Intro: [00:00:09] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta. It’s time for Charitable Georgia. Brought to you by B’s Charitable Pursuits and Resources. We put the fun in fund raising. For more information, go to B’s Charitable Pursuits. Dot com. That’s B’s Charitable Pursuits dot com. Now here’s your host, Brian Pruett.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:46] Good, fabulous Friday morning. It’s another fabulous Friday. We’ve got three more fabulous guests. And I’m going to do a little update first. First of all, Sharon, welcome back. Doing producing this morning.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:56] Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Brian Pruett: [00:00:57] It’s always nice to have Sharon in the house. Not that we don’t like Stone, but as I mentioned, Sharon’s a little better looking to. And Sharon, thank you for coming out to my event the other night. We had a big locker room chat with several former athletes out at the Crosspoint City Church in Cartersville for all in all out ministries, which if you listen to the show, you’ve listened to Kevin’s story. But if you haven’t, first of all, the show is all about positive things happening in the community. And Kevin Harris started all in all at ministries helping men with addiction. And so at the fundraiser, we did everything the other night and we raised $10,300 for him. So, you know, you’re doing good. As Amanda just said, you’re doing good. And when you can make somebody cry and we make Kevin cry at least four times Wednesday night, so that’s awesome. So, all right. Like I said, we’ve got three more fabulous guests this morning and our first guest this morning is Kimberly George from Mary Kay. So, Kimberly, thank you for being here.

Kimberly George: [00:01:49] Thank you, Brian.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:50] So Kimberly has got an incredible backstory, which we’ll hear in just a second. But you’re a 20 year veteran of the Navy, right?

Kimberly George: [00:01:57] That’s correct.

Brian Pruett: [00:01:58] So if you don’t mind, share your story and then we’ll talk about why you’re passionate of what you’re doing.

Kimberly George: [00:02:03] Yeah, So the military was not a thing that I was that I thought I would do when I was younger. My family was never in the military. My dad, he was drafted in the Vietnam War, so he did his time and then he was out and he never talked about it ever again. So I really don’t even know really what he did during that time. But I so I started 12th grade and I was pregnant. I had my daughter at the first day of 12th grade. So I went to school that day. And then I went into labor that night and had her that I guess the next morning. And so I was trying to figure out like, okay, what am I going to do now? I have a baby. I got to finish 12th grade, you know, and I was going to college. It was no question was I going to college or not. I wanted to go out of state because I wanted to get away from home. But of course, plans changed, right? So I graduated from high school and I went to college. I went to Southern University, which is an HBCU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And my whole thought process was, how can I go to college and not have to get a job to take care of my child, but also go to college at the same time? So I had an academic scholarship. I also ran track in high school and ended up with a track scholarship. And the way my school worked was if you have overages as far as if your tuition is paid for, then that extra money goes back into your pocket.

Kimberly George: [00:03:27] And so I kind of went in like it was a business, right? And so I was like, how else can I get more scholarships to get more money in my pocket so I don’t have to work? And so when I went to freshman orientation, there was a table set up by the ROTC at college. And I walk by not even thinking about it at all. I’ll walk by. And they were like, How would you like to get your school paid for? And I was like, Wait, what school pay for? Okay, What I got to do, right? Because my mind was like, more money. Yes. And so I did the whole process, signed up, did ROTC for the four years in college, and then I ended up in the Navy and it wasn’t like, Oh, I want to join the Navy. It was just like, okay, they pay for me to go to college for four years. I got to do four years in the military. So I was commissioned as soon as I graduated. I graduated on May 10th. I was commissioned on May 10th, and I ended up having to select a ship because I was a surface warfare officer. So I had to select the ship and I wanted to get the closest ship to home because home was Louisiana. My daughter was in Louisiana. I ended up in San Diego. So not close at all. So my daughter had to stay at home with my mom for that first period.

Kimberly George: [00:04:36] While I was on the ship. I deployed on that ship twice and went to the Middle East. I was the ordnance officer, so I was in charge of all of the weapons, all of the guns on board, all of the ammo on board. And the captain of that ship, his motto was Gunsmoke is good, more is better, which means that we had to shoot a weapon every single day while we were out to sea. So that was a lot of fun. So then I left there and I tried to get closer to home again, and I ended up in Pascagoula, Mississippi. And if you know anything about Pascagoula, like, Oh, no, I thought Baton Rouge was like, bad, but oh my gosh, Pascagoula, there is nothing there. But I was closer to home where I was able to get my daughter. And so she had been with me since I got to Pascagoula, but I was the damage control assistant on that ship. So it was another ship in Pascagoula. And I was in charge of all of damages. So, like fire flooding, you know, and you’ll be surprised. We actually have a lot of flooding on ships, which is the worst thing that can happen because ships are supposed to float. Right. Water is not supposed to get in the ship. But we had lots of under the waterline flooding. So like our main engine room started to flood one time. It was very scary, but we got through it.

Brian Pruett: [00:05:49] So there was a big hole in the bucket.

Kimberly George: [00:05:50] Yes, a huge bowl. Like a huge hole, which is not supposed to happen. So then I left there and I went to Monterey, California, and Naval Postgraduate School, which is like the best secret in the Navy. It’s a little hidden gem in Monterey, California. Monterey, California is absolutely gorgeous, by the way. But I ended up getting my master’s degree in physics, but not because I’m smart. Not at all. I ask the detailer and Detailer is the person that like gives you your jobs and stuff. I said, Hey, what is the longest curriculum here? Because once I got done, I had to go back to the ship, right? So I wanted to be on shore duty for as long as possible. And he said the longest curriculum is physics and it’s two years. And I was like, I’ll take it. Whatever I need to do. I need to stay on land for as long as possible. So I got my master’s degree in physics and then left there and then went back to a ship in Washington state. And I was the chief engineer, so I was in charge of the whole engineering department, which was making electricity, making the water to potable water in charge of the engines, the diesels, the, you know, all of that stuff that has anything to do with engineering. And then left there, went to San Diego, California. And I was an in-between there. I was in Rhode Island for like spurts of time because that’s where our schooling and stuff happens in Rhode Island.

Kimberly George: [00:07:08] And then San Diego, I was on another ship. Well, actually I was the materials officer, so I was in charge of ten different ships for their engineering department and then left there, went to the Pentagon in Virginia, was there for four years. And at the Pentagon I worked on the and people are always surprised about this, But I was a part I was part of the nuclear weapons portfolio and the biological and chemical weapons portfolio and then left there. And then I went to made it to Georgia. I’m not from Georgia, made it to Georgia, but it was my last duty station and I was the executive officer and commanding officer for all Navy recruiting. So Navy recruiting in Georgia, Alabama and Panama City, Florida. And so Covid happened during that tour also. And that made me decide I would do 20 years and I would get out because it was very challenging. It was very rough. And in the midst of all of that, I had started my Mary Kay business 11 years ago. And again, it kind of was the same way how I got in the Navy also, right? Like it wasn’t like, Oh, I want to do Mary Kay. It just kind of happened because the girl on the ship with me and it was only me and her on the ship as far as females, and it was 274 guys. So we had to kind of stick together a little bit.

Kimberly George: [00:08:24] She had started her business. She didn’t tell me she started her business. She was just like, Hey, I have this business idea I want you to listen to. And I’m like, Oh, what is it? And she’s like, I’m not telling you what it is because I didn’t wear makeup. I really didn’t take care of my skin. And she didn’t either. And so I got on this call and a lady on the call, she started talking about the business opportunity. I was like, You know what? That sounds pretty good. I think I’ll do it. And so I started on a Sunday and then I went out to sea for a whole week and I completely forgot that I had started my Mary Kay business. When I came home, my husband was like, Hey, there’s a box at the door that you ordered something. It says Mary Kay. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that’s right. I did start a Mary Kay business, so I opened it up. I had to call the lady who told me about the business like, okay, what do I do with these products? I had no idea. So she had to walk me through how to use the products. And so 11 years later, here I am. I’ve earned six free cars since then, with one of them being a pink Cadillac. So people always ask, Do you drive a pink Cadillac? Yes, I’ve earned a pink Cadillac working on the second one now and absolutely love it.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:23] So that’s a lot of good information. So on the pink Cadillac, I just got I’m curious, did they get that because Elvis drove a pink Cadillac first?

Kimberly George: [00:09:31] I don’t know.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:32] We should ask Mary Kay that.

Kimberly George: [00:09:33] But you know what, Mary Kay, So the reason why she picked the color pink was because and this is so crazy. So Mary Kay started in 1963 when she opened the doors. But she loved the color pink because it was the color of the bathrooms at the time were pink. So she liked it and she was like, You know what? I’m gonna get this color car when I go to the dealership. And she did.

Brian Pruett: [00:09:54] You might want to remember that. That might be a trivia question, right? Yes. So I want to go back to some questions about the Navy. So were you on any aircraft carriers? I was on?

Kimberly George: [00:10:05] Were the ones were you on? So I was on the Vinsons, which was stationed out of Washington, and I wasn’t stationed on them. I embarked on them for deployment. So then when I went to San Diego and I was a part of a Destroyer squadron staff, we embarked on another one. And that one was the, Oh gosh, it just slipped my mind. What was it? Oh, the Lincoln. The Lincoln.

