Show Summary

Garrett Sutton, attorney, best selling author, and one of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Advisors, joins today to share some incredible information. In part 1 of the show, we discuss the topic of ‘Toxic Clients’ and customers…and how to eliminate these folks from your business. In part 2, Garrett shares great information on how to better protect yourself legally, including some powerful tips on how to protect your assets! Check it out!

Highlights of this show

  • Meet Garrett Sutton, attorney and advisor to Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad.
  • Join our discussion on the importance of asset protection in your real estate business.
  • Learn from Garrett as he tells us what types of legal entities to consider, as well as states to form those entities.
  • Listen in as Garrett talks about how to avoid Toxic Clients and customers in your business – and why you don’t need them!

Resources and Links from this show:

Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

FlipNerd Show Transcript:

Mike: Hey, everyone. It’s Mike Hambright at FlipNerd.com. Welcome back for this episode of the FlipNerd.com Expert Interview Show, where we meet with experts and entrepreneurs and really just leaders in the real estate investing industry to help you learn and grow. This is episode number 305 and I’m here with my friend Garrett Sutton.
Garrett is . . . you definitely do not want to miss this show. Garrett’s an attorney. He’s a bestselling author. He’s one of Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Advisors. In fact, he has a new book out that we’re going to talk a little bit about that’s going to be a really interesting topic to discuss with you today. Again, Garrett is an attorney and he’s really able to demystify legal topics and present them in an digest manner. I think for real estate investors the legal side of the business is kind of a necessary evil for us and so sometimes our eyes glaze over when we start to hear that we’re at risk for something.
So Garrett does a great job of helping explain that stuff so even us real estate investors can understand it. Garrett has over 30 years of experience in helping individuals and businesses with asset protection and limiting their liability, which is really important. If you don’t realize it yet, you will someday when you eventually get sued or have a tax problem and unfortunately I’ve been through a few of things myself and you really realize what you need and what you didn’t have once you need it.
But Garrett has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, other top publications and now for the Holy Grail, he is on the FlipNerd Expert Interview Show with us today. We’re going to talk about two main topics today. At the beginning in part one, we’re going to talk about toxic clients. In fact, that is the name of Garrett’s new book.
And he’s going to talk about a lot of us end up working with people we don’t like or that don’t do a good job or that don’t pay us on time or any of those things because we have this scarcity in our mind that we just have to put up with it. Garrett’s going to talk with us a little bit about why we don’t have to put up with that and why we shouldn’t.
And then in part two of the show, the taking action segment, we’re going to talk about asset protection. We’re going to talk a little bit about what is the right legal entity and what are some pros and cons of the different legal entities that are out there. So, let’s go ahead and get started.
Garrett, how are you, my friend?
Garrett: Good. It’s great to be with you again, Mike. Three hundred shows, congratulations.
Mike: Yeah. We’re putting on some mileage, that’s for sure. Truthfully, if I had just done this show myself, I could have come up with maybe five interesting topics. I’m really blessed to have great relationships with people like you that come on and share your information with our listeners, so thank you for being here.
Garrett: It’s my pleasure.
Mike: Yeah. Well, Garrett, you have been on before. You mentioned thanks for having you on again. I should say I think I told you the last time you were on is episode 119 and this is 305. So, it’s a little late in the day for me to be doing math, but that was about 180 or so episodes ago. Hard to believe that it’s been that long, but we’re definitely happy to see you again.
Garrett: It’s my pleasure, once again.
Mike: Yeah. So for those that maybe aren’t familiar with you, could you maybe take a couple minutes and tell us about who you are and your background?
Garrett: Sure. Again, my name is Garrett Sutton. I grew up in the Bay Area and went to the University of California, Berkeley, got a degree in business, went across the Bay to Hastings College of the Law, the University of California’s law school in San Francisco and became a practicing attorney and got kind of tired of the crowds and the Bay Area and the dysfunctional government in California.
