Title: “Building Wealth Through Passive Income With RJ Bates”
Episode: 176
April 27, 2023
David Richter
RJ Bates III is the CEO of Titanium Investments, a multifamily investment company that assists investors in building wealth through passive income. Additionally, he hosts the Titanium Vault podcast, which centers around real estate investment.
Initially, RJ struggled with financial management as he expanded his business, a common problem among investors. Because of his experience, he has dedicated much of his work to educating and helping many investors in the real estate investing space to succeed.
In this conversation, we will delve into RJ’s challenges and growth, and the current issues in his business that implementing the Profit First method can help solve!
Key Takeaways:
[01:01] Introducing RJ Bates III and His Story
[06:08] RJ’s Passion for Real Estate and His Podcast
[13:35] Profit First and How It Can Help His Business
[19:15] Why the Growth of His Business Led to Developing Financial Issues
[25:31] On Being Open to the Profit First Message and Unlearning Bad Money Habits
[31:38] Advice for People Who Want to Implement Profit First
[34:32] Connect with RJ
Quotes:
[11:32] “I know that there are people out there that are trying to change their life, but they’re struggling on…the management of their finances.”
[21:23] “I feel like the whole time I was listening to your book, you were just speaking directly to me about a lot of the issues that we’ve been dealing with for years.”
[33:42] “There is never a perfect time to do anything. The hurricane of being an entrepreneur never stops. At some point in time, you just gotta say ‘I’m making the commitment to start doing [managing my finances.]”
Connect with RJ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialRJBatesIII/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/RJBatesIII
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rjbatesiii
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rjbatesiii
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-titanium-vault-hosted-by-rj-bates-iii
Tired of living deal to deal?
If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David
Transcript:
RJ Bates III:
<Affirmative>. I want to change that narrative. I want people to understand that’s just like any other industry. There’s good ones and there’s bad ones. At the end of the day, if they’re consuming 45 seconds of my content and they think I’m one of the bad ones, well I’m gonna educate them on how we’re not. Yeah, and you know, you can go online, you can see the positive reviews that we’ve received from sellers. But no, I don’t think it bothers me because I just, I think it’s coming from a place of ignorance. And yeah, and then in that case, I just have to educate ’em.
Outro:
If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living, deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.
David Richter:
This is in the running as one of my favorite episodes of all time with RJ Bates iii, the Viking Wizard, who also talks about his journey as a real estate investor. But not just that. He talks about a lot of the struggles that he had where when he first started making money, he was poorer than poorer, coming into real estate. But then on the other side of that, being able to make money. But then as he scale and grew, that’s when all the money issues came in. And he talks about that and the real issues. And he talks about how he is now implementing Profit First cuz he had not heard about profits for real estate investing, but heard a profit first. And he talks about that journey as well too. I know that this episode can give you a lot of hope. No matter how much or wherever you’re starting right now, either if you need to do your first deal or if you’re at your thousandth deal, this can help you. Thank you so much for listening. Make Profit a Habit inside of your business. Hey everyone, this is David Richter, your host of The Profit First for Real Estate Investing podcast. Man, I am excited about this when we have RJ Bates, which I have seen him on like Facebook and we have a lot of mutual friends in common, but we have not connected a ton. But I love the content that he puts out, the heart that he has, I believe, for the real estate investing community. He’s also called the Viking Wizard, you know, like of real estate. So like that’s awesome as well too, cuz both of those definitely hit like my nerd dum of like what I like and stuff like that, the content that I consume. But RJ thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
RJ Bates III:
Yeah, man, thanks for having me. And like you said, it’s about time we finally connected. I’ve known about you for many years through both Nicole Espinoza and Jamie Wooley. Both of them have told me such great things about you and I’ve followed your content 9all of that as well. And so it’s an honor to be here.
