Episode 25 – Rethinking Dave Ramsey’s Advice

Feat. Charles Barrett from FZ Works & FZ Creative

Table of Contents

Introduction

Discussion on Dave Ramsey’s Advice

Critique of Dave Ramsey’s Approach

Impact of Social Media

Alternative Approaches to Debt Management

Generational Shifts in Financial Attitudes

Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps

Introduction of Charles Barrett

Overview of FZ Creative

Coworking Space: FZ Works

Comedy Nights and Events at FZ Works

FZ Creative’s Business Model and Challenges

Membership Details for FZ Works

Closing Remarks

Introduction

Madison: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Not Just Numbers, Honest Conversations with a Financial Advisor and Lawyer. I am Madison Demora, and I am here with Mike Garry. Mike is a financial advisor and a CFP and the founder and the CEO of Yardley Wealth Management. He is also an estate planning lawyer and his law firm is Yardley Estate Planning. Hey, Mike.

Mike: Hey, Maddie. How are you today?

Madison: Great. Great. How are you?

Mike: I’m good. It’s Friday. It’s spring.

Madison: Yeah.

Mike: Good things.

Madison: Couldn’t be better. All right, so we found an article in the Wall Street Journal that we are going to discuss today, and it’s titled “Dave Ramsey Tells Millions What to do With Their Money. People Under 40 Say He’s Wrong.” And this is by Julie Jargon. And you can find the article linked in the description. So, here’s the summary of the article. The article discusses how young adults are seeking financial advice but are increasingly questioning Dave Ramsey’s traditional approach. Ramsey, a conservative radio host with a large following, promotes strict principles like avoiding debt and embracing frugality. However, many young people feel his advice doesn’t fit their reality, especially aimed rising living cost and stagnant wages. They criticize his lack of consideration for modern financial challenges and his moralizing tone. While Ramsey’s methods have helped, some, others argue they’re too extreme and don’t allow for flexibility. Overall, there’s a shift among young adults towards seeking more nuanced financial guidance. All right, so let’s get into the first question. How do you think societal and economic changes have influenced the reception of Dave Ramsey’s financial advice among young professionals?

Discussion on Dave Ramsey’s Advice

Mike: Well, that’s a good question. So, I think in many ways, things are harder, though, starting out. Right, like buying a house now. We’re at a level of unaffordability that hasn’t been seen in quite some time. Interest rates are higher than they were for 15 years. They’re still lower than when I bought a house. But houses have appreciated a lot during that time. Also, college has become much less affordable. And so, for some people, it’s hard to get started. And those are the people that are seeking out financial advice, people whose parents pay for college, and they get out and they get great paying jobs and they could save a lot right away, probably aren’t looking for advice online. Right. And so I think some of those changes, some of the changes that really affect younger generations really have impacted how receptive they’ll be to his kind of advice. And one of the things you said in the summary is a nuanced thing. One of the things that’s hard is Dave Ramsey has a certain one size fits all approach that has helped a lot of people but isn’t right for probably many more people than it’s helped.

Critique of Dave Ramsey’s Approach

Madison: Okay. Alright. So, in what ways do you agree or disagree with criticism of Dave Ramsey’s approach, particularly regarding issues like debt aversion and financial flexibility?

Mike: Yeah. So, I think that he makes a good point sometimes about, you know, how much car can or should you afford how much, how, how much you should have in living expenses. He probably makes some good points, but he also toes a pretty strict line. You know, like, I think that, you know, his advice is to buy a junker or clunker car that doesn’t cost that much, and then you don’t have to make payments on it, and then you save that money. Well, you know, a lot of people who have to commute for a living and who aren’t particularly handy with cars maybe want to buy a more reliable car. And then, you know, buying a reliable car doesn’t cost $2,000. Buying a reliable car in most parts of the country probably costs more than $20,000, even a used one. Right. And so that kind of advice isn’t really practical for a lot of people. Again, maybe it was different when he was coming of age in the seventies and early eighties, when cars were much less complicated, and people could do a lot of their own maintenance on them. Right. Now cars are really complicated. Changing a headlight now is a hard process. You know, I could change headlights in two minutes in the eighties. That’s not possible anymore. You know, there’s a whole host of things that, that you just can’t do. Right. So that’s a big change. And, you know, I don’t think his advice hasn’t changed. Right. His advice has stayed the same for 40 years.

Madison: Yep. So that advice is coming from, like, the seventies and eighties, like you said.

Mike: Right. Right.

Madison: Okay. All right. So how might Dave Ramsey’s background and personal experiences shape his financial philosophy? And to what extent should this be considered, even evaluating his advice?

