Jackson Griffeth with Cherokee Family Orthodontics and Josh Nelson with Nelson Elder Care Law

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of Cherokee Business Radio. Stone Payton here with you this morning. And today’s episode is brought to you in part by our Community Partner program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending Capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to. Main Street warriors.org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel. David. Dot com you guys are in for a real treat this morning. First up on Cherokee Business Radio, please join me in welcoming to the broadcast with Cherokee Family Orthodontics. Mr. Jackson Griffeth. How are you, man?

Jackson Griffeth: Stone I am good. I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.

Stone Payton: Well, we’re excited to have you in studio. You and I have come across each other at a couple of these networking gatherings. Anywhere. There’s free food and beer, you know, color me there. Right? That’s it. But it’s good to have you in studio. What brings you to to Cherokee? Why? Open office here, man?

Jackson Griffeth: Man, we were living a beautiful life in Asheville, North Carolina before this up in the mountains, and we thought we were going to be there forever, you know? Um, and then my wife and I really started having some, um, some direction from the Lord last year. We were knowing that we were going to start a practice somewhere. So I finished residency. I’m an orthodontist, finished residency three years ago now, and we went to Asheville, North Carolina, worked there, and I was an associate in a great practice there and really wanted to start my own practice, had a vision for how I wanted to run a practice and wanted to do that. And we really started looking around for where is that going to be? And we were paralyzed. I mean, I have a tendency for analysis paralysis. I’ll maybe get into that later. But we were paralyzed not knowing where we would do it. And then when we really started taking the pressure off of figuring out, all right, where are we going to do this startup for the rest of and B for the rest of our lives? And thought, you know, where is this next season? Where does God have us in this next season? Woodstock really started coming to come into light in so many ways.

Jackson Griffeth: There are a couple of things that really drove that one is that it was an area that we felt like, hey, this this place needs a new orthodontic practice where we’re posting up. There’s really not one, right, really close to it. And there’s all kinds of kiddos and adults around who could use help and use some treatment. It had a vibe that we really liked. We loved the connectivity of Woodstock and the just promotion of togetherness and how physically it’s connected very well. We live just down the street from our practice and from downtown, and we just love the connectivity of that. And then thirdly, my wife’s from Marietta and I’m from Gainesville, and it’s a great central spot in between where our parents still are. And we have a five, four and a two year old. Oh, my. And um, and so we wanted them to be around their grandparents. And so this is a great spot for us to be able to share them with each of them.

Stone Payton: So are we living up to our advanced press? Are you finding the business community and the community in general is embracing you guys.

Jackson Griffeth: Absolutely. It’s been robust. The networking events, as we have we have met at have been awesome. Haven’t even touched the surface there, I would say. And as we meet more and more people, everybody’s just been really supportive. So it’s been good. It’s been a wilderness year for year for us, uh, in the sense that we left and we bought this building last year and had just ever so slowly made our way to opening next month. And we’ve had so much support along the way.

Stone Payton: So where are you going to be?

Jackson Griffeth: So it is on Main Street in about a mile and a half north of downtown Woodstock. It’s on the corner of JJ blow, which is technically Brooke Boulevard, but the road that J.J. Biello Park is on and on Main Street. So just as you pass the Ace Hardware heading north from downtown, it’s the next building on the right.

Stone Payton: Oh, fantastic. I mean, my hat is off to to you, for it’s my impression that there’s a tremendous amount of forget about the heartache and the mental and all that, but just the capital investment to go into an orthodontic practice. I mean, if the bottom falls out of my business, guys, everything you see in this room, I can have in the cab of my truck and be at the house in a half hour, you know. But that must. I mean, surely these were you and your wife had to have a lot of really heart to heart conversations before investing that kind of capital and time and energy and resource. What was that like? Because you you mentioned you were already in a practice at that time, right?

Jackson Griffeth: That’s right. Wow. So it’s a it’s a very true statement. I mean, we are in we are heavily invested in Woodstock, Georgia right now. I mean, heavily and and that feels good. It feels like that’s the way it should be. Um, I’m a big believer in having skin in the game and whatever you’re doing, and we, we have even more than skin. We got. We got the whole body in the game here. Um, but it was a big move. It was a big move. We were living in Asheville when we bought this building. We we knew we wanted to be right around this pocket of Woodstock that we’re going to be located in and looked at some, some different lease options. And then this building was for sale and we thought, gosh, what a what a fun spot that would be to be able to practice out of. And so we, um, you know, we don’t we have no experience at real estate. We have no experience in anything. We bought this building in the last year. We have learned a lot about real estate and and development and and yes, we are we are investing a ton into it. And so yeah, you’re right. It’s it’s not something that we plan to just close up shop in a couple days.

Stone Payton: Well, we’re all pulling for you. We’re going to continue to follow your story. You mentioned early in the conversation running an orthodontic practice your way, the way you want to say more about that? What is your way or your vision of how you want this to be done?

