Millionaire Interview: Jaime Raskulinecz – CEO of Next Generation Trust Services

Right Click to Download the MP3

Jaime Raskulinecz – CEO of Next Generation Trust Services

Jaime Raskulinecz talks about the jump from working in healthcare to starting her first business a property management company. She gives advice on sales and marketing, and has a ton of great information on self directed retirement plans (where you can put real estate or loans in your retirement plans) which she provides in Next Generation Trust Services.

I had no idea about self directed retirement plans and she gives a lot of great detail. This podcast will help you in planning your retirement!

Check out Nextgenerationtrust.com to find out more from Jaime.

Thanks so much for listening! If you like these interviews subscribe via iTunes.

Any questions or comments on the podcast let me know!

Transcript:

Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire podcast with your host, Jaime Tardy. Real talk and real advice from real millionaires, with a sharp focus on you, the eventual millionaire.

Welcome to the Eventual Millionaire Podcast. I'm Jaime Tardy and today we have Jaime Raskulinecz on the show. Jaime is the CEO of Next Generation Trust Services, a firm she founded after struggling to find a local business that could help her make real estate investments within her retirement accounts. They are experts in self-directed retirement plans. Thanks so much for coming on the show today, Jaime.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: You are quite welcome. Thanks for having me.

JAIME TARDY: So, first of all, what is a self-directed retirement plan because I really don't know as much as I should about that?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Self-directed retirement plan just means that you are able to control the investments that you make within the plan and you're not limited by a set of guidelines arbitrarily imposed. And so, as an example, if you went to a traditional IRA or retirement plan custodian like your bank or one of the large brokerage houses, they will allow you to invest in any publicly traded things that they sell. For our purposes, we allow our clients to invest in anything that the IRS says is permissible.

That really includes everything except collectibles like antique and artwork and things like that and life insurance. So most of our clients come to us to invest in investment real estate, they give loans to people whether unsecured or secured. They invest in closely held corporations and some hedge funds, also precious metals. So we specialize in those non-traditional investments.

JAIME TARDY: Wow, so I really didn't know that you could do this. So as far as real estate investment, you can put it in your IRA or a Roth IRA or how does it work on that side of things?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Actually, it's pretty fascinating. As long as you open an account with an administrator or a custodian like us that allows for these kinds of investments, pretty much what you do is you tell the administrator or the custodian that you want to purchase this thing, whatever it is, whether it's giving a loan or buying a piece of real estate that you are going to use for investment, and we make that transaction happen for you within your retirement account. So you don't take something that's personally owned or outside of the IRA and somehow put it in there. You are actually making the purchase within the plan just like you would any other investment.

JAIME TARDY: So what constitutes a real estate investment? Does it have to be a certain amount? Does it have to be away from your primary home, that sort of thing?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Of course the IRS has rules for everything, right? So this is really no different. There are a lot of rules that you have to follow and that's one of the things that we help our clients navigate are the IRS rules and regulations but some simple ones are if you are going to buy investment real estate, it really does have to be for investment purposes. So even if you are buying something that you might later want to take out of your plan and use as a vacation or retirement home, you can't use it now.

So you personally can't get any benefit from anything that's in your plan. So it has to be strictly for income and hopefully future appreciation. But we have many people that buy things like waterfront property or waterfront condos that they know are going to rent really well so generate income within their plan and more than likely are going to appreciate because they are not making anymore waterfront property these days. So they do things like that and rent them.

So what happens is your IRA has the benefit of all that rental income coming in and, if and when you sell it later, the benefit of tax deferred or tax free appreciation for the property. In a Roth IRA it's tax free. So it's really a great thing.

JAIME TARDY: So what do you do if you had a rental property and the person in it is sending you a check? Do you then have to send you guys a check? Like how does that work?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: What happens is the tenants should really be sending the rent to us. Here's another tip. Let's just say that I buy a condo in my retirement account. Even the deed and everything is reflected to show that a retirement account owns it and not me personally. Well let's just say John Smith. John Smith is my client and he buys a rental property. The deed is Next Generation TS for the Benefit of John Smith, IRA No. 1234. So if the account owns it, the tenant makes a check payable to, I know that's a mouthful, but we can shorten that.

