​May 20, 2025 PPUSA Meeting

[00:00:00]
Alan Armijo: What, what's, what's the latest with you?
How, how are things going?
Jim Better: Yeah, I thinking going well. I've contracted with Candace and, and candace.
Candace Ramirez: Take my tasks.
Jim Better: Take my tasks. Okay. Contracted with her. And, pretty, pretty cool process. And I talked about what it was that we needed, what we were looking for from the engagement, and, had a, an interview last week with, four different candidates.
And was able to pick one out of the, out of the group that I felt was gonna be, better able to engage the, suspects and prospects that I'm looking for. And yesterday we spent, most of the afternoon going over the technology. How does she place, appointments into my Calendly and, access to all of my other documents and, we'll speak again today at one o'clock.
Because it's one o'clock in the Philippines, so it's one o'clock here. It's fortunately, it's easy to calculate that you don't have to do the math. But I'm very impressed [00:01:00] with the, way the process works now. We'll see what kind of success comes from it, but, I think that it's, it's gonna work out very well.
Alan Armijo: What's your criteria?
Jim Better: Okay. I'm, the, the, objective is for her to be, daisy. Which is really a cute name, is, her task is to set up appointments either virtually or in person with, my primary power partners. You have to be careful when you say that.
And those, those would be estate planners, financial, planners as a, financial investment guys. A couple of other categories. What she's gonna do is go through the, areas that I'm looking for to have a penetration, and, and either by way of, the access of tools that she has or by using my, sales navigator on LinkedIn, to secure appointments with the, the new power partners, the new, referral partners.
Alan Armijo: Right, right. Let's [00:02:00] see. Any questions for Jim?
Tom Di Leo: Yeah, I'd like to know how it goes, since we're, we're, kind of targeting the same people. If you have some success that I'd be interested to, to see and how that went, goes for you, Tom.
Jim Better: Everything's for sale.
Alan Armijo: Because Jim, you're, are they primarily using Sales Navigator that you weren't using?
Jim Better: Yes.
Alan Armijo: Candace, that that VA has experience on Sales Navigator?
Candace Ramirez: Yes. So she has extensive experience in, LinkedIn Sales Navigator. She's done, the particular candidate that he selected, actually has, has been with Daft or. Now, TMT, for some time, already with other clients. She's been successful and we're, excited for her to be able to generate leads for Jim as well.
Alan Armijo: Great. Great. All right, since we got you on, speaking Candace, I [00:03:00] mentioned that a lot of members have updates. What, what are your updates for us? I.
Candace Ramirez: Yes, we have a pretty big update, over at Daft. Daftco is still our, main company. It's our, parent company, but we have, rebranded to take my tasks you guys can find us on Take my tasks.com.
And mainly, people are like, why? Right? And the reason is when you think about daft. You don't think about, the first thing that comes to your mind is definitely not anything to do with virtual assistant services. It's more of a marketing rebrand, to make our marketing a lot easier.
When, let's say Jim mentions, I have, my VAs to take my tasks, or I have a com, I, I've contracted a company, take my tasks. That sounds a lot more aligned with what it is that we do, which is provide virtual assistive services. Yeah, that's our biggest thing. It's still all the same, same owners, same staff.
The only thing that's changed is, is, is our name and our branding.
Alan Armijo: Okay. Jim, you want anything to add to that or did you have [00:04:00] anything else to say?
I think we're on mute. I was I wanted to ask Jim if there's anything else that you wanted to close out with the thing? You're on mute. You're on mute?
No. Okay. All right. Candace, did you get the, referral I gave you for one of our clients who wants to do e-commerce?
Candace Ramirez: Yes, definitely I'm reaching out to him. Yes, I haven't gotten to him, but I most definitely will today.
Alan Armijo: Okay. You have to reach after five for him
Candace Ramirez: after five, right? Right. You mentioned after five.
I actually put an alarm 'cause that's I think eight my time.
Yeah.
Candace Ramirez: So I'll, I'll definitely reach out to him. Oh, one other thing that I did wanna say, I mentioned that the only thing that changed was our rebranding or our brand the name, but we've also restructured our affiliate, our affiliate program.
