Building Wealth and Giving Back: Bill Beynon's Story of Success and Philanthropy

But the one thing that always, I was thinking about because is Steubenville not far from where you were from? It's across the bridge. Yeah. So five miles from where I grew up. Yeah. I've been there before for a wedding. Yeah. My cousin got married there. Yeah. So where I grew up was a little sliver of West Virginia that's sandwiched between Pennsylvania, Ohio.

So we're 20 miles west of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh airport. 20 miles away. Yeah. That's where we, I flew into. And then, so if I got up and I drove, five miles to the west. I was in Ohio, five miles to the east. I was in Pennsylvania. Wow. Basically. Yeah. So a little scary. We were at this beautiful spot.

Yeah. Overlooking that river and Yeah. It was where she got married. It was so pretty. Yeah. Yeah. And, but I didn't even know it existed like Steubenville was. Yeah, I think it was Dean Martin. Dean Martin from there. Dean Martin. Yeah. So it was a steel community. So Weirton was the main company, and at one time when I was a kid, it was like the fifth largest steel producer in the world.

So they had 20,000 employees and it was a big industrial area. Mm. They kind of grew out of sort of the out outcropping of Pittsburgh and, very different today. So it's, the steel industry's gone. Yeah. But they've, they've re started to repurpose it. and now they have, new manufacturing things like battery plants and different things coming in.

But, it's really a commuter town to Pittsburgh now for the most part. Oh, it is. It's really a suburb. Yeah. Oh, okay. So, wow. What, what was it like? It was like still small town, blue collar type thing. Yeah. There were, yeah, there about 50,000 people in the town when I grew up. And, combined Stu Mil weirton was kind of, kind of viewed it as one area.

Oh it was. but, it was, it was small town, blue collar. my family ended up there, my grandfather was a professional baseball player, and in, he played a little in the majors, but mostly in the, in the minors. Really. He played for a team called the Wheeling sto, which is a minor league team in Wheeling West.

Sto kidding. The cigar wheeling March wheeling cigars. That's awesome. Yeah. Their sponsor. And, he played them back in those days, the AA teams played the major league teams as they were traveling through, so he played against the Yankees, so both up and down. Okay. Yeah. So as, as, as an example, they didn't fly in planes back then, so they took a train or a bus and they would stop and play sort of warmup or exhibition games along the way.

Okay. and then when he retired from that team, he got hired by National Steel to play baseball on the company team, which. You couldn't think about that today, but they actually had a full-time baseball team. Really? And for 10 years he played, he punched a time card and went and played baseball. And then as a baseball player, when they ultimately disbanded the team, he became a foreman in the steel industry.

Oh my gosh. Yeah. So that's how we ended up there. Wow. Yeah. I had no idea they, they had something like that. Yeah. Existed. It was, it was very different, back in those days the companies, had various things for entertainment, I guess, but Yeah. Yeah. They had a full on baseball team and he was, he ended up in area, he was from Ohio.

He was from Ohio originally, but ended up there, that's how we ended up settling. We were as a family. Ah, okay. And my father was born there. My mother grew up near Wheeling, in Ohio, across the river, so south, so, okay. Yeah. And then. What you bucked the system and left and came for the sunshine. It's cold.

It's very cold there. Right? Tell me about it. Yeah, so, I went to col, my father passed away when I was in, in, in high school. Wow. and then I went to Western University in Morgantown West. What happened to your dad? he had a heart attack. He was a chain smoking physician, unfortunately, like they were Back day was, yeah.

And, yeah, but everybody smoked. They all did. And they all started smoking when they were in the military. Yeah. And, it sort of, and, didn't sleep. Workaholic chain, smoked, all the, all the things that we know today are bad for you. Yeah, of course. yeah, so he died at age 50.

Oh my gosh. I was a junior in high school. And, so I went to West Virginia University, which is a hour and a half south, which was great experience and a wonderful college experience. went to work, got recruited into the insurance industry. When I was in college, I needed money and, to Pittsburgh.

Where did you go for that? Well, I was in, in Morgantown, West Virginia. And so they had, they had a college program, so I had never, I was gonna go to law school. It was not my plan. from that sort of got into that industry, developed an expertise in estate planning, got recruited to Pittsburgh. I was a director of Oh, that's, you went to Pittsburgh?

Yeah, I was a director of estate planning for a firm there, and then got recruited to Naples and it was, Oh, you got recruited down? Yeah, it was snowing. It was, cold and gray in Pittsburgh and had this opportunity to move to Naples, and I said, sure. I didn't even visit. I accepted the position and said, find me a place to live.

I'll be there in two weeks Now. Were you together, were, were you with your wife? We were dating. She claims I gave her like a week's notice, but it was. A little longer than that, but yeah. And then we dated long distance for, she would come down the summers 'cause she was a school teacher. Oh, okay. And then we got married the third summer, in 2001.

So I moved in 98. We got married in 2001. Wow. And, you law went to the wayside. Where did law come from? What, what was that about? I dunno. It was just a thing as a kid you thought about, but, I kind of, once I got into the financial industry, it was, it was sort of a fit. So I knew that was gonna be my career.

I was a partner in a firm here for seven years and then in 2000 and my partners had decided to sell to a publicly traded company. or actually a company that was taking the Rollup public. I decided it wasn't a good deal for me 'cause I was the young guy in the groom. And, so in oh four I started Capital Wealth Advisors with my childhood best friend who I recruited back from.

He was living in Atlanta and he moved down and we started the company in oh four. The first year of the Turkey trap. Oh, wow. So, I mean, that had to be a big deal though, because you were, had the security of a Organization and here you're gonna just Yeah. I remember being on Fifth Avenue, at the Prudential Real Estate office, signing the lease in our first office, and I looked at Nina, my wife, and I said, if this doesn't work out, we can live here.

As, as an entrepreneur, as it is,. Well, yeah. That's what you do. So, yeah. I always like to, but luckily it worked out,? Yeah. I always like to hear that story because it's a big deal when you sign that lease, when you put your name on that lease and you Yeah. The personal guarantee, that big number, it's a big number.

Oh, this doesn't matter. Yeah. Wherever you are in life, it's a commitment. It's the big deal. And then, what's your heart like and Those, that first year, like, and, just making sure you're gonna pay the bills. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So eat, yeah. All those good things. Luckily my wife was a school teacher and made her huge salary, but it worked out fine.

Yeah. So she. Got a job here teaching early on. Yeah, she, she taught here for seven years and then retired and really became sort of a, doing charity work full-time until we had her daughter. So she, right after she retired from teaching, she spent a couple years volunteering at Grace Place, which is, if, Grace Place.

It's a ecumenical tutoring program for kids. It's a wonderful program. And, she was there back when they didn't have facility. They had trailers and an old church and Yeah. really enjoyed it. And then we, had our daughter and, but she's, we both have been involved in a number of charities, a lot around children and different things, but she's, she's maintained that sort of as her day to day.

What was it that gave you the spark to go, let's just go pick up turkeys and take 'em on here? It was just a whim. I mean, we, it was weird. It just, they, they called it on the radio. They said, this is a need. We were driving, there was a Publix, like literally right there. We said, let's go buy some turkeys.

And we walked in and they had a big bin of turkeys. So I don't think at the time. They didn't say anything. I will tell you years later, if you try to buy a hundred turkeys at Publix, they will kick you out. I learned that the hard way. Oh yeah. yeah. Yeah. We down with the plan, so yeah, you let know.

And today it's obviously a little bigger, but, but the joke was is every year we said, okay, we did 25 the first year. Let's do 50 the next year, and then we do a hundred than 150. Yeah. We used to just go and buy the turkeys. Yeah. And I remember being in Publix with a couple guys, kids that worked for me, and the manager came over or the guy in the meat department came over and he said, what are you doing?

I said, I'm buying turkeys. We had like four carts. And he said, well, you can't get the sale price. And I said, that's okay. And I keep on, he said, no, you can't, you can't buy the turkeys. I said, aren't they for sale? And he said, you can't buy the turkeys. And I said, and then he brings the manager over and he explained, which made sense to me that they pre-planned how many turkeys they have.

He's like, if you buy all my turkeys, my regular customers are gonna hate me. Yeah. So luckily he helped coordinate with a couple other stores and we were able to fill the order. And then from that point it became more of a, a structured deal. Today we start, eight, nine months in advance, procuring the food.

It's a little different every year, trying to find the right things. We've dealt with bird flu. We've dealt with a number of things, especially on the Turkey side. Yeah. where there've been shortages and, but, but luckily we've got have a team, Susie Mulley, who, is the head of our hr, but she also runs our philanthropic endeavor.

