Getting Your Time Back and Profit First Basics With Oscar “The Closer” Setiawan

Episode 112: Getting Your Time Back and Profit First Basics With Oscar “The Closer” Setiawan

The Profit First REI Podcast

September 12, 2022

David Richter

Summary:

“Start making profit a habit in your business.”

Wise words from today’s guest, Oscar “the closer” Setiawan. Oscar is a man with great achievements—a real estate owner, investor, private lender, and serial entrepreneur who aims to achieve legacy wealth with the systems and processes that he has been cultivating. Through determination, he turned his side hustle into a full-time business. He now helps distressed property owners solve their real estate problems.

Let’s learn about his story entering the real estate investing arena and how he chose real estate to build generational wealth. Listen in and find out how Oscar can help you win in this fast-paced industry.

Key Takeaways:

[2:30] What’s the story behind his nickname “Oscar the closer”?

[4:20] What excites him the most about real estate investing?

[8:02] Know your numbers, calculate them, and do all the things in between.

[16:11] How does the Profit First system help investors?

[18:34] His story about transitioning from real estate investor to real estate owner

[22:24] Defining “generational wealth” in accordance with his personal experiences

[24:27] What are some “core concepts” about money that he wants to pass on to his children?

[27:17] What is one key to his success?

Quotes:

[4:59] “Real estate is something that will change people’s lives when you do it correctly.”

[5:23] “It is good to have a goal. It is good to have a drive in real estate, but if you don’t do your homework, you can get into a lot of trouble.”

Links:

Oscar on Instagram- https://instagram.com/oscarthecloser?igshid=NmNmNjAwNzg= 

Oscar’s Linktree-https://linktr.ee/oscarthecloser 

Quickbooks-https://quickbooks.intuit.com/ph/ 

Profit First Real Estate Investors FB Group-https://m.facebook.com/groups/ProfitFirstREI/ 

Simple CFO-https://simplecfo.com/ 

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:

Oscar Setiawan:

The clarity level of their Profit First is what people need to know. Especially if they’re in real estate, you can’t skip that.

Intro:

Welcome to the Profit First REI podcast, where real estate investors, master financial management, eradicate entrepreneurial poverty, and learn to be profitable from day one. Now for your host David Richter.

David Richter:

Oh man, I have a good episode for you here with Oscar Setiawan. And he is an incredible investor. He’s called Oscar the closer by those who know him, that was not a self coin term, but in this episode, we talk about how he has closed deals live for himself for other people. But he’s also talked about, we talk about generational wealth. We talk about how Profit First has helped him in his business personally, and become more of a business owner than just the real estate investor. How it’s freed up his time, giving him clarity, put people in the right place, helped him close more deals. I mean, there’s a lot of things that we talk about here. Talk about a little bit of the emotional side, too, of like how this has helped him with his family. Spend more time with his daughters, what he’s telling his daughters like how he’s helping them teach him how money works.

David Richter:

And like some of those concepts, he also gives trouble indicators. Like if you’re going through deals, like these are some of the things that you should be looking out for as well too, which I thought was just absolute gold. There’s a lot of good stuff here for you to take actionable advice from. This is a great episode for you. If you want to learn more about how Profit First has affected people, specific people in specific real estate investing situations. And also if you’re just wanting some good, solid, real estate investing advice as well too, hope you enjoy the episode. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Profit First REI podcast. We have Oscar, “the closer” Oscar Setiawan here. I am super excited to have him on our podcast and he is by his own admission, hit the number one fan, a Profit First for real estate investing and the advocate for us. So I’m really excited to have him all Oscar. Thanks for being here today, man.

Oscar Setiawan:

No, thank you. I’m more excited to meet you and it’s, you know, it’s, it’s my pleasure.

David Richter:

Yeah, well, you have this tagline and all of your stuff. I see it in the emails coming through. I see it on like your link tree. Tell me why you’re called Oscar “the closer.”

