Welcome to the small business breakthrough series. Each week, we'll be interviewing a number of guests from the financial planning industry, where we'll discuss financial planning pitfalls and benefits that will help you and your small business thrive. Today we're going to be talking with Jason Hamilton in Orange County, California.
We will, uh, he has a company called Keep It Simple Financial, and we're going to talk a lot about structuring retirement and those elements. Jason, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Jason. You have a great name, so I'm happy to be here. As we work through this, our mission is to help you break through caps and problems that hold your business back from this full potential, all while staying focused on things that matter to you, which in this case, we're focusing on what's after the life of business.
Jason, uh, as you were, you know, we were talking right before the hand, can you give me a little bit of a high level overview of what your business does and why you got into it? Absolutely. Um, so the name of the business is keep it simple financial planning. Uh, we focus mostly on retirees that are within five years prior to retirement or five years after retirement.
And what we're really good at is helping people optimize their financial situations, specifically focusing on saving taxes today and in the future. And then over time, helping to make sure they're maximizing their income. From their investment accounts that they may have any other resources that they may have, and just to make sure they have a good plan and they can live in the moment, enjoy their life without worrying about running out of money.
Uh, I started this company back in 2016 after a long journey, which began in 2008, uh, of my parents. going to get financial help from somebody calling themselves a financial advisor. And the more you look into this field, what you learn is that that's not a regulated title. And so they got with somebody who is really an insurance agent and put them in a bad spot.
And so they were small business owners and they owned a restaurant in a suburb of San Jose, which is in Northern California. And the name of the restaurant was Mio Vicino, which means my neighbor. So it was a really beautiful area town. And then, uh, the, what we call the great financial crisis, uh, through 2007 to 2009 came in and just completely wreaked havoc on obviously everybody, a lot of business owners.
And I truly believe if my parents would have been with a fiduciary, Financial planner, a certified financial planner. They would have been in a position to weather that storm, uh, because their money would have been going to the right places and because they did not get fiduciary advice, they were sold a bunch of insurance products.
They were not able to weather the storm and had to close the business. So that led me to saying, Hey, I don't know much about money today, but I know I don't want to be where they're at at 55, having to start over. And so I started, uh, trying to learn and educate myself. Okay. And it started with a Google search for how do people become and stay wealthy.
And that led into just a journey of reading over a hundred personal finance books, uh, finding out about the certified financial planner curriculum, and then decided to make a career change from a fortune 500 corporate background to start on my own wealth management firm. And, you know, eight years later, We've been able to help clients in over, I think we're over 35 states at this point around the country.
And, uh, we've worked virtually and locally and, uh, we really enjoy what we do. So, uh, that's a short version of how we got here, but, uh, it's been a lot, a lot of fun. Thoroughly love that you're helping small businesses because, um, it paint like that, the story that that brings pain to me, that any small business that has to close because of financial reasons, especially financial reasons is it's like, it seems like it's one of the most simplest, but yet the most under, uh, I guess the way to put it is, um, the least understood.
And it to me, um, and maybe it's the name, Jason, that is, puts numbers in our heads is like, uh, the number you should always know your numbers going into the business and how to go forward. Um, retirement planning. From the perspective of it and that from a tax perspective, you talked about that a little bit, and that is, I can stress, I've been bit through a couple of different exits, uh, where it has not been planned well, and even in one of my acquisitions, the buyer, uh, or sorry, the seller, I was the buyer in the seller side of it.
He, uh, didn't understand the full ramifications of. Uh the exit and ended up paying way more in taxes than anticipated Um, and so setting up things appropriately to go forward is an amazing thing So the business owners that are listening out there, I highly recommend if you are no matter what element you are in your business start having a conversation even if it's an initial one with A CFP, such as Jason and his firm about what retirement looks like.
Cause at some point you're going to want to retire. Uh, Jason, can you tell us a little bit about who your ideal client is? And what are the major outcomes that they can expect from working from you working with you? Sorry. Yeah. Um, so I would say, you know, our ideal client is somebody that's looking for a partner to help them on their financial journey that likes to delegate, you know, the dirty work of reading the tax law, keeping up on things and making sure everything's in the right place.
And really just wants to be in the moment and enjoy, you know, their wealth over time. And, uh, as you mentioned, you know, many people, when it comes to the realm of planning for taxes really just get lost in that. And I don't meet too many people that aren't okay with paying their fair share, but I don't think most people want to give the government a tip.
