Month: November 2023

Episode Transcript

---

Anika Jackson 00:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. This is your Brand Amplified, and we’re doing something a little different. I love to have episodes where we’re talking about things that entrepreneurs themselves come up with but also need to think about when it comes to our health and well-being. Tom Paladino is going to treat us to something really special today on the podcast. So, Tom of Scale Our Light, thank you for being here. 

Tom Paladino 00:39

And I thank you for the invitation, Anika. 

Anika Jackson 00:42

Of course. So I’ve looked at your website a little bit. I’ve obviously looked at your profile, your LinkedIn, but I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about what is Scale, Our Light, and how did you become interested in this topic. 

Tom Paladino 00:58

Scale Our Light. I work with Scale Our Light instruments. What is Scale Our Light? It’s the energy of the universe, the light of the universe. This is the energy that gives power to the sun and the stars. It’s not electricity. So we’re working with the primal cause, the initial energy of the universe. It’s so important to realize that, because energy is fundamental and when you can work with this fundamental energy, you can control nature, you have a command over nature. 

Anika Jackson 01:28

Interesting. I am a big believer in that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe right, and so we’re all connected in different ways, and I love reading things about how nature is connected. You can actually see that trees and plants are speaking to each other through root systems and all of the beauty that’s entailed in energy. But let’s take a step back. How did you get interested in this topic? What did you study in school? Did you know that you’re going to go into this field, or did you have something else in mind? 

Tom Paladino 02:01

That’s a great question. I always loved science. I was always very curious and, frankly, I did not know what I wanted to do in high school or college. But I read as a youngster. I read about the work of Nikla Tesla and I said to myself, okay, this is wonderful, this is fascinating. However, this is a new science. How is it possible that I’m supposed to gear project myself to a new science that has no academic standing? Well, you do it alone, and that’s what I’ve done. It’s groundbreaking research. So after my university career, I decided to study independently Groundbreaking research, and I’ve taken the years to get this far, but that’s what it takes. I’m at the vanguard of this movement right now. 

Anika Jackson 02:46

Yes, and this has been your life’s work essentially that’s correct. Yeah, so tell us what you discovered in that process of your studying it. What compelled you to realize this is something that everybody needs to know about. This is something that somebody needs to spend their life investigating and figuring out how we, as humans, can utilize this for our own health. 

Tom Paladino

03:07

Yeah, you’re absolutely right. So what’s the point here? Technology should help people. That’s the bottom line. Why did I spend a lifetime at this? Because this is free energy. It’s clean, renewable, cannot cause any harm, it’s non-physical, its benefits are immeasurable as compared to electricity or coal or gasoline engines, et cetera. Wow, so let me demonstrate. Behind me is Scholar Energy Instrument. This is a miniature star. Remember, scholar Energy is from the Sun and the Stars, so I have a miniature star behind me. The energy is so strong. If I hold a light bulb in my hand, the instrument can illuminate the light bulb. Wow, now what’s the point? There’s energy in my laboratory pulsing. With this free energy, scholar Energy, and the key is now presently, I’m able to use that energy to improve what I call quantum health, not biological health, human health on the quantum level, meaning on the level of information or the level of intelligence. We’ll get into that Awesome. 

Anika Jackson 04:15

Anybody who is listening to this episode instead of watching needs to stop what you’re doing right now and go to Traverse TV or to YouTube and watch this episode so that you can see everything that Tom is sharing and demonstrating, because that was remarkable the fact that you can harness this energy. So how do you harness the stars and the Sun energy? 

Tom Paladino 04:34

That’s the key. I’ll show the instrument really quickly. If you look at this instrument, there’s no moving parts, right? So we actually capture the energy from the Sun and the stars. It’s all around us, but I’ve learned how to channel it, how to focus it with this instrument. Now, what do I mean by that? 

04:52

I work with people, but not in a biological sense. I work with people energetically by way of their photograph. I’m holding up my photograph, which has Scholar Energy attached to it. My photograph, anybody’s photograph, has energy attached to it, specifically a scalar signal, and if I place my photograph inside that instrument, then I’m enjoying a chakra balancing. There’s so much white light going into my photograph, it will balance my chakras. So the amount of white light that’s illuminating now is the identical white light entering into my chakra field or into my quantum field. This is all non-physical light, corrective light, it’s divine light. So scan energy’s chi, prana, consciousness. The instrument’s so strong it will broadcast that consciousness of that chi or prana to the point it can illuminate a light bulb. This is what I’ve discovered. It’s quite fascinating and it has broad applications to quantum health. Energetic meaning our body’s intellectual composition, our force field or the aura, not flesh and bones, our aura. 

Anika Jackson 06:06

Yeah, so what are some of the ways that you use it with people right now? 

Tom Paladino 06:11

Okay, as I demonstrated, we have three main protocols. For one hour a day, I’ll take a person’s photograph and I will practice a chakra balancing. If I keep your photograph close to this instrument for one hour a day, you’re receiving that amount of light in your chakras, in your brainwaves. So what does that mean? You’re happier. Many people say they have a sensation of euphoria, or you can sleep better. Some people say they have a surge of energy. I would just say that they no longer have a desire for excessive alcohol or cigarettes. So the chakra balancing by this white corrective light seems to balance. The chakra seems to curb, or, if you will overcome addictions or phobias. Now how the light is corrective, it’s divine light. There’s no human reasoning to this process. The protocol that I exercise is a light protocol, no human input. There’s no human reasoning. Hence there’s no room for human error. 

Anika Jackson 07:16

So it reminds me a little bit of when you hear like reiki or laying on of hands and like helping people heal through giving them different energy, and I know it’s something you know. I’m sure some people listening are like, yes, this sounds really interesting and innovative. Other people are like this is so out of left field. I don’t really understand it unless you’ve experienced it or studied right. So when you started this journey, what did people think? Did you get a lot of pushback and like what? How are you going to make a career out of that? What is this? 

Tom Paladino 07:48

Yeah, you know, most people are very gracious because they want to see progress, and only those who really who are stiff neck will not listen. You know, if I’m following the laws of science, there’s no deception. You cannot fool the laws of science. So this is a scientific process. So, furthermore, I really stand on the shoulders of two men that I know Tesla, nikola Tesla, and another scientist by name of Gail and Hieronymus. Both of them had skater energy instruments and I’ve learned from them and in many ways, I’ve copied them. So what’s taken place for the past 100 years is not my exclusive endeavor. I am working. This is the next generation of skater energy development. Now, put all of that into context. What can we do with this instrument? Well, when people come to our website, we give them a 15-day free session because we want people to experience this new technology. It’s never been done before again. My instrument is unique. So one hour a day, we’ll balance the chakras. The second hour a day follow me. 

08:49

I take photographs of microbes and I match them up with photographs of people. Now, remember, this is all information. Intelligence, it’s not a biological process. The energy of, let’s say, the herpes virus will look for the signal. The herpes virus inside my quantum field. This instrument can find the herpes virus inside of me and bring it to a state of chaos or disassemble it Through intelligence. It’s not a chemical process. So all I have to do is take a photograph of a microbe and the instrument will find that microbe and eradicate it. 

09:26

Whether it’s the herpes virus or the epstein bar virus, or, say, a bacterium, enterococcus, the instrument finds the signal for the pathogen. Now again, why do I use photographs? My photograph is a source of light. It’s perfect. Enterococcus as a bacterium, it has a source of light. That is perfect. If you communicate with these two fields, with those two communication systems, it’s perfect communication. So you cannot make a mistake. So if I communicate enterococcus with my force field, that’s what’s going to happen, and I can find a enterococcus and destroy it, remove it, bring it to a state of chaos. 

Anika Jackson 10:12

I’d love to hear some case studies, because when people come to the website, they have to send you a photo, right? They have to input information about their health or do a quick review. 

Tom Paladino 10:21

Actually, I treat everybody identically, so there’s no one-on-one session Today. I work with thousands of photographs. To your previous question, here’s a PCR test result a polymerase chain reaction test result for somebody who had herpes and, according to this person, they no longer have a viral load for herpes after the scalar energy session. Wow, here’s a PCR test for Epstein bar and herpes. This individual says they no longer have a viral load for Epstein bar or herpes. Here’s a PCR test a before and after PCR test for somebody who had HIV. Four months after we worked with this person by way of their photograph, they no longer have any viral load for HIV. There’s another person who submitted a test result undetectable no viral load for HIV. 

