Murfreesboro Tennessee Real Estate Blogs

John gives a brief review of Michael Maher's book The Seven Levels of Communication: Go From Relationaships To Referrals. The book is not targeted specifically for Realtors, but rather has a much broader audience as a work of fiction that explores how any salesperson can generate more referrals by intentionally farming the relationships they already have.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here today with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Glad to have you here.  Today, guys, I’m talking to anybody out there who’s selling anything.  I just read a great book that I want to give a review on.  It’s called The Seven Levels of Communication.  It’s by a good friend of mine, Michael Maher.  Michael and I are a part of the same Star Power Mastermind group, real estate Mastermind group.  Michael’s a very successful real estate agent in Kansas City or Overland Park, Kansas.

And it’s called The Seven Levels of Communication: Go From Relationships To Referrals.  And I know he’s a buddy of mine, but I’ve gotta tell you it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read on sales.  It’s real.  It’s the basics, but yet, he puts it in a way that is so easy to read and fun to read.  Basically, it’s a fiction book based on a character by the name of Rick Masters who’s kind of a struggling, downtrodden real estate guy who’s coming through this bad economy who happens upon a mortgage rep who’s kind of calling on his business who is just doing extremely well.

And she kind of lets him in on a secret.  Anyway, it’s just a really neat story that really tells you as a salesperson the things that you need to know to take relationships to referrals.  And it’s basically the backbone of any good salesperson is relationships and referrals.  I’ve always said or it’s always been said that people want to buy things from people that they like.  And I think that we’ve gotten away from that the last few years.

I know in the real estate business we have.  We spend all this time on advertising and branding and doing all this stuff kind of trying to buy the business when in essence, the best customer or the best client you can work with out there is that referred client from a third party who has said nice things about you.  But there’s an art to managing those relationships.  There’s an art to keeping in touch and adding value to people’s lives so they are in a position to give you referrals.  And this book puts it all in a nice package and puts a bow around it and makes it very easy to understand and very easy to implement.

So if anybody out there needs a boost right now in your sales career, I’m telling you, read this book.  There’s no magic pill here.  It just is a very effective book in showing you the importance of managing those relationships that will allow you to get more referral business.  So Michael, you did a great job on it.  I’m very impressed with it.  We’re going to put the website up right here (www.7LBook.com) where you can go order this book from Michael, and also I’m sure you can go to Amazon and type in The Seven Levels of Communication by Michael Maher.  Thanks and we’ll see you next week.

Q:  We’re thinking of adding a swimming pool.  How will that affect the value of our home?
 
A:  Swimming pools can have a significant impact on the salability of your home.  In general, pools don’t greatly affect the price of a home in our marketplace.  But they can sometimes severely limit the number of buyers interested in buying your house.  Especially in the case of an in ground one, pools can be a huge turnoff to many people, causing them to cross your home off their prospect list without even seeing it.  On the other hand, that same pool can be a huge added value that encourages other buyers to take a closer look at your house when they otherwise might not have done so.  Above ground pools are fairly easy to put up and take down, so they don’t have to limit your buyers when it comes time to sell your house.  However, if you have a septic system, make sure you don’t install your above ground pool on top of it.  Crushed field lines are potentially expensive mistake that can be easily avoided with a little research and forethought.
 
The bottom line is that you shouldn’t install a pool with the expectation that you will recoup the money poured into it.  Base your decision on whether or not your family is going to get enough fun and enjoyment out of the swimming pool to justify the expense of buying it.

This week Tim Dutton takes Taste of the Town to the Cedar Bucket Restaurant located on Middle Tennessee Blvd in Murfreesboro and tastes some of the Cedar Bucket's more popular Southern soul food.

Find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TasteoftheTown or subscribe to our iTunes Podcast via This Link

Transcript

TIM:  Tim Dutton here with another edition of Taste of the Town.  Folks, today I’m at the Cedar Bucket, which is located right next to Kroger on Middle Tennessee Boulevard.

RICKY:  Right.

TIM:  I still want to go by some of the old name.  And guys, I’m sitting here with Ricky Turner who’s the owner of the Cedar Bucket.  And Ricky, tell folks a little bit about what you guys are doing right here.

