How Profit First Broke Unhealthy Financial Habits With Paul Sparks

April 24, 2023

Episode 175: How Profit First Broke Unhealthy Financial Habits With Paul Sparks

The Profit First REI Podcast

April 24, 2023

David Richter

Our guest today is Paul Sparks, a real estate investor and the owner & COO of BunnyHill Properties. He founded the Whale Club mastermind and is the host of the Investor Frame podcast.

Paul began his real estate career while working as an engineering salesman before going full-time as an investor. He shares how his lack of formal education in business and proclivity as a salesman made him more focused on making a profit and less on looking at his numbers and data—until he discovered the Profit First method.

Tune in as Paul shares his history, Profit First journey, and the practical steps to unlearn bad money habits and begin putting more focus on financial management.

Key Takeaways:
[00:52] Introducing Paul Sparks

[04:41] On His Difficulty Looking at His Numbers and Other Money Struggles

[08:10] Profit First and How It Helped Him Grow as an Investor

[20:53] On Learning More About Finances and Having Better Money Mentality

[25:30] Advice for Investors Who Want to Apply Profit First

[28:27] Connect With Paul Sparks

Quotes:

[06:11] “ It’s really tough to run a profitable business if you do not collect and analyze the data because otherwise, you’re just erring on the side of ‘How do I make more money?’ constantly…more revenue doesn’t necessarily equate to more money in your pocket.”

[07:38] “I didn’t know how to focus on how much money that I kept. It sounds so obvious when you say this stuff out loud. But it’s not obvious when you’re in the moment…I think it just took maturing as a business owner to understand: it doesn’t matter how much you make unless you’re keeping it.”

[26:18] “It’s really, really tough to have financial freedom, financial certainty, if you don’t have your finances dialed in.”

Connect with Paul

Instagram: www.instagram.com/paulsparksofficial
Website: www.realestatecertainty.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

Transcription:

Paul Sparks:

I wasn’t taking any profit because it was just all in one lump thing and I didn’t know what I could take or what I couldn’t take. Yeah, and it just sounds so obvious now, but you can’t operate a business with with that type of system. So all I did is I went up and to just follow what they told me to do, I set up a profit account, I set up an OPEX account, I set up a tax account, and I set up an owner owner’s comp account.

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 re e i 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 David Richter of the Pro First REI podcast. We have Paul Sparks on today, which is an awesome guest because he talks about his journey of Prophet First, how he felt before Prophet first and what he was going through and like, uh, we referenced this many times, but beating his head against the wall. He would’ve rather done that than look at his finances, uh, before the prophet first system, which I think that resonates with a lot of people cuz that’s how I was years ago as well too. But please listen to his story, get some hope, encouragement, but then the practical steps as well too of what he did to get on the other side of that. Thank you so much for listening and please enjoy the show. Hey everyone, it is David Richter here again with the Profit First REI podcast. We have Paul Sparks in this studio, which I’m excited about this because he is a fan of profit first because it sounds like it’s helped his business a lot. Uh, we were talking about it before and he described it, he’d rather headbutt a nail

Paul Sparks:

<laugh>,

David Richter:

uh, than talk about and look at his finances. So we definitely have to talk about that sometime today on the show, but just to give you a little bit of a taste there. But Paul, thank you so much for being on.

Paul Sparks:

Thanks for having me, David.

David Richter:

Yeah, for sure. So before we get into that interesting story of headbutting and nail, because I think that’s gonna resonate with a lot of people and how they view the financial side of their business, how did you get started in real estate and like what are you doing today?

Paul Sparks:

Yeah, so I’m actually an engineer by trade. I got, uh, out of engineering school and realized I’m a terrible engineer. Um, <laugh> not only was I bad at it, but I didn’t like it. Um, what I found was a little niche for myself in sales, uh, selling engineering equipment to other engineers that was a much better fit for me. Um, so I spent, uh, about eight years outta school, traveling every single week, um, selling automation and engineering equipment to some of the largest companies in the world. Companies like United Airlines, Amazon, Walmart, and uh, you know, had had done fairly well for myself through that process and had just started buying, you know, they weren’t even rentals. I would buy a primary house, I would move out in a year and turn that into a rental. And I had collected a handful of these. And, uh, when 2020 March of 2020 hit and I was getting ready to close one of the largest deals in my career with United Airlines, they said, oh, we gotta pull the plug on this project, Paul, because there’s a whole virus thing going around and you know, we’re not gonna be able to write you that 7 million check. So that was a bummer. And uh, that was the point when I said, all right, well I think I just need to take, you know, take this opportunity to go full-time in real estate and start building my career in that. Fast forward to now. I run a small investment team here in Denver, Colorado. Um, in fact, we’re actually under contract right now to close on the largest real estate deal of my career. Uh, 18 townhouses we’re gonna be building. It was another, uh, 8 million project that I raised money for. So I found myself getting, um, into a similar situation that I was in sales, which was, uh, selling big deals, raising lots of money. That was my skillset and I found my way, uh, out of more of a volume-based game that I started in and now going after larger deals and know more, uh, more fits my preferences and, um, strengths, I would say.