She's been my right hand in all this, so she's amazing. One year we had, an order, I dunno which store it was, maybe it was Publix. And their supply got cut, so they canceled our order in like September. Oof. And she just dialed for dollars until she got like an executive at Butterball on the phone.

And told the story and they supplied us straight to Butterball. Yeah. So we pay for the food. So we buy the food. Yeah. So it's not a donated Yeah. With the exception of the eggs. and some of the produce, the eggs are donated by, Eggland's Best through one of the producers called Cowain. we have a connection with the founder of Eggland's Best, and they've been very generous.

Every family gets a dozen, dozen eggs as well, so Wow. Today they get a Turkey, all the sides, so they get corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, stuffing. they'll get vegetables that are provided through, the Midwest Food Bank and Harry Chapin that we provide some, some, some, perishable items that go along and, they get a, a frozen Turkey.

So, and then they get a fresh baked pumpkin pie. Wow. And so those, it's really to design for a family to have a full meal where they have a place to cook, but not enough food to, to cook. Yeah. and it started with 25 turkeys. Today it's 6,000. Oh, every year. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. The coordination for that has to be incredible.

It grew, it grew every year and we started to recruit our friends and other companies and businesses in town that we just said, Hey, you wanna help? We needed, we needed, first, we needed hands 'cause we assembled the food boxes, so we needed physical, effort and volunteers. And then our friends started contributing, so it became a bigger endeavor.

So we had a number of people that had been with us for a number of years, helping out. and then last year my wife and I decided we would match. We were at 3000, so we decided to match personally to get us to six. And we're doing that again this year, so. Wow. Yeah, so it's, it's pretty fun. And then we have a couple side projects.

There's a couple of elementary schools that we do a hundred or so where, sort of under the radar that we know they have a need there and we distribute those through the school counselors. To those families. How do you coordinate something like that? 'cause you've got perishable, you got items that are gonna Yeah.

So, November 17th is what we call Turkey drop days. That's really assembly day. so everything is coordinated to arrive at one location, the night before in that day. So we'll have eight to 10 tractor trailers full of food that will be delivered into 10 tractor trailers. Yeah. Yeah.

And we have to coordinate, we have freezer and refrigerator trucks on site. Okay. Where, so, we do it at the First Baptist Church. they've been really generous. Huge, huge piece of property in the back area. so what happens is those that come in, so some are, we'll move the turkeys into the freezer trucks.

So we have those frozen and ready. And then the eggs, the pumpkin pies will, and some of the other things will go into the refrigerator trucks. The rest of 'em are paled and ready to go. And then on the 17th we'll have a couple hundred volunteers that pack the boxes of the, per the non-perishable food items, getting those ready for distribution.

And we'll distribute between the 18th and the 22nd of November. we partner with St. Matthew's house to do the distribution and they do a wonderful job. And then I think there's five or six locations around the county, go to veterans, go to, some, elderly, anybody that's in, food insecure that goes through the process of St.

Matthew's house to get that. and we'll distribute, we do, the big one is at the church location. Second biggest one is probably Paradise Coast, but then all it goes all the way up the Paradise Coast too. Yeah. Some of it even goes up to LaBelle,? So it really is spread out now.

And there's a need, we ran out last year. Right. Believe or not. Yeah. No kidding. So with 6,000, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So as our community has grown, if you think about it, if a percentage is, people in need, as the population grows, that percentage stays the same, the absolute number grows. Mm. So, it's just as we've been blessed with a growing community, the need has grown.

Yeah. So we have to continue to keep up with that. And then the local community has been really great at donating. So we have a cw Turkey drop.com. People can go and donate. To buy additional food that St. Matthew's house can have to give out through the, through the season. Okay. And they've been great in, in participating as well, beyond the Turkey drop?

Yeah, well, somebody goes to Turkey drop 'cause they also serve, St. Matthew's house serves on Thanksgiving Day., in their normal Yeah. Where they're starting a meal, a hot meal for someone that does have a place, a cook. So yeah, all of that sort of goes into the same, the same project if you will, but the logistics of that whole thing.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's getting volunteers. Susie, Susie and our team do do an amazing job, so on our staff and she leads the team and, it's, it. Again, it's, it's a learning process over time. I think we've got the process really down. St. Matthew's team is really good. Logistically the church helps.

We have to have forklifts and, we have, I don't know, a hundred tables set up tents and, for, the assembly day is a really big project. Yeah. last year I bought a pallet wrapper because we have to wrap the pallets with plastic before they ship. 'cause that'll be the central location.

And then the main distribution will happen there. And then that day trucks will take them to the other distribution sites for the, for the following day. Oh, okay. So it kind of is the hub, of where all the food starts. That's like a whole Yeah. Bus. I mean, that's a big deal. Yeah. It's, it's a huge day.

Yeah. And you think about, just think about from the perspective of, of,. Eight to 10 tractor trailers full of food. I mean, it's an enormous amount of food when you actually put it down. Yeah, yeah. And keeping it okay. Yeah, keeping it safe, getting volunteers. And we, it started with turkeys and then I didn't tell my partners, but I decided, Susie and I decided we were gonna add the sides one year, because we said if they need Turkey, they probably need the other stuff.

So we failed to tell my partners. and I was in New York at a meeting and my phone starts blowing up and I get on the phone with my partner, Blaine. I'm like, what's wrong? And he said, what did you do? And I said, what do you mean? He goes, 12 pallets of dried goods, just got shipped to our little office.

And he said, we don't have room for it. He, because we used to assemble in the office before we did the business back in the day we did that. So when I got back, and I have pictures of it somewhere, I'll give you literally down every hallway in every office from floor to ceiling were canned goods and boxes of potatoes and, yeah.

I gotta say that. We had, everyone was fun. So after that was the last year we assembled the office and then we started to move it offsite as a group. When was that? Oh, probably 10 years ago. 10, yeah. Yeah. And then you realized you can't. Yeah. You just, you we couldn't, you have to do it on site. Then we decided to do just have everything delivered to one spot.

So yeah, early on when we got to like 500 turkeys, we'd get up that morning, we would rent a box truck, we'd drive to either Costco or Publix or Multiplications, pick them up and take 'em to St. Matthew's house. But now that we do the full meal, it's a much bigger Yeah. program. So you, it used to be where you're just that day getting a truck going and getting them, driving 'em over.

Yeah, we would, we would, we would order and pre-order them and then say, okay, whatever's gonna be November 17th, that's a drop off day. Yeah. We would literally go load all the turkeys on and, we weren't so smart. We used to, carry the boxes. And I remember one day the guy at Costco said, can we just use the forklift?

Okay, thanks. As we're about halfway through. So we're, as we've gotten older, we've gotten wiser. So, yeah, I think he let us, he watched us do it for like a half an hour, course carry the ball. So yeah. Frozen bowling balls,. Well, I think every time of. Especially around Thanksgiving, there's this, there's always this thought, it kind of creeps into my mind, like, what could I do that, is giving back?

And, I have the thought about it that I'd really like to make a difference or do something, but to actually take action., sometimes it's just a thought, maybe I'll be more generous with tipping or whatever it is, but to actually go out to Publix, pick up Turkey or to do something.

But I think it's something that. It's in everybody's heart. They want to do something, they just don't know what to do. And I, with what you have going, like, how do you get people to volunteer and get on the bandwagon with you? 'cause ask it's so special., the first you ask one, our, our, our, our partners and our friends, we, I called 'em all and said, Hey, I need your help.

Need your help financially. I need your help with your people, your team. And then once they experience it, then they're in every year. I think the community has done a really nice job of, we, we always try in our communications to say, we'd love for this to be an inspiration for you to help as well, whether it's monetarily or with actual food donations.

So we try to make it easy for them on our website, the cw Turkey drop.com to be able to do that. We encourage 'em to drop things at St. Matthew's house. And it has worked. It has, the feedback we have St. Matthew's house is that every year around Turkey drop time is our advertise. We run full ads in the newspaper.

We run, a lot of things on social media just to get the word out. And inevitably the giving. Increases during that time. and, some of our clients from around the country have, one year he's passed away. Now one of our clients, wrote a 30,000 check to St. Matthew's House because he, he felt moved by the, he didn't live here, he lived in Jacksonville.

Wow. And, so, so, it just, I think it's just more than anything, people are inspired by seeing the story and then if you make it easier for them to get involved, anybody that wants to come volunteer on the 17th, you can come and see the, see the crazy organized chaos of putting it all together.

And then the distribution days are amazing. So, St. Matt's house volunteers, a lot of people from around the community come to volunteer for that. Yeah. And it's literally, you think about it from morning till night, car after car after car, just coming in and pick up being filled with, with the, with the baskets of food.