11:15

We have 4,000 testimonies on the website. So you get my point. This is not hyperbole. This is not my imagination. People from around the world tell me that they no longer have disease conditions. They feel better. They have a surge of energy. Many of their disease symptoms have left To be very clear. You cannot explain what I’m doing by way of Newtonian physics or by way of medical science. I don’t work with Newtonian principles. This is not a medical device. I work with the aura, the energy field of a person. Now we know in Western medicine they’re working with flesh and bones. I never work in person. I don’t work with people. I work with the aura on a photograph. 

Anika Jackson 11:57

Interesting, and do people usually come to you for one issue, for instance for one of those diseases, and then continue working with you on other things after that, or do they usually like one thing and then they’re like I’m healed? 

Tom Paladino 12:12

All of the above. People are so different. So I work with thousands of people every day. So some people simply say well, I’ll try this 15-day session and I’ll see what it’s all about. And after 15 days, most of them are believers, because they feel better. Now, why do they feel better? Well, there’s thousands of conditions and there’s thousands of reasons why they feel better. As a new science, we’re gaining data. As a new science. Nobody to match my work with, so I’m alone at this, so I have to rely upon the testimonies of people, because that’s all I have. Nobody else has duplicated my results, but I will say, most people, after we give them the 15-day free session, feel better. So there’s something there or something’s happening. 

Anika Jackson 12:56

And then, after the 15 days, what does it look like? Because I know this is a large investment, obviously, of your time, your money, your intellect and your spiritual ability. So is it cost prohibitive after 15? 

Tom Paladino 13:09

days. No, it’s $89 a month. I’m trying to heal the road. I don’t want to break the bank here and I realize times are tough today. So my goal as a researcher is to help people. I’m not in this for money, Suffice to say. You have nothing to lose except your germs. 

Anika Jackson 13:28

I’m just floored that this isn’t being used by more people. Well, I’m floored, but I’m not, at the same time, right, because we know that we live in a capitalist society. That’s all about how much money you make from pharma and from doctors and from all these other things. So I want to know a little bit more about, like you said, people are very welcoming and most people are very accepting and they engage, especially once they start seeing results. Have you had pushback from the medical establishment or are people starting to go? No, we want to work with you. 

Tom Paladino 14:00

That’s a good point. I have not had any pushback from the medical establishment because I’m not practicing medicine. Yeah, okay, Okay now I don’t mean to be coy with you. I would say that to anybody. This is not medicine, this is a new science when we realize that a photograph carries a signal. Right now we’re having a conversation through our computers. It’s a computer interview. Well, your image is my computer, my image, I’m sure the audience sees in the laboratory. Well, what’s the point? If you can share an image, you can share a photograph, Great, Okay. So a photograph has a source of light energy, intelligence. This is the new science. First, we have to define what we’re doing. So, to answer your question, nobody in the medical field has this instrument. Nobody has. 

Anika Jackson 14:47

My experience, yeah, and you mentioned that you work with thousands of people a day. What does that look like? Because imagine that you can hold up photos to do you have a large machine. That oh okay. 

Tom Paladino 15:01

The photographs are miniaturized. Amazing, Placing that collage inside the instrument. I can easily fit two, three million photographs in the instrument at a time. So my goal is to heal the world by way of photographs, and we’re in the process of doing so. Today, in my lab, I treated half a million photographs. So all science, people, scientifically engineered instruments, no human input. I don’t put my two cents into this. The energy does all the work. And the test results? Well, yeah, they speak for themselves. They speak. You know I’ve got 4,000 testimonies on the website. You know you can ask yourself well, why is it that this person tells us that they no longer have a viral load for herpes? Right, you investigate, you tell me what you think. People sign up for the 15-day free session. That’s why it’s there. 

Anika Jackson 15:56

Are you ready to take your brand’s new heights? Join the Brand Amplifier for Entrepreneurs program. Learn how to build, elevate and amplify your brand with a comprehensive 10-model course. Learn more about it and other ways to implement our strategies at fullcapacitymarketingcom. Click on EFCM Learning Hub for more information. Can’t wait to help you amplify your brand. Does this also have implications? I think about everything going on in the world right now, and you hear about people coming together with. You know the power of positive thinking or the power of prayer, just like trying to heal the world through putting that collective energy out. When you think about the wars and the conflicts and all of the things that happen, is this another modality that could perhaps be used to help guide people to make the right decisions to come together to yes? 

Tom Paladino 16:53

Yes, it actually helps people with our conscious to decide what’s right and what’s wrong, to give them a greater sense of clarity. There’s so many benefits here and I hope this science takes off and I hope people really embrace this technology. This will change the world in time. 

Anika Jackson 17:12

Yeah, the better Now on this journey, do you have people who are helping you? Now? Are you training other people how to do this? 

Tom Paladino 17:21

Nobody’s interested. You see, there’s no money in it. You cannot make a career out of this. Who wants to spend their life studying a science which there’s no money, there’s no immigration. No, nobody’s interested. 

Anika Jackson 17:34

No, so what’s going to happen once? 

Tom Paladino 17:38

Once I die? That’s a good question. You know that’s a good point. There have been, say, 10 skater energy experts that I admire, and then all of them none of their family members have continued on with it. Very few people really want to get into this science. None of them know why. It’s baffling to me, but for whatever reason. No, it’s just not happened. 

Anika Jackson 18:00

Then I think about on the flip side. You have an entrepreneur who’s not getting enough sleep, who’s like working grinding all the time, has no balance, not eating well. Their health is going downhill, so I see also a place where this can help them heal. But then how do we solve the human aspect of like, also making them realize they need to perhaps have a better quality of life and put a little balance, take care of themselves on the physical plane as well? 

Tom Paladino 18:29

Yeah, that’s a good point. Maybe the chakra balancing will give them that insight. We’ll correct their conscience. You’re right, correct. But life is more than just working, yeah. 

Anika Jackson 18:38

Yeah, although I feel like you probably spend a lot of your time working, but I also see joy in that. 

Tom Paladino 18:45

That’s right, you’re right. 

Anika Jackson 18:46

This really is your life’s purpose. 

Tom Paladino 18:48

It is, and it’s easy when you enjoy what you’re doing. It’s easy, really not work. 

Anika Jackson 18:53

Yeah, Wow. So obviously, if somebody wants to dip their toe into learning more, we know they can go to your website. We know that they can do the 15-day retrial. What other advice would you have for somebody who’s looking to go a little bit further on their journey of figuring out? You know how to improve things beyond the physicality of the. 

Tom Paladino 19:11

Yeah Well, we all have that gift. It’s called prayer, meditation, positive thinking. I firmly believe a thought, positive thought or prayer is a scalar wave and I can theorize. It can prove that, because a thought, a prayer does not observe time or space. You can pray at a distance. Well, scalar energy works at a distance. It transcends time and space and it’s non-physical. Prayer is non-physical. So we are scalar beings. Every time we think or pray, that’s a scalar wave that we’re creating. 

Anika Jackson 19:44

That’s such a great connection. Thank you, I think that’s going to be very clear. It’s very clear for me to visualize. I think it’s going to be very clear for our audience to understand the connection between those. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it. 

19:56

I was also thinking this morning about how, when you put more energy into something where your energy flows, attention goes or is it yes, all right when it goes, energy flows, I guess yeah, I said it backwards the first time, but I’ve seen that in my life with, like, if I put more energy and thought into certain things that I’m working on, more positive things are happening in those areas, whether it’s more opportunities for work or whether it’s more amazing people that I’m meeting, or whatever the case may be, and so I feel like that’s another way to frame what you’re doing. 

Tom Paladino 20:32

Yes, you’re obviously right, and that’s going back to my notion of thought, meditation, prayer. It’s a scan wave. What you think and what you pray for is what you get. It’s real. It’s very real, yeah, because if you set that intention out, that’s what comes back to your eventually in some form or another. 

Anika Jackson 20:51

So, besides spending a lot of time healing people so you said you don’t work one-on-one with folks have you written a book, or are you thinking about writing, putting this into a book or a manual or a workshop for that to leave a legacy beyond, obviously, the millions of people that you’re helping heal? 