Right. And so if we can have a good tax plan in place, we can pay our fair share, but we can avoid giving the government a tip. Because part of living in a, you know, capital, uh, capitalistic society is, you know, taxes do fun things and they do take care of some things. But if there's ways to make a better plan and to really capture your full value of that transaction, when you go to sell your business, you know, I think that's always a smart thing to do.
Uh, and when it comes to business owners, what I find is. They are just so invested in their business that a lot of times they don't take the time along the way to maybe open up a retirement plan to get some money, you know, somewhere else outside of the business. So, um, folks that have done some of that, that could be a great, uh, sign that could be a good client and folks that need help with that would be another great sign of, uh, someone who could be a good client.
And there's a lot of things coming up around that space that you're going to be required to be offering these retirement plans to your, uh, to your employees as well. So, um, people that have been good planners that are looking for someone to be in their corner, to be their guide on that retirement journey, to make sure they are staying fully funded throughout retirement.
They're enjoying their money today, because I find so many people are just so nervous to actually spend the money they get, because they don't know what they can spend safely, how much they can draw without running out of money and how to keep their financial situation on track. So if they're looking for somebody to help be a guide for that type of situation, then we're definitely the right fit for that.
Excellent. Great to hear. You know, I was, uh, through some of the content I've been consuming over just even today, I've been able to see. Um, especially the last couple of days stumbled across a few different feeds, um, where they're talking about current taxes, like tech. So if your taxes, if you're making money as a business owner and you've got a sole proprietorship, or you've got an LLC, um, even an LLP and that pass through tax, right, where you're passing it through as your own and.
People don't fully understand those ideas and to help them understand the ramifications of, um, and the benefits of doing it appropriately so they can pay, you're going to pay taxes regardless of what you do, uh, but making sure you have enough. And I know I've had the unfortunate event of having a five and six digit tax bill come due, and it's not fun to have to try to pay it because one thing the government does.
Is sticky about is they want their money and they've kind of want it now. They don't really give you a, a way to pay it off over years, not without some extra help. So, um, what, you know, what is the biggest problem that you see in your industry and how are you solving that for yourself? Yeah, I think the biggest problem in our industry is that most people, the average citizen just has no idea what we do.
You know, they hear the word financial planning and it's just like this black box, right? Of what we, what we might be able to do. So one thing that I've been doing now for since 2017 is providing, you know, free workshops and webinars, mostly through our Facebook group. And I don't know if it's okay with you if I share that here, but we'll get your information at the end for sure.
Okay, sure. So we have a Facebook group, it's called your retirement coach. And, you know, we've got about, I don't know the number it's been stuck at 20, 000 for about four years. It's a known glitch by Facebook. So it's probably 50, 000 or so, but, um, really helping people understand what are the specific problems.
That a good financial advisor, a good financial planner can solve because most people understand that we help with investments. You know, I think that's pretty general. Um, there's a very small percentage that actually does any sort of tax planning with their clients. They may say they do it, but a lot of the bigger companies that have the big names you've probably heard about, they do not allow their clients to do tax planning for them.
They say, Hey, you need to talk to your CPA. And then what happens is, uh, no one ever talks to the CPA or the two don't communicate and nothing against CPAs. I love CPAs, but what they're trained on is working on this year's taxes and last year's taxes. They're not trained on how to look forward and how to plan.
So I think one of the biggest problems in our industry is really communicating the value of what a good certified financial planner and someone that specializes in tax planning can help you with. Um, because if we did that, I think there'd be a lot more people that would reach out for help because I do think our country as a whole, there's so much wealth here, but for how much money is here, there's so few people that are actually doing well and reaching financial independence comfortably.
And with what we're seeing now today with inflation, the cost of housing that's gone up so quickly and so fast that what's happening is the whole country's becoming California, uh, in reality, where we have a separation of the people that have. Uh, you know, wealth and people that don't, and this is probably going to continue.
And so financial literacy is going to be the biggest, uh, I think the most important subject that people could focus on to help them get to a place of, you know, somewhat a level of comfort. Um, but I think that is our biggest problem is actually helping people understand, you know, what they should be doing.
How they can, how they should be doing it and then who to speak to, um, and what problems they should be solving based on their unique situation and their unique business. Like you said, LLC, S Corp, LLP, you're going to have different tax planning scenarios for all those types of businesses. And that solo entrepreneur is going to have a different perspective than somebody with 50 employees.
And they're going to be different than someone with 200 employees. So getting somebody that can really help you wrap your arms around that. And you may need to grow as you grow. You might be that solopreneur today and you need one tax plan today. But once you hire that first employee, it becomes a little bit different.