Okay. And you, it's almost, Unbelievable thinking that the wealthy community we live in, that there are this many people that have need. Yeah. And then you think about times of hurricane. I remember during the hurricane, the last few years Yeah. You would see people that, maybe had a small business and, that small business affected by a hurricane,?

Yeah. Fishing. I remember a guy in a fishing charter truck from Fort Myers. Yeah. thinking, well he probably doesn't have a job right now. Yeah. And, people live very close to that line, I think in, in, in most of the world. So yeah, they can, they can really help out. And St. Matthew's house is great in I helping identify and get people ready for that.

They're, they're a really good organization. Yeah. That's just incredible that it's turned out to be something that's, yeah, and we're trying to expand, like I said, is we're, we're, we support a lot of different charities. So we started CWA Cares, which is, our sort of philanthropic initiative as a firm.

And it's sort of Hunger Children, cancer, veterans. CW Cares. CW Cares, CWA Cares. Yeah. You go to cwa cares.org, you can read about it, but we kind of took as a group, at the time when we did it, what were things that we're passionate about? Well, obviously food insecurity was one for us.

'cause of the Turkey trip, that was easy. we had a handful of our employees and family members had cancer, so we said, let's support cancer and cancer research. we have veterans on our team, so let's, let's focus on that. And we focus a lot with Home Base, which is a local organization. We, we support, children and children's initiatives.

My wife and I are very involved with the Naples, children's Foundation and. People know the wine festival, but Supporting, all of the children's initiatives in Carter County. Yeah. education is included in that as well. So those are kinda the core things. And there's this big category called other, that we do.

So we tend to support through our team, through our clients and advisors. So if you worked for me and you said, Hey, I'm really passionate about this charity. I wanna, I want to, make a gift to this charity, we'll match that for them in that program. And, every year it gets a little bigger and it's, as the firm has grown, it's been been nice to be able to do that.

Why? Why do you do all this? I don't know. I guess when I was a kid, I was, tell this story when I was a kid, I was probably 10, nine or 10 maybe, maybe eight. And I was a young kid and my father was a doctor in our community, pro prominent person in the community. And he was the chairman of the United Way that year.

And. In our town, it was a steel town, the community lived and died by steel. And it was a really bad time for that industry. So I remember you drive around the town, you see these signs with the thermometers. Yeah. I just remember them way Yeah. Not being all the way to the top. Yeah. And I, you'd feel the stress a little about in the community.

And he knew, through family relationships that people were struggling and they, they always had like a big reveal night where they sort of reveal the results. And it, back then it was, there was media, there was newspapers and it was down at this community center in town. And my dad asked me if I wanted to go with them and I said, yeah, so you got dressed up.

People put a tie on. And I remember going in and, it was a big room full of people. And I remember seeing that. Thermometer and it wasn't full and stress. You could feel the stress. I mean, as a kid I could feel it. And, I think my dad smoked a lecture on the way there. and then, I remember they were about to start and one of my dad's friends said, we need the room.

And they asked all of the media and the public to leave. They shut the door. They said, how much are we missing? And they all wrote checks. And he painted the red thing and they. They made it work. They made it happen. And that was a lesson that my dad said, you have to commit to support your community.

Mm. And it's important. So that's kinda always stuck with me. So, mm. Yeah. So much so that the same year you did this with the 25 turkeys was the same year you started your, your own company, right? Yeah. Right from the get go. Yeah. Yeah. It just became a habit, it's part of the deal. It's a non-negotiable in our partner meetings, so, yeah.

But it's worked out. Our staff loves it. We fly all of our team members from around the country in, for, for the, for the event. And, everybody loves it. It's, it's just a fun, fun, fun time. Yeah. Well, what was it, so that was a pivotal moment for you growing up, but what was your upbringing like? What was that?

What was Yeah. Normal upbringing., my mother was a nurse originally then, then, had a second career in music. my father was a physician. We, nice., life. I mean, I was a wrench thrown in. I was 16, my f just turned 16, my father died. And, so that obviously was a, a big wrench.

So we went from sort of having security to feeling insecure. so, kind of have that feeling. Yeah. but my mother bootstrapped herself, started a business and, we were fine, but, but in general, I had a wonderful childhood. Brother and sisters. Yeah. Yeah. I have, I have a couple siblings, a brother and sister, and then I have my mother remarried, several years later.

I have a stepbrother and sister. Where were you in the birth order of the other two? Middle you the middle child. Middle, middle child. Okay. Yeah. And you were, did you played football in high school? I played up until my freshman year. I played basketball, most basketball, tennis, and cross country tennis.

Okay. And luckily I was better at math, so, well, what was it about the finance world that, that like, got you hooked?, it wasn't, it was interesting. It was never my plan. As I said, I got recruited by a gentleman in, in Morgantown, West Virginia. It took me out to lunch and at that point it was for an insurance company and told me, had me tell the story of my family and our background.

And when my father was a wonderful physician, he was a horrible financial planner. Mm. So when he passed away, he was in transition from running a hospital to going back into private practice and he was underinsured. There were all the kind of issues. So it kind of was a story that I had lived. So it was easy for me to tell that story and wanting to help people to avoid that same problem.

Yeah. and then it just kind of evolved. Over time and coming to Naples, we started as a planning business. We grew into the investment advisory business and it was really just trying to meet our clients where they had a need. And we've just sort of always kind of stuck with our retail business, with our clients and not tried to do anything fancy.

And it's, it's worked out really well. And today it's obviously a pretty large business. And how has that evolved as, 'cause you've evolved with the industry? Because it's kind of. Transformed in the last 25 years. Yes. How has it changed and what have you done to stay? I think from, from the perspective, what I see is I think there's been a migration from, the large wirehouses and banks to private investment advisory firms.

I think that's a big trend today. We see a lot of, consolidation where a lot of those firms are selling and consolidating. So we're, we're in a category of like a large independent, so we have, about $4 billion under management in the advisory business. We still have the insurance and planning business.

We've got 60 some odd employees around on the team. what I think from a. From a perspective is if you stay client focused and you focus on that first, you always think about that first. You're, you're gonna be fine. there's always something new and different and volatile in the market. But if you think about am I meeting the client's need?

Are we managing things to their risk tolerance?, you'll be fine and you gotta get up every day and try to develop business. I think that's the other thing is that we kind of came from a culture from the planning side, which was a, a fee for service business. So you kind of started zero every day.

And we applied that to the wealth management side of our business, which has really helped from a growth perspective. And we've had, we've had great results. And I also think you have to find great people. we're very picky about who we hire, and that makes a big difference, I think, in the long term.

Hmm. What's it like. Hiring the current generation right now. How's that?, it's funny. We've been very lucky. So we have a, a very large internship program, so we have about 15 to 20 interns every year from around the country. And we've hired a number of them. And I have found that the crop of kids coming out now are, are not like what you see characterized on television.

Yeah. On the news. I think they're hardworking, they're, bright. I think they, I think that the future of, of innovation, you think about ai, you think about technology making the world more efficient. I think they've got a different view of how things work. And yeah, it's been great, for us.

How do they integrate with the older generations? How's that going? I still have to review myself as an older generation now, so view myself as that. yeah., it's great. What we do is we tend to bring them in, in almost like a mentorship role. So they're, they're working hand in hand with, with people of all different ages.

And I think that the relationship works out really well. We laugh though, when, when the older generation having a conversation about something in our popular culture, a television show, and you look over and the girl looks at you like you have two heads and was like, you never saw Seinfeld did you?

And she's like, I heard it on a rerun., like, makes you feel really old, right? but yeah. And so we started to learn that, when they say they're, they were born in like 2000, you start to say, oh God, I'm really old. So, yeah. But, yeah. And they're in the yeah. Real world now, man. We have a really great young team, so, and across all parts of the business, from advisors to our sports staff to analysts, and so it's been, been really good and the interns have been really fun to have.

We always do a round table with them or a dinner with them after and kind of let them ask questions and it's, it's, it's really, they're really great kids. So that's a kind of a pool for you to Yeah, and then we have, outside of that we have, sort of full-time recruiting. So I have a, a team member in Nashville.

She's, she's in charge of our national recruiting process, so she's constantly looking to fill and grow in the areas where we need people. So, she has initiatives in the different cities where we're growing, where, where we need more people and from Naples all the way through. And you groom them from No.

Do they still call it a book? Do they have a book or, some do, some don't. It's a mix. Yeah. it depends on their role., it, we've hired, I've, one of our, our, our top advisors came through our internship program started with, with nothing, no book, so. It just depends.