Tom Paladino 21:07

Yeah, thank you. I’m writing articles just about one article every two weeks. That’s on the website. Well, I write a book, maybe in the future, but I’m just too busy. 

Anika Jackson 21:16

Yeah, and then I saw the article up into a book. 

Tom Paladino 21:20

I’m thinking about that. That’s a couple of years off still, but that’s a good point, thank you. 

Anika Jackson 21:25

No, I think that would be another way to help continue to introduce the work that you’re doing and get out to more people, which is obviously also why you are doing podcasting right and doing it so that you can reach more people. 

Tom Paladino 21:38

Yeah, and I thank you for that. That’s the only way. Again, with the control, let’s say the media is not fair. 

Anika Jackson 21:44

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to your audience Of course, and yeah, as I mentioned at the top, I love having a variety of speakers, so I have people on to really talk about business and entrepreneurship, and budgets, or SEO or marketing tactics or PR tactics, but I also love having the Feng Shui expert or the EFT expert or the human design expert or the scalar energy expert, and I think there are really great things, because they’re things that we need to be in tune with not just entrepreneurs, right, but every living being Again, thank you for this platform. 

Tom Paladino 22:20

This is a grassroots movement, and what you’re allowing me is to extend, to grow this grassroots movement. Now, why do I make that such a poignant statement? That’s all I can rely upon. I’m not going to get help from big business. Free energy is not going to be welcomed by big business. 

Anika Jackson 22:38

Well, and I wanted to ask about that next, because you talked about how this is free energy, but you can harness it in different ways. So, beyond helping humans, is there an implication not necessarily that you’re going to work on, but that somebody else could work on or might be working on to harness this for the energy we need for our homes, for? 

Tom Paladino 22:55

our vehicles. Yes, that’s one of the avenues we need to take and hopefully, as God gives me the knowledge, I’ll be able to light up the building. In the future, with scalar energy, I’ll be able to provide illumination without wires, free energy from the sun and the stars without pollution. I’d love to do that. 

Anika Jackson 23:14

Yeah, I mean, and that’s essentially we all have heard of solar energy, we see the solar panels, so I love this application to humans, but also how we can take it even further than just having the solar panels everywhere. So how long into your journey with this process did it take you to fine tune and finesse the first? 

Tom Paladino 23:34

20 years was theory. I had to learn and study physics. I had to learn Tessa’s work, and the last 20, 25 years I’ve been working with instruments has been a full entire 25 plus 20, 20 years, it’s been close to 50 years. So what’s the point here? It’s going to be much easier for the next generation because you don’t have to start from scratch from the ground floor. I’ve laid the way and I’ve paved the way, and so have other researchers, but in total, the answer question’s been 15 years of work. Oh my gosh. 

Anika Jackson 24:06

I mean that’s true dedication. I don’t think most entrepreneurs, whether they’re Spain or in a different vein, have given that much time to especially to think that you worked on theory for the first half of that. That’s such an investment, so it’s obviously something that you knew could have the opportunity to change the world. 

Tom Paladino 24:28

Yeah, you’re right, god led me and I would not have done then success or more when I have undertaken this, unless God’s hand was upon me. Because this is esoteric, let’s face it, it’s non-physical, it’s the spirit of God, that’s what I’m working with consciousness. I firmly believe this is a divine energy. 

Anika Jackson 24:48

Absolutely. So what do you think is next for you in this journey? I mean, at this site, you’re getting the word out more healing, more people. 

Tom Paladino 24:57

In the next two years I have to start working with hundreds of thousands of people, and once that the ball gets rolling and people speak to one another, the grassroots movement goes accordingly. Then, five years down the road, I’ll have time to work on free energy, and if I can eliminate at a distance, if I can provide energy at a distance to eliminate, then that will be the beginning of the end of the energy crisis. 

Anika Jackson 25:28

That’s a very big statement. I’m definitely going to want to check back in with you to see how that’s going down the road. 

Tom Paladino 25:35

Yeah, thank you, that’s my goal. Amazing, it’s my goal. 

Anika Jackson 25:39

Can you talk about some of the pain points that you’ve had in bringing this to the world, and did you ever get frustrated when you were spending all the time studying in the theory side and you hadn’t actually moved to the creation side? 

Tom Paladino 25:53

There have been hurdles, but thank God for God and thank God for people who are willing to listen. And every year that goes by, a greater number of people are embracing non-physical science or consciousness. They realize that there’s more than rocks and cars in the physical world. They see beyond that now. So we have a real awakening. We call it prayer, consciousness, the ability to appreciate God, believe in God, the divine Things have changed significantly, so it’s a lot easier today than it was 13 years ago. And what do I see? It’s just a matter of time now because people believe. Once people believe, you can’t stop and live, but you cannot stop this. Intellectual progress cannot be stopped. 

Anika Jackson 26:41

Yeah, so what does a typical day look like for you? 

Tom Paladino 26:45

Up early research in the lab for two hours, maybe write an article, look into other types of energy production. That’s really what I’m working on now energy production. It’s always a nine 10-hour day, so this is all I do. There’s no side jobs, there’s no hobby for Tom. This is it. 

Anika Jackson 27:05

My gosh. Well, that was going to be my next question is you’re bringing balance to people, but what balance do you have for your own life? 

Tom Paladino 27:11

I have my wife. That’s my balance. Without my wife, I’d be lost. That’s my balance. 

Anika Jackson 27:18

Amazing. And does she work with you? Does she do something? 

Tom Paladino 27:22

else she has another occupation, but she’s a big support. 

Anika Jackson 27:26

Yeah, fantastic. Well, if there is one thing that you want to leave everybody with, what would that be? 

Tom Paladino 27:34

We have incredible potential people the mind and the heart. The human mind, the human heart are scalar energy vessels. Every time we think or feel, that’s a scalar way. So what you put out there is what you’re going to inherit. A good thought will inherit a good response. A kind deed or mercy or love will respond in kind. So use your mind and your heart appropriately. So they are scalar waves that you’re sending out there, boom. 

Anika Jackson 28:02

And everybody can go to scalarlightcom and follow over the website and I have seen it’s very easy to find how you can get 15 days of free scalar light sessions. So what does that look like? When somebody I’m looking at your website, they click on the free trial upload your photograph. 

Tom Paladino 28:18

the age of the photograph doesn’t matter. At the end of the day I print out the photographs, the Mushi, on a couple sheets of paper, on a collage, and then the following morning I treat you for one hour for chakras, one hour for pathogens. The remaining 22 hours I download nutrients. Oh, I’m able to take photographs of nutrients and download nutrients into people. This is how I get my nutrition. I don’t take a protein shake. 

Anika Jackson 28:47

Oh my gosh. 

Tom Paladino 28:48

So this is the nutrient program for the remaining 22 hours a day I take photographs of vitamins and minerals and I download the energy into a quantum field, into a person. 

Anika Jackson 28:59

I was also noticing that we can submit our own photos, but you can also submit photos of children, loved ones, friends, pets, even. 

Tom Paladino 29:08

Please just get the permission of your family. I have two dogs and I treat my dogs. My pets are fine, they’re healthy. 

Anika Jackson 29:16

I’m very intrigued by that, because I have two dogs and they’re 10 and a half, and one of them has degenerative arthritis in five places, pancreatitis, kidney disease, high blood pressure, problems with her hips, with her CCLs, and it’s just more medications, more medications, special food, all these other things, and I’ve been sitting here going. There has to be a better way. There has to be something else I can do. 

Tom Paladino 29:44

Send your pet, send them in? 

Anika Jackson 29:46

I absolutely will. So, besides healing disease, people you said also can come and look into this, for if they have addictions, if they just need to have a more positive mindset, can somebody say, oh, I just want to lose weight? Or how granular, what level can people get to if they’re like I think I’m in good health, but I just wanted to try this out? 

