things kind of served me and I continue to see the results of those formative years. You know of all that Just a good family, household, a good you know good upbringing.

Speaker 1: 22:28

And just always striving to kind of replicate that and to honor that. I guess I love that man. Yeah, and I think that's key also, just following your faith, following your belief systems, necessarily, and when you understand that, you understand you can't control a lot of things, and I feel like we miss that in the world, especially with all the things that are going on and we're always getting thrown stuff from media, from from everything, from new politics, from it's just there's so much stuff, ai, that we're having this generation. We're always facing something new. Covid, we've probably seen a lot of stuff and when you understand that sometimes you can't control something and sometimes you, you believe and you have faith in one particular thing, You'll be able to not only settle but understand that you can do things and some things might be out of your control, but you'll still be able to grow, you'll still be able to adapt.

Speaker 1: 23:19

And no matter what happens, you can keep moving forward, which is key, and that's what you learned in childhood happens, you can keep moving forward, which is key, and that's what you learned in childhood, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:27

And I think another thing to point out is that I was kind of I guess, whether it's because my dad died or not, but like I was just kind of drawn towards independence and so early on, I mean, I had a job. When I even before I had a job like in in middle school I remember having like a side gig of like you know, making these plastic bracelets and selling them, or buying pogs and selling those.

Speaker 2: 23:48

I remember being a freshman getting a job as a lifeguard, working at church, doing music, being a busboy at a local restaurant, and so I had that stuff all going on throughout high school and I think it was a sense of independence that I really enjoyed financially, because now I have my own money, but also, just, I was just kind of always master of my own schedule, whether that I had to keep my own schedule, let my parents know when soccer was happening, when I needed a ride to work, where I was going to be. So I was thankful that I had a lot of freedom to do that and to kind of grow. I guess maybe that was part of being an only child, um, but yeah, having that independence I think has definitely done a lot for me, you know, as, as now I'm, you know I'm a business owner.

Speaker 1: 24:37

Yeah, and that's kind of how it got me into entrepreneurship. Um it's, I got into business at 13. Um, and I'll tell you, the thing is, I grew up with no parents, so I've been independent since about 13. And I started living on my own officially at 15, 16, paying my own rent, stuff like that. And once you get that, especially as a young age, you mature much faster than your peers. You'll be able to adapt, and that adaptation I know I can move across the country and figure something out.

Speaker 2: 25:03

I just had to, exactly.

Speaker 1: 25:04

You learn that, whatever happens, I'll figure it out the world keeps spinning and that's key, and especially in entrepreneurship, that's what kind of builds your backbone on entrepreneurship. When you have the ability to put yourself back in the wall, take accountability of your schedule, of your actions, and being able to do that, you can. You can change your life, and I love the book from Jocko Williams.

Speaker 2: 25:28

I don't think you've read it and I haven't, but I've definitely listened to a lot of Jocko and I can just imagine. So go ahead and tell me what it says.

Speaker 1: 25:37

No, yeah, personal accountability. I listened briefly to his audio book. It was when I was running one day and he talks about it very briefly. He's like he's taking actions. Most people can't do this. Most people he says a different way, but most people don't have the integrity to say I'm going to do this and the navy seals, they teach you. The only person you have to blame yourself if you don't win, it's yourself. And once we learn that at a young age sports helps with that, everything you become. So I want to kind of transition. Man, I know as a salesperson you only get paid commission. How do you handle stress? This is going to be a unique question. How do you handle stress and how do you have the ability when you know everything's falling apart? Because, as you know, sales, business everything's always falling. You're always handling these big problems. How do you have the ability to do that at a comfortable level?

Speaker 2: 26:33

I think that's a great question, because I think stress is not something that you have the ability to handle, as though it's a skill set that once I know how to read, now I can read.

