Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Theodore Brenneman of Bridgehampton Gold Group Is Helping To Change Our World
An Interview With Edward Sylvan
The social impact I would most like to make with this book, which aligns with our purpose at The Bridgehampton Gold Group, is to educate the public on the benefits of a full-service precious metals provider while also issuing a dire warning about the risks of working with the wrong companies. The dichotomy being the margins being charged by one firm vs the other.
As part of my series about “authors who are making an important social impact”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Theodore J. Brenneman.
Theodore J. Brenneman is an author and industry veteran with over 15 years of financial services, commodity trading, marketing and advertising experience. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in finance from Lehigh University. Mr. Brenneman also carries an active Series 3 & Series 30 license with the National Futures Administration (NFA) and a Salesperson’s License with the California Department of Real Estate. With his direction, oversight and the unique perspective, he has garnered his clients’ allegiance and loyalty. He took a fresh look at investing, saw a void in the gold and silver market, and mapped out a straightforward service approach and pricing model that offers the industry’s highest level of value. His client vision is to give individualized attention, assess their goals and objectives for investment success in Precious Metals, and diversify their portfolios with the right metals at the best available price. With the commitment to truth and transparency and the philosophy that an informed client is your best client, The Bridgehampton Gold Group was born. With Theodore’s expertise and first-class service model, The Bridgehampton plans to continue to expand nationwide and soon be the fastest-growing precious metals firm in the US.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago as the youngest of 3 brothers. My father was a thrill-seeking entrepreneur and as such, I was exposed to, let’s call it, calculated risk-taking from a young age. I went sky diving for the first time when I was 8 years old, climbed the face of the first Flat Iron mountain in Boulder Colorado at 10 and had an Advanced PADI Scuba Divers License at the age of 16.
I spent summers working at my father’s office in Clarendon Hills IL, a Marketing Research Firm specializing in Automotive and Consumer Electronics. However, this may as well have been a box-moving organization because that is what I was primarily doing.
It did give me an opportunity to observe my father in his element which proved valuable because he was so often traveling for work. I believe this instilled the entrepreneurial spirit I have always maintained and the drive and work ethic that I have identified with in later life.
When you were younger, was there a book that you read that inspired you to take action or changed your life? Can you share a story about that?
Awaken The Giant Within by Tony Robbins was the first book that “got me off the couch and into the game” mentally. I think this book helped me tap into the passion that existed inside an otherwise distracted and confused adolescent.
I didn’t particularly love reading but I burned through that book in a few days and my mother, not knowing I had read it, noticed an immediate shift. I was organizing my room meticulously, taking an interest in learning new things (which became a prevailing value in my life) and had a more vibrant energy.
In looking back, my gifts were only partly rewarded by the school system as science and foreign language were not particularly interesting to me. Reading this book gave me a glimpse of how my unique internal self was “enough” and that life would reward my nonlinear abilities regardless of my report card. Ironically my grades improved as a result of being more engaged in life.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?
At 27 I was working at my first successful sales job earning 6 figures for the first time in my life. Many of my friends in the Los Angeles area were working in mortgages at the time and had been pressing me for months to come work with them. Sure I was making over 100k but they were earning 2 to 4 times that amount!
I was proud of what I had accomplished where I was and rejected their advances many times including a $10,000 signing bonus.
After a heated exchange with my boss one day, I made an emotionally driven decision to jump ship and head over to mortgages and take my earning power to the next level.
My first day in the office was LITERALLY the day that Bear Stearns closed its mortgage desk which started the great recession of 2007–2008.
This means that if you asked someone to look over a calendar of the past 50 years and pick the absolute WORST day to start a career in mortgages, it would have been that day I walked into the office.
Can you describe how you aim to make a significant social impact with your book?
Well as an author, I know that books about macroeconomics and downside market strategy aren’t likely to skyrocket to the New York Times bestseller list. There are simply more interesting topics for the majority of people to realistically sit down and read about.
As a business person, I also know how important it is to have a clearly stated purpose, philosophy and accounting of specialized knowledge.
This book chronicles the past decade spent in an obscure and often misunderstood industry and the lessons learned from the 10,000 hours with clients learning about and ultimately investing or not investing in physical precious metals. It also lays out my personal philosophy about how to best navigate this simple investment which is often made too complex by design.
The social impact I would most like to make with this book, which aligns with our purpose at The Bridgehampton Gold Group, is to educate the public on the benefits of a full-service precious metals provider while also issuing a dire warning about the risks of working with the wrong companies. The dichotomy being the margins being charged by one firm vs the other.
Physical precious metal investing is complex enough to warrant using an expert to guide you through it, but choosing the wrong company can be a disastrous investment decision.
The Bridgehampton Gold Group started as an experiment nearly 3 years ago to see if a full-service precious metals dealer could EXIST while providing an ethical and transparent pricing model. So far we’ve proven you can. So this book, if widely accepted, could change the industry as a whole and save thousands of people from losing a large portion of their life savings.
Can you share with us the most interesting story that you shared in your book?
I had a client call me years ago whose grandfather wanted to leave him $10,000 in the 1960s. He was calling because he had opened a safety deposit box to find $10,000 in crisp, uncirculated $100 bills. He was inquiring to see if these bills because they were in mint uncirculated condition, had any additional value.
I called over one of our numismatists (fancy word for collectible coin expert) and he explained to this gentleman that not only did these bills have no value beyond the cash price, but if his grandfather had simply put $10,000 in gold bullion into that safety deposit box… it would be worth over $475,000.