Oscar Setiawan:

You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a nickname that someone gave me because a couple years ago, maybe two, three years ago, I start calling people. I start calling sellers life and I start closing deals life and I help people close deals too. And people, no one can spell my last name. No one can say my last name. And so people just say, Hey, why do I just call you Oscar to closer? And that name kind of stick. Ah, okay. To be honest, it’s, it’s someone in my circle that actually nicknamed me that. So which is kind of good. Yeah. I, I use, I had a different Instagram and you know, just by luck, that name wasn’t taken yet. So I go, well, you know, maybe I’ll take it and it just sticks with me until

David Richter:

Now. Awesome. Well, that’s good. I know you run in some pretty awesome groups. You’re you’re a big part of pace. Morrie’s group. You mm-hmm <affirmative> you’ve done a lot of stuff. Private lending, real estate investor. You’re a restaurant owner as well too.

Oscar Setiawan:

I, I used to own a restaurant used own a restaurants from 2012 to 2020, and we close up during COVID. Okay. so yeah, so I’ve done a lot of different things.

David Richter:

I was gonna say when, you know, like just digging into who Oscar is, like, you’ve done quite a, a bit of things. And are you still in the Chicago area?

Oscar Setiawan:

I am. I’m still in Chicagoland area, but we do deals in a few states now.

David Richter:

Okay. Well I’m gonna be in Chicago several times in July. Maybe we can, maybe we can meet up, but that’s my hometown. I originally come from the Chicagoland area. So love that area. Yeah. If you’re listening right now, make sure to get it, get up to Chicago at some point and see all the, the cool sites in the city and all the good food, man. I love Chicago town food. So let’s get into this. What you’ve been in a lot of different things, restaurant, owner ownership, you know, like you’re becoming the business owner, real estate investor. What excites you the most about real estate investing?

Oscar Setiawan:

What excites me most about real estate investing is the ability to create wealth, generational wealth, and also to help people while you are help while you’re rehabbing houses, while you’re providing housing for people. And there’s a lot of people that you can help, whether it’s seller, whether it’s its renters, anyone in between everyone that’s connected to real estate, somehow, you know, you, we help each other, you know, and the, the network just grow from there. The people that you meet, the people that you impacted as we both know, real estate is something that will change people’s life when you do it correctly.

David Richter:

Yeah. <laugh> keyword there is doing it correctly, correct phrase, right? Otherwise it can get you into a lot of trouble, but if you did,

Oscar Setiawan:

And it did, it did for me

David Richter:

<Laugh> oh, well then let’s go there. How did it get you in trouble?

Oscar Setiawan:

Well, number one is you have to know what you’re buying first, right? So yes, it is good to have a goal. It is good to have that passion and drive to start buying real estate. But if you don’t do your homework, you can get into a lot of trouble. My first deal, I actually bought auction site on scene in neighbor that I shouldn’t bought. And it got me to a lot of trouble. I was going to flip that and then I changed my mind and I was going to hold that and I changed my mind and I ended up just wholeselling it. And the whole process was a lesson run that took me about eight months to solve. Wow. <laugh> so imagine that my first deal bought dancing in auction cash, and I couldn’t do anything for eight to nine months.

David Richter:

Wow. That’s crazy. And is, while you were doing that first deal for eight or nine months, were you working on other deals or was this the like, was you just stretched this one out? And it was that whole process with this?

Oscar Setiawan:

I was, I was, I was learning on the go. Right. Okay, good. So, but I was, I was the, one of the person that, you know, what, I gotta take action. So I took actions, I bought that one property. And then I was when, while I was looking at other properties too. So the good thing is the other properties worked out.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Oscar Setiawan:

Right. But there’s always that one property, the first one that, you know, and people say, you always remember your first one. And in this case, I never forget this lessons learned. Now the good thing is it, it came to a good end where I was able to meet some money. But it, it, it was without nine months off, very, very, I would say frustration and fear, you know, I wasn’t even, you know, I wasn’t even able to visit the property because of the location and neighborhood <laugh> oh, wow. You said it. Yeah. <laugh>

David Richter:

So you said when you were, you know, for this first property, number one was know what you’re buying, what do you have other points too, like, to help people avoid trouble maybe on their first deal or on the deals that they’re doing. So know your, know, what you’re buying and do that due diligence. What other points would you say there?

