Getting Off to a Fast Start with Vekevia Tillman-Jones

In Episode 37 of the Real Life Planning Podcast, Cynthia Meyer introduces new Real Life Planning team member, Vekevia Tillman-Jones, MBA, CFP®, a senior financial planner and business coach, who shares her journey of building multiple income streams through real estate and a peer-to-peer car sharing business. They discuss balancing family life with entrepreneurship and the importance of empowering clients to take control of their financial futures.

“...as soon as I graduated from college, I bought a house. I was determined. It was like one year out of college. I said, "I'm going to buy a house and rent it out.”  So I ended up renting out one room. From there, the idea of multiple sources of income started. And later, after I got married, my husband and I, we ended up renting out that property and purchasing another one..” –Vekevia Tillman-Jones

This week on Real Life Planning Podcast:

Takeaway Quotes:

"...it's beautiful when you get a chance to see them [clients] see what you saw from the beginning because you're just helping them peel back the onion and understand themselves and their business and what direction they want to take their business. " -Vekevia Tillman-Jones

"I really believe this and that clients are the experts in their own lives. We're here to help facilitate the decision making discovery and the financial planning process helps people make a wiser and more comfortable financial decisions.." -Cynthia Meyer

“....there’s actually a lot of opportunity to help everyday people build businesses and get their finances in order.” – Vekevia Tillman-Jones

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About the Real Life Planning Podcast

Host Cynthia Meyer explores practical steps for real estate investors to build financial freedom and make working for someone else optional.

TRANSCRIPT for Episode 37

[00:00:06] Cynthia Meyer: Welcome to the Real Life Planning Podcast. I'm Cynthia Meyer with Real Life Planning and this is episode 37. I think this is my favorite episode that we have done in the short history of the several years of the Real Life Planning Podcast because today I get to introduce everybody to Vekevia Tillman-Jones.

[00:00:26] She's the newest financial planner at Real Life Planning; a senior financial planner and business coach. I'm beyond delighted to have her join us and to learn a little bit more about her story and what makes her tick. Vekevia, welcome.

[00:00:43] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Thank you, Cynthia. I love that introduction.

[00:00:46] Cynthia Meyer: So tell us what is important to know about you.

[00:00:51] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Well, I'm Vekevia Tillman-Jones and I live in Orlando, Florida. I have two young boys, my husband and I have a nine year old and a six year old, so they definitely keep us busy. We love what we do.

[00:01:03] We own a real estate property and we have a peer-to-peer car sharing business that we're learning a lot from doing that. It's very new to us. And we're just enjoying ourselves, raising kids, trying to balance it all, if you will, everybody's saying that, and helping people do the same along the way.

[00:01:21] Cynthia Meyer: How do you think about what we try and teach people to do here at Real Life Planning which is to create multiple sources of income through rental property, investing in other types of small businesses. Think about this, how has it impacted your own life?

[00:01:39] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: I grew up watching my parents, have multiple real estate properties and balance that with the commission role at work and W2 income. So really from as early as I can remember, it just seemed like it was the way to go. And it was instilled in me. And so as soon as I graduated from college, I bought a house.

[00:01:59] I was determined. It was like one year out of college. I said, "I'm going to buy a house and rent it out."

[00:02:04] So we ended up, I ended up renting out one room. From there, the idea of multiple sources of income started. And later, after I got married, my husband and I, we ended up renting out that property and purchasing another one and now we're started this peer-to-peer car sharing business.

[00:02:21] And so a lot of times when I think about financial planning, a lot of people are not necessarily incapable or unaware of the idea that they could have multiple streams of income, they're just not sure how to do it. So, as a part of work and consulting with clients, my job is really to be their accountability person to help them figure out they can make it happen for them.

[00:02:43] And traditional financial planning, you think if you don't have a lot of money or come from money that you might not necessarily have an opportunity to build different businesses or even invest in real estate and it's certainly just not the case. So, you don't have to go to traditional routes.

[00:02:58] I help people figure out, like, how do I even get started? What's the best step? And then once I start, how do I make it work for me?