Mike: Yeah. So, I think that’s one of the biggest things. You know, he will come right out and tell you in his story, he tried to strike it rich in real estate, took on too much debt, did fancy vacations to Hawaii, bought cars he couldn’t afford, and then couldn’t make payments and became bankrupt. And so that probably was a humbling experience for him. My guess is that he’s a natural born salesperson and he didn’t consider the risk of what he was doing. He’s just going out and selling houses, flipping houses, buying real estate, without necessarily knowing how much debt is too much debt, what’s reasonable. And so, then he had a really bad episode. Right. And he became bankrupt. And if he came about that, though, and said, listen, guys, I had this experience and it really wasn’t good, so I think you should do these things, you should be careful about how much debt you have. Instead, he takes a moralizing tone, as if having any kind of debt is just evil and you’re being a bad person for taking on debt or for buying a reliable used car that’s only five years old instead of ten years old. That’s the part that I have a hard time with. Okay, so, yeah, you did some really stupid things. You made all these egregious mistakes, and now you’re telling other people that they can’t do what you did, but not in a kind, loving way or supportive way. He’s telling people that they’re being immoral by doing it. It’s like the sinner who has had his conversion and now thinks that everybody else is going to hell and they are the ones living the perfect life. Yes, I get a little heated when I talk about Dave Ramsey because he’s good at selling himself on the radio, but he gives a lot of bad advice. Some of the advice is good, and he’s helped millions. So it’s nuanced. But just because you do something really bad and stupid and then have to recover from that, doesn’t give you license to tell everybody else that they’re being immoral when they do things. I’ll stop my rant for now.

Impact of Social Media

Madison: Absolutely. So, what role do you believe social media platforms like TikTok playing in shaping discussions around personal finance, particularly in challenging traditional financial advice?

Mike: Yeah. So, like, the article had a couple different people who had posted, like, anti-Ramsey messages, and they’ve gotten a lot of traction. Right. A lot of those. They had hundreds of thousands of likes and follows. Yeah. So, like, it’s easy now. Right. So, you know, you could hashtag Dave or anything related to him, and so people will see it and get a lot of people see it. Yeah. It’s very different than, say, ten or 15 years ago when it would have been people talking privately with themselves saying, well, I don’t really agree with this fellow’s advice. Now it’s very different.

Alternative Approaches to Debt Management

Madison: Yeah, absolutely. So, considering the criticism of Dave Ramsey’s advice on credit scores and home buying, what alternative approaches would you suggest for managing debt and making major financial decisions?

Mike: Sure. So, his thing is that credit scores are no good. You increase your credit score so you could take more debt and you shouldn’t have debt in the first place. And he says that you should pay off your mortgage as fast as you can. You shouldn’t get a mortgage at all unless you could pay it off in 15 years. And I heard a quote a couple of years ago in a podcast where he said he doesn’t know any millionaires who have mortgages. And well, that’s BS. I know 100 millionaires who have had mortgages, probably more than that. And I think that the traditional advice is better advice than Dave Ramsey. Right? Yes, you should worry about your credit score. You should make sure you have good credit. You should make sure you use debt appropriately. So, some debt is good. Debt to buy a house because you want to live in a neighborhood for a long time. A debt can help you get that house and be in that neighborhood. Debt for a degree program that is going to have a return on investment or will get you set up for a career that will be fulfilling and hopefully enriching for you, can be a good investment. Look, I took on debt to start this business. He might say, that’s wrong. We took on a lot of debt to start this business. Well, you know what? I think it was the right idea.

Madison: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike: You know, we help hundreds of families. We have employees. You know, it’s a good business. And it wouldn’t have been possible if I couldn’t take on any debt. So, I think the more traditional route with managing your credit score and saving for a down payment, buying a house, again, making sure it’s a house you can afford, making sure that you’re not going to be too stretched and that you can afford it. I think the difference with Dave and other advice sometimes is in the extremes. I’m not telling people they should take on debt that they can’t afford, but I think you should take a look at it, maybe get some help from somebody else to see if it’s reasonable amount, whether it’s a financial advisor or maybe somebody else, you know, an accountant or some person who seems to be smart with handling money. Yeah. Like you have to figure out what is a reasonable amount for you, but then it’s okay, you know, do it.

Generational Shifts in Financial Attitudes

Madison: Yeah, absolutely. Do you think there’s a generational shift in attitudes towards debt and financial freedom, as suggested by some individuals critiquing Ramsey’s advice? And how might this impact financial practices in the future?