Oscar Setiawan:

I, I would say also know your numbers and don’t take rehab more than what you’re capable of. Okay. That was probably one of the biggest caveat, because you know, when you are just wanting to take actions, you forgot that you actually have to involve other people <laugh> in real estate. Yes. You think you can do everything yourself, right? Yep. So mm-hmm, <affirmative> you started buying property and, and again, sight unseen. And you think that you can just hire a GC without looking at the correct numbers without looking at, can you even make money and can you even take that size of rehab? Right. So what I would say, if it’s your first deal, you know, be conservative, right. Know your numbers calculate those numbers, calculate those rehab numbers, calculate those owner’s profit, you know, and, and all in between. Right. That’s what we talked about in Profit First. Yes,

David Richter:

Exactly.

Oscar Setiawan:

Those pass through revenue, right? Yeah,

David Richter:

Exactly. So that’s good stuff. So if you were listing right there, those three points, know what you’re buying, know your numbers, know the rehab limit of where you are starting. That’s such good info for someone just starting, or even if they’re still in real estate, been doing a lot of deals. That’s just a good reminder of yeah. You know, like how to stay out of that trouble, which this was a good segue, riding a Profit First because of what you just brought up here. What got you excited about the Profit First message. So you mentioned a little bit over there, but like what got you excited about it?

Oscar Setiawan:

So like most people, when I started, I didn’t have a good accounting or I didn’t have a good books, even though I own a restaurant, the real estate books are very different than restaurant. Right. So, so it’s not that I haven’t heard about QuickBooks. I’ve used QuickBooks. I’ve used accounting softwares, but I never used accounting software for real estate. And as you know back in 2016 your book didn’t come out yet. No, <laugh> not, not that. So, yeah. So I, and I didn’t even know about Profit First, the original book by Mike. Okay. So I was, I was doing deals and I believe it or not, I didn’t even have any bookkeeping. Right. I just thought, Hey, we need to just keep all the receipts and give it to the accountant. And lo and behold, the first year I was submitting this to accountant and the accountant was like, well, it’s not enough.

Oscar Setiawan:

You know, you can’t just gimme receipts. Where’s your hus. Whereas what is your PTI? What is, you know, how much do your Capax? And I’m like, what are all those? I mean, those are foreign to me. I thought you can just buy real estate and just submit expenses. Right. So those are the hard lessons learned from the very first year. And that’s when I really look into accounting and bookkeeping. And I found the Profit First by Mike and I read it and you know, I, I, then I had a, a decent books, even though I’m still struggling, then I had your book in 2020, and I was so excited. And I remember I pre-order it in 2020 when he came out. And that’s when my mind was really blown because that’s your book talks directly to me, right? Your, your book talks directly about, Hey, if you are real estate, this is how you should do it. And even though I know QuickBooks, it doesn’t mean that I know Profit First bookkeeping. Yeah. Right. Or profits for accounting. So, you know, it, it just blows my mind to how to separate those accounts into, you know, owner’s profit operating income and OPM and all those, all those things that I didn’t have before. <Laugh> right. So, so,

David Richter:

So that’s interesting. So you read the Profit First book, but then you read my, and then you got some more nuance to what you opened up, but what, so what were some of those accounts that like, after reading mind that you focused in on and that did help you the most

Oscar Setiawan:

Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> the, it, it’s really just the examples.