The tenant makes the check payable to the account and then we deposit it. So we're not really doing property management and we're not really doing financial accounting for you but our clients have access to their accounts online 24/7 through a secure site so they can always look and see when rent was deposited. When bills have to be paid, again, the bills have to be paid from the IRA so they send us the bills and sign off on them to approve them so that we know that the work was actually done or the bills should be paid and we do all of that through the retirement account.

JAIME TARDY: Wow, I had no idea.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: It's a wonderful thing.

JAIME TARDY: So what happens if the market that we're in you don't have renters and you start losing money? You just lose money in your retirement account and that's it?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Yes. We tell people that, of course, you want to do your due diligence on any investment just like you would do if you were doing it outside of a retirement plan. So, if you were going to purchase a condo and use that for investment and rental, you would never take every dollar you had out of the bank and not have a cushion. And the same really holds true for your retirement account because if you do run out of money in your retirement account it becomes a little trickier to try to get that money in there in order to make up for the difference.

You either have to transfer funds from another retirement account, you should be eligible to make a contribution to your plan. Your retirement account could take a loan but that's a little more difficult. So you really want to make sure that you have thought this through and worked out all the numbers before you do that and you always have a cushion.

JAIME TARDY: So can you, let's say you had a house investment property in it. Can you pull it out later and then you just have to pay taxes on it if you were to sell it or anything like that?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Yeah, another wonderful thing so good questions too. If you have an investment property within a traditional IRA which is a tax deferred account, then if you'd like to use that property and take it as a distribution, the IRS requires a real third-party valuation. So you are going to have to get an appraisal on that so that we all know what the value of that property is today. You can either pull out that property as one distribution and then pay tax on it and it would be ordinary income tax rate. You can also take percentages of the property. So this year you might take 20 percent, next year 20 percent so as to spread out your tax burden on the appreciation of the property but that again also would require an appraisal every year because the IRS wants to make sure it gets its cut.

So you have to make sure that it is a real third-party appraisal but the beauty of this is people can do it and we do have some clients that are doing this. They will buy a piece of property in their Roth IRA that perhaps they want to use as their vacation home once they retire. If you do that, all of the appreciation of that property and all of the income that you get on rental is tax free and when you take that property out as a distribution to use as a retirement home, there's no tax on that at all. So is there any better phrase?

JAIME TARDY: I know! Music to my ears. No tax!

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Tax free is the best phrase in the English language, right? So we do have a lot of clients who have kind of thought this through and either have transferred money from tax deferred accounts into tax free accounts like Roth in order to use this strategy or some other way have gotten money into Roth IRAs to enable them to do that and it's a beautiful strategy really.

JAIME TARDY: So your people that work there just help with the transactions, they don't help with the advice and they don't tell you this is a good investment property or anything like that. What exactly do they do for your clients?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well, you are right about that we are unable to give you any investment advice and we don't sell anything. We sell the plans that we administer basically. What we do is we open your account. There are a lot of banking and anti-terrorism laws that you have to follow now when you open financial accounts like this. So we do all of the required background checking and things like that to open the account. We process the transfers or the contributions so that money can actually get into the account and then we do work with our clients to let them know what's allowed by the IRS and what isn't.

We like to talk to them early and often about the kinds of investments they want to make so that we can advise them, well let me take that back, we can't advise. But we can let them know what the IRS regulations say about that. Then we are the conduit to make that transaction actually happen because you are not able to perform investments and buy things within your retirement account yourself. You do need a third party to do that for you. Then we do all the record keeping on the backend and do all of the required IRS reporting for the account.

So talking early and often means if you are going to buy a piece of investment property in South Carolina on the water, or you were going to buy something in a college town, it would be up to us to ask questions like you are buying this in a college town, you don't have any kids that you expect to put in this property, right? So we want to make sure that you are following the IRS regulations and you are not doing anything that could be deemed prohibited because that really carries severe penalties to it and you never really want to do that.