Mike: That’s a good question. And I don’t know, there probably is some sort of shift. Things always change among generations or often change. But I think part of it is the people who live during the depression are passing, and a lot of them have passed already. And so, their kids were mostly baby boomers or the silent generation right before them. And so, they grew up with people who lived during the depression. Right. Well, we haven’t had a prolonged period like that in 90 years. The financial crisis was pretty bad, but it wasn’t the same as the depression. Like, people weren’t standing in lines in street for soup. It’s been so long. Yeah. Like, people don’t have that same feeling, I think I told you, like, my dad’s parents used to have, like, cans of vegetables and stuff in the basement, like, lined can food, you know, just in case. Because I think the depression was really bad and people were starving, you know, and there was no, there was no really intervention, you know, for help. And so, things were really bad for a long time. And then we went right into World War II, then five years after we were in Korea. Right. So, there are a lot of people who either lived through as adults or children some really scary bad times for a long time. Right. And we haven’t had that in a while. And so it’s normal now for people not.. And even, like, my parents generation, my mom couldn’t have gotten a credit card when my parents got married. Just because they wouldn’t let women do that. Right. So obviously there have been some big societal changes. And so, I think it’s normal. But, you know, the people that I know that are in your age demographic are very careful with money. Very careful. Like you, my kids, like, yeah. So, you know, I don’t think one thing that we’ve talked about on other podcasts is there’s always, every generation, has a big loud component of that generation, thinking that the generations that come after them have had it easy, they’re soft, they’re weak, they don’t work, everything’s handed to them, not realizing that the generation before them said the same thing about them. And sometimes, maybe, sometimes it’s a little bit true, but yes, it would be better to have been born in the fifties and sixties than the thirties and forties, for sure. But I think that’s enough rambling about that. But I think you get what I’m saying.

Dave Ramsey’s Seven Baby Steps

Madison: Absolutely. Yeah. Alright. So, Mike, as an experienced financial advisor, what do you think of Dave Ramsey’s advice and the seven baby steps? And would your opinions be shared by other experienced practitioners?

Mike: Okay, so I’d say the idea of having some emergency.. The first couple of steps deal with having $1,000 of emergency cash. Thats the first thing. Yes, everybody should have emergency money, emergency savings. And then it was to start to pay down debt other than your home. I love that step, too. If you have debt other than your home, probably makes a sense to pay it off. Except if you have like a 0.9% financing on your car or 1.9% financing on your car and inflation is 3%, well, then that probably doesn’t make sense to pay that off. If you could get 5% in your high yield money market account and that debt is 1.9%, that probably doesn’t make sense. Then the next step is to have the three to six months of emergency cash. Again, that makes sense for a lot of people, doesn’t make sense for everybody. If you make many hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and your expenses are $25,000 or $30,000 a month, which we see a lot, those people probably don’t need to save $150,000 or $200,000 in an emergency fund because there really aren’t many $180,000 emergencies. Most things that are that expensive are paid for by insurance or a choice. But if the median household income is $70,000 and you’re talking about having ten to $20,000 in emergency savings, yeah, that probably makes a lot of sense because there are a lot of emergencies and things happen. The water heater goes, the roof goes, you know, pipe bursts, you know, there’s things. After that, I think the next step is like to save for your, pay your house off and save for your kids college and then do your own savings. Well, I don’t know if I would tell someone to totally have their kids college paid for before they had their retirement set up. Right. So, I would say, I would tell people to make sure they were on a path to be able to retire some point in their sixties, right. And then money in excess of that I would put towards children’s college because children can figure out a way to borrow or pay for their college, whereas most people eventually are going to have to retire. The other thing is, I know in some advice he’s talked about how people shouldn’t have to take on debt for college, and that could be a generational thing, too. Because I think even if you go to, in many many parts of the country, even if you go to your community college and state school, it’s going to be more expensive than if going to like a private school at the time that he went to college. Right. And so, and adjusted for inflation. So, I don’t know if that advice really works. And then the last thing is, you know, save to build your wealth and give it away. Like, yeah, when you have enough that everything else is paid for, you know, your retirement is ready, kids retirement is ready. Then, yes, you would continue to save and invest and give away the parts that you want to give away. I think other experienced advisors are more likely to agree with me. That’s why hundreds of them have been blocked by him on Twitter or X.

Madison: All right, thanks for explaining that, Mike.

Introduction of Charles Barrett

Madison: Alright, so one last question for you. What do you think of his investing philosophy, including expected returns and safe withdrawal rates for retirement?