Jackson Griffeth: Yeah, well, first thing I’ll touch on is just is just that ownership piece. And so being an owner of a practice, there’s so many, um, so many practices now are corporate owned and some corporations do things really well. Some don’t. And so I won’t say that’s a negative thing, but I do believe the right move for me right now was to own a practice and to build a culture in a practice. Culture is a big piece of what drew me to orthodontics. I think you can have an environment and an atmosphere that is fun and encouraging, and that starts with the team that you build. And so, um, owning that practice we were going to people often ask us, oh, who’s your partners? Who’s your are you, what company are you with? And it’s it is literally just us. And we just hired our first couple of assistants and they are going to be just an awesome beginning to the the business family. So so that’s one piece of it, that vision of creating a great employee and ownership culture. And then two, I really believe that we as orthodontists have a great opportunity to be a part of someone’s transformation. So if they come to us, sometimes it’s parents bringing their kids, and the kids don’t know what what’s going on. But a lot of times it’s adults and they’re saying, you know, I’ve always wanted to have a nice smile and and now is my chance. Or even for kids, there’s this there’s this total transformation that people go through when they are changing from a seven, eight, nine, ten, 12 year old to a 14 year old.

Jackson Griffeth: And to be a part of that is a real opportunity. And so my vision is to have a practice that uniquely encourages the the heart, not just taking care of the teeth and giving a nice smile. Our practice tagline is let your soul shine. And and I think that in orthodontics or excuse me, the smile is a is in my mind the window for the for someone’s personality or for their soul to shine through. And when you have a confident smile, it just it just shines through brighter and easier and someone feels more willing to let that shine through. And so directly speaking, we’re going to we’re going to treat them well and encourage them and just treat people like people and not just another mouth in the in the chair. And then indirectly, one thing that’s going to be unique about our practice is that we have a library of resources, an actual physical little library bookshelf in the reception room, but also a collection of resources, summer camps, um counselors, various various businesses and individuals that we’re just going to put before our patients and their families and say, hey, if you’re interested in any of these, these are just some awesome people that we believe can help change your life while you’re going through treatment. And and some of those are giving us discounts on their products things like that. But but yeah, that’s that’s I would say I’ve never heard of anybody else doing that. And that’s something that I’m really excited to, to provide.

Stone Payton: I think it’s great. Now when it comes to hiring, you have to take into account this different climate culture that you want to build. What was the hiring like? Did you I mean.

Jackson Griffeth: Yeah, we I mean, I leaned heavily into Patrick Lencioni, who’s a management consultant for learning how to to build a good culture. He’s got some great books and, and some other resources. But but here’s the thing. I, I, from the get go, established some core values in the practice and really spent an inordinate amount of time on developing these core values and, um, And what they are right now. And I know that may change as our team grows, but what they are is it’s the it’s the acronym is Shaka Little. The little Hawaiian Shaka hand symbol. But what it stands for is serve like a ninja. So we’re looking on the prowl for ways to make people’s day. It’s to have fun. So enthusiasm is a big is a big maker of a good culture. It’s to act like you own the place. And so it’s, hey, if you got an if you got a challenge or an opportunity to to make the place around you better to make somebody’s day better, that’s what we’re going to do is to keep it simple. Because I believe whenever business is done simply and techniques and procedures are done simply, it gives us more margin to look that person in the eye and treat them like a human being, instead of just being stressed about whatever procedure we’re doing. And then it’s to always improve. So just enjoy work and just always get better. So anyways, so we, my wife and I sent out a video of ourselves to various candidates who we found through various means, asking them to send us a video back.

Stone Payton: Oh, that’s an interesting idea. Yeah.

Jackson Griffeth: And so they sent us a video back answering certain questions that we asked them. And in that way, we really just found some gems. And I think some people were even interested in working for us. That wouldn’t have been otherwise if we hadn’t approached them with that creative method. And, and then from interviewed from there and, and honestly, just God’s provision in bringing some good people and good timing into our lives that we couldn’t have orchestrated. So we’re really excited about our first two team members.

Stone Payton: So how do you get new patients? Is there a sales and marketing aspect to an orthodontic practice, or is it all referral, or do you have to get out there and shake the trees like me and Josh?

Jackson Griffeth: Yeah, there’s a lot of that. Orthodontics is unique because you it’s not like a dental office where you go a patient goes to a dentist, and that may be the dentist for the rest of their life. Inherently an orthodontic process is finite. And so people want it to be as finite as it can be, you know. So you start treatment and then you’re done with treatment. And so it’s an always, um, it’s an always going, uh, need to find new patients. And so yes, traditionally that’s it used to be only by referrals. And so dentists would send patients to the orthodontist and say, hey, yeah, we, we respect Doctor Griffith down the street. You should go see him. And that’s how patients would find us. It used to be only that way. And you weren’t even allowed. It was illegal to advertise. Yeah. And so that has flipped quite a bit. Now, there are the majority of our patients find us through just direct promotion, advertising, getting our name out there. And then it depends on the community for sure. And we’ll we’ll discover what Woodstock is like in terms of dentists. A lot of dentists choose to do their own treatment in-house, like Invisalign or something like that. And, and, and don’t refer as much. And then some say, hey, you know what? We’re going to leave that to the professionals. We’re going to send everybody. And so it depends. But yes, the biggest thing I would say that we’re focusing on is relationships and being a part of community events, getting to know our dental neighbors and and then investing in our patients and asking them to bring people, more people like them to us.