Uh, and then once you have that first five or 10 employees and you start hitting bigger numbers, things become even a little bit more different. So tax planning is not something that is just a static type of plan. It's a living plan. It's a living document that needs to evolve with you And with the I think we've had five major tax legislation changes Since 2017 that have affected people near retirement And another one's coming by the way at in 2026 because our current tax plan the tax cut and jobs act is set to expire So this is where if you get somebody that really understands this stuff It should be an investment into your life and business, not a cost to you.
But I think a lot of people just get nervous to reach out because they don't know what financial advisors do or a good financial planner does, and they think it's only investments. So long answer to your question, but I want, I really want to make sure if you're a business owner, listening to this, that there's more to our world than just simply investments.
Yeah, absolutely. And there's, you know, we we're talking a lot about the. end of the road as you're exiting your business or setting yourself up to exit the business, but you know, I can't help. You talked about financial literacy in this country and, and I, I've had conversations with school boards and various different elements, but it would be absolutely beneficial in our country if schools in high school would at least do financial literacy classes so that people could understand an actual just basic PNL from a business standpoint because as we look at it something the last statistic I saw was over 53 percent of graduating High school students are going into entrepreneurship and that is a climbing number and it's going to continue to get to be, uh, a bigger problem, which is great job security for financial planners.
If we can get the markets to understand the need for it, but having a basic literacy of understanding the businesses will keep businesses from closing down the road, which is again, one of the passions of mine is, is to be able to keep businesses from closing. And continue to make progress because I think anybody can achieve all of these successes.
And Jason, it's been really great in this conversation. We're talking a little bit more about the future in the next five to 10 years. Where do you feel your industry is going? And we can't have a conversation without talking about AI. And so let's bring that into it of where do you see AI playing a part in your industry?
Yeah. So, uh, a couple of big questions there. So let me see if I can, uh, kind of chop them up here. Um, so I do want to address your, your, uh, points about financial literacy. So we actually have a nonprofit that's based out of East Los Angeles called Ideal CDC. And so we have about 14 high schools that we are teaching financial literacy And so we're doing our best to address that.
And there's a lot of reasons why the schools don't want to bring it in. It's budgets and honestly, teachers just aren't equipped, you know, a lot of times. So we bring in professionals like financial advisors, bankers, mortgage brokers, to help people understand how, how that game works. Um, but where I see our field going is I actually see AI allowing advisors like myself to serve a lot more people.
A lot more efficiently. The current, one of the biggest current issues we have right now is once you get to about a hundred to 150 clients per advisor, it gets really hard to manage more relationships than that because your brain just has so much capacity. And there's a lot of, you know, other research saying that, you know, 150 relationships is kind of the most you can manage, uh, from a personal perspective.
But with, with AI and other tech that's, that's being brought in now and that it's current being currently being developed. We're able to do things at a lot more scalable level. And so I personally have, um, released a program for men to start called the wealthy gentlemen that leverages technology and all the some of the currently available tools that allows me to see.
And help young men that may not have the wealth yet that they may need to join my, you know, financial planning firm, but we can still get them advice. We can still get them coaching and we can give them a system on so they can learn how to manage their finances with someone by their side to ask questions as things go.
And then the tools that I have create a lot of automated reports on a quarterly basis to help everybody stay on track. So we'll do the same thing for some, uh, the women called, uh, the diamond divas that will be, you know, coming soon. Yeah. But I think from answering your question, where I see our industry going is there's going to be a lot more human advice needed because the general consumer doesn't fully trust AI.
And when you use AI, it still has a lot of problems and it doesn't give you all the correct answers. Not to say it's not very useful, but if you're looking at a financial situation and you have to integrate The human and understanding that human and their risk tolerance, their money story, their life perspectives, you know, what they believe about their future.
If they want to be wealthy where they want to spend it all, you know, they want to provide generational wealth. They, they don't, um, where they come from, from a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset. And then you've got to bring in the technical factors of, do they have pensions? Do they have social security?
When do they want to take the social security? How's their longevity? Uh, how much wealth do they have? Do they have more than enough where we need to be thinking about? Planning for generational transfer, or do, do they have not quite enough where we need to really make sure that they're managing and staying on track?
Uh, so I think AI, it's probably going to be too much to pull in all the data from all the different sources and understand a human anytime soon. So I think there's going to be a bigger demand for financial advisors. I think that's already happening by the way. And I think the tools that we have are going to allow us to help more people and maybe allow them to grow with us.
Where at the initial level, they're just getting some sort of level of basic advice that gets them on track, make sure they're investing properly. They're not getting ripped off. Like my parents got ripped off. And then as they hit those different stages, those different levels, well, now they might be ready for a one on one advisor, and then they can afford a little bit more when it comes to the service level.