Mike: Okay, expected returns for the first part, he says the expected returns are 10% to 12% a year. He advocates growth mutual funds that beat the S&P 500. Well, it’s really easy to say that. It’s hard to do that in practice cause very few funds consistently beat the S&P 500. 10% to 12%, is probably higher than the expected return. I think 9% to 10% expected return is more likely if you just invest in stocks. But I wouldn’t just invest in US large growth stocks. You know, I invest throughout the world, like small company stocks, foreign stocks. A lot of people need bonds because they probably can’t take the volatility of an all stock portfolio. And if you’re taking distributions from a stock portfolio, it is going to really hurt your withdrawal rate. So the other thing, the other part of the question is, traditionally, ever since Bill Bengen and wrote his paper 30 years ago, most advisors stick to a 4% withdrawal rate, meaning you have a balanced portfolio, you can withdraw about 4% of it, adjusted for inflation, and that money should last 30 years. And it works out like 96, 98% of the time, depending on when you test it. So it really works because if you need to stop making inflation adjustments or cut back a little bit to make sure you don’t run out of money, it should work. He advocates like an 8% withdrawal rate. Like, if you go back and check the numbers, I think that works like 5% of the time. So that would leave you in your eighties or nineties without any money. So that’s not a good thing. So that is way too high. Now, he says that’s okay if you’ll invest only in stocks and do that well. And I’d say that comes from someone who is not taking appropriate risk into consideration. I actually know a situation where my last employer, before I got hired, they had somebody who had a lot of money, and the idea that he and my old boss got together was that they would just invest in the S&P 500 and the 2% dividends were enough to meet his living expenses on. So, they would continue to accumulate money forever and that things would be great. Except for the market peaked in March of 2000, didn’t make the full recovery for two and a half years. And of course, when the market crashed, the companies in the S&P cut their dividend. They had to start selling parts of that fund to meet those needs. And so, at that point, the S&P went down more than 50% in that two and a half years. Took a little while for it to start to come back. And then in 2008, went down by more between 2008 2009. So that strategy would have crushed somebody between 2000 and 2010. If you’re taking 8% out of something that goes down by 50%, you know, you start one year with a million dollars and you start year two with 420,000, you’re going to feel pretty nervous about taking 80,000 out that next year, as you should be, because that money’s just going to be gone. So, I think that is short sighted advice. It doesn’t look at what could go wrong. Part of the issue with the 4% rule is it’s not a lot of money, right? So, if you have a million dollars, that means you only withdraw $40,000 a year. And oftentimes what happens is people die with more money. Like they could have spent more money. But you don’t know that until you get to be in your eighties, when maybe it’s not that easy to do, like a big trip around the world or something. But I think it’s all a matter of what risk measures you want to take. And if you want to be sure of not running out of money, I would rather air on the side of having too much money, and then you could give to charity or your children or whoever you want to leave it to.

Overview of FZ Creative

Madison: All right, thanks, Mike. Thanks for explaining all of that to us. Did you want to add anything else to this episode?

Mike: No, I think that all the major Dave Ramsey points have come out. Like I said, it’s complicated, you know, like I’m going to be a little bit more nuanced maybe than he is. And when he gives out his advice, and I’ll say that, um, I think that, that the seven steps, seven baby steps, there’s a good starting place from that but then I think what an individual should do would be based on his or her or their situation, right? So, it’s a good foundation, but then how does it apply to you?

Coworking Space: FZ Works

Madison: Yeah, awesome. We are joined here today with Charles Barrett. Charles is the owner of FZ Works and also creative director for FZ Creative here in Yardley. Charles, would you like to explain to our listeners what your businesses are and what you do for a living and a little background?

Charles: Sure. Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. So, with FZ Creative, so I’ve actually been established in Yardley Borough for quite a while, since 2000 and late 2010 is when I first expanded my business into the Grist Mill. And so, I was in the Grist Mill for twelve and a half years, had a pretty large agency in there for a while. And so obviously, so FZ Creative is a brand marketing and design agency. And so, we really pretty much handle everything from logo design, web development, print, collateral, video, photography production, just sort of everything and anything you would need to sort of build a brand from scratch and as well as the sort of marketing of that brand. And so, I was sort of the, I’m the managing creative director of that agency. And then just sort of how things sort of evolved is then we all know Covid showed up and so then the world kind of changed. And the same building owner is Tom Cramer, who owns Cramer’s Bakery, the Grist Mill and several other buildings in Yardley. And he had just recently purchased this building and I… And he actually kind of came to me thinking about what he could do with it. And I sort of presented this idea to him about opening up a coworking space. Sort of based on how the world had changed. And for me, honestly, it seemed like it was actually a pretty good fit with my agency and my brand marketing and design agency and then running a co working space. They sort of, there’s a lot of synergy there.Comedy Nights and Events at FZ Works

Mike: Sure. Sure. I run into people, while you run into a lot of other business owners or people who are wanting to do anything to stop working from home, I guess, and go out and meet other people and see people.

Charles: Yeah, no doubt. I mean, and that’s really been probably one of the more rewarding parts of opening this space up is the connections that are being made. So to really kind of see that sort of, you know, that, that whole idea sort of come to fruition where, you know, what a great idea to bring people together and then start to kind of create other relationships. And you can see these difference, you know, all of a sudden their people are swapping business cards and all the way to the point where we’ll have members that are taking walks down the canal, right. So it’s a way to kind of, you know, not only a place for people to come and work, but for them to make connections, different relationships, and, you know, so that’s been, you know, sort of getting better and better. And so we’re hoping to kind of really sort of expand upon that.