So I moved to Nevada in 1989 and that was two weeks before the earthquake. Do you remember the earthquake during the World Series? My friends said, “How did you know?” But I was really happy to move to Nevada. I love it up here. As you know, Mike, I enjoy skiing. I enjoy the mountains up here. Nevada is a great state to do business in. It’s a great state to incorporate. They offer great asset protection in Nevada along with Wyoming.
So I settled here in 1989. I got married up here. I have three kids. It’s just been great to work here. And then I became very fortunate to become associated with Robert Kiyosaki and the Rich Dad Advisor Group. Robert asked me to write a book on corporations and asset protection and I was happy to do so. They keep asking for books.
So I’ve written six in the Rich Dad Advisor series and three others. I enjoy the writing. It keeps me off the streets. Life is good. I have no complaints. With Robert, I get to go around the world. I’m going to be in Chile and Australia this year. I get to work with people like Tom and Ken and Andy. It’s just been a really special team to be associated with.
Mike: Yeah. That really is a lot of great information. Of course we’ve had Tom Wheelwright on the show before as well. Tom, every time I get a chance to talk to you guys I get excited because you have so much great information. Let me ask you, Garrett, how does one become a Rich Dad Advisor? How does that happen?
Garrett: Well, it’s this big mystery and a super-secret process you have to go through. No, I’m kidding. It was because I was referred by someone that Robert knew. Things worked out. I went down for the interview and it helped that I played rugby. Robert loves the game of rugby. He played for a really good team in Hawaii.
Mike: Okay.
Garrett: So, we kind of hit it off off of that. But they’re not taking any more dad Rich Dad Advisors. So, I was just very fortunate to become one of the few.
Mike: Yeah. Garrett, it’s interesting. The book that you have that just came out, “Toxic Client,” because I think a lot of us . . . I want to talk about in the context of tenants and some of the people that real estate investors work with, whether it’s a bad contractor . . . I know personally I’ve worked with contractors that I really didn’t like. Personally I didn’t like them. I didn’t like the way they did business.
But sometimes when you’re in this business, especially like a specialty person that it’s kind of hard to find, I don’t need them all that often, so when I do I just kind of tolerate some of the things that I don’t like maybe. I guess kind of tell us how you came up with the idea for this book and maybe we can get into some relevant examples that people that are listening to you might hit home with and maybe we can talk about how they can do things differently and not have to deal with those people.
Garrett: Well, Mike, as you know, I’ve talked to people from all over the world about their business and how to protect their assets. In these many thousands of discussions, I’ve learned that a lot of people have faced the bad client and in fact, one of the reasons that you will incorporate or set up an LLC is to protect yourself from the toxic client.
Mike: Right.
Garrett: So, in hearing all these stories, there was kind of a common thread that not every client is a good client. So, in listening to these stories and talking to people, it made sense to write a book about the topic because like you, you say that some of these people, you need their expertise, but you don’t like them as a person. You don’t share their values.
The little voice inside you is saying, “Don’t do business with this person.” Well, we’ve got to learn how to appreciate and trust that little voice and not take these people on or do business with these people. You’ve heard of the Pareto principle where 80% of your income comes from 20% of your clients. Well, it applies to toxic clients as well. Eighty percent of your problems come from 20% of your clients.
Mike: Sure.
Garrett: How great would it be to get rid of those problematic clients and be able to put your best efforts forward, not in correcting someone’s problem but doing good work for your other clients?
Mike: Yeah.
Garrett: That’s what the book is about — how to get to the point of not taking on these destructive clients.
Mike: Yeah. It’s interesting. I think back over time. I’ve bought hundreds of houses now, but early on when I hadn’t rehabbed a lot of houses or I didn’t have a lot of rental properties, there’s always this feeling of, “I just need to get it done with. I’ll deal with something else.” But as time goes by, you start to think more about, “What are my principles?” If I have to sit on the house for an extra week or I have to jump through a couple of extra hoops that make me not have to do that anymore or deal with that person, then you start to make those tradeoffs.
