Door-to-Door Salesman Made $700K in One Summer w/ Kyle Nielsen πŸŽ„ EP 101

26m

Kyle Nielsen shares his journey in the pest control industry, where his company is now the fifth largest in the nation. He talks about the impressive earning potential in door-to-door sales, where some reps make over $100K in a summer, and even reveals how a rookie earned $200K in one season.
---

Kyle Nielsen, known as "The Great Elbow," is an entrepreneur and sales leader who has built successful businesses, including a top pest control company. He's also known for spreading joy through his "Buddy the Elf" persona during the holiday season, using humor and philanthropy to inspire others.
---

Like this episode? Watch more like it πŸ‘‡
Why You Must NOT Miss Out on the Modern Day Gold Rush: https://youtu.be/Y8quALjs2hE|
He Built a $500M Real Estate Empire with NO MONEY: https://youtu.be/w4SBQS0gtd0
Dan Martell: The Man with the Cheat Code to Money: https://youtu.be/xj_y30BXEyo
Build Your Network the RIGHT Way & Make More Money This Year: https://youtu.be/aY4xTq9tZ8s

Watch ALL Full Episodes Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k
---

The Money Mondays is a business podcast here to teach you how to make money, invest money, and donate money by showcasing some of the world's most successful people and how they do the same. Hosted by serial entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history, this money podcast gives you an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the wealthiest celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes and influencers make, invest and donate money.

If you want to learn more business and investing while you work to improve your financial life, you're in the right place!

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneymondays?sub_confirmation=1

Dan Fleyshman,
The Money Mondays

Learn more here: https://themoneymondays.com

Watch all the podcast episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k

Let’s Connect...
Website: https://themoneymondays.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-mondays/id1663564091
Twitter: https://twitter.com/themoneymondays
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-money-mondays/about/
TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@themoneymondays
FB: https://www.facebook.com/The-Money-Mondays-110233585203220/

Press play and read along

Runtime: 26m

Transcript

Speaker 1 We're currently the fifth largest residential pest control company in the nation.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 So we're in 80 plus markets nationwide and we just recently went through a transaction and brought in a private equity partner between our corporate, our sales force, and our day-to-day remote office employees.

Speaker 1 We're about, I'd say about 5,000.

Speaker 2 And I see a lot of like 22-year-old, 27-year-old, 24-year-olds. A lot of them are talking about making like 100K, 200K, 300K, 100K in a summer.
Is that true?

Speaker 1 We've had multiple reps that have done

Speaker 1 over a million dollars in new customer revenue.

Speaker 2 In in one summer yeah so they yeah i gotta go i'm gonna start working yeah let's go knock some doors

Speaker 2 ladies and gentlemen welcome to the christmas and hanukkah special edition of the money mondays right now we are inside of an rv motorhome parked outside of our toy drive doing 10 cities in 16 days for the world's largest toy drive you guys can visit largest toydrive.com but when this episode comes out sadly the toy drives are complete and all of my flights and all my miles are completed but why do i say it's extra special because sitting right next to me is literally buddy the elf yes some people call him kyle yeah

Speaker 2 yes he built up a huge sales team and a huge company and massive business blah blah blah blah blah we'll get to that but first it's christmas week we got to talk to buddy the elf so what we're going to do here on the money mondays as you know we cover three core topics how to make money how to invest money how to give it away to charity.

Speaker 2 But it's really important for you guys that are listening to keep talking about money with your friends, family, and followers. We all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.

Speaker 2 I think it's ridiculous that we don't talk about it because we go to high school, go to college, and we go out there into the world, and we don't know about taxes or how to deal with a bank account or balance a budget or like...

Speaker 2 deal with a checkbook. What is a checkbook? Should we take a loan? Should we get it? I don't know.
Should we rent? Should we lease? Should we buy?

Speaker 2 We don't know these things because no one's allowed to talk about it.

Speaker 2 Well, the reason this podcast has been in the top 10 for 95 out of our 101 weeks when you listen to this episode is because of you. Because you guys are liking, commenting, subscribing, and sharing.