Recently the advisors we've been hiring have experience in other areas where they have some clients that choose to follow 'em., they're, the way the world works is it's, it's not, they can't, unless you own owned your company, it's not necessarily where they can automatically bring, the client has to choose where, who, who manages their money, so who, who they work with.

So, it's always a gamble. If you hire somebody that says, Hey, I'm gonna bring 4,000 clients, and they bring two, it's a different, a different result than you hoped for, but we kinda look at it to say, are we bringing the right person? We think we can help them grow. And it's worked out really well.

Yeah. How, how do they get business now compared to how they did it 20 years ago, 15 years ago? I think there's, there's a, I think the old way from a hundred years ago is still the, yeah. The best way. And that's sort of relationships, referrals, those are, those are always the best. and we help teach them how to cultivate that in the community and what they're doing and how to meet people.

And, you have to have the right personality to do that. In addition to that, we have a partnership with our, one of our custodians, Charles Schwab, where we're one of a, about 120 firms that work with their branch offices to get referrals from them. So where they have a high net worth client that needs a certain type of advice, they outsource that to their partner, and we're one of those partners.

I have about 12 advisors that's their primary role. Is there a, is there a limit? Or a cap on the type of client you want. Do you know what that is? You mean on the size client? Yeah. Is a range. we have a very, very broad range. Yeah. 'cause we have young advisors sold, so, okay. If I think about net worth, we were talking about this the other day.

We have net worth from small and children of clients to people over a billion dollars. So it's, it's, it's the same work. It's, it's just applying it to a different person. So. Okay. there's different complexities along the way and different, different things, but I think we can handle the gamut and we have multiple generations of families that we work with, so you have to be nimble and be able to, meet each client where they're in their lifespan.

Yeah. How do you, I mean. Handling the volatility of the market, how does that affect, relationships or your home life? Yeah, no, it's a, it's a really good question because I think the volatility of the market for us, I wouldn't say it's a non-issue. If you, if you invest the client's assets with their, obviously their agreement to their risk tolerance and they understand what that is, they understand what volatility they're like.

To experience in the normal markets. If they know that going into it, they don't get nervous when markets move. I think people that are dislocated with their risk tolerance, that's how we get so many clients. Most of the time people coming to us are dislocated with their risk tolerance where all of a sudden there's what, what does that mean?

That means that, that they wake up, they wake up one day and the market's down 10% and they have a stroke because they're gonna throw up in their, their cereal because they, they didn't realize they were that exposed. Oh, okay. Or the converse to that would be the market's ripping and their neighbors earning 15% and they're earning too.

'cause they're misaligned with their response. Oh, okay. So you have to get that right first. And if you do that, they understand what the ranges of their portfolio should look like over in, in any market cycle. and then it's constant communication. So we meet with our clients on a regular basis. We do a variety of communication things throughout the quarter.

So there are never any surprises for our group, from that perspective. Okay. Did and did it used to be that, The earnings were based on what stocks were sold. Was that the industry, like the way Yeah. I mean that, that, not since I've been in, so, so if you go way back, way back, it was, the way Carter term broker Yeah.

There was a commission business. And so the employees of, a, b, c company were compensated based on what they sold you? Yeah. There was a commission. Okay. Now it's a fee. And the whole industry has really shifted that way. Yeah. and it's better, because it's, I imagine it would be, you're not, you have, we have a fiduciary and are licensing, we have a fiduciary responsible for the client, which means we have to act in the client's best interest at all times.

In the old days, they had a suitability standard, which basically said they had to sell the client's products that were suitable for those people. Wow. That so the new way, that's a big difference. Way, the new way is a higher standard. Okay. And the whole industry has really shifted that way. It's very rare that we see what I would refer to as an old time broker.

Okay. Or a commission based, not, not in our, our peer group. Is that a designation to get that or is it No, they're different licenses. So there's licenses. Okay. So two federal licenses are Series 65, which is an advisory license, a registered investment advisor. Okay. That's what we are. And then there's, what they call a series seven, which is a brokerage license.

Many firms will have both, where you wear two hats and it's really not necessarily what to do with the client, but it's the way that the firms make money on different revenue streams and trading. Okay., in our business it's, it's advisory only. Now what is, what is hedge fund, business?

What is it? What hedge fund is just a structure. So hedge fund is a, is a structure of an investment. So a hedge fund can be invested with many, many things, but it really allows you long and short, meaning go with the market, bet for the market, bet against the market and add leverage. So it's a, it's a, it's a.

A structured type of investment, but you could have a hedge fund that invests in 500 different things. They're, they could all be different. Okay. So you have to look behind that label to see what are they doing? Is it a long, short fund? Is it, is it a concentrated equity fund? Is it something more esoteric?

So, hedge fund has an investment. It's just that, that's a type of structure, but you really have to look at what it's, what it's investing in. And it's, it's certainly, there are reasons to have exposure to some things. Hedge funds can be used for certain things like, getting exposure to foreign markets.

Sometimes you can't do that directly in the US so you have to have a structure to be able to do that as an example. So hedge funds are run by firms like yours or could? Yeah. So you, a firm like ours or a brokerage firm, or some firms that, that's all they do is run hedge funds. So, and then people can buy into that from outside that firm?

Yeah. They make an investment into that. Yeah. Into that. Oh, okay. Yeah. So that's not a, separate business in and of itself within that? No, it's, it's a class within the business. Oh, okay. Class of investment. So what is your, outlook on the economy right now? What, what is your, I think the world is cyclical.

I think what we've seen in the last, eight to 10 months is a broadening of the market. we had a very long period of time where we had six or seven stocks driving most of the return. So I think it's healthy that the market's broadened out a bit. so I think it's everything cyclical. It's, it's about turning dials, not light switches.

So if you think about it, there's a time to wear a sweater in Naples. August is probably not that time. So you being exposed to certain types of, types of, or areas in the market, depending where in the cycle, your advisor can help you do that. so that you're, you're meeting your return in a way that's.

Again, matching your risk tolerance, what you're doing. But I feel positive about it. I think some of the things in deregulation are happening should, should help. Mm. certainly the country's very divided. I think we've gotta solve that problem. Mm. but in general, we've weathered a, a, a pretty good storm.

I'm starting to see interest rates come down, so we'll see., I think we're through a slowing part of the economy, but in general, I think we've, we've weathered it pretty well as a country. Do you see any specific shift that the interest rates have to get to, to make the stock market do what it does?

No. I mean, that's the stock market is forward looking, so it's already priced into the stock market. it's not reactionary, it's proactive. So the stock, the market will have already priced in, like it priced in the quarter, quarter cut already before it even happened. Now, had they not cut the market would've reacted probably negatively.

Okay. But that was already priced in the market. So, so, so do you think like there's this correction that needs to happen with the stock market? Every tax valu valuations are high. I think us stock valuations are high. That doesn't necessarily mean a correction, a crash. Yeah. but, but certainly the stocks are expensive right now.

Companies are expensive right now. Not all, but a number of 'em are. But there are companies and, and opportunities that are not as expensive. So non-US has performed very well this year because it was, the value was lower, so, oh, okay. So there's, it's just finding where you can find value from, from that perspective.

And, I think we're, we're seeing a change in AI is gonna change the world in a lot of ways. So I think some of that's yet to be determined. Okay. but certainly you can't have sort of. Untethered growth, and pricing to the point, you're not gonna have a $10 trillion company.

You know, you at some point prices will either flatten or they'll decline a bit over time. But it's, it's about diversifying to make sure that you're not overexposed to any, any one area, one thing, but, and also being exposed to the right areas of, is your company using AI for anything? Yes. Yes. So number of ways.

So from a simplest way, it's a wonderful research tool, and it's not, when I say research tool where before you're reading books, you're getting, you're googling, you're doing different things to gather data. It will aggregate data very fast for you. it, is very good at, helping draft things as a starting point for a communication, in trading.

Just to compare it to old school versus new schools. So I used to have to hire, analysts that if I said, Hey, I wanna see these 25 different things and here, here are the, here are the different inputs that you have to put in and find me, the companies that meet these 25 different standards, it would take several days to weeks to get all that information and data filter through all the different companies that come back the list of those stocks.

Today I can do that in minutes. And I can do it every, every day for you. So it speeds up the process. It's the same data inputs that I was looking for. Yeah. It's just the speed of time to get it, is much, much, much faster. So did you bring somebody in to help prompt all that? Yeah, I mean, I think it just sort of evolved.

So some of our internal team kind of. Put focus to that. Okay. and then there are companies that, in our industry that are, that are out there that we license and use their software to help, that, that work with Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They're service providers that have Okay. Come in and we're seeing it pop up everywhere.