Brian Pruett: [00:10:28] So my cousin was in Desert Storm and he was on the Nimitz first and then the Saratoga. And his job in the Navy was he was in charge of the ejection seats for the pilots. Oh, wow. And if you remember anything at all about Desert Storm, you guys may be too young. I’m too old for this. But there was a couple of pilots who had. Eject and they were rescued. And my cousin’s the one that worked on those seats for them. And I guess their their thank you gift that they do for pilots was they brought him one of those commemorative crown royal bottles and stuff. I don’t know if he ever drank it, but I know it was on his TV for a while. So, um, what what was, I guess maybe your do you have a favorite memory that you can share from the Navy?

Kimberly George: [00:11:09] Um, I would say a favorite. I don’t know if it’s a favorite memory, but it’s an interesting memory. We were doing counter-drug ops in South America, and we. And it’s crazy. So there are submersible little objects. They’re not even ships or boats or anything, but this is where they use to carry the drugs on. And people were on board also on this little submersible object. And they’re trying to get from one country to the US the closest place they can land in the US to be able to offload the drugs. And so we tracked it with our sonar, tracked this object, tracked this object. So we got like super close for it to come up and when it submerged or not submerged, but like when it came up, the people jumped out of the object. So now they’re in the water. They set it on fire because the drugs were in there, because they didn’t want us to get it right. So then we instead of trying to like, get this object, it turned into a search and rescue mission because now we had to get the people off board. We had to put the fire out, you know, And we were like really close with our ship to this fire burning fire. So we were like, okay, is our ship going to catch on fire, too? You know? So it became this whole problem solving thing that we had to do. We ended up getting the people on board. On board. We took them to Cuba. Actually, they went to jail and it was over 500 tons of cocaine, heroin, you know, all of those big time drugs.

Brian Pruett: [00:12:48] Wow. Was it Quantico? You had to take him to Quantico? No, no. A Few Good Men is one of my favorite movies, by the way. So I think it’s really cool. You spent 20 years in the service, so thank you for your service. But also the fact that, you know, you’re a prime example of it’s just not men, right? When I was growing up, it was kind of looked down on that the females served. Maybe if you can just share a little bit advice for some young ladies who might be listening that might be thinking about going that route.

Kimberly George: [00:13:19] Yeah. So the military has opened up tremendously. There are so many benefits, you know, to the military also, which I think a lot of people don’t even know about or realize the benefits. But there are lots of women now that are joining the military. Right now. We’re at about I want to say, I mean, it’s still a very low numbers, but we’re at about 17 to 20% female in the military right now. But there are so many leadership roles. I mean, when I joined, I went in straight as a leader. And it’s so funny because my first division, when I went to my first ship, I was one of seven females onboard the whole ship and they had 300 and something people on the ship, right? But my division, I had 25 people in my division. I was 21 years old and I was leading this division and my chief was 42. He was double my age. So one, he never worked with a female before at that time and he never worked with a black person, you know, in charge of him, too. So it was challenging, I have to say. It was challenging. It took us about six months because I wasn’t going anywhere and he wasn’t going anywhere. So we had to figure out how to make it work and how to be able to move our division forward. And this is the one where the captain was like, Gunsmoke is good, more is better. So we had to like, figure out how to get past the differences, which I didn’t have a problem with.

Kimberly George: [00:14:39] But he had to figure out how to get past me being there and telling him what to do so that we can get these guns shooting every single day, you know, and getting the maintenance done on the guns and that kind of stuff. And I mean, at the end of his tour, you know, he gave me an awesome gift. He was like, Thank you so much, which I’m so glad I was able to be kind of the example for him, right? So because he’s going to run into other females in the military, well, he’s out now. But you know, the next job, he will have ran into other females, too. But there is so many opportunities for people like college opportunities and, you know, getting your school paid for insurance, medical insurance, you know, all kinds of opportunities for people that join the military. But women also, I think it’s so good for people to see women at high levels in the military also because representation matters, you know, And so for me, I just felt like I was an example for a lot of the females that were coming in, because you’re not going to see people, you know, women at a top level in the military. So I think we’re like starting that wave right now. We’re going to have. Our first female CNO of the Navy. She just got appointed by president. So we’re breaking barriers. You know, we’re coming in and we’re not sitting down and we’re not being quiet about it either. So I’m excited about that.

Brian Pruett: [00:15:58] That’s awesome. So your your oficer there must have been a Marshal Dillon fan, right? So it must be so.

Kimberly George: [00:16:06] Yeah, he probably was. Gunsmoke is good.

Brian Pruett: [00:16:08] Right? Right. So actually, you did just something. You have a big heart as well. You you not only care about, obviously, and passion about the military and navy and the community itself, but you actually just did something along with other people in Mary Kay. But for the deployed servicemen and women share about that.

Kimberly George: [00:16:28] Yeah. So I always wonder, like, how can I use my business to give back and to support others? And I’m a big proponent of the military, obviously, right? Because it was 20 years of my life, like, how can I give back to the organization that I just left? And so every year we partner with this organization called Operation Courage is Beautiful, and they send care packages to deployed service members. And I really like to do it in the summertime because it’s super hot. And so we have several service members in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, you know, all of those different countries where the temperatures are like if we think it’s hot right now in Georgia, like I mean, like it’s really hot in Kuwait, you know, but a lot of the service members don’t have the resources for sun protection and skin care, you know, in that kind of stuff. A lot of service members don’t even receive care packages. And care packages are like gold when you’re on deployment. My first deployment, my husband didn’t send me anything on my first deployment, like no care packages. My mom didn’t send anything, you know, like it was rough. And so they never heard the last of it. My next deployment, they had learned their lesson.

Kimberly George: [00:17:38] I got care packages. I was like a celebrity because I was getting care packages all the time. But I was able to share with other people that never got care packages while on deployment. So care packages are huge. If you get a piece of mail with your name on it, even if it’s a letter, I mean, like that’s the best thing you can do for your deployed service member. And I know that. So being able to partner with that organization who gives care packages to deployed service members and I was able to put in skin care that has SPF in it. It makes a huge difference for the deployed service members, too. So this year I was able to send over 400 packages to be able to send out to deployed service members. And we’ve been getting letters back saying, thank you so much. This is exactly what I needed, you know, And they also put in like Girl Scout cookies, you know, and all of that stuff, too, with the skin care that we send. But it’s a really big deal. And so it makes a huge difference. It helps them get through deployment also because somebody is thinking about them, you know, well, I.

Brian Pruett: [00:18:32] Hope they didn’t put the lotion on. They need the cookies because they probably ate some lotion at the same time. But no, that’s awesome. So other than being a representative for Mary Kay, can you give us a, I guess, a benefit of Mary Kay that might be better than some of the other products that are out there?

Kimberly George: [00:18:48] Yes. So one is if you’re my customer or my client, you get me as your consultant. But what I really like is that so if you go to a store like let’s say you go to Macy’s or whatever, right? And you buy skin care, you can call them and say, Hey, how do I use this again? Or like, Wait, what works best with this? Okay, my skin is breaking out. What do you think? Like, you can’t go back and ask those types of questions to them or you can’t. Even if you open it and you realize like, Oh, this is not the right one, you can’t return it either, right? Like you can return your products back. To me, it doesn’t come out of my pocket. Everything’s 100% guaranteed. But then I can also walk you through how to properly use the product, what the product is supposed to do. I follow up with you to make sure that you’re getting the right results. Right? Because if it’s like, wait a minute, your skin’s not supposed to be breaking out, what’s happening? Let’s make sure you’re using it properly, okay? What are you allergic to? I can look up and see if that has those types of ingredients that you’re allergic to. I mean, so much. Right? And we always talk about customer service, but you really get upgraded customer service when you have a Mary Kay consultant.

Brian Pruett: [00:19:58] So I know I was kind of like a friend, Bob Brooks, and thought Mary Kay was just for women but share about all the products because you do have things for men and I’m sure there’s other things that we may not know about. So share some of those.

Kimberly George: [00:20:09] So we have a whole men’s line that has a facial wash. We have what Bob calls Frank’s hot sauce, which is for it’s instant puffiness reducers, right? I call it the magic eraser for puffiness underneath the eye area. And that’s for anybody, men and women.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:24] You have to tell why he calls it that.

Kimberly George: [00:20:26] He puts it everywhere.

Brian Pruett: [00:20:27] All right. There you go.

Kimberly George: [00:20:30] We have fragrances. We have body care, skin care, of course, for men and women. Also, we even have skincare for ages 4 to 17 because we want kids to start taking care of their skin at an early age. So when they get older, they won’t be like man. I wish I would have, you know, but also to learn about skincare, because a lot of times people will be out in the sun. They aren’t protecting their skin like the sun is not good when it comes to skincare. It causes damage, it causes wrinkles, it causes dark spots, you know, all of that stuff. And so we provide education to write about skincare. But then we also have makeup. A lot of times people always when they hear Mary Kay, they think, oh, makeup. It’s not just makeup. It’s like 80% skincare. And then you have the makeup also. And so I love providing the education to people about how to take better care of your skin, what you can do. Because sometimes when we look in the mirror, we’re like, Man, I need to lift this up. I need to pull this back. I need to get rid of these wrinkles here. I need, you know. And so starting sooner rather than later helps with that. But we have products for any and everything. Fragrances. I don’t know if I said that, but bath care, body care, foot care, all of that stuff.