Speaker 2 It's very, very important to us. So, without further ado, I'm going to bring it over to Kyle, known as Buddy the Elf, to give us a quick two-minute bio and we'll get straight to the money.

Speaker 1 All right, um, so yeah, my name is Kyle Nielsen, aka Buddy, aka the NBA elf, and I um

Speaker 1 love

Speaker 1 being an elf.

Speaker 1 No, I yeah, I dress up like this during the holiday season. Quick version of that is that it started at a toy drive almost 12.
Yeah, about 12, 13 years ago. When did the movie come out?

Speaker 1 It's 20, 20 years old now. I think they have the 20th anniversary.

Speaker 1 I don't, you know, fact-check me, whatever. But if I get it wrong, you know, in the comments, call me out.
But yeah, it's about 20 years old now.

Speaker 1 And so about 12 years ago, I threw the elf costume on, wore it to a toy drive sub-persona for my company. And the next year, my employees were like, you're going to wear it again?

Speaker 1 What's going on with that? So I rented the costume again, threw it on.

Speaker 1 And when we were in the checkout line at Target, one of the Target checkers was like, you were here last year buying toys for all these families. And we talked about how the elf just was so happy.

Speaker 1 And so I was like, a whole year later, I was like, this made a difference. And then, so I kind of just started wearing it to the toy drives, charity events.
And then I threw it on at an NBA arena.

Speaker 1 And it went viral when Rudy Gobert stole my hat, put it on Donovan Mitchell's head after the game instead of pouring water on him.

Speaker 1 And then I was like, well, let's just keep the ripple effect growing bigger. When I'm not elfing around,

Speaker 1 I kill bugs. I'm in the pest control industry, and I run sales teams for door-to-door pest control.
And we're currently the fifth largest residential pest control company in the nation.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 1 And we just recently went through a transaction and brought in a private equity partner.

Speaker 2 Explain what that means.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So

Speaker 1 we see I'm going on my 18th year now in the pest control. All the same brand? So different brands.
So same ownership group. We originally were part of a franchise called Moxie.

Speaker 1 Our ownership group sold that franchise off to Terminex,

Speaker 1 rolled that money in, started a company called EcoFirst, sold that off after a few years to Terminex. Again, they bought our customer base.
And then we started a company called Altera.

Speaker 1 Altera, again, Terminex came in and not only bought our customer base, but bought the brand. And every single year, I mean, every single three to four year run, we would build it up more and more.

Speaker 1 And then back in 2015, we were like, we're done kind of of selling customers off.

Speaker 1 Let's build the next one to be the brand that we live and love with, you know, we

Speaker 1 live in love with forever. And so that was Aptive in 2015.
And we're going on our 10th summer. So we're hitting a decade with that brand.
And it'll be Aptive for

Speaker 1 as long as it goes, which has been fun. And so we built it with the intention of bringing in a private equity partner at some point or having some sort of strategic exit.

Speaker 1 And after a lot of years and a lot of EBITDA ups and downs and struggles and learning and profitable years and fun

Speaker 1 we found a great partner in Citation Capital and they came in and we struck a deal and we're running the next three to five to whatever years it is with them to see what we can do with it how many employees are out there in the Active ecosystem

Speaker 1 yeah about 5,000 5,000 yeah so we're we're in 80 plus markets nationwide and yeah between our corporate our sales force and our day-to-day remote office employees we're about i'd say about 5 000 so i speak at a lot of solar roofing pest control door-to-door industry type events and i see a lot of like 22 year old 27 year old 24 year olds a lot of them are talking about making like 100k 200k 300k 100k in a summer is that true yeah yeah i mean for every big success story there's also the guys that go home with nothing um because of you know their work or their lack thereof typically but yeah i mean it's very very possible for you know, anybody.

Speaker 1 I mean, we had a

Speaker 1 40, 44, 45-year-old guy come out this year as a rookie salesman, had never knocked doors before, had worked in the pest control industry for quite a few years, and then transitioned off into something different and was like, I know pest control, but I also want to try sales.

Speaker 1 And he came out and made, I think, $200,000, like $150,000, $200,000

Speaker 1 in a summer.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, really, to break it down, you make commission off of every sale that you make.