Stone Payton: Sure. So I guess I didn’t think about that when I asked the questions. But dentist, those are very important relationships that you need and want to cultivate. I hadn’t thought about that. I was I was thinking in my mind, like reaching the, you know, the end user consumer with kids that are that are that age. But you do you need and want to cultivate those relationships. That’s right. With other practitioners.

Jackson Griffeth: And so that’s what we’ve started with from a, from a marketing perspective, is we’ve been going to go visit the dental offices.

Stone Payton: Yeah. And now I’ve hooked you up with Josh. So you’re you’re awareness marketing credibility authority. We’ve checked that box, baby. Boom. We’re going to. We got Josh Nelson in the studio as well, and he’s coming back to the Business RadioX microphone to share some ideas with us and get us caught up on on his work. But I’ll, uh, I’ll send you a bill.

Jackson Griffeth: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

Jackson Griffeth: Uh, right now, it just would be on a big pile so I wouldn’t even notice.

Jackson Griffeth: That’s right.

Stone Payton: Oh my goodness. I don’t know when you’d find the time trying to get this thing off the ground, but, uh, interests, passions, hobbies, pursuits outside the scope of your of your work. My listeners know that I like to hunt, fish and travel. Yeah. Anything you nerd out about other than other than orthodontics.

Jackson Griffeth: That’s right. Well, it’ll sound boring, but the biggest thing right now is just trying to be a good dad and a good husband. I got my little ones and. Oh, yeah, and my wife, we just had our ten year anniversary on Friday. And so investing in those relationships is, um, is very time consuming. But there’s I mean, there’s things I love doing. I love being outside. Um, it’s been seven years ago now, but I was on American Ninja Warrior in 2017. And those that style of just getting out and and, you know, finding fun things to play on it is still my jam. Um, here in Woodstock, I love to mountain bike, so I’m thankful for our blankets and rope systems. Uh, and so those are the those are the big things.

Stone Payton: You just never know, do you? American ninja warrior. How cool is that?

Jackson Griffeth: It was awesome.

Stone Payton: That is fantastic. All right, man, let’s make sure that our listeners have the coordinates where the where the shop is going to be and and when and how they can reach out to you. Whatever is appropriate and helpful for you.

Jackson Griffeth: Yeah. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to. Yeah. Spread the word. And the details are again, our location is and our name actually I’ll start with that is Cherokee Family Orthodontics. There’s a lot of Cherokee around. There’s Cherokee Dental, there’s Cherokee Orthodontics, various things. Sorry for the confusion. We go by CFO for short. So our building is located on Main Street in between Ace Hardware and Pampered Beauty Bar and Spa. It’s right across the street from the Bell Industrial Park on Main Street. You know, a lot of people have been noticing it’s been under renovation. We just painted it a dark blackish grayish color. And so that’s where it is. Our website is Cherokee Family orthodontics.com. We have Instagram CFO smile. We’re doing fun stuff on there. And we are currently scheduling patients. And so whether that be coming to me in that office over in Acworth, that in Kennesaw that I’m able to see people at now or in our building. Late October appointments can be scheduled by calling, texting and going online. And and then again, just unique factors. What we got going on right now is that we have we’re a family owned practice. We are. Absolutely, like I said, heavily invested in. You’re all in in your success as a patient. Uh, our results are going to the dentists, and the dentists are going to say, yeah, I like that work or no, I don’t like that work. I’m not going to send any more. So we’re very invested in great results and a great experience. And um, and we do a lifetime guarantee on our treatment also. Oh, wow. And so that’s something that I saw happen. People would have a kid would not recognize the value of their treatment. They’d come back six months later, never wore their retainer. Boom. And moms, faced with a mom and dad are faced with $3,000 to fix it. Um, we’ll retreat that kid for free. So, um, that’s those are our. Those are kind of our our two big things that we want everybody to to know. And the space is going to be beautiful. So excited to invite people into it.

Stone Payton: Well, they are two big things and really looking forward to seeing the space. Congratulations on the momentum man. We’re going to keep following your story.

Jackson Griffeth: Thank you. Thanks so much for for letting me spread the word. We’re very excited about it and confident it’s going to be a good, good, good service for folks.

Stone Payton: My pleasure man. Hey, how about hanging out with us while we visit with our next guest?

Jackson Griffeth: I would love to learn more about Josh.

Stone Payton: All right, next up on Cherokee Business Radio this morning, please join me in welcoming back to the Business RadioX microphone with Nelson Elder Care Law, the man himself. Josh Nelson, how have you been, man?

