Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Leadership and did some things there. Anyways, I was so fascinated by my clients back then because I just learned so much from them. Like your dad forced me to dig further, to go further, to excel better, to do what I needed to do as a very young blonde haired girl with a little gray in the front In the community when I started.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah. So you, and I remember I never wanted to be in this business with my dad. I just, the stigma of being a hairdresser and just the whole, and I didn't have the artistic knack that he had. He was a very artistic man, but he had an eye for that. But he always wanted me to be in the business., it was always prodding me. You gotta try it, you'll love it. It was always enticing me all. Just beautiful women, you get to be with women, you'll love it, because I love it. And when I was doing At the time, I went to, I was working on the east coast at the space, near the space center, when the shuttles were a big deal., they were in space. Yeah, sure.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And there was a defense communications company there, and I was working in computers there at the time, which computers are a little bit different now. Yeah, I'm excited. But when I got laid off there, he said, "Well, why don't you come back?" And, I didn't have a job at the time. I said, "Just to get them off my back." I said, "I'll do that, I'll do that." Well, I came back and he said, "But it's school, air school." So I started in air school, and it You know, when you don't have it as a natural something, I stood out in the class, because there's people there who had a passion for it., they just loved it. And that was just a fun learning.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Trying to technically learn your way through it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Right, and then it was just, it was not going well. The teacher loved me, and the teacher was really generous and kind with me, and, but I was, it was obvious that, I was out of place, it wasn't working real well there, but they were like, "Your father's Robert, you should be great."
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yes, yeah, well, no, not that gene. That didn't pass.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So they, so he said, "Well, you'll also work in the salon as an assistant, because that's what they do. They, shampoo hair, and sweep the floor, and clean the salon, and all the rest of that." But at the time, he believed that the privilege to work as an assistant was, that was your pay. Like the honor to get trained by people. So he didn't pay. Yeah, you worked for Teps, and that was it. Straight out of Teps, and that was his way. You got to hustle. You got to make your way, you got to earn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, I remember shampooing, and I would work with Mary Jane, and Mary Jane did.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Most of the older women who love that older roller set look, but they're real, they only get their hair done once a week, and it's nice to come in all the way. Oh, that's great, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember every week, Mrs. Proctor, of the Proctor and Gamble family was here. She was just beautiful.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. They have a beautiful place in Chautauco, by the way. Oh, is that right, really?
Robert DiLella Jr.. She was an incredible woman, oh my gosh. First of all, she was beautiful, so I think she was in Massachusetts at one time. She just had such a good spirit about her. She was just, I loved doing her, even though getting to hear her talk, and, she's had to spend so much time just brushing out that hair, because of the hairspray and everything. That's my gosh. And at the end of the visit, she'd pull out a quarter, and she'd say, here's a quarter for you, Día, because she was from New England.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And, but just the stories, being able to listen and talk, and just to share those moments with her, even though, my friends were, had these great desk jobs as engineers, and CPAs almost, and listening.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. You are getting your quarter, but you've heard fascinating stories, and I'm sure you learned so much.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, you really do, because we just felt we had so many special--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Now, are you still doing hair, or do you just run business?
Robert DiLella Jr.. I never did it, I never-- You never did the hair, you run the business. I dropped out of school, I really-- Okay, I get it. I'm just, beauty school dropout for no joke. Didn't make it, did it for three months, and then ended up staying as an assistant for a long time, for several years, learning the business. It was hard, I got to really know the inner workings of it. And it freed him up to do what he loved to do, which is cash from his hair. He could do that, and he really wanted to do that. And then he could handle everything else. She's in the back of the house, things.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And at the time, the Ritz, Joe Franey had come here And was opening the Ritz, and asked local vendors to come in and run the flower shop, he had jeans, I think jeans was there, jeans were there. Right. Light and transportation Was the other one, did their transportation, they didn't have it all in-house, they said, "We're gonna stick to hotels, "we know this well." And a lot of that used to be-- And they brought in the businesses, they were local, I remember that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We ran the very first program using their entire ballroom. Are we taping? I didn't even think of that. We aren't started yet, but we're just starting.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It's sort of all together, we will edit it up, but it's so natural, the conversation, anyway.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So I didn't know if I should stop talking, or if I could start something. The very first day of the Ritz opened, it was December 5th, I don't remember the year, 85, I think, we ran the very first program. Back then we used to run huge conferences, we did four or 500 people, because everybody was new to the area, they didn't know what to do with, the state taxes were huge, a lot of big family businesses. So I remember, we're all set up, and back then, the gorgeous tea, all the silver, and the men were in, I think, tails, and they were in white gloves, right?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And I walk into the room, and there's 500, sorry, 500 spots set, and they have the beautiful blue glasses, which just looked gorgeous, and then I noticed the tag was still on them, so they had not been washed. With an instant, boom, they had like 25 people in the room, taking all the glasses out, washing them, whatever, they got them back in by the time the first person walked in the door, and then we're sitting there, we're talking about the national deficit back then, and all of a sudden, there's a huge crash, and someone had dropped a huge tray of glasses being put into the washer or whatever, and so then that was fine, we kept going.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then we had a fire alarm go off, so all of us had to come outside, and, you gotta wait for the fire trucks and do all that, and, but, we only lost two people, and everybody else came back in for the rest of the program, but I'll never forget how elegant, how beautiful, because up to that point, we really didn't have anywhere to collect a crowd, the beach club, but that was lucked. You really couldn't get in there. I don't remember ever running anything at the beach club., we didn't go to the depot back then, or things like that, before it was a museum.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, there were no facilities for that at all.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. No, nothing was big enough, you couldn't do it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. No, it wasn't for the registry wasn't there yet. That was where the registry came after, whatever it's called, used to be called the registry, right? It's the granddaddy.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Well, that's how I remember, because I remember reading the prospectus for a client that was thinking of investing, and, when I went through it, and I said, you don't wanna do this, you realize you'll put your entire net worth, your entire balance sheet at risk, because they're asking for general, not limited liability, but general liability with any investor in the original prospectus. And I said, they're also counting on, it was like a 98% occupancy level year round. I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was, for anybody who lived in Naples, they knew that wasn't gonna happen.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, right, yeah, 98% of them-- Did
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Not get involved, thankfully, thankfully didn't go that route, so, yeah. But Naples was a small town back then. Oh, you came in 80, right?
Robert DiLella Jr.. 77. 77, okay, so you-- You opened in 80, you opened here, because it was here for a few years, but what we hoped for?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So you really saw what it was like back then, too. I know my sister was the first one to move down with my parents shortly after, and she was a dancer, and, loved the arts, and came down to Naples, couldn't get any tickets for the only cultural thing back then in the arts was Naples players. They just weren't available, you couldn't get in.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The people's players, at the Contiki maybe, or somewhere, I think, weren't good, yeah, Naples players, I remember it was, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, so she said, I'd get teardrop letters, right, Rob? And she'd be writing me saying, there's no, performing arts, and so she started what now is known as the United Arts Council, but back then it was the Fine Arts Society, where she says, I'm gonna collect performing and visual artists, and we're gonna all get together, and we're gonna try to grow this thing and grow our community, and--
Robert DiLella Jr.. Your sister started that?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they actually just honored her like a year ago for it, but yeah, she started it, passion, she was all about passion. She would get everybody involved, because anybody in the family who got into anything were all into it, whether we wanted to or not,. I knew nothing about dance, I don't know how to dance. She used to take me to all these master classes in New York. I couldn't stand her for that, but I did it. But anyways, yeah, she started bringing in, like, Miami Ballet, and back then, what was the other one, Elphin, Ailey, something, I can't remember the names, but she'd bring in all these performers, and we would do it at Laley High School.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And one day, my brother-in-law and my dad are sitting there, and my dad, because they were all sitting, waiting for the performance to start, and my dad looks up and he says, "Boy, that couch, that set's really nice, "but it looks really familiar." And Lou looked at him and he said, "Pops, it should, it came from your living room." I mean, back then, we had the mayor of the town, we had, John Cardillo, I mean, goes through all the names, the Bert Saunders, Pacidamos, I mean, everybody was rolling up their sleeves, taking off their jackets after the performance, and loading the trucks to take the, because we didn't have enough money to pay somebody to put together all of that, we did everything, from scratch.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But it was fun
Robert DiLella Jr.. And then that's how-- Yeah, those are the days, all those names you bring up, too, Cardillo's, Pasadena's, St.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Peter's. Myra Daniels, my sister made me move out of my apartment, I had a beautiful two-bedroom apartment. She made me move out because Myra, she wanted to get Myra involved, and Myra wanted to start, I think it was a classic chamber, Markham Classic Chamber Concerts, then. So they wanted to bring artists in the winter, of course, which is our season, from Chautauqua.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But no money, I mean, they were just starting the nonprofit, there was no money to fund it, and that, so they said, "Well, if you move out for three months overseas and go live with your sister, then we can afford to house the artists, now all we have to do is pay their flights, and, get them down here." So that's how I met Myra Daniels, she made me move out of my apartment for three months.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I mean, we're so thorough, that is so cool.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Working with Deb.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Zach, because Zach's fiance's a dancer as well, and she's involved
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. She was, but she's-- What is she danced with?
Co-host. Like mostly stopped dancing out of college, but she's like been teaching up at a dance studio in shops at Vanderbilt.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, wonderful. Madeline, I think I've met her. Yes. Yeah, I'm sure I probably do, because I go to some of these things, whatever. Like I say, I appreciate arts and performing and visual, but I don't know much about it, but I always appreciate it and love to grow it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. She's got a real passion for it. That's super. It's in her dreams.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, well, they probably crossed paths, but that was a long time ago, when Debbie came down like 50 years ago, and she taught dance, I think it was at Cambier Park first And then when they built the fill, we dug the shovel for that, and she then did the Nutcracker program for many, many, many years, and finally every year she'd say to my round, Don, I'm done, hire somebody else, and she'd say, no, no, Deborah, Deborah, she'd call her Deborah. You have to do it, but--
Robert DiLella Jr.. Was she a part of that ceremony, that shovel ceremony?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, we were very much apart. I had actually that whole event, and then we put up the tent, and oh, back then we would be dressed all, everybody dressed up to attend something, and we'd be dressed in a beautiful suit with a hat, and so the shoveling party was most of our clients, actually, at the time that we introduced, and then we bought a row of the center fourth row, that whole row of seats to help support, obviously, and had those for many years,? Still have some.
Robert DiLella Jr.. See, that's kind of fascinating to me, because that's a big part of our, that was another-- Oh, that was a huge leap. Made a big difference for us, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And I'm sure you, I don't know if you went to her, I mean, took them a long time, but when they celebrated her at the Phil Long after she had passed, some of the stories that were told about how she just kind of did what you did when you wanted to be a DJ, right? So she just kept saying to the builders that she wanted, and the plot of land, and this is what needs to go here, and this is what needs to happen, and this is what we kind of can't do as a nonprofit, and this has to happen. She was just so-- She was unstoppable. Oh, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. She was amazing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. She was a dynamite force.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, and that you were a part of all of that, too. Oh, such great people
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Back then. I mean, many are still here, but many are gone as well, and it's like losing family. But you see the difference they made in our community just by having a passion. I mean, look at Kristin Curry. Look what she has done with Gulf Shore Playhouse, and Started out and, was not that easy, there's no money, and even building the audience, and of course, no facilities really, and what are you doing? Look at us today, right?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I know, and what that brings and what they bring to our community with those visions that they have that has made such a big difference.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And it was hard in the beginning, because nobody really wanted to invest in Naples, all of their charitable funds, because we did a lot of charitable work for our clients. That was very meaningful for many of them, but much of their support went back home, because that was still home. This was their six-month domicile and their residence, and they loved it and they touted to their friends about it, but they still gave back home and made the differences back home, and so we got very involved in saying, this is your community. Your children are now coming into the community as adults. They're wanting to move in., it would be good.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It would be a gift of giving, basically, to give back to our community, because this is where you spend six months a year. And the same thing in healthcare, because people, we didn't have good healthcare back then.
Robert DiLella Jr.. No, no, no, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But today, it's amazing.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The people who were here, they're giving Because they were only here part-time, to how to have them give at both
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We had to build that sense of community, because there were the business people, or the people, small businesses, the people that worked in the community, that said, oh, it'd be nice if we had this and we had that, and of course, some of the early supporters, their support was for the arts, because they wanted arts and culture. They wanted what they got back home in Chicago, New York, or wherever. So there was great support in that area, but there wasn't much support in other areas. I mean, mental health facilities, senior citizens, Alzheimer's, things like that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Any kind of handicap situations, very hard to find any resources or services like we could in Philadelphia or Buffalo.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, it all had to be built. Or created, because also, because we weren't, we didn't have the infrastructure, the airport, the workforce teams, or any of that other stuff.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. The airport was on 41, little tiny airport, and we'd see the cows as we drove up there, right? And then when the cows disappeared, you knew they were gonna put a building, something was gonna happen,? It was kinda exciting.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, back when, I remember The mall had just opened, I think, at the time, but anything, we lived in Vanderbilt, which at the time was way out there. Oh yeah, yeah. I didn't even know what the Pine Ridge Road was like. Where are you going?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And you go north of Benito Beach Road, and you're really out there., like that was another world. Even in 97, when we opened the Promenade to open across the Leek County line, I was, "What are you doing?" I think, "Why are you going?" Right, right, it was such a thing, you crossed that road, and, there was a store called Great American Summit where they sold jeans in Fort Myers. I remember driving there for school, at whatever time of August, we'd go to Fort Myers to get our school, do the school shopping at the jeans place. But it was such a drive to go up there, and then airport the--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. When I first moved down here, we had to send to most of our, like I was still traveling to different areas where we had business and offices, and going to New York a lot, so, I had winter clothes. Well, there wasn't a dry cleaner that would take them, and do any decent job, and Jerry's was the first one, and finally we had a dry cleaner, so we used to ship our winter clothes and my suits in there, good suits, up to Buffalo, back to Buffalo, we dry cleaned. Wow, is that right? It went insane. Yeah, yeah, it was crazy.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, there wasn't Well yeah, so much has changed, but at the time, April's, like the jeans without the florist was the florist that were here forever.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. That's where my grandkids worked a lot of, a lot of years putting up all the Christmas lights and the Ritz flower arrangements and all that, and every year they, my son-in-law worked for jeans, so he moved in with, Oh, really?, get the whole family involved, because they needed people to get it up quick, especially downtown Fifth Avenue, and all that during the holidays.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, they were the things, you were connected in every way, your family's tentacles all over, that's so cool.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Now, we got involved early on with Special Olympics, because they had a handicap aunt, and we wanted her to live here with us, so we had bought her a villa, she could You know, she was very slow, but she knew that, kind of, so she couldn't function or live on her own if she had to pay bills or do things like that, but otherwise she was capable of doing that, and for many, many years, we all tried to support that as far as the family that was here, the five of us were here at the time, full time, and we finally had her moved up north to a home, basically, that had maybe 12 guests, I guess, in it, 12 residents, and the purpose was, because there was no job market for her, there was nowhere she could go, David Lawrence hadn't quite built out that at that time, but up in outside Buffalo, they had all kinds of things, so she was able to go to work, she was able to go to functions with people who were very similar to her that she could enjoy, and so we ended up getting very involved in Special Olympics back then, and then trying to broaden that, obviously, and bring some of the services here locally that we didn't have.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So you've always worked with some aspect of, because how do you pick philanthropy-wise? Like, how do you pick what you're gonna do? There's so many, I look at our So many events that happen at Naples, which are raising funds Which is great, which is why we never say no, and people ask for something for their organization, and we're happy to give, because there's so many great ones to do things for.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, it's made our community. We have a lot of charities.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Years ago, we only had a few, not a few, but there was maybe 40, if probably less, because when we first hired my sister, she had graduated from Potsdam with a degree in economics, and she was like, "Well, I don't know yet what I wanna do with my life," and we said, "Whoosh," grabbed her and said, "Okay, while you're thinking about it, you're gonna work in our offices for the summer, and you're gonna become the charitable liaison," and so we used to bring together the different charities to kind of learn from each other and do sessions to teach them about the importance of fundraising, the importance of endowments, because most of the charities that we had back then had developed by a singular person or a small group of people, and it was very much kind of a hands-on and resourceful relative to volunteers and that, but they didn't know how to raise money to support and to sustain, which is critical, obviously.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh, so you brought another dimension to the organization that I didn't even know there was a need for it. You're like, "Yeah, I gotta resist."