David Richter:
Well, this is great stuff because you’re part of the closures Olympics too, and like you’ve got a lot of, there’s just a lot of stuff where I feel like if you’re listening to this now and you need to follow content on like closing deals, like RJ can give you that stuff. Like rj can help you close the deals that like actually become a profitable real estate investor. And like I said, we have lots of mutual friends, so like I know behind the scenes he’s helping a lot of people as well too. It’s not just <laugh> a lot of the stuff that you see the fluff on the outside and then it’s like, oh shoot, this is just something that I do not wanna go down on the back end, but okay. So if people don’t know who you are besides me just telling you from telling them from my perspective, what got you into real estate, like why it’s keeping you in real estate, like just give us your story.
RJ Bates III:
Yeah, so myself and my partner Cassie, we’ve been real estate at full-time real estate investors since January 1st, 2015. We did a few deals in 2014 back then we were general contractors. We were doing remodels. Essentially our client base was real estate investors. And so we found out, you know, what wholesaling was and we just dove headfirst into it. I was passionate about it. I, cuz I wasn’t passionate about contracting. I fell in love with the numbers aspect of it, the negotiating finding deals and really wholesaling is not a whole lot different than contracting. You’re essentially the middle man,
David Richter:
Right
RJ Bates III:
And so we were already doing that as contractors and so it made it super easy for us to just transition our business over to wholesaling and things really took off for us. You know, we had been entrepreneurs for going on four or five years at that point. And so we were at the point where we needed a change because the struggles that we had financially, I don’t think we were ever gonna get out of ’em doing contracting and wholesaling gave us that ability and eventually that just transitioned to flips and rentals and creative finance, seller finance. And you know, now all the way to the point where our, I guess our most recent big acquisition was we bought a country club here in Fort Worth, Texas. So
David Richter:
<Laugh>
RJ Bates III:
You know,
David Richter:
Next plan. Do you have a zombie house flipping show on a e?
RJ Bates III:
Yes
David Richter:
So like you’ve gone from like starting in real estate to like teaching it on a mass scale and having a pretty cool show as well too out there.
RJ Bates III:
Yeah.
David Richter:
Which is I think different than a lot of the other shows out there on the market.
RJ Bates III:
Yeah, absolutely. And listen, that’s an opportunity for us to go out and show other people that want to get into this. I remember when we were doing remodels in 20 12, 20 13 watching shows on a and e and being like, Hey, I want to do that. And funny enough, we paid $65,000 in education to a show that was on a and e flipping Vegas. We didn’t actually pay it to them, we paid it to an education company, but they were using that show as a front and that’s how we learned what an assignment of a contract was and a double close and all of these things. So it’s kind of a full circle at this point.
David Richter:
Wow. No, that’s awesome. And then now you can go and share that with other people cuz it sounds like you took that education and ran with it like that. You went hard down that path. Okay. Let me ask you a little deeper question. So why real estate? Like, was it just to get out of the bills and like the stuff that you were in debt or like, is it, is there some big reason of like why it keeps you in real estate? Or like, what is that for?
RJ Bates III:
Honestly, I’m passionate about everything that we do in the industry, you know, from the aspect of we’re taking distress properties, you know, we’re, we’re fixing up the neighborhoods, we’re helping sellers out of terrible situations. You brought up, you know, following me, you know, I put a lot of calls between me and sellers on TikTok and Instagram, probably more than anyone else that I know in the industry.
David Richter:
Yep.
RJ Bates III:
And I get a lot of negative comments about the fact that we’re, you know, we’re parasites, we’re leeches on society and things like that. People that don’t understand how much we truly help our communities and just in general people sellers that are in terrible situations, whether that’s pre foreclosure, tax default, unwanted, inherited properties. I love that aspect of what we do. And honestly, I’m probably one of the few people that would say I’m passionate about what we do in real estate investing. I don’t wanna work myself out of doing deals. Like I enjoy doing deals now our company has grown to the point where I’m not on the phones every single day, but I do like to get in there and talk to sellers. I want to negotiate the deals to make it work for not only our sellers, but also our buyers and or ourselves. Regardless make it a win-win situation for everyone involved.
