Turning Employee Benefits Into A Competitive Advantage with Michael Notte

Michael Notte is President and Founder of MJN Insurance Services, an employee benefits firm serving small and midsize businesses nationwide. With more than 17 years of insurance industry experience, he focuses on customized benefits strategies designed to help employers manage costs while attracting and retaining employees. Before pursuing a career in insurance, Michael spent 16 years as a heavy metal singer and guitarist, an unconventional career path that helped shape his approach to entrepreneurship and relationship building. He currently champions employee education, personalized service, and benefit design intended to make healthcare easier to understand and more valuable to employers and their teams.  

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Chad Franzen on LinkedIn 
• Rise25  
• Email the team at Rise25: support@rise25.com
• Michael Notte: LinkedIn | Instagram 
• MJN Insurance Services
• MJN Insurance Services on Facebook
• Robert Kiyosaki, Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki

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Transcript

Intro: 00:04  

Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show. Powered by Rise25 Media, we feature top founders, executives, and business leaders from all over the world.

Chad Franzen: 00:20  

I, Chad Franzen here, co-host of the Top Business Leaders Show, where we feature CEOs, entrepreneurs, and top leaders in the business world. This episode is brought to you by Rise25. We help B2B businesses reach their dream relationships and connect with more clients, referrals, and strategic partnerships and get ROI through done for you podcasts. If you have a B2B business and want to build great relationships, there’s no better way to do it than to profile the people and companies you admire on your own podcast. To learn more, go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25.com.

My guest today is Michael Notte. Did I get that right, Michael?

Michael Notte: 00:54  

You sure did. Yeah.

Chad Franzen: 00:55  

Okay, great. My guest is Michael Notte, the small business benefits pro and owner and president of MJN Insurance Services Incorporated in Irvine, California. It’s an Irvine, California based insurance and employee benefits firm serving employers nationwide. Michael has served in the employee benefits and insurance field for more than 17 years, focusing on customized programs for small and midsize businesses. Before entering insurance, he spent 16 years as a heavy metal singer and guitarist, and early in his business career, he worked in network marketing before entering insurance sales, initially selling supplemental cancer insurance to school teachers through MJN Insurance supervisory services. He now works with employers not only on benefit selection but also on implementation and employee communication strategies designed to manage costs and support employee recruitment and retention. Michael, thanks so much for joining me today. How are you?

Michael Notte: 01:48  

Oh I’m awesome. Chad. Thanks for having me, man. How about yourself?

Chad Franzen: 01:51  

I’m doing well. Thanks so much. It’s great to talk to you. Hey, I was intrigued to see that you spent 16 years as a heavy metal singer. Tell me a little bit about that.

Michael Notte: 02:00  

Yeah. So as a kid, I always, you know, had a passion for music. And I grew up in a really small town in the middle of nowhere in Northeast Ohio. And so, you know, my vision for myself was to be able to get out of that town and move to sunny Southern California and, you know, do the whole rock star dream, right? And so I just dedicated myself to learn how to play guitar and sing music and things.

And, you know, I did well. I mean, for what we were trying to do, we had a pretty good local following and all that. But I was actually doing it in conjunction with the beginning of my insurance career as well. And it’s kind of funny once you start taking off in one aspect of things and the money starts flowing in from one spot but not the other, you kind of tend to shift your focus after, you know, figuring out, hey, you know what, maybe this music thing isn’t really going to pan out the way I truly envisioned it before. So I should probably stick to just building my business. 

 So that’s kind of a long story, very short.

Chad Franzen: 02:57  

So I’ve heard, I’ve heard. I’ve had friends who have kind of taken them. I’m going to pursue my dream as a musician. And they have some incredible stories of just acts of survival. Did you have those kinds of stories in your life?

Michael Notte: 03:11  

Oh man, where do I begin? Yeah, I actually have the the idea to either write like a mini series or a movie about some of the tours and stuff we did we on in one one time we caused a bomb scare in Kalamazoo, Michigan while we were in Pittsburgh, PA, and on that same trip, our van broke down in Pittsburgh and we were stranded for three days, not knowing exactly how we were going to get home and all kinds of fun stuff. Like yeah, it was. There were definitely some crazy times that happened out there. And you know, that was 20 something years old.