Mike: That’s great.

Madison: So, can anyone go there to the FZ Works building? Is that open to anybody?

Charles: Absolutely, it is. We do have memberships. Right. So you can have, you could be a full time member. We have all sorts of different sort of part time memberships where you’re just sort of pre buying days, and just sort of, the more days that you buy, then that price per day obviously reduces. But we also just have day passes and where you can just come in for the day. It’s like $40 to come in for the day. And you can rent private rooms if you want to have an opportunity to have a private phone call. We have our little, our breakout rooms, we have a larger conference room that is also a rentable resource that people don’t have to be members. Sometimes we’ll have different teams of people that say, like, there’s teams of people that work remotely now. And so once, twice a month, they’ll rent my conference room, and so then they can all kind of come together. We got the whiteboard, we got the monitor on the wall, everything they would need. And then they have to basically have their meetings all day, and then they have access to the whole space. So, we have our coffee bar, our beverage bar, and your, you know, our location couldn’t be any better, right smack dab in the middle of Yardley.

Mike: Right. Thanks for giving me the tour a couple weeks, maybe a month or two ago now. It’s a great space, and there’s all kinds of different options for people who want to go in there. Like you said, you have that conference room, the little coffee bar. It’s really nice, and people should definitely check it out. And I think that it can be really useful for lots of different things. I told you, even we have taken over the whole first floor now of Scott’s building. But there’ll be times where maybe we want to talk about things that are kind of important, but not everybody should be in the meeting. And, yeah, I could definitely see having to use a conference room at some point in the future, even getting out of the space. I love this space, but it’s always good to move things around a little bit.

Charles: Yeah, no doubt. And the space is also fully rentable. The co working component is really just one portion of the business model. The whole space itself is rentable. And we’ve had some divisions of, actually, J&J have come out and they actually rented the whole space for a week, to do these workshops and breakouts and it works out really well. So, I just basically let my members know that it’s just closed for a private event. And people can take over the entire space. And then that gives us the opportunity to sort of orchestrate catering throughout town. We have, you know, Pretty Bird bringing up fresh coffee, we got Vault Bringing over pizzas, we got Panna bringing over gelato. Right. And so, there’s a lot that you can do to kind of create a little custom event for your company as well.

FZ Creative’s Business Model and Challenges

Mike: Wow. And I feel like I’ve seen comedy night on Instagram. I haven’t been to it yet, but tell me about that. Tell our listeners about that.

Charles: Yeah, so the comedy night is a blast. Right. That was, again, another part of the business model was that we wanted to be able to put on our own events. And so, we started with these comedy events. And basically, how it really kind of came to fruition is that I connected with a really tremendous producer. His name is Tim Conniff. He’s a regular at the Comedy Cabaret and just produces shows all around the tri state area. And he is really well connected with just some incredible talent. And so how we set it up is that we kind of like to refer to it as like, our speakeasy entrance, is that we have our front door entrance, which is right off of Main Street. And then, we have the side entrance, which is off of the parking lot where, where the famous Yardley mural is. And so, we sort of have everybody kind of come up through the back entrance. We rearrange the entire space. We fit about 70 people up here. And every single show has been sold out since we started it. And we have comedians booked out till June. So we are going to be.. If anybody misses a show and they see it sold out, we’ll have a full schedule on our website and for any other shows coming up in the future. It is really, really a fun time. It’s on a Thursday night, the doors open at 7:00. The show’s from like 8:00 to about 9:30 / 9:45, something like that. You know, it goes for a couple hours. It’s a BYOB event and it’s, you know, $30 a ticket. So, it’s real easy, and it’s just been really, really fun, really well received in the town. People are really looking for these fun little things to do.

Membership Details for FZ Works

Mike: Yeah. I like the idea that you do different things. Right. So, you know, certainly in the beginning, when you’re trying to figure out and get customers, get more full. I like the idea, right. That you have the comedy night, you have the private events. I think there was, I think I saw something about, like, somebody having a shower there or something. But, yeah, it’s great. And it’s beautiful space. I’m glad it’s getting used. Nice work.

Charles: Yeah. The rentals are really now starting to, starting to kick in that people are starting to realize that they can rent this for parties. Just this past Saturday, there was a surprise retirement party. We have multiple birthday parties already booked. And some for a 60th birthday party and we have one year old birthday parties. Because one of the things that people really like about it is that it could be a space could be available on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. And what kind of sets us apart from other spaces is that you get to bring your own food. You get to bring anything you want. You basically bring it to supply it, your own beer, wine if you want, where some people drink and some people don’t. So you have that capacity. And then you take over the whole space. So especially for, like, these younger, younger kids coming to a party, it’s like you don’t have to worry running around a restaurant. You have your own bathrooms. You have it. You basically lock down the whole space and it’s all yours, which is kind of, I think is an advantage as opposed to, you know, potentially being in a restaurant or anything, even though those are, you know, perfect for any other situation. But I think there’s.. We sort of have a little bit of a unique situation where it could be really customized for whatever that situation is.