JAIME TARDY: You guys know all the ins and the outs so we don't screw up without knowing it.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Exactly.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So who is your typical client? Are you dealing with a lot of people who are older that are ready to retire that want to do this or younger people? Who do you usually work with?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well I'll tell you, our account holders and our clients are as varied as the population. We've got smaller value accounts for younger people that are pretty forward thinking and they're looking at the tax situation and the deficit and what the government is talking about in terms of Social Security and they're thinking I better get on the ball and start doing something soon. We've got younger people with maybe a few thousand dollars. They've just started making contributions and they might give loans or something like that with a smaller value account.

Then we've got people who are close to retirement age with multi-million dollar accounts with all kinds of investments in them and everything in between.

JAIME TARDY: So what are some, I know we talked a lot about real estate, but what are some of the other things that you guys do within that because if you only have a couple thousand dollars, you are not going to be buying a big piece of real estate. So what do you guys do for the smaller investments?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Again, we don't give any advice or sell any investments so people come to us sort of knowing already what they might want to do. But we will tell people what other clients are doing and, as a perfect example, our operations manager here has a Roth IRA and she made a couple years contribution in it and she has given out several small loans to people. So one of her first loans was to someone who wanted to consolidate credit card debt.

I think the credit card debt was somewhere close to 20 percent maybe. So she gave a loan to this person. The interest rate she is charging on the loan is 10 percent so the person that's borrowing the money effectively cut their interest rate in half in order to consolidate their debt and lower their payment and our ops manager's Roth IRA is making 10 percent. Where are you getting 10 percent these days? So it's a win for everybody and that's a typical thing that you can do with a small value account.

JAIME TARDY: So I didn't realize that they find the people who they can give loans to and therefore then you guys facilitate the exchanging of money and that sort of thing. But in general, they can decide who they want to give loans to? Is that how it works?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Absolutely. As long as, again, they're not disqualified people. So you can't lend money to yourself. You can't lend money to your spouse. You couldn't lend money or do business with ascendants and descendants and their spouses. So that means parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren and their spouses. You may perform transactions with siblings which is interesting. It's allowable but you have to make sure that it's a market rate transaction.

So that if you were going to lend money to your brother or if you owned a rental real estate and you were going to rent it to your brother, if the going rate for rent is $1,200 a month, you couldn't charge $800 a month because it's your brother because that would be detrimental to your retirement account and you'd be giving away something to a family member. So the IRS is really careful about things like that too. So if you are going to do that with a family member who is non-disqualified, it still must be a market rate transaction.

JAIME TARDY: That's funny, they are watching out for you. In way too many ways! So how many employees do you guys have in your business?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: We have eight right now.

JAIME TARDY: Nice. So how long ago did you start this?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: We've been in business since 2006 and you are exactly right, I sort of stumbled into this business because I was looking for someone to be the custodian for my retirement account so I could put real estate in it. I was at a conference and learned about the business and we were part of a national network for awhile and in January we went independent but we've got six years of experience in providing service to our clients and we went from having zero assets for our clients to holding about $200 million in assets for our clients right now in a little over six years.

JAIME TARDY: What did you do before this then?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well, interesting you should, I have a varied employment history really. This is not my first business. My business partner and I started a property management company in 1994 and that was another business that I really didn't have any experience in but I did have experience in marketing and sales. My primary background was in healthcare for a very long time. I started out doing some clinical things in healthcare and then went into practice management, medical practice management and home healthcare management and operations.

Did that for a long time and when this opportunity came up for the property management company, I took it because I knew sales and marketing and that was the piece that was needed in that business. We still do have that company. It has been around since 1994. The financial services business now has taken over as our primary business but we still do both.

JAIME TARDY: Wow. So what made you decide to go, okay I'm just going to do my own thing, we're going to do a property management business even though I was in healthcare beforehand and just go.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Isn't that interesting.

JAIME TARDY: Yeah, and just sort of go that route. Was there any fear or failure or issues involved with all that?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: It was a bit scary. What sort of prompted the whole thing or what prompted me to really look seriously about having my own business at that point is I was working for a national home healthcare company in an office in Manhattan and the company decided to close down my branch. So I could have moved to Texas or someplace else. I forget where the other place was, even more exciting that Texas which is probably why I have forgotten it. Not to disparage Texas.