I had no money to my name at all. I mean, literally touring with a negative bank account, you know, and living off of like, you know, people’s donations and sleeping on couches, if we were lucky and that kind of stuff, you know? So it was, it was fun. It was a lot of fun. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

 But yeah, we definitely have some of those survival stories.

Chad Franzen: 04:03  

Yeah. Sounds awesome. Hey, so you had 16 years doing that. How did that kind of maybe shape the way you lead and work with business owners then today?

Michael Notte: 04:12  

Yeah. You know, it’s crazy because I was dealing with bar owners a lot trying to book the show, you know, and it seemed like those guys are always really stressed out. I mean, just like, you know, you have a really fun business here, but it’s stressful. You know, there’s a lot of overhead. You have to keep your inventory up to date.

And then the staff, you know, they’re giving away drinks. They’re sometimes they would even be stealing money right out of the cash register, you know what I mean? And I happen to get to know a bar owner while trying to pursue my music career that took me under his wing. And you mentioned it. We did some network marketing and such together, but he’s the one that truly taught me how millionaires think and the daily life of a small to medium sized business owner. 

 You know, going up in high school, I worked for small business owners my whole, you know, high school career and stuff. I’ve never really interviewed for a job. I’ve just kind of been, you know, pulled in. Hey, you seem like a good worker. Come work for me. 

 Okay, cool. But I got to see the struggles of all those guys, what they had to deal with, you know? And then, you know, the guy that took me under his wing. He was a self-made millionaire by the time he was 28, through the bar and restaurant industry. And I happened to walk into his club trying to get my band booked. 

 He said, no, you don’t have a big enough following. And this is how it’s going to work. And then lo and behold, two weeks later, he was given a presentation at my friend’s house who invited me over to hear a little bit more about this cell phone and direct TV and video phone company. You know, back in 2007, when it was before Skype and even, you know, any of that stuff. So I joined the network marketing business. 

 He took me under his wing based on the way he was talking about how to create residual income. And you know, how millionaires really think to grow their business and leveraging, you know, not their own time, but a lot of other people’s time to help grow, you know, just appealed to me, you know, because I wanted to get into music because of the royalty aspect of it, right? When you write a song, it gets played on the radio. Boom. You get paid. 

 Not so much these days with streaming and everything. So a little bit different model for those folks now. But the idea was there so long story long, he kind of really gave me a good quality education from the front seat of his suburban while I was riding around to him, all these different events and stuff, and we’d always be listening to, you know, Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, Jim Rome, Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, like all the classics of, you know, self-development and, and business learning. And I just kind of put that all together. And then when, after about two and a half years of doing that network marketing deal, we realized quickly, this is not going to be for everybody. 

 And we hated that whole, you know, 93% of people never make it, but you’re going to be that 7%. You know that that does it. Like, I just can’t get down with that. So he pivoted to insurance because his mentor passed away and was a cancer insurance guy. He goes to school teachers and sells them cancer insurance. 

 And I had no idea what that even was. But, you know, the guy told me, he said, hey, get your insurance license. You’re gonna come work for my agency. We’re gonna sell cancer insurance to school teachers to give them their money back if they don’t use it. And I said, what the heck is that? 

 So I said, fine, I’ll trust you. He got me my license. We got started to go to work. And, you know, we started having some moderate success because we had some relationships that we were working off of from that original book. I found out real quickly that that book wasn’t actually 100% still theirs. 

 There was another agency involved that took it over. So we ended up partnering with them. And then from there, I got some really great mentors that truly taught me how benefits can help a business owner, even in their PNL, from a focus on retention and recruiting, top tier talent and everything. And so over those years, I kind of formulated some strategies and such. And then I just eventually incorporated mostly for tax purposes, but now I’ve got my own agency up and running, and got my own clients. 

 And, you know, we’re building, you know, packages from scratch or fixing things that previous brokers have done just to make a commission. And then they disappeared and said, here’s the customer service line to the, you know, to the carrier or whatever. And I really just have a passion for it. You know, these small to medium sized businesses, in my opinion, are the heartbeat of America. You know, if that goes away or if that opportunity goes away, our economy crashes overnight. 