Speaker 1 A good rep can be putting on eight to 10 new customer accounts a day. A rookie can be putting on like one to two accounts a day.
Got it.

Speaker 1 For a rookie to sell two accounts a day, they have to talk to about 60 people.

Speaker 1 To talk to about 60 people on the doors, you're walking door to door to door, knocking on doors saying, do you need pest control? And it's not as simple as that, but there's art to it.

Speaker 1 But they're having to talk, they're having to knock about 150 to 200 doors. So, you know,

Speaker 1 the fun thing about it, or that gets the, the thing that makes it so hard is that to get to two people to say yes, you have to be rejected 60 plus times. Wow.
So most people can't deal with

Speaker 1 that.

Speaker 1 And I tell people when they're, when they're interested in the job and they hear about the success stories and they come in, I say, look, like, if this job was easy, everybody would do it.

Speaker 1 If everybody could do it, it wouldn't pay what it pays. Right, of course.
So, like, you have to take rejection and you have to get, it has to, you know, it has to be like water off the duck's back.

Speaker 1 Like, you do have to be able to roll off that and get through it. And you knock enough doors,

Speaker 1 eventually doors gonna open

Speaker 2 okay walk us through it just give us the main idea when that rookie goes out there for the first time they're gonna go knock on how many doors in one day ballpark a good rookie that actually really wants to see results 150 to 200 doors in one day in one day that's an eight hour day uh we start yeah i mean probably like closer to like 10.

Speaker 1 So we every morning we get together for a morning meeting. We talk about the sales skills from the day.
What were the challenges? We go through the team's goals.

Speaker 1 We get on the doors by about 10, 15, 10, 30. We work till about 3.30, 4 o'clock, take a quick lunch break, bathroom break, get out, get back on the doors by 4.30, and work till dark.

Speaker 1 So in some markets at 8.30, some it's 9.30.

Speaker 1 We typically don't want people knocking on doors after 10 o'clock at night, obviously. But yeah, the people that do it really well can schedule their return appointments.

Speaker 1 So when they catch the husband or wife at home earlier and they're come back and talk to my husband, they schedule those ones into the dark. Got it.

Speaker 1 So that way it gives them a purpose to be there at dark. So when they're knocking on doors, they're knocking on people's doors that are expecting them to come back by, not, you know, not super late.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, they're, they're long 10 to 10 plus hour days when you add in the training and the drive time back and forth. And then we train at night, we train in the mornings.

Speaker 1 Like it's a very intense day to go out there. And, you know, but again, for a rookie 18, 19, 20, 21, 21, 22-year-old kid in college to come out and make 20, even 30 grand in a summer.
That's massive.

Speaker 1 That's life-changing.

Speaker 2 Wow. Okay.

Speaker 2 So they're out there, they're knocking doors. Let's say they made $100,000 that summer.
What do you say to these 24-year-olds to not go blow that $100,000 before the next summer?

Speaker 1 Buy real estate. Make sure you set up your tax strategy right.
So you create your LLC.

Speaker 1 Don't get paid as a sole proprietor. Create a structure with that.

Speaker 1 Invest your money and be smart. Obviously, it's, you know, you can go buy yourself a nice car.
You can buy yourself. you know, something to reward yourself for the hard work, but don't just blow it.

Speaker 1 Like, it's, it's tough to not want to burn burn through it.

Speaker 1 And what I see some, some people do in the industry is that they're, they're not, from a leadership standpoint, they're not educating their sales force on the tax burdens.

Speaker 1 And they're not really real, kids aren't realizing that taxes aren't coming out of my paychecks. And then at the end of the year, they're like,

Speaker 1 Uncle Sam's knocking on their door. And what that sometimes happens, if a company doesn't train and educate the reps properly, then that rep is now left with a pretty big tax burden.
Sure.

Speaker 1 And their company's not going to throw them a bonus or or something. And so what happens is they start shopping themselves around and they look for

Speaker 1 a signing bonus from somewhere, but then that rep perpetually ends up just jumping from company to company to company and they never build anything from themselves.

Speaker 1 And so we've taken a really smart approach. Like I do a call in my partnership in my region at the company called Wealth Wednesdays.