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, gosh, yes, back then, yes, we were a very different community, and from a business standpoint, when we started, we used to run educational programs. We'd do the CE training for attorneys and trust officers and CPAs, because we're starting a business from ground zero. What do you do? Who do you work with? How do you learn? And to me, you learn by forcing yourself to get out there in the community and do things. And plus, I think I mentioned earlier that the age of my clients, they were teaching me. And so really, when they started looking, for example, for retirement communities or resources if they needed someone in the house.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And so, every summer, I would go out and visit every single new community that went up, every organization that offered services that they then could use. So that I could somehow network the two. That was the ideas. I've gotta learn in order for me to know what's available and be able to provide the resources.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Being in a family business, how or who at the time made the ultimate decision. Because family business number one is, it's--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, who ran the business? And who was Ray and I? Ray and I started the business. He, we grew up, we have, well, we have seven siblings. I have three older siblings and three younger, and each of them are a year apart. My mom had two miscarriages on both sides of me or we would have had more. They tried to adopt and the Catholic Church said, "Well, you can still have children. So you can give, we can give you foster children." And they did not wanna do that because they felt here they would bring someone into the family and us, the children would learn to love them as family and then they leave, so she never did that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So we just had the seven kids, they would have kept going. But Ray and I always had an interest in the business. Ray was actually the youngest licensed, that one was called NASD, it's FINRA today, but he was the youngest licensed representative at 17 before there was a requirement to be of age, of 18 or over. And he put himself through college actually selling mutual funds. And it was interesting because when he got together with his counselor or whatever, they said, well, maybe you should go to a tech school because I'm not sure, he was in that great school, I'm not sure that you should take a career up going in this direction or the other.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And meanwhile, when he talked to my dad, my dad said, "Tim, well, you are right now earning more money than the counselor that counseled you on what you should do for your career. So stick with it, Ray, take your cash in and run with it." But Ray and I always worked as a team, the whole family works very well. We barely have to actually sit down and discuss something. We do, obviously, but we intuitively think the same. And we complimented each other., Ray is, he's great, he's great with all kinds of people and he's wonderful at what he does.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But he doesn't wanna get licensed, he doesn't wanna take a lot of courses, he doesn't wanna handle compliance and all the nitty gritty and details and I'm a stickler for that. So we worked well together. And then years later, as we were growing and we were growing outside offices, and then you're expanding beyond the original senior planners in the firm. And my husband got sick. So I said, "Everything stops." I was then taken care of what I'll call my retail clients, the clients we're serving on the ground versus advising other financial advisors how to do their business and stuff. And then my family stepped in and they were wonderful because I had to leave the community.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I had called NCH and they said, "There is nothing here in South Florida "because there's nothing that we know that can help. "So you're gonna have to go on trials and things like that." So we went to Roswell Park in Buffalo. But during that time, my family helped tremendously. They started meeting with clients with me, things like that. And when Dean finally passed, we talked about, well, what do you wanna do? And they said, "We like what you and Ray do." We said, "Okay, here we go." And that's really what created the so-called family business because it got everybody involved.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Wow. When was that? When did your--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. In 1991, he passed away. He was there for a couple of years. And that's what got me interested in the healthcare side. Because as I originally started working with retirees, so that's the people I knew, that's who I hung out with. I never became a broker and encouraged people to put $2,000 a year away in an IRA. I didn't really learn the young person part of the business. Later. So they had different needs, obviously, right? Different resources. But I forgot what you were asking me, Rob.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I'm still stuck on-- You should stay away from the business. No, I'm still stuck on your brother.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, right, how we handled the business. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So as the few years went by, like I had a brother-in-law, he wanted to open a restaurant down here. And when we did our homework, so we were in the restaurant business up north, when we did our homework, there was nothing that made sense. I have a feeling it was funny money running through most of the properties and businesses. So we said, "Lou, why don't you come to work for us? "You'll kind of handle what I call "the wholesale side of the business "or the other advisors that we're working with." He ran the insurance agency for us and managed the office for us initially. And so that's how we began there.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then Paul said, "You know, "I really wanna be in the business." He was actually up in Tampa, going to school. And we said, "Well, okay, pick an office. "Napals, Rochester, Rochester Snow, Naples Sun." Where do you wanna go? You pick Naples. Though he did go up to Buffalo, actually, at the time. My brother-in-law, Tony, was involved in the business and had his own company up there in Buffalo. And he decided, "I wanna do what you do." He did investments. And he said, "I wanna understand the planning side "'cause we've always been grounded in planning." That was the big thing. What kind of financial decisions do you make? So he was the last to join us.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And Jill, I told you, she came out of Pottsdam and said, "Well, I'm not sure yet." And we said, "Okay." And then she stayed. And so Paul joined us. Jill joined us. And both of them spent time in the other offices as well.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And where are you and they in the birth order?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So birth order would be, well, first Kathy, my sister, Kathy Curto. Then you have Debbie Clemente, who started the Fine Arts. And then you have Ray, who was, we started our own business. And yeah, what actually happened is we both had a love and wanted to do this. I was either gonna do, going to do international law or the financial side, the business, the planning side. And so I decided I wanted to get into planning. But that was back in the, later 70s. So at the time, I was looking for someone to go to work for. There was a Merrill Lynch, a Raymond James office, a Penny Stockbroker, a retired CFP that kind of worked a little bit. And that was about it.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, there really wasn't what there is today. So when I went to interview and I was offered a job by Raymond James, but they really didn't want to go the full licensing. They didn't want to pay the same that they would pay. And I wanted to do planning and they didn't want any advisor to do planning because they felt it was too large of a liability. So I went to IDS, which became IDS, American Express from there. And it was in Fort Myers' small office. Financial firm, it's now American Express. I think it's under American Express now, but they did, they used to do planning.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. They do a basic plan for somebody and then, they'd become a client and they would invest in their mutual funds back then. And after about three months, I said to Ray, cause I said, this is going to take me forever. I know nothing in the person training me. I love him, but he doesn't know anything on the planning side either. And so we met in Atlanta and Ray said, why don't you come to Rochester? We have one of the best regional managers in the whole IDS American Express system, Roger Correa. I still remember his name and come for a year. And then we'll start our own company.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So I talked to my Then not my husband, but we're engaged and he said, it was interesting cause years later he said, I couldn't say no, it was your passion, it was your love. When you asked me, should you do this? What would it entail? Could we see each other on some weekends? And I moved up there and then Ray and I were working for IDS and then after really a few months, we said, you know what, we know how to run businesses. We know this industry cause my dad took the step forward to teach us all this stuff every Saturday morning for years. We sat down as a family. So we ended up trancing through the snow, borrowing $5,000 from my dad.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I'm very nervous about it to begin the company. We paid it back like six months later cause we couldn't stand having any, oh, owing anybody anything,. But that's how we began the company. And then I returned to Naples, started it as a Florida company, but went to Rochester to open the first office and came back and opened to Naples. And then that's where, everybody joined us from there. And Debbie used to do our marketing and Kathy would do our writing and Louie ran the agency side and managed the office. And then Tony, who's also a brother-in-law, came down and got into our business, sold his company.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And I had another brother-in-law who unfortunately since passed away that was in the business. And I have nieces, granddaughters, daughter Nephews, in-laws, a sister-in-law. So, but we have 50 employees totally between the two offices. So, we have a lot of non-family that have become family.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Of course, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And we had a dear friend who had an office in Clarence, New York. And she said, "I wanna do what you and Ray do. "How do I learn it?" And I said, "Well, either go to Rochester "or come to Naples." And she chose Naples. So that's Lynn Farina and she's been, involved in a colleague and a partner of our firm forever, for a long time. Was it always
Robert DiLella Jr.. Natural for your siblings to be able to keep the sibling part out of the interaction, the business part of it? So like the, what was it like at home with you and Ray? Like, how did you handle disputes at home growing up? What was that like?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. You know, well, oh, growing up. Well, we'd have hair pulling and punching and all that kind of stuff, like typical siblings, of course. Ray and I always, well, we always all connected well with each other, not my older sisters at first, because I wasn't of an age, they wanted anything to do with me,? But I was always ahead of my time. Like I graduated early. I only did my, up to my junior year and then I left for Boston College. And so I was always, I guess, more mature, probably because the explosion my father gave me when I was a young girl. And I was always around his salesman. And, they called him salesman back then, not advisors, but it was all the same.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And so when, I don't know, we just always talk through it. We were taught to talk. I mean, every Saturday morning, my parents, both my parents would sit all of us down. I remember the family room there and we'd all sit on the floor for the most part and they'd be sitting there and dad would come up or mom would come up with something that was important to talk about., whether it was, what's a mortgage?, and he'd go out and he'd buy a home and get a mortgage and give it to my sister Jill to manage. So she could learn and understand.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. If we wanted to have a bike, like if we got money and we wanted a bike He'd sit us down and say, well, if you bought a used bike and you saved this money that you'd pay for a new bike, for so many years you could have a horse. And if you saved it for so many more years, you could buy a car, what's most important? Saving it may teach us the rule of 72 and compounding money and all that. But so as we talked through and spent that time with our span of ages and asking our questions, we also talked about anything that was difficult or argumentative or they would always make us sit down and work it out. And don't leave the room until you have it worked out.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So I remember when I first started managing a restaurant up in Rochester called Vasti's, we took it from the ground up basically designing the menus and all that. When my chef would argue with the waiters or waitresses, I'd say, okay, in the freezer, not in the cooler, that's too comfortable, in the freezer, don't come out until you solve it, because that's kind of how we were taught. So we just We make our arguments and we figured that it was not to compromise on something, that was not the best route. We really had to determine what was the best solution and look at it that way.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And when we were really young, I'll never forget some of the decisions you make when you're young, should I take this job? Should I do this? Should I marry this girl? Should I not? Whatever. He would take at that time a yellow pad And he would draw a line down the middle, he'd turn it around us, we'd be sitting having coffee or pop or whatever, and he would give us the pencil and he'd say, write the pros, write the cons, see which list is longer. And so we'd do the same thing when we had discussions on the business. Should we do this or should we do that? And every June, we always got together and went through that. Were we doing the right thing as a company?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Were we offering the right services? Do we need more employees? How do we want to run the business? What products, what investments? How do we want to handle clients' money? All the different decisions we had to make. We always revisited every year together. And then that grew as other family members got involved. And then about three or four years ago, I think it was, well, everybody's on salary, which is very unusual. We have always offered benefits, very unusual on our industry, very unusual to do planning. Back then, I am so excited where the financial area has come today because it's what people need. I'm glad they're doing the planning and the full services needed.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But so we would reevaluate that. And then if we couldn't agree, we'd use the old system. What's the pros? What's the cons? The old sweat, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threat. Not our opinion, but make our case. Tell me why you feel we should go in this direction or why we should say no to this opportunity. And we always wanted to, well, I guess because it's embedded in the values we have on money. So a lot of decisions wrap around that one way or another. So you wanna keep true to your values. And we felt that we're running serious money.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We're dealing with people's serious part of their enterprise of their family so that we didn't wanna go off in all different directions. When we first got involved, Rob, people were out there selling a lot of limited partnerships and things like that. And we looked at that and we said, we don't understand how someone can make money at that. And I probably shouldn't talk about these things because I have to go through compliance. So I'll get away from investments. But that was the profit base for companies back then. Broke dealer firms, anybody in the investment area. And we said, no, we wanna be very straightforward, very foundational.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Make sure that someone has staying power. We follow the steps we were taught to financial independence. We follow in our business and in our guidance. So we just keep going back to that value and say, does this fit? Does it make sense?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, is there a point or a time period where you remember that you saw it one way, your brother saw it another way?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and some of the direction, and I won't get into details of the business it's taken. We had a difference of opinion how we should run our licensing. Should we be duly licensed with FINRA and the SEC because we're a SEC license. Should we just hold one or the other? And that's been an industry long kind of argument with advisors for a long time ever since we've gotten the business. So at one time was now we should keep that BD affiliation and keep that going.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But we've had differences, but what generally happens because of probably a common vision, we are so connected in our philosophy of the business that ultimately we make the right decision and we agree to go in that direction. We agree to disagree on things. As long as you agree that you have different viewpoints on something, but then you've got to make a decision because you're leading a company, you're leading everybody out there that's working for you and for your firm and for your clientele.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It's so rare to last over time like there's so many partnerships.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Very rare, very, very, and we understood that. And again, if my parents hadn't grounded us the way they did, I mean, I am best friends with every one of my siblings and I'm very close to all of our family. We all are, we're all best friends. In fact, there was a time when we said, okay, we really need to go out and get some separate friends. This is crazy. We traveled together, we worked together, we're always together, we're dining together.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, that's awesome.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. That was back in the day in Naples. I don't know if you remember this, but we only had a few restaurants you could really go to, right? So someone would drive by, like we'd end up at, I don't know if you ever ate at Mancini's back then. Oh yeah, of course. You remember Mancini's when he was on 41? And it's still functioning, but obviously the original folks aren't here anymore. So we would drive up and park and go in and say, give us a table of two, and he'd say, no, I'll give you a table for four. He said, no, no, no, we're on our own tonight. Before, it, there'd be eight or 10 or 12 people because they'd drive by and they'd see your car.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they'd say, oh, let's go in there and have dinner with the Chickarellis,? I don't know if you remember those days, but everybody knew everybody.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Everybody did, absolutely, yeah. And it was, my father used to In the corner building when they had opened the salon there because we were there for 10 years, he was in that corner window and he would watch everybody leave every day, the spannos, the gourd jewels, whoever he knew, he'd watch them leave in the morning to go to work where they were going, keep the horn, and then they would stop on their way home in the salon and Bruce Dee and David Sexton were, CPA was up top and David, the lawyer from Bonchonac and King, on the second floor and they would have their gatherings in the salon and my father was at the time a beer connoisseur before the beer and stuff.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's interesting. Just, he would just get unusual brands at the time because it was a big deal to have anything besides domestic and there was one beer that they used to drink, it was called Orangie Bloom. It was this crazy name.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Where was I from?