Speaker 2: 26:48

Once I know how to ride a bike, I can ride a bike. Once I know how to dribble a soccer ball, I can dribble it. It's not a skill that you acquire and then it's always yours, it's an ever-evolving skill. So I like how you put it. How do you handle stress? It depends, it depends in the moment, and I think what I would say for someone to wanting to grow that muscle of handling stress is to put yourself in stressful situations and gradually build that kind of building on what we're talking about earlier, about, you know, childhood development and that sort of a thing. What I try to do with my kids is put them in situations where they can fail, and fail safely, you know. So, as simple as you know my kid wants, you know she wants pancakes. Okay, go make them. Well, I don't know how to do it, all right, well, I'm going to sit in the kitchen and do my work, do my emails here's the box read the directions, and then she looks at me and she says, okay, what do I do first, read the directions. And it's like even just the step of reading the directions right For entrepreneurs. You want to be an entrepreneur. You heard all the buzzwords. You listen to Gary Vee, you listen to Jocko Goggins, all that stuff. You're like, oh, I'm ready to be an entrepreneur, what do I do first? And it's like read, read the directions. And you're like, okay, but what do I do first? It's like, no, stop, read the directions, what do you? What are you passionate about? And like the, the basic stuff that people don't want to go through. It's like stop and do it. And and so, you know, learn.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Having her learn how to make pancakes, you know it's just allowing her to fail, allowing her to ask questions, allowing her to feel the stress of I don't't know what to do, where's the answer, and you know, but at least, worst case scenario, I know my dad's right here. You know if I have a question, I can ask him if I, if the pancake starts smoking, you know he's here and he can. He can, okay, move it from the, from the burner, and put it over to the side because it's going to burn. It's, it's too, and and being able to do that in a way that's not wow, you're doing it wrong, it's burning. Come here, give me that and I grab it from her and I fix everything right away. And that's hard, that's really hard as a parent to do, because you're always stressed anyway, and I think that's an example of why I feel called to coach and mentor and help brokers and people who want to learn sales and stuff, because I just have developed that muscle to handle the stress of when someone's freaking out and Tom tell me what to do, I'm like do this, you know. And then if something breaks or something happens like we just had, you know we're in the middle of a closing. Right now I'm getting text messages and emails that you know we should be closing on this deal. That's going to be, uh, you know, uh, 80,000 plus dollars commissioned to the brokerage and uh, you know, things are happening left and right and and the brokers like Tom was happening we're missing a signature. It's okay. Yeah, exactly. And so the reason I can handle stress on my best day in a good way is because I've had many episodes of of stressful things. Um, that I'm like okay, it'll, it'll be better Now once.

Speaker 2: 29:53

Once I hit either a threshold because of volume. I have too much stress, you know that's where I fall into, into the vices. Usually it's like eating, you know, bad stuff or watching too much Netflix and and that sort of a thing, and that's kind of how I can tell okay, dude, you need to rest, cause you're, you're, you're, you're, you're slacking on some other thing. Anger, you know, I get angry at my kids, like, really fast and like, and so self-awareness is really important. So it could be because of volume or it could be because it's another challenge that we don't know to do. I'm really excited to be announcing that this year we're going to hold the first aircraft sales summit. We're trying to bring together 10 to 20 people for a very private mastermind kind of group, if you want to be a salesperson. This is what we're going to do, and so I have no idea how that works. I don't know how to pitch that, promote that market and build that, and so I'm stressed because it's a higher threshold than I've been again.

Speaker 2: 30:50

So it could be volume, it could be a threshold, but ultimately when I find myself most able to handle stress is when I have a disciplined lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 31:00

I just got done about not quite a month ago with the 75 hard program and that is full of stress.

Speaker 2: 31:10

You know it's two workouts in a day, it's following a meal plan for yourself, it's reading 10 pages a day. And then I started going into phase one, which is like the next step after 75 days, and they throw in things like you got to take a five minute cold shower every day, you've got to complete eight critical tasks every single day, and it kind of levels it up and um when I'm most disciplined and putting myself in those little tiny stressful situations like okay, how am I going to get two workouts, how am I going to discipline myself and what I'm eating? Then, when a big chunk comes in, my kid's freaking out because of something, my wife's freaking out because of something, my client's freaking out because of something, I'm just like, all right, let's go. I've disciplined my mind that when something happens, when I'm stressed, whether it's physically with exercise or mentally, whatever the mind has been shaped that it can withstand up to a certain threshold, and then that's where growth comes in, is when we can push past those thresholds.