David Richter:

Okay. The examples

Oscar Setiawan:

It’s really what the, what I love about your book is there are real stories of real real estate investor. It’s not just theory, right? It’s not just, okay, well, this is the account that you need to create, that’s it? Right. Or this is the percentage that said, but the stories that you have in the book really speaks to me. Right. One of ’em I think is his name is Joey, right. That speaks to me like, I’m like a Joey, right. I come home and, and suddenly like my first year I thought I made some money and then suddenly I lost $70,000. Right. And so, and my, and I didn’t know that until 20, 21 or no, 20 16, 20 17, 20 18, I didn’t know, until 2018 that I’m actually losing money and I’ve been doing active deals. Yeah. Right. And then 2020 comes in and I read your book and now I’m, you know, trying to implement it even more correctly. And now I can see, man, I’m, I’m so blessed to have read your book because now I can see, I have a bookkeeper now, and I can, I can see how much I’m really making right. In each, in each flip in each project and in each class. And, and if people don’t know class that’s for QuickBooks to lingo, right. Where you put the class for your rentals. Right. So that’s, what’s my most, I’m most excited about now every week I get a report.

David Richter:

Awesome. I love hearing that because that’s what we wanna do. We wanna give people clarity. So it sounds like you gained a lot of clarity then during this process was that one of the biggest light bulbs was just the, the clarity that you got of where things are going.

Oscar Setiawan:

It is. Yeah, it is. It’s, it’s not about the gross profit anymore. I mean, people are going left and right. And show, oh man, I just made $150,000. I just made $200,000. But to me, you know, I used to be the guy that says, show me the huts, right. To an inspir experience. Now as a Profit First investor, I’m always say, show me your P L mm. Show me your P L, show me from this script, your project PNL. And I’ll I’ll believe you.

David Richter:

Wow. That’s really good. Yeah. Forget the hus. Right? The

Oscar Setiawan:

Huss, just a, a, a cover of a magazine.

David Richter:

Hmm. That’s really good. No, I, I like that a lot because mm-hmm, <affirmative> we see that all the time. Don’t we in the real estate space, like, show me this. Or like, what are you doing over here? Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I like what you’re saying, honestly. That’s how a lot of people like in the business world, you know, like they show me your P and L you know, like they, especially if you’re trying to buy, sell, acquire, you know, like different things. So, yep. Yeah. Gross profit is just another one of those vanity vanity metrics, right? It is.

Oscar Setiawan:

So it is yeah. To that’s. Okay. That just, yeah, it just means that you’re doing business. It just means that you are, you are trying, and you know, you are taking action, which is great. We’re not saying it’s, it’s not good, but the end of the day, you know, you need to know if you’re making any profit. If you are actually compensating yourself, if your business is scalable or is it going downhill and you don’t know until two years later when you file your text.

David Richter:

Yeah. Yeah. No, that, that makes a lot of sense because a lot of people are in that, that position. So mm-hmm, <affirmative> let me ask you this, cuz before Profit First, it kind of sounds like you were at this point and didn’t even know it for a couple years, but why do you think a lot of investors either don’t make bottom line profit don’t know about it or a living deal to deal, you know, like why, why is that whole mindset kind of just a part of who we are in the industry?

Oscar Setiawan:

I think part of it is because we are all high level people and a lot of times the numbers are kind of the devils in the details, you know? Like, so, you know, when people just look at those high level numbers, they think they’re making money, right. They they’re not, well, number one is they don’t have a bookkeeper, a lot of, of them, right? A lot of ’em, they don’t have a bookkeeper. They think that there’s our spouse can do it. Our partners can do it. And at the end, everything just falls all over. Right. So that’s, I think that’s the biggest roadblock for people. They, they know that, you know, this is just gross profit, but they don’t realize how much more of their expenses are involved in a project. You know, they, they don’t know. I, I often talk about people getting other people’s money, right?

Oscar Setiawan:

Private lending or hard money lending. And they’re, they’re not putting that as part of their expenses. And sometimes those account for 5, 6, 8 to 10% of the expenses. And they didn’t realize that they just think they just made 20%. And all of a sudden they realized they made maybe less than 5% after they put in holding costs. So that’s, that’s something that’s a lot of missing in there. And that’s why I was, I was at one point I was, I remember I bought a lot of your books, digital copies, and I, I just gave them, gave him to people for free. I, I literally just gave them for, for free because I want them to learn this and not make the same mistakes.