 So we’ve really got to help these folks because they’re putting their necks on the line. They’re leveraging their homes, they’re going out, getting SBA loans and they’re, you know, getting into debt to pursue a passion or, you know, to fill a need. And then now they have to compete with the Googles and the Apples and the other, you know, AI companies that are like, oh, we’ve got this amazing benefit package. You don’t pay anything for health insurance, and it’s 100% covered. If that’s the case, maybe. 

 But, you know, they gotta have some kind of package that feels like that for folks or else they’re not gonna be able to retain the talent. Because no matter how good your salary is, somebody at the door up the road, they might, you know, say, hey, we’ll pay you the same, but our benefit package is just a little bit better. You’re going to go where the benefit package is better. You know, I don’t care what your morals or mission or principles are. Everybody has their price or their pain point. 

 And I want to at least help you, you know, provide something as a business owner that makes you competitive with your competition when it comes to recruiting and retaining that talent because, you know, the better the talent is on your team, the better your business is going to do. So that’s why my motto is better benefits to better your business.

Chad Franzen: 09:26  

Sounds good. So, you know, you’re in an industry where a lot of brokers can offer access to maybe similar insurance products. What creates meaningful differentiation?

Michael Notte: 09:37  

It’s the strategy and the service. Those are the two things that really help brokers set themselves apart. As you can see, I’m not a typical insurance guy. I’m on your show in like a hoodie and a, you know, a ball cap, right? Like I’m working from home today.

I’m gonna be casual. I’m not gonna pretend like I wear a suit and dress up wherever I’m not going. Right. So my strategy, my way of thinking is a lot different than a typical broker, because I’ve competed in spaces before where we were only offering one type of product, and we had to make that fit with what was going on. But now that I can see the whole picture, you know, I can really sit down with somebody and like, for example, business owners all the time. 

 Well, yeah, just here’s my census, run me a quote, give me a quote, I can give you a quote, and I’m going to give you the same quote and the same pricing that the broker next door does. And if you’re just looking at the price, that’s one thing. But here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to find what’s important to you, what’s important to your staff. You know, let’s figure out who’s using the insurance and, and how much and when. 

 And you know, what can we do to save you money as a business owner so that you’re not overpaying and under-insuring your people, right? Or worse, you’re over-insuring and you know, you know, underpaying or whatever, the opposite goes to that. But, you know, I want to develop a strategy that works for your business, but more importantly, teaches your employees exactly how to use their benefits properly. So that way you get that feel of that, you know. Anthem, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Platinum PPO type coverage at the price of, you know, not that, you know, like we want to be able to save everybody in this equation money because, you know, oftentimes employers can’t afford to pay 100% for the, the health coverage for their employees. 

 They’d love to be able to, but they can’t. So whatever the employer doesn’t pay becomes now a net decrease in the take home pay for that employee because they have to carry the burden of that rest of that policy. I’m sure your employees are going to be much happier paying less for the same type of coverage as long as they understand it. And I’m sure you as a business owner are going to be much happier paying less for the same type of insurance. But the, you know, same feel that PPO plans on a bronze tier pricing point for you, you’re going to be happier as well. 

 And so we put in a lot of strategies to involve, you know, tax savings, FICA tax savings, create additional funds inside of employees paychecks through those tax savings to finance supplemental benefits and things all above board. You know, there’s nothing, you know, noncompliant about any of it. It’s just these are different things that I’ve developed and learned about that they broker down the road. They have just been quoting, you know, your health insurance and giving you your dental vision and your group term and calling it a day. Right? But I love getting involved in educating the employees and making sure they know and understand how to use the benefit, because it’s not a benefit unless they know how to use it and know what to do with it.

Chad Franzen: 12:29  

So you are kind of an independent insurance agent without a large corporate brand behind you. What is it taken to build that type of business?

Michael Notte: 12:39  

And, you know, it’s a, you know, it’s a referral type game, right? I mean, I could advertise, I could do whatever I wanted to, but, you know, unless there’s a real pain point or a need, you know, no one’s going to really reach out and, you know, look to change their broker. You know, I mean, it’s just one of those things where I finally I usually find somebody that’s pretty dissatisfied with the service they’re getting. And then, you know, I’ll make myself available and show like, hey, here’s some real testimonials about, you know, how I serve you and the fact that I am independent. You’re my customer.