Speaker 1: 32:11

Yeah, I agree, and it's building up that tolerance. It's just like anything else.

Speaker 1: 32:14

It takes time. It doesn't happen overnight. You have to put yourself in those situations where you might fail and you have to be okay with it. I feel like and what helps with me a lot is since I've already dealt with a lot of stressful situation at a young age I can tell you that when you have the confidence that this is nothing I've dealt with worse things when you have the confidence to any room and you can do that, you'll. You'll change your life and one of the simplest ways is just getting rid of the output. So, just worrying about your inputs, worrying am I disciplined? Am I putting those calls in? Am I doing that podcast? Am I making that content? Am I sending those emails out? Am I handling my business the right way? Those tiny things stack up and once you stack up those tiny wins and you stack up those stressful wins, what happens is you have an iron belt under you and when you have that iron belt, you become Ironman.

Speaker 2: 33:12

So I agree, I would say two things for me is very, very concrete. Like my wife, she's my best friend and I feel like in her eyes there's nothing I can do where she won't love me. She might be mad at me, she might get disappointed at me, she might be sad, but she'll always love me and and and. So having someone in your life like that, I think is, is crucial, whether it's your partner, your spouse, or a best friend, um, or a parent I mean, they're usually pretty good at that and then, at the same time, like God, like my faith, like I, I, I, I truly believe that having you know, that perspective of like okay, you could lose a hundred thousand dollars, I mean when I first started, like, I mean I sold, I used to own a 172. I sold it for a hundred grand and that money is basically gone through the building of this business. You know, could I have handled it better? Maybe, but at the end of the day, like a hundred thousand dollars is gone.

Speaker 2: 34:04

You know, some people think like, oh, if I just can get a check for a hundred grand, like I'd be set for life. You know, and and and the people who, who have money, they understand that, like a hundred grand is nothing. So I literally got a check for a hundred grand for my, for my plane, and a year later, like you know, it's not there, you know it's been used, and and having that perspective of of just like this is this is not all there is to reality, this is not all there is to the world, this is not all there is to relationships, you know, grounded in faith. I think it really helps, you know, when it comes to handling the stress.

Speaker 1: 34:37

I guess yeah, and I agree it's going back on 100,000. A lot of people say, once I make that 100,000, but if you put it over a long-term horizon, especially with inflation, most people don't even count how much the US dollar is going to down. That comes from financial literacy, like buying assets. Speaking of that man, what assets you? Because in the day and age now, everyone has some type of assets. Do you pay attention to that? Are you into real estate or anything like that?

Speaker 2: 35:06

I'd like to get better on assets. I had a few assets when I was doing year two, year three in sales and had some extra money to invest. I found two things, Two things I would say to your audience. Number one the very first asset you need to invest in is yourself.

Speaker 1: 35:22

Self S&P 500.

Speaker 2: 35:24

That's it.

Speaker 1: 35:24

S&P 500.

Speaker 2: 35:25

Well, no, I'm saying yourself.

Speaker 1: 35:31

Yeah, s&p 500. Oh, oh, S&P 500. Well, no, I'm saying, I'm saying you're yourself like yeah, oh 500 it's and yeah so instead of the smp 500, it's the sme 500 where you're investing to yourself those returns every single day. You're, you're doing the knowledge, you're watching those books, you're reading that podcast, you're investing to those courses, those masterminds, their network, that's the SME 500, that compounding return daily will change your life.

Speaker 2: 35:55

I love that. Yes, so, absolutely. So those are the biggest asset that I mean. I was investing tens of thousand dollars into myself and training and groups and stuff like that, so that was the first thing I invested. Then I started investing in some other things. You know, tried some mutual funds, grabbed a couple of Bitcoin, so I have some of that stuff, but it's really not making a ton. And then I want to get into real estate. I want to get into assets. My wife wants us to buy a new house. I'm cool with that, but I don't want to do it at the expense of selling a house that is relatively in really good terms because we bought it at a good time. So those are things that are kind of on my mind. I had the airplane for a while. I sold some of my assets in the last year and a half because I'm investing back into this business, which hopefully becomes an asset in the next few years.