Robert DiLella Jr.. I have no idea, I just remember seeing it in the salon.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Sounds like African or something. Yeah, right, it does, yeah.
Robert DiLella Jr.. They would have these, they're powwows, the Naples guys, whoever they were, Joe, Dr. Spano coming home from work or whatever, they had these little gatherings in the salon and can bleed over into wherever else in Naples. But those, in fact we just lost one of the original, Vindhipa Squall who just passed out. Yes, I know, I saw that, I know. He's one of those old mainstays.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Absolutely, good guy, absolutely, oh my goodness.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Super human.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I'm an incredible operation, great person.
Robert DiLella Jr.. My mother, when she was sick, she had cancer, she died young at 57 and she was in the last years of her life, thank you. We knew she was not gonna be around much longer. And her friends put this trip together for her for her to go to New York, but at the time she was getting treated for the cancer of metastasized to her brain. So she was losing mobility and unable to walk. And she felt she would be too much of a burden to go, but Vindhipa insisted that she go. And this was kind of the last hurrah for her. So they went to New York, they saw Dame Edna, which is that She's a comedian type, crazy comedian that my mom thought was real funny.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Anyway, they went to see her, they stayed at Her name was Jane, I don't remember her last name, they owned the hotel, whoever it was.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. They're okay, okay.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And this celebration that she had, but Vindhipa carried her throughout most of the trip, picked her up, carried her, made her feel safe.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Isn't that amazing? See how he treated friends and the people in the community.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, just really forever grateful for him for celebrating my mom that way. Beautiful. And just, yeah, did a special thing. What an incredible thing. He's one of those old school guys who was here at the beginning back in those days. Oh gosh, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I don't even know when he came, but it had been, it was earlier than us, so it had been a long time ago.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, he was before the crew, yeah. So the Naples roots, as they grow. But the Italian way and the Italian family, because you were raised that way, to be able to have that many family members working together over time. I know
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And in my industry, in our industry, financial world, you don't see partnerships last that long ever. One thing we vowed is we would never let that split us. So for example, if somebody didn't want to be a part of the business, or if they, like when Lou retired, we spent like two or three years retiring Lou out of the business, because he was gonna retire and Debbie and they were heading up to Chautauqua Institute to spend all summer there. They spent from May to September. So we always talked about, and the beginning of every meeting we have, we go around the room and we say, what's your personal goals? How are things going? Where do you see yourself?, whatever.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And if somebody had a vision that was different than participating in the business, then we would work towards it. But everybody loves it. Now they love other things too. They've developed passions over the maturity of being in the business. So like my sister Jill also started a not-for-profit, but they run a podcast called Spell Life. And they used to run big programs down at CalFert on women's wellness and stuff. But she loves doing those kinds of things and coaching. And so she breeds that into the work she does as an advisor. But I don't, we have our arguments, but I think the best part of it is we know each other. We are very honest about how we think and we feel.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And we have such a high respect for that integrity and respect for each other. That if we didn't have that, we probably would have broken up a long time ago, because every family has differences. Every person has differences. And where do you see a partnership that goes 40 plus years, 45 years, it's fantastic. It doesn't exist. And through the changes, we have had massive changes that we've had to adopt to make
Robert DiLella Jr.. An energy district. Yeah, and continue to evolve. Yeah, you've gone through so many changes.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, absolutely. And at a time we were always climbing uphill, because like I say, when I would be called in for a compliance thing with another firm, they call in expert witnesses, whenever they want a group of peers. And I would sit with the regional managers of all the brokerage houses and they'd say, "We're never gonna get into planning. We're just not gonna do that." So we were always fighting the battle for fee advisory services, initially involved very early on with like a Schwab custodian. And everything was uphill, because even the SEC didn't understand what we were doing being duly licensed.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they were used to big investment firms or whatever, not in a planning office that also ran investments. But today it's different. Today that's evolved. But we said we wanna go with the flow. We don't wanna be the first or second out, but we do wanna be within the top five of where you have to take your business, where you have to vision it to. So today it's an interesting world to determine how do you go forward in providing full services. But we've been doing it since day one for how we work. But for other firms, it's really harder for an individual. It's hard to get into this business. It'd be very tough.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, you talked about communication and how you communicate in one of the settings. You put everybody together and asked the rule. Did you always have a structure like that or did Jan implement some of those?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, Jan had a lot to do with it. At one time when we were growing, as I mentioned before, my husband got ill, when we were growing outside advisors, let's say. Like we had in Fort Myers, we had built a building. And we housed six of top advisors from different brokerage firms because they wanted to do full planning. They wanted to do the work we were doing back then. So we helped them get started. Back then we always had our meetings with them. In fact, I remember when Benita Bay was just getting built and of course they built the clubhouse first. So we used to rent the space for them and do it there and they'd all fly in and come in.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And we would bring Jan in to facilitate that after I'm trying to think, we re-met, because I knew Jan many years ago and he knew my husband and I knew his wife. And I'm trying to think when we actually formally got him involved was when my name came up in Fort Myers with the advisors there and he wanted office space. And I said, okay, here, maybe let me consider it. He said, no, I want to provide value for it. And here's the work that I do now, I'm a consultant. And we went through all that and I said, okay, we could use that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So I'll give you this office space in Fort Myers for you providing these services for our advisor gatherings because we would network with even our competitors or our peers from around. We'd come together to have a meeting, to talk about challenges or opportunities in our line of work. And so Jan facilitated all that for a long time. Gosh, I don't know when that started, but it was a long time ago.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Was that common to do that, to pull-- No
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Not in our business at all, no. Most partnerships in our business back then, probably even today, were built on let's share office space. So you pay this much of a utility bill, I'll pay that much. But they really didn't have an organization. They didn't have a firm. For an advisor to have a firm principle in where we started just doesn't happen. You either go to work for a large brokerage firm or trust company or whatever, or you're in your own business or maybe you invite somebody in to share expenses. Well, we never treated it that way. We also never said, "I own this client.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. "This client can only talk to me." Which is when you deal with someone in the industry, you have your person and that's it, and they don't want you talking to anybody else. We always said, "No, we'll all play a part "in serving that client." Now you have a primary advisor and a secondary, but what if that particular family had a business enterprise or a family business and needed maybe a transitional work of selling the business or just restructuring it? Well, we have certain people in the firm that are really good at that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Or charity work, I love charitable planning, so I would get involved with that, whether Paul was serving the client, whether Jill was serving the client or another advisor. So we always work together. We got to know every single client, all of us. Somebody walks in the office, they're greeted by all different advisors, whether they're their client relationship or not. But that is highly unusual. It's a doggy dog kind of industry usually.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, but the client can serve so much better because they're getting all the minds together.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Well, we wanted-- Our tagline is our family or your family. Basically, we want it. We're a family. We're a very strong family. It doesn't come easy to communicate and be in business together all these years. So you got to work at it. And we found that there were not a lot of functional families when it came to money that were being in business together. They just were not My dad made it his mission and my mom to teach us about everything that could help us find our way on our own independently if we had to. From being financially sound to making the right decisions, the right life choices. I think we were talking earlier when my dad taught us about retirement.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I'm not so sure I like this or not, but he taught us that it's your choice. If you get to the point in life that you are doing what you choose to do, you're retired. What does retirement mean? Retirement doesn't mean, in Buffalo it meant, okay, you retire from Bethlehem Steel and you sat on the porch and you died. I hate to say it, but people die very young. And you spend your winters closed in your home together and that kind of thing. He never taught us that retirement was kind of an end date
Robert DiLella Jr.. Kind of thing. That's interesting, because yeah, I think there's always that question. Well, what are you going to retire? Because retirement to me does mean that. That's what it means. It means you're stopping your passion or whatever it is that you're about and sitting on a porch waiting for what?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, exactly. So retirement might mean that you invite other people into the company to help you run the business side. So maybe you can focus more on helping mentor That next generation of advisors, which is terrific. And that's a fun part too, not just helping families, but mentoring those that will help those families. It's terrific. And I love working with the young people in our industry. So that's kind of neat.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How did you find the fit for having that type of office that is so different that you all share the client experience with the clients? Because people coming from outside, because it's very much like that in this industry, in the hair industry. Like you are my client.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And you do it very differently.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Very differently, right. So where you're going to get the person who's best for, and the internal referral you'll even have. Because if a one girl doesn't do pixie cuts real well and somebody wants a pixie cut, I'm sure she could do it, but it's not going to be to the level that somebody, right. She's a little better. If you want, bonding, I'm great at it. But it's very hard for people to grasp that because the industry is not built that way. Or just built on your mind, you're my bread and butter, you're feeding me. And if you go over there, it's going to take my dinner. Or take my--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Well, but in probably what drove you on that is your mission, your culture of family. You want, I mean, how many hours do we spend at Business Rep, right? In our business and doing what we're doing and our team members. And so don't you want to love it? Don't you want to make it the best you can? And why would you want to be a silo out there when it's so much better to be able to collectively work with others, right? Or the breeder part of the business. So I don't know, that's always been the key vision of our company. And I will say that Jan had a very instrumental role in helping us to understand each other. I don't know if you've ever done a disc assessment. The ISC.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Okay, all that. Us getting to know that, hey, each of us have a certain personality and that's how we're always gonna be. Learn to communicate together because you're all gonna be different personalities. But we all come from the same values and family culture base. So I think that's why it works as well as it does. But we've had, it's been an incredible privilege. My dad always said, if you have a gift, you need to share it. And I'd say, dad and mom Your responsibility is to share that gift.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We had a particular gift, our family, because of the lessons they taught us early on, to work with families to a more advanced kind of degree in the sense like when I first started here, having older clients who were doing a lot of estate work because taxes were very high, income taxes, excise taxes, estate taxes. We had to do a lot of planning. And what I would see is that people would see their attorneys do some wonderful documents and all that. And then they would pass away. And their family never got, nobody ever bridged what they did, why they did it, why they chose to leave their legacy that way.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And so what I found is, okay, they did the settlement of the estate done, close that book and then reopen and start all over with the family members. That made no sense to me. So I said, we've got to bring families together. And we started seeking out folks that did that kind of work or consulting with families to, because sometimes a parent may have an understanding that a child does or doesn't want to be in a business, let's say, or they think that one of their children would want to step up and be trustee for all the other kids, right?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then we come to the table when we do a family meeting and in preparing for it, we talk to everybody individually and we find out what they're really thinking. And they're thinking could be totally different. So they would be burdened with their parent, assigning them a certain responsibility that they don't want. But nobody ever talks about it. So if you don't talk about it, you don't know. So now the parent passes away and we're seeing this around the fourth generation of clients we're serving. So when you see what happens in families and how it could have just been different if they just had come to the table and talked about it.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So we find, sometimes you just got to deal with those hard things, but doing things like personality assessment, values assessments, providing a structured format to sit at the table together. I don't know any other firm, as small as we were, we began, that actually had board of directors or had regular meetings where we always came together and spent time talking about us personally and business because it was so interconnected.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, so you brought that communication in a way that usually it's kind of tucked away, like the lawyer handled it's done. And then the real trouble comes after they do pass. And then you're dealing with so many undelivered communications and so many things that nobody knows about. And that's where all the disruption really is, hurts the family in some ways to not have that planned out or mapped out or whatever.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Absolutely, it does. And sometimes it's the interpretation of what someone thinks occurred and why it occurred is totally different. So we found we could help bridge the story by just, even if the parent didn't want to have a family meeting or talk through some things with their kids or in-laws We had that history. So we could bring it to the table. I've had many, many clients who have written letters to their kids and they're locked in a safe box, in a sense until they pass away because they just can't approach certain things right now or don't want to. And I understand that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. If you're raised in a family, money's a tough thing because it relates to everything we do, every choice we make somehow comes to financial. So if for example, you were raised in a family that never talked about money or only talked negatively about money or you don't have it or this or that, that's what you learn and that's what you take into your marriage and that's what you take into your children. So you really have to think about early on, what messaging are you giving them? What education are you giving them? We say it's important to talk about money. You don't have to talk about specifics.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. You don't have to sit down with your kids and tell them what you're worth or how much you earn. That's up to you but you can talk about what it takes and why it's important. And it's important to make it unimportant basically. So you can concentrate on all your other priorities, whether it's faith, family, health, business, whatever would be your priority.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And you can do that with peace because you've handled some of that, the worry or the fear, whatever the conversation is for me or somebody else. Yeah, we find a way.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And that's where Jan was particularly helpful. Many years ago when I had several family businesses in the community we were working with, Jan came in to facilitate. They wanted me to facilitate but I said, no, I can be that voice that the family needs to the communication regarding these money issues or these family business matters, whatever, a facilitator, an independent facilitator should help make this happen. And he was just so good at that. Yeah. I used to write-- I mean, I've been in those early years.
Robert DiLella Jr.. He wrote for the paper as well.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. He did for a long, long, long, long time. And he wrote a book, I think he wrote two books actually. And yeah, people still come up to him. It's kind of cute, hussy women come up to him, give him a big bear hug, "Jan, I haven't seen you forever." And I'm like, okay, I understand. He did some program at the company they worked for. We laugh about it, but it's, yeah, he did.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I always look forward to his articles. I remember he and Clay Cohn were the two that I liked.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So you never read mine, huh, Rap?
Robert DiLella Jr.. I saw your name all the time.
(Laughing)
Robert DiLella Jr.. You were always there, your name was always there.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. A lot of those, I think it was like 14 years I wrote, but until they took over and ousted all the local authors. But when I wrote, it would be a mom or dad coming to me. Saying, I want to get this, I somehow want to communicate with my child about this, or I want to provide information, but they won't listen to me or whatever, and they'd give me a topic and they'd say, okay, I'll consider it. So that's how that would come about, because for some reason, when you see something in print, back then, people would pay heed to it. So that's why I would write based on what they thought they needed.
Robert DiLella Jr.. And how did that come about for you?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. To write for the paper? Well, we actually did a TV show way back, in the years called It's Your Money. And then it just got so busy. I remember that. Really? Yeah. Wow. Was it calmer?