And then as they grow further, maybe you to bring in the teams, like the estate planners. The CPAs and everybody else at, you know, as, as people get up those levels of wealth and need that bigger level of service. So that's what we're trying to work on here at keep it simple financial planning. And at the end of the day, you know, there are, everything's relatively complicated, but if you could keep it simple, give people a short, you know, very clear game plan.
The next three or four, three to five steps I need to take and get people moving forward, whether they're starting from ground zero or their business owner that just exited, they're going to be better off because they're all taking action. Jason, that was it. That is amazing. And I'm so glad to hear that you're getting involved with schools and working through that because it is it is such a critical element to help our youth understand and grow through this.
And it's I think entrepreneurship as a whole is going to continue to be a very growing economy as we almost decentralized the entire, you know, country from a standpoint of moving away from corporate America. Um, that has been great. Uh, I want to have a little fun now. I want to do what we're calling the lightning round.
And I've got about 10 questions here. A couple of these questions throw people off, um, but they're fun and, uh, and it's meant to be rapid fire. So I'll ask a question. You can go back and forth and, uh, we'll run through the, uh, run through these. And so are you ready? Let's do it. Okay. Coffee or tea? Coffee.
Perfect. I love it. Cats or dogs? Dogs. Dogs. Okay. Favorite city you've ever visited?
I will say, uh, Cusco, Peru. That was a beautiful city. Okay. Uh, last song you were listening to on repeat. On repeat. Okay. So I'm going to call myself out here. I have a nine month old daughter. So this is not my favorite song. Uh, but it was a, uh, Taylor Swift song. I don't know what song it was. It's off some album called 1989.
Uh, but it, it was a Taylor Swift song that my little daughter loves and it keeps her quiet. So that was on repeat in the coffee shop. There's no problem here. I have a 17 year old that is a swifty at heart. So, um, we've been listening to it for years. Uh, if you could grab one weapon during it, uh, or item during a zombie apocalypse, what would it be?
No, I'm definitely going to take the biggest gun that I possibly can with the most number of bullets. So I think that whatever I see resembles that, that's what I'm going for. Okay. If you look back at past experience that you have has led to your success today, what would it be? Being somebody who's a continuous learner that will just read, even if it doesn't make sense the first time, I'll read it and read it again.
And just being committed to continuous growth, even when you don't feel like it. What is your favorite failure or lesson learned as some of us like to call it that you've had? Yeah. So, uh, I, on my journey of starting my wealth management firm before I had revenue coming in, I started an Amazon FBA business.
I'm not sure if you're familiar with that, but it's fulfilled by Amazon where I was buying products. I would buy pallets, you know, returns from Costco. I would get, uh, things from stores like Goodwill and, uh, uh, Marshall's. And I would flip them, right? I buy them at one price and I sell them on Amazon and I flip them.
I grew enough. I turned 600 in like three months doing that just part time on the side. And so I decided that I wanted to go big and get my own product. And so I went through this whole process of doing research, finding a product, ordering it from China, buying a big order, and having it shipped directly to Amazon.
And ever all the numbers said it would work. Well, within 30 days, Amazon had copied my exact product, put their label on it, and they were selling it for the exact price that I bought it for. So that I could, there was no way I can possibly make any profit on that. So what I realized is you need to create emotes.
around whatever you're doing so that your competitors can't just directly copy you and that needs to be either your personality, your systems, your processes, your product, just something that makes you unique. And that was a very tough lesson I learned because that money was just basically gone. The stuff's just got thrown away essentially.
Those didn't happen to be camera tripods. Uh, no, it was actually a, it was actually a yoga product. A couple of different yoga products. I've seen a couple of stories on the, on the tripod. The, the, that, that similar, almost exact, uh, thing where somebody tried to do a tripod and then Amazon made it for cheaper and ran them out.
So. I believe it. Continuing on favorite quote or phrase that you think about often.
Just make it happen. Find a way, you know, whatever it is, just find a way, make it happen. Just keep pushing until you figure it out. That's, you know, that's how I, that's what I tell myself whenever I feel like giving up, just make it happen. Just find a way, make it happen. Uh, about a no miss morning routine.
Oh, yes. I'm a big fan of morning routine. So I try to get exercise in of some sort every day. Um, and then I will get at least 20 minutes in a sauna and in that sauna, I try to combine that with some sort of like meditation, breath work, and I would try to read for 20 minutes on something that is nonfiction each day.