Tom Paladino 30:10

You know. That’s why we always offer the 15 day free session. Why do we do that? We want people to be relaxed. We want people to experience it on their terms. For instance, to answer your question, we have a program. It’s called natural foods. There’s a photograph of tomato. If I wanted to download that information from tomato into me, I would hold up these two photographs together inside the instrument. So I received the phytochemicals, the antioxidants, from a tomato, but it’s downloaded into me energetically. This is how I receive my nutrition from energy, from sunlight, or if I wanted to receive the energy of spinach. Now, why am I saying this? When people go on this program, natural foods, they don’t eat so much because they’re receiving their nutrition through energy, through light. Wow. So it diminishes their appetite, so they eat less and they lose weight. 

Anika Jackson 31:10

This is just remarkable. I know that I’m signing up and I’m also thinking about not just my listeners, but other friends and people that I want to share this with as well. 

Tom Paladino 31:20

Please, please. That’s the way we get the word out. It works. And while you’re at it, you might want to consider this we have an endorphin and neurotransmitter program. People love this. When we match up photographs with endorphins and neurotransmitters, people are happy. We’re downloading. They’re called happy chemicals. We’re not downloading the chemical, we’re downloading the energy of the endorphin and the person, and the energy is even more pure than the chemical and people produce this feeling of elation. They’re happy. 

Anika Jackson 31:53

Fantastic. Thank you, yeah Well, I don’t know what else to ask you. I feel like this is just something that everybody has to investigate. 

Tom Paladino 32:03

Yes, that’s the best thing. I’ll tell you what sign up people 15 days of free sessions, scandorlightcom, and then, if your audience likes it and there’s a good feedback, bring me back next year and then you can report your testimony to me. Again, I don’t expect people to understand this right off the bat. It’s brand new, it’s a groundbreaking technology. So experience it. Try the 15-day free session and likewise, and if you like it, well, sometime next year you might want to invite me back and we’ll speak about your experience, definitely. 

Anika Jackson 32:36

I always have one last question that I like to ask Do you have a favorite quote, mantra, verse, words of wisdom that help you get through every day? 

Tom Paladino 32:45

Yeah, it’s real simple Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself. If the real practice that this would be so easy, this would be paradise. Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself, that’s it. 

Anika Jackson 33:00

Those are great words and they’re really important words to pull out right now. We’re having a crazy time in the world with that, but it’s always a crazy time right. There’s always so much conflict and so many events natural disasters but if we put more love into everything we do and how we treat people, we’ll see the fruit of that. So, tom, thank you for this demonstration, for sharing your passion and your purpose with us. We’ll obviously have the website and the show notes, and this episode will also be on all of my channels Traverse TV, 360, talk Radio for Women, as well as all the regular podcast channels and in my blog. So I’m looking forward to experiencing this and reporting back to everybody, and I invite my listeners and watchers to join in with me and let me know let Tom know what you think. 

Tom Paladino 33:57

Yeah, please, thank you so much. Let’s heal the world people. Thank you, you’re it Fantastic. 

Anika Jackson 34:04

Thank you, everybody for listening to another episode of your brand Amplified, or watching it, and I’ll be back again in a few days with another amazing expert. Want more? Check out amplifywithanika.com or follow me on socials at @amplifywithanika.

Episode Transcript

---

Anika Jackson 00:01

Welcome to your Brand Amplified, the podcast where we interview marketers, publicists and brands to learn their stories, what makes them tick and tips and tricks that make a difference. This is Anika Jackson with your Brand Amplified, and today I have Chris Papin, of both a law firm and a CPA firm, with his name. Chris, thank you for being here. 

Chris Papin 00:27

Happy to do it, thank you. 

Anika Jackson 00:29

We were talking a little bit Midwestern-er. I always love meeting people from my geographic region of origin, shall we say, and I used to go to Oklahoma on weekends sometimes to just enjoy getting out of Kansas for a little bit. So you’re based in Oklahoma. I’d love to hear your journey into how you got into being a licensed attorney and a CPA, and you also are an insurance producer, so those are similar but different industries. What was that journey like for you? 

Chris Papin 01:01

So it boils down to mom and dad were small business owners and had an entrepreneurial spirit. They taught at our local university, had their own businesses and I kind of don’t know any other way. Then through my education I gravitated towards business and there kind of became a point, particularly in my accounting education, where we would study topics and then there is this kind of pause and it’s like, oh, the attorneys do that. Well, that doesn’t make any sense. Why do you need two people to do one thing? 

01:33

So we went from CPA to law school and then, as we started working with clients and helping build some of the advisory-based plans the insurance license were born out of helping folks build an estate plan. Then we go down a road and the best story ever a client flat looks at me and says, hey, can you do that too? I’m like not yet, but give me a few weeks. So we picked that license up. But it really boils all back down to how can we serve our client base, how can we serve the small businesses and small business owners in our community and surrounding areas? If there’s something else we can pick up and do, we’re going to go do that. 

Anika Jackson 02:11

Well, and these are things that for me personally, I think as entrepreneurs and small businesses, we get overwhelmed by all of these areas that you’re now helping cover for people. So I love the fact that you took senior parents’ journey. Okay, what could I do? What would I want to help with? You went through all of this training still getting training, I’m sure and started your businesses to fill those gaps for small businesses and entrepreneurs and keep adding services. So those kind of stories are always so heartwarming to hear why you decided to do this. 

Chris Papin 02:45

And it’s rewarding on the other side because you can help people where there’s a need and it’s not always charitable. Sometimes Hear all the warm and fuzzy stories when you’re attached to 501C3s, but this is a legitimate hey. I need to find somebody who knows about this thing and fortunately we know probably the next 18 steps for a lot of new entrepreneurs and love holding their hand right through. 

Anika Jackson 03:10

Yeah, amazing, and so does your work primarily focus on people who live in your surrounding area in Oklahoma. Are you able to help people all over the country? 

Chris Papin 03:21

I do have some boundary. This licensing kind of limits me a little bit. But with my CPA license I can go all over the United States my law license. If I practice law in a state there’s some boundaries, but the way we work around that is, we usually find co-counsel. So over the years I’ve had clients move. I’ve had law school and accounting school classmates that are everywhere in the US. So it works out where we have some kind of bubbles of influence Oklahoma, colorado, california, new York, florida but we’ve got folks all over the place and at the end of the day it’s kind of a personality and style-based thing. Sometimes you don’t find a personality in your local community that fits. So if we speak to you, let’s have a conversation, let’s see if we can work together. If it’s forever, that’s ideal. If it’s just for a time, that’s OK too. 

Anika Jackson 04:18

What is the process when somebody comes to you? Do they usually come through one side or the other, or do they go? Ooh, they can offer me all of these things. 

Chris Papin 04:27

Tax is by far the most popular topic. Everybody feels a pain point at least a couple of times a year. So typically it’s someone that is maybe starting their own business, or there’s tax-driven need. We do get some things. Or hey, I need a new business entity, or my family needs an estate plan, something like that. So it’s very singular on the introduction and then we start having conversations and just kind of sharing stories and talk through what we call our advisory process. We want to look forward with folks, whereas a lot of compliance-based firms are doing what happened yesterday. When I file a tax return in April, it’s what happened last year. 

Anika Jackson 05:08

Yeah. 

Chris Papin 05:08

Great, I already know that. So as we start to tell that story, people’s ears kind of work up and they say, oh, I didn’t really know how to ask for this service, but you’re speaking to me, these are things we want. We just didn’t know what they were and, as we all have in our different specialties, you scratch the surface with the marketing buzzword but you can go in such a deep rabbit hole. Yeah, that’s where I think we really shine, because we can sit down as in-house counsel, as CPA, over-record filing returns, doing tax planning. There’s a lot of things I can do, but by virtue of relationships, I can help connect people when there’s a need so they don’t have to have a relationship with a litigator, because who gets sued every day? No one. But when they need it, we have those relationships to help folks out. 

Anika Jackson 05:59

Yeah, it’s funny, I think about the same thing in my own business. I might not do XYZ, but I know somebody else who does that area of marketing or advertising or crisis communications or whatever it is that somebody might need help with. That’s not my specialty, but sometimes we talk about scope creep when it comes to our businesses. Yours is a positive scope creep. I can see how everything works together and how it’s much easier for somebody who trusts you with their business and all of their information to be able to utilize your different services under one house. 