Brian Pruett: [00:21:41] Got any car?

Kimberly George: [00:21:42] Deodorant, deodorant? No.

Brian Pruett: [00:21:47] So explain how kind of Mary Kay and you guys work, because I know there are several there’s a lot of Mary Kay consultants out there. Do you guys have certain territories? How does that.

Kimberly George: [00:21:58] Work? Yeah. So there are no territories, but we pride ourselves on what we call the go give spirit and the golden rule, right? Which is to treat others the way you want to be treated. But the go give is like, if I’m out and about and I’m talking to someone and I say, Oh, I do. Mary Kay, do you have a Mary Kay consultant? And if she says yes, then that’s the end of the that’s not the end of the conversation, but that’s the end of like me talking about Mary Kay, right? She can ask me questions about products and all of that stuff, but I’m going to always refer her back to her consultant because we never want to take a customer from a consultant because there are millions of people, there’s enough people, you know, to go around for you to have a consultant also, or a customer as well. So if I do a party and there’s people there and there’s a couple people who already have Mary Kay consultants, they can order from me at the party, but I won’t follow up with them. I’ll say, You got to go back to your consultant, follow up with your consultant, ask your consultant these questions and that kind of stuff. Because again, we never want to take anybody away from that consultant and so we pride ourselves on that.

Brian Pruett: [00:22:55] So can you share about what the the party kind of party are you doing?

Kimberly George: [00:22:58] Yeah, we like to get down and dirty, but we do all kinds of parties. So bridal bashes, so people that are getting married or having an anniversary, a wedding anniversary or anything like that, they get girlfriends together, even guy friends together. And we would do pampering. We call them pampering sessions where we’ll do like a hand and lip softening treatment with an anti-aging facial deep pore cleansing treatment. We do just regular pampering sessions. We do birthday bashes. So, you know, girlfriends get together for a birthday, you have a pampering session, a spa night. We also do birthday bashes. We do. We call them classes. Also, we do makeover parties, makeover bashes. We do mimosas and makeovers. I mean, there are so many things you can do.

Brian Pruett: [00:23:49] That can be troubling and stuff right there. Do you guys do any of those parties as fundraisers?

Kimberly George: [00:23:55] We do. We do. So I have a girlfriend. Who? Her? She’s doing it for a sporting team right now because sports is getting ready to start back up for high school. And so to help parents be able to cover the fees for their their kids. So she’s donating part of her profits because we make a 50% profit. So she’s donating part of her profits to the organization to help pay for the kids. Yesterday, I did an event with Ignite Hope, which is an organization that supports foster families and adoptions. And so I did free makeovers for the moms, the foster moms and the kids got some lipstick. So they loved it. They thought they were getting made over, too. But so yeah, we always do events and stuff like that, too.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:39] So I know a guy does fundraisers. We’ll have to talk.

Kimberly George: [00:24:41] Oh, that sounds good. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:24:43] So. All right, so you do a lot of networking, you’re out and about. You go to several of the groups that I go to as well. And we always talk about the power and positivity of networking. Can you share a story that’s happened to you while networking?

Kimberly George: [00:24:56] Yeah, so? Well, first off, I didn’t even know networking groups existed until I retire from the Navy and I got a magazine in the mail and it was for Accurate Business Association and it said, you know, ABA meeting Aqua business associated meeting. And I was like, business association, what is that? So I called the number and I was like, Hey, can I attend this? You know, is this like something I can go to? And they were like, Yeah, you can come, you know? And they gave me the details of when the next meeting was, and I was like, okay. So I showed up. I didn’t know I had to have a spiel to say anything, you know, I mean, like I was completely new to networking and this was a year ago, like last year May, because I retired last year from the military, July 1st. But I was on terminal leave and I got the magazine. And so I showed up and. It was so welcoming because people recognize new faces, right? And they welcome you in and ask you questions and that kind of stuff. I had no idea what to say. I mean, like, I was so clueless. But then thankfully. Oh, and at my first networking meeting, this is when Bob called me out and he was like, Oh, you do, Mary Kay. Oh, I won’t be able to use your services, but I can probably refer you. I was like, No, we have many products like, and I was.

Brian Pruett: [00:26:08] Going to put Bob in a place that’s good.

Kimberly George: [00:26:09] Yes. And so I stood up, fumbled through my 32nd spiel and got better over time. But as I started to meet people, one thing was I didn’t even know that senior living homes were a thing, you know, like and I learned this through networking and I have met so many people and I have been able to go into senior living homes now and I pamper the residents, which is a lot of fun. I mean, they love it. You’ll be surprised. Those ladies love their makeup and they love when someone comes in and just pamper them and just kind of let them be right. Let them look in the mirror, tell them how beautiful they are and all of that stuff too. But I love connecting people, you know, not just me, but like connecting other people together. And so being able to sit down and listen to someone tell me a little bit about them and about their business. And I’m thinking in my mind like, okay, who would be a connection for this person? Like, who can I connect them with? And I’ve been able to make a lot of connections for other people through networking, which I probably would have never done because I didn’t even know that that was a thing.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:15] I love that aspect. That’s one of my third passions is connecting others. Others. And that’s one reason I shared last week why I bring three people on on the show at one time is to connect others with others unless you’re a husband and wife team. So. So if somebody is listening and wants to get a hold of you for your services, how can they do that?

Kimberly George: [00:27:33] So you can follow me on any social media platform. I am. Rms So Miss Kimberly George and Kimberly is with the L, Y, George G or GE, but Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you know, whatever else is out there. Threads, Instagram threads. Yes, I am on threads now.

Brian Pruett: [00:27:56] All right. So the other question I have for you, other the difference, the reason why you network, why is it important for you to be part of the community?

Kimberly George: [00:28:02] Because I like giving back for one, but also, like I am still a huge proponent of the military. I am still recruiting for the Navy in my mind. Right? But I enjoy sitting down and telling people about things that they probably don’t know, like the benefits that the Navy has. Right? I’m taking a client to her granddaughter, to a Navy recruiting office to just sit down with her and answer questions for her, but to also make sure she’s getting the right services that she needs to. Right. But I also love telling people about Mary Kay and educating the community on what Mary Kay has to offer, because a lot of people want to think it’s all just women products and not for men, but also think that it’s only makeup and it’s not. And it’s a whole bunch of other stuff too. But then I love educating about skincare as well. I’m very passionate about skincare because when I go to the senior living homes, you know, the ladies in there tell me they wish they would have started taking care of their skin at a younger age, you know, And now they’re 75, 80 years old and they’re like, I need this and I need to pull this back and I need to, you know, get rid of this line here, you know? And so I love being able to teach and educate about why skincare is so important as well.

Brian Pruett: [00:29:16] Awesome. All right. So one more time to share your website if you can real quick.

Kimberly George: [00:29:19] Yes. So my website is you can either dap Mary Kay lady.com or you can go to Mary kay.com/kay George for three Awesome.

Brian Pruett: [00:29:29] Well Kimberly thanks for sharing a little bit of your story Don’t go anywhere because we’re really not done with you yet but we’re going to move over to now Amanda and Clay Gentry, Real Property Management. Thanks for being here, guys.

Clay Gentry: [00:29:39] Thank you.

Brian Pruett: [00:29:39] So we’re going to talk to your better half first Clay. Ladies first. And she starts with an A, So we’re going to go that route. So so, Amanda, you you also are a professor, right, at Georgetown University. And you also do a lot of things for the youth because you work with Excel Christian Academy and cheerleading and that kind of thing. So share a little bit of your background.

Amanda Gentry: [00:29:57] Yeah. So I actually went to Excel Christian Academy in Cartersville, Georgia, and then I went to Lee University after that where I did cheer. I was a collegiate cheerleader. I graduated with a BS that stands for Bachelor’s of Science people.

Brian Pruett: [00:30:13] I have a lot of BS, by the way, two BS, and that’s my first and two initials. So we’re good. There you.

Amanda Gentry: [00:30:17] Go. A Bachelor of Science in Human Development, but with a business minor. And then I went into academia immediately. But on the coaching side, I didn’t really love it as much as I thought I was going to. So I ended up working for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes for a little bit for the state director, Robert Green in Tennessee. Then I went to Tennessee Wesleyan. I was like, You know what? I want to go back to academia. But I want to go into academics versus of higher ed versus athletics. So I went to Tennessee, Tennessee Wesleyan University, where I got my masters, my MBA, and I did the Management Excellence Program. That’s the adult degree completion program. So, you know, when life happens, like maybe you did have a baby in college or you had to drop out for work or something or military service, this is where they come back and finish that degree. So I ran that program for a while and I decided I wanted to teach. So I went and got my PhD in org behavior with a human resource development cognate. And now I’m at Shorter University. I teach HR there, management, nonprofit management, all that fun stuff and both the undergrad and graduate level. And then I also adjunct at Tennessee Wesleyan University, you know where it started. I adjunct in their MBA program and then exciting news. I just got hired on at Oral Roberts for their doctoral program. So congratulations. I’m excited about that, to add that to my resume as well. But that’s a little bit about my background. I did work at United Way briefly. I’ve worked in the nonprofit sector. Clay has as well. I’ll let him talk a little bit about that. But what I do now is I do teach at Shorter mainly. That’s that’s my home. I love that place. But I also coach cheerleading at Excel. And then I also help this guy with RPM. Of course, somebody has to do the back of the house so you can see him at all the networking events, right? So I help him out with that. But yeah, that’s a little bit about me.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:29] So you’re teaching, I guess, all the other stuff. You’re doing all that by virtual. You’re not actually going out to the schools, right?