So before, I know I had mentioned with everybody that before it was, two payouts where it was $600 for a [00:05:00] personal introduction and $400 if you if they use your. Link that we can provide for you if you wanna be an affiliate, which everybody's more than welcome to be an affiliate.
And, if you, now it's across the board $600 after the first 90 days. So we don't, there's no different payouts. We just thought it's a lot easier. So if you guys, anybody does know anybody that may be interested in virtual assistant services, definitely get with me and I can,
get you the agreement for our, affiliate program and all that good stuff.
Alan Armijo: Does the link change that? Was set up originally?
Candace Ramirez: Yes, it will. Because we used to use a company called Impact. And unfortunately Impact was not delivering. The, what we wanted our affiliates to be able to see, which is track your leads, see where it's at, things like that.
Impact didn't have that option, so, we went ahead and have a new company now that we're setting up with. And once those, so our [00:06:00] affiliates that we already currently have. We'll be reaching out to them as soon as this new platform is fully set up so we can walk everybody through on how to set it up.
So we'll schedule with everyone soon.
Alan Armijo: Okay. Any questions for Candace?
Debra Armijo: I just wanna make a comment. I like the name change. I mean, it's to the point easy and it's like non-threatening for like small businesses or individuals. I really like. Because, yeah, draft Daftco, I, I always kind of, in my mind, I always kept thinking, drafting, so, but yeah.
That makes sense. So,
I have a question. I have a question. Go ahead Vince. Candace, do you. Those that'll work with you as assistants that know go high level CRM. 'cause that's something we purchased recently and I definitely could need some help. Definitely need someone to help me period. But if they have experience with go high level, I think they would be a big asset to me as a personal assistant and as a secondary office [00:07:00] person.
Virtual course. Yes.
Candace Ramirez: Yes. So we do, we do come across or a lot of our clients use, go high level. Mm-hmm. So yes, we are able to find candidates. I'll be honest, it's not as easy as finding candidates that are experienced with HubSpot. Right. But nonetheless, many of our clients do have go high level and we do, we have provided, VAs for them that are experienced at go high level.
Good. That'll be our next conversation for sure. And I appreciate patience with me getting back to you. But we did get the system and now we're working on it and we're of course, we're overwhelmed.
Alan Armijo: Good, good. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you Candace. Let's go over to Phil. 'cause Phil, I don't think we ever really highlighted the fact that you're, a company name has changed there.
There's been a lot of changes in your life and your business, right?
Phil Sherkerlian: Yeah. There's been another one since then. Even
Alan Armijo: another baby.
Phil Sherkerlian: That too. I'm actually having a nice, I'm having a son in October. Oh, ah, congratulations. Yeah. And then, but another [00:08:00] company change as well. So I have, I have two firms.
And my law firm was Bauer and Kerian Law. It's now, Barth Calderone. I merged with Barth Calderone back in October of last year. And I am a senior partner over there. And when the managing partner, as he says, gets hit by a bus or steps down, then, then I'll become the managing partner there. We've got.
I think 15 attorneys now. We just lost a couple of them. And we've got about 65 staff we can help, clients nationwide. We are California based. Our office is in orange, but we operate under a limited exemption in the a BA. That because the type of asset protection law that we do is so specialized, only maybe 10 to 15 entire firms in the comp in the country do the type of asset protection planning that we do.
So because of that, we're able to help people with asset protection, nationwide. And and so that's the law firm. My other firm is my CPA firm where we do [00:09:00] accounting functions, bookkeeping, things like that, prepare taxes, and it was called Rich and Company. But in the last month, I merged that with another firm and we're now called Ledger Core Accounting.
And and so we're, we're growing there. We've got now, I think we've got eight employees now there doing taxes and bookkeeping and accounting functions. So really anything that you need that has to do with wealth or death or preserving your assets and protecting yourself, that's what we do. Updates is, with the current.
With current administration and, and Congress, the estate tax exemption is not likely going down, and in fact, it may be eliminated. There's been talks about, completely removing the estate tax. And so, because of that, we're, we're really gonna try to help the Uber high net worth individuals to avoid the estate tax because it's not, it doesn't apply right now to, to the middle class at all.
[00:10:00] But we're gonna help them. And so. The really, the big planning thing for the middle class, and most of the people that you probably know is asset protection. If you're driving down the street in A BMW or a Mercedes or Porsche or whatever, or you own a business, I. People look at you as if you're a billionaire.