[00:03:05] Cynthia Meyer: So I interrupted you a few minutes ago to say that's amazing when I heard that you bought your house when you first got out of college. So that's extraordinary. You didn't have student loans? How did you even get that together financially?

[00:03:20] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Actually, I did have student loans and I didn't really know which direction to take so, and that's actually the case for a lot of people. One of the reasons I got into financial planning is because some people are going at it without necessarily a trajectory of, like, how do I actually start this or getting any guidance?

[00:03:39] And that was me. So the benefit that I had is when I first graduated, I worked on my credit for the first year and just built it and that meant I was like, turning down the- turning up the air in the house. I didn't really have it very low. I was cutting corners trying to figure out how to save. It was very hot in that apartment.

[00:03:59] I kept all my expenses low and had to do everything budgeting that we help clients with all the time. And actually, there was a program for first time home buyers. So the good part about it is I wasn't making too little money, so I was doing well, but I wasn't making a whole lot of money. So that allowed me to be eligible for first time homebuyer program.

[00:04:19] And some people don't- what was that?

[00:04:22] Cynthia Meyer: Oh, I said, it's so fun.

[00:04:24] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Yeah. And so some people don't realize that opportunity is out there and that got me into my first property and people don't realize that could be a way to leverage what it is that you're trying to do and I took advantage of it and it worked out for me.

[00:04:36] Cynthia Meyer: But have you always lived in Florida?

[00:04:38] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: I have. I am originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and I lived there all my life until I went to college. I went to Florida State University in Tallahassee. And then when I moved- when I graduated from college, I moved to Orlando.

[00:04:53] Cynthia Meyer: Wow. Were you a financial planner at that time in your early 20s or did you start off doing something different?

[00:05:00] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: I was in financial services. I worked at a bank. I wasn't a financial planner. I worked at a bank and I was an assistant branch manager there and pretty much got introduced into financial planning though because I sold life insurance and annuities.

[00:05:16] Cynthia Meyer: And when did you decide to pursue your CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™?

[00:05:20] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Later, when I started working for a brokerage firm. I moved over into a high net worth side and everybody that I was working with came from a lot of money and they didn't look and sound like a lot of people who are in my family or who I knew and I thought, "Man, I want to do the same thing that I'm doing for these clients for everyday people."

[00:05:41] Everybody needs financial planning. Me being who I am, I started just trying to find- is there a company that exists that does that? And it was so funny because most people, when I would share that desire with them, they would be like, "There's no such thing as that." I ended up finding a company where there were something similar.

[00:06:00] Ever since I took that route, I realized that there's actually a lot of opportunity to help everyday people build businesses and get their finances in order.

[00:06:08] Cynthia Meyer: You and I first met each other I was working at Financial Finesse and you joined the firm. So Financial Finesse is a leading workplace financial wellness firm that offers financial coaching as an employee benefit.

[00:06:24] I think I started a couple of years before you, but you joined the firm and immediately just, Made a huge impact and you did a lot of interesting things there, including working with some professional sports teams. How has that informed what you do today?

[00:06:40] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Oh, I absolutely love that experience.

[00:06:43] It was a lot of hard work and you get an opportunity to work some very great financial planners who had been doing it a lot longer than I had and you were just thrust into marketing and writing blogs and working with people from all different areas, really, and really getting a handle on people's benefits at work and helping them sort through how to pick what made the best sense for them.

[00:07:08] What I gathered from that is the rigorous training that they have you go through teaches you how to anticipate people's needs and answer their questions without them having to really say the question. They didn't have to state it. You had to have the ability to be able to talk to people about financial planning in a way that is very just, in layman's terms, right?

[00:07:30] You could not use the normal financial planning jargon and I think the benefit of that is that even through that experience and after that experience, I can really work with anyone and we can be doing financial planning and not feel the grunt work of the financial planning because I can meet them where they are.

[00:07:47] So, I think it just really prepared me for whatever topic and whatever needs that the clients have to really be able to meet them and then help them be successful with what they're trying to do.