Amanda Gentry: [00:32:34] So the adjuncting. Yes. So the adjuncts with Oral Roberts is completely online. Twu is hybrid. So I do go up there and teach a residency for their executive program where students can come for that one weekend. It’s very intense. They have a big project, but it’s it’s a hybrid one.

Brian Pruett: [00:32:54] So you mentioned a little bit about working with United Way and you said you also did some fellowship of Christian athletes. So I’m sure you guys will be there anyway. But August 16th is the next trivia and it’s for FCA Bartow.

Amanda Gentry: [00:33:05] So yeah, I think we already bought our tickets.

Brian Pruett: [00:33:07] Yeah, the ticket link hadn’t gone up yet so.

Amanda Gentry: [00:33:09] You will.

Brian Pruett: [00:33:10] You will Monday So that’s when it comes Monday. Okay. Yeah. So other than that, obviously it’s a passion of yours, but why is it important to be a part of the community and giving back and just helping others?

Amanda Gentry: [00:33:23] Well, I feel like the way the way I was raised in my family, I feel like the community poured so much in into me, into myself, the school, really, the community in general, the churches, the chamber. I did, you know, youth leadership. And I feel like all these professionals poured into me and I really want to do that for other youth. I want to do it for these young adults that don’t know what to do, whether it’s the military, whether it’s technical college, whether it’s no college at all. Right. Everybody has a different path and a different plan for their life. And those plans change constantly. So being able to help them maneuver that, but just really to give back to the community that poured into me so much.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:06] All right. So I’m going to ask you, because I’m sure it’s a different story than what he’s going to give. How did you guys meet?

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:11] So we actually yeah, we actually.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:13] Met on Facebook. We met online on social media. He actually played baseball with my brother and then he slid in the DMS.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:25] Eight years ago. Nice way to say it. Nice. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:29] Can’t wait for my turn.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:30] Yeah, there you go. But I like the baseball reference there.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:33] Slid in so like he.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:34] Yeah, he already knew me.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:36] Kind of. Kind of.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:39] So I’m glad it worked out because I worked and dated somebody I met on Facebook and it was a disaster. So I’m glad that you got an example of it working.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:47] So yeah, so we can.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:48] Be we can be the poster.

Amanda Gentry: [00:34:50] Child. There you go. They need us. There you.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:51] Go. All right, Clay, you you’re also a veteran. Yes. Remind me of the branch. You served?

[00:34:58] Marine Corps.

Brian Pruett: [00:34:58] Marine Corps. Obviously. You look like a marine. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah. So share your story, if you don’t mind. Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [00:35:04] So I joined straight out of high school. Literally. I graduated as soon as I graduated, I went down to PCB. You know, it was a graduation trip, which was probably not a smart idea, but when I was down there, my recruiter called me and said, Hey, can you leave tomorrow? And I said, Sure, I’m in PCB right now, but I can be there. So I came back from PCB literally the next day, went to MEPs and then went to and went to Parris Island and that started a career that I had no idea what was to come, but it was great. I loved it. I was I was infantry. I was part of the Italian ninth Marines. As soon as I got to the to the fleet, we did a workup, went to Iraq, was there seven months, came back from Iraq, was only back like three months. And then we went to Central America and did counter-narcotics missions with the DEA and Coast Guard special operations. And we were at Gitmo and and then came back from that deployment and went on another one back to Afghanistan. And there I was injured overseas and I was sent back home and and medically retired out of the Marine Corps. So after that, I moved back to Georgia. Didn’t really know what I wanted to do. You know, I was like, Man, I’ve been through a lot in the past ten years. I just kind of want to just kind of want to take it easy, lay low. And so I was I was I was managing a zaxby’s in Cartersville. And like she said, we met on Facebook and she was like, Where do you work at? And I told her, well, she showed up.

Brian Pruett: [00:36:37] Oh, she.

Clay Gentry: [00:36:38] She showed up. And, and so I gave her some free food. I tried to get the free food.

Clay Gentry: [00:36:43] Okay. I was I was a college student at the time. Okay.

Clay Gentry: [00:36:47] Well, and so anyways, that sparked, you know, conversations. We started dating. And of course, there was there was a travel, you know, piece in there because she was going to Lee at the time. And, and anyway, so we dated for quite a while. A lot of long weekends go traveling back up to, you know, Cleveland, back down to Rome where I lived at. And and so we got engaged and she said, hey, do you want to move to Tennessee? And I said, Sure, why not? I have nothing else going on. So I moved up to Tennessee and she she said, you’re going to you’re going to go back to school or you’re going to go to school. And I said, You’re crazy. I’m not going to school. And she said, Oh, no, you’re going to go to school. She said, I think you’ll do great at it. And I said, okay, I’ll give it a shot. All right, I’ll give it a shot. And so I went to school and and at Tennessee Wesleyan, I got my undergrad there. And then I went on to get my master’s at Tennessee Wesleyan as well. So she got me for two terms, you know, at school. She tried. She’s trying to get me to go back to get a doctorate.

[00:37:45] But no, that’s not going to happen. I’ve seen the tears over here and I no way I can handle it. But in the meantime, while up in Tennessee, I was AmeriCorps Vista, which is like the domestic Peace Corps for the United States. And because I wanted to give back other, you know, in a different way, I didn’t want to I didn’t want to go be a police officer. I wanted to, you know, because being infantry, that’s kind of kind of what’s out there for you, you know? And I was like, I want to do something different, something unique. And so she worked for the AmeriCorps Vista program to at the time. And I said, what can you you know what’s out there for me? And she said, I think you’ll like this program called the YMCA Youth Community Action Project. And I said, okay, what’s that? She said, Y cap is a at risk. It’s a it’s a group for at risk youth ages 10 to 13 in the metropolitan Chattanooga area. And I said, okay, that’s that’s cool. I guess I’ve never worked with kids, didn’t really see myself working with kids. And so I went to work with them and I was there about six months and they hired me on to work in to open a site with another lady.

Clay Gentry: [00:38:49] Her name was Sloane and me and her went to Oodua and we opened the site and ran a site there and did that for 4 or 5 years. And it was the most rewarding, you know, one of the most rewarding things, you know, I’ve done other than my time in the military and just being able to see these kids who were all victims of crime of some sort and knowing the backgrounds they came from and seeing them grow, become young men and women and go to high school. And, you know, now they’re starting to graduate and I’m starting to get phone calls and, you know, I’m like, oh, man, I’m getting old. Like, I remember, you know, when they were little. Anyway, so that was very rewarding. Andy Smith up there in Chattanooga does a great job with the white cap program, him and his staff, and and they’re still going strong today. They just opened up another site in East Brainerd. I think it’s where it’s at. But yeah, there they do great things up there. I mean, they’re really the hands and feet of Jesus with those kids that are going through the school system and so while we’re up there, she got hired on, you know, at Shorter.

Clay Gentry: [00:39:50] And so we had to make the transition. And so we made the transition back to to Georgia. And I really didn’t know what I was going to do then either, you know. And so I saw that Mohawk Industries at the time had a had a position for recruiting military personnel that are getting out of the military. And they said, hey, you want to come be our recruiter, basically. And I said, Sure. So I traveled the country and went to all the bases. And it was kind of nice because, you know, you know how to talk to them and you’re back around in that environment again and and getting those individuals, you know, that were coming out of the military a job in the civilian workforce, in a corporate, you know, job, a Fortune 500 company and seeing them, you know, be able to come straight out smoothly transition into into, you know, a decent paying job and and have a have a, you know, some structure right off the bat, which is kind of unheard of. In some instances. And and so I did that. And then while we were on a trip, actually, there was a lady who helps veterans start their own business. And the one trip I took my wife on.

Amanda Gentry: [00:40:56] Okay, I have to come in at this point. Okay. Okay. So I went on one trip, one trip only. And the whole ride up there. Clay’s talking about how he loves his job, but he doesn’t think that this is what he’s called to do. And he feels like he should be an entrepreneur. And he’s talked about, you know, property management, real estate before. And anyways, I get up there, I’ll let you I just had to give that like preface before he keeps going.

Clay Gentry: [00:41:22] Yeah, yeah. So anyways, I get up there and, and it’s these guys like these, these service members, they go through a class, right? They, they go through a class and, and for them to get out as part of their criteria. So they go in, these speakers come in, these people from other jobs, they come in, they give like basically a 62nd spill of who they are, why they should come work for their company. Then they go work in like then they go out there and it’s like a little mini career fair. And so I’m up there doing my thing. I come back down and my wife here has taken my stuff off the table and moved it somewhere else that I didn’t even want to go. And I was.