They don't know any different. They don't know that you may have a struggling business, that you don't have much money, but they see that you own a business and they think that you are, what's wrong with society and they're gonna try to sue you. And so you need to make sure that your assets are protected.
You know, the US is by far the largest, uh, lawsuit. Country in the world, we have some 10 times the amount of lawsuits that the entire rest of the world has on, on any given year, and especially in Southern California. People are so, so happy. I. And if you can just put a little bit of asset protection in place, you can really save your assets.
You know, if you get in a car accident and your [00:11:00] insurance doesn't cover it, you could lose your home, you could lose your savings accounts, your stock portfolio, you could lose your business if it's not set up properly. I mean, all of your assets, most all of your assets are exposed. I'm sure Mark can say more about this as well and, and probably back me up on it, but.
It's, this is the thing right now that people need to be worried about in the middle class is protecting your assets. 'cause you're walking around with a target on your back if you drive a fancy car or you own a business.
Alan Armijo: Okay. Any, any questions for Phil? It was good to see you, Phil. Hadn't seen you in a while.
Yeah.
Phil Sherkerlian: Yeah. Tax season was rough.
Alan Armijo: So are things settled down now that you merged or you got more help with the taxes Tax side.
Phil Sherkerlian: Yeah, things have settled down a lot. I'm actually driving down to California tomorrow. To, to do the final touches on shutting down my Irvine office. And then I'm driving back on Friday, so it's a, I'm spending two days driving for one day in California.
But then [00:12:00] once that's done then the new firm will be nice because I don't have to be the managing partner anymore. The tax firm somebody else is gonna be doing. His name is Manuel. He's a great guy. And, and yeah, it's gonna really take a lot off of my, my plate because it was just too much being.
Being in a managing position in two different firms at once.
Alan Armijo: Okay. Well hopefully you can get, that tax part as a, you know, kind of its own power partner entity.
Yeah.
Alan Armijo: Talk about that. Oh,
definitely.
Alan Armijo: Okay. Mark, your name was invoked. Do you wanna give us the latest? How have you been?
Marc Forsythe: Good. Extremely busy.
Jim tried to send. Hook me up with somebody. I always appreciate your efforts, Jim. Actually having trouble allocating time to networking right now because I'm so busy. Yeah, a lot, lot going on. This is, I can't really say there's an industry that's suffering.
Jim Better: This is expected, wasn't it?
That things get really busy once the leases come due. [00:13:00]
Marc Forsythe: Yeah. Yeah. And then with interest rates now ticking up and a little bit, mortgage rates are ticking up. And then who, you know, what's gonna happen with the effects on tariffs over the next six months that might kick a couple people over the edge.
Yeah, it's, it's, busy on all ends, and I can't really tell you there's a specific industry or set of individuals that are suffering. It's not necessarily. Unlike, 2009, which was pretty much a real estate driven, recession. This was kind of across the board. That's about it.
Doing, doing a lot of debt, credit work. There's, give you an example of, of things that can happen. There's a, there was a, a company that was doing, debt attorney work, a company called LPGI can't, the guy's name was March. He had, tons of marketing firms out there who were feeding him business to do this collection work.
And then they were getting paid and they're called capping agreements, and they're actually, they're actually legal if you go get licensed. But LPG [00:14:00] did not get licensed. Then they ran, some guys ran off with the money and LPG was put into a bankruptcy. I'm bringing, I'm bringing in the story because of how much work can, can be generated off of one bankruptcy case.
So now there's a trustee in charge of this LPG bankruptcy case, and they have filed over 200 lawsuits against various, various marketing firms trying to recover the fees paid by LPG to these marketing firms. And the theory is because the agreement to pay the marketing firms was. The illegal capping agreement, there was no contractual basis to get paid, and therefore these marketing firms are being sued for every penny.
They were paid by the bankrupt LPG. So here you have one bankruptcy case that's resulted in over 200 lawsuits, all of which are being process in the bankruptcy. So this is how bankruptcy cases, you might say, oh, hey, there's just one bank [00:15:00] guide, there's one bankruptcy case. So these are the things that can happen in these, in bankruptcy matters, and they can really go out, get outta control.