RICKY:  Well, the Cedar Bucket Restaurant is a southern homestyle cooking , meat three type restaurant.  Different days, every day we have a different menu.  Like we have a set menu for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.  And it’s cafeteria style.  You can do a meat and one, meat and two, meat and three, or all vegetables.  Or some people just like all meat.

TIM:  Right.

RICKY:  So whatever you want.  We also offer salad bar as well, and we have homemade desserts daily.  So we try to offer a variety.

TIM:  And you guys, it’s all home cooked like you would do at home.

RICKY:  Yes, sir.

TIM:  So guys, you can come down to the Cedar Bucket and put some south in your mouth and I don’t think you’re going to regret it.  Now Ricky, what have we got right here, man?  What did you put forth for us to take a look at?

RICKY:  Today we’ve got our Thursday menu.  Again, like every day we have a different menu and on Thursday we have our baked chicken; we have fried pork chops; and we have this Caribbean chicken, which is a chicken tender that we kind of marinade in spices, let it sit overnight, and then just fry it.  And then we have six different vegetables.  Today we’ve got pinto beans, green beans, sweet potatoes, rice, and green beans.  And also, au gratin potatoes.  So this is just a sample of what we have today on the menu if you come by on Thursdays.

TIM:  Folks, that’s just like being home at momma’s.  And the rice, what do you do to the rice, Ricky?

RICKY:  Well, the rice is just a rice pilaf, just a regular rice and we kind of season it, give it a little spice and stuff.

TIM:  It’s good, man.  And then we’ve got the cornbread here.

RICKY:  Now that’s what we’re pretty much famous for, our cornbread.  It’s not hot water cornbread.  It’s not oven baked.  But what we do, a lot of people tell me it’s what they refer to as the old hot cakes.  How farmers, those who worked out in the field, they couldn’t go back to the house to fix the bread.

TIM:  Right.

RICKY:  They would take the meal and make up the batter and take the metal part of a hoe and put their meal on that and light that and that’s how they came up with hoe cake.  But we fry ours on the skillet.  And like I said, I think we’re the only ones in this area who pretty much does that.  And that’s probably one of our most popular items.  A lot of people come in just for the cornbread.

TIM:  Man, that is good.  Now the other is baked chicken here, right?

RICKY:  Mm-hm.  We know that we live in a kind of health-conscious society now, so we don’t like to fry.  A lot of people are trying to get away from a lot of fried food, so we consider Thursday our healthy day.  We go with the baked chicken and give—

TIM:  Give them an option.

RICKY:  Give them an option rather than so much fried food all the time.

TIM:  I’ll tell you what.  You’re doing it right, Ricky.  Now what’s the other days?  Have you got standard menus?

RICKY:  We do.  Like tomorrow is Friday.  What’s on Friday is fish day.  We’ll have catfish, fried chicken, and spaghetti, white beans, cole slaw, turnip greens, fried okra, and corn on the cob.  So every day is a set day for right now.  Next month will be first year here in Murfreesboro.  The Cedar Bucket itself has been in existence for three years.  We come out of Shelbyville. We were doing business down there for about two years, and we relocated here to Murfreesboro and finally got open last September.

So a lot of people always come in even though it’s on a certain day that we have a set menu and on that set menu, that’s the only thing we serve.  Like today, if somebody wanted fried chicken, they can’t have fried chicken because we’ve got a set menu.

TIM:  Right.

RICKY:  But we noticed that even though we have a set menu, some people still want certain items.  So we’re going to kind of cater to them more next year or this upcoming year that if you want fried chicken, we’ll probably have fried chicken every day.

TIM:  Whatever days you want it.

RICKY:  Yeah, yeah.

TIM:  Now Ricky, what kind of hours are you guys open?  What days a week?

RICKY:  We’re open Monday, Tuesday from 11 to 8, also on Wednesday from 11 to 6.  Thursday and Friday 11 to 8, and also on Sunday.  We have a Sunday what we call brunch from 11 to 4 where we have a big what I call after church menu, after church dinner.  And that seems to be our biggest following right there.

TIM:  After worship service?

RICKY:  After worship service, yeah.

TIM:  So the only day you’re closed then is Saturday?