What was the “aha moment” or series of events that made you decide to bring your message to the greater world? Can you share a story about that?
The beginning of the Covid 19 pandemic.
In order for our business model to work, we needed to keep overhead low so we started with an at-home workforce from day 1. This meant our operations and sales teams were communicating via zoom calls for nearly a year before the “work from home” revolution began. Having read the book Drive by Daniel Pink many years earlier I also saw value in giving my workforce more autonomy in how and when they invested their efforts. This also afforded me more time and autonomy.
The US government had just begun the largest monetary expansion in history to combat the obvious market risk the shutdown imposed.
Realizing the importance of understanding the threat of immense future inflation, and that I had almost nothing to do in the evenings, thanks to shutdowns and a general fear of socialization, I decided to make the most of my time.
Without sharing specific names, can you tell us a story about a particular individual who was impacted or helped by your cause?
We had a client that came to us in a desperate situation. They had worked with a full-service firm that was on the opposite end of the ethical spectrum. These “advisors” had fast talked this client into investing $500,000 from his retirement account into high margin bullion coins that he didn’t understand and in so doing charged this man $150,000 in fees. This client had called looking to make a simple investment in gold bullion as close to the spot price as possible and had tragically given away over a third of his life savings.
Once we reviewed his holdings, we exchanged his overpriced and unexceptional gold coins for a far superior silver coin that was priced appropriately and had a legitimate premium upside.
Over the next 14 months, while gold prices didn’t move, the silver spot price increased from $17 to $28 and the premium on his coins increased by 35%. We cashed out his silver investment with a 72% profit, turning his $300,000 into $495,000 in just over a year.
Not only had we recouped his losses and put him in profit, but he had just made one of the biggest returns of his life while investing in an asset that is technically safer than bonds. Getting that type of return while substantially lowering his portfolio risk was probably a once-in-a-lifetime investment.
Are there three things the community/society/politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
Absolutely.
- Much like the SEC in the mortgage crisis, rating agencies today are not properly warning the public of the danger these predatory companies pose. I can personally attest to 50+ investors that have had their finances ruined by unscrupulous companies that currently hold A to A+ rating with the most popular review sites. In fact, many of the highest-rated companies in this space have class action lawsuits and multiple State District Attorneys suing them. I can only speculate this is the result of a pay-for-play model in the rating agencies and should be addressed by lawmakers.
- Buyers need to take the initiative to understand the cost of what they are investing in. Simply taking an advisor or more likely salesperson’s word for what something is worth is a recipe for disaster. Trust but verify. Compare prices with other firms and break out the calculator to make sure you understand the mark-up before making a commitment.
- The Physical Precious Metals marketplace is an unregulated industry, and while I am in favor of deregulation in many sectors, this allows disingenuous firms to take advantage of tricky language in their contracts. The common language you will see is something like “The spread (markup) for our products is between 2 and 33%, but can vary in times of market volatility” Now does this language sound like it benefits the consumer or the company? State or Government organizations could easily require a more transparent and honest explanation of cost similar to what we do at The Bridgehampton Gold Group.
How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?
Leadership as I would define it would be inspiring others to make the most of their gifts and opportunities in life.
A great mentor of mine at a very large metal trading firm once said “You know I can’t explain it but… the people who come to this job everyday and have a purpose… tend to rise above the rest.”
That has always stayed with me and is something I try to instill in my organization. It is a call to action for each person to define their own purpose and start with the “why”. Why am I doing this? Why does it matter to me? Why does this work give my life meaning?
This is the healthy fuel that I believe allows us to engage in our tasks more completely and operate at our highest level a much higher % of the time. An organization made up of self-motivated, purpose-driven individuals is a powerful thing.
An organizational purpose statement can also be effective, but only if every individual has a hand in shaping it.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
- Keep a close accounting of all your numbers. Know your monthly burn rate vs how much is coming in. It is impossible to make educated decisions about how to move forward without a firm understanding of your financial strength or weakness
- Be careful doing business with friends. Launching a business can be a powerful stress test on any relationship and most businesses fail. You never know how a person will react to the fear involved with undertaking that challenge and you can’t expect others to share your values in the face of adversity. Ask yourself, is this a relationship I am willing to lose if the worst happens?
- Meditate. For any entrepreneur, your business is an extension of who you are. How can you build and lead an organization without being in touch with your authentic self?
- Exercise. Getting out of your head and into your body on a daily basis is crucial to sustained inspiration, energy and healthy brain chemistry. When our goals become too money-oriented and don’t involve our physical health, the overall product of our life and work suffer.
- Become an expert at something and share it with others. It is said that we can never master anything, but we can APPROACH mastery. Figure out what your unique gifts are, find a place where you can apply those gifts and measure them against others. Do the preparation, read the books, apply the knowledge, measure the results and make the adjustments. Repeat, repeat, repeat until you are the best at what you do. Then pass that knowledge onto someone else.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Amor Fati. Translated from Latin meaning “love of one’s fate.” Embracing everything that happens, good or bad, without judgment is a powerful approach to life and breeds people that are resilient in adversity and humble in success.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
Michael Jordan. I grew up in Chicago
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Bridgehamptongroup.com
Twitter @bridgehamptonGG
Instagram @bridgehamptongroup
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Authors: How & Why Author Theodore Brenneman of Bridgehampton Gold Group Is Helping… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.