I think early on a lot of . . . what would you say about people that are the early investors or that are so small or so new that they haven’t gotten to that point yet to where the pain of having to deal with that person offsets the fear of kind of losing business or . . .
Garrett: Well, if you’re new to business, like you indicated, you want that deal to go forward, you want to move forward however you can and maybe you don’t trust that little voice that’s telling you to beware. It takes a couple of bad experiences for you to now understand that you should have avoided that person and maybe the second time you say, “Well, that won’t happen here.” But the little voice is still telling you to avoid it. Sure enough, the second time it’s a bad experience. So, after a period of time, you do develop the instincts to know which client to take and which client to just send on down the road.
Mike: Yeah. Any guidance for people that are . . . I keep going back because I’ve rehabbed so many houses to contractors. Sometimes you’re already in the midst of working with that person and you realize it’s the wrong person. It’s hard. Many times you may be prepaid in which I don’t advise pre-paying contractors, but it happens sometimes where they’ve been paid more for the work than the work they’ve done or they may be in the middle of something where it’s really difficult to switch gears. Any kind of advice on how to deal with those situations?
Garrett: Well, it’s like Churchill said, “When you’re walking through Hell, keep walking.” You have to get through that particular case. Many cases like you’ve indicated, you don’t have really a choice. It would be too difficult to bring someone on, too expensive. But the key is learning from these experiences, getting through this difficult time and telling yourself that you’re not going to deal with this type of person again. Guess what? When you start asserting yourself in that direction, you will only be dealing with good people.
It’s funny. Once you set your standards, then you’ll be dealing with the people you want to deal with. In the book, and I have to hold it up because I love the cover. They did a great job on this cover. That guy is toxic. Look at him.
Mike: Looks good. We’ll get a link from you too where we find out where to pick this up, but yes. Good looking book.
Garrett: Yeah. So, in the book, we talk about investigating people, doing a Google search, checking the Better Business Bureau. You can also check the courthouse to see if this person has been involved in litigation. If they’re a plaintiff, meaning they brought the suit, maybe they’re suing for concessions. If they’re the defendant, they’re the one being sued, maybe they haven’t done the work properly.
So, checking the county records to see who’s been involved in litigation can tell you a lot. Now, also in the book we talk how you get a business credit report. Most people don’t realize, but for $100, you can get a report indicating the payment history of that business. So, due diligence, checking people out at the start before you do business with them is a good strategy.
Mike: Yeah. Garrett, what would you say, how do we extrapolate this to tenants? Tenants are kind of a whole other ballgame depending on what class of property you have. But I think it’s kind of timely to talk about working with people that you don’t like, you may not have the same principles as. Just recently, as you probably know, President Obama has asked HUD to basically consider felons a protected class, for example. How do you extrapolate this into the realm of rental properties?
Garrett: In the realm of rental properties, you certainly do have toxic tenants. For our building, we always do a background check every time. So, you want to screen out those people who are going to cause you problems. I think deposits are important, not allowing people to get used to paying late. It’s just doing good business.
But I think for a tenant certainly you want to get references when you can and do the background check. In some states like California, once they get in the door and in that apartment, it’s very difficult to get them out in a reasonable amount of time. They could be living off you for six months.
Mike: Right.
Garrett: You don’t want to let that person into your building.
Mike: Yeah. It’s tough with tenants. The next thing you know, your tenant has the boyfriend or girlfriend that’s not on the lease that is living there all of a sudden that may bring their drama into the picture that you didn’t even know they were there.
Garrett: Right. It is something that you have to pay close attention to. When you get started in investing, you are going to be rehabbing a property. The issues with contractors that you mentioned earlier, Mike, apply. When you deal with realtors, you do not want to deal with a realtor who does not have your best interests at heart. So, again, when you’re using a realtor, I would do due diligence, check them out, see what their reputation is.