Robert DiLella Jr.. What was the cable bit?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, yeah. We were like, yeah. It was called It's Your Money, and we did it live, which was kind of cute, because we used to play some games, talk about how brothers and sisters, connect when we do a little shocking thing when we'd invite another member on. Dave was great to work with, and the people we worked with then. But probably Jan maybe got me involved in it, because I always liked to write. And that was like a second passion that I enjoyed way back when. I'd love to get back to it at some point. We did write a book, but it was a long time ago. Started writing it right before my husband got ill, and I think we published it somewhere in the early 90s.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But, so I think he was the one that said, you should sit with the paper, and you should contribute. You should write a column.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's how that started. Yeah, it was your, you were sharing your passion through writing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, I was writing for like different magazines or industry things, because I served on a national board, advisory board. So, and I used to do speaking engagements with other companies, advisors and things like that. It was just something I enjoyed doing back then. And, it's learning from each other, right? We still network and get together with what people would call our competitors, but we call them our peers and colleagues. So let's learn from each other. I don't believe that you can be harmed by sitting down and getting ideas from each other. I think you just make it better. You know, and that's how we felt, so.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Let's see if we can find some of those clips if any are on YouTube of the show.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, geez.
(Both Laughing)
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. That would be funny. I have all the old, what were they then? 8-Track or VCR or whatever it was, the big ones.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there was Beta first, and then the VCR. I came across some, but my dad had done an ad at Palmer, an ad, a hair ad, and it's all the outtakes, so it's just, it's wild to see, yeah, the hair and the--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh gosh, yeah, out to here, the teasing days and the hairspray. I like it where you are now, which are promo, and that's good.
Robert DiLella Jr.. My father at the time, I remember his decision at this point was, rollersets were still around. A lot of people were still getting rollersets. It was a generation of people that were aging, but they still held on to rollersets, and it was a portion of the, 30% of the business was probably that, but it was a look that he said he didn't wanna be known for that look, because that was a look of the past. And he said If people ask where they get their hair done, they're gonna say Roberta Philadelphia, and they're gonna think that's what we do, that type of look, so he made a decision at the time, I'll never forget this, we're burning the rollers.
Robert DiLella Jr.. We will not do rollersets anymore. Even if the customer wants it, we will not do it. You have to do it, wow. A roller burning party, we're literally, which was scary for me at the time, because that's a chunk of revenue, like we're saying no, and upsetting a lot of people, because that's the look that they wanted, and they're gonna have to go somewhere else, we're not gonna do it, but he was willing to just say, we're not doing that anymore.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Take chances, we saw vision, and good for him, because, you gotta live in the present and vision to the future, and if you can't do that, then how do you survive as a business? But you have to be grounded in your traditions, right? And I'm sure your dad had many of them, but he obviously had a good business and good vision.
Robert DiLella Jr.. You could see what others couldn't, for him to make that decision from the financial perspective, I was thinking this is gonna really That's our thing better. Yeah, right, how did you think? Yeah, that's what it was, yeah. And, but he knew this look was better for them, less maintenance, they're gonna look better, they're gonna feel better, he just always tell people that. And that was, the other thing that he was excelled in was, he wouldn't always do what they wanted, he would do what he knew was best.
Robert DiLella Jr.. He would upset people sometimes in the chair, because he would say they wanted a certain look, he'd say, no, that's not gonna work, or he would do what he thought would make them look best, and it may not have been the direction that they wanted to go, but in the end, that was what he was known for, like I'm gonna give you the look that you need. Exactly, yeah. Not necessarily what you think, you want your face is not the right shape for that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Because he was an expert at it, right? And those are hard discussions to have, I mean, we have similar discussions, everybody has a thought of what kind of financial decisions they should make, or how they should invest, or whatever, but if, it's definitely not gonna work for them. And the only way we knew that, it wasn't the textbook, it wasn't the industry that taught us that, it was our clients that taught us that, was their experiences. So if you have, in the situation of Roberts of Philadelphia, you have enough people walking out the door that even though maybe it wasn't what they asked for, but they loved it, and all their friends comment on it, that word spreads.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Right, that was the thing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then they know, okay, you may not do what they want, but you're gonna do what's right. And that's a good reputation to have.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, it was the visionary look of it all, the way he was in our Italian heritage.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, how did mom participate in all that?
Robert DiLella Jr.. So she was the, so when they opened the salon, the environment was a lot like our home was. It was like, come on in, or celebrate, whoever stopped by the house was welcome, and the house was open for them. People used to just stop by, now somebody rings your doorbell, like who's that?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Right, I mean, you look in the whatever you call that film thing, or whatever, the photo.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, so we, but in our home, it was always Come on in, we'll have food for you, always food for you. The cake that was on the counter wasn't for us, it was for the company that came over.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Right, you couldn't touch it, yay, because some moment there will be some company.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Somebody will be here, that's right.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Right, that sounds right.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Every holiday, we always have people that are, I have no clue who they were, but they were there, they opened their home up there. And so the salon sort of was just an extension of that. It was literally like you were host to a cocktail party all the time, and she was the front of the house, where she got to just celebrate humans. She loved people, she loved being with people, she loved the people that she met, and she was the host of the party. Right, she's back to the stage.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That was her role, so she was sort of the, because especially in those early days of day, was the events were dinners, the heart ball, the angel ball, the things to learn, it was the social part of, I remember my father Bought a Mercedes Benz in the early 80s, which there weren't a lot of cars, like Mercedes was the thing to have. Yeah, right, right. It was like a big, big deal. To have a Mercedes, and the accountant, Bruce, the F-SYS, your hairdresser, what do you need a Mercedes for?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I don't get right, because you're not like a realtor taking people out of your car.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How am I gonna justify this, the IRS? How am I gonna set us the IRS? Well, we have to entertain, we have to see people, we have to go to places, I have to look the part, I have to look successful, and the big deal that it was then, but the atmosphere of the community, the way Naples grew with those roots of people and those events that were happening. In fact, he would sell one of the auction items that he would sell with Bill Barnett, Bill Barnett would do the cancer auction.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh yeah, oh yeah, we were about, yeah, I don't remember.
Robert DiLella Jr.. He would, instead of just giving haircuts, what he would do, because he was a great cook, he was a phenomenal cook, he would sell dinners at his house, and he would sell this feast, or he would donate, we're gonna have this, whatever, lobster, Italian marinara, whatever he would create, because he was just notorious for that, sell dinner for 12 at the house, and so they would entertain. And pay some money? Yeah, so they would give that away, versus the haircut welcome to the family.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Let's probably look at the name out so much, because I remember when it kind of hit town, so to say, and the reputation, it was to be an experience above any other, was not just walking in to get a haircut, I just remember that, so I mean, he did it well, whatever he was doing, he did it very well.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, that was sort of the thing, like it was, your guests in our home, this is an event, this is a bigger deal than just, and now we still, to this day Wanna make sure that people get something that they didn't know they needed, but when they have it Their lives are significantly better. Yeah, like they can't describe it, so the experience is, you're gonna have 20 people love on you when you walk in the door, 20 moments of love, like whether you're a client or not, but just the experience of being known, appreciated, loved, respected, just served for that hour, like a way that you, got a level of love that we're just not used to.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Okay, I gotta come tomorrow, okay, you saw me.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Their hearts are in it, they really wanna be here, and, in this day and age, we talk about the different generations and how they are good or not good, and all the rest of that, ultimately, finding people who are passionate about this business and being givers, so that when people leave, they don't just, yeah, you're gonna get a great haircut, that's a known, the technical part of it's gonna be there too, but also you feel that internally, like the fulfillment that comes from, leaving the businesses is different than what, just a commodity, just a transaction, so it's something that's special, and that was their way, that was who they were always, because whoever came to the door, whether it was at home or in the salon, they were a part of the family.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. See, and we were always taught that too, obviously being a family of nine, not everybody would have you over for a holiday meal, because it was like eight extra people at the table, we don't have room, but we did have very close friends, my parents that did bring us over, and when we opened up to a holiday, like you say, having people you don't know at the table, but everybody was invited, and if you had a guest in, or you had a family member, or you ran into somebody who served you in a restaurant, and didn't have anywhere to go on Christmas, guest pre-alanded, right there in our hall, right?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And it was a beautiful, I mean, that really taught us so much, because it wasn't about telling us how to be a good person, or how to open your home to people, but it was showing us, they just, that's what we did, that's what they did. So that's what we did. I remember when Jan first kind of became a part of the family, it was tough on him. First, we're a hugging family. Of course, we like to eat, we like to talk very loud. He really had to get used to it, but what was really tough to get used to was, that you're elite, well, I shouldn't say this, we don't anymore as much, but if, we either leave our houses open, or anybody knows how to get in anybody else's house.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And in the early days, especially when we had no money, or just putting everything into the business, and you got to attend all these fancy events, and we had Fine Arts Society Ball, actually was one of the first in the year of Ritz Carlton, but I remember we couldn't afford to go out and buy a gown.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So we'd be mailing from other people's homes, friends or family members, oh, I got a pair of earrings that'll go with it, I got a pair of shoes that'll fit you, and we put together our outfits, but as a family, the girls have always gone into each other's closets, because at one time we were all about the same size, and our husbands, they really had a tough time with that, because they'd just come in, they might knock, but, they walk in and say, oh, I just got to get an outfit, hi, good morning, I'm just going into Kim's closet, I'll be gone in 10 minutes, and they come out all dressed up, and, but I guess they got used to it, and realized that's how we've always been, and you know what's beautiful, what's beautiful, Rob, is seeing our children doing the same thing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, their homes are open to anybody who wants to come, who maybe they have a place to go, but prefer to come to your house, or maybe they don't, and they want to come, versus, some folks will say, well, the holiday is just the family, not her family, or not his friend, or not, you know what I mean? We never had to do that.
Robert DiLella Jr.. No, yeah. Our kids grew up learning the same, so that's great. That's a beautiful thing, it's being carried on, because it was special and unique, when we were up north, before we moved here, the neighborhood, almost everybody in the neighborhood, last name, ended in a vowel. It was very predominantly Italian, I would say, for the most part, and everybody's home, was everybody's home.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Wherever you were, wherever you popped in after playing football, or touch football, or tackle, killed a guy with a ball, or whatever we called it at the time, you'd go to whoever's home, and his mom, or somebody in the family was there to make sure you ate, you sit down and you eat, because our homes are open to everybody. And now, if we don't have somebody who Everybody's not wondering who are they, there's something wrong, because we always have, just whoever doesn't have somebody to celebrate with, because holidays, so much of our Italian culture was around holidays all the way. Food.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Food, 100% of all food. You don't eat. That's what's hard about going to Sperlonga, because you're constantly invited into heat, and you can only have so many meals a day. It's like, I'm done, I'm done. Come on, come on, Joe, come on.
Robert DiLella Jr.. No, it was, I know, because it's an expression of love, so you have to enjoy and appreciate the food, because that's how they're showing you their love, and if you don't-- Sadly, you got it. We have a friend, one of my mother's dear friends, who she went to elementary school with in Philadelphia, still comes down, and she stayed in touch with us, which I'm grateful for, because she has so many great stories of my mom. And she comes every year, and she cooks this meal closest to what my mother would cook, which hasn't existed since she passed.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. What day is this, so I write it down?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, they're usually here this time of year, every year, they're not here this year, which is very unusual, but every year we celebrate this, and she cooks this incredible spread of food, which is just a reminder of those days of mom's, mom making the sauce, and being outside every Saturday, lifting the lid off the sauce, and from outside you smell the aroma, the garlic and the basil, and you knew the meatballs were about to be cooked, and you wanna steal some meatballs.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I'd be standing in a little step stool over a very small, stove and oven that my grandmother would cook at, but that was very tiny.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Isn't it crazy how they would do that?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they would cook these huge spreads for 30 people, and I'm like, what, how did you do this?