Josh Nelson: Absolutely amazing stuff. I appreciate you having me on. So excited to be with Jackson here. You know, we just celebrated ten years here on Town Lake. And so to see somebody that’s just getting off to a good start and sounds like he has such a good foundation. You know, funny enough, we use core values in our hiring. We use the entrepreneurial operating system. And it’s a real big impact to make sure you have the right team. So I’m really excited to see what Jackson does over here at, you know, Cherokee Family Orthodontics. But even more importantly, I got a 12 year old that just got that referral. So we’re definitely going to have to connect after this.

Stone Payton: That’s great. I’ll be there. See you there. I’m the mega connector. I’m that guy in Cherokee. No, I’m glad you guys are going to going to get together. So I’ve got new questions around trust and estate planning and all that stuff. But let’s just for, you know, anybody that the two people in Cherokee County that don’t know about you guys, just give them a little bit of an overview, mission, purpose, that kind of thing.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. The biggest thing we do at Nelson Elder Care Law is help people plan for their senior years. You know, elder law is a little bit of a misnomer. I have plenty of clients, over 97, clients over 100, and they still tell me they aren’t old. So I get that. Nobody’s ever going to be like, I’m elder. But really, where our focus is, is people traditionally 45 to 55 and up that are trying to make sure that as they go into retirement, they have all their ducks in a row. A lot of times our kids look to us as the ones that should just have everything taken care of, because we taught them so much. We want to make sure that you can kind of live out that responsibility for your children. And then unfortunately, a big part of our practice is people that haven’t prepared. You go talk to your parents or your grandparents, and you think that they got all the ducks in a row and all of a sudden they get hit by a diagnosis like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or a stroke. That’s what we call crisis cases. And unfortunately, that does make up a significant part of our business. But we got ten years experience handling those things. We treat it sort of like Jackson is talking about from that holistic, expert like experience. It’s not just about coming in and getting legal paperwork. We want to make sure you have the right tools, and a lot of times the right tools is a budget, a plan, a referral to a placement agency, working with what your options are for care, knowing how the state government can help support caregivers coming into your home. Because we acknowledge that most people want to stay at home. But if you get so sick that you can’t. We’re happy to help you transition to.

Stone Payton: So this is a very right in my field of vision right now. My folks I grew up in Pensacola, Florida. Mom and dad moved up about nine months ago. They lived two minutes away, right down here off of Dupree, 82 and 84. Um, and I, you know, my brother’s coming up this weekend to hunt, but we also are going to have some conversations about things that we should be mentioning to mom and dad. You know, do we need to have that family meeting? You know. You know, is there a three ring binder in dad’s office desk drawer? Do we need to talk to somebody? And I gotta believe we’re not the only ones that have probably already put it off longer than we should have. So any counsel advice you have about how to approach the conversation? Misconceptions that because rusty and I may have some preconceived notions about what? Yeah. Lay it on us.

Josh Nelson: Yeah, absolutely. Um, that’s kind of the normal avatar, or kind of what our clients are going through. What a lot of people don’t realize is that often we’ll meet with, like you and your brother or just you, and then you kind of relay to your brother. That’s why we offer free visits with our legal team, because we understand getting mom and dad on the ball might be a very serious conversation. I would argue that instead of you just barging into that, you get some help from us to be able to say, how do we phrase that conversation? How do we structure that conversation? Because your parents are going to be somewhat a little blown away whenever, you know, we don’t want them feeling ambushed whenever all of a sudden you and your brother sit down after hunting and they’re like, hey, Mom and Dad, we need to do this, or I want to. I want to handle your bills. No dad and no mom are really going to love that kind of conversation. So how do we ease into it? How do we make sure that they know that we’re not taking any power away from them? We’re just helping them get everything structured.

Josh Nelson: So in case something does, you know, kind of come their way, you guys know where it is, you know how to step in. And so a good portion of our clients actually come from their kids stepping up whenever somebody has it. And like I said, the problem is you’ve seen somebody at work, you’ve talked to somebody at church who they thought their parents had this stuff in a row. They thought they had that three ring binder buried somewhere. And then unfortunately, something happened and we couldn’t find it. So, like, even with us, whenever we do a plan for somebody, we give everybody PDFs they can keep on their phone that are actually just as legally valid as like the formal paperwork in that binder. So say that even though your parents live two miles away, you get that call that dad was in a car accident, or he went up to North Side for some reason, rather than you having to drive over to his office and find that paperwork, you can go straight to the hospital, have it on your phone, have full authority just from that PDF.

Stone Payton: So I got to believe that there are more than a few misconceptions, preconceived notions that are just off track, that just people walk in and they don’t quite have the right frame for this. Do you run into that?

