Collin Plume
Appearances
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
I think thin influencers are, I would say that there's It's good and bad in that the good part about it is you can get access to a different style of learning that probably wasn't there before. For instance, if you wanted to learn about Tesla.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
You used to go online and look at the stock and read the prospectus and make your own determination, or maybe you had a stock broker tell you their thoughts. But now you could go to YouTube and look up Tesla and you could get different sides of the story and different ideas of what's going to happen or thoughts from that influencer and you could learn about the stock in a different way.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
Because for many people, learning in that way with video is much easier than reading a perspective. So in some ways, it's really good. And even for me, when I wanna learn about something, obviously in the financial realm that I don't know, I will go to YouTube first, and then I will go and try to get information or a book or do research in many different ways.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
The bad thing is that they think they are authorities and people believe they are authorities. And a lot of times it's just their opinion or even worse, they're getting paid to tell you something. And so one area that I know that a lot of people got is, that lost money was the NFT market, which was a derivative of the crypto market was this NFT craze.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And people saw influencers like Jake Paul and a lot of these, or Logan Paul, I can't remember, one of the Pauls, that created these NFTs and they said that they would do these certain things. There's other ones out there that have done this too. There's hundreds, probably thousands. And a lot of times they were getting paid either to create that product or promote that product.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And there was really nothing behind it. And a lot of people took their word at face value. The big thing about when you're getting into investing or you're doing any kind of money, you gotta spend some time and do research and check different sources. The problem today is that people will, if they like an influencer the way that they talk, they'll take their word for it.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And unfortunately, the algorithms of these social media, it's not based on who's giving you the best information or someone that's the most credible information. it could be either that they paid to get in front of you, number one, or two, they could have just presented the video in a way that is the most appealing to people.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And so the problem is that people, and they've done studies about this, and they've done it on Google too, is that people think the things that pop up on social media or on Google searches, they think that those are the authorities. And actually, it's just based on the algorithm of that social media platform.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
So you may watch a video about Bitcoin from a person that just made the most appealing video and maybe isn't the most knowledgeable on the subject. So it's like what we used to do when we used to do research is that you want to check multiple sources. getting information from one place and then trying to back check it in multiple other places.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
If people did that, I think they'd be in a much better place. But unfortunately, people do see these influencers and they take it on face value. When we advertise with influencers, we really tell people to do their research on us and do the research on precious metals too.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And that's why we send them so much education because ultimately I want people to make an educated decision before they buy from us. It's important that they do that because it's a long-term relationship. I know that if someone acquires Specialist Metals from us, they may be our client for the next 10 or 15 or 20 years.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
So I want them to know that they made an educated decision, that they did their research. So it's important that people take that extra step and they take that time and they do the research on the company that we tell people, check out our reviews. go to the BBB, go to Google, check us out.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
These are all things that you need to do before you make a financial decision and not just take that influencer's sort of word for it because they could just be paid for an ad. And I've talked to influencers about promoting us, and I've asked them if they're interested in precious metals, and they've said no. And I've said, I don't want to do business with them.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
I only want to work with influencers that are interested in what we do, because otherwise it's just... They're just getting paid to say it and it doesn't make sense and it doesn't ring true. So it's important even for us to work with influencers that really believe and have done their research so that if they do an ad for us, that it's credible, that it's actually something that they believe in.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think that's the big disconnect with influencers is sometimes they will just promote a product for money and not necessarily that they believe in it.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
I think the most important thing, Vince, is when you're raising children is having a what my wife and I call is a united front in that we have the same. I think the most important thing as a person today, when you pick a partner, is you have to align on financial values and goals. So much of what happens to relationships is because people are not aligned on those things.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