Robert DiLella Jr.. I know, I know what I look at my grandmother's house, they see that now, and just, how did you-- And now these kitchens are bigger than some houses, and they're literally, you couldn't fit two people, between the, they have like a little kitchen table, and the cooking area was here, but you couldn't, there wasn't much room there. Didn't it happen? They did, and a little tiny, fill it up your row home, and they cooked incredible meals out here.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Our hometown, where my grandmother came, where my grandfather came from, the apartment they lived in or whatever was 400 square feet, but they managed to do everything in there, kitchen was like, I think it was like two by two, I mean, really, and the laundry, you open the window up, the shutters, and you had your line that you-- That's a hung it up, yeah., it's way up top, high in the building, today we'd be penthouse
Robert DiLella Jr.. You know, so. They call it that, yeah. How has the world, not just the industry, the world changed, because they noticed There's so many young people with Uber wealth that wasn't able to be earned 34 years ago, to become that wealthy, it took years of accumulation. And now, a kid writes an app for a game.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they're multi-multi-million, right?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, and all these young people, we just came from L.A., and you see the people out there Kids, it might be, they're just Uber wealthy.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, amazing, I mean, we've had folks that, developed some business concept, sold it out for multi-millions, and then developed another business concept, but they did it all out of their own. They've never left their home, they've never opened a shop. Yes, right. Totally different experience, and somehow they make it happen, which is amazing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, well, technology, where they're involved in technology, obviously, that's a big thing, but, kids are schooled a little differently today, and they're very smart in certain things, but there's a lot of that basic stuff, that, basic kind of things that go into decision-making, and a normal thing that you learn over experience, over time, over having mentors, and they don't wanna take that time, and some of these folks have, like you said, made instant, almost wealth, and, but they don't have the experience backing it up on some of the things they should be doing, but technology today, and AI, I mean, you can begin a business, you can do all your branding, all your business decisions, your spreadsheets, everything, by just saying, okay, put together this for me, and all of a sudden your computer, or your telephone, forget, they don't work on computers around the telephone, or their iPads, and, creating that, and it's interesting, because like I had mentioned earlier, Rob, I started when I was very young, I was like 23, I think, when I started the business, in my client's world or ages, and I forgot, I was just, forgot what I was gonna say on that, but Oh, that, you learn how long it took them, to develop a company, or become a CEO, and that length, and the length of our learning, to learn how we can serve others, I mean, there were years, our early advisors that we mentored spent years at learning what we did, and how to do it, and how to pass that experience along, but as we worked with these four generations, mom and pop, or let's say your World War II generation, very different and unique way of thinking, they also, most all of them retired with some kind of pension, so regardless of what the stock market did, the kids saw that they had the same lifestyle, regardless if the market went up or down, or the economy was, terrible or better, it wasn't tied to that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Then you get into the Baby Boomer generation, where of course, their parents wanted them to have more, have it easier, have it better But those pensions didn't exist that much in that world at all, so they had to learn how to handle drawdowns off of whatever funds they had built up, and then, and so that Baby Boomer generation, and I don't mean to stereotype anybody, but pretty much, when I served the World War II generation, every detail, every note, every number, I had to back up, I had to research, I had to prove, I had to do spreadsheets, they'd come in with their big black books and track their stocks every week, that kind of thing, and then when I started serving their children, who are now in there going into their 80s, but back then, or maybe 60s, they were kind of like, I just want the key, and I want to get in the car, and I want to turn it on and have it run, just go, I don't really want to know all this stuff that makes it go, so you take care of that, just, I'll make the final decision, but you do all that, you do all the research, the backup, you execute, I don't want to be a part of that, I want to be on the golf course, I want to be traveling, whatever, and then the next generation was kind of like, we can do it myself, I've got all this access, now what's happening is that the folks we're serving today that are younger, for the first time I'm seeing them come to us, they said, yeah, we've got all the technology, we have the AI, we're running a successful business, we're doing X amount, a year, I've built a significant net worth, but all this information doesn't guide me or advise me on what decision I should make, I don't know what it's gonna look like five years, or one year, or 10 years, or 20 years down the line, I don't know how to make a decision, I've just got all this data, and I don't even know if I can believe the data, right?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So for the first time I am seeing this generation kind of thinking the way the World War II generation saw it, as far as being involved and planning for their future, and planning for the way they want to raise their kids, or expose them, or whatever, it's different, it's very interesting, they want to know the mechanisms, they want to know what makes it tick, I have not seen that before.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, like you say, there is so much information available to, right?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It's too much, it's hard. Look at what one of our biggest issues is, as we get into healthcare and wellness, and we could talk for days on end on that, but mental health and wellness, and these young kids, but if you're older and you learn to use AI, or your telephone and do all these great things with it can really enhance those older ages and the quality of life and that, but when you're starting out with these kids from the time they can pick up a telephone, they've got a telephone and access to technology, it's just so much, and it is creating issues, because they don't have the base fundamentals of growing up like you and I did.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So how do they get this overstimulation all the time?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Sure, yeah. And not having to think through a problem, if I came home from school and the door was locked and I didn't have my key, I couldn't text mom and say, what do I do?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, yeah, come help me or do it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I had to figure out how I was either gonna get in the house or what I was gonna do to occupy my time until that, solve the problem on my own. Right, right. There was nobody, I could go to the neighbors and see if they can track her down, but literally you were forced to figure out whatever dilemma you were in, whether you were at school and something happened at school where you were--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I think you probably got a lesson on what you should have maybe done differently. Of course. Because maybe you didn't make the right choice, right?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, and there was something to be said for that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I remember a friend of mine getting arrested for breaking into his own home, but that was because that was his solution. I guess I just have to break the window, break into the house, because mom and dad aren't gonna be home till later. And he got arrested, because the neighbor didn't know and called about some guy breaking the window in the back of the house and trying to get in. Some kid, I mean, they obviously didn't complete the arrest, as they do.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I can relate., who he was. Yeah, I did it, because I had it out, but I came home and yeah, we lived in a still house in Vanderbilt and there was no key, couldn't get in, and I, in frustration, punched the window Which broke it and cut my hand really bad. So I, and I didn't, I knew I would get in trouble for one breaking the window, but also getting hurt. So I took my bike to my bleeding, I got on a bike, took my bike to my friend's house, whose mom was a nurse. I was hoping she could, make it look good, so I didn't get in more trouble.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Right, so maybe they won't notice, and I have my hand all wrapped up in the broken window. You know, the things we do as kids, I don't know.
Robert DiLella Jr.. There's no ring doorbell to catch the evidence of it. Yeah, but I, you have the Even though they're all simple things, but they're part of problem solving. They're thinking. Yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. They're problem solving, very different. And it was very much engaging with whoever you were with. And then consciously thinking through who you wanted to be with. If you had a certain thing you were working on, whether it was in school and they were creating a team to work on something, or whether it was on your own in sports or whatever, you kind of chose folks to connect with, and sometimes you didn't have the choice and you had to learn how to work through it. Yeah. And things like that, but today it's just different. Now, a lot of that communication exists looking at a computer or on a text, or,.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And I've, I'm on Facebook, I'm not on Facebook, Jan's not on Facebook, but he's never on, but I'm only on there because I want to see what my grandkids are up to. I'd like to hear. It's great for that. And it's too hard to stay connected when everybody's all over, right? So you can see and say, hey, great. And, texting with them, it's perfect. They actually text back. Sometimes if you call, they don't call back, but,. But we're blessed, they're very close. So again, their parents were all about family and engagement and siblings, and it's nice to see them even grow up as best friends and do things together,. But yeah, it's a little different.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And I think the biggest, toughest thing, that I've seen in working with a lot of families is obviously siblings are all different, usually, right? Some get along well, some don't. Sometimes there's a history with maybe some of them as an alcoholic or drug addiction, and you just can't get over that, even if they have. You know, change their future. So you look at these things and you say, is there a way I can help? Is there something I could do or say?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Because here I am serving their parents, and the parents are so, so interested in improving and helping their children, but don't communicate, can't communicate on a lot of things that they maybe like to, but they never had a communicated with them when they were older, so, with their parents. So they just don't even look at that. And you say, well, let me see what we can do. Can we just open the communication somehow? So it doesn't all come out in the end, which is exactly what the parents don't want to happen.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Now that's why I think I shouldn't say this, any family, but Italians have an advantage, because we'll just yell and scream and talk about it, try to get our point across, no matter who's listening, right? And so someone's gonna hear it, whether we want them to or
Robert DiLella Jr.. Not. 100%, yeah. For the youth that we have coming into the business and the generation that we're, because we have probably five different generations of people in the business at some level, from 72 to 17 and age range wise. So for this younger generation that comes in, because each generation wants different things from work. Of course, absolutely. Used to be health insurance was something that our industry never had and we wanted it. And in the 90s, it was like a big deal to have a health plan in this industry. And now it's secondary to the thought process, because they're insured to the 26 now anyway and to their parents.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Right, right, so they don't even, yes.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's a good job choice that matters. But I don't have a direct relationship with it, but I'd like to, we mentor and guide young adults to be successful. What's important to me is that they become wildly successful in doing what they love. That they love their career and they're happy doing it. So my role is to make sure that, I get everything out of the way so that you can be full of yourself and express creativity and do what you love and you're passionate about. And that everything in life is fulfilled for you through our family.
Robert DiLella Jr.. In other words, you're gonna grow financially, you're gonna grow emotionally, professionally, spiritually, and whatever way to provide a path for them. So there's a mentorship and a guidance in a way. And around finance, I don't directly tell anyone what to do, but just that we do have a 401k and that, why it's, important. Cause they don't think in terms of retirement or anything like that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they think in terms of what's in the check, but you know what's interesting? Like we just retired an advisor and some staff members that have been with us since day one, when we didn't even afford a phone with a whole button, we had two phones. So we'd say, could you hold a moment? I thought I'd guess good morning, sick early advisory services., I mean, that was our whole button. But we have always wanted, we said, if we are here serving clients and we are not serving our family, our team members, our staff, our friends, then something's wrong. So we've always taken a very conscious role in doing that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. What I love is as we've developed this next generation of advisors, that they have actively taken that role serious as well. So every employee that we have, we talk to them about money in a sense now. It's up to them how much they want to talk. So we said, look, first of all, no cost, whatever you want to do in savings. Secondly, we have a profit share. You are going to participate. If we are making a profit, you are going to participate in that profit share. That profit share is going to be put into retirement, meaning you own it as a certain point. This point is very, I don't know what the months are, maybe six months or something.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. You're going to own it, but it's going to go into a deferred fund, 401(k). So we have always done the profit share. We have done the match on the 401(k) because we wanted them to understand about growing assets and security for the future, but it takes dealing with a planner. And really it's more about the choices you're making. Should I pay this for a car or at least the car? Should I buy this? Or can I afford this? Can I not? What great decisions are you making and what are you having a tough time with? So they get to select, every team member we bring on selects which advisor they would like to work with.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And our advisors provide that advice and that time with that employee on a confidential basis. Regardless of what it takes, they're doing that complimentary. They're not getting paid to do that, but they all take it seriously. They love it and they really help. So when we see that we're retiring someone with six, seven figures, that's only happened because we've tried to provide that proper mechanism and advice and didn't just pay it all on a paycheck, especially for somebody who's just beginning out in a career and not really understanding that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Though fortunately there's now finance programs that many kids are participating in a way that have some more real life kind of training to it than textbook
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oriented. Right, right. Yeah, I don't know where to go with this group, but just in hearing what are some things that you would share with, not from a financial, just from a life perspective, but finance with a new group of recruits that are coming into Robert of Philadelphia about money. Because there's no conversations about it.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, you don't have any conversations on that because we're a financial firm. So it would be, it should happen. And I'm amazed because we have many employees who work for other firms, but we're handling their financial area, which has been interesting to me. They've just never asked or never approached it or never offered it. One thing that we've always said is when we deal with family, that means there are no minimums if they're family. If they're family, I don't care if they're five years old and their grandfather gave them a 50 cent piece and they want to invest it or something. You know what I mean?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Not quite that, but we're gonna do that because they're part of you, they're part of the family and we want to educate them. But if you were, one of the things you can do, like one of the things we do, we want to teach our staff. We share what we do, who we do it for, how we do it, in sense of if we're helping someone with retirement community and what does that planning entail or parent as Alzheimer's or healthcare decisions, things like that. And we are a resource for, hey, my grandkids are coming in this weekend, what can I do for them in the community? Can I take them somewhere?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I heard that you can go watch the owls nesting or the eggs hatching or whatever, how do I do that? So we'll bring in people who will, it may be a fun day, it may be a learning day, right? And they will select what they might need. And we provide that kind of as a part of the resource of just caring about our team. So in Roberts of Philadelphia, I mean, you could determine because usually they're just talking to each other on financial decisions. And, but you could provide something that would allow them to get an education of some sort. Oh my goodness, sorry.
Robert DiLella Jr.. This is not good for us Italians.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. No, it's terrible because we both talk with our hands and I'm trying to like, okay, maybe I should have more coffee here and I'm not talking with my hands, terrible. I've broken a lot of pieces on desk.
(Laughing)
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I'll tell you just, ooh, just cause I get excited.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Never still, I know.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But I don't know, I think it's, well, for example, you have a 401k you said that you offer. So, traditional 401k education as somebody comes in and teaches you why you should sign up and maybe once a year, maybe they might meet with you. When we have done 401ks for our clients, we will go in and we offer complimentary time for them to talk through their personal financial issues, not just the 401k. And I can't tell you how many young people I find from all different businesses that offer the 401k But they're still sitting in cash. They made the commitment to have the money taken out, but they never invested it, never put it to work.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I'm like, oh my goodness, that's, one of the principles, you have to own something, you have to be a shareholder, you need to put it to work. Now, if interest rates are 18, 20% or even 8%, maybe you don't need to be in the market. Maybe that's okay as long as you're earning interest, but yeah, they generally know very little about it, but yet it is their greatest opportunity to build some future security. And unfortunately, the common sense knowledge of the types of decisions that you have to make as you're developing, whether in a career or family or whatever transition Those practical kind of decisions aren't well made by many people.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And it's not because they don't have the best of intention, it's just because they have the wrong input., what a neighbor does may not work for you. So, what do I need to know? We always felt that we're kind of the CEO and the person, we're the resource that will execute, but you have to make that decision, but you've got to make sure you get the right information in front of you. And it's hard because how do you pass that along to young people? But Rob, I'm seeing in this generation, they are inquisitive, they are interested, they do wanna learn because they're tired of being on their phone and all this, online information, but what does it mean to them?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. You know, they don't know. So, maybe there's a way to inculcate that into an offering, somehow.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I could see, just as you say that, that the participation rate is high, but then what are they doing with it in there? And I don't know that they know.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they're probably not getting much advice on it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. At all, no, there's a link every now and then that the thing will send them, because I know they don't look at it anyway, and that's still not somebody communicating with them to find out what they want in their life.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And obviously our staff learns a lot because we're very transparent in what we're doing for the families we're serving. So, they kind of learn through osmosis kind of on that. But the fact that they will reach out is very impressive because many years ago, our generation of workers generally wouldn't do that. Now, when I initially started, it was different. Everybody that worked for me was over the age of like 45 or 55, they were all older, retired or semi-retired type folks that I would bring in that would come from other states, leave their career, and just want to do something, part-time when we first started. Actually, they ran me. I did, right, now.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Kim, you can't do that. You can't write that letter to the editor about the garbage on the side of the road every season. I said, "Why not? Those are your clients. Do not write that letter." I said, "Well, we did, but I'll be quiet." You know? Yeah, you gotta find how it interests them and what they can gain from it.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, I see that's a piece that Well, surviving the last couple of crises has gone by the wayside, the hurricanes that we've had recently and the pandemic, and, those are things that, we hadn't dealt with in this area for a long time.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, and how do you survive that in a service-type business? I mean, for us, we're still doing our job. In fact, we're having to do it at multi-times because people are losing their homes. We've gotta make arrangements. We gotta figure that out financially. How do we do this? So, we're all working remote, except for maybe five of our staff, like during COVID, that said, "I can't be productive at home. Can I please be at the office?" So, we set them up. We've got 7,500 square feet, so we could set them up to only a few people being in there, but you think, "Wow, how do you do things?" But we get on a Zoom call. We get to the people we need to get to.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It's not the same as one-on-one, but how do you handle a business like yours or a restaurant business somewhere? You have to have the client walk in the door right now today in order to sustain your business.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, there's nothing coming in. We were selling at the time for the 56 days that we were closed. I will never forget when-- You
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Remember it exactly. 56 days, two minutes, three seconds.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I remember when DeSantis on a Friday was May 8th. It was her wife's birthday. DeSantis came in and said, "Salons can open on Monday." It was phenomenal. So grateful for him. Thank you, thank you. And because people, regardless, they wanted to feel good. They wanted to get there.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I was gonna say, they wanted to be in here. Imagine all the women that had the gray coming out here.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, they weren't excited if I came on a Zoom call at that point. They knew they had Zoom, but they didn't want to look alike with those roots. Exactly. During that time period, we were doing whatever we could to fill time and space, and we ended up creating an online system where people could have their colors brought to their house. We couldn't apply it, but we were just delivering premixed color ready to go. So we set up a delivery route. There was some program at the time that allowed us to map out all the addresses. We had to go to like a pizza delivery almost. It would tell them, "It's your color showing up at this hour. Get ready to--" That's amazing, Rob.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Now see, that is exciting. That's really having a creative head and vision to say, "Okay, this is how we could do this."
Robert DiLella Jr.. I have not heard that. They wanted-- Maybe I
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Wouldn't have gone gray if I had known that.