Josh Nelson: I think there’s a lot of misconceptions out there, and part of it is because the rules change state by state. So especially if you moved from like North Carolina, like Jackson did. Asheville is beautiful. I love it over there. But their rules are a lot different than they are here in Georgia. And so you get somebody that moves from a different state and they assume those rules moved with them. And Georgia can be very different. A lot of our rules are super beneficial. You just got to play by what our guidelines are. And so like just as recently as July here in Georgia, we changed a really cool thing for homeowners that allows them to be able to skip probate, which is the legal process of transferring stuff from somebody who passed away to their loved ones without a trust, without doing any kind of like, weird stuff. The big advantage of that is it lowers the cost of estate planning significantly. So a lot of people are scared to even talk about a trust because they know it’s expensive. It is. But now our legislature has this really cool thing called a transfer on death deed that allows for you to be 100% owner of your property.

Josh Nelson: And if something happens where you pass, you can designate who it goes to. So think of it sort of like a beneficiary on your IRA or a beneficiary on your bank account. Those people don’t own anything while you’re alive. But then whenever you pass now all of a sudden they own it without having to go through a court. This is really cool because what we see a lot of people do that’s really uncool. Really silly, if you think about it, is add their kids to their deed. And that’s a big mistake. Not only do you have to get them to sign off if you ever want to move or refi, but if they ever get divorced, they ever get creditors because of hospital bills. Now all of a sudden they’re a part owner in your house. And so this allows our legislature to say, hey, if something happens to you, let’s give it to your kids without having to have those complications during their life.

Stone Payton: So you’ve been at this a minute? You’ve what are you at this point in your career? What are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about the work for you these days?

Josh Nelson: Um, I think growing the team. So I think Jackson’s off to an amazing start by making sure that he’s cultivating that right away. You know, last time I was on here, we kind of spoke about, you know, I’ve been doing this for ten years now. And whenever I first started, I probably didn’t have the team right. I came from more of a logistics background. So it was kind of like, get the systems, get the processes down, and then just get people to work the systems. And what I found was we get a lot better results if we get really, really qualified people in the way that we say qualified is that they meet our core values and that they really, really care about the individual across from them. So making sure that the schedule is open enough that we don’t need to charge billable hours. Whenever you come in, you don’t get charged for the time you play a flat rate that you know up front before you even get started. And then if it takes more time, it takes more time. And we want to make sure that you’re really comfortable. We expect that this is the kind of thing that’s really only done once in your lifetime. This isn’t the kind of thing you need to come in every three years, five years, something like that. Once you get into your 50s, this stuff’s pretty much sorted. Your decisions aren’t going to change drastically. We can always adjust things and make changes, but for the majority of our families that we help, they’re going to come in, do this once. We want to make sure that it’s a relationship and not just a transaction.

Josh Nelson: And so I think just like Houston, the part I love most about my job is meeting people, learning about them, being able to solve their problems. You know, for so many attorneys, whenever somebody comes in, they kind of have this curse of knowledge. They’re saying, you know, oh, you have a problem with a nail, let me hit it with a hammer. And what we like to say is like, what are you really trying to fasten together? What are you building with that nail? How do we make sure that if something goes right in your life, you’re prepared? But also if something goes wrong, if life throws you a curve ball, how do we make sure that that’s not impacting your relationships? You know, thinking about an adult caregiver for their dad or their mom. How do we make sure that that caregiver has a reprieve or relief so that they’re still seen as a wife, a husband, a son, a daughter, and not just a caregiver? The most depressing parts of my role are whenever you get somebody that comes in and they’ve been a caregiver for their parent because we feel like we have that duty, but it becomes a burden and all of a sudden our parent or our spouse starts looking at us like the help rather than as a kid or a spouse. And really, over the years, we’ve been able to fine tune how we make sure that the money’s there, that the resources are there, and that the caregivers setting the right boundaries before it gets to that point.

Stone Payton: And you’re part of a group of professionals in this whole arena, acap adult children of aging parents, parents. And I’ve talked to some other folks like in the in the leadership of that effort, but speak to that the mission. What compelled you guys to to get involved?

Josh Nelson: Yeah. Like I said, we’re always out here trying to build relationships. And so that is definitely a non-profitable venture for us, but it feels like it fills our heart. Right? So like Jackson was saying, you know, let your soul shine. How do we make sure that at the end of the day, we’re sleeping? Amazing. We go home and we can tell our families, like true families, we did great work today. And part of that is making sure that people are equipped with the tools. Most people that are an adult caregiver, they don’t have time. And like the reason that it’s as late as it is, is because we know you got to get off work, you got to get the kids fed. You got to make sure that your parents are taken care of, and then you can run over and spend some time for us. And the coolest thing about Acap right now is it is just 100% actionable tools. So a lot of times you go to like a seminar or a speaking event and you get kind of riled up and you’re like, oh, this is going to be awesome. And then you like on your way home or thinking like, well, what did what? What am I actually going to do different? What’s what can I take from this? Um, and acap right now is just tool after tool after tool that you can go execute on. So really cool.

Stone Payton: And you guys don’t have like Margarita Mondays or Taco Tuesdays I don’t guess. But but you do have a regular gathering and it’s for people like me and Russ. Is that accurate to go and learn stuff?