Like you’re my customer. And so I get to deliver on my promises, right? And I do have a staff that backs me up. I’ve got an admin person, you know, I’m partnered with some general agencies and things and limos that give excellent customer service. So I can still take some vacation once in a while, but I still answer my phone right when you call me, you know, that’s the difference. 

 So you actually get better service working with somebody like myself, because I know I’m auditioning for your business with every phone call. And so I’m going to make sure that I can deliver on that promise that I made to you when we first started our relationship. The other way I grow is I’ve started a campaign looking for businesses that are now, you know, going from 48 to 49 lives. They’re definitely crossing that 50 mark here soon, and they know they’re going to have to start offering benefits of some shape and some fashion. I love working with those folks because it allows me so much freedom to, you know, look at everything because there’s no history, there’s no past like what we’ve done before. 

 This didn’t work. This worked like, let’s start from scratch and here’s what I think can do, can give you the best possible pricing, the best possible implementation and adoption for your employees to take advantage of it. And that’s a lot of fun. So, and you know, it’s all pretty much word of mouth. Run some email campaigns to, you know, get some interest from that specific demographic. 

 But I mean, you know, I don’t have the budget to blast my name on every single billboard in downtown LA and all over Orange County to make it happen. So it’s strictly word of mouth and just the old school hustle.

Chad Franzen: 14:40  

Yeah. Great. So, I’ve worked for organizations where they, you know, give benefits and then they tell you, you get health care and we pay this percentage and you get this much vacation and blah, blah, blah. And that’s about it. Why is it, why is the way that a company communicates its benefits to employees, just as important as the benefits that it buys.

Michael Notte: 14:59  

Yeah. So, you know, the first example is like, I’ve done some takeovers, right? Where people found me on the internet, like my insurance is terrible, fix it. And I’m like, well, hold on, let’s take a look at it first. And so then, you know, what would happen is the, you know, the broker implements a plan and they sell on that price point.

Hey, look, we’ve got a, you know, a C, a qualified plan here. It’s only $300 a month for an individual. There’s a $750 deductible on it. But it’s great. This is all the things that it does. 

 And then the employees go to use that plan. And the price point is awesome. Like you’re not going to find a cheaper plan on the market. But the problem is it’s on a network that’s not really one of the big name networks. And even though a doctor’s office might be covered underneath that network, there’s some extra steps and some things that as an employee, you need to do to ensure that that person that’s verifying your coverage is looking in the right place for that. 

 So there’s some extra steps involved that make this plan that this previous broker put in actually a pretty viable option, as long as we pair it the right way with the other supplemental coverages to fill the gaps and where this policy leaves off. But if an employee doesn’t know and understand how to use that coverage, they’re going to be very upset. And this one group that I’m dealing with, they have some very, very upset employees right now coming to the employer going like, this is crazy. We were on a big name brand insurance carrier before. We never had these problems. 

 We were paying three times as much, but we’d be happier going back to that. And so my thing is, I don’t want you to go back to paying three times as much to get the same result you could get with a similar style of this type of plan. So let me give the education to show the employees on how to use something that’s similar to this. It might provide a little bit better customer service and be a little bit easier to use. But if I’m involved from the beginning and I do have those one on ones with every single employee and make myself available so I can become an extension of your human resources department. 

 So they’re not fielding calls about insurance as a non-licensed person that like, yeah, I can read a plan. I can tell you what it’s supposed to do, but they can’t call and make things happen for you on, you know, the employees behalf with the carrier. I can do that. Let’s just have a straight line to me so that they know I’m available. If they do run into those problems where they can’t verify their coverage, I can get involved right away. 

 Tell them, hey, you need to do this, this and this, and then this thing will take care of it all. Just go ahead and tell them to bill. You don’t pay anything out of pocket today. Take that bill home. We’ll submit it to the carrier, whoever needs to get it done, and then we’ll get it fixed up. 