Chris Papin 06:34

It’s still a dirty word, though, because if you’re hired to do one thing, it’s really hard to start to do the other ones if no one tells you right. Or on the other side, we all have experiences where, well, if you could just, and you’re kind of going, but normally I charge somebody for that, so you do have to have real conversations around it, but you’re onto something with that relationship of trust. You’re not out to nickel and dime anyway I don’t think any entrepreneur that I’ve ever worked with is but it is very concise and task based. I’m either hired to do the task or I’m not. With professional licensing, I have to meet a certain standard or I cannot do it, and those are the types of things Once you get over that initial, I’m going to call it a road bump, not the full curve, just a little bump Once you get off a little bit. 

07:30

We want the scope creek to a certain extent, because we can cross over, but there is a healthy boundary that everybody has to maintain. You’ve got engagement letters in terms and conditions and all of those things the attorney in me is always paying attention to. Is this something we’re asked to do? Does it make sense? Is it a client choice. Who has discretion of that decision? Where are we? And we always are on the side of communication. Let’s talk it out, figure it out. That way nobody gets burned. 

Anika Jackson 07:58

Yeah, that’s fantastic. You already knew small business entrepreneurship, so you knew that that’s who you wanted to help. Do you see differences with some of your colleagues who might work with bigger corporations, bigger businesses and the issues that face small business owners and entrepreneurs? 

Chris Papin 08:17

It’s interesting, even on our own client base, we’ve got big by a small business definition, but SBA definition of small business is vastly different. Yeah, that’s true. When you’re in startup mode, the way we like to talk about it are phases. There’s startup mode. 

08:35

There’s growth mode, there’s a maintenance mode. Sometimes folks will go into mergers and acquisitions or other different paths. Sometimes folks just they ramp up to a point I’m happy and we leave it alone as you look through those different phases. You’re absolutely right, there’s lots of different common hurdles. To say to a startup business owner, you need to think green. And they’re saying, man, I’m just scrapping to pay the rent. 

09:05

It’s hard, but if you instill the right I’m going to call it true north, pillars of true north to stay neutral for everybody here. If we’re all looking at that true north, we can come together and we know what makes sense to build towards. In that true north, compass helps. We speak freely to our folks. We don’t lie, we don’t cheat, we don’t steal. That’s pretty straightforward, right? Yeah, side of there, where is gray? What does lion cheat and steal mean to people? Sometimes just being aggressive with the tax code provision feels like cheating when in fact you’re not at all being aggressive. That’s just the way they see it. All of those different components I know I’m giving you a half answer on this, but it really does depend and then meet people where they are. That’s the biggest piece of this. Some instances I can’t help some instances I can’t. I’ll be the first to say it. 

Anika Jackson 10:00

Yeah, well, that was one of my next questions is who do you typically like to work with in terms of I mean, there is a range, you said in small. Do you like to work with the startups, the growth phase, the people who are already past that? Is there a specific industry you’d like to work with? 

Chris Papin 10:16

The demographic we usually try to target are service-based professionals that are kind of like we are leveraging some level of trust, and whether they’re in startup mode or they’re established in down the road it depends on do we have an alignment of value that starts to play to our strengths and their needs? If you will, if I’m able to help, let’s start that engagement. If you have everything that I can offer in-house, you don’t need me. So sometimes a startup you know they’re brand new, they need everything, but they’re not in a position to work with us yet. Sometimes they’ve got to get started and vice versa. Sometimes we get the most sophisticated companies but they’ve already got all the resources that I offer, so they don’t need me either. 

11:01

But we really want to spend inside of that value proposition. What is the need? How can I make your day easier, your life better? How can I help your family have another moment together? Sometimes it’s about time building efficiency so I can go home at five o’clock instead of seven o’clock, and you know it’s tough to do. But there’s all kinds of different tools and mechanisms. Sometimes I’m not just a professional, Sometimes I’m more of just a consultant. Help people think through their systems, their ideas, their structure so that they can reclaim their version of happy. 

Anika Jackson 11:37

Right, yeah, thank you for sharing that. So it’s like almost a peek into the operational side of them in full, not just the financial side or the legal side. 

Chris Papin 11:46

Yep, there’s a relationship that always starts with the tax need or the legal need. So we can illustrate trust first, then we can start to kind of get into other scenarios. We do have a lot of, you know, we’re lucky where we have referrals. So there’s folks that, hey, you did this for so and so out in California, can you do it for so and so over in Florida. Sure, be happy to. Let’s have a conversation and see if everything lines up. So sometimes it’s not always about that maintenance item, it’s more about we heard good news. So, just like a lot of people, if you please someone, they usually tell a good story about it and that takes care of itself. 

Anika Jackson 12:22

Now this is going to be a question that I wasn’t even thinking about, but as we’re having this conversation, I’m remembering a friend of mine who was a lawyer based in Houston and what was? He did a lot of patents and trademarks and like that, and one of his competitive advantages was that it cost a lot less for his firm to execute the work than somebody who had a paper and office and a whole team in New York or California. So that was one of his competitive advantages and also the way he created his business. It was very much about helping creatives realize that their work had merit and that they needed to protect it. So I’d love to hear, as we’re talking about this trust factor, building up trust, thinking about your personas and your true north what would you say are some of the competitive advantages that you offer to your clients, especially because you said, oh, new York, florida, you know, or California, florida. 

Chris Papin 13:12

So a couple of the things mean just with the multiple licenses, I have a very different perspective. There’s a few folks over the years who have had experiences working with an attorney on the right and a CPA on the left and a financial planner on the top and some sort of insurance agent over on the bottom somewhere and getting everybody I mean especially in today’s world just getting a calendar invitation that everybody can show up to as a nightmare. So we can bring a lot of that in-house. And the way I try to approach it is I’m going to give you two or three paths. I cannot make the decision on what’s best, but I can at least narrow the thing down to say here’s one, two, three and four Clients will say I want one and three. Cool, I can help you do one. This person over here can help you do three. That streamlines because you’re not going through marketing pages, you’re not interviewing folks, you’re not having to go through sales pitches. Sometimes, you know, in my world, in order for a professional to really do their job and be able to offer anything, they have to get to another client, which is time and information that you can send. So that’s one of our big differentiators as we go. 

14:23

Another one is I’ve heavily invested in technology. I’ve got a team that’s in Oklahoma City with me, I’ve got folks in New York, I’ve got folks in India, I’ve got folks in California, We’ve. You know, sometimes people turn on as part-timers and turn off whenever they’re doing other things. I don’t look at the workplace like a traditional brick and mortar workplace, so it does give some flexibility in perspective and resources and, good or bad, Right now it’s working really well for us because we are able to reach out. And my running joke with Chris Lagruta in New York is you know, he’s New York Chris, I get to be Oklahoma Chris, but he speaks New York. I’m not real good getting to the point he is. So if we’ve got to go into Northeast mode, we’ll pull him in and kind of let him speak the same language as you get to west of the Mississippi, we slow down a little bit. We kind of have the rah-rah moments, as I like to call them. 

15:20

Yeah, and that’s a different relational piece. So just small example. But you know, at the end of the day I see it’s about the relationship with people. People make or break all deals. Do I like you? Do we see ourselves working together. Does it make sense? Is there a need and is there an ability? You can kind of hit those big checkboxes. Usually the rest takes care of itself. 

Anika Jackson 15:44

Did you design your company that way intentionally? Did it happen during the pandemic? Were you already living in this hybrid? You know some people in the office, some people in remote offices world. 

Chris Papin 15:55

The two things that popped out when I set up my firm. I was investing in technology. Some of it is it’s you know, the dorky weekend passion, right, but I recognized the firms of tomorrow. We needed a platform where, if I had to work from home tomorrow, I can. Yeah, so when COVID hit, although it was a disruption for everyone, my team was already remote. It is literally just pick up your laptop and go to work, which helped immensely, I’m sure. The other piece around it is I look at people sometimes differently than most Hmm, accounting law how many hours can you put in? How many billables can you achieve? Right, and I realized early on there are some really talented mothers that can give between 10 and two. 

Anika Jackson 16:44

Hmm, mm-hmm. 