My wife and I had, and I think our values are so similar, even when we first met, is because both of our families lost the majority of our wealth and had to start over. So we both have this fear that, in us of what can happen when you're not diversified. Both of our families were not diversified. That has led us to where we are and what we have built and what we teach our children.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And correct, I have gold and silver set aside for each of my children Obviously the same amount because everything has to be equal. For anyone that has children, they know that this is the most important thing. I talk to them all the time about money and what things cost. And I talked to my oldest son recently about the mortgage. I explained to him what a mortgage is.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think when you look at The idea of the dollar itself, the return is so low in the bank also relative to what you can make out there. This year, gold is up 27%. The banks are paying 4% in the bank right now. They're only paying that 4% right now because they know that there's so many other investments out there that yields a much higher return.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
He had some very interesting questions about... how it works and why. And I didn't get into the specifics of what the dollar amount is because it's not important. I want him to understand at an early age, he's eight years old, the twins are going to be six. I want them to understand the cost of things. And we talk to them every day about it.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
Whether we give them a toy and when the toy breaks, we've had some very... serious conversations about them being reckless with money. And I think that the mistake people make is they think that kids today don't know or they don't understand. And they do know and they do see the way that you're treating money.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And if you go to Disneyland and you are buying them everything at Disneyland and you're being frivolous, and I'm just using Disneyland as an example because it's such an overpriced place. And it's such a capitalistic suck. The average two or three days at Disneyland, you can spend two, $3,000 in a second.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I want them to understand that these things come from the idea that you have to understand what things cost and you have to be careful. And it's important for me to do that. And I do it with my employees to a certain extent too. We have a Slack channel and I put ideas in there for them of ways that they can cut costs or save money.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I understand that they need help also understanding these things because the system that we've created in the US, this capitalistic system is great and it has created this incredible economy. But in my opinion, in a lot of ways, we've gone too far. People that make $30,000 a year are buying a $1,000 phone. It doesn't make any sense. And a lot of times they're borrowing the money to get it.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And that's because they feel like they have to. In today's world, they have to have it. If you go back 30, 40 years ago, if someone was making $8,000 a year, they wouldn't buy a $400 phone or a $300 phone. The math doesn't make sense, but in today's world, We've become accustomed to buying these things that we feel we have to have.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And so my training for my children is that not everything is necessary, that you don't need these things. And the things that we value, the things that we do spend money on, is travel and experience. I think the number one thing I can give to them is seeing how different parts of the world live and how different people live. And so that's the one thing that we're willing to spend money on.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
But everything else is... not necessary and so my financial hopefully gift to them is that learning from other people in the world focusing on education we obviously spend a lot of money on their education and giving them all the tutoring and all the things that they need to learn but everything else all the other stuff is irrelevant
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And that's really, as a father, that Sharon and I, as a family, as a unit, that we really focus on is that learning and educating, these are the things that you're willing to spend money on because they will help you, shape you as a person, make you a better person, educate you.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
Maybe you'll learn about a new business opportunity or maybe you'll learn about something in your soul that is important. But everything else, all the other stuff... is just, it's just eventually just becomes junk. And I think that as a father and as an educator of people in finance, focusing on what's important is the thing that leads to a happy life.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think that's why I've shown them their gold and silver. And I said, these things are worth value. They're gonna be worth value. These are items, these are assets. In the future, if you want to start a business in your 20s, you can use this gold and silver to start a business.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
If you need it at some point in your life to help with your family, these assets, these gold and silver, these coins, these small pieces of gold and silver will be worth thousands and thousands of dollars. I showed my son a kilo gold bar that I acquired many years ago, maybe five years ago. And when I bought it, it was worth $60,000. It was a kilo of gold. Today it's worth over $80,000.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
and his mind seeing that the idea that it went up twenty thousand dollars over the last five years and i said with this eighty thousand dollars i could pay right now for two years of your college depending on where you go and he really was able to internalize that that this asset
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And so with inflation being something that everybody is talking about, everyone's talking about the price of energy and the price of food and all of these things have gone up. They've skyrocketed over the last few years. People also are saying, I can't make 4% in the bank. And I think the returns of the banks in the US are going to continue to go down.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
Yellow metal could pay for him to go to college potentially for two years right now, or it could help him start a business or anything. This is the education that I am trying to impart on my children, our employees, and also to clients and people out there. And I can't even tell you how many times...