So,
Alan Armijo: Couple things like, I, I made some introductions of people I met. Like these introductions might come out of the blue for you. One with the SB. What is it? SBDC or SBA kind of thing? Person I met. Yes. And I can't remember the other one, but, as I go about my business or, get in conversations with people, I'll, I'll definitely shoot introductions out.
And then, just so that you can put that lead to, possible call or connection. Yep.
Marc Forsythe: Absolutely good. Thank you Al, I appreciate Ev Everyone's been good, really good here trying to send me work. It's, but sometimes, sometimes I'll get a referral and, and either they ha might have too much home equity or they, so they have too much money and that's when they go to fill, to do some asset protection.
And then, 'cause in those [00:16:00] situations when you're asset protection, you'll never file a bankruptcy. Because you do not want the bankruptcy court getting into trying to unwind some asset protection. You'd much rather force creditors to spend their own money to do that, which ends up in creditor fatigue and settlements.
So when I send the client to Phil, I probably never see that client back because they're going to get into asset protection and QPR. T trust for, for their Phil's bailiwick. So, but not every referral ends up, work for me, depending on their, the facts of their case.
Alan Armijo: Okay. You're, you're kind of coming in and out, but I also wanted to mention, I had invited, a person I met in New Mexico who's a financial advisor to this meeting.
You know, one of the things that happens in business is that, things don't always go. Right. So he's not here, I'm pretty sure because, we were trying to get his wife to be a property manager for my mom's Airbnb suite. And, that [00:17:00] deal got kind of blown up. So I don't think they're happy with us right now.
So it's like, hopefully in the course of doing business, everybody's things go well, but things don't always go well. And, we'll, work through it as best we can when they don't go well. But, so he's not on the phone. I wanted to introduce him to, but I'll send a letter anyway.
He said he wasn't feeling well, but, okay. I, I think he was pissed.
Debra Armijo: Maybe.
Alan Armijo: Okay. Maybe it's feeling, not feeling well. He can't get anybody sick, you know? So that was that. Before we go to, Finn, who, a lawyer that, does, go after people and 'cause of car accidents, Phil, we'll go to, Tom, Tom Delio.
Oh, we also have Vince here, so we gotta get to him too. What's the latest, Tom, how are things going with you?
Tom Di Leo: Things are going well. I'm keeping busy, which is good. The economy has unfortunately been good for my business. People are looking for money. One of the couple of the successes I've had in the last [00:18:00] few months, more than maybe in the past is, if you belong to a church and you have a relationship with your pastor, I'd like an introduction.
I'm, I've been bring, I've been brought into these churches, recently where, someone's become a widow or there's some situation and, they bring me in to solve a solution. And if I can be brought in a little earlier rather than, where an emergency has, has really developed and we're trying to save, save that person's home, if I can get in a little earlier, sometimes I can, really stave things off before they come.
A, a real tragedy. So if, you know, if you're, if you're involved in your church. I've, well over the last three years I've gotten involved a lot more with, with pastors and, and, and priests and, and how I can help their, their group also. I'm doing a lot with, in-home care people. Often people don't plan for in-home care.
Suddenly there's a tragedy. Dad falls down the stairs, dad [00:19:00] has a stroke, whatever, and the bills just. Triple and everybody's running around trying to find out how to solve this problem. So, those are, those are groups that I work with. Oftentimes a a reverse mortgage can be used to pay the bills. So, those are the things I'm looking at.
But business is good.
Alan Armijo: Good. Any questions for Tom?
Phil Sherkerlian: I actually have a question, I guess more for Mark. If somebody, what is the timeframe, if somebody's filing bankruptcy, if they've taken out a reverse mortgage and spent the money, what's the timeframe that that gets brought back in?
Marc Forsythe: You know, I, I don't know the answer to that, Phil and I haven't seen it actually litigate.
And so, you know, the issue with that really is, is, you know, you, that's a lien and a contract with, with the debtor. And [00:20:00] so, they're only gonna be getting monthly payments, and that's all the trustee can attach. And then, and then part of that's exempt. And so I, I think it's really a function of how much is the reverse mortgage, is it protected by the homestead exemption?