David Richter:

Oh, that makes sense. So why do you think then that Profit First is a solution to that? You know, like cuz if a lot of people are in the higher level, you know, versus the devils in the details, why do you think that Profit First can help a lot of people like that

Oscar Setiawan:

Because Profit First actually breaks it down to a level of detail that you would understand easily.

David Richter:

Hmm. I

Oscar Setiawan:

Like that. If you just follow, even if you don’t have different accounts as what we’re talking about in Profit First, but at least if you can just tag or label, right. What we talked about in, in terms of expenses, your bank statement, even if you just start with marking those as expenses, profit, and try to reconcile your bank account, just to see that already helps. Right? That’s what the clarity level of that Profit First is, is what people need to know. Especially if they’re in real estate, that’s, you know, that’s, you can’t skip that. You know, some people just think of, I have a lot of people that ask, Hey Oscar, I know you advocate Profit First, but I’m just starting. I don’t think I need that. And I’m saying no, no, no, no, no. You may not need to be fully 100% in immerse in the Profit First accounting. But number one, you need to read it. And number two is you need to do your best to just understand what profit is and how to pay yourself first and to see what percentage of your business are actually revenue. Right? It, it doesn’t matter if you just do one deal a month because you might say I made 25,000 whole selling, but that, that 25,000 might have a $10,000 marketing that you don’t realize. Right.

David Richter:

<Laugh> exactly. <Laugh> oh man. No, that that’s really good stuff. And I love, love that you brought up, even if someone’s new, you know, like, oh, do I need this or not? Cuz it’s more about the habit. It’s more about the habit like that you’re instilling. So you

Oscar Setiawan:

Have to start a good foundation.

David Richter:

Yep, exactly. And the sooner to the better. So that way you can have more profit your entire lifetime in the real estate. Yeah. You know, career mm-hmm. <Affirmative> so awesome. There was one thing you mentioned before we even got on. I believe it was like the, in the book talk about going from real estate investor to business owner. Yeah. Can you tell your journey about that since you’ve started, you know, like you’ve been in real estate for a while and like what that journey’s been like for you trying to transition from just investor to owner.

Oscar Setiawan:

Yeah. You know, like most of us, we used to be a one man team. Right. We, we have to play a lot of different instrument. We have to play a lot of different hats. Right. We all, I think most of us starts that way. Right. So I was in the beginning, I started investing real estate in probably 20, 15, 20 16 and I did everything right. I have to, I have to be the acquisition guy. I have to be the lead manager. I have to be the dispo. I had to be the transition coordinator. Right. And you know, basically my laugh is 24 hours, you know, 24, 7 real estate. And, and it’s not, it’s not in a good way. It just means that people always contacting me for every single thing, right. From the sellers to the title company, to the lawyer, everything. Right. So, you know, what, what I, I struggle number one is once you have a consistent deal flow, it’s very hard to scale because the number of the number of deals that you have to handle, right?

Oscar Setiawan:

The more sellers that you talk to, the more follow up you need to do, right. And the more follow up needs to do, the more deals you’re gonna get and the more deals you’re gonna get, the more time sections you’re gonna get at. And then the more transit you’re gonna get, the more closings you’re gonna get. Right. So, so now you’re stuck in this red race and you know, basically you are just working without knowing how much your time’s really worth. Right? That’s the, that’s the typical real estate investor journey. And that that’s okay for the first six months to a year while you’re building your business. Right. But you know, in 2016 when I was building my business, it’s okay. But now 20 18, 20 19, I found myself stuck and getting very, very frustrated because number one, I can scale. There’s no time in the world that can help me scale because I’m doing it for my, by myself.

Oscar Setiawan:

So I start, you know, doing it by one by one. But not until 2020 when I read your book. And I saw that the table was like, oh my God, he broke it down exactly how I’m supposed to do it. Right. So, so that was my journey from 2020 until now, you know, every single month or every single quarter, I’m trying to remove myself from those tasks, right. From a real estate investor to become a business owner. Right. So now I’m happy to say that I have a team that actually call sellers for me. I have a, a person that actually is an acquisition manager. I have a person that I just hired, you know, a month ago that is actually dispo my deal. So now I’m becoming more and more of a business owner. I’m not one over there a hundred percent yet. Right. I have a bookkeeper, which is the most important thing. Some people think that in real estate, your first hire is like, say a VA, a cold caller or a, an acquisition or an executive assistant. But I always say your first hires probably needs to be a bookkeeper because you need to know a financial in order for you to grow. And to, if you see, if you see, you can hire more people. So now you can become a business owner.