And I currently came across a, I got a big, uh, win, I think I just got this book in the mail. Um, but Charlie Munger. Has this book, um, that he wrote called, um, why it slipped my mind right now, but, uh, I'll forget I'll remember the name of it in a second, but he wrote a book, um, Oh, poor Charlie's almanac. So I got this book called poor Charles almanac.
I've been wanting to buy it for a really long time. If you buy the new version, I think it's around 150, but I found one, somebody was selling, it was one available and it looked like the original version. And it was for 46 on Amazon. And so I said, you know what? It said it was in good condition. I said, let me just buy it and check it out.
So I bought it. I got it the other day. I opened it up. There was a note inside that was addressed to the people who the book was originally bought for saying, Hey, I got Charlie to sign your book. Lo and behold, you go to the title page. And it looks like Charlie Munger had signed it himself and the books in great condition.
And so when you look these up on eBay, it might be worth two to two to 3, 000. Um, but simply because I decided to, uh, invest in getting that book. Hey, I may, might've made one of my best, uh, returns on investment ever. That is a great story. Uh, how about favorite movie or streaming series that you love? Ooh.
Um, so favorite movie would have to be the fifth elements. It's Bruce Willis. Uh, very good. Uh, and Shark Tank is something for any business owner, get or someone with kids, get your kids watching Shark Tank. It is one of the best series you can ever watch, especially the older versions where they talked a lot more about how they Analyze the business, get the multiples, make offers, um, best, you know, series that we watch and we continue to watch that.
So interestingly enough, you talk about shark tank. We don't watch shark tank at home, but we watch all like anytime we travel, that's what's on in the hotel room. Like if you go, it's there's such horrible choices, which. When you're trying to just relax at the end of the day and you know, turn on, you turn on the TV to find something, shark Tank is always our go-to, uh, and if it's not Shark Tank in our house, it's food.
So we're, uh, on the food network, but Shark Tank is our preferred over this on side of that, so That is great. That's great. Uh, what is one book that has influenced your life the most? The art of impossible by Steven Kotler. You know, I have a series of books over here. I could pull from and some of the old classics, of course, I think and grow rich, which I found a really old copy recently when I was traveling in Tennessee, um, but the art of impossible by Steven Kotler, it's a study of how to manipulate your biology for peak performance and flow states and that book, and then I took their advanced program after and Really changed the way I've operated my business and my life and from the moment I got into that Um, I I probably it's almost triple at this point, but i've i've over doubled my business.
I'll say that confidently And increased my time off with my family simply by learning how to deeply focus, utilize flow states to get my work done, to get more deep work done faster. And it's allowed me to expand what I'm doing. That's that wealthy gentlemen program beyond the firm and everything else that I've done.
So the art of impossible by Steven Kotler. That is going to be on my list for sure. Uh, I love, I, I got into reading, um, shortly after my first exit actually. And the, uh, I realized all of a sudden that I didn't know everything. Um, and my ego got popped. Uh, I went to work for a much bigger company, uh, and was on the road a ton.
Got into audible books. Now I read somewhere between 50 and 60 books a year. And I kept up that since 20, I've had that exit at the end of 2015. So. Um, the, uh, my bookshelves are representation of 90 percent of the books behind me or books that I have read in the, over the course of those, uh, the last eight years.
So that's great. Yeah. But one of those two and I tell people, even if you don't think you're going to read it right away, just buy the book cause you'll forget about it and it'll be there when the time is right. Yep. I've had to move to some Kindle. I have to find the balance because I get, I have like three layers deep on my bookshelf on things.
And so, uh, yes, uh, but absolutely a hundred percent agree with that. I have found the benefit of Kindle Unlimited when, uh, I don't necessarily know, and I don't necessarily want to spend the money on the book. There's actually some pretty good Kindle Unlimited books. Um, I try to make sure they've got some good reviews, uh, but occasionally I'll grab one that doesn't have very many ratings just because maybe it's an early, uh, book.
Uh, early adopter, but it's been a Jason has been a fantastic interview. I appreciate you coming on the podcast and going. If my listeners want to get a hold, connect with you. What is the best way they should reach out? Yeah. If you Google, keep it simple. Financial. We're on all the social media platforms.
Keep it simple. Financial. com or Google meet Jason J. Hamilton. You'll find us, uh, you know, find me through any of that. Um, I'd be happy to connect with anybody that happened to come across this and, uh, found it interesting. So thank you. Hey, you guys heard it here. We are all about financial planning in this podcast and getting you ready for the next stages of your life and your business and that planning.
If you want to reach out and connect with Jason, you can get that in the show notes below. We'll have all this contact information and you heard it here. Thank you so much for your time today, Jason. Thank you, Jason. I appreciate it. It was a great, great, great chat with you.