Speaker 1 And we bring people on, talk about crypto, talk about real estate, talk about branding, talk about tax strategy, talk about all those things to these younger kids to give them opportunities to learn how to be smart with what they do.

Speaker 1 But I mean, I think real estate's an amazing one for them to get into at a young age.

Speaker 2 That's super cool. All right.
So they made $100,000. They started investing.
And now it's time for year two. How do you keep them motivated during the quiet times?

Speaker 2 They're not knocking on doors in like December in the snow, right? How do you keep them motivated in between?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, luckily, we have markets nationwide. Like, there's no snow on the ground in Miami.
You know, Phoenix, Arizona, Tucson, Vegas, St. George, a lot of Texas.

Speaker 1 So there's a lot of markets where they can go knock doors

Speaker 1 year-round if they want to.

Speaker 1 I prefer like the compartmentalization kind of approach. A lot of them are students.

Speaker 1 A lot of them are still going to school for something, whether it's doctor, dentist, lawyer, they're like really trying to,

Speaker 1 you know, build something in the future. But I think that if you, if you think about it, you have your four to five month summer where you go knock doors.

Speaker 1 And then you have, if they've done really well, like say they produced, you know, $125,000 or $150,000 in new customer revenue, that's kind of our benchmark at the company for them to come back and be like a manager, leader, recruiter.

Speaker 1 Then they spend September through January recruiting and building their own team for the next year, where then they can be the leader of that team. They get an override stack and

Speaker 1 bonuses for recruiting and running a good team. So then they get their own income off their own sales, plus they can pull in another 150, 200 grand from running a good, successful team in their org.

Speaker 1 So they spend that next chunk of months building that team, recruiting and building, and then they spend January through April or March training that team and training them and getting them ready so it's almost like you have like like any high competitive sports team you have you're you're in season like there's not a lot of time to make a lot of changes once you're in the NBA season like you can maybe make a trade here and there the time to to rebuild is kind of in the off season so then you you build your team you train your team you put your team out there and see if you did it right you build your team you train your team you put your team out there you build your team you train your team you put your team out there and And so I've preferred like the compartmentalization where it kind of builds it into blocks.

Speaker 1 And once you get to like the management level where you're these 150 plus thousand, you know, in a year, new customer revenue leaders, you're making enough in the offseason or in that one summer to kind of live off that money.

Speaker 1 And then, and that kind of gets you through.

Speaker 1 And the way that we, I mean, the way that we pay our kind of our back ends and our bonus structures out is they're kind of getting checks in the offseason monthly anyways.

Speaker 1 And so there's not this big draw to go and do a blitz here, be gone for a week, come back for two weeks, be gone for a week, come back for two weeks. I would much rather they build their salespeople.

Speaker 2 Tell us a fun story. Is there anybody that's gone and done like $500,000 in a summer?

Speaker 1 So we've had multiple reps that have done

Speaker 1 over a million dollars in new customer revenue in one summer? Yeah, so they, and what they're, so, yeah, I gotta go, I'm gonna start working. Yeah, let's go knock some doors.

Speaker 1 No, so, so, yeah, I mean, so there's a few that come to mind, but, but,

Speaker 1 uh, Les Bronze, Jake West, and Ryan Smith were three of our million-dollar guys this year.

Speaker 1 And the crazy thing on that is on our comp scale is, you know, because the company makes their money year two, year three. And so

Speaker 1 we want to bank on the fact that we're putting on good accounts and that they stick and that our service is there where it needs to be. And

Speaker 1 we're there. But Ryan Smith, for example, put on a million, over a million dollars in new customer revenue.
His commission chunk of that for the first year is 80% commission.

Speaker 1 So he'll probably have have 15 to 15% of those customers cancel. So he's going to make 700 about 700 grand.
In the summer. In a summer.
How old is Ryan? Ryan,

Speaker 1 don't hate me, Ryan, if I get this wrong.

Speaker 1 He's like late 20s, early 30s.

Speaker 1 But yeah, no, he's

Speaker 1 making.

Speaker 2 Give me your camera. You're going to go work through the door.

Speaker 1 Hey, I might actually get Murphy on the doors this summer. Why not?