(Laughing)
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Or white, whatever the sense.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Embrace the view. Yeah, a lot of people, it was something for us to do, number one, it could occupy time, but it also gave people a little bit of something to bring that time through. Yeah, sure. Because we were doing nothing in the service business. I feel bad, we just got back from California and I feel bad for the people there that stylists there that were forced to, they were closed so much longer than we were.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, changed their lives up, I'm sure.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Forever, yeah. Yeah. Changed the world in so many different ways. But to survive, to go through the things, and you've been here a long time, there was nothing like Irma, and then nothing like Ian.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh gosh, exactly.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Let's see, one of them was the worst we've ever had. We get nipped by Charlie and Wilma. Yeah, sure. They were all nothing to the degree that those two were.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Not at all.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So riding the cycle of business, whatever.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, I remember being out of power for a few days and 41 flooding, things like that, but it was just something that had to take your attention and you had to get up and running again, but we didn't have the disasters here.
Robert DiLella Jr.. No.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And to have all of this happen from a financial and mental wellness standpoint, and physical is, you're talking about hurricanes sandwiched in between having COVID, look at what people in this area have been through over a period of less than a decade of time, right? That's a lot to go through and a lot of changes, especially for people who lost homes or businesses, or look at how many businesses had to close. Jan and I used to every summer say, "Okay, let's get the list out. "What are the new restaurants? "And let's go try them all." And now, forget it, we can't even come near to it. And there's so many changes too, but yeah, that's a lot to go through.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And physically, when you think of during that time, people on their health, and I'm not even talking other scenarios, but like during COVID, they obviously weren't going in and attending to things. They just waited until it became urgent to attend to it. And so, yeah, we have a lot more unfortunate deaths issues with folks that shouldn't really been. And I said one thing to my staff when we prepared them, and I'll tell you, I had great folks. We have just great leaders in both offices and overall in our operations area and compliance, and they were just so super about getting to the staff and getting the right things done, and making sure what was going on.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But I said to the group, I said, "We're either gonna have a lot of divorces "or a lot of babies." What are the others gonna happen during this time? And you do yet 80 and 85 year old people and older, divorcing, recognizing, and younger, recognizing that they didn't have the kind of marriage that they wanted or the opposite happened. They finally learned to enjoy each other's company because maybe they were too busy to go into all these things.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So true, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And they learned to really kind of relearn about each other. It was interesting, but because that impacts, again, everything you do is impacted by the financial staying power you have. So we were incredibly busy then. We're always busy for that kind of thing because it has to do with so much
Robert DiLella Jr.. Of what's going on. Yeah, and just a disrupted life in ways that, we weren't prepared for.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But that's a very creative solution, and it's interesting doing that.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, whatever we could do at the time. We were, and I'll just talk about Prabh Dasantis and his decision to open up.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Mm-mm, mmm, mmm.
Robert DiLella Jr.. I'm very, very excited.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I realize that was May 8th, interesting.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, yeah, it was my wish. We were gonna, I apologize to her for not celebrating her birthday the way we had planned, but we had to get, she understood. Oh gosh, yeah, go get open. Yeah. People back in again. Yeah, I had to put tape down, where people stood and, the whole--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, did you do that and all the, what do you call the-- You didn't do the fucking last up, no.
Robert DiLella Jr.. The site or something, you didn't do the-- No, no, no. Okay, just the people part. We just did what we, I didn't know because you didn't know. Yes. You just had to, and there was no guidance on what to do because that's what scared me the most. It's like, all right, are we doing it right? Are we doing it wrong?, what is the right way to do it because it was changing everything.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And you had to think about your liability.
Robert DiLella Jr.. 100%. Yeah. I mean, we were getting bashed on Facebook and social media for opening, number one. We're killing people's what people are saying. You're killing people, just the, because we were open and some people chose to work and some didn't and that was okay.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, you gave it absolutely. We did the same.
Robert DiLella Jr.. You wanna do it? Great, if not, it's okay too. It's fine, you just do what's in your heart, the right thing for you. And same with guests or customers, the same way it's just like, if you wanna come, we're here for you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Right, but if you don't, we understand.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, do happen.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. When things get better, we'll bring you back in.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, we're here, yeah. So you learn to go with whatever life throws at you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Go with the flow but make sure it makes some kind of sense and again, you gotta have the staying power to be able to do something like that. We don't know what that next crisis is and, our big thing has always been planning in advance of need. I mean, that's been one of the biggest drivers because you don't wanna be making decisions in the middle of the crisis. You don't wanna determine then whether you can handle something or not. So we've always been very big about that kind of reserves in a sense, whether you're a business or an individual family or whatever. There are so many unknown things that can happen to change your circumstance.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Your child becomes ill and your insurance company doesn't cover it. So now you could drain hundreds of thousands of dollars. Well, do you wanna have that capability to do that? Of course, who doesn't want? It looks very different if you don't have that staying power.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Is there a formula or a recommendation for somebody In terms of how much they should have in the bank for emergency fund? Yeah, somebody who's 21 and maybe not thinking about that, but educate people.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I remember being interviewed for a TV show and the person interviewing me was really yelling and he said, "How much should I have?" or whatever and I said, "Well, let's talk about just one budget item. Let's talk about healthcare." Because he didn't believe the numbers I was throwing at him as what he needs to do. Now, if you talk to Jan, he'll tell you should save 50% of every dollar you make. Should go in the bank. He's very regimented about this. I said, "There comes a time when you should spend a little too and give a little too." But there's no magic formula.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. What you really have to know is what kind of life do you wanna lead and what kind of choices do you wanna be able to make? And what are your circumstances? So some people are perfectly fine living on a lower income level. And some, they need some figures to make it work for what they do every year. And others, it's interesting. This is getting off topic a little bit, but teachers versus other very skilled, experienced workers, let's say, or folks that have built their own businesses, but teachers, the ratio of their income to their savings is the largest percentage over, for example, physicians who might earn a whole lot more.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But it's all about what you need, it's what you're spending, it's what your cash flow is, and your cash flow needs and how do you accommodate it. It's very hard for someone today to understand a lump sum of money and what that really should, in a prudent way, produce as far as cash flow. I gotta stop using my hands. Cash flow. So anyways, if you had a million dollars in traditional statistically, sorry, I didn't need this. 3% will continue to grow those assets, 4% will preserve, 5% over time may start deteriorating those assets.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well that's hard. What is that number? What is the percentage?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Three, four, and 5% is generally statistically what we've worked for over many years. Meaning 3%, if you had a million dollars, I'm just taking a million, it doesn't matter, add whatever zeros or take away whatever zeros you want. If you take 3% of that, you will continue to grow a legacy, you'll continue to grow assets and compound money. If you take 4%, you should be able to preserve those assets and continue to have them provide a set amount of cash flow. And then if you take 5%, over time, you'll begin to start terminating those assets, unless of course you're in a climate where you have 8% CDs and you're all invested in CDs.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. One of the things we talk about is our 12 principles of financial independence, believe it or not, and what makes the difference. And again, people not having pensions. Having a lump sum out of a 401k is not the same as having a guaranteed monthly check coming in every year, year in and year out until you pass away. So most people see a large sum of money and they think, well, that can accommodate X amount of expenditure, so I'm ready to retire. But in essence, it may only accommodate 1 fifth of what they need in cash flow. So I was gonna talk a little bit about the most important lessons. I'd say number one, own.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. If you constantly save money in like a 401k when you're sending in cash or some other equivalent fixed income instrument, you will not grow the legacy in most cases because you won't keep up with inflation. Even inflation at 2%. Yeah, I mean, so exactly, that's exactly what happens. So you wanna own, you wanna participate, be an owner in something. Having patience and keeping an open mind. Having the ability to not try to follow the crowds and want instantaneous Which again, goes back to some of these young multimillionaires. But generally, they're pretty smart, intuitive people and they know to get the right people on their team to help them through that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. That I have noticed. But making yourself valuable, I tell people, if you have a passion, that's one thing, but you need to know how to execute on the passion and make yourself valuable. Because if you make yourself valuable on something that you do, you will not only earn a living, you can thrive from it. And there is also a big difference between earned income and unearned income. So we say, no one understand the tax system. If I'm earning a wage, I'm gonna pay a whole lot out for taxes and insurance and all of those things. I need to participate in my mortgage, et cetera.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But it's gonna be taxed at a different rate than if I build assets and I have the assets earned for me. So the goal is build the assets, use the Rule of 72. Have you heard of that, Rob?
Robert DiLella Jr.. I remember that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We found that's great with young people. If I have-- I don't remember how it can calculate. Basically, let's say I have 10,000 today and let's say I'm gonna get a 10% return, I'll just say as an example. Then you divide that into 72. So it's gonna take me 7.2 years to double that. And that's 7.2 year period of time. So if I start with 10,000, it's gonna take me 7.2 years to get to 20,000. Just letting that sit, not adding. Now if I go to the next 7.2 years, same time period, I'm gonna go 20 to 40,000. I earned 20 grand in that second seven year period and I only earned 10 grand in the first. That's what I mean by compound money.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We teach, we start out, clients of ours, if they have a grandchild or a child or whatever, first thing we do is send a piggy bank. Teach your child to save. Then you'll teach them to invest. Then they'll continue to go from there. But also, big thing is most people don't know what they spent. I mean, today there are easy ways to have a program that will give you those numbers, information. You have information, you can build knowledge. If you can build knowledge, you can make good, intelligent decisions. I don't need to be your decision maker. I need to help you develop knowledge and education for you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Not for your next door neighbor, not for your brother, not for, but for you. And if you understand, like, impact, well, what is the price of oil have to do with me? Well, we know what's going on in the world today and we also know what it's costing to go to the grocery store or maybe have your hair done or go to a restaurant for dinner. So learning about that, learning about currency, learning about economics, interest rates, how it impacts you, important. And probably one of the biggest drivers of, when you say, how much do I need to retire? What's the number? There is no magic number. But don't become emotionally tied to money.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Like you get tied to your passion in life., whatever your career is, you have to treat your money decisions differently. That's almost like splitting the business decision from the family working together decision, right? It has to be, analytical and you always have to have staying power. If you have staying power, it's only a matter of time, as long as you're an investor and have something, you own something. It's generally a matter of time before things recover., obviously the past has no guarantee of the future and all of that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But if you don't have cash in the bank or reserves To get you through that COVID period of 56 days of closure, whatever, then you have no choice. You have no decisions to make. You have to close, you're done, right? And if you can build that staying power, and let's see, what are some of the others that we talked? Well, invest. And I guess really the biggest piece is understanding What you are earning, what you really are spending, and what it's gonna cost you to replace your income or whatever you have coming in today.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. When you stop, when that flow stops, and that's tough for most people because they don't really know what it means when I stop earning that wage or earning that income from my business, and now I'm gonna turn it off. Now I have a lump sum of money. What's my draw down? What can I create? What can I live on? Most people, I'd say probably closer to the high 90%, 99 whatever, don't really know what it costs them to live. They don't know what their expenses are. Businesses or have incredible jobs and got a great college education, but we just don't teach the basic fundamentals of money and how to make good financial decisions. Everybody can kinda do their investment thing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. There's all kinds of investment programs. Investments are almost a commodity if you're educated and how to handle it. People should be able to make reasonably good decisions there, but it's the financial decision making that they get caught up on. I can afford that $1.5 million house at the current mortgage rates that are here, but really they can't. Really their affordability is about a $750,000 house. Well, how do they know that? The banks are telling them, "Hey, you can qualify for up to here." Well, that's great if you want 50% of your earnings to go to support the house.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. If you don't wanna take your children on vacation, if you don't wanna go skiing in the winter here, that kind of thing. And that's where people can't relate the numbers.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, no, that's not a part of everyday thinking. To think through, what can I do?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It's the decision making. That's where your dad, my dad, that's where our parents had to really think through it. And most of it, they started out not having anything. So they really had to think through the decisions they make as they went along. They didn't have money to invest. It wasn't the markets that was driving their savings or their potential retirement one day, right? Totally different world.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, no, it wasn't even in the stock process. Just, yeah, what's this entity here that's gonna pay the bills? What can I-- Yeah, right. Pull it back into it to make it-- What can I do?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And most people don't know what they spend because they kind of spend all over the place. I mean, they might use Venmo or whatever, or Zelle or whatever. Maybe true. So they're on this credit card. They've got five other credit cards. Sometimes it's cash in the pocket. They're spending to buy lunch every day.