Josh Nelson: Absolutely. So it’s on Thursday evenings. Um, it’s not every Thursday. It’s about every other Thursday. Sometimes it’s only once a month, depending on who’s coming in. It’s over the church kind of on where Barrett and Canton Road run into each other. And the biggest part about it is that it helps people come in, get the information and get out. We do have, you know, little food and drinks and stuff like that, but that’s not why you’re spending your time with us. You know, we don’t have the Jimmy Buffett margarita margarita machine in the back. Um, we’re just trying to make sure that you’re comfortable enough to focus, that you aren’t coming in hungry, that you’re not drowning, you know, coming dehydrated while you’re out there. Um, during the summer, that church is warm, so definitely water. But the biggest thing is making sure that people have the tools they need and that they can go execute, even with a lot of like support giver groups or caregiver groups, or especially with like cognitive impairment support groups, it turns into a good way to counsel each other. Sometimes it turns into like a complaining session if it’s not moderated, well, yeah, but even the best ones, unfortunately don’t really walk out with like, here’s the thing you can do today to get yourself four hours of caregiving for free. Here’s the thing you can do today to make sure that you’re prepared for getting the hospital bed in. If your spouse is immobile. Here’s how you actually get practical training on how to lift somebody heavier than you off the floor. Here’s how you have the conversation about you falling 11 times this week. And the fire department said they’re calling Adult Protective services if you do it again. Like, these are the things that we’re going to cover and make sure that you’re super equipped with. Nobody’s allowed to sell you anything whenever you go to these meetings. And so it’s just like a Q&A kind of being able to say, how do we get the information? You bring your problems. And we got to 12 people in there in the industry. They’ll give you solutions. It’s really cool.

Stone Payton: It seems like a marvelous resource. It really it really does. All right. Let’s talk about me for a minute. It’s my show. No, no, I’m thinking because we sort of are there. And I’m trying to get, you know, if you want to get some free coaching and consulting guys, get yourself a radio show, because that’s what I’m about to do right here. Uh, but but no, all kidding aside, just kind of walk us through, like Russ and I. One of the early steps might be to go to 1 or 2 of these meetings. Uh, have a conversation with you, just walk us through, like, if you could paint the ideal journey for me and Russ to get mom and dad and us set for the next few years, walk us through that.

Josh Nelson: Yeah. I think the biggest thing is because they’re not under care right now, because they’re not sick or diagnosed with something right now. It’s information gathering at this stage. And that’s where most people should start, because then it’s a lot easier to do any legwork you need to. It’s a lot easier to get the facts straight. And so anybody can come in. And Nelson Auto Care law, we have an office right here over off Town Lake, as well as one over off Dallas Highway in Cobb Tom. And what we’ll do is sit down with you for an hour with a member of our legal team, and make sure that you at least have the facts. We’re not trying to make any decisions for you. We’re trying to educate you well enough that you can make your own decisions. And especially for you and Russ, it probably starts with how do we talk to Mom and Dad about this? Yeah. How do I approach dad and say, you’re doing great, man, but let’s just go ahead and get something in place that it’s not a burden on. Mom, if something happened to you. That’s usually a resounding conversation for dad.

Stone Payton: What a great friend. That’s the right frame for my dad. I guarantee you it is.

Josh Nelson: Compared to going and saying, dad, I want to be able to pay your bills. Put me on your bank account. Something like that. Like he’s going to be like, heck no. Right. And so that’s really where it starts. There’s so much misinformation, especially like in Georgia. A will doesn’t even skip probate, which is very mind blowing to people, you know. Whoa. Tonight I’ll speak to over 150 people for a senior center seminar. And at that seminar, one of the questions I always love to ask is who has a will? Raise your hand. And then what does a will do. And you’ll just see hands drop so fast. You know we’re we spend our whole lives being told we need this thing. None of us really know what it’s doing. And then you don’t find out that now you got to go through this crazy court process. Probate. Just as a general ballpark, guys, costs about 3% of your stuff. So, like, if you have a $300,000 house, probate costs nine grand. That’s kind of crazy, man.

Stone Payton: And a bunch of time, too, right?

Josh Nelson: It takes at least six months in Georgia, usually 9 to 12. The biggest thing is the information. And so I would say for you and your brother making sure that you get educated. A lot of this stuff is very inexpensive to do. So like our legislature does some really cool things with powers of attorney and medical power of attorney that we call advanced health care directive that you can get for very, very inexpensive. And that makes a world of difference so that even if your parents aren’t on board for doing like a full plan right now, they at least have the things in place that if they get hit by a curveball of life, you have the legal authority to come in and help, and that makes a world of difference. Can you imagine if something happened to like, you know, your mom and your dad is just devastated after being with her for so many years? Maybe he’s not the right one to be the decision maker because it just hits us emotionally, right? I mean, if she’s going through something nuts, is he under so much stress that being the caregiver, being the spouse, and being the decision maker is too much? It’s worth having a conversation. Or maybe it’s something where, you know, one of your parents is starting to get a little soft cognitively. Like, we’re not saying that they have to move somewhere. Like we’re not saying they can’t drive anymore, but maybe it’s that their, you know, decision making isn’t quite what it was whenever they were in their 50s.