I'm really born and raised in New Jersey and I really absolutely love it here so relocating wasn't in the picture for me and I just realized that because I had been in sales and marketing for most of my career in healthcare and my later career in healthcare that I had always made money for others. I made money for others and I was really good at what I did but I wasn't necessarily compensated based on the income or revenue I brought in for others and my fate was always tied to the other, whoever owned the company whether it was privately held or a corporation. It seemed like it was time for me to control my own fate.

So rationally, I was looking for a healthcare company to purchase. I had done some healthcare consulting, marketing consulting in between but I really wanted more of a business than just consulting on my own. At about that very time, my business partner was interested in leaving her property management company and starting a business and she did and we would talk about how the business was going and I think she brought one client with her to the new business and we would have this discussion that she would come home from the office at noon because the phones weren't ringing.

As a salesperson, you know, that makes you cringe. That you have to make the phones ring and so not having a sales and marketing background and really there's nothing wrong with that. She knew the nuts and bolts of operating a business but really didn't know anything about the getting business part of it and so that sort of made us have a conversation about well you really know the operations end of it and I know sales and marketing even though it's not for property management but I think the skills are transferrable and so that's sort of how that happened. Yes it was kind of scary. When you do something like that you don't really know what you don't know.

JAIME TARDY: Thank goodness, right?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Yes, helpful.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So walk me through. I know you have two businesses but I'd love to hear how people sort of first get started in their own business. Walk me through like that first year or two and what you guys did to get clients and how it was learning a whole new field for you.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Yes, I did both actually. I thought it was very important for me to learn about real estate and property management in a more formal way so I did join the Institute of Real Estate Management which the acronym is IREM and I became a certified property manager after a time and the company became an accredited management organization. AMO designation is kind of a big deal in New Jersey. There's only about 18 of us or so.

So it's a pretty exclusive group. So I learned that. I went to school to become a real estate agent and then a real estate broker. So I am a broker in New Jersey and still during that time I was kind of pounding the pavement and looking for clients for the company and was pretty successful in getting clients and getting contracts. Our company always specialized in the management of affordable housing and usually that means government subsidized housing because that's where my business partner's expertise was at the time.

She knew some of the people in that arena. Interestingly, when I said it's good to not know what you don't know, I was getting contracts. I certainly wasn't getting one a week but I was getting enough business to enable us to survive in the business and start making some money. But once I got familiar with this industry, I realized how difficult it was to get management contracts in the affordable housing arena because usually once you have a contract it's like an annuity, you are there sort of forever.

So had I known that going in, we seriously probably wouldn't have gotten as many contracts because I would have started with the mindset of how difficult this is and how hard it is to get contracts. But not knowing that enabled me to go in with I guess a more positive attitude and be able to get it.

JAIME TARDY: So what's great about that is though it's totally possible. You know what I mean? You were able to get them. That's great.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: So seriously, not knowing what you don't know can be a big advantage. I don't really recommend it in all areas because you have to sort of know a bit about business and things I guess to start it but certainly, not knowing that transferring these contracts was such a difficult thing really enabled me to go out there and get them.

JAIME TARDY: Well tell us, you have a background in sales and marketing, do you have any advice, sales and marketing techniques, or anything that's really worked for you that you've learned about in your career?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well I'm loathed to give sales and marketing advice because I've not ever really been formally trained in sales and marketing.

JAIME TARDY: Good, that's what we don't want. We don't want regular sales training. We want something that actually works from the field.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well, I often tell people, I belong to a few business groups here and I belong to the New Jersey Association of Women Business Owners here and often we have these discussions about how are you successful and what do you have to know and what's the biggest thing to know if you're starting a business. What I find that most people don't know is that when you're starting a business you will be a salesperson. People say well I don't like sales and I don't really want to do sales.

If you are starting a business, the only way to get revenue in that business is someone has to do the selling. So, if you're not able to do it, you really need to partner with somebody or make arrangements with somebody who does know how to sell and can sell and like it because 90 percent of your business is going to be sales. Without revenue you don't make it, right?