Chris Papin 16:46

They got kids where they got school, bus, studio, whatever it may be. Like a game between 10 and two is better than half a game between eight and five, yeah. So when you look through that slightly different lens, let’s go get folks. If we have a need and they have a skill set, let’s match up. I mean, my peers will tease me because they’ll be like, aren’t you reviewing like nine or 10 different people stuff when it could be three? Yeah, but if you’ve got a standard and everybody meets the standard, you’re reviewing the same stuff across the board. So I kind of get it because there’s different personalities, but in reality I just see it differently that way. 

17:20

And the other, chris, on the team in New York, he was one of the first people I met in my firm. I had worked at some other places but he was always the relief valve during busy seasons and kind of worked behind the scenes. And you know we were like two elementary school kids that liked each other at some point. We’re all right, I don’t want to screw up what we’ve got, but what if we did this full time together? So you know, because of the respect and health of what we had, it was so good, we liked it but we didn’t want to ruin it. But it’s so much better now. So I know it’s a different view and sometimes it’s really hard to embrace, especially inside of traditional suit-like professions. But you can do it if you’ll invest in the right infrastructure and mindset to do it. 

Anika Jackson 18:07

Well, there’s so many things that I love about what you just said the fact that you invest in technology, so you were able to pivot really quickly. The fact that you recognize that I’m a mom, so it’s a fact that you recognize that moms still have skill sets that can apply to a lot of businesses, even if we have kids and can’t work traditional hours. I feel like both of those things are huge parts of the future of work and you’re a trendsetter. And then the fact that you’ve created this ecosystem where people can come to you, yes, for their businesses, but you’re really looking at everything holistically and saying, all right, but what do you really want to get out of your business and your life outside of business, so that I can help you put those strategies into place. On your legal side, make sure everything’s really buttoned up with all of your accounting processes and then also with the insurance side, which is very personal. 

Chris Papin 18:59

It can be. Yeah, we have a larger group of dentists on our client list as well, so take this sarcasm however you like. We talk about the three things everybody loves death, taxes and dentistry. 

Anika Jackson 19:11

So public speaking. I’d say it’s. 

Chris Papin 19:14

Well, yeah, there you go, folks. Yeah, let’s put everybody in front of the camera and we may just have the listeners freak out already. But I very much appreciate your feedback here, because we have tried to be different. We have tried to embrace and look through a different lens, because we’re all at a different place than it was. Covid shook it up very, very much. But it’s going to continue to be different. Your forces are different, flexibilities are different and, to your point, we’re focused on that value proposition. How can we make your life better? The rest takes care of itself. I know I’ve said it more than once, but it really does. 

Anika Jackson 19:52

And when you set out to build this company and you started very intentionally, it sounds like with some of these you already do your values. You knew your value proposition and I imagine it took a little bit of time to go. Oh wait, but we can pull from this country, or we can pull from this set of people who are skilled workers but only have a finite amount of time every day. So how long did it take you to really come up with your secret sauce? 

Chris Papin 20:18

Oh, it’s still in the works, as any good secret sauce. You’re taking with the recipe as you go. The easy part as I speak to people about representing clients differently, whether it is clients or team members or bankers, whatever it may be. When we go back to the people proposition and folks realize, okay, there’s just a focus there, we start to recognize how lost is the way I will say it Some other businesses have been. We all struggled through COVID and there’s been changes. 

20:54

But I like to use a restaurant example. I don’t represent restaurants, but we have three. Okay, there are dear friends and of course there’s always an exception. But these folks relied on brick and mortar, right. So within a couple of weeks had to reinvent themselves in kind of a Grubhub delivery style environment because they had to. So I look through the lens in the exact same way. But it’s a people component. Where are skill sets? What matches? If I have a bartender on my team, they need to do client service Right, because what are bartenders good at? They’re great at talking to people. So I think when you start to look at that match, that is really the secret sauce how we execute on the rest. You’ve got to have systems, you’ve got to meet standards and things like that. But matching the strengths of people to their jobs, they’re inherently going to succeed at that point. 

Anika Jackson 21:51

Yes, that is something that I think is sorely missing from a lot of companies. We try to put people in boxes based on what we need, not based on where they fit best in our company. 

Chris Papin 22:02

Yeah, sometimes it’s hard. I need A, b and C and I’ve got a person that comes in and they said they can do A, b and C that they can’t In business. A plumbing company can’t do electrical work. I get that you can’t hire an electrician. It’s just a mismatch. But I do think sometimes we don’t slow down. I’m a big advocate of different tools. My mom’s a counselor and therapist. I’m very Emojis, like the happy face chart. She was into emojis Before they were called emojis. All of that stuff is ingrained in me. But they’re also just super quick tools. I mean, go Google something to do a quick team assessment, not hard. When it spits something out, there is some truth to it. It is not the end, all be all, but have the conversation with your team. If they say they like talking to people and you’ve got them locked in a room and they never talk to people, that’s not a recipe for success. Little easy stuff. I mean five, 10 minutes, not overwhelming. 

Anika Jackson 23:01

Yeah, and when it came to your marketing because you can cover the entire country what did that look like? I’m expecting you to say something like that. You had a new strategy or something unique that you did, since everything else in your business is so unique. 

Chris Papin 23:17

So the big differentiator in that sense and when you go kind of nationwide big brand, it’s web-based. You know your typical SEOs and marketing campaigns online, but our differentiator really revolves around advisory. If you were to go look at tax and accounting firm A and tax and accounting firm B and then Pap and CPA, if you will, it’s about being that advisor. It’s about looking forward. I don’t have to look at our new client queue. I can tell you the story of at least 80% of them because they will say something like our prior person did a great job, they were nice. We’re not leaving them because we don’t like them. We just felt like there was something more and that’s why we reached out to have a conversation and that’s exactly why we lead with advisory. That’s kind of that forward-looking piece. 

24:06

Tax and accounting is easy for me to lead with because people understand it. We go over to consulting or speaking engagements, training stuff like that. That’s kind of this soft squishy and like no, no, what do you do? But by virtue of representing businesses and working with all these different people, there’s a lot of other things we can reach out and help people with or tell stories on. Lagruta today told the team we’ve been using this concept that our trainings should be like a fable so simple a child could tell it, but so deep. Everybody in the world gets something out of it. So it’s hard to do, but there’s some reality inside of that and that’s kind of where our mission is. Inside of this advisory, forward-looking bubble, how can we distill it down so it’s easily consumed but really meaningful? 

Anika Jackson 24:53

Very nice. Are you ready to take your brand to new heights? Join the Brand Amplifier for Entrepreneurs Program. Learn how to build, elevate and amplify your brand with a comprehensive 10-model course. Learn more about it and other ways to implement our strategies at fullcapacitymarketingcom. Click on EFCM Learning Hub for more information. Can’t wait to help you amplify your brand Now. I know one thing that you have shared with people in past interviews is also the topic of personal finance, and so I wanted to explore that a little bit, because I know usually when people start businesses, they might not know about business credit and they might not realize you use your personal credit to build and then you build up your business credit. But there are some things that are woven into the two, depending on what your structure is for your company. But how do personal finance goals and how does personal financing fit into top-line revenue, into your business cycles? 

Chris Papin 25:56

So we will take an approach. We can start at the top, go to the bottom, start at the bottom, go to the top. If they don’t match, you got to change your game and a lot of what is driven. What we find is people have a pretty good understanding of their numbers, but a misconception about where they’re supposed to fit. So, from our perspective, if you’re a one-person business and you don’t have an entity no tax types you’re just going to start up and start doing some things on the side while you’re working somewhere else. It’s probably all in one checking account. That’s how people see it. Irs does not see it that way. We see it in two different boxes and then how that math plays out is on one tax return. It’s not two different tax returns. So I’ve already complicated this thing. I’ve said three things and we’ve got three models. But getting that distilled back down and we start with what we call a base level advisory package for folks that are going through this, where we will walk people through what I can consider a life cycle of a business. 

27:04

Every new entrepreneur wants to know how they can ride off their car. Great, don’t give it in, doesn’t matter. If you don’t have revenue, you don’t have a car. Let’s start with revenue. How do we generate that? What types of revenue? How does it come in? How do you track it? And you start to go through. That’s why I say we start top down. That should yield a result. The last thing we do is go back to a personal budget and say, okay, you’ve told me what your ambitions are, we’ve figured out what maybe reality could look like. Does that sustain your goals and ambitions today, tomorrow, down the road? 