Josh Nelson: Maybe it’s starting to get a little soft. How do we step in and say, you know, dad, you’re going to be 100% the decision maker for mom, but let me be Co with you. Let me let me just say that the two of us together are going to help. I want to do this as a way to allow you to be the great husband that you committed to being, rather than saying, let’s go in. And I want to be the decision maker for mom. Like, those conversations are so nuanced, and a lot of people, I would argue, need help before they do it well. And the problem is, if you jump in and try and do it on your own before you have some guidance, you can really burn bridges. You know, there’s so many fears as we get older of they’re going to put me in a home, they’re going to try and steal money. They want their inheritance early. It’s all about the money. And it’s really not for most kids, but just the way they phrase it comes off as that. And so we want to make sure that everybody is really well equipped to have those conversations in a way that has a positive outcome, because once the parents kind of shriek back, once, they’re like, no, we ain’t doing this. Reviving that conversation can be pretty hard, I’ll bet.

Stone Payton: Man, I’m so glad that I asked. Thank you. And Russ and I are going to try to follow your counsel. I’d love to. Yeah. Uh, so.

Josh Nelson: We’ll do the whole thing on the radio show.

Stone Payton: Yeah, we’ll just do a live. That’s actually a cool idea if you’re up for it, I love it.

Josh Nelson: It’s awesome.

Stone Payton: Uh, I asked Jackson a little earlier, and I’ll ask you. And you’re at a little different point in your life. Probably. So maybe you don’t have a house full of kids. You’re having to tend to, uh, outside the scope of your work, man. Anything you nerd out about, what do you like to do?

Josh Nelson: Um, so funny enough, I’ve been trying to lose some weight, so I’m down over 60 pounds for the year.

Stone Payton: Wow. Congratulations.

Josh Nelson: The big thing has been so not Ninja Warrior for sure, but I met John Cena, the guy that runs Spartan Races, which are like these like five 10-K or 21 K events that have like rope climbs and wall climbs and stuff like that. And he was nice enough to allow me to go run as many events as I want. And so he said, I want to support your weight loss journey. Uh, really, really cool guy. I mean, his business does over $50 million a year to run those races. And he was like, if you’re willing to put in the time. At the time I was 350 pounds and he was like, you and any of your buddies want to come? So last November, the firm actually got over 100 people to sign up and go run the one down in Conyers. Amazing. I love it. On October 5th I’m going to go run in one in Nashville, which is really cool. And so that’s been taken up a decent bit of my time. It needs to take up more. But then the other thing for me is I love restoring old cars. So like pre-World War two cars, I love going on the weekends or the nights and getting my hands dirty. I got a little shop that I work on. I got a 1937 Cadillac that I’m putting back together right now. That was just a rust bucket. And those things are actually really out of style right now in cars, because most of the people from that generation are kind of aging out of driving. And so I love being able to do that kind of stuff. And I will give 100% credit to my daughter’s mom. She does all the hard parenting. I just get to helicopter in and do the fun stuff. So like it’s Saturdays, go to the jumpy place or doing fun things like that. That’s, uh, her mom is an angel, so I appreciate her covering most of that for me, where I just get to come do the fun stuff.

Stone Payton: So, uh, restoring the cars. Is this something you’ve been doing for years and years? Is it a new passion?

Josh Nelson: Yeah, I’ve done it for over 20 years now. Oh, wow. And, uh.

Stone Payton: Isn’t that isn’t that what is it? A car that’s 20 years old is a classic.

Josh Nelson: Oh, let’s not go into that. That means things like the 2000 are like classics. I want to feel really old.

Stone Payton: I was going to say now you’re a classic.

Josh Nelson: What’s funny, though, is a lot of the, you know, car prices kind of follow the cycle of whenever the car gets to be, like, old enough where the guys that wanted it at 16 are in their 40s now, right? They go to ridiculous prices. So a lot of those like Japanese little sports cars, like, um, there was like a 99 Honda Civic that just sold on bring a trailer for like $60,000. And that was probably a $15,000 car, brand new. So like some of that’s just wild. I’m in luck because I like the pre-World War Two stuff and those cars are getting cheap. You know, a couple of years ago, all those muscle cars that were super expensive, like an old Camaro or an old GTO. And just because those guys are now getting to where they’re not driving cars without AC anymore. Those things are starting to get cheap. But those old World War two like pre cars, you know, they don’t have AC. They’re small. So I’m a big guy. Don’t fit in them well. Like, even my daughter can’t ride in the 37 because it doesn’t have safety glass. So like, you don’t think about it, but if you’re ever in an accident, that glass just turns into knives. Like it’s. Wow. So we don’t let her ride in some of the old stuff, but I got, like a 46 Jeep Willys that’s, you know, and you go.