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
over the last eight years since we started Noble Gold, that I've had people come, grandparents come and buy gold and silver for their grandkids instead of buying some Christmas present that they're not going to need. And I can tell you that in the future, those grandkids are going to benefit much more than the toy that they could have bought.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
That's the thing, Vince, that I want to impart is that's the future that of success is buying assets that have value, understanding the value of things. And those are the things that I really try to impart on my children and everyone that I talk to about investing.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
I would not be surprised if we see 3% savings returns by next year and even lower. So the other idea, too, is I just can't leave money in the bank because I need to keep up with my quality of life. And I think that's the thing about gold.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
If you go back over time, if you go back the last 150 years, gold has been able to keep up with inflation and the cost of living in a way that most other items have not. And that is also the big idea with investing for retirement is you want that same quality of life in retirement that you have while you're working.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
That's why you're working so hard is you wanna be able to have the things in retirement. And yes, you may have to downsize your living to afford to live as long as you may live. With that being said, the idea is you want items that are gonna keep up with the cost, the increasing costs of everything that's going up out there.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And so that's another reason why a lot of people, if they were hitting very heavy in cash, they've been looking at gold and silver as another way because they need to make better returns. And obviously nobody has a crystal ball of where things will go. But typically during heavy inflationary periods, gold has performed very well.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
You can see the late 70s, early 80s is a perfect example when inflation was in the 14 to 16% range and gold was keeping up with that and outperforming those numbers.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
That's another reason that a lot of people are diversifying. And that's a big part of my philosophy, Vince, is keeping your options open in terms of investment and also being willing to learn about different investments. That's the thing that will really separate people today and for the next 20, 30 years is not being stuck on some of the old ideas.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
If you look at the S&P 500, if you go back 20, 30, 40 years ago, many of those companies are no longer in business. So the idea that you should just stay into one stock or stay into one area in terms of investment forever is really not a smart strategy. The idea is being diversified in different investments so that you're protected.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I'll tell you, a lot of my clients that I had when I was in commercial real estate Many of them bought gold and silver from me. And I had conversations with them over the last few years that said that they were so happy that they diversified out of real estate because real estate has been so difficult over the last few years. And I don't think it's gonna get
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
any better i still think real estate is going to have significant issues and so if you have all your funds and just real estate just rental properties just whatever it is in real estate and you go through a down period and we've been in a two and a half year down period in real estate then you could really jeopardize that comfortable retirement if you don't have other assets to pull from
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And so that's a big part of my philosophy is I do own real estate. I do own lots of gold and silver. I do own some stocks. It's important to be diversified. And I've even diversified into buying additional businesses because I do want to be more diversified. And I think that owning good quality businesses and building them up is another way to have an income stream.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And so I do exactly what I tell people to do and I am diversified. And that makes me feel more comfortable is not having all my eggs in one basket. And I think that's the thing that I would say to people is the most important is be willing to learn about a new investment or a new strategy every year, whether you decide to do it or not is up to you. But I think being willing to learn about it
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
is important. It will help you and it'll keep you sharp. And I think the idea that you can just rely on a financial advisor or a stockbroker to make all the decisions for you is not a way for success. I think that they have a very specific job. They have certain items that they can put you into or sell you into.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And if you only rely on them, you could be missing out on some tremendous opportunities in other investments that are out there. And so the goal I think today, and this is the thing I tell people about gold and silver, the great thing about owning gold and silver is that you are in control of it. You're the boss. The downside to owning gold and silver is that you're the boss.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
So you're the boss of both sides. And for some people, that's what they want. And for other people that are afraid of it. But I think ultimately when you're talking about your future and your finances and all the things that you've worked so hard for, Ultimately, you do want to be the boss and you want to dictate your future yourself and be in charge of it.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think that's the big shift that's happened in investing over the last 20 or 30 years. People now, people on the internet, people on YouTube that are talking about finances, and it's really shifted from... the financial advisor model to, hey, I can learn stuff online. I don't have to just trust my financial advisor. I can learn on my own. I can go to YouTube.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think people that are doing that and that are learning about new investments are really benefiting from all the information that's out there.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