Amanda Gentry: [00:41:57] Like, I didn’t like the table placement. It wasn’t really good for the fair. Let’s talk about that.

Clay Gentry: [00:42:01] It was great for me. It wasn’t great for her. She moved it. Okay. Well, she when she did the whole time, these guys and girls were coming through and talking to us. My wife’s sitting there talking to this lady. I’m like, Hey, you need to go. Let her, you know, recruit some service members. And she so she has you. And I said, okay, we’re going to talk about this afterwards, you know. And so I didn’t think anything of it. Long story short, we I was the her recruit and and it took us about a year, but she kind of walked and guided us through the process of starting a business from, you know, point A to point B and you know here we are now.

Brian Pruett: [00:42:38] So well. So that’s a good lead in. We’ll get to real property management in a second. But this is for you and Kimberly because you’re both vets. I might have mentioned this. I think I mentioned it to you. I don’t know if I mentioned to you, Kimberly, but there is an organization out of Dallas, Georgia, called the Outer Circle Foundation. They work with veterans and first responders on PTSD, suicide prevention and the transition back into society and working. Yeah, so we’re hopefully going to be doing a expo in November for businesses that are owned by veterans, first responders and businesses that hire them. So I’d like for Clay and Kimberly to share some advice for those who might be listening who are either getting ready to come out of the service or those who have retired and thinking about what’s next. Can you give some advice to those guys or gals?

Amanda Gentry: [00:43:23] The biggest thing that I’ve seen just traveling around recruiting these guys and kind of putting my own story into it is, is do your planning like plan ahead of time? You know, a lot of people like me, I was like, oh, that never going to come. Or even when it was coming, I was like, Oh, I’ll have something lined up. You know, the best thing to do is do your homework, do your plan, listen to your transition assistance counselors. You know, just just plan. There are so many people out there that just they just don’t plan. And they they go in there and no guidance and they they struggle. And but, you know, there’s a lot of help nowadays that’s out there with the transition services. And so, you know, get on LinkedIn especially connect network you know find people there’s there’s organizations out there that write free resumes for veterans, you know, link up with them. You know, let get a resume, you know, start sending it out to to businesses and go to these job fairs, you know, that like recruit military does or, you know, the ones on base, they have hiring events on base. You know, they can go to that. I mean, that’s just a short, small snippet of it. But yeah, plan.

Brian Pruett: [00:44:28] I mean, Kimberly, what would you say?

Kimberly George: [00:44:30] I would say the transition from military to civilian life is so different. It took me a long time to finally get it together because I was so structured. You know, like I got up at 430 in the morning and I went and ate and then I knew I had to do this next and I had this and this and this. And I know I didn’t get off until this time, you know? And so it was so structured. And then when I retired, it was like, okay, what do I do now? Like, I don’t know, Like, do I still need to get up at 430 in the morning? Like my husband was like, Why are you getting up at 430 in the morning? I’m like, I’m so ingrained in 430 to 40, you know? And so and it’s so funny, like coming here, I was like, I need to start getting back up at 430 in the morning, like, because I was like, I’m missing out on a lot of stuff. Like, I need to start doing that, you know, even as a business owner. But the transition, it took me a while to finally get my footing, you know, because I didn’t have somebody telling me what to do or, you know, somebody basically saying, this is what you got today, you know, for your schedule and stuff. And it was me having to put my schedule together. So that was a little different for me. But just know that you got to, one, find something that you like, right? Find something that you really enjoy doing and that you like.

Kimberly George: [00:45:45] But two, it takes a while for you to get used to it because the civilian world is completely different. And you’ll find that the way we operate in the military and the way civilians operate is not the same. Like it is not the same like there’s accountability over, you know, in the military. It’s accountability. You got to show up on time. You show up like on time is late. You know, all of that ingrained in you. And then when you over here in the civilian world, like what Time to meet starting. I thought we were supposed to start at 10:00. At 1030. We haven’t started yet. Like, what’s going on, you know? And so you got to get used to, you know, that kind of stuff too. But it’s the transition for me was a struggle for a while. It probably took me about 6 to 8 months to finally be like, okay, this is what I got to do. This is how I do it, you know? Because I felt like I was like flailing a little bit, you know, with the transition, trying to figure out what to do. And I had my business, but I worked my business in pockets of time around the military schedule. Now I have a full day to work my business and I had no idea what to do, you know? So it definitely takes a little time to get used to it. I’d say.

Clay Gentry: [00:46:52] Too, there’s a there’s this mentality of transitioning service members regardless of from whether they’re e one to, you know, I won’t go into the higher ranking officers because they’ve probably already, with their connections, already have jobs getting out. But you know, you got to know that you’re. And over. You know, this is your civilian career. And and I had the same mentality. I was like, oh, I’m coming out and I’m going to get this high paying job, you know, and be a middle level manager right off the bat. And that’s that was a quick, you know, slap in the face because it’s, you know, you start you’re going to have to start from the bottom again. You know, not saying you’re going to be entry level, but, you know, you’re not going to come out and be in a in a leadership role immediately, you know, to the level that you were in the military. So that’s that’s kind of hard, you know, thing for some service members to wrap their head around and and just know that, you know, hey, yeah, it seems like you’re taking a step back. But I mean, you got to it’s different, you know, in the civilian world, like you said, you got to you kind of have to you kind of got to adapt to how things are being done on on the civilian side and just, you know, kind of sit back and watch and listen and learn how it goes. Yeah, you have to give yourself time.

Kimberly George: [00:48:04] Like you have to give yourself time. You know, I’m still adjusting.

Brian Pruett: [00:48:07] Yeah, right. Oh, I’m sure it takes you because your body has to adjust naturally anyway for all kinds of things, even if you’re not military. And you. My mom just retired and she’s trying to adjust to retirement and she’s a week, not even a week into it. So. All right. So that’s a good transition. Let’s talk about real property management. What do you guys do and who do you serve?

Clay Gentry: [00:48:25] So we we do residential property management and small commercial. We we service six different counties. So Bartow, Floyd, Polk, Paulding, Carroll and Haralson and we can do outside of those territories. We just can’t market. You know, we can’t go in another territory and market but we do specialize in Airbnbs Vrbos now. So we, you know, we are getting calls from people all, you know, as far down as the panhandle wanting us to to do their do their marketing for them, do their, you know, property, manage their their units down there. So we it’s kind of a mixed race. So like we have we have residential, we have the Airbnbs, we have apartment complexes, I mean, you name it. And so with us, you know, it’s the reason we got into property management is because we rented for four years. And when we lived in Tennessee and I could tell you if I know what I know, if I had known what I know now, it would have been a different situation up there. But one of the reasons why when we started this business was we looked we thought back then, we said, you know, one day we’re going to start a business and we’re never going to be treated like anyone else. How we were treated. And little did we know it was property management. And now we’re in this. And I always look back and say, hey, we’re never, you know, be fair in what you do and be honest and what you do and, you know, have good will and good intent and with your with your clients, whether it’s the owner or the tenants. And and that’s that seemed to worked out pretty good, you know, so instead of you know I don’t want to put them on on blast or anything, but you know there was just there’s a lot out there, a lot of property managers out there, people here, property management, and they shy away. They’re like, Oh, yeah, there’s.

Amanda Gentry: [00:50:05] A negative connotation there. Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [00:50:08] And so how could we change that? So we, you know, at least in our community, obviously, and so we, we, we started RPM and it, it is a franchise out of headquartered out of Dallas, Texas. And we brought went over there and got our training learned the business model got my real estate license came back opened up here and now we’re servicing the northwest Georgia area. And I kind of let her touch on the give Back program that we have.

Amanda Gentry: [00:50:32] Yeah, like you said, we do have two clients. We have our owners that own like it’s their asset, right? The property. But then we also have the tenants just because I mean, it’s their home too, you know, it’s their place that they get to go home every day after a hard day and they get to unwind. So we know that side just because of how we were treated through that process. So I think that’s one thing about us is we’re very intentional, not just to, okay, we’ll just ask the owner, like snub the tenant, right? Because we want to listen to their issue as well. So the one thing that we do that’s pretty cool is we have what’s called a give back program for the owners. So when the owner signs on with us, they get a choice to opt in a percentage of the management fee, not of their money that they get, but of our management fee, can go to a nonprofit of their choice. So whatever they’re passionate about, whether it’s B’s Charitable Pursuits, whether it’s all in, all out, right, whatever United Way, whatever they’re interested in, they get to pick that non profit and a percentage goes there. So every year we cut the check for that non profit. And the cool thing about it is when we cut it, it’s a tax break for that owner because they’ve been donating. So it’s kind of cool. If you look at it, it’s a way that we can give back to the community, but also the owners know that they’re giving back a little bit too. So we’re trying to kind of change the stigma of property management. And of course, we can only start with us, right?