Robert DiLella Jr.. They usually don't put it together. You're spending it through the business and it doesn't count, or you think it doesn't count, but it's part of it.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, right. Like if you're paying for certain things that are bona fide and correct if you're running a business, it's coming through the business income. But you sell the business or you close the business. That's not gonna be there, but you still need to drive the car. I still wanna do some things.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So 3% is a number of drawdown of-
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. If you wanna continue to build assets. Now I say that, that is very, I mean, we have had people who have drawn down much more than that over many decades, but it just depends on how they plan for it in the market. Cause do you produce more? Yes, you should produce. There should be, if you're buying equities, you should have some reasonable return over a period of time. The reason why most folks don't achieve the returns of, let's say, and I should, I have to be compliance oriented here, but let's say overall there used to be this statistic and I'm sure it's still out there. I haven't paid much attention lately, but people would invest in a mutual fund.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. The mutual fund would almost always do better overall, if you look at the numbers, on performance, than what you as an investor in that fund may do. And the reason being is people jump. They wanna time the market. Oh my gosh, things are getting terrible. We're at war, we're this, we're that sell. Oh, things are nicer. It's appreciated. 15% I should buy back in. Totally wrong thinking. That's getting emotionally involved in something.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But as if you wanna continue to build assets and if you could take a 3% drawdown, you can get that in a, you could construct a portfolio on dividend or interest rates today that'll get you that and continue the possibility of growing your assets. But they state statistically 5%, the market never grows every year consistently. It's this, it's a lot of this. In fact, if people value their homes every day, like we value the stock market, they'd probably be selling and buying all over multiple times, right? It's an unknown factor until you go to sell your home or buy a home.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But the market is priced every single day and people are looking at this every single day and they get nervous in the wrong things. The right things to get nervous about is understanding where your paycheck is coming from. So for example, when we hit COVID, rate is that started out. We were actually in Baja then and trying to get back, obviously. And so the first thing we did was look at every client that was earning a living, meaning they weren't living off their assets and retired, earning a living that was dependent on something public, something, access.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. For example, we had some clients that, were involved in the healthcare industry with hospitals where they would go in and bring equipment and then train the surgeons in the operating room, that kind of thing. And they were paid a very base salary level but earned a big bonus because of how many hospitals they got into, et cetera. Well, the first thing we did was call those clients and say, stop investing. Stop your 401k at the moment, stop the extra money we've got going into these couple of portfolios, et cetera. And he said, "Wait a minute, Kim, you've never told us to stop investing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. You tell us to keep investing, maybe lower the amounts." And I said, "No, I want you to stop investing. I want you to raise cash because I don't, we feel that there may be a jeopardy here with your income. We don't know how long this is going to last and you've got to build staying power." And they're like, "No, no, we're still getting paid. I expect to get, I got a lot of things lined up, et cetera." Well, what happened? The doors were shut on all of that. It like shut down. They weren't allowing them in the hospitals or in the medical facilities. So the bonuses went away for like a year.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So, they didn't have the same income level but they had learned to spend at that income level. So that's why I said stop investing. And that spending wasn't really true spending. Some of it was spending, some of it was investing. We said stop the investing. Not that we don't want you to invest and not that there aren't opportunities at lower rates in the market, but you got to have cash on hand. You got to feed your family. You have to think about making your mortgage payment, not losing your home. Let's just temporarily do this. So that's what I mean by making good financial decisions that are different from how you invest your portfolio.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah. Yeah, because that's kind of counterintuitive sort of.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, oh, exactly. You say, well, let me keep going. Well, I remember a gentleman coming to see me. We have had a lot of very high-end executives come in and say, "I'm stuck on the cash flow piece." That's where they usually get stuck because their lives get so involved and they have gifting plans and they're shifting assets and they're retired and they're paying for this or they have a mom they're supporting or a mother-in-law and they can't really get a grasp because they're living off assets that are invested, not necessarily pensions or a monthly check coming in. And they're just trying to figure it all out.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But this one gentleman came in, he said, after we had met and it was too late to do anything. I mean, there was one thing that we did. We did sell the very large home they were in and had to downsize them dramatically. But he said, "You know what? I didn't keep my eye on the right ball." He said, "My wife kept asking me about it." He was in the real estate business and he was a builder and he just kept investing in real estate. But there's something called PCF, Positive Cash Flow.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Well, when we hit the bad markets back in 08, 09, 10, 11, as we were digging out of it, he lost practically everything and he could not support the cash flow needs of all the properties that he owned and he certainly couldn't sell them because they were underwater under the mortgage amounts at that point. So, those kinds of things, you just, yes, he was growing his net worth, a number on a piece of paper, but that's not cash in hand. That's different,?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And he realized that he should have been tracking his expenses and the income and making sure that he was still had the assets or the liquidity either put to reserves or to be in a more liquid position., the same thing with family businesses. How many of them are in illiquid positions? Your family business is generally your profit, the asset you've built, right?, with few exceptions, but usually that's the asset.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So what makes I hear in so many ways how you're different, how would you summarize how you and your family of people are different from separate from other
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Firms? Because we feel that the investing part of it, when people talk about wealth or their services or their greatest gift got on earth or whatever They're usually talking about the investments. Oh, we were up X percent, and everybody else who's S&P was only up this. I don't care how much you're up because you could be up tremendously. We could do an incredible job at the portfolio, but if you're not making the right financial decisions and what you're spending and how you're managing cash flows and taxes and all those other things, you're never gonna be able to keep up with it.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So that's why, because of the way our parents taught us is how we believe in looking at a client's situation. So when we begin, before we even, obviously we have to do the investing so that it's good investing or our clients wouldn't stay with us, right? But we're always gonna start with, what are you all about? Tell us about you. Yes, we'll look at all the numbers, but we're gonna look at all those other things that you probably haven't even paid attention to. And yes, we can make sure that we dot the I's, we cross the T's and we get a good financial picture. And then it's gonna take us a couple of years to really get to know you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Because again, somebody can live well off of, a hundred thousand dollar a year income and others, they gotta have seven figures to live well. So it's all in proportion. And so if we have the picture and we know what you're all about and we know it's important to you and we figure out what revenue or expenses are gonna come up in your future because of however you're set up today., maybe your wife has a pension down the line, right? But you don't or whatever. Or maybe you have an upcoming expense, there's someone in the family that, you're gonna have to financially care for. What does that mean to you? Or there's a health issue, what does that mean?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Or maybe you've worked for different companies and you still have 401 keys all over. And, there are many people who got into like investments of, I won't mention particulars, but, investments where they didn't recognize that when they cashed out, they actually lost a benefit. Like, maybe they could have approached the company and said, I wanna stop paying, like premiums on an insurance plan or a long-term care. Well, they might be able to stop paying but still have a benefit resting there because they've paid in over the years. But they just cash it out because they say, I can't afford to keep paying it. So you just cash it out and they don't realize they took that loss.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But we try to look at, understand the person's picture in every aspect, even healthcare is a big decision. Whether, I'm working with folks that, maybe they decided to move mom in the house, but now it's not working because now the daughter's having cognitive issues. And now the husband is there trying to take care of two people with cognitive issues and it becomes difficult. You either have to have full-time care or maybe there's an option and you have to look at a retirement community or something to help. But A lot of scenarios like that where a spouse will try to take care of another spouse and it'll be very draining.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And the last thing they're looking at is the financial side of it, and yet the financial side is gonna drive The ultimate crisis decision you're gonna have to make if you don't plan for it. So we kind of look at everything and the best thing that we can bring to the table is really the experience we've had from all our clients. We can pass that experience on to other clients in an obvious confidential way. But to be able to work with some of the folks we worked with early on and to learn from what they did wrong and what they did right That was largest value above any other learning experience other than practical with my dad over the years when we grew up.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, that's so much more than just where to put the money.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, that's the easy part of designing your plan, believe it or not. Well, because that's what we do., we know that area. That's the easiest part. The tougher part is really getting what you're all about first on the financial page and then learning the personal side so that we can serve you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It's kind of like my other clients, especially a gentleman, say, "Okay, "so this is like a marriage." I said, "Yep, I'm not competing with your wife "for her side of what she puts together." But I said, "This is like a marriage "and that's how close it has to be." And I'm not, we never wanted to charge an hourly fee because I would rather a client pick up the phone and call us and say, "I'm having this issue. "I'm thinking about doing this. "What do you think?" And since we know their entire financial picture and tax picture and all that, we can easily give some input to that and say, "Well, if you do this, "this is gonna affect this.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. "So maybe choice two that we're talking about "is a better way for you to go and here's why." And we can help that decision versus they make the decision. Then they come in three months later and say, "Oh gosh, look what I've done." And we're like, "Oh, you could have done it different." So we always wanted people to pick up the phone. And if they have new information or something, maybe they have an inheritance coming from an uncle or whatever. Okay, we'll provide the information if you have it. We're gonna put a note on it. Not that we're gonna count it towards your future, in a sense, because how do we know he won't need to spend it down before he actually gets to you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But we're gonna know it exists and then we're gonna maybe help that uncle plan for how he wants to distribute that to you when the time comes. Just makes it easier.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Such a paradigm shift for me, just hearing it that way. Because I just never realized that. That there was, that it's the whole picture you're looking at. I literally only thought it was just, what am I doing with the money?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Where's it going? How can you invest for somebody in a vacuum?, I remember the first big check, the cab, what I did, the big check back then, came in the door. Client or person, the new introduction to us, wanted to invest about a half a million dollars at the time. And so I said, "Okay, here's how we work. "Here's what I'll need to take a look at them. "I'd love the privilege of working with you." He did not want to disclose anything else. And I understand that at the time.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And I said, "I'm sorry, then we're not the firm for you "because I cannot invest your money or give you advice "if I don't know how else, "I don't know if I have to do it "on a tax-free basis or taxable. "I don't know if you have some other, credit, "I mean, pay off or debt, pay off debt first. "You know, if you're paying today, "there are unfortunately debt is being built back up. "And, there's foreclosures have increased. "A lot of things are happening. "That's how it's affecting individuals. "But if you're sitting there on credit card debt "that you've been running "because you put your kid through college "and it's at 30% now, great.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. "And you want to invest with me, "first thing we're gonna do is invest back "and get rid of this 30% debt. "You know, we're gonna get that off the table "or we're gonna "visit with the credit card companies, let's say, "and somehow figure out what to do with it." Yeah, so.
Robert DiLella Jr.. That's awesome. Because I just, this like, puckling moment.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Well, like I say again, it's how we started because, basically when you got in this business, you either got in as a trader or broker. Or you got in as an investment firm where basically you were investing portfolios, which could be for clients that came direct or through other advisors. Or you could deal with the personal client first and build from there. We just chose the third. Only because that's how we were taught. And I say that I was working in my dad's office at 11 years of age and so were other family members and different times.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But Ray and I were the ones that originally took to it and then other brother and sister came about into the picture later on because they were younger at the time., but being exposed to that showed me so much. Yeah, it just taught us a lot.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Well, who was it? Instrumental, was there somebody who had a huge impact on your life that changes the trajectory of your life?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Besides my parents. Could be anyone.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Or family.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, obviously my parents incredible because if they saw an initiative on my part, they encouraged it., when I loved poetry, my dad had somebody he worked with on the business side whose mom was a well-known poet. He arranged for me to go spend three hours on a Saturday with her. Like several times, I did it like six weeks in a row where she could critique my poetry and all that. I'm lousy at English by the way. So, and I'm also not so good at numbers. I shouldn't say that. My brothers are super intellectual on that side. They can do a quick calculation like this because my dad taught them all the shortcuts.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But anyways, I would say that the people who I looked at, unfortunately, I didn't grow up being able to shadow anybody in the business other than when I was really young because Ray and I started it. We kind of had to do our thing and learn as you go. But those people that probably had the best influence on me as to what kind of philosophy and values would be Uncle Norman, who is an old Jewish guy in Buffalo. He was not an uncle. He was someone my dad met and fell in love with. And I used to spend time with him too. Again, my father would expose us to people who could help us. And he had all kinds of businesses.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And, he would talk about, what kind of screws you should carry in a hardware store versus this and where your profit margins were and all that. There was another gentleman, Dr. Christopher Hagerty. Chris was a kind of a Fortune 500 speaker and dealt with executive level companies all over the world. And when he would come into town, him and my dad became very close friends. Again, all older folks, I was very young. And Chris would call up my father and he'd say, "Frank, I'm gonna come in town." He says, "I gotta go to, wherever." "I gotta go to New York. I'm in California." But I figured Buffalo's on the way. So I'm gonna arrive at 11 o'clock at night.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Do you think Joni will let me spend the night? And so my dad would say, "Oh, come on over, Chris. I'll pick you up at the airport." When you're getting in, he would pick him up at the airport. On his way home, my mom would be waking every one of us kids up. And we would go down to that family room and we would all sit there. Chris would arrive and he would spend an hour or two hours talking to us at 11 o'clock at night about what's going on in the world, right? And then we'd go to bed and my dad and him would stay up all night and then he'd fly out the next morning, but things like that. So I would say then there was another person who was very instrumental.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Joe Diodamo was just a favorite of mine. These were executives that just were so intuitive and human and you could relate to. And they loved sitting with younger people, and talking through everything. They didn't leave anything out,? And Joe had retired down here, but he ran and he was president of an insurance company up in Jericho, Long Island, which was part of a larger company, Northwest National. And I learned so much from him. I learned how the real world worked. In a sense, I remember we were helping design some first product, which was a life insurance product based on survivorship.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And the reason for that was it made more sense to insure the woman than the man, because usually women have longer life expectancies and your estate taxes were due when the second of you pass. That's how it worked. You could pass between spouses, but when it went to your kids, "Jop,",? And we were in the 300,000 range was all you could pass when I initially got in the business. It grew to 625,000. Now it's a, multi-million, 15 million each, whatever. But back then, it could be the value of somebody's house and everything else you left, an IRA or whatever would be subject to taxes.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So I used to have to argue with the underwriters about why the woman should be insured because she wasn't working. Only the man was working. So then we said, "Well, what about a survivorship life policy?" And, so he would expose me. He would take me into meetings with the actuaries and the heads of these companies. And we talk about the product that we want design and the business we were doing. He actually, we got to a point where we were doing so much business that was like the wholesale side of our business for other advisors that were doing a lot of estate planning and that they would develop product for us.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then if we did so much of the business, he'd say, "It's time to take the chassis to another company., we got to spread the risk." And, but I remember sitting there with an actual area and him looking at me and saying, "There's a problem with your business." I thought, I'm young. I'm good, why know? What do you mean there's a problem with our business? He says, "It's too persistent." I said, "Excuse me?" He says, "It's too persistent. It stays on the books." And I said, "Why is that a problem?" And he says, "Well, the products are designed to be lapsed supported." I said, "Huh, what?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Excuse me?" So I never knew that insurance was created and it was developed, not all insurance, but most insurance was developed with the idea that the policy would lapse well before they had to pay out. So they based their charges, their premiums, all of that, based on how many years that policy would stay on the books. They wanted it to get replaced. We didn't replace, we'd started with a great product and if that product's worth it was to this day the very best. Reagan changed the rules and minimized what you could pay in upfront in the first five years.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But basically, I was told that it was much harder to, gain a new client, someone to do business with than it was to just retain a client. That was more important, keeping a relationship and taking care of clients. So we never did free dinner seminars or all those things that our industry did because we felt who we needed to take care of was our client. So when they told me the business was too persistent and too loyal and that it was lapsed supported, I was... So those are the things I would learn from Joe. I learned how the business really worked because I never grew up in corporate America.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I grew up as my own, we had to create a business and I wouldn't have created it if I could have gone to some company and took taking care of a client relationship the way we felt it should have been doing. You know?
Robert DiLella Jr.. So the... Joe, your mother's name, Joan? Joan, yeah.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Joan?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, thank you. I was asked this question. How would she have described you?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, my mom and I didn't get along very well whenever I should, I shouldn't say that. I always felt she didn't understand me, which I didn't understand me either. How would she describe me? I have a lot of her characteristics, which I thank God every day for. Very much gratitude. She was a fabulous lady to do what she did with my father and raise all of us children and work. She worked in the military and, traveled around with him in a trailer and all that. But she would probably describe me as stubborn Definitely stubborn. If I get something in my mind, I'm going to hold tight to that, whatever. Visionary, probably, enthusiastic, always positive.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. A lot of energy, my energy I get from my dad. When I'm sick, I probably have the same energy level that most people have. So when I'm well, I'm way over the top, so I get that, especially the hand thing. I don't know, that's an interesting conversation. That's an interesting thought. How would she describe me? Probably too intelligent for my britches, I think, because I always was asking why. Anytime somebody said to me, I'd say why, or how does it work, or can I see? I still drive Jan crazy. We go over to Europe and, do you want to see the sites? No, I want to see that manufacturing plant over there. I want to know what they do. I want to get inside of that plant.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I still want to go underground in New York City., there's just certain things that fascinate me. And I really think that my earlier engagements with Lumba Norman and Chris Hagerty and Joe D'Adamo and just created that curiosity, because you can learn so much from that., I know you can learn a lot from reading too, but when you, I'm a visionary. She would describe me, not visionary, but I'm a vision person. If I see it, I can learn it. If I read it, yes, I'll pick up something, but it won't really get embedded in me,? I can pick up things very easily. I used to love to go into businesses, and I would do this all the time.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Like if I went to the city, see a Broadway show or something, I think of businesses that I could get into or people I could connect with. Just to see how it ran. I used to love to walk the floor, see what it was all about. You can learn so much that way.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, but your mind never stops that. It's always going.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh, I know, that's the problem. Yeah, I don't sleep too much. How about you, Rob?