Speaker 1: 36:45

Yeah, and that's great. At least you understand terminology Most people don't even understand. You need something as close and I'd say I love people who focus on one thing is better than having multiple things. You can have all the best things in the world and more than likely, your business is your baby, so you're putting all the hustle. They're having this multiple thing. They're not singular or focused, and I wish I found this sooner, when I started at 13, as I tried e-commerce, amazon, like for two and a half years. I could have saved myself the struggle from just focusing. Focusing on one thing, going all in and having the confidence in yourself, and that comes from investing into yourself, investing into who you are, investing into your knowledge, investing into courses and investing into the person you can become. I always say I want to work for myself in 10 years and I already work for myself, but you're working for yourself literally.

Speaker 1: 37:40

Even if you have a job at the moment. You're working for the future. You, the daily actions you put in today, are going to be for yourself later. All the actions, the situation you're right now, the financial situation where you're at in life, is the cause and effect of the actions you made 10 years ago, from the actions you made three years ago, no matter if it wasn't your fault. You should take full responsibility and I think you understand that, man, because a lot of people don't understand. I have to do this, I have to take action, I have to take accountability. So I love that. So I want to go in. I know you have to go soon, man, but Tom, all right. So, tom, I want to learn more about your. So aviation, we'll go a little bit more. We understand, like your background, stuff like that. I want to go in. How has aviation no-transcript but you never know.

Speaker 1: 38:59

No, you're really good. I've studied a lot of people, a lot of big brands and stuff. The riches are in the niches and your full niche's. So it's so crazy because the people that make the most money aren't the people that are well known. You'll be surprised. I know this a lot. The people that make the most money are the boring niche down things that you'd never expect, like the plumbing podcast with the guy that runs a multi-million dollar plumbing.

Speaker 1: 39:23

All right, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure so I want to go in um and that aspect. How has aviation like like learning terminology, how can the average person just like find out about this stuff?

Speaker 2: 39:37

well, unfortunately it's hard. You know, uh, when I first started four years ago I mean, that's exactly where I was I didn't know anything about aviation. I didn't know the other sort of gulfstream and a cessna or a, a twin engine versus a single engine, piston versus a jet turbine, I didn't realize jet and turbine were the same thing. It was a whole different world and there was nothing online. And if there was something online it was usually from the manufacturer and it was like a manual or a tech spec or it just told you this thing cruises at 325 knots. I'm like, what the heck is a knot Like? Tell me miles per hour. It goes 1600 nautical miles. Like how long is a nautical mile? Like it, just everything I could find.

Speaker 2: 40:17

You know, I'm not a gearhead. I'm not into cars, I'm not into like specs, computers. I can kind of geek out a little bit on, I do enjoy that kind of stuff, but I'm just not like a gearhead when it comes to like cars and stuff. So a lot of the information that was out there about private jets was more geared towards the gearhead part of it. Like you know, here's the engine, tbo, and here's the landing gear overhaul, and it just, I just I couldn't make sense of it. So that's why I created, you know, our JetLife Aero Circle community and my JetLife Bootcamp, so that if you want to be a broker, like, the first thing we teach you is how does aviation work, and that includes, you know, why do people buy jets, why do people sell jets, who buys and who sells, how do brokers make money? How does an aircraft work? What is an engine? What's an EFIS? What's avionics, what's you know? All this stuff, you know we, we go through and we we've packaged it and we put it in a way. So if you want to become a broker, you can find it out.