Right? And then how, and how much of the reverse mortgage might be above that homes state exempt. So, very fact specific in relation to
Tom Di Leo: There's, in a reverse mortgage, very, very few of the people actually take a monthly distribution. And the, the line of credit, the growing line of credit that is established, there's no money there.
That's, that's merely, their availability to access whatever equity, regardless of the value of the property. So, not being a lawyer, I don't know what you could go after if you can go after their house, I guess. But, there's no [00:21:00] monthly income that they have to take. There's, you know, proceeds they have to take.
There's just a, there's a theoretical. Access to a line of credit.
Phil Sherkerlian: And that's, that's kind of where I was getting is that's an asset protection strategy. You can put a reverse mortgage on your home and the reverse, the lien from the reverse mortgage company is gonna be far, far higher than what you're actually borrowing.
And if you have more than, it's about 700,000 in equity is the, the homestead exemption in California right now, if you have more than 700,000 in equity, you can put that reverse mortgage on there to protect the rest of your equity in the property.
Tom Di Leo: Absolutely.
Alan Armijo: Okay. I was gonna mention Mark, we still have to do another, additional podcast, a short one, kind of maybe some, something we didn't touch on or something you wanna talk about. When you get caught up or when we, we [00:22:00] will find some time to do it. We wanna keep creating content for everybody.
This is all good content. As a reminder, I'm recording this. If there's anything that's been said that people don't want on there, let me know. Because, I can edit it out. But I think this recording, the, meeting helps me. Follow up with leads that are discussed so that we make sure that we're, following up on those leads.
'cause I know we all get busy. Thanks Tom. Let's go to Vince. Hey Vince, how you doing? Hey.
Good afternoon everybody, others had mentioned, it seemed to be a bit dicey there for at least two weeks. I thought it could be still that way for others, but I see a rebound, as you mentioned, on people holding onto their money, not wanting to spend it.
C cost conscious and, that was a bit of a worry for me or scare, but it seems to have, been picking up lately in the last week, specifically. Quite a lot of calls coming in. A lot of after hours calls are coming in for plumbing and water damage and [00:23:00] past referrals and people I've met. At church, people mentioned church, from way back when I was at St.
Joseph's, I got a call from a guy that I've known for years through our Lady of Refuge. Now he is at St. Hedwick and, he had water damage under his house that he let he neglected to do anything about. Apparently had a roof leak, didn't do anything about mold concerns in the house, under the house. So. He is lucky.
He called me directly and I answered because I'm helping him out financially because they don't have a lot of money. But I can do that with certain people. Selectively. However, I do offer professional discounts and professional courtesy to other contractors and people in the field, property managers.
Property owners with multiple units, multiple doors, so I can work with people's budgets, but we do have a published price guide that we typically follow. We're not the run of the mill low end plumber by any means. We're more of a high end, mid to high end plumber. There are certainly higher than us, but our key to fame is being able to answer the phone like last night at 12 o'clock with a woman called me who met [00:24:00] me personally at the Apartment Owners Association trade show in la.
She goes, I can't believe I'm speaking to the, is this the co? Is this the founder? I said, yes it is. She goes, can't believe I saw you in person. Now I'm.
We were there in LA within 30 minutes of her call, and, solved her water heater problem that was leaking. So any kind of emergencies when it comes to mold, water, fire, we're there very quickly and able to help you navigate through insurance. If you happen to make an insurance claim, before you ever speak to an insurance company, make sure you call me first and I'll guide you on what to say and what not to say.
I'm not an attorney. I'm not practicing, being a counselor, but I can certainly give you some good insight. Unless is more so, keep your mouth quiet, it'll keep you out of trouble. It'll keep you from getting your claim denied most often and we can do some special things on our end to make that happen a little bit faster and easier for you as well.
Alan Armijo: Okay, any questions for Vince?
Tom Di Leo: I got a quick question, Vince. A lot of the loans that I do [00:25:00] are FHA loans and they, they need to meet certain, appraisal guidelines. Certain repairs need to be done before I can even do the loan. If I kind of, we, we sort of guarantee the loan will fund, will you do the repairs and then get paid outta escrow.
I certainly hate to do that. Tom, if you could gimme a personal guarantee on being paid, I would do that.
Tom Di Leo: I never give personal guarantees on anything.