Brian Pruett: [00:52:10] Well, that’s awesome. I think a lot of people start businesses because they were treated or saw the way other people were treated. I need to connect you guys because I don’t think I’ve done it yet. Do you guys know Daniel and Aaron Reese? They’re husband and wife real estate team here in Woodstock. But they do something similar where they give back their commissions to the person’s choice of a nonprofit. Oh, cool. So I’ll make you guys that connection. So. So I got some questions on the property management. All right. So is there a difference in working with an investor versus somebody maybe like me who owns a home and just wants to rent it out?

Clay Gentry: [00:52:43] I mean, yes. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there’s I mean, sure there’s difference. I mean, it’s but I mean, if you have one home, you know, investors usually come in and they they’re either building a whole complex, you know, and they have 50 to 100 homes. So, you know, the prices look different. The paperwork looks different. But our specialty, while we can while we deal with a lot of investors, our specialty is a single family home. So if you come to me and you say, hey, I’ve got I’ve got a home, I own a home, I want to make a little passive income, I’ve just bought another one or, Hey, I’m moving, I want to rent mine. That’s where we kind of come in. We say, Hey, okay, this is what we’re built for. Here’s here’s what we can do for you.

Amanda Gentry: [00:53:24] Especially because some I mean, there’s different types of owners, right? You got the investors, you have those accidental owners, the ones that, oh, my parent just died. This is my family home. That’s completely different than an investor. An investor. They want to know the money. They want to know when do they get their check? They’re thinking about all the financials or that person’s like, okay, can you do an evaluation? Can you go take a photo? And we do evaluations for our owners so they can opt in on how many times a year they want Clay personally to go out there, take photos of the home so that they can see, well, this is our family home. This is where I grew up. The floor is still doing good. Oh, yeah, I see. You know, the fire because it’s it’s their home, too. So it really depends on the type of owner. But yeah, there’s a complete there’s a difference.

Clay Gentry: [00:54:12] Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:54:13] You can obviously tell which one they like working best. Best. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So if I guess and this may be some dumb questions, I’m going to ask them anyway, but so as a, as a homeowner and you want to run out of property, when you do sign you guys on as the management team, you, the owner is not working with the the people living the tenants. They’re calling you to work everything. Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [00:54:38] So you have no contact. You don’t even know who’s living in your house. You don’t even know who’s living in your house. You just, you know, that’s where you trust us. You hired us to do the job that, you know, we’re the middle middleman, you know, So we we have a very thorough screening process, probably one of the toughest ones in our area. I mean, of course, we do the credit check. We do a background check. We do the reference checks, employment checks. I mean, we.

Amanda Gentry: [00:55:02] We do our due diligence.

Clay Gentry: [00:55:03] We really want to know make sure that we are putting the best person in that home, the best fit for it, you know, And and so because, like she said, it’s your asset, too, you know, and we and while you’re not there, you want to know that you have a good qualified tenant in there, not somebody who’s going to trash it and rent it and claim squatters rights. You know, and that’s that’s a big thing right now. And and so I guess really, you know, it’s just. I don’t know.

Amanda Gentry: [00:55:31] Yeah, and equal housing is very important too. So when it comes to that, we make sure that the owner never knows who the tenant is and the tenant doesn’t know who the owner is. They all communication goes through us. So they may say, like the owner may say, Well, I drove by the property and I saw this. Okay, well, legally, you can’t step on that property. Please do not I know it’s yours, but everything comes through us because your headache is now our headache.

Clay Gentry: [00:55:58] Renters have laws too.

Amanda Gentry: [00:55:59] And they have. Yeah, they have rights, They have protections. And we’re trying to protect both sides. Both sides. So that’s kind of the cool thing that we do. We have one owner who has seven properties and he’s like, I want no one to know that I own this property. So of course we advised him to put it into an LLC that does not have his name on it, you know, like some kind of encrypted LLC to put those properties under because, you know, I mean, tenants are smart. They’ll look it up. They’ll start calling him at midnight about the water heater. No, that’s us. So we’re able to play kind of that.

Clay Gentry: [00:56:36] We handle everything. You know, we handle the maintenance, the financing, and on both sides for the tenant and the owner. You know, there’s there’s you’ll have your own you have your own portfolio. The tenant has their own portfolio and they can go online at any time and they can, you know, submit a maintenance request. They can pay their rent. They, you know, whatever it is. And we give a a quarterly sheet, I guess what am I thinking of?

Amanda Gentry: [00:57:01] We give that financial statement.

Clay Gentry: [00:57:04] Financial statement. She’s my back of the house. Yes. There you go. But yeah, so they get a quarterly financial statement, you know, to show, you know, what the rent roll is for the past three months, the maintenance log, you know, what are they making If we kind of do a 12 month projection to show them, you know, in 12 months, this is what you know, where you should be at, how much you should make. And are you still, as an owner going to make a profit, you know, over the next five, ten years if you keep renting this compared to if you just sold now.

Amanda Gentry: [00:57:29] Yeah. You know, and then one other thing that’s unique about us as well is we have a resident benefit package that the owners love, that we do. So this is where when the tenant comes on, instead of having to pay insurance and all this fun stuff, insurance is included in this resident benefit package. So they pay $50 a month and it comes with full coverage renter insurance, it comes with filter service. So the filters are come are coming quarterly. We put that in. It comes with pest control. It comes with special things that the tenant can hop on to their portal and they can get like discounts for food and stuff. So like DoorDash or something may give them like 20% off like that week. So there’s a resident benefit package that the owners love because they know the tenants are being taken care of, but also the asset is being taken care of, the home, the property.

Clay Gentry: [00:58:24] Yeah. One good thing about that resident benefit package, the renters have a choice to opt in to meet with an advisor and that advisor will coach and guide them along the way to buying a home. And so they have that credit. Yeah, they building their credit, they teach them. I mean and it’s not mandatory, you know, they, they have to opt into it but it is there and we have a couple that have taken advantage of it now. And and I don’t I mean, I wish.

Amanda Gentry: [00:58:51] I had that back in the day.

Clay Gentry: [00:58:52] And and you know, our goal is not for the tenant not to have them in their, you know, for longer than than needed, you know. So I’m hoping at the end of their lease that they’re able to buy and move on and, you know, go on to bigger and better things and buy a home. That’s what you know, that’s the homeowner. Be a homeowner. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [00:59:09] Well, I was going to ask if you guys took care of them for the maintenance, so thanks for reading my mind on that. So you just mentioned lease. Is there a difference between leasing and renting? I know the difference if you do a car, but what’s the difference? Leasing and renting a home.

Clay Gentry: [00:59:20] There’s some contractual agreements, you know, things that the small print that comes that’s different on the property management side at least. So like, you know, if we rent your home, it’s leasing is basically is just a it’s usually short term on our end it is at least and it’s more of commercial based. You know you’re doing it for a business that’s got different it’s got different. Like I said, it’s different contractual agreements. There’s things in there that that differ from just like a residential property and a lot of legalities that play in. There’s different laws that go into a commercial lease than just a residential lease.

Amanda Gentry: [01:00:00] I mean, you pretty much said it. Leasing is definitely on the short term with the commercial where the renting is going to be your typical one year, 12 month contractual single family or even multifamily with apartments.

Clay Gentry: [01:00:12] And listen, there’s people out there that will lease to you for three years. I mean, and that’s I don’t advise it, but, you know. Right. Don’t advise it. But but yeah it’s but yeah, there’s there’s a difference and it depends on you know, your insurance has to be stated a certain way. It’s more costly in some instances not all but some. And so, you know, it’s just really what you’re trying to do, you know. It varies per person, you know, do you want do you want it to be sold, you know, to be rented by a business or do you want somebody to live in it?

Brian Pruett: [01:00:43] Right. So what’s a benefit for a real estate agent to work with you guys? Because, I mean, obviously they they are working with folks looking for homes and like that. So what kind of benefit is it with working with another real estate agent? Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [01:00:54] So we have a realtor referral program where if a realtor refers a owner homeowner to us and they sign a management agreement, they they get $500. And so, you know, that can add up pretty, pretty quick. And one of one of our biggest contributors right now is Stormi. And and and so, by the way, Stormi, if you’re listening, you have money coming your way. Yeah, but but no, this realtor referral program, it’s actually been really great. We’ve had we we get calls as far east as Buford, you know of people that are like, hey, I saw your LinkedIn post. You know, I have a client that’s moving out there and they’re buying a home and, you know, they want to they want to rent rent out another home. And, you know, it’s you’d be surprised all the there’s money out there that that I had no idea existed. And I’m like, how do I get into that circle? Right?

Brian Pruett: [01:01:50] What about some folks that are in the mortgage industry? Do you guys work with those folks as well? Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [01:01:53] Oh yeah. We work real close with the mortgage lenders because they’re dealing with clients that whether they’re buying a home or buying, you know, a I guess you could say investment properties, those are those are big ones. So those a lot of our mortgage lenders, they’ll like they’ll call they’ll call me and say, hey, I have a lead for you. You know, there I have somebody who’s who’s interested in buying, you know, six homes in Bartow County or they have a Airbnb or Vrbo or verbose that, you know, houses. And we know you guys can do that because they can be kind of a headache, you know, can you guys take care of that? And so it’s we do work closely with the mortgage lenders. They do call us. They give us leads. And and, you know, so it really right now, it’s more the realtors that are sending stuff our way. But the mortgage lenders they do they do contact us and say, hey, I do have leads. They kind of got to be careful, you know, too, because they they have contractual agreements with, you know, with privacy acts. And they don’t they don’t want to tell sometimes, you know, exactly who it is, and especially if it’s not a strong lead. So and the realtors, they get money right? There you go. There you go. You know.