Speaker 2: 41:19

And now, fortunately, I think there's, because I think I think there's a difference between wanting to learn about airplanes as like general aviation, and then there's a difference between learning about business aviation and business jets. And and and that's kind of where I kind of focus on is the business jet, because there's just really not a lot of content out there. And if there is content, it's geared towards buyers and it's not really geared towards people who want to learn the industry. And that's where, like you said, we're trying to. Last summer, I remember very vividly listening to blue oceans, you know, and just learning the concept of looking for the blue oceans versus the red oceans, and I'm like I can't compete with guardian jet and O'Gara jets and all these big players, you know, but there's a whole blue ocean over here of people who want to learn how to become brokers. Let me, let me go swim in there and see what I can do and uh and make make the knowledge more accessible.

Speaker 1: 42:09

I love that, yeah, and I want to go a little bit more. So what's the difference between business aviation and then like the business aviation side and also regular aviation? For the average person that doesn't know.

Speaker 2: 42:22

Yeah, so general aviation is geared towards guys that own a plane. It's usually a single engine and it's usually what you would consider like. It could be a high wing, like a Cessna 172. It could be a low wing like a Cirrus SR22. It's usually two to four people in there, maybe a six passenger if you go into like a Cherokee or something like that.

Speaker 2: 42:43

But it's usually guys that kind of hang out at the local airport that you know a big commercial jet's not going to fly into local airport, that you know a big commercial jet's not going to fly into. You know these are airplanes that'll go you know two, three hours at about a hundred, you know a hundred miles an hour and they seat two to four people. It's got one engine and they can be you know as old as from the seventies, all the way to brand new ones, and those things can cost you know 50 grand all the way up to you know half a million dollars, depending on what's in there. But it's general aviation, it's owner operators. These are guys that just kind of fly for fun or they have a reason to, but they're just smaller planes. Business aviation gets into business jets that are usually at least half a million dollars. They can seat six people in there. They've usually got at least two engines, and these are turbine engines. So the general aviation is usually propellers, big, spinny things. The turbine engines are like little tiny, like 100 of these fan blades, like a jet, like a rocket almost, and so that's what a business jet is like. It's at least half a million dollars, all the way up to $30 million, $ million, 60 million for, you know, for the brand new ones, the Gulf streams and that sort of a thing.

Speaker 2: 43:54

But there's a wide range within there. There's the light jets that I kind of deal with. There's the old light jets, there's the, the, the, the ultra long range ones that can go from, you know, california to to to Rome, you know, in a hop hop. So it's a wide range, but it's more geared towards uh, some of the, some people fly their own jets, but it's more geared towards people who use jets for business because they need more speed, they need more range than you would typically get in in general aviation. And then obviously, in between there you've got turbo props, that kind of fill, both needs where, if you want to fly your own plane, which you want to go faster, you want, want two, two engines. You can go into a multi-engine turboprop, so there's a wide range of aviation for sure so I want to go in the end.

Speaker 1: 44:36

it's a lot of keywords, a lot of stuff. I didn't know, but I'm sure a lot of people will understand if they're in aviations, and I hope I do come and find people that are in aviation. If you're watching this, uh, feel free to reach out to them. I know, I remember. I remember I reached out to him and I was at the time I think it's like a year, two years ago I actually went to go. So, if you guys don't know, uh, two years ago, uh, a year and a half ago, I was in high school and I was on the line.

Speaker 1: 45:04

I was selling uh, I was selling high ticket stuff from this company. Uh, it was more like a broker thing. I was selling high ticket stuff from this company. It was more like a broker thing and I called Jeff, like hey, I thought I had someone. Turns out, I didn't know what I was doing, I was an expert in the field and I called up Tom and I was like yo, how does this work? I've seen your videos looking up how to do private aviation. He's very welcoming.

Speaker 1: 45:23

I'm sure if you reach out to Tom you have a deal with him or something like that He'll him or something like that he'll answer. He'll reply, he's a great guy. So I want to go out and, tom, I want to ask you. So, like, what are the type of high net worth individuals you meet on a daily basis and how does that like? How do you personally? And then how does people you're letting into your brokerage like, teaching people to do it? How do you teach them to work with these high net worth individuals? How do you give them the ability to kind of learn that skill? Is this more of like a specialized knowledge? Is working with people that are highly, highly, extremely wealthy? If you can buy a jet, you have, at least I'd say, almost three to a hundred million net worth, because what they're doing, they're buying time back.