Speaker 1 No, but.

Speaker 2 I got 700,000 reasons. You should try it out.

Speaker 1 no but i mean and that's and it took him honestly it takes those guys um i mean o'bert did it in like four four-ish months for like four months because he is he's in school and and he's you know in town on a or in in the us on a student visa and has to like remember that scene in wolf wall street where he's like you show me a check for 74 000 i quit my job right now and joined he'll call his boss and quit his job yeah

Speaker 1 yeah but but i mean it takes i mean for for those guys that's it's it's an unheard of industry but it's difficult.

Speaker 1 Like the mental drain that you have out there and like the solitude you feel, like there's no one out there watching you. There's no one out there watching the clock.
There's no one out there.

Speaker 1 You know, did it clock in? Did he clock out? You got to be angry out there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You really, really do. You really do.
Like the only person watching you is yourself. Wow.

Speaker 2 Would they ever go on pairs? Or that's just for training?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, I think those are the Mormon missionaries. No, but

Speaker 1 which there is some overlap. A lot of the LDS Mormon missionaries come out and do really, really good at this job, but because they've knocked doors for free for two years.
But

Speaker 1 no, we typically put them in like a car partnership or a car group and they head out and they park the car and they kind of each go their own way and then they kind of meet back up and things.

Speaker 1 But I mean, we've done stuff with our software to be more sophisticated than most of our other competitors.

Speaker 1 So we we have actually like pre-scored and pre-qualified most of the homes across the US based on a look-alike model,

Speaker 1 based on what customers we've put on that have stuck with us, based on which ones we've put on that didn't.

Speaker 1 And we we almost recommend areas areas and certain homes to sell and reps can still sell kind of anything they want but they the the houses have kind of a color coding on them that if you sell this one it'll most likely retain if you sell this one it most likely won't so interesting choose wisely yeah and and they do make a higher commission on the ones that that that are the higher likelihood of retention too so i have a story i never talked about before so a friend of mine carrie levine he started a company called mopro back in the days and he came to me and he's like a brother to me like a close friend he's like I want you to join the board of the company and he's like yeah I just raised like nine million dollars and we've got all these different things going on and all these big brands and he had all these pretty brands and I said no

Speaker 2 he's like what do you mean no I said well you don't you don't sell anything yet

Speaker 2 he's like no he did this this this it was like a lot of amazing deals and he's got raised like nine million at the time or so and I said no he's like if you want I'll build you a sales team.

Speaker 2 And if I hit that number, then we'll work it out.

Speaker 2 But I need to get to five million dollars in one year to hit the number. So, he was already gonna give me a piece for free.
I decided to create myself a job just because it was fun and I love him.

Speaker 2 He had a great concept, which was: we'll go to your restaurant, or your nightclub, or your salon, or your whatever business-clothing store, furniture store, sports card store, whatever, and we'll build you a website,

Speaker 2 all your social media accounts, and a decked-out video of your business for five grand, but you pay over two years. It's just 200 bucks a month,

Speaker 2 and so it's a two-year two-year contract, 200 bucks a month.

Speaker 2 So me and

Speaker 2 Jessica, we went and hired 40 reps.

Speaker 2 And we made them wear nurses' outfits and doctors' outfits, nurses for the girls, doctors for the boys. And they would just wear like the, what's that thing called?

Speaker 1 The stethoscope.

Speaker 2 And we did what's called a digital checkup. And it was easy.
All I did was train them to look at someone's website before you walked into their business and just find three mistakes.

Speaker 2 Oh, the address is wrong. Oh, the website doesn't do this.
Oh, the phone number is wrong. Oh, when you click on this button, it doesn't work.

Speaker 2 Just find three basic mistakes, which every website had because this is many years ago, right? This is before wix.com and those type of things, Squarespace.

Speaker 2 And so I built this team of 40. We started going to conventions and trade shows, the lawyer convention, the doctor convention, where we knew they had money.

Speaker 2 And we just, all these girls and boys were wearing doctors and nurses' outfits, and people would walk by the booth, like, what's going on? Like, oh, let's give you a digital checkup real quick.

Speaker 2 And we would write six figures a show in orders because it's $5,000 a pop with no money up front. It's $200 a year.