David Richter:

Okay. So that’s what you’re doing today, going after those larger deals in the real estate space?

Paul Sparks:

Yeah.

David Richter:

Cool. And he’s got the Investor Frame podcast, which I was just a part of, so listen to his podcast. I’m on there. That was, I like his style of interviewing and like the framework that he has around that podcast. So I thought that was very interesting. He’s got the whale club too. I’ll let you talk about that, you know, probably at the end there, but I wanna talk about, let’s get into the juicy stuff. Talk about wanting to headbutt a nail versus looking at the finances. Like what was going on. At what point was that in this cycle of your business life?

Paul Sparks:

Yeah. Um, I think it’s the curse of the salesperson.

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Sparks:

Um, and I don’t know if there’s, you know, I’m sure you got a lot of people that are, would call themselves a visionary or a salesperson.

David Richter:

Yes.

Paul Sparks:

Um, and a lot of times how I solve problems was just go sell more.

David Richter:

Yeah,

Paul Sparks:

Right. Just go sell another deal and then we won’t have that problem. Um, it’s, we have a framework that we describe in our community called case. So C stands for collect, A for analyze, S for strategize and E for execute. And boy do I want to skip right past collect and analyze and just tell me the strategy so I can go execute on it.

David Richter:

Nice. Right.

Paul Sparks:

This curse, I would say it would go so far as to say of the salesperson is that they don’t want to take the time to compile or collect all of the financial data. You know, pull a list of all their vendors, where are they spending money, what’s the return for all these things? Let’s analyze the data and find opportunities to improve. We don’t want any of that. Just tell me how I can make more money. Just tell me how I can find the next deal so I can go sell more. And it’s, you know, what we talked about on our show is just, it’s a bias that a lot of us have. And so I’ve had to deal with that. It’s really tough to run a profitable business if you do not collect and analyze the data cuz otherwise you’re just airing on the side of how do I make more money constantly.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

And it’s the whole premise of your book, more Money doesn’t necessarily, more revenue doesn’t necessarily equate to more money in your pocket.

David Richter:

Yeah, that’s the truth. I, uh, yeah, you’re definitely preaching to the choir here. So then what does your business look like? Like were you wa living deal to deal at that point? Or like what was going on?

Paul Sparks:

So, you know, I started wholesaling, um,

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Sparks:

And fixing and flipping. And I like to sort of describe my first year or two as like I just needed to press buttons. Like I just needed to see what happened when we did this, when we did that. Like how do I, like flipping? Do I like wholesaling? Do I like retail? Do I like creative finance? Do I like rentals? What do I like? And so a lot of it was just trying things and I did give myself a lot of probably too much leeway to just try things to see what I liked. But I had never been taught how to manage a business, how to manage the profitability of a business. I was an individual contributor, an individual salesperson, had never managed anything other than my own time. And I didn’t have to worry about how much money I was spending, it was just go make money. And that did not serve me very well in my first couple years because, you know, I didn’t know how to focus on how much money that I kept. It sounds so obvious when you say this stuff out loud, but it’s not obvious when you’re in the moment. And it’s not obvious when your brain is telling you, uh, I don’t wanna do that stuff. I don’t wanna clean my room <laugh>, I don’t wanna do these things. Right. That’s how I think of the financial side. Uh, at least that’s how I did think of the finance side. Um, and I think it just took maturing as a business owner to understand it doesn’t matter how much you make unless you’re keeping it.

David Richter:

Yeah, no, like I said, this is good stuff because that’s where a lot of people find themselves, but okay, so where did that you know, maturation take place? Was that over a couple years of pressing the buttons and you’re like, this is ridiculous. Like, I’m just not making, you know, I’m not keeping any of it. Or like, was there a turning point where you had to turn to, you know, profit first or you found it? Or like what?

Paul Sparks:

Profit First was the first place that I started understanding. Oh, right. I need something very, very simple. If there’s one thing I know about myself is that I’m not an excellent operator, I am an excellent salesperson, and those aren’t the same things, right? That’s why you have a, let’s say a CEO, uh, versus a COO and you know, that’s just the general term, but operating a business is not my skillset. So what I needed to do was like, we gotta go back to the basics. And I thought of it when I read Mike Macca’s book, it was, think of it like envelopes that you put money in, right?

David Richter:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Paul Sparks:

This money goes here, this money goes here, this money goes here. And so what I did is I read that book and heard about actually what I heard about it at Collective Genius immediately went and read that book. This was before you had come out with Profit First for real estate, um, which I’ve also read, but the whole idea was, okay, why don’t I just set up some bank accounts that way I’m not putting all, I mean, it sounds terrible to say this, all of my investor money, all of my operating expenses, all the tax money that I’m saving, I wasn’t taking any profit because it was just all in one lump thing and I didn’t know what I could take or what I couldn’t take.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

And it just sounds so obvious now, but you can’t operate a business with that type of system. So all I did is I went up and to just follow what they told me to do, I set up a profit account, I set up an OPEX account, I set up a tax account, and I set up an owner owner’s comp account. Um, of course Chase Bank deleted my owner’s comp account cause it always sat at zero. And they’re like, oh, you’re never using this cuz I was never paying myself. So again, this whole why are we in business in the first place? I started losing track of that as I started pressing these buttons and just doing things. I wasn’t keeping any of the money and I wasn’t getting closer to the things that I actually got into business for in the first place.