Now, on some of these sites, there are going to be negative comments and there are going to be a few that you always take with a grain of salt. Sometimes they’re competitors, sometimes the positive reviews are written by their friends. But a lot of negative reviews at the Better Business Bureau for me is a sign to be cautious.
Mike: Yeah. One last question that I want to talk about with kind of toxic clients, I want to talk about, you have this topic in your book I know you talk about which is “entitlementia” or this entitlement class that is rising up in the United States. How does that impact the way that we deal with others, with clients or tenants or any of those things?
Garrett: Well, I coined the term entitlementia to describe the dementia that results from people having a sustained and/or ingrained sense of entitlement. We do have those people out in society who have been so used to being given everything, so used to being never criticized that they create their own set of problems.
As I describe in the book, “Toxic Client,” a lot of these people with their sense of entitlement feel superior even though they may have no experience, they feel superior, they need to have the best deal, they view you as a mere provider of services. They have no empathy for your situation, for your need to make a profit and they’re very difficult to deal with.
I read an article recently where a top law school recruiter, his estimate is that about 10% of the kids coming out of law school now have a form of entitlementia. They don’t want to do the work that’s assigned them at these law firms. They’re unable to take criticism. Whenever they have that first critical review, a lot of them leave the law firm because they just are not able, their ego does not allow them to take that kind of criticism.
Well, this is not healthy for our workforce. So, you want to make sure that you’re hiring people that are not suffering from entitlementia and as well in business, you don’t want to do business with these types of people because they turn toxic very quickly.
Mike: Absolutely. Real fast, Garrett, I want to make sure people know where they can go if they want to . . . I know you have two books out. I don’t know how you have time to visit with me. You’re writing books all the time. But you have two new books out. We just talked a little bit about “Toxic Client.”
Garrett: The other one is called “Finance Your Own Business.” It’s co-authored with Gerry Detwiler, who’s a well-known credit expert. This one came out in January.
Mike: Okay.
Garrett: I do have two new books out there. They’re available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. They’re also on audio. A lot of people I’ve found like to take in information like this via audiobook. So, we’ve recorded audiobooks.
Mike: Wonderful. We’ll add some links below here for those that want to find your books. I know you have a whole bunch of books. I own several of the Rich Dad books. Those are the really great books to check out. Garrett, let’s jump into the taking action segment of the show here. I want to talk about asset protection.
This is something that we’ve talked about a few times on the show before. It’s something that’s really important and people ask me all the time about certain . . . I’m not attorney, but people ask, “What is better, an LLC or an S-corp, something else, series LLCs?” There are all sorts of varieties and hybrids of things out there. The truth is the real answer, and I’m not an expert, but I know the answer is it depends. It depends on your situation and what you’re doing in your business. Do you want to kind of take it from here and talk at a high level, when you get that question, how do you answer that?
Garrett: Well, it depends. No.
Mike: Depends on whether you’ve been drinking or not.
Garrett: Exactly. The state legislatures of all 50 states have given us choices on how to protect ourselves. Each state provides for corporations. Each state provides for limited partnerships and now LLCs. LLCs are fairly new. They’re new as of about 30 years ago. The cases are still coming out defining the use of LLCs. About 16 states approve of series LLCs. I’m not a big fan of the series LLC. We don’t set them up. They’re just too new. Certain states don’t allow them. So, you’re kind of creating problems if you use a series LLC in a state that’s not used to them.
But as a general rule, we look at the various choices and for real estate, the good entities are LLCs and limited partnerships. The reason for that is that both of those entities offer the charging order protection, which is instead of allowing someone who was in car wreck, a car wreck victim who has a judgment against you, Mike, and they want to get at your fourplex that’s in an LLC, if it was in your name, they could go after the equity in the fourplex, they could go after all your personal assets.
By having the LLC, the real estate in a protected entity, depending on what your state you’re in — California is very weak — but say we have it in a Nevada or Wyoming LLC, they can’t go in and force a sale of the fourplex, they have to wait for distributions to be made. That’s a deterrent. The attorneys know how to get at the insurance money. They’re not very good at getting at the LLCs through the charging order. Attorneys are economic animals and they don’t want to wait to get paid. They’ll go to the next case that has insurance. So, having these LLCs is a real deterrent.