Speaker 2 But on the off times, on the weekdays, I'd make these reps go to like strip malls and just walk into the stores, go to a high-rise and just walk into locations.

Speaker 1 I'm so glad you said malls at the end of that. Sorry.

Speaker 2 And so all of a sudden, we'd go in and get all these different accounts and they're just racking up.

Speaker 2 Paid them a good commission. They're making good money.
And I blinked my eyes and we did $5.4 million in sales, which is $1,100 accounts of $80,000 each, like that, in four months.

Speaker 2 My friend Carrie raises $17 million after that,

Speaker 2 $70 million more after that, bada bing, bada boom. He lives in Hawaii, building a bunch of fancy houses in Hawaii, and has a bunch of kids now.
I say that story because I want to see sales.

Speaker 2 That's why I get so excited asking questions about sales. There's a famous line that Mark Cuban said, sales cures all.
Yep.

Speaker 2 When you bring sales into your business, it makes your staff excited, obviously your investors, business partners the media your vendors your clients every single person the press future potential staff you want to hire your competitors everyone has inertia and energy because of the fact you've got more sales and not enough companies have someone that every single day just picks up the phone or does text message or emails and social media just to get sales just adding

Speaker 2 A few accounts a day will literally change the core of your business and everyone involved from your household to your office to people that don't know who you are to people talking about you and rumors about you all of it's impacted by you creating sales and I see so many people try to pitch me on deals or pitch me on businesses or pitch me on companies that don't have sales and so if you're listening out there if you have a business or you want to make some extra money get into the sales space because if you don't know what to do sell someone else's stuff Yep.

Speaker 2 Right? A trusted brand like Aptive, which has been around for all these years and has done bazillions of dollars in sales, sell that.

Speaker 2 You want to sell something in the info product space sell it for a household name that you trust in the brand that you like that you learn from sell for them you'd like i i used to sell cutco knives yep right i was selling cutco knives when i was 15 years old best set of knives i own i still own them yeah they're fantastic anyways the point of it is if you don't know what your next thing is or you need to make extra cash the sales industry whether you're gonna go door to door for a company like active Whether you want to sell something for a brand or product or service that you trust, sales cures all.

Speaker 2 And you going out there and doing that will literally generate real cash flow and it'll help you learn. It'll help you figure out what you want to do next.

Speaker 2 It'll allow you to bring in cash along the way. Okay, third topic, charity.

Speaker 2 Why should people in their business or in their household have a charity component to their world?

Speaker 1 I mean, I think it's, to me, it's very grounding.

Speaker 1 I mean, I didn't come from money either. Like, I'm one of six kids.
My dad worked as a, owned his own plumbing company and then you know that

Speaker 1 wasn't working as well as he would have liked it to work. And so we worked as a, as a, got a job as a foreman and, you know, worked our way up through like a plumbing company and stuff.

Speaker 1 But being a plumber making, you know, a six-figure income with six kids in California, even back in the 90s, didn't really go, you know, very far. And things.

Speaker 1 And so like we, we grew up, if I wanted to play baseball, you know, I had to sell chocolates door to door. If I wanted to go to scout camp and I had to sell pancake breakfast tickets.

Speaker 1 And, you know, and so I didn't really, if I wanted a pair of shoes and a backpack for the next year that wasn't the hand-me-down ones for my older brothers, I had to go out there and drum up money and things.

Speaker 1 And so for me, I

Speaker 1 think that everybody has,

Speaker 1 whether it was a longer period of time in their lives or a smaller period of time in their lives, or at least the fear of not having. Everyone can relate to that.
And I think that it's important to

Speaker 1 give back. And yes, donate with your dollars, but more than that, like give with your time and your energy.
And if you don't have dollars to donate, you don't have to donate with your dollars.

Speaker 1 You can give, honestly, as simple as a smile or a hug or going to a shelter and serving up meals.

Speaker 1 Like at charity, I honestly think that charity is as good for businesses and for the economy as sales is. Charity also cures all.

Speaker 1 If you're in a bad mood or you're dealing with your own sorrow and your own grief, go serve somewhere. Go give.