 Now, ideally, we don’t have to do that, right? It just works. But in certain cases where if you can’t afford the big name brand, you know, benefits, but you want to be able to provide something to your employees, let me help you out because we can get you something that will work. It’s just it requires a couple extra things than just a, hey, here’s your open enrollment benefit package, read it on your own and sign up for whatever policy you want. because, you know, employees are either going to take the the most expensive plan because they think that that’s what they need, because they’re going to be going to the doctor once a year. 

But just in case something happens, you know, or they’ll take the least expensive plan, not realizing that that, you know, ozempic that they’re on isn’t covered underneath their, you know, prescription formulas. And now they’re out of pocket 1200 bucks a month compared to, you know, we could have got you the right policy to fit that. So there’s just a lot of reasons to have me meet and be available for your employees. Takes the stress completely off. Not completely. 

But, you know, I try to do my best to take as much stress off the owner and the human resources people as I can.

Chad Franzen: 18:27  

How much money can a business waste by offering benefits that employees either don’t value or don’t understand?

Michael Notte: 18:33  

I mean, depending on the size of your employer group, I mean, you know, I’m quoting a group of 50 right now on a plan that’s a $9,000 deductible, right? And so like the employees got to come out of pocket 9000 bucks before anything. There’s a couple copay services and stuff. And the total premium for the business with their 46 people that are going to be on it would be around $36,000 a month. So, you know, we could do that plan, right?

And then your employees are still not going to be happy with it. You’re going to pay, you know, almost $400,000 a year for that benefit. And then your employees go, this insurance is garbage. Like, I don’t want this. Right. 

 Great. I’m glad I just wasted almost, you know, $400,000 on benefits that employees don’t need and understand. So what I did is I partnered with my general agency and we found a different option that’s going to be significantly cheaper. Half the price. It’s going to require a little bit of extra education for the employees. 

 But then we’re going to put in some voluntary benefits to complement it. So that way the employee gets covered and gets reimbursed for things that aren’t covered underneath that plan. And so I’m saving the business, you know, a couple hundred thousand bucks. No big deal though, right? So that’s why it’s important to just work with a broker like myself that thinks a little bit outside of the box. 

 So that way when the big carriers come in and say, yeah, we’re going to be this much and this is why I can go. Cool, thanks for playing, but we’re going to go this direction and we’re going to fill the gaps and make sure your business stays in business, because you probably can’t afford $400,000 just for your benefits. You know, I mean, the biggest expense most companies have is payroll. Second is either the inventory or it could be their benefit package, depending on which way they went. I want to make sure that your P and L make a lot of sense. 

 And we put a lot more in that P column, right? When it comes to your benefits.

Chad Franzen: 20:23  

So you’re saving businesses money. But I know one of your goals is to help them attract and retain better talent. How do those if you’re successful in one, how does the other one not compete with that one?

Michael Notte: 20:34  

Sure. So, you know, by giving that education and having in, in the interview room, really, I mean, what’s your HR person going to be more confident about when offering a position? You know, hey, we got this salary and the benefits here are just incredible, right? Like that’s the phrase I want to have come out of your HR person’s mouth and that they truly mean it because people do things based on the feeling that they’re getting from what the person is saying, right? If an HR person has to say something like, yeah, so here’s your salary and you know, here’s, here’s your benefit package, you know, it’s okay, we do, we do.

All right. What do you mean? Like, you know, I want the good benefits, you know, I want the, you know, what, what are you doing for me then, you know, like the salary is fine, but what are the benefits about, you know, because there’s a lot of employees out there that they make their decision for their position on that benefit package. That’s like the thing that sets it over the edge because, I mean, in every job description out there, there’s really not a company that’s going to pay a lot more for a specific position compared to the other one. Like there’s not going to be like double the salary at this, at this spot for this type of thing, right? 

 So pretty much a standard wage is offered. And as long as you’re in that ballpark, You got that first box, checked the second box that puts it over the edge is the benefit package. And so when I can coach you guys on how to build the right package and say without a shadow of a doubt, our benefit package is amazing. And you know what? We have a broker that we work with. 

 He’s responsive. He takes care of our employees. He’ll even meet with you and your whole family. If you want to go over how the plans work and really make sure you understand it. And one of the things that we really pride ourselves on with this business is taking care of our employees, not just in the paycheck, but also in the benefit space as well. 