JAIME TARDY: Yes, exactly. You actually have to sell something if you want to be in business just so you know. But it's so funny that a lot of people don't realize that. Sales has sort of a bad taste in everybody's mouth like used car salesmen kind of sales and that's really not what it's about.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: And it could be something as simple as networking and letting people know what you do. It's going to be a little slower if that's how you try to get business but you will be a salesperson or you will have somebody who is a salesperson but, for me, the biggest lesson is persistence and tenacity because you are going to have days where the door is going to be slammed in your face a lot or people are going to hang up on you or nobody is going to be interested in what you have to say. If you let that get you down, you've lost. So that's probably the biggest lesson for me.

JAIME TARDY: How do you cultivate that? I mean that's sort of a hard thing. I've talked to a lot of people. Some people are like I can hear no and it doesn't phase me at all but I'm going how do you get there? At first you probably weren't that way. You weren't one of those people who could just go "Yep, I know, and no is just another no before I get to a yes" or whatever, however they say in sales. But how did you cultivate the persistence and the tenacity and the just going out and keep doing it over and over and over again?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: I'm not sure I think I have always been that kind of person who can take a no and not let it phase me. I honestly don't have an answer to that question. I think that it possibly had something to do with my parents and the way they taught me to think about things maybe. I don't know. It's a good question but I don't think I know.

JAIME TARDY: Well how do you look at it? So if somebody says no to you, how do you look at it? I'm sure it doesn't, you don't take it personally is what it sounds like at all but how do you look at it?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well, I think that very rationally I look at it like this person doesn't have the need for what I have right now and whether it's the property management side or now mostly I really spend almost 100 percent of my time with Next Generation, Next Generation and what we do in self-directed IRAs really are not for everyone. So I already know that what we offer is not for everybody because there are some people who really don't want to have an active role in their investments.

They don't want to have pay attention that much. They would rather hire somebody like a wealth manager to take care of it for them. So those kind of people really will never be happy with opening our kind of account because self direction really means exactly that. You are directing and you're paying attention and you're vetting all these investments and doing all of that. Especially here, if somebody says no to me, I just know they're either not ready or they are not that kind of investor. Then I move ahead and concentrate on the people who can benefit from what we're doing.

JAIME TARDY: That's hugely important. I have clients and that's a funny thing and that's why I sort of brought up that question before is because a lot of people have a "no" impact their self worth and a lot of the millionaires and the people that I have been interviewing lately are able to hear "no" and know that it has nothing to do with them. To realize that you can say no and that's okay. That's just your choice right now and it really doesn't have anything to do with me as a person and that's a big separation I can see between people who aren't as successful. They can't get past that. That's something they have to really work on. That's really interesting.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: That's probably true. I never really thought about it that way. You've actually made me think about that now which is kind of interesting. That's probably true though because I do see people out in my networking and things that I do in other groups that I do and you are right, if they don't have that kind of personality and they let everything affect them, they don't seem to be moving ahead at the same rate or the same way as some other people do. I think you are probably right that has a lot to do with it.

JAIME TARDY: So what do you think separates a successful entrepreneur from the ones that don't succeed as much? Like if you go to networking events and stuff like that, you see people that might be struggling. What do you think separates a really successful person from someone who is not there yet?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: I have to go back to the persistence and tenacity. I'm trying to think of a specific example but I can't off the top of my head right now. If something goes wrong in the business or you have a setback or something changes and it might not be for the better right away and you have to turn it around, people who let that get to them and can't really adapt to change because your business does change on a daily basis and we'd all like to think in business that you are never going to have a setback or nothing is ever going to happen to affect your business but all manner or things can affect your business.

Losing a key employee. Losing a key referral source or client and you just have to be able to take those negatives and I don't know, look at them in a way, how can I make this better? How can I make this work? How can I and if you're not persistent and you don't have that tenacity, you look at that as a setback that maybe affects you more than it should and affects how you move forward from there.

JAIME TARDY: Yeah, it can be more of a stopping point than a pivoting point.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Right.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Everything, I think, you know, it sounds kind of corny really. People talk about it all the time, about thinking positively, but I look at most things as an opportunity and I always think that things happen for a reason. I believe that somehow there's a grand plan whether you're making up this grand plan as you go along in your subconscious or what. There is a method and usually things happen for a reason and if I can continue to make myself think that way, something that happens to you that is negative or a setback, you can find opportunity in that. So I think that kind of thinking is important too.