I mean, as you are, it's on your iPhone, it's on your Google, it's, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really interesting. Oh, I love it. I just, and we, I tested a lot just to see, like yesterday I was doing a, a charitable tax calculation and I wanna see how good it was. And it was just absolutely amazing to me. And if you really were, we're spending some time now learning, and studying on, on how to prompt ai.

Yeah. And it's amazing how you can, like, just the simplest term to say, ask it for something to say and ask me questions along the way, and it will it. Produce something for it, then it'll ask you 10 questions. You answers 10 questions. It revises and revises and revises and revises. Yeah. It's really interesting how it works.

Yeah. but there's also, importance with AI where you have to look to see who the provider is, where they keeping the data. We are responsible, protect our client's data or own personal data. So we spend a lot of time making sure that we're, we're at a standard where we are, we're at the highest level of cybersecurity.

So, we have a company that we outsource to that oversees that to make sure that our team members aren't using anything that could potentially put any data at risk. Hmm. So, because it's, criminals use that too. Yeah. Yeah. That's a and that's a big Yeah. My neighbor, I could just get AI to fill Turkey boxes, which be really good.

Yeah. That's one thing it'll never be able to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or, or cut hair. Thank God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. You hope not the robot. We won't tell Chris that there's a robot you're looking at from, from Tesla. Our, our neighbor this past week, she had, Somebody, they have a small business and somebody

Wrote their accountant an email that said, I'm a new employee. we have this new employee. It showed as if it was from her, the owner of the company. Yeah. To their accountant that said, we have this new employee. I would like to pay him right away, as an independent contractor. Here's his information.

W nine, all the information. And a ba and bank information. He needs $7,200 tomorrow. And the accountant got that information put, set it up in QuickBooks, did a auto payment write out, and of course the owner looked at their bank account the next day and said, what is this, $7,200? She said, you sent me this email and the email was drafted so well in her verbiage and just Really, yeah.

So how you avoid that? So we have a, in practice you have multiple authentication factors, so we can't just take an order from an email. We can't just take an email from a phone call. Yeah. There's multiple ways we verify identity because even today in ai, they can copy our voices from this podcast. Yeah, that's crazy.

So it's, it's, you have to stay ahead of it and, that's a big part of our business. So yeah, we spend a lot of time, energy, and money and, compliance and preventative things like that. Yeah, it's, it's, it's challenging because you'd hope that they would use that for the good,.

Of course. Yeah. But they don't, so Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But ultimately it's still back to the, what it is the relationship. It's a hundred percent. It's a relationship business. Yeah. And it's kinda like you talked about how do we grow the Turkey drop, it was relationships, calling our friends and saying, Hey, we have this crazy thing going on.

We don't, you show up and help us with this. And, I remember calling my friend George Wilson, if, George, he's a lawyer in town. Wilson Johnson. And they jumped in and he's so funny. He, we used to put all of the canned goods in bags, and after like a day of putting 'em all together, he said, I'm in charge next year of what we're putting in.

And all of a sudden all these boxes showed up. Yeah. He already, he, he said, we're doing in boxes. So we've had innovations along the way. Yeah. That have helped with efficiency. but, but it's, it's nice to get everybody to help out. So it's, it's really fun., the day of the assembly, we call it, em, we call it Turkey drop day, but it's actually assembly.

Yeah. Okay. To getting it ready. And what that, what's the date of that? 17th of November. And people who wanna help where they Yeah. We'll be there at eight in the morning at the, at the First Baptist Church on Orange Blossom. Okay. Yeah. Or you can go on the website, click and call us at the office and, let us know you're coming.

We'll make sure we have a Turkey drop shirt for you and ready to go. Yeah. Leading up to that, what else do you need leading up to that? I mean, no, I mean any, any, from my view, I think, the inspiration always is if people wanna give, anything anybody can do, if it's one Turkey, if it's one can of corn, what anybody can produce, in, in the way of giving, helps St.

Matthew's house continue to feed people. Yeah. And, I think the important thing to people to realize here is there's a huge need in Ka and Lee County and the surrounding counties that even though we're a wealthy community, there's a huge need. And these are people that are food insecure, but they have jobs, they're working or, they have a home.

They just don't have enough food to provide for their family. Yeah. And especially now, food is so expensive. Yeah. It is crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Unreal. Yes, it is. The, the amount that's gone up in the last couple years. Yeah. Yeah. And then, that's been challenge for us 'cause we buy the food. Yeah. So, my CFO gets a little nervous.

He looks at commodity prices on a regular basis and goes We're approach Yeah. Directly affects it. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, but we've been lucky. So we've, we've, how we've mitigate that is we've found partners. so, if you're buying the, you get a, maybe a better price for the turkeys if you're buying 6,000.

But you're also having to procure those very early on and those prices will fluctuate over time., we will, we will shop the various places. Either we can buy through the food bank now, which is great. Costco's been amazing. Publix has been amazing over time where, we're able to get good deals on things, which, which helps multiply the number so you can lock in a price early on so you know where you're at.

Yeah. Quite early. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't started buying Turkey Futures yet, but we'll see if they have, I dunno if they have those yet. But, and then this year, my wife and I'm, I'm flying up to West Virginia to our hometown on, Friday. So we've decided to take Turkey drop, not to the same extent, but we're, we're funding, a holiday gift basket program up there with another food distribution.

So we'll be able to do hundreds of baskets up there as well this year. Wow. What's been the most heartwarming thing that's happened in the course of this over the time?, I think watching the families pick the food., the, when you, when you're giving a family food and people are thanking you and you, we don't realize it, I don't open the refrigerator and think, well, there's nothing here.

I'm just call Uber Eats.,? It's, it's, yeah. Right. But, seeing some fa it's, I wouldn't say it's desperation, but just the gratitude that they have, that they feel like a, a sigh of relief. You feel like a relief that they're gonna be able to do something for their family and have, have a holiday meal and do those things.

So that to me was always the best. And when I, when we first did just the turkeys, they, they, St. Matthew's house would set up, the lot where Home Depot is next to their, their old facility. Yeah. People just come grab a Turkey and we'd go watch and, see that. But now it's, they're coming through their cars and they're getting the whole thing and it's just, it's just, you get, you get more interaction with the people.

Yeah. Which is nice. Yeah. And they're super grateful and happy to, to be able to have something with the holiday. Yeah. Love that. I think, that we're having this conversation now, and it's still September, but it's, it's actually that season where. It's not just that day, but I love that. It's, it's, it's ongoing for, for the year.

I mean, you're, you're working on this year round. Yeah. This is not something that's just Yeah. It's year, it's, it's become a big project. Yeah. but I think that, as, again, as it's grown, we're gonna continue to grow it. I don't know where it's gonna evolve to. we've talked about making it its own.

Charity to so they can live on past us. Yeah. so it continues, it's kind of endow something that can continue to do this for generations. So we're thinking about the future, but for now, we're just gonna keep trying to grow the annual giving. Yeah. And grow the amount of people we can feed. And, if we do that, it's a little part we can do in our community.

How, how do you set it up? Do you have. Do you share people with your business? With the working over here? With the not-for-profit or, no, these are all, all these are all our staff volunteers. These are everybody. Everybody's a volunteer. There is no really, there is no everybody. Wow. Oh, so a hundred percent goes to that.

A hundred percent is our team. This is, this is Capital Wealth Advisors team. Wow. And our friends. That's beautiful. Yeah. So no, there's no, there's no paid, there's no overhead. This is just, we refund the whole thing. That's beautiful. Yeah. Wow. And our employees love it. I mean, they just, it's a fun, it's great because our team members from Out Town come Mm.

We do some, some events around it. We do a holiday party for it too. So everybody's here. Yeah. That's cool. That's sort of fun. And it's great. Yeah. That's cool. It's all, it's all internal with our team. It's a big part of your culture then. Yeah. It's it's a big part of your team. That's beautiful. I really love that.

Yeah. So I didn't realize that. I can't wait to show you the picture of all the canned goods in the offices. That was the best one. Yeah, that was a fun, that was a fun one. Yeah, we gotta put that on. I wanna see it that I'm getting asked to leave Publix once. Was those, those were my two highlights. It was helping people.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, it was funny. And, one year they ran out of turkeys too. It was a shortage of turkeys and I can't remember the name of the, it wasn't, It's not Winn Dixie again, I can't think of the name of what it was, was Sweet Bay was Sweep Bay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was talking to the guy, he's like, yeah, we have a shortage and what can we do?

And he said, well, why don't you do gift cards? So I said, oh, great. And I walked, I felt so bad for the lady. So he goes over and he's like, Hey. He said, Hey Mary, I need 500 gift cards. No way for, for whatever, for a Turkey. It's the best. And she looked at me and I'm standing there and she's got this boxes of gift cards.