Brian Pruett: [01:03:01] So I’m guessing with your background, too, you don’t have a problem. You have to go in And what’s not eject? What’s the.

Clay Gentry: [01:03:07] Big eject? Yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:03:08] No, he does not have that issue.

Clay Gentry: [01:03:10] No, no. We’ve only had one instance where where, you know, somebody was. Yeah. It got testy, but, but it’s, you know, it’s. Yeah. Everything was good, you know, it didn’t get physical or anything crazy like that. But we thought it was, it was, you know, like I said, it happens, it happens in everywhere. You know, there’s people, they have these lock boxes. It’s like that. You can go around and you can put a code in and, you know, you can go and tour the house yourself. The real estate agent doesn’t even have to be there. Well, we ran into is people are putting in the code and then they’re going in and squatting.

Amanda Gentry: [01:03:46] Or they’re scamming people and they’ll put up photos like and they’ll rent out the property.

Clay Gentry: [01:03:54] They’ll rent out the property. And so we had to go in and say, You got to pack your stuff like it’s time to, you got to get out of here. I’m not going to call the police if you just leave, you know? Yeah, that’s.

Amanda Gentry: [01:04:04] Definitely Clay’s part of the job versus mine. That’s not on my job.

Brian Pruett: [01:04:09] I think we should come up with, like, in the in the Jets and then have an ejection seat where you just.

Clay Gentry: [01:04:14] You know, it’s funny. I was like. I was like, look, I understand. You know, I don’t maybe I don’t understand what you’re going through, but maybe I can help you find housing, you know? And so while it didn’t turn into a client, but, you know, it was actually a pretty healthy conversation for somebody who was really in a tough spot. So, yeah, we deal with those, unfortunately. But, you know, it’s part of the business. It comes with it.

Brian Pruett: [01:04:38] So if somebody’s listening and thinking about wanting to have some passive income and thinking this is the route to go, other than calling you, give them some advice to start the process.

Clay Gentry: [01:04:49] So if they’re looking for, you know, to have investment property, I would say first thing to do if you if you haven’t talked to anybody is talk to a financial advisor first. Make sure this is something that that’s suitable for you and your family and your your goals and where you want to be and you know, or also talk to other talk to talk to your realtors, talk to your friends. Talk to other people in the business. Talk to real estate attorneys. Those are they’re really good about letting you know what’s going on. And there’s a lot of, you know, behind the scene deals that can happen there, too. And so, you know, get the advice before you just jump into it, because just because you see what you think might be a great, great price tag on something is not always the best investment. And so and.

Amanda Gentry: [01:05:31] Like I said earlier, I would establish an LLC. Yeah, that. Way. If anything happens legally, it doesn’t come after you, your family, your personal. It comes after the LLC. Also, when that tenant looks up who owns the property, it will be under the LLC versus you. So it also protects your privacy. So that’s one thing I would do is talk with an attorney and get an LLC established, especially if you’re trying to get started, even if it’s just one home, you know, because anything could happen and you want to really protect you, your family and all that fun stuff. So I would definitely get an LLC if you’re really thinking about that.

Clay Gentry: [01:06:12] And that starts with a real estate attorney. A real estate attorney can do most. They can do that.

Brian Pruett: [01:06:15] Yeah, that’s some great advice. So. All right. You mentioned you love giving back. Why is it important to give back?

Clay Gentry: [01:06:20] So for me, it’s really important because, you know, when I came when I was injured overseas and I came home, my my hometown, they rallied around me. My family, you know, they they took care of them. They took care of me. And and, you know, I’m very passionate about that. And so, like, kind of like Amanda said, I want to give back to who gave back to me so most so much. And then after working, you know, with the at risk youth in Chattanooga, that just opened a whole nother, you know, soft spot in my heart I didn’t know I had. And so, you know, I go every day and I think about those kids and what what can I do to be better, to give back to the community that we live in? And and so that’s why I’m passionate about it. That’s that’s why we looked at this giving back program. And because, you know, while we’re in property management, that doesn’t mean we still can’t give back. And and so and this is our way of making a difference.

Brian Pruett: [01:07:14] I mentioned last week, it doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, if you’re passionate, you’re able to do that kind of stuff. So you guys have been coming lately to the trivia and I appreciate it. But it’s funny watching him play because he comes up, brings the answer and it’s so mad because it’s like, Man, that’s the hardest thing I’ve ever heard.

Clay Gentry: [01:07:28] Listen, it’s like, you know, when you you know, when you didn’t study for a test, you know, when you didn’t study for a test and you and you. Right. You just Christmas tree the thing and you go to turn it in to the teacher and the teacher knows you didn’t study. And the teacher just kind of looks at you like, this is going to be good. That’s him. That’s where the worst is.

Amanda Gentry: [01:07:46] The worst is the questions from like the 70s. And we’re like, 90s babies, okay? So we’re like, we don’t know. And then like, we’re last time we were with Kevin Harris and he was like, I don’t know. I was like, Kevin, I need you to step this up, sir.

Brian Pruett: [01:08:00] But you guys finish third.

Amanda Gentry: [01:08:01] Well, yes. Well, I was pretty.

Clay Gentry: [01:08:03] Well, I’m impressed. Let me rephrase that. I’m glad we placed, but I think we were tied for second and we were like, oh, and we had to wager. And I was like, oh, maybe we just wagered like three points because if we get three, they wager two, we win. We didn’t get anywhere close.

Amanda Gentry: [01:08:20] Nobody listened to me. I was like, Just do it all, all or nothing.

Clay Gentry: [01:08:23] We didn’t. We didn’t get close.

Brian Pruett: [01:08:24] To see how much useless knowledge you’re gaining.

Clay Gentry: [01:08:26] It’s amazing.

Kimberly George: [01:08:27] Useless knowledge.

Clay Gentry: [01:08:28] But you know, me and Kevin, we really cared the team that night, I mean. Right.

Amanda Gentry: [01:08:33] That’s it. That’s exactly it.

Brian Pruett: [01:08:35] And my favorite category to ask just if you ever come, Sharon, is the is the laws that aren’t on the that are on the books but not enforced. Some of those are crazy. Oh, yeah. So, yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:08:45] The elephant in the parking ticket.

Sharon Cline: [01:08:47] Yeah. What? Yes. Yes. I don’t know. Makes enough sense.

Sharon Cline: [01:08:52] You asked me a question, Brian, once, and I swear I knew it was about wars or something. And I swear I knew the answer. And you just kind of looked at me with this smile, and I was like, I guess I’m wrong. Like, you didn’t. You were just like, okay, you believe that?

Brian Pruett: [01:09:04] Yes. Well, you know, I’ll just share one of these because it’s kind of funny. And obviously all of these are on the books because somebody sometime tried it. But the one that I’m still wondering about how in the world even got on the books is in the state of California. Well, that’s it explains it right there. But it’s illegal in the state of California. Remember this if I ever ask this. Okay. Right. It’s illegal in the state of California for any kind of animal to mate within 20ft of a church or school. Now, how first of all, I’m sorry, Mr. Squirrel, You’re coming with me.

Speaker7: [01:09:39] Yeah, like. Oh, my God. What are you doing?

Clay Gentry: [01:09:42] Could you imagine what happened for that law to go into place?

Brian Pruett: [01:09:45] I mean it’s like, Yeah, either that or they were dressed up in those outfits and somebody took.

Speaker7: [01:09:50] Them, right? Yeah. Yeah. Can you ask that in August? Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:09:54] We know.

Speaker7: [01:09:54] One six points. Yes.

Brian Pruett: [01:09:57] Yes. All right. So if somebody listening wants to get Ahold of you for your services, how can they do that? Well, they can go.

Clay Gentry: [01:10:01] Online and reach out to us there at W-w-w dot com or they can call the office at (678) 680-5065.

Amanda Gentry: [01:10:11] Yes.

[01:10:12] Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [01:10:13] You don’t ever call yourself, right?

Speaker7: [01:10:15] No.

Clay Gentry: [01:10:15] No, never. And it’s all wired to my cell phone, so, you know, I just.

Brian Pruett: [01:10:18] Right. There you go. Yeah. Well, speaking of useless knowledge, you can share as much as you can, but you guys just had a pretty cool experience, so you got to learn some more of this. You guys were just on Family Feud.

Clay Gentry: [01:10:27] We were, yes. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [01:10:28] Share what you can.

Amanda Gentry: [01:10:30] Okay, so I can say this. I can’t tell you what exactly happened. But I can tell you, we are scheduled to go back for next season.

Brian Pruett: [01:10:40] Awesome.

Amanda Gentry: [01:10:42] So the filming is not over.

Clay Gentry: [01:10:44] Okay. That was the most stressful day.

Amanda Gentry: [01:10:47] It was very stressful.

Speaker7: [01:10:48] It was.

Clay Gentry: [01:10:49] Now I have to go back and do it all over.