JAIME TARDY: Yes, that's extremely important and that's such a common theme. That's just so funny. I've just been talking to so many successful people and so many people have said the exact same thing.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Really?

JAIME TARDY: What's funny though is you said the same thing, we sort of have this sort of cheesy positive, you can hear it from gurus going just think positive and, of course, it's not thinking positive that will do it for you, it's how you react to situations and how you change the way you do things.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Right.

JAIME TARDY: That makes it really work and I think that's really important for everybody to know that it's not cheesy positive thinking, it's changing the way you think to make things happen better.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Right, and it's not, I don't know, there's plenty of books out, self-help books, that will tell you think positively and people think all I have to do is visualize something and think positively and I'm going to get it. But you are exactly right, there are actions and there are behaviors that go with changing your thinking in that way that helps you get what you want.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. I love this conversation. So do you have any resources that you turn to when you were getting into business or now like any books you've read, any things that have really helped you succeed?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well, you know what, I always have a shelf full of business books and I usually am reading several books at a time. Maybe not everyday but I have a shelf of business books. I like to read novels. I like biographies and autobiographies. So I am always reading a whole bunch of different things. But I think biographies and autobiographies of successful people have helped me just in learning how those people deal with things and they react to things. So somehow that has probably helped.

I do like to network and belong to some business groups and I do that locally probably not as often as I would like depending on what's happening in the business on the day-to-day basis. I find that being around people who also have successful businesses and also being around those who are just starting out and you can give back a little bit is also really helpful because just like having this conversation with you has brought up a couple of things for me that have been like "aha" moments. In networking with people who have been there done that and might be ahead of you, people that are at your same level and people that you can help bring along is all really, really helpful.

JAIME TARDY: Giving back, that's awesome. I think that's one of the things we assume that we have to be really, really successful before we give back but, like you said, you can help giving back at any point. You can give back to people who are not as far as where you are or people ahead of you. I mean you can give back to anyone and you can learn as you go. I think that's really key.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Absolutely. Another corny thing but you can learn, I've never had a business at this level before and so every day to me is a new experience coming in here and I better learn what to do and what's going on in order to keep it that way. I'm going to get that from my peers. I'm going to get that from others. I'm going to get that from reading. I'm going to get it from my staff also. So all kinds of ways. You better be paying attention every day.

JAIME TARDY: Awesome. I do want to ask you because I love autobiographies, is there like one or two that you really liked so that way I can put it on my shelf too?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: I don't know. One of the most recent ones, it's always my most recent book, I like them all, but I'm reading Teddy Kennedy's autobiography right now. I don't remember the name of it but I am reading that one right now. It is full of, everybody looks at that family and they know about all the tragedies that have happened to the family and they know that they were really wealthy and they are like United States royalty and stuff. People who remember them from way back then.

But it's interesting. I've read a lot of books about the family and it's interesting how no matter how much money you make or no matter how much money your family has, these tragedies and things that befall you affect you the same as everybody else, you know, deaths in the family and business problems. They had some political problems and it's just interesting to see how other people have coped and dealt with challenges that have been thrown their way.

JAIME TARDY: That's a key point. What it brings up, for me, is that we assume people that are successful are so different than everybody else. Well they are successful, they don't have the same issues we have. But it's really not that way at all. Everybody is just a person learning and growing as they go and maybe they know a little bit more and maybe they faced harder challenges and come away better but in general, we're just people.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Yeah and I always used to think that too I think. When I was much younger you would see a successful person or somebody that you thought was rich and oh they have it so much better than we do. But you really don't know what's happening in their lives. I said to a friend of mine a long time ago when they envied someone that had a lot of money and what seemed like all the trappings of success and I asked would they really want that person's life though because of either their lack of friends and network.

So you can appear to everything but you may not be happy in that. That could be because money and success are too important to you and people aren't so you alienate people and you have all that stuff but then you don't have that human contact and network of friends and family that other people have.