And she said, this is gonna take more than a minute. She said, can you come back in a few hours? And I thought about this poor lady for like three hours, did nothing but do gift cards. So that year we did gift cards. Wow. Because they didn't have any, there was a Turkey shortage nationally, so, yeah. Yeah., it's really interesting 'cause that's, it's because it's a tradition for a Turkey, but that's sometimes the most challenging part is finding turkeys.

Yeah. 'cause of the way the market works. Uhhuh, especially the bird flu and the stuff. It's been fun. But I always remember that poor lady at Sweet Bay. Yeah, there's lots of fun stories like that, but, I really, that's point I had no idea that it was just your company, that it's just, yeah. Just us,?

So, as I said, Wilson and Johnson's been there forever. Yeah. woods Wam, Miller Machete, and Rodnick is a law firm in town. Yeah. Our friends, we recruited them. They bring their whole team. DeAngelo Steinman has been volunteering with us forever. Yeah. BNI, from up in Fort Myers has joined in all through relationships to their friends,.

Yeah. They, they kind of came in. Yeah. new IQ is a, is a, a. Automated gate company here in town. They, a friend of mine, he, he's jumped in, his team comes every year and yeah. And they give monetarily as well. So everybody's just really adopted as their thing too, which is cool. Wow. It's, Allen Concrete's another one.

So they got involved with friends with the Allens and, one year we had this order, it was a few years ago, we didn't have a way to get the order from Costco to the church. Something had happened with trucks and they're like, come, we got trucks. So they loaded up, they still do, they help us.

They load up their, their low boy trucks filled with, canned goods, pallets of canned goods and drive 'em over for us. Oh my gosh. It's been great. Yeah. That is beautiful. So you gotta, you gotta innovate. You kind of scrap around to find, ways to get stuff sometimes. Yeah. When, when things fall through.

Yeah. Well, it impacts 6,000 families. Yeah. There's 6,000. It's more than just that even, but, and that it's done. Through the generosity of the spirit of the people that are on your team and the teams of those other businesses. Yeah. It's not some separate, there's not somebody sitting in an office all day for 24.

Yeah. for 365 days working on this. Yeah. You guys gotta fit it into your own. Yeah. We do it internally. Yeah. Wow. That's beautiful. So that is incredible. I had no idea. Yeah. Susie, Susie Mulley and our team, she runs, she runs the team that does it now with me, and she's just been great. And she's been there, I think Susie's been here for 15 or 16 of them, so she kind of came on and it was one of the things, like, this is part of what we do as, as a firm and, so it's all like, we hire people, it's part of the story.

Yeah.,? Yeah. A beautiful thing. We encourage every, like if I hire somebody in Pittsburgh, they, they're encouraged to know that in November we'd like you to be here. Yeah., we pay for it, we fly them down, we pay for their Yeah. Accommodations. But we like, and it's, it's wonderful. Once, once they get, it's, it's fun.

You know, it's, it's a great day. Yeah. Well, I noticed that about. The youngest generation that we're hiring now, they really want to be a part of something. They really wanna make an impact on the world and more than what they're just doing, they really wanna be. Yeah. And I think Naples just in general has always inspired me because it's such, such a generous community.

Oh my gosh. Yeah., if you just, you think about the money that's provided to all different organizations, no matter where you go, it's just, it's just mind boggling. Yeah. And you go, I go to other places in the country and they, they wanna learn what we're doing in Naples. Yeah. I was just at Nashville at a charity event, and, they've asked us to come help them kind of talk through how they do it, because they said no one does it like Naples,?

Yeah. And it's been, it's been great because we learned from a lot of the people that have been here for years, like, what, what do we do with the wine festival is amazing? And the five families that started that to think that 25 years later they've raised three $80 million. I mean, it's just absolutely mind blowing.

Yeah. And you learn from, and you're inspired by what they did in their efforts. Because those people same as us, they didn't, they didn't hire a staff initially. That was, they covered the overhead with their own money. They put it all in and, those are the people that were, they get something, the ball rolling.

Then once it gets rolling, then you can really make it big. Yeah. Which is great. Well, just the level of logistics, it's one thing to write a check, but to, to put that whole event together. Yeah. That's a, that's, that's not a small thing. Yeah. The distribution part at St. Matthew's house is brilliant at it.

I mean, they, but we start meeting, we start meeting,. Shortly after the first, well, I think last year we may have met in December, starting right after to think about what we're doing. But they, they have a wonderful network that they have the distribution really done. That really helps.

That would be the hardest part for us. Yeah. because without a partner like St. Matthew's house, it would be very difficult to reach the people, know who they are, vet them, make sure that we got the people coming in. But they do a pheno, their team does a phenomenal job of that. Yeah. They are something.

Yeah. And then, on our side it's, like I said, it's been evolution. So it's just kind of every year we try to find innovation. Like the pallet wrapper was, if you've ever wrapped a pallet full of boxes with the stick and you have to, you're dizzy by the time you walk around it.

So I Google pallet wrapper. So now we put the box, we hit a button and it spins and then it goes off. Oh, it's automatically right. Yeah. I've tried to open one before. We never wrap one. Yeah. Yeah. Wrapping is really bad. so everybody's dizzy and, spinning around the, they hate that job. Whoever gets that job.

I hates that job. And all by. Just the goodness of their heart. Just these people that you just have made it a part of. This is how we do two things here. Yeah. This is, is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Naples and, to think that Naples, you think when people come in and they see our perfect medians and our perfectly manicured everything, everything's so perfect, but it, most people don't realize that there is, there is so much of that like one, yeah.

I think, I think the statistic is like 56% of the students in public school are on, free or reduced lunch. It's incredible., just put that in context to, to a extremely wealthy community. Now that being said, we also have an extremely wealthy community that supports all of these things.

Yeah. I mean, if you look at our non-profit infrastructure here, compared to other communities of our size, it's, it's not comparable. Yeah. I mean, you look at, from the Boys and Girls Club to all the different St. Matthew's house and all that they're doing in the community to support people, I think is remarkable.

Yeah. Well, there's something I, why I like doing this. 'cause I like to get underneath what's behind these extraordinary people. Like yourself. that's unique. That's gonna have some, you had to be a pioneer in a lot of respects to just pack up and move here to begin with, and leave the where you came from.

Which is, a lot of people don't go leave their roots, and you had Come to Naples, which wasn't the Naples It is now, it was still growing as it always Yeah. Is, and never stops. But, but then to the same day, you decide to sign your name to a lease the same year, you're also driving to Publix, picking up 25 turkeys.

Not saying, wait, let me get my breath. Let me catch my breath. Yeah. Let me make sure I can pay the rent for a couple months first. Yeah. so there's something unique about the way you're wired that Yeah, I think there's, people said to me like, I don't have a negative bone in my body. And I've never, I never, when I signed that lease, I never made the joke to my wife, but I never had any expectation but succeed.

I never worried about if I spent money on 25 turkeys that it was gonna cause some economic harm. You just, yeah. You never, never crossed my mind. So, and I would say, from my parents, my father specifically, it's more important to give to the people in the community is to buy the new television.

You know, if you have to sacrifice something, sacrifice yourself. Yeah., that, that's sort of ingrained in us as, as kids, and I think that's important. And, we live., with everything you've ever wanted in life, think about Naples and sunshine and sunshine and sunshine, side off the shovel snow.

So, we're so lucky and so the little bit we can do, it's, it's a rounding error for most people in this community. And, but it makes such a huge impact for everybody else. Yeah. And, Well, you do it on the court too, so it's not just, writing a check. You're, you're doing that and then some, and then, and you're also building out the values of the people that you grew that are in your company.

Yeah. If you have 60, I dunno how many you have on your team, like 63 or 64. 63, 64, but, but their families and their children. Yeah. And, the impact that it has everywhere. It's just a beautiful thing. Yeah. And it's, it's fun too because, the FBA of the school that's on the church grounds, they, they actually have kids volunteer for distribution day, which is fun.

So their kids are out there seeing what it's doing. It's really nice. Yeah. And my daughter and her friends have come and volunteer every year, so they get to see it and they get to understand it. Yeah. and, if, if this inspires somebody to do something, whether it's in food insecurity or something else, whatever your heart drives you to do it,?

Yeah. Take a, take a, take a chance, make a difference in somebody's life, write a check, volunteer an hour, whatever that may be. It doesn't always be money, sometimes you can, your, your efforts can be just as valuable. Mm. So, and it's been a part of your daughter's life her whole life? Yeah. And pretty much, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. She's a freshman now. You said freshman in high school? Yes. Okay. So the big, the big year. So she having a great year. Yeah. She, she a baron coll a good teacher. Good. She loves it. Absolutely loves it. She's Baron Collier and is having a great first year. So where was she in middle school? pine Ridge Middle.