[00:07:56] Cynthia Meyer: You mentioned that you have young boys. How have you created a personal economy for yourselves so that I know that both of you are really maximizing the time that you spend with your kids and still doing good work in the world and creating income for your family?

[00:08:14] How do you manage that?

[00:08:16] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: It's been a work in progress. My husband and I, especially when we started off, we weren't necessarily on the same page about finances. So I had a great time working through that on my own and then helping couples get to that place, as well. A lot of the training that I got actually helped me work better with my husband, even on our finances so we can be more balanced. As we move along, and we're trying to raise our children, we want to not force them, but also give them an opportunity to see the entrepreneurial side of things and really instilling them that they don't have to wait on someone to hire them though. Nothing's wrong with working for someone.

[00:08:50] We want them to just know that they have options and that even when they're working for someone, they're still ultimately working for themselves. So we do a lot. Yeah, and we do a lot of sharing with them on the business decisions that we're making or why and we get their input. Now they're nine and six, right?

[00:09:05] The point is really more so to get them to be thinkers and to question things and come up with their own opinions. So we do a lot of sharing with them on that. So, I think ultimately the reason that it works for us, especially when we added the peer-to-peer car sharing business is that we involve them in it.

[00:09:21] They help us clean the cars and get them out and get them rented, to the degree that they can. So we're all just running our own, Jones Financial or Jones Business, I guess I would call it.

[00:09:36] Cynthia Meyer: Empire!

[00:09:37] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Yes.

[00:09:38] Cynthia Meyer: Tell me a little bit more about the car sharing because I don't think that's something that most people do or know that much about.

[00:09:45] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Yeah, and we're fairly new into it. We've been doing it for about a year and what triggered it is for a season my husband was a travel nurse and when we went to stay with him in Arizona for a while, we ended up renting a car from Turo. It seemed like a good idea to us. We're always looking for opportunities to have another source of income that really requires minimal, initial start and something like the Turo business where they already have their own platform set up. All we have to do is essentially join it, understand how it works and start. It seemed like a great idea to us and so we purchased our first car and started about a year ago and it's been a great learning experience to the point that I mentioned it to my father.

[00:10:28] He even ended up getting a car and putting in Turo, as well. He has 2 on there and it's just another way to make extra income, and it was very beneficial as I transitioned from my traditional job to taking some time off of work to spend time with the children and give them more focus. It helps supplement our income.

[00:10:46] Cynthia Meyer: How did you become a landlord?

[00:10:49] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: My father's a mortgage broker and so I'm always hearing about real estate and I knew and my husband knew that we wanted to have more than one property. So we were always looking. Just like we tell our clients, when something comes along, you need to, be ready and be able to go ahead and make an adjustment. So we'd always been looking for a property and we wanted something that fit in a specific budget. And so, when the next house came up, which is a house we live in now, we decided to make a move for it because the numbers made sense and the rates were great at the time and so we went for it.

[00:11:24] Cynthia Meyer: And then you kept your original house and rented it out?

[00:11:27] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Yeah, we kept our original house. We never wanted to get rid of that. We still have it now and we did it on our own in the beginning. Well, my husband's uncle is in real estate. So he helped with some of that. He's a realtor and he found us a renter pretty quickly.

[00:11:42] It moved along very quickly, actually. And before we knew it, we were landlords.

[00:11:46] Cynthia Meyer: Both from the becoming a rental property owner and from having this car sharing business that you've been building, what have you learned about balancing those multiple ventures that you want to teach other people in your practice?

[00:12:05] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: One of the biggest learning lessons with the rental property is starting to learn how much you can take on. You can do it all alone, but you can also have a team of professionals. I think, being more honest about what do you really know about something that was truly your level of expertise is very important. We went through after our initial renters moved out, we went through a renovation process and though it turned out really great, it was a lot more involved than I had initially thought it would be. We got some great deals out of they did an excellent job, but when I look back, perhaps hiring someone a property manager who would have been able to walk us through that process and have their own team available could have been very helpful.