 It really can just make you that much more attractive to get that person that’s on the fence about going down the street and working for the company that might pay them just a little bit more in salary, right?

Chad Franzen: 22:30  

So, when a business owner kind of first gets its benefits package, and then they may just consider the annual renewal to be kind of an inevitable thing. At what point should they start exploring different ways to fund or structure health benefits?

Michael Notte: 22:42  

Yeah. I mean, there’s certain points where, you know, that annual renewal, you know, this year is not going to be a good year for really anybody that’s on those big boxes. You know, there’s a lot of stuff that has happened with the GLP ones. The cost of health care has gone up. But there’s one thing that a group can kind of help control a little bit on their plan is, is the usage, right?

So how much of the usage is being, you know, contributing to that rate increase? And we can take a look at that and say, well, you guys filed a bunch of claims, you know, this way and this way and this way, and you got some people that are going to be Medicare eligible. Let’s make sure we get those folks on Medicare so that they come off the group plan as soon as possible to keep your rates down. And it’s better for them anyway. Medicare is a great avenue. 

 But you know, the long and short of it is we start looking at different options pretty much months and months and months in advance of open enrollment. And the conversation is, do we continue doing what we’re doing because it’s working, or do we adjust here and here to see if we can help it for next year? Or do we get to the point where you’re now you’ve got some claims history. You’ve got, you know, some things that are, you know, we can work on fixing, but we can actually self-insure you at this point. And so let’s get connected to a TPA that helps you run this and we can run the numbers. 

 And then we can kind of come up with different strategies in that case as well. You know, that’s not my favorite thing to do. It gets a lot more complicated and it’s really more for the, the, the mid tier, you know, 500 up and up employers. But we can have those conversations for sure. But we look at every avenue. 

 One of the favorite things I like to do to help control the usage is putting in a wellness plan or a preventative care management plan for the employees to use in conjunction with the health insurance. Oftentimes, the emergency room visit is not necessarily an emergency. It’s just something that you had to do because urgent care was closed and you were really in a lot of pain and you didn’t really know what the next step was, or you’re just really not feeling good. So you go all the way down to the emergency room. You wait for four hours to be seen by a doctor or even a nurse. 

 And then they pay. They charge you a $250 or $500 co-pay. And then they bill your insurance carrier for that visit. You know, 2500 bucks or whatever it was to see for 15 minutes to say, oh, you’re fine, just go home now. And if it’s still bothering you on Monday, go to your regular doctor, right. 

 70% of the time that’s what happens. And that’s not necessary. So we put in a plan that’s funded through tax savings. It saves the employer FICA taxes. The employee realizes tax savings in their check in order to pay for this. 

 And it provides a service with $0 copays for virtual urgent care, virtual telemedicine. There’s resources on how to stay healthier. You can even do primary care type visits at $0 co-pays, behavioral health, $0 copays. And so none of it counts as usage against your group policy. So you use in conjunction with for things that you don’t have to go to the doctor for physically, you can even use it to, you know, wake up in the morning, you got a stuffy nose, you’re not sure if it’s allergies or if you’re contagious and shouldn’t go to the office instead of taking the day off work automatically and going down and, you know, seeing your doctor to get a z-pack or whatever. 

 You can actually be seen by a physician right through the virtual app and $0 co-pay. They prescribe the medicine, work through your health insurance carrier for it. So you pay the same co-pay at the pharmacy closest to your house. So it’s a really cool service to add and it saves the business money, saves the employees money. It’s a complete win win all the way around.

Chad Franzen: 26:12  

Very nice. Hey, you’ve given a lot of business owners reasons to contact you or learn more about you. How can people do so?

Michael Notte: 26:21  

Yeah, the best thing is to either go to my website, MJNinsuranceservices.com, and just either call me from the line there or drop me an email, or you can hit me up on Instagram. I’m at smallbiz BIZ benefits pro so it’s at smallbiz BIZ benefits pro and just shoot me a DM and I will get back to you. I don’t have a staff that monitors my emails. I’m personally doing it myself, so you will hear straight from me and I’d be more than happy to, you know, set up a time to look at what you have going on. And let’s develop a plan and strategy that works the best for you.