She's had a great, she was a Seagate Pine Ridge Middle and now, Barron and has had a wonderful experience. Alright. Our school system here is really good. Oh, it is? Yeah. It's really, really good. A hundred percent. Both the public and the private schools are really good. Yeah. I think it's about finding the right fit for the kids.

Yeah. every kid's gonna fit somewhere and she's a big school kid. She, she announced to my wife that she's not going to college anywhere that doesn't have a division one college football program. Oh, good for her. Yeah. So it's kind of fun. So are you, are you. Pushing her towards the w to be a mountaineer.

It's up to her. I, she did commit before she could speak, but, we'll see. She's a, she's a pretty big fan. and I was on the board there, I was on the board one of the boards there for nine years, and we have a home there, so she gets exposed quite a bit. So, a few walk into her, her room. She does have a framed jersey on her wall, so it's her pictures.

So she's, she's pretty, pretty, pretty ingrained in it, but we'll see. Florida schools are great too. Was, what was their guy, their, their claim to fame major? who was the football player? Football player for me. Major Harris in 88. Yeah, 88. Yeah, he was good. Jerry West was one too. So the famous basketball.

Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. Was major in, in Naples at any point or did he ever come here? no. no. He was a Pittsburgh guy. but he never came, he never visited here. I don't, was part of our community in, I don't know. I don't, I don't think so. He's a, he runs a counseling program in Pittsburgh for, for at risk kids.

Okay. At least last I heard. So yeah. He is nice guy. So that was a big year for them. Was it? What, what year was were, were they relevant? It was good until we got got beat by Notre Dame in the Fiesta., not that I remember. Not that I hold a grudge. I don't like Notre Dame anyway, so It's okay. I'm sorry that happened.

Yeah, it would've been root for you. It's all good. So, so, yeah, so, they beat Penn State that year, right? Yes, they did. Yeah. So, I think it was the only time in my college career to beat Penn State. so yeah, I think the big thing for everybody is that, 17th is going to be the assembly day, Turkey drop day.

Yeah. 18th. What day is the 17th? Is it, 'cause Thanksgiving is the week after that. Yeah. Is it? Okay, so it's the week before Thanksgiving. Yeah. Okay. And then the 18th through the 22nd are distribution days. And they'll be on the website, sea Bay Turkey drop.com. They'll be at the satellite area. Yeah.

You see anybody wants to go volunteer can go to those. you can call us, call St. Matthew's house. on, on the website, be the information., if you wanna make a donation, you can do it through the website. You can drop something off at St. Matthew's house. Okay. If you want an experience, go to Publix and try to buy a hundred turkeys and see how they, how they do, or Winix see, or any of them.

Could people actually bring turkeys or, yeah. You can drop 'em off St. Matthew's house. You can. Okay. All. So that's something they need. They need, they need 'em for their, the food. They're, they're cooking too. Yeah. So there's always a need. And anything that doesn't get used on Thanksgiving that gets used, they're, they're gonna use it.

Okay. So there's a constant flow of people there through the homeless shelter. Plus people that come there for the, for the soup kitchen type. All right. Choice. Now, we'll make sure we have all that. Yeah, I'll be good. Yeah. In the, in the notes and Yeah. And I'll put all that there too for you. Good. Yeah.

But, is your mother alive? Yes. What's her name? Carolyn. Carolyn? How would she, describe you? Difficult. The middle child. Difficult. Yeah. No, no. I'm joking. No. I don't know. I'll have to ask her. I'm gonna have lunch for Friday, so we'll see. I'll have to ask her that. She down here? No, she's in up north.

Oh, but you're gonna be up? Yeah, I'm going up on Friday. Okay. We're going, I'm going up to finalize the Turkey drop up there. Oh, right. Okay. Alright. How about your wife? How would she describe you? crazy. she always said, like the big idea, like, she, you're doing what? And I'll say, we told her we're doing a thousand Turkey.

She thought it was crazy, but, she's been a wonderful support and been a big, huge part of it, so She's learned to, she's learned to, understand I'm gonna volunteer her for things that she has no idea she's been volunteered for. And she goes along really well. But no, we, it's, it's been fun to do it together.

And as a family, it's been great. Any, books or podcasts that have been a big inspiration to you or that have impacted you in a big way? Hmm. I read a lot. I read a lot of business books, read a lot of fiction. my favorite book of all time is called The Last Marlon, and if you remember the book, the movie Searching for Bobby Fisher.

Yeah. So it's, it's the real person. It's about his relationship with his father. And I was, that's my favorite book if you had a chance to read that. It's a really, really good book. It's The Last Marlon. Last Marlon. Okay. It's about going fishing with your dad. It's a really, really good book. Oh, cool. Okay. So I've read that many, many times.

All right. I think from a perspective of, books, podcasts, I always like to, to learn, I love like founders, if you've watched founders at all the podcasts. That's great. I love that. I love learning how people made their money. How they Yeah. How what, what makes 'em tick about their life.

I think I always find that type of podcast really great. Yeah., any, anything we're gonna learn more about somebody that the public doesn't know? Yeah. I think would be, be a really, really good, founders is probably the one I like the most. Yeah. Yeah. What business book do you, attribute to having a big impact on you?

An old friend of mine, there's two. So, so from a service perspective, and, this in your business, there's a book about the Ritz Carlton Way. the old Ritz Carlton. Yeah. The original Nette Starro and yeah. Franey and Deb John Johnson properties. Course Hor Chu we started. Yeah. That to me is the epitome of, of how do you serve clients and serve people and treat your employees.

Do think it's a wonderful book for people to learn to have a business. Yeah. for someone that's out developing this, there's a book called Never Eat Alone. An old friend of mine gave me, which is really good, and it's about, it's about building relationships more than, just asking for business.

It's about, but constantly being out there, meeting people and building your network. And it's a really good book. Never eat alone. Never eat alone. Okay. I'll give you a list. I like, I like Sam Walton's book too. It's really good., the, his story, it's a remarkable story.

Yeah. So, and then the one that I have read more recently that I, that's way up in my top, is Shoe Dog. It's still Knight's Autography. Yeah. just a remarkable book. And if you have a kid, they have a, a junior version of the book. Do they really? Yeah. Yeah. So it's really, really good. I read, read. Yeah. It's, oh, it's phenomenal.

Is it, if you saw the movie Air, it's, it's, it's, it's the time period from the start of Nike right up to that point. Oh, okay. And it's an excellent book. Yeah. You almost can't believe he pulled it off. And as an entrepreneur yourself, you and your dad. I mean, it, you understand the grid of running a business and starting a business.

Love, hear you appreciate. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah's really See what. What people go through. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you have no idea what's behind the curtain. Yeah. Yeah. It's, and you, if you think back in your business life, there are moments in time where you did something to keep everything going.

And if you look back, you're like, how did that work? How, how the hell did that go? Yeah. How did we pull that one off?, those, those, those, those times,? Yeah. But, when you guys had COVID, think about all the, all the different, hurdles we've all had.

Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. but yet we're all still sitting here. Yeah. We're doing a podcast in Naples, so it's good. Yeah. Yeah. We're not in Philadelphia shoveling snow, thank god. Yeah. I'm grateful to my father for leaving the Nest. Yeah. Yes, yes. He pissed a lot of the Italian neighborhood off when he left. His, his mother was not happy about him leaving, but thank God we're outta there for sure.

Yeah. if your life was a movie, what would the soundtrack be? Ooh, that's a really good question.

I dunno. Maybe the soundtrack of Forrest Gump.

That's always, he's got a lot of good stuff in it too. There is. That's a great soundtrack. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I like a, a very broad, variety of music. So yeah. If you, if you looked at my phone, it'd be very, very, eclectic. Cool. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. What I'm building a, a playlist for the people that I have on here.

Yeah. What, what are a couple artists that we should put on there? what have been listed two recently? I like about Country, Chris Stapleton, Thomas Rat, lately, Lainey Wilson, the Countryside, Fleetwood Mack. Journey. Of course the there music is always brings you back to the time where you were when,.

So I think about Journey, the first concert I went to, I think about yeah., going to see Bon Jovi as a kid when I was in ninth grade,? Yeah. I worked at a concert venue too, so Oh, awesome. To see kind of everybody and Yeah. Meet different people. And I remember the first concert I ever worked with Billy Joel, and No kidding.

Really? And, you Wow. You got to see that. And, I've had, I've been lucky in my life to meet a number of artists and over time and see him in very, very small venues has been kind of fun. And, saw Billy Joel back in the day, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just saw him, right before he retired.