RICKY:  Yeah.  Well, what we do on Saturdays, we do two Saturdays a month, but we don’t have a set Saturday that we open and we don’t have a set menu.  Really it depends on what’s going on in the city or what we have going on because we also cater; we also deliver; we do private parties.  So there’s a lot of activities that we have to do on the weekend that would cause us not to be here.  So that gives us an opportunity to kind of do other things.

TIM:  So y’all cater this food; you do private parties; and you deliver this food too?

RICKY:  Yeah, yeah.  We do it all.  We do it all.

TIM:  Things are going to get worse for me.

RICKY:  Yeah, yeah.  We have so many people that are moving into Murfreesboro from the north and other parts of the area who’s really not familiar with southern cooking.  So this is the place to experience southern cooking.

TIM:  Yeah.

RICKY:  You know, southern cooking to me is really a dying institution because there’s not that much of it.  It seems like we’ve gotten away from our southern roots.  Most of us, if you were born in the south, you grew up on pinto beans and fried chicken and cornbread and sweet tea.

TIM:  Mm-hm.

RICKY:  That’s just a part of our southern upbringing.

TIM:  Right.

RICKY:  But it seems like we’re getting away from that.  But we want to bring that back in because even among our young people they don’t get enough greens; they don’t get enough vegetables.  It’s always fast food and all this.  So we’re trying to bring southern food back like you said with a little taste and a little flavor, a little seasoning just like grandma...

TIM:  You’re right.  It’s a different ball game and it’s not like this.  Ricky, do you have a special for the people that come in and say they want to put some south in their mouth and they saw it on Taste of the Town?

RICKY:  Yeah, if you come in and say that you saw this program, we’ll give you a free drink.

TIM:  Your drink free for coming in here and trying some of Ricky’s food.  And I’m going to tell you, you won’t regret it.  That’s about it for this edition of Taste of the Town.  And remember, if you’re thinking real estate, think Tim Dutton.

In this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee John Jones shares his pricing strategy for the current market.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  Today, we’re going to talk about pricing and pricing in the market and how buyers actually buy homes.  And the point that I want to make is I had a situation the other day that’s not uncommon, happens quite a bit.  I was sitting there with a seller and we’re going through the comps and we’re going through the absorption rate and we both were pretty much in agreement where the price for this home would probably ultimately sell.

Probably somewhere between 185 and 190.  Well, after discussion a little bit on where we should price it, they wanted to go higher, like $209,000.  And I asked them why would you want to go that high.  And they said we would like to leave a lot of room for negotiation.  We think if somebody’s going to come in here and make us a lower offer, we have negotiating room.  And there you know I see where people think that because we get that all the time.

But let me tell you how people buy homes.  People buy homes by comparing them to the other homes for sale.  So for instance, let’s take the house we were just talking about.  Let’s call it house A and it’s priced at $209,900.  And the house down the street, which is house B, is priced at $199,900.  First of all, a lot of people may not even look at price A because they may have parameters where they’re only going to $200,000.  They might not even come across that house.

So you miss a whole pool of buyers if you price out of the market.  Secondly, even though house A is sitting there with owners sitting there saying that they would accept 190 for the home, they don’t get the offer because home B looks like such a better value to them at $199,900.  Home B might end up getting marked out at 193 where they could have come over here and bought home A for 190.  The problem is, home A was never in the game.  It never got a chance to participate in the comparison because it looked so much higher than home B.  So home B got the offer.

Now the question is: “But what if they come in there low?  What if that person came in there at 180?”  What if they come in at 175?  It happens every day.  What we do know is 70% of the people that make offers on a home are going to end up buying that home.  Now they may try.  They may make you kind of a low ball to begin with, but if the home is priced right, stick to your guns.  Negotiate a little bit and at some point, you just have to say, “Hey, this is what we’ll accept for the home.” 

You’d be amazed at home many people step up and buy the home because they’ve been around; they’ve seen the market.  They’re emotionally tied to the house.  They made an offer, and chances are 70% of the time they’re going to end up buying that home even though they came in and made you a crazy offer.  So pricing in the market is very critical because buyers compare homes before they make offers.  And they’re going to make the offer on the home that appears to be the best value to them.  If you have any questions about anything, please call us, 867-3020.