Amanda Gentry: [01:10:51] Well it was a whole lot of fun because you get there and you have to be on like 24 over seven. So you’re like on the stage, off the stage. Steve Harvey walks past you. He’s now gone, right? So you’re like kind of like doing this whirlwind of emotions and you have to be there. I mean, we had to leave at like 5 a.m. to get there for filming.

Brian Pruett: [01:11:10] And where was the filming studio? Studios shut down by the airport. Past the airport?

Clay Gentry: [01:11:15] Past the airport? Yeah. Yeah.

Kimberly George: [01:11:17] Yeah, yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:11:18] So it wasn’t bad at all. We actually stopped to meet the rest of the family at Chick fil A, and we’re all dressed up, right? It’s like 6 a.m. We’re all, like, dressed to a tee, and a guy comes up to clay and he’s like, Are you here with your family? And Clay’s like, What?

Clay Gentry: [01:11:34] He came up. He said, Are you with the family over there wearing the matching shirts? And I said, What’s it matter to you? You know, I’m like.

Clay Gentry: [01:11:41] Who are you? And he was like.

Clay Gentry: [01:11:43] I’ll see you in a little bit. And I’m like is this part of it?

Amanda Gentry: [01:11:45] Yeah. And it was one of the guys who was like, I’m actually your stagehand For the day.

Clay Gentry: [01:11:50] Stagehand I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started thinking Of like, taking, you know.

Amanda Gentry: [01:11:55] He was like, yeah, he was like, Y’all are filming for Family Feud, aren’t you? And he was like, How do you know that? Well, not many families are dressed up and, like wearing the same suits and dresses.

Amanda Gentry: [01:12:08] And heels that early.

Brian Pruett: [01:12:10] Yeah. Are you do you know, can you share when the first one might air?

Amanda Gentry: [01:12:13] So this season that we just went for airs in October.

Brian Pruett: [01:12:17] Okay.

Amanda Gentry: [01:12:18] And then we go back in January and that one to film and then that’ll be the next October.

Brian Pruett: [01:12:23] Gotcha.

Brian Pruett: [01:12:23] So how is Steve Harvey in person?

Amanda Gentry: [01:12:26] Oh, incredible.

Brian Pruett: [01:12:27] He just, like, on TV.

Amanda Gentry: [01:12:28] He’s so much better than you think. Like, I had high expectations.

Amanda Gentry: [01:12:33] Exceeded it.

Clay Gentry: [01:12:35] He’s very personable. Like, I mean, he he makes it a point like, you know, during the commercial breaks, he comes and pulls up a stool at the front and he.

Clay Gentry: [01:12:44] He just talks. He just talks to everybody. If you’ve got a question, ask it. He’ll he’ll talk to you. You know, he’s he’s not he doesn’t walk off to the side. Doesn’t talk to anybody. No. He’s very personable and he’ll call you out to it if you say something that that’s funny and he can’t really say anything.

Clay Gentry: [01:12:59] On the air. He’ll wait till. Afterwards and he’ll call you out then, you know.

Brian Pruett: [01:13:02] But on the air, though, it’s hilarious watching him, some of his facial expressions on some of the people out.

Amanda Gentry: [01:13:07] Yeah and it’s and that’s just a sliver so it took two hours to film a 22 minute show. Okay. And that’s because he says so much. So it really feels like if you’re not playing, you’re in the audience. And it really felt like a comedy show. Like I was at a personal Steve Harvey comedy show all day long. It was top notch.

Brian Pruett: [01:13:32] I got I got a homework assignment for you. What’s that? We need to get Steve Harvey on Charitable Georgia.

Sharon Cline: [01:13:37] Yeah. Can you imagine.

Sharon Cline: [01:13:39] You know, people who know people?

Brian Pruett: [01:13:42] So next time in January.

Speaker7: [01:13:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:13:45] I’ll send you the link. You need to come watch us.

Clay Gentry: [01:13:47] Yeah, let’s go. Say in person they’re going to have a live audience. Yeah, it’s free.

Clay Gentry: [01:13:50] Just come.

Sharon Cline: [01:13:51] Listen, I would love to come just to be part of, like, something kind of special that way.

Clay Gentry: [01:13:54] It is. It’s. You know, it’s neat.

Brian Pruett: [01:13:56] And then we can cheer you on.

Clay Gentry: [01:13:57] You can? Yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:13:58] So we can’t talk to you. I can’t say that. Yeah. So if you say, like. Hey, Clay. Hey, Amanda, we cannot acknowledge you because then they think we’re cheating, we’re cheating. So even if we wave, they take that as a hand signal, or we look at you. So, like, we’ll know you’re there. Of course, because the audience is not that. I mean, the whole room is not very big at all. I was expecting to be massive. It’s really not that big. So we’ll know you’re there. But it is free, so I’ll send you the link.

Brian Pruett: [01:14:27] All right. Well, baseball. We’ll just do some signals. Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [01:14:30] Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [01:14:31] It’s. It’s wild. You don’t see it on TV, but they have people that stand on the side of the crowd and they watch for people talking to each other and they watch.

Amanda Gentry: [01:14:39] For talking to you, talking to.

Clay Gentry: [01:14:41] You. And if you’re on stage, they look for signals.

Brian Pruett: [01:14:44] They got their own bouncers.

Clay Gentry: [01:14:45] Wow. I mean, really? Exactly. Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [01:14:47] That’s why it’s so nerve wracking.

Amanda Gentry: [01:14:49] And it’s so loud in there. I mean, it’s hard to hear him at one point. Like when you watch it. I’m like doing this.

Amanda Gentry: [01:14:55] Because I’m trying to watch his mouth.

Amanda Gentry: [01:14:57] I’m like, I can’t even hear you. And Steve is right beside me. Yeah, but also a little starstruck.

Sharon Cline: [01:15:02] Yeah. What? Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [01:15:04] That’s awesome. All right. So you shared a little bit about doing some stuff with Excel and stuff. Do they have anything you want to share? Maybe some events that they might be having coming up?

Amanda Gentry: [01:15:12] Oh, well, of course, you know, school is about to start. So right now there are some events kind of coming down the line. One is the auction that always comes up in October. We do have an auction. It’s the ACA legacy auction. That’s a fun one to come to, especially if you want to buy some Christmas presents early and donate at the same time. So they have that one. And then I’m trying to get a comedy night going with a big rich. Rich. Yep.

Brian Pruett: [01:15:39] So he was my co-host the other night at the thing. We were the co emcees.

Clay Gentry: [01:15:44] I’m really intrigued by this because she’s, you know, she’s lined up Big Rich and and Katie has lined up her brother who.

Amanda Gentry: [01:15:52] Carter dames.

Amanda Gentry: [01:15:53] He was on wild and out. I don’t know if you know the show with Nick Cannon.

Amanda Gentry: [01:15:56] Yeah so he was on.

Amanda Gentry: [01:15:57] So we’re trying to get them to come the same night.

Clay Gentry: [01:16:00] Two polar opposites, right?

Brian Pruett: [01:16:02] Yes. So. So if that doesn’t work out for one of them. I just found out I was on the phone with one of my athletes that was there the other night. He’s a former soccer player. Yeah. Spent two years doing stand up.

Amanda Gentry: [01:16:12] Really?

Brian Pruett: [01:16:13] And I was out there just hysterically laughing because anyway, just let me know because we might be able to get him.

Clay Gentry: [01:16:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Amanda Gentry: [01:16:20] Okay. That would be awesome.

Brian Pruett: [01:16:21] So, yeah, cool. All right, so as we wrap this up, I like to do this. I like for each of you to share one positive quote nugget or word that people can listen to today, the rest of 2023 and beyond with. So, Kimberly, what you got?

Kimberly George: [01:16:35] Mary Kay always used to say, if you think you can, you can. If you think you can’t, then you’re right.

Amanda Gentry: [01:16:42] Amanda, uh, a vision without execution is just a hallucination. So if you have a dream, you have that vision, go for it, because you never know.

Brian Pruett: [01:16:51] Clay Yeah.

Clay Gentry: [01:16:52] Hey, listen, you put me on the spot on this one. These two.

Clay Gentry: [01:16:55] Have, like, rehearsed.

Clay Gentry: [01:16:57] My. I mean, if you’re asking for advice, just, you know, if you’re, if you’re going to put your mind to it, do it. You know, I know things can be, you know, deterring at times and you think it can’t happen just if you put your mind to it, it will happen. And and, you know, don’t give up.

Brian Pruett: [01:17:12] Although people always say, I put him on the spot. If you ever listen to episodes in the past you heard I asked it every single time.

Amanda Gentry: [01:17:18] I did listen to you. So I.

Amanda Gentry: [01:17:19] Knew we listened To it.

Amanda Gentry: [01:17:21] Notice I didn’t tell him. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Pruett: [01:17:25] All right. The other thing is, the thank you is a lost art these days. So, Kimberly, thank you for your service. Thank you for what you’re doing for all the folks in there. Skincare. Amanda, thank you for what you’re doing for the young adults, the youth and Clay, thank you for your service and everything you’re doing for the residents and the the owners of the homes and just the community itself. So everybody listening, let’s remember, remember, let’s be positive. Let’s be charitable.