Robert DiLella Jr.. No, I'm very positive, like, that's why I love AI, because sometimes we were in California, I see Northrop Grumman, which is one of their manufacturing plants, and I was like, what do they make there? What do they do right there? Work it out. She's like, do you have to do that about everything I do? I just, I'm obsessed with, I don't know why, just my mind needs to understand. There's this big power plant in Huntington Beach that's almost on the beach, but it's shut down. They don't use it anymore. It's just this big smoke stack.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Don't you wonder why? What is it?
Robert DiLella Jr.. What is it?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, how could you turn it into? Yeah, no, I'm exactly the same. That's one thing I love about the telephone and Google, I gotta say, because if I don't know something or I hear something, you can look into it, find out stuff in an instant. That would have taken us forever to research in a library.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, and if you did, you looked at the encyclopedia, which was written 15 years before you were reading it. You didn't have the updated information anyway. Is there a movie? So if your life were a movie, what would the opening soundtrack be?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. On my life? The opening soundtrack? So that's music? Oh, I'm bad on that. I know what I love, but do I know the name of it? Oh boy, what would it be? Oh, wow. Well, I mean, the music I would love, I don't know how it would relate to my life, so I'd really have to think about that. Opening soundtrack? Hmm, to dream the impossible dream maybe? Or when you walk through a rainbow, all that. I probably, well, I love Andrea Bocelli's music. That stimulates me. I probably shouldn't tell him this, but I like listening to his music to clean the house. But it's just so invigorating. I don't know.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I don't know because, you know why I say I don't know, Rob, is because I've had so many different stages of life at such a young age. I mean, I became, just as I was starting my business, I became an instant mom, stepmom And my son was raised in our house, and then my daughter later. And so, it was kind of like, well, wait a minute, I'm supposed to plan for this. I'm supposed to have 18 years to put money away for college. So that was one part. I became an instant mom when I first married, and my mother-in-law came to live with me about five months out of the year. So it was a whole different world than where I was a month previous to whatever.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then going through the different cycles of the business and then having family involved. And now I'm a grandmother. I'm a great-grandmother. I can't believe it. I'm only about 50 years old, I think.
(Laughing)
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So I look at the different stages of life, and there's been a time when it's all about growing and growth, and now it's more about And how can we give back? So every stage has been different. And there was, so when I look at my life, I don't know, I just look at everything we do today is based on what's already happened, right? Whatever experiences we've had. And we have yet to see what tomorrow will bring. And I don't know, and it's also driven a lot by my family. I mean, I'm just What makes me happy is when somebody has some passion or some need, or I can participate in some way, I'm the first one to wanna jump in. So I don't know where their lives are gonna take them.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, we've gone through every challenge that anybody else has done with health and other things. And it just kinda just move on to the next stage. And I talk about with our clients, and one of the reasons I think why we do the work we do with families generation after generation, because they didn't live here. This was not their community. All of our second and third, fourth generations are all outside the area. But it was probably because we had started with the retiree and then went backwards from there. So we kinda knew, if someone was like pre-retiree, we knew what their post-retirement was gonna look like.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. We knew what kind of choices or decisions or challenges they'd have at age 70, at age 80, at age 90. We're celebrating now clients turning 100. And they have their full faculties. Cognitively there, almost all physically there. It's amazing. So gosh, I don't know, it depends on when I die, what stage, when they make the film as to what it would look like. It's kinda like we talked about the DISC assessment personality. Depending on what I'm doing and what my focus is, I vary all the time. And I think life does too, where you put your priority and focus.
Robert DiLella Jr.. How about music in general in your life? Bocelli's one you said that sounded less--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I love all kinds of music. I mean, growing up with three older sisters and brother, they always got the turntable rights. So I got one, these boots are made for walking, was my one record I could play. But I grew up learning their music. I'm only now beginning to learn the music of my era. Interesting enough, like if I went to a concert, it was with them. So the 70s, 80s, I love opera. We've gotten involved with opera Naples. I know nothing about it. I had a staff member that was on the original founding of it and they sang and did all that, her and her husband. So she encouraged us to kinda get involved.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But then years later, now we're spending some time really going and seeing opera and understanding it. Before it's like art, I love the piece. I don't know anything about it. Never took an art appreciation class, well maybe one. So music, I love all kinds of music, except I don't like acid rock. Or maybe even some of the rap. I don't like when I can't hear the words, when there's not a message or something in a beautiful orchestra or something accompanying it. But I like everything.
Robert DiLella Jr.. So I'd like to add, we have a Spotify playlist from all of our guests and I'd like to add a couple of the tracks from whoever. So Bocelli would be somebody I would add for you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, so I love Andrea Bocelli. I mean we have visited with him and his family many, many times. We've been to I'd probably say maybe 14 or 15 different concerts and several, many of them, were more small groups like 40 to 100 people. He is grounded in family 100%. From the very first concert, my husband surprised and took me to up in, well it was in Orstesser, outside of Boston. And it was a surprise and they had the red carpet and all women were dressed in gowns. I didn't know where I was going. I thought I was going to a plane event for him. But his mother was there selling the t-shirts, whatever, the whole family traveled with him.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And obviously family's critically important. So he's Italian but he also has a beautiful voice and a high, high faith. And I appreciate the relationship he has with his kids and now the talent that he's helping encourage them to develop. When we first saw his daughter saying, was it first time in front of like a crowd? And Matteo, the same thing, he had just done his first Duet was, it was fall on me with him and his father. And now I see, then we went recently to see him in Tampa because I said, I want to see where he's grown from. And I mean, he did his own concert with a phenomenal job. He's finding his own way and taking guidance from his father as well.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Because can you imagine how proud he must feel? And he would have never looked at his son as a singer as if his wife hadn't said, sit down and listen to your son. Because he had never thought about that with his kids. But yeah, so I like him as a person. He was introduced to me by one of my mentors, Joe Diodamo, before he ever toured in the US and was ever known he was playing piano bars in Italy. But he was Italian and very much embedded in his roots. His kids have dual residency Because of that, because of that heritage that they appreciate so much.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, I can hear that, his voice.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So what are your most selected soundtracks that your clients like?
Robert DiLella Jr.. All over the place. Because you have a broad age. Yes, all over the place. Kristen Corey was on before and she from, and she has musicals and things from theater, obviously. Love musicals, yeah. To 70s, to rap, to just, it's been a pretty awesome array of music. Because everybody has A lot of our guests, people that I've talked to, I have a pretty wide range of what they like.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I like music that stimulates an emotion, whether it's sadness or happiness.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It's very impactful.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Doesn't matter, it's got it right.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Especially for cello, oh my gosh. Who will hit your heart in a way, I can't imagine seeing him alive. I like what the experience is nothing you can put in your words, I would imagine.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I had a blessing of being in two of his homes, I'm gonna be in the third one in September when I go, but when we first went over to Miami and we were a small crowd around his pool in his home there, he was right across the pool with himself performing with piano, and then his daughter came out and did a couple songs. I was like, I still can't believe it, I'll go back and look at a video or a picture and say, I was not sitting there a pool length, not even a length, a width away from Bojali. It's just amazing, and I don't know how he does it, the touring, but there, again It's the family that holds it together.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It's what Veronica does to help make this possible for him to share his talent and his gift, and that's how he looks at his talent. And he doesn't look at his blindness as being something that takes away from that gift or what he can give, and I think that's an amazing person, and to have that talent and share it, to be in front of an audience and move people by just your song, it's pretty crazy.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, or really moves people, yeah. Is there anything that you would like to share that we haven't talked about? People should know.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Well, I guess we talked a lot about family. So one of the things I've got to say is that family can be not necessarily blood. It can be who becomes your family, who you create as family, and I think that, where you do have blood family, find, appreciate the uniqueness, but find the similarity and stay connected. There's so many families and siblings, because geography has torn us all apart in a different way, even though FaceTime and that has brought people together. It really, you don't grow up knowing each other. Take the time. We were playing, what's it called, "Wertle" or something. Well, it wasn't the matter that we were doing that. We conference in the five sisters.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It was more the five minutes. I mean, literally, we'd be five or 10 minutes on the phone, but we would hear something about somebody's day that we could either send a prayer of love or congratulate or whatever. And I think that's important, and that people should try to bridge families together more because they really have your back. And I thank God every day and have incredible gratitude for my brothers and sisters and the fact that we work together. Many of us, I mean, who gets that opportunity? You're getting that with some of your family, which is wonderful, and growing up with your dad and mom. But I guess, and it becomes really important later in life too.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, we played as kids. You grow apart during the interim time period if you're not working on something together like a business, and then you come together as an adult. And it is really neat to get to know that. When we do these family retreats, which, like for example, we did one in Williamsburg, it lasted over three days. Sometimes it might just be a day in our offices or it could be a three-day event like this. That was a special place for mom and dad to go to. So we brought the kids and we said, anybody, any grandchild over the age of 12 can participate, but we want all the family members to come. So we're gonna mix fun where everybody is involved.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And then we're gonna mix business, or we're gonna talk about the trust and the legacy with just the family members that should be in the room. So those family members got to experience that something important was going on for the family. And that allowed them, first off, and this is where Jan used to play a great part, is he'd come in and get them to know about each other. I mean, there were things that they didn't even know their sibling had done or invented or got an award for, just things like that. They had no clue or what they may be going through with their spouse on some kind of challenge. So it's really neat to see that unfold and then develop.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And years later, see something come in place. But if you look for something to happen the best it can immediately, if you put urgency to it, not gonna happen. I think the best thing I've learned, especially from really great folks in this community, is you drop a seed and it takes time to water it and develop it. When I look today, and I don't know if, the Positamos, I love John and Jimmy.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Oh gosh, yeah, that was so awkward.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And when I went to his celebration, yeah, I saw all the people that their lives have touched and his life touched. And he truly touched them in a way that made a difference and made a difference for everybody in our community, whether they know him or not, and the same thing with the work that Kathleen has done. And that's kind of neat. That must feel good.
Robert DiLella Jr.. He was my idol in life. That man, I was still torn by what happened there. Oh, I know. It was just such an incredible human. I just know from the salon, I never saw him outside of here, but for many years he'd come in. His nature always was so special. Just so special. There was a premise about him, yeah. I just really wanted to be, that's what I wanted to be when I grew up.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. He's a perfect man. He'd appreciate that, he's listening.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, special human, yeah. His legacy, what he leaves in the world.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I wanna thank you for
Robert DiLella Jr.. Having this talk. I have the last piece of icing on you, the last piece of icing for this conversation. And that is, what do you love about your life?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Oh my goodness, what do I love about my life? Everything. I love that having had a great loss with my husband and my soulmate, that I have been blessed with another soulmate and Jan in my life, who is the kindest, most gentlest giving person I know. I just love that he accepts the Chica-rellies every which way, which is wonderful, takes a lot, we're a powerful force. And I guess that I can participate and be a mom without ever have given birth is a blessing that, not too many people get to experience, first of all, two loves of their lives. And secondly, to have children and the blessing of close relationships with those children.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Their mom is still living, wonderful person, and they have a stepfather. And we always wanted from the very beginning for them to feel that they had a connected family, not a separation of two families. So I think that, the fact that we're able to do that and that I'm still blessed with them in my life, even though I lost their dad, they lost their dad, so early on, he was 49, I was 35 at the time. My son was about ready to turn 18 and we had agreed no life support, but we put Dean on life support because he would have died on my son's birthday. So we extended it and he was, we were all on board with that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But having had the ability to be around so many different people and learn from them, and if I can make a difference in just one person at a time, I'm happy with that. That's so gratifying. The fact that I've been given that opportunity to somehow have a gift that helps people, I think that's far more fun and really a great takeaway and I want it to last forever. I mean, I look at what my dad did even up to the time of his late 80s and before he passed away, he was still helping people all the time. He was doing stuff, and that was what he called retirement,.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. But I don't know, I just, every challenge I'm thankful for because it created something in me that made me stronger. And without my family, I could have never, I wouldn't even want to be here, to tell you the truth. That's how much it means to me. So I'm just thrilled and as long as I have them and I keep knocking on wood and thinking that they're here, they're alive, they're close, we still hang out, that's what I'm blessed about. And all my clients, those people are family too.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Beautiful. Thank you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Thank you. Okay, and this was fun. I didn't know what it would be, but this was a nice conversation. Yeah. Okay, Rob, and I'm getting to know you.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, it's a opportunity for me to get to know deeply that people in our community, because there's no, it's not like being at a bar, it's not like being at a coffee shop, there's no interruptions, there's no phone, it's literally one-on-one conversation, which just doesn't happen.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. It's really nice. No, it doesn't, especially with a stranger. Right. Or somebody you haven't ever spent time with, right? Exactly. So thank you.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Absolutely. It's an honor for me to get to meet you, and I've seen your business, you're a 96th. Yes, 96th, I want to be. Used to be the old shopping goer, I remember you used to buy my phone for that.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Absolutely, but it was one building, you're exactly right. And then they added on the back area, and developer and Litton took it over, you remember him. And his business as a designer. When we were trying to buy a place, ever since I moved to Naples 45 years ago, when we were trying to buy a restaurant for Lou to run and the prices were astronomical, we said, this has got to be funny money, because there's no way these stats, the numbers don't work. You can't make a living out of the restaurant business based on the prices. They weren't, they were all losses of his own drug money.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. I mean, it was, I can tell you some of the places, but that's why we chose not to go that way. But, it's just been a great experience to even grow up with Naples. I mean, like I said, I still think we're both very young, and so it's amazing to me that we get all of this exposure of watching a community change and develop that usually you wouldn't get, in a lifetime. And there's still a whole lot more to come.
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, it keeps on going, yeah, we're blessed. I love it, thank you.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. So congratulations on what you've accomplished, and all of your
Robert DiLella Jr.. Jobs and Naples has been a good community for a lot of people. Yep. I appreciate what it is for--
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. And your kids have stayed in Naples?
Robert DiLella Jr.. Yeah, they did, they left from a lot of school, but then came back, it's paradise either way. I think they always end up going back.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Yeah, nice, nice.
Robert DiLella Jr.. You wanna just do a couple shots?
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Little, probably dripping under these lights, but whatever. Are we looking at each other, or are we Got it. Okay, thank you. Good, thank you. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Glad I didn't kill your mic. I think I came close.
Robert DiLella Jr.. It needs to be, it's okay, we get to talk. It's not the most well-positioned thing.
Kim Ciccarelli Kantor. Hey, this is great, you got a nice little setup here, I see. This is how you have to come down and--