“One investing specialty that Mass Investments offers that most others don’t is REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts. These allow an individual to buy into a trust that invests in income-producing real estate properties. REIT investors avoid tax liabilities they would incur with other investments. That’s because the government put in place rules where REITs must pay out an amount equal to at least 90 percent of their taxable income in the form of dividends. Just like a mutual fund, you reduce your risk because the REIT holds multiple properties.
“Jack Mass talked to Brook’s grandma to see what her interest level was in the types of financial services Mass Investments provides. When she said that we did pretty much the same thing, we took the next step.
“Frank called her to explain that someone like Haley Durham would need 24/7 spin-control. Even though Grace isn’t Haley Durham, something like a simple DUI or other issue could be mitigated with the help of our PR expertise.
“Kent was up next and explained the types of things a manager can do. In its most basic form, their sole function is to provide guidance. They don’t pick investments or negotiate contracts. They are there to point their client in the right direction. He explained that a lot of actors tended to spend their money when they first get it. His job was to help them make smart decisions that didn’t leave them broke. Brook’s grandmother was receptive to that idea because Brook and many of her cousins her age or younger and would be coming into their trusts soon.
“Kent then explained the day-to-day tasks a good manager and his or her assistants could do to help someone keep organized, find information, and make things happen. He said to look at it this way: what was her time worth? Did she need to be setting up a meeting with her attorney when she could be doing more important tasks? It made sense to let her manager handle the little things that cluttered up her day.
“Once she had the full picture, it was my turn to talk to her. All that we’re missing is estate planning and insurance. Jack Mass circled back and cleared up the estate planning. It turns out Mass Investments does that from the investment side. We called Ms. Dixon about setting up trusts and the like to help create the legal framework. Brook’s grandmother pointed us to her insurance company, which specializes in serving the wealthy. She was impressed and plans to move funds over and start using our other services,” Caryn explained.
“Cool, what else did you do? How are your parents?” I asked.
Caryn looked at my dad, and he just shook his head.
“You realize that we might have opened up a whole new market segment for several of your companies, and it could make you a lot of money?” Caryn asked.
“Actually, Brook did. We need to figure out some way she can benefit from this. I’ll leave the details to you,” I said. “How’s your mom and dad?”
This was, in part, payback to my dad for being dismissive with me earlier and Caryn not taking Duke’s candidacy seriously. The other part was that this was precisely the type of thing I expected everyone to take care of. I didn’t want to get sucked back into the details of empire-building.
“Good,” Caryn said, looking dejected.
I realized she’s like the rest of us. An occasional ‘attagirl’ sometimes goes a long way.
“Caryn, don’t take my teasing too seriously; you did a fantastic job. I want you to know how much I trust you personally. I trust you to do what you think is best to make sure everyone else is doing what they need to do,” I said.
“Thanks. I keep forgetting you told me that before,” Caryn said.
I smiled back at her while making a note that I needed to do something soon to remind Caryn how much I appreciate her. That was something I should be doing more of.
“I have something else you need to know about,” Megan said. “I think I messed up.”
“Uncle John always says that everyone makes mistakes. The measure of a person is how they handle it. Admitting the mistake is the first step,” I said sagely.
He said to watch people, and they would either own it or point fingers and try to deflect blame. Uncle John advised that the best way to handle it was to tackle the problem first. Then, after the dust settled, figure out how to prevent it from happening again. Doing it this way kept people from becoming defensive and sometimes afraid to share that a problem even existed. You had to take the negative emotions out of the situation so you could tackle what was important.
“YouTube asked for our information because they said they needed to send us money based on the number of hits we’ve gotten from various video uploads.”
“How much are we talking?” Dad asked.
“Just over ten grand. That’s not the problem. Well, really, there are two problems. They’ve commingled the funds for your athletics channel and the one you do everything else with. I’ve explained that issue to them, and they’re going to straighten it out. The real issue is you’re making money with your live streaming videos that we’ve loaded onto YouTube. I tried to get YouTube to take the money back, but they refused,” Megan explained.
Oh shit! The NCAA was going to have my nuts in a vise. The one big no-no was making money with football or baseball. I had no idea you could make money just by posting stuff on YouTube. In my ignorance, I might have just invalidated my amateur status. I so wanted to yell at Megan, but that would defeat everything Uncle John taught me. I took a deep breath.
“What do we have to do to fix this?” I asked to get things moving.
◊◊◊
Duane Morris—my sports attorney who knew all things about the NCAA—and Ms. Dixon were on a conference call with my dad, Caryn, Megan, and me.
“Before we get started, Ms. Dixon, where did you find the idiot who was with me when the police interviewed me in LA? I think he was more interested in playing games on his phone than he was in looking out for my best interest. He didn’t even say anything when they wanted to read me my rights,” I complained.
“Wait. Did you say ‘he’? I hired Sue Li to be there,” Ms. Dixon said.
“Isn’t she the defense lawyer for the stars?” Mr. Morris asked.
“My dad recommended her. He met her in LA at a fundraiser. She was on the team that got Michael Jackson off when he faced his difficulties,” Ms. Dixon said and then gathered herself. “She must have sent some flunky to represent you. I’m sorry, David. I asked for her specifically.”
“It worked out all right. I just wanted to tell you that I don’t ever want that guy again.”
“I’m charging you by the minute; why don’t we get started?” Mr. Morris teased.
I had no doubt he was at least half-serious.
“Megan, explain to them what has happened, please,” Dad said.
“Before the call, I had time to clear some things up. I told David that YouTube paid us about $10,000 for views of his videos. I was mistaken. We were paid by AdSense,” Megan clarified.
“What is AdSense?” Ms. Dixon asked.
“They’re part of Google. It’s software that uses a complicated way of generating ads and paying publishers or content producers using what they call a CPM formula. It means that they pay us for every 1,000 YouTube ad impressions you get. If a CPM is one dollar, it means that they’re paying us a dollar for every 1,000 advertisement impressions a video generates.
“Of course, that’s just an example. The CPM can vary based on how desirable the content is. The big ones for David have been the Star Wars Millennium Falcon videos and the streaming videos that we load after the football games,” Megan explained.