You know, we’ll give you better benefits to better your business, I promise.

Chad Franzen: 26:59  

Okay. Very nice. Hey, last question for you. You mentioned kind of along the way, you learned from somebody else how a millionaire thinks there are a lot of people out there who are very smart and hard working, and they’re grinding away, but they’re kind of on the treadmill. What may be missing in a typical person’s thought process that’s not allowing them to maybe break through financially.

Michael Notte: 27:18  

Man, I’ll tell you, it depends on what level that person’s starting at, right? So like yesterday I was at an event and I was promoting, you know, my services and such, and I had a person come over that was, you know, they’re, they’re part of the Socialist Party. I’m not really a political person. But the thing that they said just pushed me over the edge and I couldn’t take it anymore. I said, well, you know, socialism makes sense because it’ll make people like me, the working class, be able to get better wages and better conditions and this, that and the other.

And I said, well, you know, explain that to me. He goes, well, I’m at the very bottom of my pay scale right now and I can’t live on that. And I said, why are you settling for it? He said, what? I said, why are you accepting that low pay? 

 Like you have a skill. This guy’s a welder. You know, he was a United Steelworkers union member. And he’s saying, oh, I’m, I’m held down. He goes, well, because the rich people made the decision about what my job is worth. 

 I said, that’s not how it works. I said, that’s not even my question. I said, what is stopping you from being able to move up and get to whatever level of income that you feel you need to survive on? Where does that position exist in the company of the union that you’re in, and how do you get there? What’s stopping you from that? 

 He couldn’t answer me. He could not answer the question. He would rather just suffer and make less money and just bitch about it. Pardon my French, then do something about it. right? 

 So the difference between like a millionaire and somebody that is, you know, typically your typical W2 employee is they think outside of the box, they look at what’s in front of them and they are not satisfied with the situation. How do I change it? Right? Instead of complaining, they start making decisions on how to move forward there. The other thing is, they don’t think about things the same way. 

 Like there’s no expectation of this is just going to be, I do this, I get this result. I’m going to do this. And this is the result I’m hoping to get, and I’m going to do everything I can in order to hope to get it. And I’ll either learn something or I get what I want, or it’s even better, you know, in some cases. So there’s a certain sense of optimism that comes with being a millionaire. 

 But I think the most important thing is, they don’t trade their time for money. They don’t look at an hourly wage and say, oh, okay, I’d like to be a welder because I can make $22 an hour. And then you realize real quickly that you can’t live in Los Angeles on 22 bucks an hour. Oh, but as well, I’m a welder, you know, so. Yeah. 

 Good. You’re a welder now. Think like a millionaire. Right. So you have this skill. 

 What can you do that makes you and sets you apart from the market? You can still be a W-2 employee and be a millionaire, but like, what’s your thing? What’s your angle to make you more attractive to this? You know, bigger job, bigger whatever to get you to that millionaire status where now you’re not just the guy welding anymore, you’ve built an organization and a team that you’re in charge of that’s building it for you. That’s the secret to wealth creation. 

 It’s leveraging other people’s time for your own. I’d rather get paid off of 1% of 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own. That’s like the biggest lesson that millionaires are taught, and that the rest of us don’t really get taught. You know, our public education system is designed and was created to create workers in the workforce, right? So, you know, as you’re conditioned as a child, it’s, hey, go to school, get good grades so you can get that good job, work for 40 years, build somebody else’s dream and hopefully be able to retire by the time you’re 70. 

 At this point, and then enjoy the last five to six years of your life. If you don’t get sick and you have to waste all your money and your pension on a critical illness, you know? So it’s just a rat race. And I’m a big fan of Robert Kiyosaki. So anybody that really wants to learn about how millionaires think, and the best way to get yourself out of your W-2 and into, you know, building your future. 

 That’s the first book I would start with is Rich dad, Poor Dad. And, you know, just learn all the different things on how to leverage different opportunities to create wealth for yourself.

Chad Franzen: 31:19  

Okay, awesome. Hey, great insights. Michael, always great to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining me today.

Michael Notte: 31:24  

Yeah. Thanks for having me, Chad. I appreciate it.

Chad Franzen: 31:26  

So long, everybody.

Outro: 31:27  

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