David Richter:
Yeah, no, I love that. I honestly, that’s why we’re having this conversation too, because it’s like when people have that type of heart, then you know that they’re in it for the right reasons. Okay. Because of a lot of people that are commenting don’t know our space. I believe that if you’re listening to this, he’s giving you gold here by telling like follow him on that stuff and watch how he does an interaction. What he’s doing there is a revenue producing activity. Like can you just copy, like, can you get on the phone with a seller, just number one and then just follow what he’s doing as well too. Like, RJs gonna help you close deals just by watching what he’s doing. Cuz when you watch a Master at work, you can pick up on those things and then just stumble honestly sometimes into those deals and then just do it in enough and just copy that. So that’s huge. It’s almost like being a part of his office and him recording calls for you and you being a part of his sales training. So there, I just wanna like plug that like go out and follow his content. But then I wanna ask you a question here. Are you at this stage where a lot of those comments bother you and like you don’t like going on and reading them? Like, do you stay away from a lot of that negativity? Does it fuel you? Like what, where would you say your headspace is when it comes to a lot of that junk? Cuz you brought it up.
RJ Bates III:
Yeah, you know, I use it as an opportunity for me to educate the people that are commenting because clearly they don’t understand what we do. I also want to change the narrative of what real estate investors are and what we do for our communities.
David Richter:
Awesome.
RJ Bates III:
I don’t date that all of those comments are wrong. I think there are people out there that
David Richter:
Yeah.
RJ Bates III:
Are trying to take advantage of situations. I think there are slum lord landlords, you know, I don’t think every landlord goes out there and says, Hey, I’m gonna try to make this property, you know, back to its original form or beautiful or made the neighborhood better. So I want to change that narrative. I want people to understand that’s just like any other industry. There’s good ones and there’s bad ones.
David Richter:
Yeah.
RJ Bates III:
And at the end of the day, if they’re consuming 45 seconds of my content and they think I’m one of the bad ones, well I’m gonna educate them on how we’re not
David Richter:
Yeah.
RJ Bates III:
And you know, you can go online, you can see the positive reviews that we’ve received from sellers. But no, I don’t think it bothers me because I just, I think it’s coming from a place of ignorance and
David Richter:
Yeah.
RJ Bates III:
And then in that case I just have to educate ’em.
David Richter:
Yeah. Well that’s a great answer too cuz all you’re trying to do is say like, here’s how we’re helping them.
RJ Bates III:
Right
David Richter:
Like I’m not gonna be the solution for everyone. And so it’s like, here you go, here’s what we’re doing to be able to help the ones that we can make an impact on. I love that cuz
RJ Bates III:
That’s, and the flip side of that is, David, just as many comments that I get about that, I’ll get five comments later. Someone says, Hey, I’ve got a piece of property in Illinois I don’t want anymore. Can you make me an offer? So there’s positive comments coming across as well.
David Richter:
Yeah. Positive and the negative. And I think too, it’s you’re out there I think once you just put yourself out there. And that’s why I, that’s what sucks about social media is that you are like, you are truly trying to help people. You’re truly trying to help several people from that post. Well look, here’s how I was able to help the seller. Here’s how I’m able to help the uneducated see what we’re doing. But then if you are educated in the real estate space, like how can you do it better and like get more deals done to be able to help more people. So it’s like you’re truly trying to help them. And that’s where it sucks of like where people let those comments take them down and not put out that content. Like what could you do to help, you know, someone out there that’s going through a difficult situation but you didn’t wanna post, you know,
RJ Bates III:
Listen, you said something in your book early on in the chapters where you said, I’m writing this book because real estate investing changed my life and I know that there’s people out there that are trying to change their life, but they’re struggling on the financial aspect of it, you know, financial, the management of their finances. Right?
David Richter:
Yep.
RJ Bates III:
I started my podcast in 2017 and then that is transition into starting a YouTube channel and then the reels on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook and then also closers Olympics and the different aspects of which I have tried to give back. And the reason why I did that, when I started my podcast, I had 348 friends on Facebook. Okay. I did not have a following.
David Richter:
Right.
RJ Bates III:
But I did it because I wanted to give back because just in a short two year span or two and a half year span, real estate investing had changed our lives.
David Richter:
Hmm.