Speaker 2: 46:00

So yep, yeah, um, so I mean there's there's a lot to unpack there. So, like we can, you can look at it from the perspective of, first of all, how do we get in contact with these people? And so there's two ways that we contact our owners and our buyers. So the buyers usually are coming either from a listing that we have. So they go to controllercom, which is kind of like Zillow for private jets and they want to buy a jet. If they know about controller, they're reasonably qualified, because not everybody knows about controller right. It's not as ubiquitous as Zillow and real estate. So if you know about controller or trade a plane and you call me from that, I know you're reasonably qualified to buy a jet because you actually know where to go to look. So that's one way to find a buyer. The other way to find a buyer who are less qualified are like YouTube.

Speaker 2: 46:51

I get a lot of inquiries, probably get two or three phone calls a week of people who find me through social media like hey, I'm thinking about buying a jet, let's talk. So I'm like great, let's go as far as the owners. And how do you find inventory? We teach a couple different ways to do it in the course, and actually we have a free course where people can learn how to how to do all this stuff for free. But, um, you know, we as professional jet brokers, we have access to a database that has the owner information or some contact information to try to get to the owner. So we will cold call owners. Hey, you know, my name is Tom. I know you probably get these calls all the time. I'm not here to waste your time, just hoping to catch you at the right time. Are you looking to sell your citation? I'd love to help you out and tell you what the market's doing and then we kind of go from there with our sales script and how to handle the objections and that sort of a thing. But yeah, that's how we find people to talk to and then, in terms of how do we talk to them, we do put a premium on understanding that these people are successful individuals, they are very busy and they are master negotiators. So that is why we train on a daily basis.

Speaker 2: 48:02

Tuesdays and Thursdays we do role playing, and then Mondays and Wednesdays we do kind of training. That's more generic training. Like you know, here's the market trends and here's how you do that kind of stuff so that, so that we're well-rounded professionals. So if somebody asks, you know them well, what do you think about this? You know about this new, you know what's going on with Boeing, you know how's that going to impact it or how's the election going to impact this year the pricing, you know. So we have those trainings on Mondays and Wednesdays and then Tuesday and Thursday we do the role play so that people actually get you know, they actually get what we're, what we're trying to do. So, yeah, I hope that answers your question, but I'm happy to answer any follow-ups.

Speaker 1: 48:44

No, yeah, and I do think it's just like a lot of people don't realize, like I feel like these people are busy, but once you get a hold, like I feel like it's easier to contact a billionaire If you can get, like you can find them, because they're really hard to find. Um, they're productive, they're very successful people.

Speaker 1: 48:59

Yeah, and most likely they won't even call you. From what I've seen, like I've their time is everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, true, and I understand that from a higher level. It's like once you become successful, people like my problems are going to be solved. You're, once you become successful, you're going to have a lot more problems. So the problems you have in life is correlation how much you make. Now, sometimes some people's problems are higher, like my business is losing 12.5 million today. That's not the average problem, but if you have that problem, that's a good problem to have.

Speaker 1: 49:31

So, I love that man. So I want to go in a little bit more about your personal daily. What's your productivity routine? I'm probably like a productivity country. I'm junkie, I take nootropics, I do a lot of vitamins, cold showers, I do a lot of working out health stuff like that. What's your personal routine, tom?