Q:  Is it wise to pay extra on your house each month or to send in a 13th mortgage payment to attack the principal?  Or should I invest that extra money and then use the profits to pay a large amount on the principal to get my house paid off more quickly?
 
A:  Here’s one way to look at your situation.  Putting your money into the stock market or other investments by its very nature includes some risk to your capital.  When you pay down the principal owed on your home, there is no risk – the total amount you owe goes down every time. 
 
I guess the bottom line is that you need to ask yourself, “What is my ultimate goal here?”  If you’re working toward paying down the loan on your house more quickly, I suspect your best move is to use your extra money to directly reduce the principal you owe on your mortgage.
 
Considering the unexpected twists and turns our economy has experienced the past few years, there is something to be said for the peace of mind that comes with eliminating your debts.  You’ll just sleep better at night knowing your house is paid off.

In this week's episode of Taste of the Town Tim Dutton visits the Slick Pig Barbeque located on East Main Street in Murfreesboro. Tim interviews the owner, John Robinson, and samples some of Slick Pig's more popular dishes including their BBQ, ribs, and their most popular meal, their smoked chicken wings.

This week's Taste of the Town Special? 10% off just for mentioning Taste of the Town. With the Slick Pig's already low prices you just can't beat that!

Find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TasteoftheTown or subscribe to our iTunes Podcast via This Link

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

TIM:  Tim Dutton here with another edition of Taste of the Town.  Folks, today I’m sitting at the Slick Pig with owner, John Robinson.  John, thank you for having us today.

JOHN:  Well, you’re welcome.

TIM:  Man, I’ve been looking forward to this one because this is not my first trip as far as eating your food, man.  And it is always delicious.

JOHN:  We appreciate it.

TIM:  John, you want to tell folks a little bit about where you’re located first of all.

JOHN:  Okay.  We’re down here about a mile from MTSU going away from the square, and it’s 1920 East Main Street.  We’ve been here for 15 years, started in 1995.  Our hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11 to 8, closed on Sunday and Monday.  We’ve been doing this for a long time.

TIM:  And been doing it right for a long time.

JOHN:  We appreciate that.

TIM:  Yeah, you guys have exploded in business.  Some of the things I wanted to talk to you about today, you guys make your own potato salad, coleslaw.

JOHN:  Everything’s homemade.  We do it right here every day.  We’ve got a couple of women who make the potato salad homemade.  We’ve got the coleslaw.  It’s homemade, special ingredients in there.  These right here.  We’ve got a BBQ sandwich on garlic toast.  We sell a lot of them.  Now we’ve got the ribs right here.  We sell a bunch of them.  We’ve got a Friday special on them for $12.99 for a whole rack, guaranteed to be satisfied on them.

The hickory smoked wings right here, we sell a bunch of them.  That is our biggest seller right there.  We marinade them and smoke them, and we’ve got a special seasoning that we marinade them in.  And we’ve been selling a bunch of them.

TIM:  John, nothing that you guys do comes in pre-packed.  I just took a bite of the potato salad and the coleslaw and it’s all done…

JOHN:  It’s authentic.  It’s like your personalities up here.  It’s authentic.  We’ve got everything.  It comes in not on a truck.  We get it and we start making it every day.  We get here at five in the morning, and we’ll start working on all the prep stuff at five in the morning, and that will last all day long.  If we run out at 5:00 tonight, we’ve got a lady that makes it from 5:00 to 8:00, and it’s all done homemade, fresh every day.

TIM:  I’ll tell you what, man.  I’d hate to waste any of this.  I know you have accidents with the bibs, but it didn’t seem to go to the shirt.

JOHN:  Hey, that’s a new idea right there.  Get some bibs, Slick Pig BBQ.

TIM:  That is good.  And the wings…And you guys cater too.

JOHN:  Yeah.  We do a lot of catering.

TIM:  Because I’ve been to several different events and stuff.

JOHN:  And they’ve had our food?

TIM:  And they’ve had your food, and these things go like crazy.

JOHN:  Yeah, they do.  We sell them, Tim, by the thousands.  And I’ll tell you what, we’ve had so many compliments on them wings.  And I mean, every day smoking thousands of these things.  I mean, like today, we’ll go through 5,000 wings on a Thursday.