RJ Bates III:
We didn’t, I’ve said this before, but we got a $27,000 assignment in 2014. Then I remember going to a restaurant and thinking to myself, I might be the only person in this restaurant that has $27,000 in his bank account right now. Like, that’s where I, the was mentally where it was like, my life is forever changed. And so that’s where all this content comes from, the podcast and, and doing podcasts like this. Like I just want, if one person listens to this and says, Hey, I’m gonna go out and I’m gonna start taking action and try to change my life, then this was well worth it
David Richter:
Man. I’m so glad we connected. Like it’s, it’s like the older I get the more I just wanna be around people like this that really wanna like, make an impact on people and that want to like say, I remember that feeling in this restaurant that I, and like, can I give that to someone else? Like I want them to feel like this is, like, their life is forever changed. Cuz there’s, there’s been points in my life where I can look back and say, oh my gosh, you know, like it was this, can I get this like profit first? You know, it’s like can I get this out to the world? And then seeing it change with other people. So this is, this is good stuff. So I appreciate you putting that content out there and putting this content here, you know, for people to be able to consume and then be able to say, what can I do?
Take some action from here. So let’s get into this because what if you’re listening to this now we were talking beforehand, like before we were recording and he said this could be like a be before and after. So we’re gonna talk about his before and after journey. I’m gonna invite RJ again because he’s gonna implement Profit First because you read Correct The original Prophet first. I don’t know even know how long ago, but you said you read it and then what were your thoughts around that? Like, could you implement or like what, give us like what that kind of was going through your head when you read it.
RJ Bates III:
Yeah, so I read Prophet first last year. And, and I was blown away. I mean, honestly, first of all, I love Mike’s, all of his books. I’ve read the Pumpkin Plan, I’ve read Clockwork, I’ve got the rest of ’em on Audible Ready, ready to be listened to. My question was is that I have so many different buckets of revenue coming in for real estate. How could I implement Profit First? How could I impl implement it for my rentals, for my seller finances and flips and when I’m using other people’s money? And you answered that and so you asked me like, where are you at in your implementation journey? I’m at day one. I mean this is, this is like, hey, it’s time. I literally told my bookkeeper this morning, Hey, she’s going on vacation arrest this week. She’s gonna listen to Profit First for real estate investing and over her vacation and we’re gonna start the implementation process probably next week.
David Richter:
That’s awesome. No, that’s good stuff because oh, we’ve seen so many people go down this road and that’s why I wrote the one for the real estate investing world. Cuz it is, I mean there’s so much stuff that can go on in the real estate world and it’s like, well it’s not a service-based business for some aspects and it’s not brick and mortar and it’s not like, so I love that you’re going to start it. Can I, can we dive in a little to your business? Do you think your business needs profit first? Like, do you ever run into, even at your size now and like being down the road and, and being years into it and running all this stuff, do you run into cashflow issues?
RJ Bates III:
Absolutely. funny enough, we didn’t at first and, and I think that’s where most people would, right? Because we were making money that we had never made before and we didn’t have the overhead. Right. We didn’t, we didn’t have employees, we didn’t have an office, we didn’t have all these things. Oh,
David Richter:
Let me ask real quick in there, did you have, did you have exorbitant personal lifestyles at that point too?
RJ Bates III:
No. No. Okay. Because
David Richter:
That’s where some people fall off at the beginning as if they’re like, I gotta just spend everything to keep up with where I am on my
RJ Bates III:
Personal. No, no dude, we were, I mean we <laugh> we were just so poor. I, I mean there, you know, the difference between broken and poor. I mean, back then we weren’t broke. I mean, we were poor. I mean we, we never, we had never had money. Cassie and I came from, you know, we, we put ourselves through college. She graduated. I didn’t we worked in the service industry. I worked eight years for Pizza Hut. I went from a delivery driver all the way to a general manager. Cassie was a bartender and a waitress for many years putting herself through school. So when we’re talking about getting a $10,000 assignment, I mean, we didn’t even know how to spend $10,000. I mean that could, that could be a million dollars. You know what I’m saying? I mean it was like, what are we talking about?