27:41

Oftentimes, entrepreneurs intentionally live slim so that they can grow their business, and sometimes they don’t have to. They just don’t know any better. Yeah, but that’s true. Professionals that can get licenses. I mean, I’m going to pick on my doctors. They do this, they know this, so I’m going to pick on them. But they leave medical school, they’ve got a mortgage in student loan debt, and they’ve got a mortgage before they start work. They may have a million dollars in debt and no revenue. Yet that’s scary, yeah, so you can see the two different extremes that you’ve got to play with then. 

28:15

But getting it down to where, if I earn $1,000, how much is mine? That’s going to get 10,000 dollars at home now. So go ahead, adults, and do that? Lo igniting, lo admiting, lo admiting biz lookingƷ Bro batta Goे m inspired Н, which is in what kind of set of years? I mean, your little world is about helping folks connect with other folks, but once you connect, you can’t force a customer to engage me. If we’re going through those struggles and that’s where I think people really need to understand what is your business model? What do you do? How do you help people? You can be the person flipping the sign on the side of the road all day long. If they don’t want what you’re flipping the sign on, or they can’t read the sign, they’re not going to stop. 

Anika Jackson 29:18

Yeah, true, it’s such a common sense approach, but it’s something I just think a lot of people don’t think about. 

Chris Papin 29:26

We’re still a magic bullet in it and there’s so many apps and these and that and then in between and it’s hard to figure it out. It’s great. The number one question we get is you know, we’re like, hey, we need your personal budget. I’m like, will you give me a template or what do you want in the budget? I refuse to give it because if I give a template, you’re going to take your world and put it into mine, right, and you’re going to miss stuff. I need to know what your world is. Let me flip it into mine. I’m better suited to do that. 

Anika Jackson 29:51

Yeah, because I think and I do. I have my Excel spreadsheets and I put in my income and then what I pay out and I always say to myself you have to put everything, every take a gas right, every dog treat, whatever it is, has to go into. That is so that it’s a realistic view and a realistic lens, not just but yeah, I spent this about this much money on this thing. Well, no, unless it’s in there, you don’t know exactly how much you’re spending, and I think people can get surprised when they go through those exercises. 

Chris Papin 30:22

It’s funny. We have folks self admit when they go through the budgetary exercise. I didn’t want to tell you about the most fun one. There’s somebody who bought a $600 grill. He was so ashamed to tell us about $600 grill because he was on a mission to fund his kids education accounts and guilty. And we’re staring at him like, hey dad, take a minute here, recognize all of these family moments that are coming from this grill you can’t put a price on. And it was the first time he quit being so hard on himself for indulging a little bit. She deserved it, yeah, but you’re absolutely right, sometimes there’s a psychology that plays, sometimes we just don’t know. But if nobody takes anything out of this conversation at all, number one, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Number two, nobody cares. And number three, it’s going to change tomorrow. Start somewhere. You need to start on that right path. 

Anika Jackson 31:15

Yeah, I’m really interested. You mentioned your mom and psychology and how that was always part of your life and that you infused some of that into the way that you work. And I think that’s pretty clear because you just seem so much more of a servant leader in the space and very purpose and mission driven in how you want to show up for the people that you work with and how invested you are in their success and helping them figure out the road to that success. So I’d love to hear what other lessons did your parents instill in you that you use today? 

Chris Papin 31:47

So in mom’s case, she’s in her 80s and still a practicing counselor oh my gosh. So I have a really good person to emulate for diligence and health and all kinds of stuff. She still does it. And kind of the fun part you know nobody I don’t know if you can see or not see they go 50 feet to my left. That’s her. We still office in a family space. We see each other very regularly, so all of those things. 

32:12

That’s kind of where that small business family owned business, but I literally do not know any other way. It sounds like a marketing pitch, but it is absolutely not. When you come see it, everybody’s like oh, I get it now. So in that bubble, though, dad started his own business. It was an auto repair business. 

32:29

One of the things we do for folks is succession planning. This is never a fun story, because I lost my dad when I was in my 20s. My brother took over the automotive repair business. There were worse lessons from that. Without his presence that I can’t explain the value of, because unless you live something like that, you just don’t always understand. But being able to help folks, kind of anticipate and see and know and dad was always the hands on, I can fix anything. So I got a lot of the I’m invincible personality from him. But he was so grounded I know I’m not invincible. I just know that if I’m willing to lean into problems I’m going to get a different result than if I find out. So I always kind of blend those two personalities as we go through and think about things. 

33:19

But the analogy and the equip that I give to everybody is finance is driven by emotion. Sometimes it’s the kind of emotion where somebody kicked me in the shins and took my lunch money at age seven, and sometimes it’s driven by emotion of oh my gosh, I opened my birthday card and I got all these things. I can’t predict which version of it it’s going to be, but if you recognize those pieces and again go back and study, people pay attention when you’re talking. When we go in tax mode, I can watch eyes glaze over. If I ever want people to quit listening to me, all I’ve got to do is say tax and turn over revenue code and you’re about to owe some money. They quit listening Easy, but it’s a natural reaction. So, knowing mounts, I could just say the words and say I don’t understand what you don’t understand. I told you or we can embrace it. And when you start to watch people squirm or when you hang on, how can I help you? Say this to your spouse or kids, or if you can get them to repeat it. There’s an element there. And again all of that plays back to. 

34:21

I’ve watched small businesses grow and do things and emulate mom and dad and the conversations they’ve had. There’s an art to all of this stuff and I don’t know if you’re familiar with the book, the entrepreneurial email. But there’s a technician, there’s a manager and there’s an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneurs are technicians that great at their craft and they’re trying to be an entrepreneur, but they need that manager. So it’s that three-legged stool. You need all three, otherwise it’s not going to work. But those are the things that business owners can recognize them sooner rather than later. 

34:57

Hey, I’ve got to be three legs to the stool and if I don’t serve all three legs of those stool, I need to hire somebody to be one of those legs. I don’t hire all, because the typical things we see are we didn’t serve one of those interests. I was too busy being a technician and completing the work. I didn’t go out and market, so I don’t have more work to do. It happens. People have lived it and we overcome that and we talk about ways to overcome that. But I think it’s a good, easy way for folks to kind of look in and see okay, how do mom and dad’s influence really play the role here? And then all day, every day, I love making fun of the emojis and happy face charts and red cards and green cards. They’re really powerful tools, but when mom brought them home and made me do them, I hated it. Yeah, of course. What kid loves that? 

Anika Jackson 35:45

Oh my gosh, it’s funny I see that in my father also has passed many years ago, about 14 years ago, and he was a college professor, and so I’d always say, oh yeah, I didn’t grow up, I grew up in the car. I would say something, and he was a philosophy major and a philosophy professor. So he’d say that reminds me of a time like Nietzsche did blah, blah, blah. Or Plato would say, or soccer to Ida, like he would give me lessons instead of just talking to me about whatever the situation was with his viewpoint. And then, ironically, now I am also a college professor and I talk about marketing and PR and branding, which is obviously something I love and the comfort zone of mine, so I feel like I do the same thing instead of philosophy. But it’s great when we can take those lessons from our parents and honor them with the way that we move forward in the world. 

Chris Papin 36:35

That’s a really great way to put it. 

Anika Jackson 36:38

Yeah, I am really excited to learn more about things that you have coming up, because I believe that you have a free workshop coming up in 2024. So I’d love to hear a little bit about that what people can learn. 

Chris Papin 36:52

Yeah. So a lot of kind of my personality based things. I’m sure you figured out. I like to laugh, I like to have fun. I’ll poke fun even of myself along the way. I mean I always say I’m the consummate suit because clients will be so invested in telling me the story. I miss the joke because I’m trying to serve them. But I think at the end of the day, what we’re trying to build is kind of a base level, beginners level workshop to help folks with core pillars of the business. 

37:23

I don’t want to give away too much, Primarily because we’re still massaging what we want that to look like. But finance and accounting, marketing, legal structure, technology, security all of those kinds of things are relevant to business in lots of different forms. And the beauty of this is we’re not going to go so deep that we’re going to lose people. Somebody may be really strong in, say, an online presence and website marketing. They may have a deficiency in referral networks. So we’re going to try to generalize it and again make it intro level, but give it enough substance to where there is a takeaway for everybody. It’s going to be a virtual deal that we’re trying to put together, but the idea is really to give it back to the community to say here’s some things you can take tomorrow and go be successful with. 