There you go. There you go. Can't, can't. Sorry. I can't help you. We've been down that road too many times and we've been burnt and escrows fall out and things happen.
As you know, real estate transactions are just that. Transactions that may or may not happen. We can't get stuck holding, holding the bag.
Alan Armijo: Okay, thank you.
You got it?
Alan Armijo: Okay. Any other questions for Vince? Okay, thanks Vince. Hang in there Finn. I forgot. We gotta let, my wife Debra, what's the latest with I trust marketing.
I always forget her.
Debra Armijo: I, I always, I always kind of feel all the
Alan Armijo: time.
Debra Armijo: Because everybody's business is so legal and [00:26:00] all this, but, Deborah, I trust marketing, helping businesses promote, their business. One way to see our work is you can see through Power Partners, our website, how we do email, social media postings, when we go out and promote power partners.
And at an expo, we have our tent, we have our banners, we have our print material. So, that's, that's one way you could look at us helping you or helping a, a referral. And we're also doing, Google ads for a client that's actually getting the phone ringing. Alan does the back end. I do the front end with the visual.
And then we have a client. This is classic. We have a client that we've had for years that we've tried to get him to do all types of, Google ads, all kinds of social media, other print materials. Well, now that he's selling his business and has a potential buyer, now he's doing it to make the phone ring.
And he, he [00:27:00] made the, he admitted he wished he would've had done this years ago. So don't wait till you sell the business or go out of business. Start it now to do your marketing, but like I say, you can see samples of our work on our website. I trust marketing. Dot com. Oh, also I wanted to, there was a done deal between, me and Charles and Charles and Kelly.
So if you're on seventh Street going by, Wilson High School, you'll see a big banner with CMC logo supporting their volleyball team. So, I designed that for 'em and it stands out from all those banners. So just take people lookout for it.
Alan Armijo: Yeah, take a. So should we vent about Seal Beach Chamber?
Debra Armijo: Huh?
Alan Armijo: Should we mention Seal Beach Chamber?
Debra Armijo: The popups? What you mean? I don't know.
Alan Armijo: No, I mean, we, we we're our members of the Seal Beach Chamber to, promote, well, to get more power partners. And, we [00:28:00] have, Jordan, who's not on the call, is, is from the Chamber. And, Finn, I met at the chamber.
But, I bring 'em up because they didn't know. We, I signed up at the Chamber for Power Partners, not Irus Marketing. So just by happenstance, I came in late on a, on a, to get a proposal to give 'em a proposal to do their website. And we would've been perfect for doing the website and for whatever reason we didn't get it.
So it was just, it was just a bummer because, you know, the. We lost out, but, we would've loved to do that website so we can handle chamber websites. You know, we, we do Rancho Los Alamitos, which was a referral from Michael Bau. So when you think of people who need a redo or update their website or, you know, think of us and we'll take care of them, especially de she's the pro at this.
Mm-hmm.
Alan Armijo: She's a talent. So, thanks Debra. Any questions for de.
Debra Armijo: You know, also we're trying to, promote AI or get our, some [00:29:00] of our clients involved in ai and it's been difficult 'cause it's literally changing by the hour, but, mostly for them getting information, all their information and making it easier for them searching and things like that.
But it's crazy. I mean, I. Johnny and Calvin, I don't know how they stay out with it.
Alan Armijo: Yeah, we're, it's been an interesting process, showing people AI for their business. So, we're early in that process. We're still getting our arms around it. But
Is, isn't Candace also able to, help others in the group with ai, with her virtual assistants that probably have some good handle on that as well?
Isn't that true, Candace?
Candace Ramirez: Yes, that's correct. Excuse me. So we also do, AI email marketing. Also on top of that is, so we use a lot of, should I say we use ai, in-house. We've actually created something. That's pretty awesome. Just to give you guys a little bit of a [00:30:00] background let you guys know what it is. One of the managers here created, a software that, and he's trained the AI on how to basically pair the job description. So, for instance, I'll use Jim as a reference. So, when we put together a job description of what he was looking for, we put that job description out, as a ad, right?
And then, all of the applications that were submitted, if they didn't align with the resumes, they combed through all of the resumes and takes the time away. So instead of. All of our employees going through all of the resumes on their own, it paired the absolute best resumes that would that align with his job description.