Yeah, I think being diversified in a retirement. I think your question is interesting in that retirement is changing in that people are working longer and I think it's great that they're working longer. I recently was on a work trip and I jumped into an Uber with my A gentleman who sold a business, was successful, but he felt like he was too young to retire. And so he was driving Uber.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
The money was helpful, but not necessary. But he wanted to stay sharp. He wanted to have a purpose. And so I do think he was in his late seventies. And and I think that the idea of retirement is going to change for people because they can work from home. They can do different jobs. Father's a great example.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
He's 80 years old and he still works for us part time because he likes he likes having a purpose. And I think that's the thing that people are learning about today is that maybe retiring too quickly is not the best thing.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And maybe having one of these gig jobs, a part-time job, there's so many, and I talk a lot about this on my podcast too, is there's so many gig jobs that people that are in their sixties and seventies and eighties could do. Writing, writing is a lost art. There's so many people looking for writers and people that can create scripts and content.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think that a lot of people are transitioning into these jobs and they're paying amazing. I've seen writing jobs paying $25, $30 an hour average. for good writing. And the list goes on and on. So I think retirement, the idea behind it is changing. And I think that people are realizing that they can continue to work in some capacity. And I think it's healthy to keep your mind sharp.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
Also, having a little extra income is important. I think people don't know where the costs of things are going to go, and having another income stream in your later years can be really helpful. We at Noble Gold have hired a number of people that are older than 60, and it's been fantastic, not only for them, but for us, because they have so much life experience, so much
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
for us to learn from and we've really benefited from hiring people and typically when someone would retire. So that's been quite, quite interesting and a big shift for us. is being open to people at all ages and stages in their life.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
And I think that we and our clients have really benefited because for my dad, for instance, a lot of the people that he's talking to are in a similar position to him. They're in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. And so he can really connect with them on what they're seeing day to day and what they're feeling about their retirement and how comfortable they are. So I think the idea of retirement is shifting.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
I think more people are working longer, but I think it's actually in a lot of ways, it's healthier that they have some purpose.
Chief Change Officer
#205 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part Two
in their life and i think it's something that that is is a big shift as people are living to a hundred and and more i don't think many of the financial advisors have created strategies where people are living to a hundred and having an extra income coming in a thousand or two thousand or three thousand dollars a month potentially in your later years can definitely stretch your dollar a lot longer than it used to so i think the whole thing is changing vince
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
that you can own by yourself. And it was against the grain, this idea that you can own the physical gold and silver by yourself, that we would help you get it, acquire it, but it's yours. And there's no middleman. That was very appealing to me.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
What I learned from these very wealthy business owners when I was in commercial real estate is really the most important thing as you build wealth is to buy assets. And I felt that gold and silver and platinum and palladium was an overlooked asset that people weren't really talking about it. It fascinated me as to why.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And a lot of it has to do with people are used to the stock market or they're used to certain things that they've done. But I think that alternative investments have really made a push. You've seen cryptocurrencies obviously go wild and that's a big part of the market now. But gold and silver and platinum and palladium in a way are so simple and yet feel so foreign to people.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And so that was my goal was to give as much education on precious metals as I could and through videos and emails and books and everything that I could possibly do is educate them on something that's simple, but in a lot of ways is so present in what we need today. If you think about the problem with the world in terms of the economy, the biggest issue is debt.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
The biggest issue that we've created is this debt cycle that we can't get out of, that everyone is living on. Every country in the world is living on tremendous debt, more debt than we've ever seen. And the numbers are staggering. If you go in terms of the debt that was created since 2000 to today, we've created 30 times more debt in the last 24 years than
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
than we did in the 100 years before that in the United States, which is quite shocking considering we went through multiple world wars. We went through Vietnam. We went through the Cold War. And yet in the last 24 years, we've created much more debt than what we did in the 100 years before that. And so I think gold and silver and platinum and palladium
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
are perfect in today's environment because it goes against the idea of debt because you actually own the assets by yourself and their assets that are needed in today's environment. Gold is used in so many industries. Silver, the list goes on and on.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Platinum and palladium is also, but it's nice to know as an investor that you have something in your portfolio that is not tied to any debt instrument. I think it's the number one thing that make what we do very interesting is that you have this ability to acquire an asset