38:10

Thanks, Hint, hint, asterisk. Work is involved. At the end you can’t go do that for you. But yeah, Small business owners know that. Entrepreneurs know that they’re not afraid of the work. But sometimes having clarity of what should I do tomorrow is hard. I got two or three options and if we can narrow that down to give it one and give them a task to go after, that’s our mission. 

Anika Jackson 38:34

Yeah, I love that. Gaining clarity. It’s something that can be really difficult when you’re trying to start your business. You’re working on the business and in the business and figuring out who do you need to hire, who do you need to work with or how do I move forward. In this way or that way, you can get analysis, paralysis. You can get stuck in this cycle of not making decisions because you don’t know what to do. Having somebody you can help walk you through some of the basics and then get to the point where you can walk away and know that you need to focus on one thing is fantastic, and so that’ll be at pappincpacom. Forward slash listener. 

Chris Papin 39:11

We will. We have some other materials out there. When we get the information there’s a place for folks can sign up. Okay, and as soon as we make that information available, if they’ve signed up they’ll be the first to know. We’re targeting Q one kind of right before that tax busy season. So a lot of this stuff is fresh on folks minds. 

Anika Jackson 39:28

Yeah. 

Chris Papin 39:28

February is the ideal time right now. 

Anika Jackson 39:31

Okay, all right. Well, I’ll be getting on your list so that I can come to your work and for those people who maybe are ready, they’re looking for somebody new to work with, you talked about your process, so is that is step one? They fill out your information, you know your form. You do an assessment with them. Is that? Do they pay for the assessment and then you give them a plan of like. Here are the things that we could do, or you know? No, we can’t help you. 

Chris Papin 39:57

It’s sorry to interrupt there. The short of it is we are very digital, so there’s a lot of front end information to kind of get things in the queue. But yes, there’s an info gathering process. Depending kind of on where this skill set may lie within the different firms, we may slightly adjust. But there’s generally two meetings. There’s a get to know you, there’s an info gather that goes with that, and then in the second meeting there is some sort of delivery of a proposed plan. 

40:24

Until we have information in the door, this is the hard part of professional services. I don’t know what I’m doing for you. If you call me right now and say hey, chris, can you do X, y and Z? How much is it going to be? I don’t know, because I literally don’t know what I’m doing yeah, right, so we go through that. But in the second meeting we clarify cost, we clarify timelines, we make sure that everybody has an understanding about what we’re going to do next. 

40:45

Sometimes we have to adjust the conversation or we would do that in a second meeting. And that is kind of the magical point Either you sign up and the payment plan starts, or sometimes it’s not a fit, or sometimes the timing is all. Sometimes we get requests to take on projects that we can’t take on. We’re still a relatively small shop in comparison to a lot of the bigs and if you’ve got too much again I’ll be the first to say it and place you with some cooks that we know can step into that. But any service we offer we try to follow that model risk-free. We want to meet new people. Sometimes we don’t end up working with them, but they end up a vendor of ours or over four partner and that’s the beauty of kind of creating this space up front to have the conversation. 

Anika Jackson 41:26

Exactly, and I like the fact that you’re not cookie cutter, you really customize and you’re again. It goes back to the intentionality and the value proposition that you’re trying to bring to your clients. Is you’re not going to say, yeah, for this amount of money you get XYZ, Like you’re really trying to customize based on their own individual needs. 

Chris Papin 41:45

Yeah, I wish you were that simple. The IRS wants everything on seven forms and then they add seven more right before the end of the year. But all the moving pieces in between are better served if we partner together and with that plan and there’s too many other options on the table that fitted their first model and just just not us. 

Anika Jackson 42:05

Chris, is there anything we haven’t covered that you really want people to know about your company or about when it’s when you need to hire somebody for legal advice or accounting? Cpa, work insurance all of those factors. 

Chris Papin 42:21

So a couple of things that I always want people to kind of take with them. Number one you can do this. We have natural fears inside of us and I know sometimes when I speak to entrepreneurs the fear of what’s next can be alleviated with the right strategic partnerships. And I’m a small business owner done this a while. And where are the clients going to come from is always a question. But again, when you go back to kind of take care of people, they’ll take care of you. That’s an easy paradigm. And then if you think you need help, you do. 

42:54

Because we always get into this and I listen to clients all the time. They’re scared to call an attorney because they don’t know what the cost is going to be and they’re scared of a billable hour. Make the phone call interview. Folks start going through that process because after the fact it’s more expensive to fix than it is to set it up and do it right the first time. And it’s not just that you’re just going to have to do it, You’re just going to have to take care of the client. 

43:19

And that is by far the most common thing we run into. We get the phone call too late and you know the art goal is to get folks to say I wish I’d have known that sooner. The struggle is that sometimes folks are going man, I really wish I’d have known you five years ago and you’re going, man, keep me too. The government got a lot of money over the last five years because we didn’t have the right structure in place. So those are free advice of the day, but when in doubt, start interviewing people, we’d be happy to hear from you if it works. We are a fit great, but there’s lots of great people that do things similar to what I do. Reach out to them, have conversations, find that fit that meets your need. That’s probably the biggest thing I can say, because I can’t tell you how many phone calls we’re going to get in January and they’re all going to say hey, can you fix 2023? No, it’s over. I can’t go back in time. I haven’t invented the time machine yet. 

Anika Jackson 44:08

I’m trying, but I don’t know how, and I always love to be able to talk to people, and I always love to end with asking if you have a favorite quote, family motto, words of wisdom that you’d like to share with us, that you live by. 

Chris Papin 44:24

There is an earnest himmingway quotes and I’m pulling it up because I never want to butcher it, because it means so much to me but it says there’s nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man. True nobility is being superior to your former self. 

Anika Jackson 44:40

That’s so power. 

Chris Papin 44:42

Sometimes in business, people start to get a little too competitive. So oftentimes the game is how can you improve your firm, your systems, Just be better than yesterday. 1% every day goes a long stinking way if you’re really intentional about it. So that would probably be the one. Thank you for the forewarning that you might ask, so I couldn’t screw it up that way. It’s a fun and meaningful one. The other side of it is that you really think about it. You’ll get lost in your head for a long time. Sometimes it’s great because you forget about work. Yeah. 

Anika Jackson 45:14

But it’s such a good point. If you just compete against yourself, you’re going to show up better than if you’re worried about what everybody else is doing, because you are unique and what you do and what you put into the world is only something that you can do, even if other people might do similar work. And that’s what I’m really learning about Eucrith and your law firm and the way that you’re moving forward in the business. I think the way you approach this is so different than other people I’ve spoken to who do similar work. So thank you for bringing that to us. Thank you for bringing that to my show, because I know this is one of those episodes I’m going to be going back through and taking notes, listening and signing up for your workshops, because this is definitely not my forte. I’m going to have to be an entrepreneur and I know that my audience is going to get a lot of value out of this conversation, so I appreciate you being here so much. Thank you for the opportunity. 

Chris Papin 46:05

Thanks for all of the kind words along the way. You’ve said some things that are incredibly meaningful because they line up to mission, vision, value statements, and you didn’t have the luxury of getting all of those prompts in advance, so you’re pretty good at what you do. You’re seeing that other side, so we really appreciate the opportunity to share that. 

Anika Jackson 46:24

Well, you’re also showing up that way, right? So you’re living in let’s hope so. Oh, you know, clapping my hands for you and the fact that you are really living and embodying your purpose, mission, vision, values and every conversation you have, because this is our first conversation, as you said. So thank you again and thank you to my audience for listening or watching this episode. If you’re a brand amplified, I’ll be back again in a few days with another amazing expert to share some wisdom. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, send us a comment if you liked this episode. You can also look at the transcripts. You can get all the show notes. Make sure to take note of papandcpa.com forward slash listener to get those resources and sign up for that Q1 workshop that Chris will be having and with that, I’ll be back again in a few days with another amazing expert story. Want more? Check out amplifywithanika.com or follow me on socials at @amplifywithanika.