Closing Remarks

Mike: I keep going back to FZ Works. And your name is Charles Barrett. Where does the FZ come from?

Charles: So, the FZ comes from flood zone. And so, it goes back to my S corp, which is FZ Media Design, Inc. And the origin of that name is where my first home here in Yardley, which is back in the mid nineties, was down on Morgan Avenue, right down in the borough. And so, at the time I was commuting to New York City, but I had a freelance business as well, where I would do freelance illustration, photoshop design work, working out of my home. And with that business I was calling it flood zone studios because the river at the time, back then, the river would flood all the time. But then when we moved out and then when I decided to really go out on my own and really kind of start my own agency, I called it FZ Media Design Inc. And then I go doing business as a DBA, doing business as FZ Creative, as the agency because we do do just such a wide amount. As far as the level of work that we do, it’s very broad. We’re not very specific because everybody has creative needs, marketing needs, branding needs, and that business continuously evolves. Right. And so then when I opened up the co working space, I went with FZ Works and it just sort of worked, it’s catchy.

Madison: Yeah, I’d say so.

Mike: So, when did you take that leap to stop, stop commuting from New York and fully go out on your own? How long has that been?

Charles: That was in 2007, when I actually fully said I was like, you know, when I decided to just kind of go out on my own. And there was a lot of opportunity at the time in the music industry. I worked for Bertelsmann Music Group, Atlantic Records, RCA, Electra. So, I kind of had, I had an opportunity to kind of follow that. And it was really fun. You know, as you can imagine there was, you know, working with everybody from Sugar Ray to P Diddy to, you know, all these. So, I got to go to some fun parties and do some really fun projects. And then I was there for, also, I was there for the rise of the music industry then also was there for sort of that demise when MP3’s sort of hit the scene, you know, when there was Napster and stuff. When I was, I was actually working for BMG at the time when they paid, where they paid 50 million or something for Napster, thinking that they were going to stop what had already started but the dam was broken. So then that whole music industry world sort of changed. Sort of from that is then I rolled into more corporate. I ended up getting really into the careers space for a while and actually what really sort of expanded my agency, because at a time when I was in the Grist Mill, I had as many as ten people working for me and I had some large contracts with Career Builder, back when they were the career site to go to. And so, I worked with them for years and sort of helping them develop a lot of their career sites and career products and all of their digital products. And so that was a big catalyst to really sort of grow my agency.

Mike: Very cool.

Madison: Yeah. So I saw, going back to FZ creative, so on your website, I see you guys do logo design, photography, video production, marketing, collateral. I know you said you were big in the music industry, so are you just in the music industry or is it more for any type of business?

Charles: Yeah, I would definitely say that we are really any type of business. And honestly, I think that’s probably my specialty, to be honest. Is the fact is that we don’t have a niche market that we work with. So, we’ve done a lot of works with restaurants and sort of creating and building their whole brand and then everything from different, you know, crisis management to interior design to even working in the golf industry right now. So, there’s really, there’s no really any particular. There’s been a couple of call out logos that we’ve actually done here in town. We did Firehouse Cycle, did Yardley General, Salon 9, Spearhead. There’s so, you know, we actually did modify Cramer’s bakery, and we even go all the way back to the Continental Tavern logo that you’re seeing right now. They had an original, sort of, like, small, little, like, black and white drawing of this little colonial soldier. And I just modified it and made it better for him, made it better for Frank Lyons. So, yes, we’ve had our hands in a lot of businesses here in town as well. And so, you know, which has always been fun. It’s always good to kind of see, you know, see your work sort of spread throughout the town.

FZ Creative’s Performance During COVID

Madison: Yeah. You have your mark a little, a little bit everywhere in Yardley.

Charles: Yeah, a little. A little bit. A little bit here and there.

Madison: That’s awesome. During COVID How did FZ Creative do?

Charles: Well, just like any business, it was a big hit. It, you know, it really changed the world in a lot of ways. And that would, you know, it was because, again, we work on a lot of contracts on a contract basis, and then when everybody was just shut down, people really didn’t know sort of what their next move was, what their future was. So, it definitely affected it in a pretty large way in the sense that I kind of reduced my agency down, reduced my overhead, and then now that I have a much larger network of outsourcing instead of having really full time employees. And, you know, but then with that is that it then came the opportunity here to open up FZ Works and, you know, to try to kind of reinvent to a degree. Right. Which is, you know, part of the challenge, you know, but that’s sort of, you know, part of the process of being, you know, an entrepreneur is that you have to be able to be agile and figure it out, figure out what the next steps are and follow that.