David Richter:

Right? Exactly. No, that’s, that’s really good stuff. I liked what you said. You know, the more that you’re doing, the busier you get and you’re in that rat race, you know, just now you’re in real estate doing it, but then starting to hire people. Now you’re Oscar the closer and you’re helping, you’re closing people to be on the team. Yeah. Now, and they’re helping you close. So yeah.

Oscar Setiawan:

That’s awesome.

David Richter:

Yeah. Not, I love that. That’s good stuff. Let’s transition a little bit because you, a lot of the talks that you talk about now deals with generational wealth mm-hmm <affirmative> and like building wealth, you know, through the generations, which I absolutely love mm-hmm <affirmative> I think that’s, I think that’s a big part of Profit First as well too, is like, this is a habit that you create for a lifetime. When you speak on generational wealth, like you talk about helping people, helping families, but like what does generational wealth mean to you?

Oscar Setiawan:

To me, well, it, it evolves in the beginning. Generational wealth mean just being able to make sure that my daughter can go to college, for example, and I don’t have to worry about my income. Right. And I don’t have to worry about my daughter’s not being able to get enough income, right. Or, or even a good school to go to. Right. It now involves to be generator wealth. To me, it’s not about the money. It’s about the time. Freedom to me, it’s about relationship with my family and being able to get that time, to create that relationship and growing together as a family, better than anyone else. And it’s not bound by the lack of money or the need to find more money. Right. So, because at that point you should be able to have active income and passive income and that passive income is going to support your lifestyle. You know, the things that you want. And at this point is I’m paying for people to do the stuff that I don’t wanna do anymore, or I’d rather not do so that I can spend time with my family and I can teach my daughter and I can have fun with my family going wherever we wanna go. Right. For me, time is, is what I wanna have right now with my family. Yeah. And also with people rounding me.

David Richter:

No, I, I love that. And it sounds like how old are your kids right now?

Oscar Setiawan:

I have a 13 and 15 years old.

David Richter:

Oh, wow. Two daughters, 13 and 15 years old. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah. So you’re probably having some more in-depth conversations with them. I have a five year old. So like at this point it’s like, not as in depth as 13 and 15. Yeah. But so it sounds like you’re teaching them actively, like what are some core concepts you want them to grasp around the concept of money too? Cuz it sounds like you’ve been on your journey. You know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> like for the last few years and it’s like, how has that translated to them? And what do you want? What’s one big takeaway. You want them to get from what you’re doing?

Oscar Setiawan:

So I always tell my daughters that they need to understand the basic, the basic, how money works, right? What is, what is income when it is expense? Right? So that’s, that’s what I’ve been talking to them. And then I’ve introduced them to real estate. I’ve had them read, you know, the classic reach that poor debt. You know, we read them together and we had some questions. So Nate now understand what our income assets liability, good debt and bad debt. Right? So, but what my, what I’m trying to really hammer down to my daughters are you need to start creating a way to get passive income, whatever you do in life, you need to start creating businesses. You need to start creating ways that you can make money through business while you’re the business owner and that money can support your lifestyle and that money can support whatever that you wanna do in life.