So the book ends of it. Oh, how cool is that? I saw him at the Massacre Garden was cool. He was amazing. I saw something recently popped up on YouTube, was one of his shows in New York recently. Yeah, it was. It was. And just. He's still performing. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Was crazy. Like just performance at age.

Yeah. He's a issue now, so he can't perform. But he was, he, he did the residency for many years in Massacre Garden and I knew it was coming to a close, so Yeah. I went and it was, it was as advertised. It was pretty good. Yeah. He just never studied. He was always had, well, working in conservation for a few years when I was in college, you got to see every type of music, every type of performer, and, gave you an appreciation.

'cause it's a, it's a, it's a tough life,? They're, yeah., they're, they're, they're on the road and Oh yeah., so Yeah. Same thing every night. Yeah. Pack it up to the end. Yeah. Yeah. Always, always look like, boy, I wish I could do that, but I don't. Yeah. I remember seeing, my son ask me for a, a password for our Verizon account or, or my, no.

One of, one of the questions was, oh, what was your first concert? And I had to remember it was Van Halen and Lee County Arena, or Lee. It wasn't Lee County Arena, whatever it was at the time. What year had to be 80. So David Lee Roth. David Lee, yeah. Yeah. Pre Sammy. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going, I'm going in March to the residence at Sphere for Sammy and the Oh, no kidding.

Oh, how cool is that? Wow. It's a group of guys. It's a group of guys of our generation that all grew up with that. Yeah. We're all going. Oh, that's awesome. That is so awesome. How cool will that be in Vegas on top of that? Yeah. Yeah. The Sphere's gonna be interesting. I've not been, so it's really neat. Seen it from the outside.

Haven't been to a show inside. Yeah. Yeah. But I've seen what And videos of the inside look. It looks incredible. Yeah. Looks really amazing to see the show. Yeah. I think I saw some people who saw U2 there, and they said it was awesome to see, see them during that time. But last show I went to was, at that little Bonita, it's closed now.

Yeah. They had the psychedelic Fs there, which was in the eighties. I saw John Oats there. It was really, oh, did you really? Yeah. It was good. Yeah. Yeah. It was a cool little spot. My wife who's. Younger than me. We had these like very front row seats and the guy from the psychedelic first today looks old.

Yeah., he just doesn't look like he did that. And she's like looking at him and he's right above us. And it was the great song. But if you look at him, it didn't match the music from the time. She's like, what are we doing? But it was awesome to see them in this small little, hall like that.

Yeah. Just the memories of Yeah. That the era in college. Yeah. Time period. Yeah. I remember in college, Dave Matthews used to come play at my friend's fraternity house. No. One, one Friday month. Dave Matthews. Wow. Before he was famous. Wow. Yeah. Right before he was famous. That's crazy. And yeah, Hootie and the Blowfish hoo.

Took, right. They came and nobody went. There were like 10 people there Really? To see Hootie. It was, oh, they were just crying around. But they used to come play all the parties at college and then within months they were, or a year what? They were famous. Yeah. Pretty amazing. Dave, but they all, they all grind Well, we don't, we see the end result.

You don't see the 10 or 15 years they grinded to get there in a van driving around the country. Yeah. Yeah. And Dave still performs as if he is in a van. Like he's, he's literally just doesn't let it go to his head. Yeah. He's just like, he lives for the performance. It's pretty cool to see him do that. Yeah.

Alright, I'm gonna do some of these interesting questions here. Okay. These are totally random, so I'm gonna have you pick three cards outta there. Okay. Any color, any kind? two.

All right. When you read the question and then go ahead, you can, you're gonna read the question, then you get to answer it yourself. Was the last thing that you did that made you feel like a kid again? Ooh

Not really. Lemme think. I bought a box of popsicles. I hadn't had those in a long time. Real old school popsicles. Yeah. Right. They kinda make your tongue wrap, right? Yeah. Old, like the bomb pop popsicles. I feel like you're kidding me. Awesome. what was the best compliment you've ever received? hmm. I think a friend of mine described me to someone else as the most generous person who met in his life.

But I wasn't in the room when I heard, I was told secondhand that was, that was told, because that was probably the best ever see here. The first cell phone you ever had, was given to me by a gentleman. I worked at a golf course when I was in college. And, this is pre-flop phone. It was about, a foot in size and he had gotten a new, he had gotten a new gray, remember the big gray flip phone?

The first one? Yeah. Yeah. It was a big deal. So he handed it to me. He said, you can have this, so like an idiot. I got it turned on and, I thought I was the coolest kid in the world, and I think I talked on it for maybe eight minutes and the bill was, get to bill. The bill was like $900. Yeah. And I quickly put it away.

I'll never forget that. A giant thing. I thought I was the coolest thing in the world until I got that bill. Yeah. Hey, it's me. I'm on the golf course. Yeah. No, I think that was so cool. The bill came, it was like, it was like $900. It was a stroke. Had a stroke almost because I didn't have $900. I remember going to the, I remember going to US Cellular and saying, can I make payments on this?

Oh, for those eight minutes of, yeah. Freedom. That's what it felt like. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. He was, he was a wealthy businessman. I wasn't, so it worked out well. So, yeah. Even then, and then it became you had to pay to text. Yeah. And you had to push the three buttons on the razor whatever. Yes. Oh yes. All those blueberries, blackberry, blueberry, blackberries.

Yeah. It's all, it's all evolved. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. So, aside from being on screen now, thanks Zach for putting that up there. So we'll have that up there too. tell him again what's, what's the best way to, to donate? You can go to cwa Turkey drop.com, and there's links donation. You can go right there.

You get all the information, the Turkey drop and anytime of year they could do this. Yes. Right. Because it all goes for this big event that we're, and it's a hundred percent pass through that. There's no, he's no admin admin. That's, that's the beautiful thing. People really gotta get that. 'cause there's nobody sitting at a desk answering the phone for this.

Your business is absorbing all that from people. So that's a beautiful thing and that's really awesome. and then if they want to. Because I think it's really rewarding too, if they want to actually get boots on the ground and be there with you. Yeah. And the 17th of November, that morning about eight 30 is, we'll, we'll do a little kickoff at the First Baptist Church, the corner of, orange Blossom Livingston.

And you can get that information. You can contact us through the website, again, cwa Turkey drop.com. Okay. And, tell us you're coming and we'll have, be ready for you. And, then the distribution days, which were, we're partner of St. Matthew's House will go from the 18th through the 22nd. Those will also be listed.

Okay. And volunteers are needed at every one of 'em. And they can register as a volunteer right. On the site, or they can let, or, I think there's a link to get there. Yeah. To say what they're gonna do. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Great. alright. Last question. What do you love about your life? I love the fact that we're able to do what we're doing in the community.

You know, we're very lucky, we have a successful business, have a wonderful family. We have our health, and I love being able to get up every day and making a difference in the community. It's my favorite thing to do. Yeah, that's beautiful. I it's we're, that's why this community, I think we're so blessed to have people like you.

So thank you. I'm so honored and, really appreciate what you do. 'cause it's not just for you. It's much more than just about what your business is up to. You're actually here to make a, a real impact. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you too. Thank you, brother. All right. Appreciate it, man. You too. God bless.

See, thanks for having me. Yeah, of course.

“HEY EVERYONE, AND WELCOME BACK TO SPOTLIGHT ON GOOD PEOPLE — WHERE WE SHINE A LIGHT ON THE HUMANS WHO ARE MAKING OUR WORLD MORE COMPASSIONATE, CONNECTED, AND KIND.”

Today’s guest is a hometown-hearted financial leader with a story as rich in values as it is in vision. Bill Beynon grew up in a small steel town in West Virginia — five miles in any direction took you to a new state.

What began as a life shaped by blue-collar roots and a baseball-playing grandfather evolved into a career defined by risk-taking, resilience, and radical generosity.

He’s the founder of Capital Wealth Advisors and the co-creator of a local movement that started with 25 turkeys and now feeds over 6,000 families every Thanksgiving. Today, we get to hear the heart behind the hustle — the story of a man who’s quietly transforming lives across Naples, one box of food at a time.

This November 18, you’re invited to be part of something beautiful. Join the 2025 CW Turkey Drop — a massive volunteer-powered event distributing full Thanksgiving meals to over 6,000 families across Collier County.

From turkeys and pumpkin pies to the deep joy of giving back, this is your chance to make a tangible impact this holiday season. It all goes down at First Baptist Academy in Naples, and they need hundreds of hands and even more hearts.

Sign up, show up, and be part of the kindness: cwTurkeyDrop.com