Opening FZ Works

Mike: When did FZ Works actually open? Pretty recent, right?

Charles: Yeah, it’s coming up on its first year. So, FZ Works, our grand opening was May of 2023. And so that’s when we had our ribbon cutting. And yeah, so it’s been it’s been going well.

Madison: That’s awesome.

Mike: That’s great.

Staffing at FZ Works

Madison: Do you have any employees that work for you?

Charles: I don’t have any, say, full time staff employees, but I do have a lot of consistent people that I work with that help with marketing, that help with press releases on the creative side. And then I also have some people here as members of FZ Works that help with party planning and events and client relations. And so it’s good. It’s sort of been, it has definitely worked in the sense where the idea of opening up a space where I’m bringing professionals together has actually offered me opportunity to find people to work with to help support my agency. So it actually does work, you know, hand in hand. And then I have teams of developers, multiple different teams of developers, from every kind of website management to app development. And these days they’re kind of all over the world. But that’s just the nature of that business now is that development teams are much more overseas with here in the states, local management type thing, but that’s sort of all over the place.

Challenges Faced by FZ Creative

Madison: Okay. Alright. So, with all the success you have achieved, have you had any big challenges that you faced, or you are facing?

Charles: I’d say probably the biggest challenge is, let’s say on the agency side, is really staying on top of technology and how people are communicating with each other. We all know how it just changes constantly. Right. And really trying to kind of stay in front of that wave and understanding even the psychology of it is really probably the largest challenge. But again, it’s an enjoyable challenge. You’re always being challenged yourself to learn a new platform and just try to follow that and then try to continue to be sort of creative and smart and being able to deliver that. At the end of the day, when it comes to branding and marketing, that’s always pretty consistent. You want to be consistent, you want to be smart. You want to have a very smart, consistent brand, how you portray yourself and then utilizing those tools the best as possible. And just trying to leverage that. That’s how it sort of constantly evolves. And then when it comes to FZ Works, it’s really, it’s about, like, the people and the relationships. And that’s, again, to circle back, one of the things that I enjoy the most is, you know, the people that I’m getting to meet, the relationships that I’m I’m making with our members and our full time members. And again, it just goes to show how, how great this town is, you know, because people are just so nice, you know, they’re just such a great group of people in this area, and I have such great members that, you know, I mean, they’ll get here before me, they’ll take the sign out, they’re making coffee, you know, they’re turning on the music. You know, it’s like, because they love it as well. Right. You know, so, you know, the sort of autonomy that I sort of designed into the space is really working out well.

Membership Process for FZ Works

Madison: So if someone does want to become a member, how does it work? Do they go online to do it, or is it an in person sign up for the membership? How does that work?

Charles: Sure. All they have to do is go to FZWorks.Space and just go to our website and we list all of the different kinds of memberships there. And one of the things that anybody can do without, let’s say, if they’re not ready to commit and they’re just interested in finding out more, they can sign up as a community member. And a community member is free. And all that means is that you’re going to just be able to, you’re going to get our emails, you’re going to get our notifications. And when you are a community member, you’re basically creating a username and password for your account. Now, the entire space is controlled from a smartphone. You download an app, we have an app called Proximity, and there’s literally a QR code right at our front door to be able to download that app. And then that same username and password that you use to sign up as a community member, that will then give you access to the space. And that’s where you can buy a day pass. You can upgrade your membership. You can make reservations to our breakout rooms, our conference room. You could actually also be able to see a list of all of the other members. So it becomes this little bit of a community resource that we really try to encourage people to put your information in there. If you’re a financial planner, if you’re an interior designer, if you’re a business coach, if you’re anything, it’s a way to be able to, that people are able to communicate and get together. So we really built the system to be autonomous. Like, I don’t need to be here every day. If you’re a member and you have.. The door at the street level opens up, it automatically unlocks at 07:45 a.m. and then the door at the top of the stairs, you just control it through your phone, unlock the door and you’re in.

Contact Information for FZ Creative

Madison: Wow, that is so cool. So that is FZ Works. So what about FZ Creative? If someone is interested in reaching out to you about, you know, maybe some logo design, maybe some video production, how do they reach out to you?