Speaker 2: 49:51

Well, I would say right now I'm kind of in a lull because the last two weeks I had some health stuff, just like colds and whatnot. So I wouldn't say now's my best. But when I was doing 75 hard a few weeks ago, I mean it was a pretty good routine. I usually got a morning workout, waking up around 4.30 in the morning and getting a workout or something in, and then take the kids to school, get to the office by eight, nine o'clock. When I'm doing my best work, I come in and I write down what needs to be done in the notebook for the day and just kind of focus on that. Setting up calendly and setting up time for calls to be made. And calendar blocking has been big. When I'm most productive I have 2.30, 3.30, that's power hour, where I'm going to be making phone calls. I need to make sure that that is honored and that's sacred. 10.30 in the morning I have my sales calls with my broker. So that's honored and that's sacred. So keeping my calendar full and even if there's nothing there, like just knowing what am I going to do in this time I take time for myself. You know, monday, Wednesday, fridays, I started to train some martial arts, some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, which has been kind of cool just for the past few weeks Again, mostly because of the 75 hard disciplines. And then I'm usually out by about three o'clock because I got to take kids to soccer. So, you know, spending that time with my kids is important. We have got about a 45 minute drive to soccer practice, you know, every day. So we're in the car, we're talking, we're watching, you know, uh, marvel movies or something like that and just kind of having that shared experience with each other. Um, work, and then when I get to their fields I'll usually do another workout, like just go run a mile or something like that, maybe get some work done in the car. If I need to, I'll take any phone calls I need to take and, uh, you know, then just get home, uh, spend some time with, with my wife, and by then it's about nine or nine or 10 o'clock, it's ready for bed and do it all over again. So that's kind of what it looks like.

Speaker 2: 51:44

Um, you know, I I take a supplement called juice Plus. That's been a mainstay of our family for the past couple of years, probably about 10 years or so now. It's called Juice Plus. It's just fruits and vegetables in a capsule. So it's kind of like our multivitamin we just get it from fruits and vegetables instead of sucking out the vitamin C from the orange. We just get oranges. You know, and yeah, that's been pretty much the that's when I'm kind of at my peak performance. But just like you know, like discipline, sometimes you just kind of you, you let it, you let it, uh, you let it go for a little bit and it can be hard to get it back, you know it's staying consistent, especially when you're old, uh, you have a lot more uh responsibility.

Speaker 1: 52:23

You have kids, you have you have things you have to take care of, you have a business, you have all these things going on and then you still make time. And I love the fact that you talk about calendar. So, like you want as a business owner, you want to find the things that are going to move the needle. What is that? One thing I try to always find in my calendar. I do a lot of calendar stacking. I plan everything if you're not tracking, you're slacking.

Speaker 1: 52:43

I track the amount of calories I eat, the protein, the water I drink, from the time I sleep. I don't give an order or anything like that, just tracking. Everything is key to life and once you track time, which time's our biggest asset? When you understand that? And how do you buy time back? Because, again, we're only on this earth for so long and I think a lot of people miss that. Like you think one day you wake up and you're 30, but just yesterday you just graduated high school yeah, right, yeah, I got my 20 year reunion coming up.

Speaker 2: 53:13

I'm like what the heck?

Speaker 1: 53:14

yeah it's insane and it only accelerates as you get older. Time just goes much more faster and it's perceived perception. I don't know if you ever felt this when you're a younger man, but like time went so slow when you're younger and the older you get it just because the way you're perceiving things, because already went through life.

Speaker 1: 53:31

So by the time you're 30, time's going to be much, much faster. Next thing you know you're 60. So I want you guys kind of realize that that if you're really trying on the edge of starting something, it doesn't have to be aviation, it doesn't have to be a podcast, it could be anything. Just take that action, because the older I get and again, I'm only so I still have a lot more time than the average person. But I will tell you, time's going to go much, much faster. The older you get, you're going to have much less time. If you don't take action now, if you don't build the bone of taking action, you're never going to take action. You say you will but you never. So I think that's the key man and you hit that. You having me on the podcast I do appreciate you hopping on.

Speaker 1: 54:11

I want to see kind of where people can kind of reach out to you If they're looking to get in aviation, if you're looking to get more info. What are some resources We'll put down below, I'll put your social media and stuff. Where can they reach out to you? And also, what are some resources you'd say for the average sales person? What would you want them to watch? Or what would you want the person that's looking to get aviation but hasn't taken action? Or the person that's looking again high ticket sales what would you recommend for the man to kind of get started today?