Now, for business, we have a couple good entities. You can use the LLC for business and the LLC has the flexibility of being taxed as an S-corporation, a flow through entity or a C-corporation or if it’s just you as a disregarded entity — this is all for Tom to talk about.
Mike: Sure.
Garrett: But you have choices when you setup a business. Some people will use corporations, be they C-corporations or S-corporations. Now, they don’t offer as much asset protection as the LLC. If someone sued your corporation, Mike, or sued you in a car wreck and wanted to get at your corporation, in 49 states, they could reach the shares of your corporation because the charging order doesn’t apply to corporations except for in one state. That state is Nevada.
So, Nevada has the charging order protection for corporate shares. So, if it makes sense to setup a corporation, you would look to setting it up in Nevada. The one issue is Nevada just raised the filing fees for corporations, which is now $650 a year. They’re almost up to California levels.
Mike: Wow.
Garrett: For LLCs, it’s still $325. But when you give people the choice of Nevada and $325 and Wyoming is only $50 a year, offers great protection and privacy. Most people will choose for real estate the Wyoming LLC.
Mike: Okay.
Garrett: I know that’s kind of at a high level, but that’s kind of the gist of it. You’re going to use LLCs and LPs for real estate. You may use corporations for business, but you won’t use corporations to hold real estate assets. That’s a no-no.
Mike: Okay. Garrett, tell me a little bit about I guess the pros and cons of having a legal entity established in a state other than where you live or where you operate?
Garrett: You’re free to do so. If you have an entity in Texas, you can setup a Texas LLC because if you have a real estate property in Texas, you setup a Texas LLC, you’re collecting rents there, you would be free to setup a Wyoming LLC to hold the Texas property but you would have to qualify to do business in Texas because you’re collecting rents in Texas. So, I like the strategy of a Texas LLC to hold title to the real estate in Texas, then owned by a Wyoming LLC, which gives you the better protection if you were sued in a car wreck.
Mike: So, the Wyoming LLC owns the LLC in Texas, is that right?
Garrett: Right.
Mike: Okay. What level of protection . . . so, there are some specific state laws that I think probably protect you more is my guess. Unfortunately having been sued a few times for things that were very frivolous with properties that we sold, they were always contingency cases, they’ve almost been ultimately pulled the plug on the case because they knew they couldn’t win and they didn’t have a case. But what level of the complication of a Texas attorney having to go sue another state attorney is that level of protection? It just complicates everything, right?
Garrett: Yeah. So, we have two cases to talk about. One is if a tenant sues over the Texas real estate and the real estate is in the name of that Texas LLC, Texas law applies. If we have the car wreck case where they want to get at the Texas LLC but the Texas LLC is owned by the Wyoming LLC, they have to pursue the case according to Wyoming law and the cases are coming out saying that you don’t have to go to Wyoming. The Texas court can apply a Wyoming law. Wyoming law is very clear, that the charging order is the exclusive remedy. So, that Texas attorney is going to have to rely on Wyoming law to get paid. It’s going to be tough for him to do so.
Mike: Yeah.
Garrett: So, I like having enough insurance to cover any claims and then the LLCs are the second line of defense. It discourages the attorneys from pursuing the other assets because they have to fight through these asset-protected LLCs, which is not easy.
Mike: Right. And if they’re contingency-based attorneys, that means they probably are going to have to come out of pocket now to hire somebody in, say, Wyoming to help them fight that case.
Garrett: Right, to get advice from Wyoming law, exactly right. So, the contingency fee system, I’m kind of ambivalent about it. A lot of people who get in a car wreck and need to get paid, they’ve got medical bills and they don’t have money to pay an attorney, the contingency fee case there works. The attorney works on their behalf, he gets a percentage of what’s collected. The poor person who got in the wreck that doesn’t have any money to pay an attorney will get money from the insurance company to pay their medical bills. I’m okay with that.