Charles: Same thing. They could just go to the website fzcreative.com and through there, obviously we have forms to be able to reach out and contact and then just lots of samples of our work. So there’s just, you could see samples of logo design, marketing strategy, videos, photography, everything. So there’s a lot on there. If people wanted to really kind of get a sense of the level of work that we do and lists all the other different kinds of technology platforms that we work on. So everything is on the site. And at the same time, anybody can just stop by at FZ Works, 9 South Main Street. Just come on up. Even if you’re not a member, you just want to knock on the door. I’m almost always here, and so I’m always willing to just sit down with anybody and have a conversation about what their needs are. There’s no obligation, no nothing. It’s all part of the process. It all starts with the conversation.

Branding and Its Significance

Mike: Charles, can I ask a question? It may be like real simplistic one, but we often hear the term branding. What does that mean? And so say somebody opens up their business and they’re really good at their skill or their profession, but they really don’t know. I don’t know what they should look like, what their branding is. What does branding mean? And like, what kind of process would somebody go through to make sure that they were like, I guess showing themselves in the best light or whatever branding is?

Charles: Sure. I mean, to understand branding, it’s really about not only the service that you provide, but it’s also like, what is your Persona? How does it really represent you, your business model and everything about that? Right. You know, so there’s obviously lots of different ways to approach it. Again, it always starts out with the conversation and breaking down exactly what your business model is, who you going after, what’s your target market, and really sort of understand that and then also how to, how to differentiate you from the potentially crowded field that could be out there. So that’s sort of what we really try to focus on is saying, how can we sort of elevate you and elevate your brand in a creative way? And that’s where that sort of breaks down. And then when you think about, when we talk about that consistency, what it is that we will bring to the table is making sure that your business cards, your collateral material, your websites, your marketing, your social posts, that everything all the way across the board has a consistent look and feel and vibe that you feel comfortable with that really represents you. People want, they want to see that consistency, and that just shows. And I feel like that really represents somebody when they really put forth the consistent effort that that just elevates your level of professionalism, and that’s what your customers and clients are going to gravitate towards.

Mike: Okay. Thanks for taking the time to explain that. I really appreciate it.

Concluding Remarks

Charles: Sure.

Madison: Yeah, yeah. Hopefully that’s helpful for the new business owners coming into the market. So, Charles, is there anything else you want to speak about?

Charles: You know, I mean, I think we really kind of covered a lot of things today. I just, you know, I, if anything, just to kind of summarize is again, about how, what a great town Yardley is and Yardley borough. Right. I, you know, again, I didn’t grow up here. I grew up in North Jersey, Millburn Short Hills area. But I met my wife in Philadelphia at art school, and she grew up here. And she was a, you know, went to Villa Victoria back in the eighties, you know, across the river. But just fell in love with this town, you know, raised my boys here. And it’s just been, you know, just everything about it, you know, in the way that my, even my business has been received. It’s just, you know, it’s really worth mentioning, you know, and, you know, so I’m just really looking forward to continuing to try to be as creative and fun with FZ Works. The big thing is really trying to make it a place that can really bring people together for their own events, for their own parties, be it corporate, be it social, whatever it may be, and then what other kind of events that we can put on to sort of bring something special to town to kind of differentiate ourselves from, you know, other, other small towns in the area.

Madison: Are you on any social media?

Charles: Sure. We predominantly focus mostly on Instagram. You know, so that’s another great way for people to follow FZ Works is just FZWorks_ Yardley. And so that’s where we post a lot of our events and things, and they can really kind of see what’s going on, especially if we’re having any sort of networking events. We’re going to be actually having a headshot happy hour event coming up soon where we have a professional photographer coming in and have a little happy hour around it where people could take brand new, fresh headshots. So, we’re going to be doing more and more of those type events. And then for FZ Creative, again, that’s just FZCreative on Instagram. And we post a lot of different projects and things that we do when we’re traveling and doing different photo shoots, video shoots, you know, examples of our work is up there as well.

Madison: Yeah. So, you mentioned traveling. So traveling is part of the business with FZ Creative.

Charles: Absolutely. Yeah. FZ Creative, we will travel for any client, really. That’s always been sort of part of it. You know, we were just recently down in Florida at the PGA show for a golf client that we’re helping sort of build his online brand, and then sort of a subscription based video tutorial website. And we’ve traveled as far as Saudi Arabia, if you can believe that. We actually had a client that was in the private aviation industry for a while, and so we actually went over there. So, yeah, we’re always looking for opportunity, but traveling is certainly not a problem.

Madison: Awesome. Alright. That’s great to know. That’s great to know. It was great talking to you and great to hear about your business.

Mike: Yeah. Thanks for taking the time.

Charles: Great. Thank you both. I really appreciate it. It was fun, and you guys have a great day.

Madison: For more information on Yardley Wealth Management or Yardley Estate Planning, you can visit our website at yardleywealth.net, and yardlyestate.net. You can also follow us on socials at Yardley Wealth Management. This podcast has been produced by Madison Demora and Mike Garry with technical and artistic help from Poe Productions.