TIM:  That’s how popular they are.

JOHN:  That’s how popular they are.  From big businesses to small businesses, the little company picnics, 10 or 15 people.

TIM:  Yeah.

JOHN:  Fifty people, luncheons for their work.  Weddings.  We cater all these things right here.  And I mean, they go out of here.  Once they get them, they come out.  Try them ribs right there.

TIM:  I was going to say they do.  And John, I don’t know that I’ve ever tried your ribs.

JOHN:  I’ll tell you what.  Them things are just tender as they can be.

TIM:  Whoo! 

JOHN:  And that right there.  That will win first prize at the county fair.

TIM:  And John, you guys have daily lunch specials.

JOHN:  Yes, we do.

TIM:  You want to tell folks a little bit about them?

JOHN:  We’ve got the No. 3 lunch special every day.  That’s a pork sandwich, drink, and bag of chips, and small baked beans.  That’s for $4.99.  That’s every day, all day long, even at night.  We’ve got a No. 2 lunch special that comes with two sandwiches.  That’s BBQ pork, chips, and a sweet tea.  I believe that one’s $5.50.  That’s every day as well.

We’ve got a Brunswick stew coming out of Georgia.  It’s like a soup, but that’s made with pork, beef, chicken, tomatoes, and corn.  It’s like a soup, a thick soup.  And that comes with garlic bread or cornbread.  And that’s done homemade.  And that right there is $2.95.

TIM:  Now John, is it on Tuesday night that you’ve got your 99-cent specials on the sandwiches?

JOHN:  Well, the 99-cent BBQ sandwich is all day long.  It starts at 11 and ends at 8:00.

TIM:  And that’s every Tuesday?

JOHN:  Every Tuesday, yep.

TIM:  Folks, that’s a no-brainer.  Come on down.

JOHN:  That’s right.

TIM:  It is a complete no-brainer.  Come on down here to where East Main Street tris to turn into Woodbury Highway and get you a 99-cent BBQ sandwich.  John, do you have a special for the people that come in and say they saw it on Taste of the Town?

JOHN:  Yeah, if they come in and say they seen it on Taste of the Town, we’re going to give them 10% off.  If they just mention they seen this on Taste of the Town, we’ll give them 10% off their meal.  And that’s a no-brainer as well.  It’s very simple around here.

TIM:  Well, you need to for me to keep up, man.  Well, listen guys, it will not be a waste of your time to come down here and see John and try some of this delicious food, if you haven’t.  And if you’re a regular customer, come on down and get 10% off.  And remember, if you’re thinking real estate, think Tim Dutton.

John Jones shares the Rutherford County Tennessee real estate statistics as of August 2010.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones with another edition of Tuesday Morning Coffee.  First of all, today, I want to give a shout out to my good friends who watch us every week from Idaho, John and Heather Fischer, and they grew up here in Murfreesboro.  And I’ve been informed that they keep up with what’s going on here locally and watch Tuesday Morning Coffee, so how are you guys doing?  I hope you’re doing well.  And they live out in Idaho right beside the Wyoming border out there.  But good friends of mine.

Today, we’re going to talk about July home sales here in Rutherford County.  They were down quite a bit.  We kind of expected it because of the hangover from the tax credit, but here locally in Rutherford County in ’09 we did 366 units.  This year, we did 263.  That’s down 28% over last year.  Pendings were off 24% over July of last year, which means August is probably going to be down a little bit as well.

Overall, for the year, still positive news.  Home sales are up 10%.  They took a big whack.  They had been running about 18 to 20%, but this month kind of took them down a little bit.  Another interesting statistic, for the year, closed home sales, we averaged last year in closed price of $169,662.  This year, it’s at $165,676.  So our prices are staying pretty close to where they were last year.  Thank God.  And I hope that continues.

I think in the upper price range we’re still seeing some devaluation, lower price ranges not so much.  Maybe 100 to 130 to 140.  I think they have pretty much stabilized.  Our inventory is 2,200 homes on the market, which is about exactly where we were last year with 2,257.  So our inventories are coming back up a little bit due to the last month or so, but my predictions here on out, I think next month is going to be weak.