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
that gives you some freedom from the traditional markets that you're not tied to any companies that could have like an Enron situation or you're not tied so heavy into tech stocks and it gives you a little hedge And I would say some type of insurance against some of the things that can happen with some of the other traditional investments.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And so that's what made me get into it and fall in love with it. And it's become my number one thing of learning is continuing to learn about these assets and also educate people about what they can do for them in today's financial environment.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
First, in terms of liquidity and the risk of liquidity, gold and silver, what we sell are bullion coins and bars, which these are the highest purity, best condition products. These are what the banks buy. These are what the large institutions buy. This is what COMEX buys. So the items you buy from us are liquid anywhere in the world.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
That being said, we will buy back anything that we've sold to you at any day, at any time. But we have focused on items that have liquidity, regardless of you selling back to us. That was one of the differentiators when I started the business was that many of people in this space, they sell many products. I've seen companies sell 5,000 different coins and bars.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
The problem is that a lot of them that you could buy, They may not be liquid because they may not have the desirability at the time you want to sell it. The items we sell all have the highest desirability on the market. And that's something that's really important is that people have liquidity. And that is something that we really focus on. And we do have people that are retiring or need money.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And it's important for them to have that liquidity at any moment of the day. In terms of how it works, there's two ways you can acquire it. One would be in an IRA. And so if you do an IRA in gold or silver, you're actually buying the physical bars and coins and we help you through that process. But we do in the IRA, we do have to store it. until you retire.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
So once you retire and you're above the age of 59 and a half, you can actually take possession of the items that you acquired. So it's only in storage and it's in segregated storage until that time. And all the paperwork and everything we do, we walk you through that process. You have an online system to actually see the price of your inventory and what you own any day.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
You can log in there and do that. And those metals would be liquid at any time for you. The other way that you can do it, and the IRA is very popular because a lot of people have a lot of their retirement funds and IRAs, and they may want to change some of it. So maybe they have some of it in the stock market and they want to diversify. They don't want to have all of it in the stock market.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
They can diversify with us and put some of their holdings
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
in precious metals and it's actual physical precious metals when it arrives at the depository we we have two one in texas and one in delaware we actually take a picture of the actual bullion coins and bars of the client acquire we send the client that photo so they can see the actual metal that they own but it is theirs it is segregated and they will be able to get access to it at retirement the other way you can do it is we actually can shift the metal directly to your doorstep
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
and that is a very popular option also people love getting it at home and as funny as it sounds there are people that probably have some of our gold under their mattress now i don't know if i'd recommend that location but we do have thousands and thousands of clients that have acquired precious metals and we've shipped it to their doorstep.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And the reason they want it is because they want control of it, which is the thing that I mentioned earlier is that the idea of control is the beauty behind this type of investment in that you actually can control the investment on your own. And it's not controlled by the government. It's not controlled by us. You actually control it and hold it. And that is very appealing.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
a lot of Americans to have an investment that they can hold and touch. And if they had to flee the country or go anywhere in the world, they would have access to that liquid wealth.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Thanks, Vince. Excited to be here.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Yeah, exactly. And I think also when things are not going well, for instance, like last year, there was multiple banks that were in trouble. And right now there's lots of banks that are in trouble because of what's going on. in commercial real estate.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And I think that when you see any kind of banking situation where banks are going out of business or not doing well, it doesn't give a lot of confidence to people leaving money in the bank. And you saw three very large banks last year that went out of business and you saw videos of people waiting in line to get their cash out. And I think that is another reason
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
that people have liked the idea of gold and silver because A, you don't want to have it controlled in an entity that could potentially go out of business. And the Dodd-Frank Act had some language in there that leads people to believe that if a bank truly did go out of business, the FDIC had some problems that in essence, they could potentially take your money.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And I think when you look at The idea of the dollar itself, the return is so low in the bank also relative to what you can make out there. This year, gold is up 27%. the banks are paying 4% in the bank right now. They're only paying that 4% right now because they know that there's so many other investments out there that yields a much higher return.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And so with inflation being something that everybody is talking about, everyone's talking about the price of energy and the price of food and all of these things have gone up. They've skyrocketed over the last few years. People also are saying, I can't make 4% in the bank. And I think the returns of the banks in the US are going to continue to go down.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