But as you’ve mentioned, Mike, the contingency fee cases have led attorneys to take cases that maybe are frivolous.
Mike: Right.
Garrett: The good thing is an attorney who has a couple of these frivolous cases that go nowhere, he’s learning that he shouldn’t be taking those kinds of cases. It’s a waste of his time. He’s not getting paid. But there are enough attorneys out there that are still bringing these types of cases to the great frustration of many Americans. Knowing the system, we just know we have to protect ourselves.
Mike: Right.
Garrett: You and I aren’t going to change the system, so let’s just setup the entities, have the insurance and protect ourselves as best as we can.
Mike: Absolutely. So, Garrett, one other question that I’ve wanted to ask you that I’ve come to realize myself, when you ask, “What is the right legal entity for me?” you often get a different answer from your attorney than from your tax advisor. So, help explain that scenario. I think that’s very real.
Garrett: Well, I tell this joke in the class I teach with Tom that CPA stands for “cannot protect assets.” So, you don’t take asset protection advice from a CPA. They’re not lawyers. I don’t prepare tax returns. Don’t ask me to do your taxes. But the CPA that gives legal advice is to be cautioned. I would be cautious with that CPA. Let me tell you, Mike . . .
Mike: And not so much legal advice as it is . . . my question is more sometimes you have to weigh tax advantages with legal protection in some instances, right?
Garrett: Absolutely. So, if the CPA says, “I want this activity to be taxed as an S-corp,” I would say, “I want this activity to be asset protected.” So, we’ll split the difference. We’ll have an LLC that’s taxed as an S-corp. That’s how this CPA and the attorney can work together.
Mike: Okay. So, what are some other things that are going on in the . . . I know we talked briefly beforehand. There are some kind of recent laws or some challenges that are going on from an asset protection standpoint. Do you want to talk about some kind of real time or recent changes that people should consider?
Garrett: Yeah. There’s a trend across the country to not protect the single member LLC, to not allow the charging order to apply to a one-owner or single-member LLC. The reason for that is the whole purpose of the charging order is to protect the innocent partner, the person who wasn’t sued. We don’t want the person who was sued, their creditor, to go in and force a sale of all the LLC assets. That’s not fair to the party that wasn’t sued. That’s why we have the charging order.
Well, in the single-member context, there’s no other partner there to protect. So, some courts, California, Kansas, Idaho have said we’re not going to give protection, the charging order protection, to a single-member LLC. So, we like to have a multiple-member LLC. If you are in with a partner, that’s great. They’re two members of the LLC.
But if mom and dad are in a community property state and they’re considered one owner, they may want to have the kids in for 5%. You can do a Uniform Gift to Minors Act. You can have an irrevocable trust prepared for a small amount of money that is in the name of the LLC as a second 5% owner, which is the child through the Uniform Gift to Minors Act or the through the irrevocable trust.
That allows the court to look at the LLC and say, “Look, there are two independent parties here and mom and dad have provided for the kids and we’re not going to allow someone suing mom and dad to force a sale of all the assets because the kids have a legitimate interest here.”
Mike: Sure.
Garrett: It doesn’t have to be children. It can be other family members as well.
Mike: Does that differ by state, that spouses or husband and wife would be considered one versus two or is that pretty much the same across the board?
Garrett: It varies state to state. Yeah.
Mike: Okay.
Garrett: But some states like Wyoming and Nevada have said in the statute, in the code, it says, “We protect the single-member LLC.” So, you still have that protection with the use of Nevada and Wyoming LLCs, but you can never predict what’s going to happen. The law is a dynamic beast. So, if you want to be safe into the future, consider having a multiple member LLC.
Mike: Awesome. Garrett, you said something, I know we talked a little early one, we had someone on the show not too long ago talking about checkbook IRAs. I know there are some recent changes going on there as well, right?