Oscar Setiawan:

Right. I grew up as an Asian and typical Asian. My father’s a doctor. My mom is entrepreneur and I’m expected to become an engineer, lawyer or doctor, right? No one expected to, for me to become a real estate, an arrested investor, or even on my multiple business, they want me to work for people, right? And I’m, I’m here to tell my daughters that you know, that generational mindset has to be broken because you know, regardless what you wanna be, if you wanna be an artist, if you wanna be a psychiatrist, if you wanna be an accountant, if you can be anything you want in your life. But the key is this, you need to have an income, an active income, or even a passive income to support that lifestyle. That’s, that’s the key that I wanna teach them so they can be anything they want. They don’t need to be a lawyer. They don’t need you to be a doctor. They don’t need to be an engineer anymore. Not like me, you know, but you have to have, if you wanna be an artist that loves to draw or, or figure skating, which my youngest daughter loves to do, you can, you can, you can do figure skating. However you need to know how to support that lifestyle.

David Richter:

Right.

Oscar Setiawan:

<Laugh> so yeah, that’s what I’ve been hammering down to my daughters.

David Richter:

No, that’s really good. No, that’s good stuff. And if you’re listening to this, just listen to Oscar. What he’s telling his children, what he’s gotten from his businesses. This is, this is really good info. Just a few last questions here I ask you. You’ve been successful in real estate. You’ve been, you know, helping a lot of people. There’s a lot of good stuff here today. What would you say is one key to the success you’ve had over the last few years here?

Oscar Setiawan:

I would say consistency and being in the right circle of people. So I, I always try to expand my circle to meet new people. And I always want to learn something new. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to be stretched in learning everything and trying to implement, but I keep focused on the things that I do best. And I, I just keep going, you know, I, I think in your book you also talk about people who are overly stretched in different businesses. Right. And you know, I just stick with, you know, what I know best, you know, and this point people ask me why I don’t do like say commercial or why do I don’t do you know, only apartment complex? Yeah. I, I could, I could re I could learn to do it, but I I’m sticking with single families because that’s what I do best, you know? And that’s what I, that’s why I don’t, I wanna pursue. Right. So it’s just consistency and going through it day by day and being attached to the right people with the right mindset. That’s really what encouraged me to keep going, you know, every single day.

David Richter:

Yeah, no, that’s really good. It is that circle of, of people around you that can pull you up or pull or tear you down. So it’s really important. That is huge. And consistency is key that’s for sure. I mm-hmm <affirmative> I think those are definitely, definitely big reasons why you’re successful and a lot of other people as well too, then, you know, get those right people around you and be consistent. Then what advice would you give to real estate investors on this podcast looking to adopt Profit First? What would you say to them?

Oscar Setiawan:

Well, I would say first you can actually contact me because I have free books. <Laugh> I still have a few, few copies. So contact me, I’ll give you free books and then follow, you know, follow David there. He has a, a free Facebook group, I believe. And you know, and then contact David follow his podcast. But the first things first sit down and look at your bank statements, look at your past deal. Look at your past the latest, hot day you did, right. If you haven’t done any deals, it actually is a, you, you actually have an advantage kind of, because, because you haven’t really screwed up your quote unquote profit yet, you know, or, or, you know, you haven’t gotten that expense that you think you make money, suddenly you lose money, right? So if you haven’t done any deals, read the book because that will actually give you clarity on what is involved in a deal.

Oscar Setiawan:

For example, if you are trying to do a flip and you think that you can make 50, $60,000 profit, but now you read the book and you realize there’s gonna be holding costs. There’s gonna be borrowers costs. There’s gonna be other expenses that you don’t know about. Now, you’re gonna be more careful. And now you’re gonna, you’re gonna be thankful because you’re not gonna gonna make the mistake that, that most people do you, you know, so if you’ve done your first deal and you think you make money, go to your, go to your hu and try to look at your statements and your expenses for the last three, four months or whatever that project was, right. And start marking them. And you, you, you, in your book, you had, you had that chapter where you, you were able to mark, you know your income statement or your statement, your bank statement as profit expenses, right. Or the things that you need, or the things that you don’t need. Right. Those are the things that you need to, to find out early in the game.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Oscar Setiawan:

Right.