We dude, we were at one point in time sharing a Kia Soul. You know, we were going, we were out door knocking to sell roofs as contractors in a Kia soul. You know, I mean, so no, we didn’t have problems back then as we grew and then as really combining some, some books here. I love the, the concept of Jim Collins Good to great the hedgehog concept. Yeah. We had a hedgehog concept of wholesaling and then we decided let’s flip, let’s own rentals, let’s do seller finance, let’s do Airbnbs, let’s do everything in the single family real estate space. That’s where we really started seeing issues. And specifically on a lot of the things that you talk about, the Ponzi scheme of borrowing other people’s money. I mean, we ran into that. I’m still living some nightmarish situations with that.
And it was funny cuz you, you quoted so many of, of like friends and people that I look up to in this industry. David Phelps, Gary Harper those two in in particular. You know, the, the things that you talk about there, the way that you said it, you said it so deadpan, you had me literally in tears cuz it was like you were calling me out on some of the excuses that I’ve made to myself knowing that it’s like it’s a lie. It’s not me saying it’s somebody else where it’s like, oh well yeah, the reason why we don’t have any liquid cash cash right now, it’s cuz we’re reinvesting it into our business. No, it’s not. It’s just cuz I don’t have any money. <Laugh>. I mean, let’s be real. So yeah, I mean this is a, this is a, not only a, hey, I want to implement it because I think it’s a good solution, but it’s also needed and it’s been needed for a while. Cuz quite frankly we just, we know that we’re good at making money. I’m just not very good at keeping the money.
David Richter:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s where a lot of people fall into that. Let me ask this though. So why do you think there was a time where you didn’t struggle with the money? Was it just because you were doing the one thing and as you branch to more, it was harder to keep up with it? Or like why do you think you went from not worrying about it and like ha not having issues to having the issues as you got bigger? Like was it the,
RJ Bates III:
I I think it’s because a, we, we didn’t have a, a system and process in place. Okay. Like profit first. Also along the way all of these shiny object, I call it searching for a unicorn that, that come along with a attending masterminds. You know, you, I love masterminds, but you go to Mastermind, unfortunately what’s gonna happen is is you’re gonna have 40 to 50 people tell you how amazing they are and everything that they’re doing. And then you’re gonna come home and you’re gonna try to implement at least a, a portion of that, right? Yeah. And, and at the end of the day, what happened from 2015 to probably 2018 is no one knew who RJ and Cassie was.
David Richter:
Right?
RJ Bates III:
We never went to masterminds, we never went to any events. What we did was, is head down focus on what we were doing and it was working. Then we said, let’s go out. And then other influences started coming in and we just started implementing a lot and we started growing. Other people have teams of 10, we only have a team of five, we must have a team of 10. But like you said, were we in a position to hire five more people? The answer is no. We weren’t, we could not afford it, but we didn’t have that system in place to tell us that. And so mistakes like that just compounded over the years. And what ended up happening was, is exactly some of the, the examples that you gave. We just did more deals. We have to go do more. Right? But that, but at the end of the day, we were never diagnosing what were the actual issues?
What, what could we cut here? Who is actually performing, who is actually bringing in profit to the business? We didn’t have that. And so I feel like the whole, the whole time I was listening to your book, you were just speaking directly to me about a lot of the issues that we’ve been dealing with for years. This isn’t anything new. I mean, I share this on my podcast where I’m like, Hey, 20 18, 20 19 RJ went into Cookie monster mode and he just literally bought every house he could get his hands on. The reason why is, cuz I was trying to dig myself out of bad decisions,
David Richter:
Right? Yeah.
RJ Bates III:
It was that Ponzi scheme that you’re talking about. Yeah. So we’ve, we’ve spent the last several years digging ourselves out of some of those holes and now I’m ready where it’s like, okay, let’s implement this and never made those mistakes again.