Garrett: Right. The tax court just came out with a case in March whereby the Thiessen, it’s the Thiessen case, the Thiessens used their Kroger grocery retirement account on the advice of a CPA to roll it into a self-directed IRA. The self-directed IRA then they had a C-corp formed, the self-directed IRA invested in the C-corp. The C-corp bought a metal fabrication shop. The Thiessens ran the metal fabrication shop.
The court said that you were not able to do this. A couple reasons — one, they used their own personal money as a deposit. They had a promissory note which they personally guaranteed. That is a prohibited transaction. You can’t use your personal money and mix it in with your retirement assets. As well the courts said that this was not a traditional investment into stocks. The stocks were for the benefit of the Thiessens so they could run a business. The court said this was not the purpose of these retirement plans.
So this Colorado CPA that put them into this, I would imagine his clients are starting to be concerned because the IRS, this is the second case with this Colorado CPA that the IRS has stewed on.
So I think that if you’re looking at the checkbook IRA, you’ve got to be extremely careful because there are so many landmines out there that you’ve got to be careful about. A lot of these IRA firms are not letting the customers know that there is some complexity here. There are some IRS filings that you need to make. A lot of them kind of say, “We just set it up for you and it’s your responsibility to know everything.” That’s not a healthy position for them to take.
Mike: Right.
Garrett: They owe more to their clients.
Mike: I know a lot of the large custodians will just, especially some of the very large ones, the national ones, go out of their way to not provide legal advice because they’re not supposed to do that. I think a lot of people assume that they are protected by, “Well, I read this in the pamphlet,” or, “It sounds like this will work,” but I think it’s really important to have some sound legal advice from somebody that understands what they’re talking about to protect you.
Garrett: Right. Here’s another issue, Mike. The Department of Labor has now said anybody who receives direct or indirect compensation for advising people on what to do with their IRAs and retirement accounts owes a fiduciary duty to the client, meaning you have to act in the client’s best interest. Well, you can no longer say that this is just educational advice and I’m just here to help you.
You now owe a fiduciary duty. Part of that fiduciary duty is knowing the law. So these IRA promoters are going to be . . . there’s a rude awakening coming for them because under these new regulations, they have to know the law. They have to explain everything to the client as an attorney would. So, this is going to create a big change. I think there’s going to be kind of a day of reckoning for a lot of these checkbook IRA promoters.
Mike: Wow. Garrett, you’ve shared a lot of great information with us today. I know just from my personal experience that it’s really important to have a great attorney on your team. We talk a lot around here . . . I mentor and coach a lot of people. We talk a lot about having the right people on your team. If folks want to learn more about you, I know that you set up legal entities for a very reasonable price even and have a lot of great advice. How do they get ahold of you or where do they go to learn more?
Garrett: The best place to go is our website, corporatedirect.com and you can schedule a free 15-minute consult with incorporating specialists. We have all sorts of information there. We have a newsletter you can sign up for that comes out every month to keep you up to date because again, the law is ever-changing. But corporatecirect.com would be a place to start.
Mike: Okay.
Garrett: We also have an 800-number, 800-600-1760. You can call.
Mike: Say that one more time, Garrett.
Garrett: 800-600-1760.
Mike: Okay. Great. Well, we’ll add links for Corporate Direct down below, the number you just provided and links to the new books too. Good luck with that. I know they’re hot off the press here.
Garrett: Well, I had a lot of fun writing it, Mike. It was really interesting to hear all the client stories and think about ways for people, especially those starting in business to kind of have a leg up. There are a lot of deceitful people out there. One of the things we came across is that there’s an old German proverb that says mistrust carries one much further than trust. So, you want to be a little cautious out there in dealing with these toxic clients.
Mike: Yeah. Well, Garrett, again, thanks for spending time with us today. For those of you that are interested, check out some of these links and check out Garrett’s new books as well. So, Garrett, thanks again for being here.
Garrett: Thank you, Mike.
Mike: And everybody, thanks for joining us today. We’ll see you on the next episode. Have a great day.
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