I would not be surprised if we see 3% savings returns by next year and even lower. So the other idea, too, is I just can't leave money in the bank because I need to keep up. with my quality of life. And I think that's the thing about gold.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
If you go back over time, if you go back the last 150 years, gold has been able to keep up with inflation and the cost of living in a way that most other items have not. And that is also the big idea with investing for retirement is you want that same quality of life in retirement that you have while you're working.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
That's why you're working so hard is you wanna be able to have the things in retirement. And yes, you may have to downsize your living to afford to live as long as you may live. But that being said, the idea is you want items that are gonna keep up with the cost, the increasing costs of everything that's going up out there
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And so that's another reason why a lot of people, if they were hitting very heavy in cash, they've been looking at gold and silver as another way because they need to make better returns. And obviously nobody has a crystal ball of where things will go, but typically during heavy inflationary periods, gold has performed very well.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
You can see the late 70s, early 80s is a perfect example when inflation was in the 14 to 16% range and gold was keeping up with that and outperforming those numbers.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Yeah, so in one form or another, Vince, I've been in the sales side of pretty much every business, which I do believe allowed me to try different careers, learn from people, high-level people. I was in the insurance business, selling insurance, property, casualty insurance. I learned very significant things from my bosses early in my career.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And my first boss in the insurance business was, I would say, the most beguiling, the most lovable person. person on the phone in an industry where people dislike you. Most people don't love their insurance agent because your rates go up every year and you don't typically see much coming out of it.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
But this gentleman had a way with people on the phone, even when they were upset, he could turn a conversation into a likable conversation. And I watched him do this and learn from him for many years and really learn the art of customer service. Interestingly enough, off the phone or not on clients, he was a kind of a difficult person to be with.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And he gets into the person that he needed to be on the phone. I learned that, yes, you were selling something, but really what was important was that was the customer service aspect, especially in that business and treating people with respect and really listening to them. And so I learned from him for many years. in that business and then transitioned over into commercial real estate.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And again, selling commercial real estate, I was selling apartments, shopping centers, triple net properties. In that business, I learned from my mentor, the owner of the business, He was an incredible gatherer of talent. He would interview people in a very in-depth way. He spent time with people. He did a lot of events outside of work. He even did an event that I copied
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
which is we do a sales trip every year for my current business. The reason he did it is he wanted to spend time with people and really get them to learn about him, his philosophy, and also create loyalty to him and his business. And that was something that he did. And I use it currently in my company, Noble Gold. But in that business, I learned a lot from him.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
on how to have loyal employees and how to treat people with respect, which he always did. But I also learned something really interesting, which is what not to do. Because as much as he had loyalty and he created this environment where everybody had, he had these great employees, he was a terrible marketer. He did absolutely no marketing. He didn't see the sense in it.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
He didn't want to spend the money. And he didn't realize that sales and marketing are so intertwined that you have to do both. And every industry and every business is different, but he did it. And at the time before I left, I didn't really know what mistake he made in that business.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
But later on, I learned as I went into the precious metals business, which was the career before I started my own business, I learned that the marketing actually was even more important than the sales in some ways. I watched my boss before I started my own business struggle with marketing, learn how to do marketing.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
He even was the first one to create affiliate marketing online, which was something that nobody had ever done before. And he actually created some success for himself by diving into internet marketing in a much different way. And basically the precious metals business was a brick and mortar sort of old school business. And he created a new digital marketing way and had some early success.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
in that business. So I think all of the careers early on led me to starting Noble Gold. And the experience that I had was perfect in that I learned that early customer service and client relations are your most important asset. And I learned that in the insurance business.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
When I got to real estate, I learned about employees and hiring the right employees and having employee loyalty and creating a good environment. And then with my third boss, I realized the importance of marketing. And I basically took all of those lessons and put them into my first very successful company, which was Noble Gold.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And I wouldn't have gotten there without those three separate experiences that I had. They really were perfect to start the business Noble Gold that we started in 2016.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