David Richter:
Well I appreciate the honesty on here. I honest when people are able to open up, that’s what I hear probably the feedback about the book the most. Like you were speaking to me because they’re like, and you know why, cuz I went through these issues too. Like, we were doing a ton of deals and spending a ton of money and like, what the heck is happening? So I’m very thankful that you’ve read it. I’m glad that you’re going to start implementing. So that’s where, you know, just wanna give people that hope that they don’t have to stay, stay where they are on the financial side
RJ Bates III:
Of their business. And here’s the thing, we’ve never had an issue generating revenue. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, we never had an issue getting deals or selling deals or finding great flips. So when you’re listening to this and you’re going, well, why would I listen to this guy? This guy is just saying right here, he loses money. No, that’s not the case. I, I live a, a nice life. Right. So does Cassie much better life than we were living back in 2015. I can promise you that. Yeah. Sounds, but at the end of the day, it is not where we should be. And, and I can directly point to this being the issue right here is that we didn’t have that system. It, it is just like, if you didn’t have a system in place for lead follow up on acquisitions, <laugh>, you’re gonna fail. It’s the same thing here. We just don’t have a system in place for managing our finances because at the end of the day, what are you most worried about when you start your business? Not how you’re gonna manage your money. You’re worried about how you’re gonna make money.
David Richter:
Yep. Exactly. Man, man, this is so good because I feel like your story resonates with so many people that, you know, they know how to make the money, they’re very good at it and that’s what they worry about first, but then never having a system on the back end, you know, to actually catch those dollars. And, and I, I’ve heard that so much too. Not where I should be, you know? Yeah. Like, and, and you can only feel that for yourself and that’s where you have to be careful of course with the comparison. But that at the same time, like once you hear this system, you’re like, oh shoot, what could I have had, you know, like if I had something like that. That’s why
RJ Bates III:
It’s Well, I know, I know. My buddy pays told you 5 million. Yeah, I know that, I know that’s the number he told you. I don’t know what my number is yet, but when I come back, I will make sure I, I give you a, a precise number on what it should be or should have been at this point. Because to be honest with you, I think our runway of eight years is longer than Pace’s runway was. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So there’s a possibility that our number might be bigger than 5 million at the end because every single one of those years, minus 2015 has been seven figures plus and revenue. Wow. So year one we did $750,000. Every other year has been seven figures. Oh man. So I’m, yeah, I’m gonna come back and I’m gonna tell you what that number should have been. But I, well listen, I don’t regret anything along this journey because for sure, I don’t know it, I don’t know if 2018 RJ listens to your book and listens.
David Richter:
Oh, okay. It’s like when the student is ready, right? The
RJ Bates III:
Teacher appear. Yeah. I I think I, I think everything happens for a reason. I, I think I read Profit First for, for a reason and then read your, your book to, you know, today and yesterday. Cuz I wanted to wait. For those of you who don’t know, I’m interviewing him on my podcast and I made a promise to him. I’m gonna read your book right before, so it’s fresh and, and I’m, I’m blown away by it. I’m excited to be able to implement it now in our business and see what it does.
David Richter:
Yeah. Well, and I thank you for doing that then also implementing as well too because that’s the other thing, because of what you’re saying here, I know like you had just said, Hey, don’t worry about rj. Like we’re still okay, we’re living the best life. And it’s like, you know what, that’s great. Like I want you to, but now that you are you’re open and ready for the message of profit first to sink in and to actually make that as well too. That’s where I’m like, I’ll endorse people that know how to make it, but then they’re actually helping themselves to keep it as well too. Because now you can teach that to other people. Like, hey, here you go. Here’s a book. You don’t even have to do anything. Listen to this podcast. It’s completely free and he gives you everything, you know, like for this. So it’s like just being able to get that out there and give people hope.
RJ Bates III:
You know what’s funny about you saying that is is while I was listening to the book, I, I thought to myself, the only people that could listen to this and not want to implement it are either A, already running a system where it’s not needed or B and I think B is probably gonna be 98% of people. They don’t want to admit to all of the things that you called them out on. Yeah. Where, hey, we’re going over budget on this flip by $10,000, so we’re gonna go buy another one and over borrow by $10,000 so we can rob Peter to pay Paul. Yeah. They don’t wanna admit, they don’t wanna solve that. They don’t want to look down in their business and say, we’re overspending. We have too much overhead. We’re not making profit. Because that’s what this actually tells you is, are you actually running a good business or not?