Speaker 2: 54:36

So the resources that have been helpful to me um have been individuals like Gary Vaynerchuk for marketing and understanding the importance. I really appreciate his, his concept of just being omnipresent, being all over the place, this idea that just do it like Think Media with Sean Cannell and just hit record. This idea that you're not going to be great the first time but you just got to keep showing up. I also really appreciate his he's got a new book coming out Day Trading Attention this idea of you need to have people's attention. And not only that, but he also preaches a philosophy of kindness and a philosophy of humility and I think that's really important because it balances this aggressive I need to be creating content so that I'm relevant, but at the same time, it balances that with humility and understanding that, okay, my content's not going to be great at first, but I'm going to get better and I'm going to keep working at this. So I like Gary Vaynerchuk a lot for people to check him out. I also like Jeremy Miner with NEPQ. It's a neuro, emotional, persuasive question, something along those lines. But Jeremy Miner, NEPQ I really like his sales training and how he handles sales conversations. I also like Grant Cardone and his sales training.

Speaker 2: 55:54

I started out with Grant Cardone way back and I just really appreciated his energy and his drive and his no nonsense. And then I did a lot of his training and I found success. I made six figures based on his training. But what I found was I was doing his training and then I would tweak it for me so that it was a little bit more natural for me. And then when I came across Jeremy Miner's NEPQ stuff only about three months ago and I listened to it and I went to a couple of his free webinars I was like holy crap, it's similar to Grant Cardone's like framework, but all the well that and all the all the tweaks that I was making.

Speaker 2: 56:28

So Cardone stuff wasn't coming off as salesy and as aggressive. It was basically what Jeremy was doing with his NAPQ, with the questions that he was asking and the tonality. All that stuff had kind of come natural to me. And it was funny because when I first started training my brokers we were doing Cardone stuff and I was just telling them the Cardone stuff and I was having my own tonality in there but I wasn't drawing attention to that. And then when I started doing the NPQ stuff I liked the questions better. But then I also was able to explain to them like okay, here's why Cardone stuff's working for me and, in fact, alex, one of our most active brokers, the one who's trying to close something today he still uses the Cardone script and he's finding great success. So it's not like one or the other, but these are just two other sales things that have been really helpful for me?

Speaker 1: 57:17

No, yeah. And another thing is I actually went through NAPQ and I'll put the link down below. I have access to it. You guys can get it for free. I know a couple of people that make a lot of sales, training and resources, so I'll put the link down below in the podcast. I want you guys to realize that the new way of selling is unique. Jeremy talks about this. The old way of selling was pushy, salesy stuff like that. Now it's more of question-based consulting, not as aggressive selling. The new way of selling you're doing it more submissive, it's more unique, it's it's soft touching, it's actioning the right questions, and he talks about that. And once you understand that, the new modern age of selling, most people are used to you hopping on the phone and no one wants that call, no one wants that sales call. So when you can, when, when you can detach yourself from that way of selling, you become dangerous. And I feel like you hit that point also and you understand that a lot of people don't understand that, which I'm surprised.

Speaker 2: 58:14

Well, yeah, yeah, and so those are the main like resources that I recommend for people. But if you want to get into into aviation sales, you know I would definitely recommend checking out JetLife Arrow. You go to jetlifearrowcom and there's a tab up there that says sell jets, learn more about what we do as a brokerage. But then I would say, even more importantly, check out circlejetlifearrowcom, because that's our free circle community and you go in there and it's just like any other social media platform. We've got discussions where you can ask questions. We've got listings that you can take a look at and ask questions on there. We've got free training programs.

Speaker 2: 58:53

Aviation changed my life and so I want to make all that information available to people for free. I don't ever want to stand in front of, stand in the way of somebody changing their life through aviation because they have to get paid. So it's there. I do also offer a course if you want to learn how to be a jet broker and have it all spelled out for you with documents and the agreements and everything, the whole package that you need to get started. You can do the course. I have one-on-one training that you can sign up for on a yearly basis. We've got a coaching package for the entire year where you're going to pay. You know a fraction of what you're going to make. The goal is for you to make six figures in your first year. Um, and so that's that's. That's kind of what we're looking for.