[00:12:47] So, I think we ended up spending a lot more time on that than we thought. My husband and I, we did yard work and built like a barrier around the house and everything. It looks amazing, but not probably the line of work that's best for me. It was a lot of work. So, helping clients understand take a real- a realistic look at their situation and their time. If you have 2 young kids, for instance, do you really have the time to really manage that process for the renovation or whatever it is? Even working with business owners, though, in our own peer-to-peer car sharing business, it's like to what level do you want to start a business? You might want the extra income, but if you're still in a W2 job, you have the capacity to start from the ground and build something? Or could you join something that's already running or maybe like a franchise or whatever have you?

[00:13:38] So, I think those are just very important to for people to understand their time and then at what point when it's growing, do you need to get others involved who have expertise that can help you?

[00:13:49] Cynthia Meyer: I think you're so right, Vekevia, that deciding in whatever investment path that you're going to take, whether you're investing in yourself and your own business, or your own rental property business, or you're investing in securities, for example, is to decide, do I want to be hands on or hands off in the management of this investment?

[00:14:13] It means different things for different types of investments. But knowing up front, here's what I enjoy. Here's what I'm good at. Here's what I have capacity for, I think is such an important question for us to ask ourselves as investors, no matter what we're investing in.

[00:14:27] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Absolutely.

[00:14:28] Cynthia Meyer: Since we worked together many years ago and you went on to do some other things including business coaching, tell us a little bit about that. How do you work with clients in that way?

[00:14:40] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Yeah. In business coaching is actually, it relates really well to financial planning because when you're coaching someone, which what it really means is you're their accountability person, right? You help them think through situations and maybe even expand their thinking.

[00:14:58] So, after the company where we work together, I ended up working with a startup company and you really are exposed to just building the plane while it's in the air, so to speak, and I hate to use it, but it's true. When I work with clients, I understand their frustrations that they're going through when they're trying to build a business or figure out what's going on.

[00:15:18] Even the most confident business owner, sometimes has a feeling of imposter syndrome, or can I really make this all work and it all come together or they get so tied in the weeds that they don't really have enough time to think about the business and the strategy.

[00:15:35] So, helping them really understand that they need to make time for both right? It's building the business, but it's also planning the business. What I learned from that, though, is it's almost you can't just walk into most situations with business clients and just say that you have to allow them the opportunity to see it.

[00:15:54] It's almost therapy and business coaching, right? Or just like financial planning is some therapy and business coaching and our financial planning coaching. But the clients get there and it's beautiful when you get a chance to see them see what you saw from the beginning because you're just helping them peel back the onion and understand themselves and their business and what direction they want to take their business. Sometimes, it's not even as their coach, it's not that I'm everything that they need, but with financial planning, I have an understanding of all the areas.

[00:16:27] So when you're a financial coach, you understand all the areas, even so the state planning, but you don't, draw up their durable power of attorney, you refer them. So the same thing with business coaching is I have a- my MBA helps with that and then my experiences help with that.

[00:16:40] And then having a business on my own helps with that. It allows me to see ahead, I'm a visionary, and help them plan for that and then help them figure out who they need on their team. Sometimes, they might create a team that's also outside of me, but they appreciate being able to come back to me for that accountability.

[00:16:57] Cynthia Meyer: The idea of asking people powerful questions to show, not tell, to come to a particular conclusion, I think so powerful. I really believe this and that clients are the experts in their own lives. We're here to help facilitate the decision making discovery and the financial planning process helps people make a wiser and more comfortable financial decisions. Whether that's for themselves or for their rental property business or their other business, we can ask really powerful questions and help facilitate that process of discovery and decision. Tell me what you think about this, Vekevia. There's a lot in financial services of people that they just want to tell you what to do. They say, okay, go do this and then those financial planners get frustrated and they say, "Oh, I told the client to do this and he or she didn't do it."

[00:17:46] But that's top down. It's not empowering, in my opinion.