And I’m hoping that the fall weather kind of cooling off a little bit will help us get more people out looking around, and it’s still depressed pricing, lowest interest rates we’ll ever see.  It’s still the most awesome time to buy a home that I’ve seen since I’ve been in the business.  So if you have the opportunity to buy or are thinking about it, definitely, definitely do it.

But if you should need anything, please give us a call at 867-3020 or you can reach us on our website at JohnCJones.com.  And one other thing, if anybody knows someone—and I think almost everybody does—that is facing foreclosure, please have them give us a call, 867-3020.  We’ve been able to help a lot of people in the last 24 months avoid foreclosure.  Please give us a call and we’ll see if we can help them, 867-3020.  Thank you.

Q:  I’m considering selling my house and purchasing another but I think I may not get top dollar for my home.  Is it a good time to purchase with the low interest rates and housing inventory or should I wait since I may not get top dollar for mine?
 
A:  If you’re selling your home in order to buy another home – especially if you’re moving up in house – the current market requires you to look at the situation as a package deal.  Sure, you’re probably going to get less for your home than you would like.  But the flip side is that on your purchase you’re going to be able to find a heck of a deal because of the incredible seller competition out there right now.  Add into the mix that interest rates have been hovering around all-time lows and that means you can get more house for the money than ever before.  Plus on the listing side, the market has shown very clearly that homes priced to sell are still moving very quickly—even in this competitive buyers market.

This week Tim Dutton takes Taste of the Town to The Chef Place by Julio, located on Maple Street on the Murfreesboro town square, and spends some time tasting a variety of dishes prepared by Chef Julio. This week's Taste of the Town Special? Buy one meal at The Chef Place and get the second one 50% off just for mentioning Taste of the Town. That's breakfast, lunch or dinner. Now you can't beat that!

Find us on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TasteoftheTown or subscribe to our iTunes Podcast via This Link

View on iPad/iPhone HERE

Transcript

TIM:  Tim Dutton here with another edition of Taste of the Town.  Listen y’all, today, I’m here at the Chef’s Place, and I’m sitting with Chef Julio.  Julio, thank you for having us, man.

JULIO:  How are you guys doing?

TIM:  Good.  Now you guys have moved.  You’re now located on the square right on Maple Street, right?

JULIO:  Yes, sir.  Like I tell people, “We are moving uptown.”  We were on Medical Center Parkway for almost 3-1/2 years, and we got the opportunity to come to the square and we just jumped into it.  This is probably the most beautiful square in Tennessee period.

TIM:  Now Julio, something that a lot of folks don’t know or a some folks don’t know, you also cater; you also do a personal chef.  Tell people about the different aspects of what you do as a chef?

JULIO:  We are a full catering company.  We have been voted three years in a row favorite caterer in Rutherford County.  We do personal chef.  We go to people’s houses and cook and serve the meal and on a smaller scale of course.  We do cooking classes here in the store, and we have frozen casseroles to go.

TIM:  So you take them home and cook?

JULIO:  Yeah, if your wife doesn’t feel like cooking, she can just come here, fill up the freezer.  And when she comes home, put them in the oven, and you have your meal ready—a good home-cooked meal.

TIM:  Guys, you’re a phone call away from having Julio at your house being your personal chef if you choose.  Now Julio, you guys are also going to start opening up in the morning through the month of August to kind of test the breakfast situation.

JULIO:  Well, we started last week serving a lot of our neighbors who asked us to serve breakfast, so we are trying to test the waters.  That’s why on our flyer it says this is just a test.

TIM:  Right.  Good.  Now are we just talking about eggs, bacon?

JULIO:  We have biscuits, eggs, bacon.  Today, we made some fresh banana muffins.  And I need to get one of the girls to bring you one because you’re going to die for them.

TIM:  I’m a muffin lover from way back.

JULIO:  Bring him a banana muffin.

TIM:  Tell me a little bit about what we have here.

JULIO:  We’re emphasizing health salads.  This is our Caribbean salad.  It’s baby greens with black beans, mandarin oranges, grilled chicken, tortilla strips, and don’t forget the champagne dressing.  That’s our house dressing.

TIM:  Now this is healthy?

JULIO:  As healthy as it’s going to get.

TIM:  And you guys make all of your own dressings, right?