Speaker 1 And like, it is so, like, it's funny, like, because I throw an elf costume on for, I wear this more than I wear my normal clothes from Thanksgiving to Christmas every single year.

Speaker 1 And, and putting this on, like, I can't be like an angry elf. Like, you know, like, I put this on and like, I have to smile.
But what I've realized is that, like,

Speaker 1 this really, this elf thing is really just an outward expression of, of a feeling that I feel inside that the world needs more love, needs more smiles, needs more goodness, needs more grace, needs more empathy, needs more forgiveness.

Speaker 1 Like, I want people to feel that through me.

Speaker 1 And, and yes, sometimes that is with dollars, sometimes that's with, you know, a plate of cookies to your neighbor's house, sometimes with donating some old clothes you don't use anymore, like with the two years too long thing that you do.

Speaker 1 Like, I think that, that,

Speaker 1 um, I mean, I honestly, I think that, that to give is to live. Like, if I'm not giving, I don't feel alive.
Wow.

Speaker 2 Buddy the Elf, where can people find you across social media?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so at the great elbow is my kind of my primary one. Okay, wait, you got to explain that.

Speaker 2 What is the great elbow?

Speaker 2 I'm not getting away with that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so it's a nickname. I was told I had an elbow on my face a lot of years ago, and I didn't let it really bother me.

Speaker 1 And then kind of my circle of friends was like, hey, elbow this, elbow that, the elbow that.

Speaker 1 And so, yeah, so instead of letting somebody, you know, make fun of my big side profile and those that I eventually grew into, now it became the great elbow.

Speaker 1 And back when I started my Instagram account, it was when it was made for just, you know, hey, my friends and family are going to see my pictures.

Speaker 1 And that was it.

Speaker 1 And then, you know, fast forward to me getting, you know, selling sneakers to NBA players and like a few shout-outs from some big influences on my birthdays and stuff that kind of have amassed a little bit of a following.

Speaker 1 And like, I mean, one of my, one of my buddies on the jazz, like, he knows my name's Kyle, but he calls me Elbow. Like, you know, like, so like, if I was to change at this point, right?

Speaker 1 It's, I don't want to get lost in the, you know, in the ether with that. And so I'm kind of stuck with the Great Elbow on that that one for at least the foreseeable future.

Speaker 2 Got it.

Speaker 1 So yeah, my nose is that.

Speaker 1 And I think

Speaker 1 Mark Berbiglia has like a comedy bit from like back in the early 2000s about a nose on his face and stuff too. So elbow on his face.

Speaker 1 And then also the NBA Elf is kind of what I'm leaning into around the charity side. And it won't just be like I'm active on it during the Christmas months.

Speaker 1 I'm going to be pumping content into that throughout the rest of the year as well. So those are my two.
And then obviously LinkedIn, Twitter, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 Awesome. And they can check you out at Utah Jazz or where else?

Speaker 1 So, I mean, I honestly, I want to hit up a lot of, I mean, any sports arena anywhere.

Speaker 1 So, if anyone has any type of event or arena-based thing or just some sort of charity event that they want an elf to show up to, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 I'm happy to be here while running a big-ass company. Yes.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 As you guys know, the Money Mondays, it's very important for you to have these discussions with your friends, family, and followers. We need you to go out there.

Speaker 2 You can visit us at themoneymondays.com. We started expanding now.
We have our elevatorfunding.com. We're doing business loans.
We have elevator mortgage, which is elevatormortgage.com, is live now.

Speaker 2 And all these things, all these different moving parts help fund everything here. That's why we've been running this for over 100 episodes with no ads.

Speaker 2 I've just been doing this because I really want you guys to have these discussions.

Speaker 2 And the way you can help us is liking, commenting, subscribing, all those obvious things, sharing the content, having your friends, having your families, having your followers, having your staff, having people in your circle listen to these episodes and share it with their friends so we can have an open discussion about money because it's truly important to know about it, talk about it, since it is part of our daily lives.

Speaker 2 I appreciate you, Kyle. Known as the Great Elbow, known as Buddy the Elf.
Here we go. Check out us on themoneymondays.com and we'll see you guys next Monday.