I always realized that very early on that actually it does not matter what you're actually selling, what product you're in. It is all about the customer. Everything is about the customer and everything we do at Noble Gold is to create the best possible customer experience.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And that's why we've gone the opposite way with a lot of companies where we've actually just hired more people, actual people, whereas a lot of people are going towards AI. We really focus on that customer experience because I do think that There's so many financial products, there's so many things out there where they don't want to talk to you.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And I believe that people want to build a relationship and they want people to talk to. So it is absolutely the most important thing for us just to make sure that when they buy the metal from us, that we help them through the whole process and get it to their doorstep safely. And they feel that it's a special experience. It's a white glove experience.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
So yes, on the consumer side, it is absolutely our number one focus. On the employee side, I think I was already very employee friendly, but I learned so much through COVID. I think that employees... really at Noble Gold bonded together through COVID because I had a very distinct policy, which was, you go, if somebody's sick or if you have an issue, you go and we figure out, we'll cover you.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
We'll figure it out later. And we did that. And we did that no matter what. And anyone in any position, no matter if they worked in the vaults shipping metals or they were on the phone or any position, if somebody had an issue where they were sick or they had a family member that was sick,
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
the philosophy was you go and that i think safety that people felt they weren't going to lose their job they felt like we were around and on top of that we would do monthly zoom parties We do some kind of we did categories and we did all these fun events through Zoom to keep everybody together because there was a lot of people that were either living alone or living far from family.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And they were going through it. They were going through the sadness. They were going through people dying. So we really tried to create a culture of family together. And I think COVID created that bond in a unique way for us. And I think that's a big part of the success we had is that people felt like we were there for them above and beyond them just working for us.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And Sharon and I, my wife, have always had this philosophy. And if something was going on, we called people, we checked in on people. And the clients had similar things going on. And so I think a lot of our growth... in the 2020 and today was shaped by what was going on with COVID and us being able to create this family environment for our clients and also for our employees.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And it also taught me a lot that I am responsible in so many ways to these people that work for us and I have a big responsibility to make sure that they have the things that they need, which is a retirement plan and health insurance and a safe environment for them to work and also a wage that's above
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
The market, we pay above market wage in every position because we can, and I think it's the right thing to do if you can do it. Those are some of the things that I learned and the company learned over the last few years that I think shaped who we are today.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
I think the reason that I got into precious metals is that I had some experiences as a child. My grandfather collected silver coins. Up until 1970, our U.S. coinage actually had silver in it. So there's these coins before 1970, they call them junk silver bags. And they're bags of silver coins that have some percentage of silver in it.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Either 40 or 90% of the coin is silver, depending on the age of the coin. And I got some of these coins as a child and as a gift and learned a little bit about it that this quarter that I was receiving, even though it's a quarter on the face, it shows 25 cents. It's actually worth, at the time, it was worth 50 cents, let's say.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Those quarters today, because of the price of silver, could be worth $5 or $6. They have a face value on the money, but because there's silver in it, it's worth a lot more. And I learned that as a child.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
When I decided to go into precious metals later in my life, a lot of it had to do with what happened to me in commercial real estate and that I realized that my clients in commercial real estate were business owners.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
Most of them were immigrants that had come to the United States with most, I can't even tell you how many came to the United States with zero money in their pocket and had built wealth. And all of them would build the wealth and buy assets. And the asset that they would buy would be real estate.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And what I realized is as much as that had helped them build more wealth, I also realized that there were other assets that could do something very similar.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
And I think that the thing that I've learned over the last 16 years being in the precious metals industry is that gold and silver and platinum and palladium have been seriously overlooked by mass media because it's the way that we sell gold and silver, it's not a derivative, it's not a stock, it's not a fund, it's not an ETF. And really, the big money in advertising and dollars all over the U.S.
Chief Change Officer
#204 Collin Plume: From Kid Collector to Gold Guru – Part One
I mean, if you go to Fox News or any of those channels, they're all pushing mutual funds or some kind of fund or stock because there's so much money, there's so much wealth created in derivatives of things where you don't own it all or you put it in a big pile. And the thing that I loved about precious metals when I started in it 16 years ago was that this is actually one of the few assets