[00:17:51] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: I absolutely agree. I think over the years, we've seen a huge shift and there's been an increased interest in people wanting financial planning/financial coaching, but we've also seen a shift in how we deliver it. I think it's really starting or has started to meet people where they are because financial planning, in the way that I look at it, and I know we share this, Cynthia, is that we're empowering them so that they can continue on. God forbid, something happens to me or your financial plan. Do you understand what you're doing? Do you understand why you're doing X? And I think that's really important.

[00:18:27] Now, some people don't want to know deep levels of financial planning and coaching, but they should have an idea of why they're doing what they're doing and I think that's important. When they implement the decisions and when they have that, when we get that buy in, they tend to stick to it. I think that's what's really important.

[00:18:42] Some people have done financial planning, but they didn't stick to it. So they may not think it is as beneficial, but those people who we get their buy-in, they stick with it and they get to see the changes.

[00:18:52] Cynthia Meyer: What would you say the best piece of advice that you've ever received?

[00:18:56] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: I would say the best piece of advice- there have been so many, which I'm thankful for, but I would say one of them is to believe in yourself and to trust in yourself and to know that you are able to accomplish so much more than you probably ever could imagine.

[00:19:11] While you do all of that you also want to be balanced and remember to enjoy the journey along the way.

[00:19:17] Cynthia Meyer: Would you say that you have somebody in your life that's your financial mentor?

[00:19:20] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: I do. I feel like actually there isn't one person. I get a lot of my financial just information and guidance across multiple people, which I'm really thankful for some people who are directly involved in financial planning and then actually others who aren't.

[00:19:34] Cynthia Meyer: So what are you curious about right now?

[00:19:37] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Actually, right now, I'm very excited to have joined real life planning and have an opportunity to help people grow their real estate business and just business coaching and financial coaching, all of it. It's more of something that I thought was more like a dream, especially when it comes to the real estate part. So I'm really excited to see people who didn't think they could own real estate and grow real estate business actually do it.

[00:20:02] Cynthia Meyer: One of the things that listeners may not know about Vekevia is that she teaches an amazing workshop and an amazing webinar. Really excellent teacher; such a clear communicatorh, in difficult format, like digital or online.

[00:20:18] So hopefully Vekevia, you're going to be doing some of those educational things for people in our tribe. What are the topics that you hope to be teaching on?

[00:20:29] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Oh, this is good. So I think goal setting, that's always a good one and I don't want to call it budgeting, but getting your finances in order type thing.

[00:20:40] And for couples. How do you get on the same page as a couple? I feel like I have some personal experiences with that and then just helping clients, as well. But also real estate, like how do you get involved in real estate or how do you take the first step when you may not even think that you can and then growing your business. That'll be another one.

[00:21:01] Where do I start? What's next? How do I figure out what's next? Who do I need to help me? So those are just some of them that I would love to start.

[00:21:09] Cynthia Meyer: We'll be able to see more ideas and content from Vekevia on all the Real Life Planning channels, including the YouTube channel and the blog and the video podcast and all sorts of fun stuff.

[00:21:22] You'll be seeing lots of new ideas from her. If you'd like to talk to Vekevia personally, just go on the website, reallifeplanning. com and click book a discovery call and you'll have an option to talk to Vekevia if you'd like to visit with her and learn a little bit more about whether you should work together.

[00:21:42] Vekevia, any final thoughts that you'd like to leave us with?

[00:21:45] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Well, I'm just very excited for an opportunity to be able to work with various different clients on their goals. If you're looking for somebody who is going to take the time to listen to you and understand where you're coming from and be an accountability partner and coach you into your next whatever it is for you, then I am your lady.

[00:22:04] I'm looking forward to working with you.

[00:22:05] Cynthia Meyer: Thank you so much. I could not be more excited to have you join the Real Life Planning family and to see what amazing things you're going to do and how many financial lives you're going to change.

[00:22:18] Vekevia Tillman-Jones: Awesome. Thank you, Cynthia.

[00:22:20] Cynthia Meyer: If this topic was interesting to you, please leave notes in the comments and if you have any ideas about other topics you'd like us to tackle in the Real Life Planning Podcast, just leave them below.

[00:22:31] I don't know why I'm doing this.

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