Awesome. So, I mean that we have that in-house, it's, it's, it has saved hundreds of hours. 'cause for one, role that we post, we get hundreds of applications. So it's took, it's taken away so [00:31:00] much, I guess valuable time, for us. So, yeah, but we also do that as well. And then I know Deborah, you mentioned, that you do websites and stuff like that, so if you were to ever need somebody, if you're ever overwhelmed and you need people to help you, we have had people, VAs that help with, like WordPress and things like that.
So if that's something that you may need in the future or something, or anybody may need. Mm-hmm. That's something that we can also help with in addition. Okay.
Alan Armijo: Okay,
Candace Ramirez: great.
Alan Armijo: Interesting. Have an ask for the professional attorneys in the group. I have an insurance company who I did damage for Peterson Electric here on. I think it's fourth Street and it was about a $52,000 bill and they offered to pay me 40,000. So, and there was no good reason for it took six months to have 'em get back to me.
Vince Attardo: And I've recruited over 4,000 interest on, the money that's owed me from Peterson Electric, which, obviously they're not planning on paying. So [00:32:00] I need an attorney that would be able to help me with a lawsuit to go after the insurance company and the client if I have any problems getting paid.
I, I do believe I'll do very well. I always have, but I think I might want some additional support if someone has knowledge and experience dealing with insurance and bad faith claims and stuff that. Collusion. The price guide is owned by the insurance company as well that they're using, and they hired another guy to give a compare comparative bid.
He never even went to the job site. He used my bid and gave a really low bid on everything. On all my items, and, it's about 20% discount off my bill, which I never negotiated a discount.
Marc Forsythe: What's the amount of, what's the amount of dispute Vincent?
It's a $52,000 bill that I'm asking to be paid, and they offer to pay me 40 and no good reason as to why.
And after six months, when they did finally reach out to me after five months, they had some items of concern and some stuff that they, the person said we [00:33:00] didn't do, have a ladder, for example, or be able to reach high ceilings. We showed them the ladders we have on the truck. We told 'em that we used poles, extension poles.
That's why we didn't have any ca scaffolding, and we did everything that we billed for and we guaranteed our work. There's no smoke order. We took everything beautifully, no question about our work, but now they're offering me 40,000 with no explanation other than we went to a comparable bid. From someone else and all they did is send the guy my bill, because I called the guy and he says, oh, it's a shame they can't expect you to get paid what Xactimate gives.
'cause we know xactimate at best, the middle of the road pricing, if not low pricing. So for example, I'm $97 an hour, they wanna pay me $61 an hour for contents moving. We don't have a contents division. If we did, we would've subbed it out. Didn't have enough money for contents. Yeah, I mean
Marc Forsythe: at, at that amount of a dispute, I would say go to small claims court.
Small claims is ma, maximum 7,000.
Marc Forsythe: Yeah. Go to small
maximum. Well, you go,
Marc Forsythe: So you're gonna fight, you're gonna fight, you're gonna, [00:34:00] yeah. You're gonna fight over $5,000 and that you're gonna spend more than that on attorneys.
Yeah. I wouldn't go than that to court at all. I mean, I've been to small claims.
I've won, I've gotten double what I asked for, an interest alone. I'm, I have a payment program going on right now with a realtor. Who couldn't come up with the money. Even though he sold a $1.5 million home, still had no money, it was interesting. Now he's paying for it monthly 'cause he couldn't make the payment, which is fine.
I wouldn't wanna go to court even if it was for 40,000 or 50,000. 'cause you're right, the attorney is the one that usually gets paid and no one else really wins in a situation like that. And even if I win, I lose 'cause I've lost a lot of time and money. So, if attorney has experience dealing with this stuff, there might be like a letter or something that I can use their name to help them know that I'm gonna be going into a lawsuit with the intention of going after the money.
They're not paying me as well as going to the insurance commissioner to complain of bad faith and insurance fraud. 'cause I think state Farm needs to be, held accountable.
Phil Sherkerlian: I actually looked, it looks like [00:35:00] in, yeah, I don't
Marc Forsythe: do that kind of work. I'm I was thinking.
Phil Sherkerlian: I was gonna say, in LA County, you can actually only do 62 50. If it's a business, it's 12,500 if you're an in individual. But 62 50 is a business is the limit
now, and you can't leann a business either.