Stone Payton: Show them off after you get them all dolled up. Do you go show them what.

Josh Nelson: A big car show guy. But I love to go use them. So we’ll actually go up um, like over in Asheville, there’s an amazing hotel called the Grand Something. It’s the Grove Park inn. Grove park inn. Yeah. Close enough.

Stone Payton: It’s a grand place.

Jackson Griffeth: That’s a good one. That’s a grand place for sure.

Josh Nelson: So I love driving up there through the mountains and stuff. There’s a bunch of groups that you can find through different, like online things where you’ll get together on a Saturday, wake up at like 536, and then just go roll these cool old cars through the mountains. Um, you know, especially this time of year. Man, it’s so crisp and beautiful in the mornings. North Georgia has so much to offer us. Um, that if you just get out there and enjoy it, man, it’s just an amazing way to spend a weekend.

Stone Payton: Yeah, I’m so glad I asked.

Stone Payton: And you’ve covered a ton of information, but just to kind of wrap it up, maybe a couple of like the really important pro tips for the stones and Rusty’s out there. Just things to be thinking about. Do don’t do the first couple of steps. And look guys, the number one pro tip is reach out and have a conversation with Josh or somebody on his team. But let’s leave a little something to chew on.

Josh Nelson: I think, especially for your listeners on Business RadioX. The biggest thing I would say is a little different than our primary practice area, but it plays right in make sure that if you’re a small business owner, if you have something going on where you’re the sole person, or especially if you have a team that relies on you, that you’re operating agreement, your articles of incorporation, something has a succession plan in it. It doesn’t need to be some like crazy thing. It can just be a paragraph that you add into those membership articles that says, if I get hit by a bus, my wife, my partner, somebody can step in and still have access to the bank account. What we’re seeing a lot is a lot of people will register their LLC or their company with the secretary of state, and that’s all they do. There’s no actual like articles or membership agreement or anything anywhere. And the problem then is if you pass suddenly or you get sick, suddenly your whole business stops because somebody has to be able to access the checking account. Somebody has to be able to access cash flow. Somebody has to be able to run things. Just making sure that you have that paragraph in your LLC or your articles of incorporation to make sure that somebody can do it, whether that be your spouse, your brother, whoever.

Josh Nelson: That’s where we’re seeing people even with, you know, good sized small businesses come up short right now. And whenever that gets stuff gets stuck in probate, it’s really expensive because trying to cash flow that thing while it’s going through the court system is nearly impossible for most companies. You know, you think about like the run rate even on like Jackson’s business for, you know, the mortgage payment on the building, keeping the staff going, who’s going to be his coverage orthodontist. I’m sure that somebody has to be licensed to come in. Like, who is that person? Right? Like just sitting down for an hour and making that plan on the back of a sheet of paper is going to change your family’s life if something ever happens to you. And that’s really where on the probate side of my business, we’ve been seeing people just get hit with a hammer. You know, we just had a lady who had a small Airbnb business, but it grew to over $1.3 million and stuff, and then nobody could find the paperwork. Oh, geez. It’s like, uh oh, you know, for one little paragraph, one little, like, five page membership agreement would have cost her less than 500 bucks. Box. She could have saved a bunch of money because again, whenever that goes through probate, you’re looking at like 3%. Wow.

Stone Payton: There’s a blue three ring binder in my office closet at the house. As soon as we go off the air, I’m headed. I got to go take a look at that thing. Oh my goodness.

Josh Nelson: So, like I said, for the normal stuff that we do, if you’re thinking about your spouse, your parents, stuff like that definitely reach out. But just as a nugget there, guys, especially for small business owners, we are just seeing a lot more people with everything planned for because they usually have like a financial advisor and estate planning attorney, stuff like that. That part’s golden and they forget about the business.

Stone Payton: All right. What’s the best way for our listeners to tap in whatever coordinates makes sense? I just want to be able to connect with you guys.

Josh Nelson: Absolutely. Nelson Autocare. Com is always a good one for us. You can Google us. We’ll pop up (678) 250-9355. However you want to reach out. We’re here to help.

Stone Payton: Well Josh thanks for coming back, man, and thank you for all the terrific information. Gentlemen. It has been an absolute pleasure having you both in the studio. Don’t be a stranger. I’m quite sincere. Josh will tell you when I say Jackson. You’re welcome to come back. And we want to continue to follow your story. But what a marvelous way to to invest a Tuesday morning. You guys are doing important work, and we we sure appreciate you.

Speaker4:

Josh Nelson: Thank you, Stone. Thanks so much. Really excited to see where Jackson grows. I remember ten years ago kind of being in that spot. And it’s scary as all get out now on the other side of it. It just feels so cool. Whenever you look back at all the families you’ve been able to help.

Stone Payton: That’s awesome. Alright,until next time. This is Stone Payton for our guests today and everyone here at the Business RadioX family saying, we’ll see you again on Cherokee Business Radio.