And let’s be real, in 2023 with the power of social media, all you really have to do is be able to get deals. Say you’re doing deals and people fall in love with you and it kind of inflates your ego. Yep. And, and we see it over and over. I mean, you’ve been in this industry as long as I have. I mean it’s, it’s a, it’s a epidemic at this, at this point. So it’s like, I think that’s where the majority of people listen to that and they’re not gonna follow your message. I just kinda had to get that out there because I was feeling that the whole time I was listening. It was like, man, I really hope the majority of people that listen to this will put aside their pride and say, I want this and I want to make change in my life.
David Richter:
<Laugh> Yeah. I’ve be a truth here, man. This is just absolute truth because that’s it. I I you’re exactly right. That’s 98%. Like the 2% that don’t follow this is because they have like a system and then the 98 who don’t follow percent who don’t wanna listen. It’s because of exactly that. And I’ve, if you’ve ever read the Psychology of Money that was flowing around the real estate world the last couple years and some of the groups I was in read that book, it was great. And he says in there like, your financial freedom’s, like on the other side of your ego, you know, like just getting over that hump of like what is really going on. So I thought that was, that is really good. Like, and that’s where rj I I think you would agree with this. Like even if you’re in that place, that mindset, you can still get out of it. Like listen to the book maybe ki you know, like give yourself some time, but like go through that because <laugh>, I don’t want you running around like a chicken with your head cut off anymore. You know, like I want you to get outta that.
RJ Bates III:
So, and it’s funny, you know, you say that because I teach a lot about real estate investing from very specific kind of like you where it’s like, this is how, this is where I want you to pull your list. This is how I want you to pull your list. This is how I want you to tag your data. This is how I want you to name it. This is what the flow in which you’re gonna run your campaigns. Like very specific. And I don’t really give my students an option. That’s why they call me the Viking wizard, you know, I’m a little bit of a viking about it. I mean you got the axes, you know, I’m like, you’re gonna do it this way. You paid me money. That’s how you’re gonna do it. I love the fact that you kind of say, listen, I don’t expect you to be ready to do this on day one.
If you can just set aside 1%, half a percent of profit. Right. Do that just start, I would never tell that. I mean, you’re like the most laid back about is like, just start please and then you could slowly implement this in. Because I think if you were too hard on it, people would just be like, there’s no way in the world I can do what you’re asking me to do. Whereas what I teach is very much like, no, you’re, you’re gonna make a massive change and you gotta go all in on it or it doesn’t work. I, I love the fact that you kind of give that leeway cuz you know, otherwise people are not gonna be able to do it.
David Richter:
That’s such a great comparison because it is, because I feel like, okay, a lot of people have to break through those mindset barriers, right? When you’re teaching them. Like to just go out there and get on the phone and like make the revenue happen. So I’m sure that’s a lot of the work you do with your students is like to get them through that. Then you compound okay, they’ve gotten over that hurdle and money comes in and then they’re like, I have bad money habits and I’ve never thought about my money and I have bad like money scripts from my past and from my parents and from the schools and from everything else. And they’re like, oh shoot, I’m just not gonna think about that. You know? And it’s like, that’s where it’s, we gotta start somewhere. So I, I love that comparison cuz like, this is, it’s, it’s the yin and the yang here.
Like RJs gonna teach you like, no, you have to be a vike, you have to go out, you have to kill, you have to hunt. This is how you do it, this is how you’re gonna get the deal. And then it’s like, okay, can we start, bill breaking down the habits of what you’ve been doing with your money because we gotta get into some sort of rhythm here. So that way a year from now you’re not 1% profitable, you’re 10 and then 15. Absolutely. 20, then 25. So it’s like, I absolutely love what, what RJs saying. I only have a couple last questions here. This is awesome, but this is the before. So I love getting to hear your story where sounds like you started off on, you know, dirt poor, poorer than poor, going into the real estate and then having more money than getting the shiny object syndrome or I loved how you said it, searching for the unicorn mm-hmm.