JULIO:  We make our dressings.

TIM:  It’s your recipe.

JULIO:  Well, champagne dressing, that was Arthur’s Restaurant’s dressing.  That was their house dressing, but I was the one making it.  So since the restaurant closed, I talked to the owners and they said you’re more than welcome to make it.

TIM:  Take another bite here, man.

JULIO:  Then we have sandwiches.  Like that one is the maple strip club made the old-fashioned way, bunches of meat, fresh tomatoes.  We are using homegrown tomatoes.

TIM:  We’re doing a little business with the farmers out there at the farmer’s market.

JULIO:  Yes, sir, we are.  Well, when you cut a tomato and it looks like a watermelon inside, you know it’s going to be good.  There is no reason to have white tomatoes right now with the temperature 100 degrees outside.

TIM:  Right. 

JULIO:  You can have nice red tomatoes, and that’s what we are serving.

TIM:  That’s what you guys—

JULIO:  We don’t serve anything pre-made.  Everything is fresh.

TIM:  Now Julio, I took a little sneak bite—

JULIO:  Mashed potatoes.

TIM:  —of your mashed potatoes.

JULIO:  Good old-fashioned mashed potatoes.

TIM:  Well, I don’t know, man.  Grandma’s is good, but this has got something else different in it.

JULIO:  Well, my idea of old fashioned is garlic, is parsley, is butter, is cream.

TIM:  It is outstanding.

JULIO:  It ain’t diet.  I’ll tell you that much.  Mashed potatoes are not diet.

TIM:  Now what do you have right here?

JULIO:  That is a polish sausage.  That is a company from Chicago that I buy all my sausage from.  And they have polish sausage.  But the secret is to start with a real sausage.  I try not to buy commercial sausages from the store.  Like I say, I bring my own sausage from Chicago.

TIM:  Now you had mentioned the muffin.

JULIO:  Well, Vanessa, my helper in the kitchen, she’s the one that started breakfast.  And she came up with a recipe to make banana muffins.  And I think she has a winner because it’s really good.

TIM:  That is good.

JULIO:  Made 100 percent from scratch.  Nothing synthetic.  And I don’t even know how to make it.  That’s Vanessa’s deal.

TIM:  Julio, do you have a special for anybody that comes in and says they saw you guys on Taste of the Town?

JULIO:  Well, I’ve been thinking about that.  And I think since they are your customers and I want to get them to be my customers, if somebody comes and mentions that they saw you on your show, how about we give them buy one, get the second one half price?

TIM:  And I guarantee the food, folks.  Well, that’s about it for this edition of Taste of the Town.  And remember, if you’re thinking real estate, think Tim Dutton.

In this episode of Tuesday Morning Coffee John Jones interviews Phil Cavender, an investment and retirement specialist in Murfreesboro. They discuss building a tax free retirement.

Tuesday Morning Coffee is also available as an iTunes Podcast HERE or you can watch this episode on your iPad/iPhone HERE.

Transcript

JOHN:  Hey, guys.  John Jones here with Tuesday Morning Coffee.  As I’ve told you guys many times before, I always love to learn from people that are a lot smarter than me, which isn’t hard to find.  But today, it’s definitely the case.  Phil Cavender with the Cavender Financial Group is here today with us, and Phil’s a good friend of mine.  And Phil has done some amazing things to help people build wealth and also he specializes in tax-free investments.  Is that fair to say?  In a nutshell, Phil, tell people kind of what you do.

PHIL:  Well, John, mainly we’re managing people’s I guess you’d say their money in safe money instruments; 401Ks, IRAs, SEPs are such a large part of what people have placed their money in, so you naturally have to look at those instruments and manage those.  However, I think the greatest benefit that I offer really is more tax-free incomes that people are not aware of, something like a Roth IRA.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  Or some other things that actually outdo a Roth.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  So those are the things I look at.  I try to get people on the idea of tax-free retirement income rather than taxable retirement incomes.

JOHN:  I got you.  In fact, we were just talking—pick up that book—talking about the tax man and the IRS.  Phil is part of a group called Ed Slott’s Elite IRA Advisor Group, which you’re probably the only guy in Murfreesboro or maybe one of the few in Middle Tennessee that’s even a part of this group.  They get together—

PHIL:  Twice a year.