David Richter:

So I like how you said that if you haven’t started yet, you know, like you’re at an advantage just because they haven’t built bad habits in the business yet, you know, like, right. That is, it’s like start with the good habits. So, man, that was really good stuff. I really appreciate that this whole thing has been great. Just like closing deals live with others. You know, like this is Oscar, the closer here we’ve got him with generational wealth and talking about what that means to him now and to his family, what he’s telling his daughters, like go back and listen to that portion also about how money works, you know, just how it goes in and out and like what he is, teaching them about that consistency in your circle, the trouble indicators at the beginning, like, know what you’re buying, know your numbers, know your rehab limit.

David Richter:

Like there’s been a lot of great stuff on this podcast. So that way you could go and take action and make sure that you are putting in place either Profit First or making sure that when you go and do that next deal, like following his guidelines to not lose out on a lot of money on that first deal. But now this has been, this has been awesome. So Oscar you’ve provided a ton of value here. How can our, our audience, our listeners provide value back? Like, what are you working on? How can they connect with you? Tell us about what we can do for you.

Oscar Setiawan:

Yeah. So first thing first, I, I love to network. I love to connect with, with new people. I, cuz I know, you know each of us has a value to give and, and through those conversation we know what our values are. Right. So perfect to reach out. I’m very active on Instagram at Oscar to closer, that would be the best way to connect with me, cuz again, no one can spell my last name. So <laugh> so, you know, just Oscar the closer, that’s really where I can be found on Instagram and you know, just go from there. You know, I, I love to help people. I love to help people get clarity to get started. And I’m sure once people receive values from me, you know, I, they, in, when, when they grow to become an investor, I’m sure there’s a value that you, that we can, we can exchange.

David Richter:

There you go. So find him on Instagram. He’s got a good link tree too, of like a couple of things that he’s, that he’s posted about. One of them is doing a podcast on one of the podcasts that he’s hosted before the, the intentional investor. Right. That was the yep. Correct. Yep. So we did a podcast there, but make sure to find him, get that. If you want a free book. I mean he’s given away a free book as well, too. Exactly. He’s still got a couple left over. So make sure to reach out to him if you want a free Profit First for real estate investing book. Also, if you’re like Oscar and you’re like, where the heck has my money gone? Like I need a system and you need to implement Profit First. And you are, you felt like what he’s talked about.

David Richter:

Living deal to deal and being in your rat race, head over to simple cfo.com. We’ve got a call button there, right there where you can schedule a call with us. We’d have to help you. See if we can help you implement Profit First or connect you at least to the right people in our space. If you need a good bookkeeper like you was talking about or need a CPA. And that knows real estate and real estate investing mm-hmm <affirmative>. And if you’re tired of like losing money and feeling broke and you feel like what Oscars felt or what Joey or other people like losing out on that money, reach out. We’d love to help you, but I wanna make sure that everyone remembers the statement. Start making profit a habit in your business. Oscar, thank you so much for being here today. It was an honor to have you.

Oscar Setiawan:

Thank you. It’s my pleasure.

David Richter:

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode valuable, could you do me a quick favor? Could you give us an honest rating within iTunes and be honest, you could say whether you liked it or not. And obviously with iTunes, the more reviews and ratings we have, the better it is for other people that are searching for Profit First and a podcast. So we’d love to be ranked on there and that’s thanks to your help. So we would really appreciate that if you would like to go give us a rating. Also, if you’re looking to connect with us further, I would highly recommend checking out our Facebook group Profit First for real estate investors. And that’s literally what it’s called. So you can type in Profit First for real estate investors and you’ll be able to find <laugh>, you’ll be able to find our Facebook group right there.

David Richter:

So come join active real estate investors who are supporting each other and growing their businesses and profits together. That’s what that group is all about. The link should be in the description below. And if you’re interested in working with us and implementing Profit First in your real estate business, we offer coaching and guidance. So if you wanna work with someone who’s actually Profit First certified and who works right now currently with real estate businesses, you can actually go start your application process by going to simpleCFO.com/apply, or just go right to simpleCFO.com. And there’s an apply button right on there. If you wanna actually start your Profit First journey with someone who can actually walk you through those step by step and help, you know, and grow your cash flow. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the Profit First REI podcast. See you next episode