JAIME TARDY: And what makes a happy life.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Be careful what you wish for.

JAIME TARDY: Definitely. Actually, it's funny because on my website I talk about this too is that you want to have the life you want to live and then make your million. It's not about the money that's going to make you happy. Everybody says that of course. It's not the money that makes you happy. The money is a metric of maybe how well you're doing as far as changing people's lives and helping people but, in general, it usually isn't the key thing you should be going towards. If you want to be happy, it's not only money that is going to give it to you.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Right. Look, money certainly makes things easier for people. If you have it you can do more things or do what you need to do. There are so many people who are struggling with the economy now that money would certainly make things easier for them. But you are right, it doesn't make you happy. It's really, no.

JAIME TARDY: Really interesting. Awesome. So what's one tip or action and piece of advice that you could give everyone this week to move them forward towards their goal of a million even if it's just to have some more choices in their life, right?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Right. Well, it's a good goal to have. Look, it helps you and it also enables you to financially give back. It's all good if that's what you want to do. I would say one of the biggest pieces of advice that I have to get you on your path to having a million is to spend less than you make. When I was much younger I didn't really know that or I didn't really pay attention to that because I thought, I didn't really know what I thought. Things would change or be different or whatever.

It is something I think that you have to teach yourself how to do. For me, saving and paying attention to that was never an automatic thing. It is now. I really had to pay attention to paying myself first. That's another corny thing but spend a lot less than you make.

JAIME TARDY: Great advice.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Put the rest in the bank.

JAIME TARDY: Yeah, and put the rest in a self-directed retirement plan.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: There you go.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. So where can we find more information on you and Next Generation Trust Services?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Well, Next Generation Trust Services has a website which is www.nextgenerationtrust.com and we have an info address for more information as well which is info@nextgenerationtrust.com. We have a toll free number that's 888-857-8058 and we have staff that are always willing to help and give information either through the info address or by calling our office. There's also a contact form on our website and we do regular presentations in the office as well as webinars and there are some things, previous webinars, that people can listen to on our website to get more information about who we are, who I am and what we do and the strategies you can use to take control of your retirement account and your future retirement.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. I just want to clarify too, it's you don't work with only people in New Jersey you work with people all over the U.S.?

JAIME RASKULINECZ: I do. We actually have clients located all over the world and as long as you have United States W2 income, you can have a retirement account and there are people who have retired or moved to foreign countries who have United States income and have accounts. We have clients located all over the world and they have investments all over the world. It's a fascinating business and I learn something new every day.

JAIME TARDY: Thank you so much for coming on today, Jaime. I really appreciate it and it's so nice to meet someone awesome who has the exact same name as me.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: That was really fun and we spell it the same way too which is unusual.

JAIME TARDY: Yes, which is totally weird. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Jaime, thanks so much for having me. I had a really wonderful time and maybe we'll do it again sometime. It was great.

JAIME TARDY: Yeah, definitely. What I've been doing lately too is I'm actually booked quite far in advance which is a wonderful thing but at the end of the year or next year maybe I can shoot you an email too and just say maybe we can do a next one because there's just so much information that we can talk about which would be awesome. So this was great.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Great and I'm happy to be a resource for you if you need any questions or you're doing a post or something and you just want somebody who knows about retirement plans or real estate or something. Feel free to use me as a resource. That would be great.

JAIME TARDY: Oh great!

JAIME RASKULINECZ: I'd be happy to do it.

JAIME TARDY: Excellent. I really appreciate that. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I will shoot you an email as soon as, the week before it actually comes out so that way you have an idea on when it will be. Like I said, it will probably be four or five weeks in advance just so you know.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: Great. Thanks, Jaime, it was a lot of fun.

JAIME TARDY: Thanks. Take care, Jaime.

JAIME RASKULINECZ: All right, bye.

JAIME TARDY: Bye.

Thanks for listening. You can find out more great information like this on eventualmillionaire.com.

Tags: Jaime Raskulinecz, marketing, millionaire interview, retirement, retirement plans, sales, sales marketing

Categories: Acquisitions, All, Finances, Millionaire Interviews, Personal Finance/Wealth

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

Learn More