<Affirmative> and then going from there, getting all these other things, making some financial mistakes along the way, reading Profit first, then actually reading my book and now going to implement. So we’ll definitely have to do a follow up one where on the other side can give people like, okay, that was part one, this is part two. So I would definitely wanna do that. But what advice would you give to people that are in the real estate space looking to implement Profit First? Like, I think we just talked about that a little bit, but from your perspective, what would you say? Like, okay, what do they need to do?
RJ Bates III:
I, my my advice would be a start by reading the original Prophet first. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. So you get that foundation of what this is from Mike. I mean I I I really enjoy his books for yeah. For a reason. It’s not just Prophet First. I enjoy all of his books. You get that foundation because I think it leaves you asking questions. Okay. And then you come in and you answer all of those questions and, and I would follow step by step everything that you say, I think for me personally, I would buy the, the physical copy to go back and reference Yeah. Certain aspects of it. But I would listen to it on Audible because it’s, it is, I mean listen, I I, you talked fast already, but sped you up to 1.25 nice <laugh> and, and you know, it’s three hours that way, right?
So that, that is two mornings for me. Okay? We bust out the book, you’re done in two days and, and from there the implementation is, is exactly what you say go out, open up the accounts and, and start with as much as you possibly can. But even just taking your advice 1% into the profit account, you know but start by taking the action. I mean, this is mine and Cassie’s new message. Anytime that we go to any event and we speak, it’s about taking the action. Because I think that is the, the number one thing that plagues people in this industry is just the inaction. Like, Hey, I’m gonna consume this and then I’m gonna promise myself I’m gonna do it later. There is no, and I, I promise you of, of being an entrepreneur now for going on, this will be our 13th year. Wow. Eighth year in, in real estate investing. Okay? There is never a perfect time to do anything. Okay. That’s the, the tornado, the hurricane of being an entrepreneur never stops a and so at some point in time you just gotta say, I’m making the commitment to start doing this. And if you’re just getting started, that’s probably the best time to do it. You know, just, Hey, this is how I’m gonna do, I’m gonna manage my finances moving forward.
David Richter:
Yeah, that’s good stuff. So RJ, this has been awesome. I think that you’ve helped a lot of people with your story as well too, because even talking about some of the hard times that you’ve gone through and like, you know, in, because we see the good stuff on social media, but then it’s like, I love too that, that RJ also, if you’re listening to this, has the mindset of like, no, I want to get these systems in place as well too, and then we get to interview ’em again. So that’s gonna be awesome. But then how do people get ahold of you? Like, you obviously are teaching people, but you’ve dropped a lot of knowledge here, but how can they follow you? Obviously you’re on the social medias, we’ve talked about that, but is there also a website or something
RJ Bates III:
That Yeah, I mean, listen, the, the best ways to connect with me are gonna be on any social media platform, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. I’m, I’m uploading three or four videos a day to, to each one of those platforms. You know, I’ve got the podcast and titanium vault. But listen, if you ever have any questions or anything about my journey or real estate investing, feel free to just shoot me a DM on any of those platforms. I, as you can tell here, I’m pretty much an open book about our journey. Yeah. we do really well for ourselves, but we also made mistakes and I think it’s important for people to learn from both of those aspects. So we share both of those in our journey. And, and David, thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. Yeah,
David Richter:
Well thanks for being on. And then if you’re listening to this as a real estate investor and you’re like, oh my gosh, he’s <laugh>, he, RJ spoke to me about his story and like where he is coming from and like what our, what profit First could do, head over to simple cfo.com. We actually implement this. We put a person on your team who’s a financial leader, like go over there if you need that help. And if we can’t help you, let me give you a good introduction to a bookkeeper or CPA or someone on your team so that way you’re not running around like a chicken with your head cut off anymore. So that’s simple. Cfo.Com, go book a call, would love to help you. Remember if you’re listening to this make profit a habit inside of your business. And RJ thank you so much again for being on.
Outro:
Thanks buddy.
David Richter:
This episode of The Prophet First for r e I podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call@simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on the Profit First for r e I podcast with David Richter.