JOHN:  —twice a year and they go over—just this right here is one year of tax law changes, just in one year.  So this guy is on top of this stuff.  But what was interesting is a few weeks ago, Phil and I were having lunch and I looked at Phil because I’ve been thinking about this.  I said, “Phil, every year I’m told to put as much as I can into my IRA.  I’m told to just man, really pump that up.  That’s how you’re going to get wealthy, retirement income.”

And I was thinking about it and I said, “Okay, I’m taking every dime I can muster to put it in here because I’m supposedly saving taxes, tax savings in this current year.  But it’s going to grow and it’s going to grow—hopefully—although it hasn’t.  And then when I pull it out at 59-1/2 I’m going to be paying taxes on it.  Correct?”  And he said, “Yeah, You’re right, John.”  And I said, “But Phil, I don’t know what the tax rates going to be then.  So is this really smart?  I don’t know.  I’m uncertain.”

And he made the greatest analogy that I want him to share with you today, and it really hit home with me.  And that’s about the corn.  We’ve got corn here, guys.  There’s a reason.  We’ve got our props.

PHIL:  You know, I might, John, add to that it would be like you with one of your clients and they’re buying a house.  And they go to the bank to get the loan and the banker says, “Sure, we’ll let you borrow the money, but we’ll set the interest rate later on that, what that will cost you later.”

JOHN:  Yeah.  It’s kind of an unknown out there.

PHIL:  I don’t know that many people would be taking advantage of that.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  But my point about my illustration that I told you about a few weeks ago was I compared it to a 401K or IRA plan to a farmer who gets ready in the springtime of the year to do his spring planning, so he goes to the co-op and he goes to buy seed.  And the co-op manager that year says, “John, this year, if you want to you can pay the tax over here on the seed.  And if you pay the tax over here on the seed, then when the harvest comes in over here, all that money will be yours tax free.  On the other hand, if you want to defer the tax over here, then when this comes in at the end, you’re going to be taxed on all of that money and we don’t know what the tax rate’s going to be in the future.”

That’s the deal we have with our government.  And so the point there about all the tax law changes, this is the tax law change in one year.  And so it’s constantly changing.  It’s manipulated.  It’s kind of like social security when it all began.  If you go back and look at the tenets of how it began, it was going to be tax-free money; it was going to deductible, the amount that you put in.  None of those things are true today because the government makes the rules.

It’s like former President Gerald Ford, back when he was living, I had lunch with him one day in Nashville.  And I was talking to him about what I did, and he said, “Just always remember this.  Any government big enough to give you something is a government big enough to take it all away.”  And I’ve never really forgotten that.

JOHN:  That’s very true.

PHIL:  And it’s certainly true in 401K, IRA distributions, SEPs and any other qualified retirement plan where somebody’s getting a deduction.  There is no tax savings.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  The terminology’s wrong, and yet I hear everybody say they’re going to save taxes.  The terminology’s wrong.  They’re deferring taxes.

JOHN:  They’re deferring it to a later date on the growth, and we don’t know what the rate is.

PHIL:  It’s the harvest there.

JOHN:  The harvest.

PHIL:  And then you’ve got many people that have risk instruments, so in our illustration here today, you could take away half the basket of the harvest here because that’s where a lot of people are right now.

JOHN:  Right.

PHIL:  They’ve got half of what they used to have, and yet that half hasn’t been taxed yet either.

JOHN:  Wow.  That’s interesting.  That’s good stuff.  Phil, if somebody wanted to contact you what’s your phone number out there?

PHIL:  Our phone number is of course 615, but the number is 895-7773.

JOHN:  What about your website?

PHIL:  The website’s CavenderFinancial.com.

JOHN:  Phil, thank you so much.  I love your wisdom.  I think it’s very powerful, and I think it makes a lot of sense.  And I think your clients have done pretty well over the last few years compared to most.  Wouldn’t you say?

PHIL:  We haven’t lost a dollar of anybody’s money.

JOHN:  Well, maybe I should have found you a few years ago, but Phil, thank you man.  I appreciate you so much.

PHIL:  You’re welcome.  Thank you.

JOHN:  Okay.