So working for businesses and other contractors is always sketchy, whereas with a homeowner, at least you have a home for the lien, which I've never had to execute a lien in 40 years. Knocked on wood. I know,
Phil Sherkerlian: I know collections attorneys, but is it gonna be worth you spending your money on that? I don't know.
Yeah, typically collection attorneys don't farewell either. I can use, even negotiate half off the bill just like they can, and then they get half of that. So no, that's not a win-win either. Yeah. Yeah. I would just put it out there if you know of anybody or hear of anybody that would be good with dealing with insurance and insurance.
Adjusters not paying their bills, which is ultimately the representative of the insurance company. Okay, but wait, it's an insurance company that owes you the money? [00:36:00] Yes. Technically the contracts with the bill, business owner Peterson Electric, they owe me the money and my contracts with them.
But State Farm doesn't honor contracts with the. Insured. They pay the money directly to the insured, not to me and to the mortgage company. If the mortgage company's included, they're the only insurance company that doesn't pay the check to the contractor and the homeowner. They pay it directly to the homeowner, which is a conflict already with the contract I have, but there's nothing I can do about it.
I
Phil Sherkerlian: mean, I know in a couple of insurance attorneys I can put you in touch with 'em and see what they say. That'd be great.
Yeah.
Phil Sherkerlian: The person actually want, shoot me an email with your email address and then I'll, I'll just reply with an introduction.
I, I'll actually put it in the chat here as well. And then, what I was gonna say slipped my mind.
What I was gonna say about the, with the insurance. Oh, the person wants to take their deductible out of the money proceeds. The check is coming to me. They want to take their deductible. They paid me out of it as well. I said, no, you, that's what your deductibles for. You're responsible paying [00:37:00] someone. You paid me.
If you were gonna take it outta the bill, the insurance would take it outta the repair proceeds. They wouldn't take it outta emergency services. And she has about 4,000 in interest pen penalties alone, just 'cause it's been so long that they haven't done anything about it, which I'm willing to waive.
That's just, you know, a bargaining chip. But yeah, I'm kind of tired of the insurance people stepping on others.
Alan Armijo: Okay, well, sorry to hear that, Vince. Yeah, these, these business deals that go bad or, or bad. So like power partners, you know, a referral from a. Another power partner will help you get through this, hopefully.
So just to close out, yeah, I, I mentioned Arlene. She can't talk on the, on this particular thing, but she's listening in. I asked her if she had anything to say unless she got my, didn't get my text. But, you know, if you have any home care or nursing, placements that you know of, just contact me and then I'll work with Arlene in getting, getting that, placed.
The other thing [00:38:00] is, we, valerie is no longer in our network as a real realtor. We don't have a limit on the number of people in our, in our business, but, you know, we definitely want realtor slash realtors, in real estate. So if you know anybody that you wanna refer to us, just reach out, let me know and I'll reach out to them.
Finn, you know, we, thanks for, for joining us again. We want you to, see value hopefully in, in our network. This is the first time you got in touch with some of the attorneys. We're also working, looking to add more attorneys, family attorneys and whatnot. But, just in general, because everybody should know you and vice versa, you know, hopefully you consider joining us.
Anything else to close out on? Anything. Yes,
I have a, prospect for you. I'll send you the information. He is a up and coming, electrician. Yeah, so he's a single operator electrician. He joined the Signal Hill Chamber recently. He took a liking to me, I met him at the chamber, mixer at the library.
And it's [00:39:00] karmic. And I believe he's strapped for cash, but this might be a good opportunity for him to network and, join our group. Right.
Alan Armijo: And I wanna thank you for the other, referrals you gave. I think it was Janine and, we got a, you know, some people are SVP, they can't make it at the last minute.
Like we probably should have had twice as many people on here. But I like the number that we have because it gives everybody a chance to talk. But, there have been leads and referrals that have. We're talking with them, some from Vince, some, some from other people. And yeah, that electrician, I would love to talk with him, Vince.
Okay. And, we, we have a, a tier system now, as low as two 50 they can get on and then it goes up from there ba based on the services they want in power partners, I'll
refer him. I'm sure he'll take advantage of it. 
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