David Richter:

Okay. So that was, uh, when did that realization was probably taking place, what, right before you heard Mike speak or was it like, was it a long standing thing or obviously this was a symptom of the curse of the salesperson, but then when was it like, oh shoot, what are you saying really resonates? Was it like at that event at a collective genius where kind of

Paul Sparks:

Yeah. This was, I wanna say it was like summer of 2021. I’d been in the business about a full year

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

And started realizing this just can’t go on like this.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

Um, and so what we started doing was really taking a look at, well, where’s the money going? You know, it started getting complicated. Like, how do we deal with earnest money? How do we deal with investor money that goes out? What about the stuff that we put on credit cards? How do we allocate for all those things? So I just had to start educating myself on how to actually be a business owner. Um, in fact, what I love so much about Profit First is, uh, it’s very similar to my business partner now. His name is Dan Nicholson. He wrote a book called Rigging the Game. In this book, they talk a lot about some of the same things that you guys do in, uh, profit First. And the point was, I needed someone to speak to me less about like finance and more about how do you change the, uh, let’s just say the way you think of finance, right? You’ve gotta stop thinking of this as cleaning your room because you don’t want to do that. Right?

David Richter:

Right.

Paul Sparks:

You’ve gotta start thinking about this is how do I use this business and these tools, the investments, the things that I’m doing, stop identifying with the tool and use the tool to actually help you get closer to the things that you want in life. Um, so I think it was just somebody telling it to me in a way that didn’t trigger my like lizard brain to say, Ooh, I don’t want that. That’s something that’s finance stuff. I don’t want that. Right. So it was sometimes you gotta find something, um, outside of your industry.

David Richter:

Right.

Paul Sparks:

He had nothing to do with my industry. I think that’s part of why I was able to hear his message around, uh, you’ve gotta rewire your brain towards thinking about your businesses as tools to help you get success in life. Not as your success lies in how well your business does, or how much revenue or how many deals you do per month. That’s how I was measuring my success for the first year or two in business.

David Richter:

Okay. So it sounds like that, you know, you did mature as that business owner going from the, okay, this is how I’m measuring it to now. Not thinking of it as cleaning my room or doing the laundry or whatever, to actually analyzing the finances of, okay, this is actually helping me get to where I want to be. Did you struggle with where you wanted to be? Was that ever a struggle during those first couple years of like, what did you really want out of it as well too? Or did you have that clearly defined since day one?

Paul Sparks:

Well, no, not really. I think, um, that was probably the biggest mistake that I’ve made in business is, uh, I like to, we like to say, you know, you gotta play your game.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

What I found is that I started playing other people’s games. I started looking around, you know, I built my entire sales career. It would drive my boss crazy because everybody else would bring in, you know, a deal a month Right. Or a couple deals a month or whatever it was. And he, it would drive him nuts because I would have one massive deal that would hit in November, December, and I would make my entire year’s goal in one deal. And he would think that was crazy. But like, I got the nickname The Whale Hunter. Um, for whatever reason, that just was my style. It was my style for eight years in business. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong, it’s a preference thing. That’s just how I built my business. But then when I started getting into real estate, for whatever reason, I started trying to build a volume-based game. I got sucked into this whole Yeah. But they’re doing five deals a month. They’re doing 10 deals a month. I want to do 10 deals a month.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

And not really because that was actually a good fit for me, but it’s because I was trying to play somebody else’s game. And again, part of the evolution as a business owner was saying, wait a second, in order to do five deals a month, even 10 deals a month, you have to be an excellent operator. There’s so many things that have to go right in that business. You know, David, I put the wrong phone number on two months worth of direct mail and I would’ve had better time lighting $30,000 on fire.

David Richter:

Ooh.

Paul Sparks:

And it’s like, you just, you’re doing so many things when you’re first getting into business that

David Richter:

Yeah,

Paul Sparks:

All these things have to go right. Again, it’s a preference thing. Some people are gonna be really good at that type of business, but one, I realized that I need very simple businesses. I need less deals. I need more profitable deals. Not because that’s right or wrong, but just because that fits my strengths better. Uh, and once I started shifting my business out of this volume-based game, it’s amazing. My costs went way down, but my revenue stayed the same.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

Because I was still getting bigger deals. And so that’s, you know, it started with Profit First. It started by the realization that, Hey man, you can’t do this. You can’t be a business owner and get financial certainty if you don’t have your finances in order. I don’t know how you could have one without the other. You know, that was the first step in saying, okay, well I need to go actually get some help with this. It’s a good thing. I have, you know, great resources, books, uh, community to be able to find these types of things. Um, and now I’ve started playing my game much better. My overhead went from about $38,000 a month to like five now because I’m not spending all this time and money on all these things that, uh, require my attention and detail to maintain. Again, it’s not a right or wrong way to do business. I know you have clients that do hundreds of deals, uh, per year, and I betcha they’re excellent operators. I betcha they know every single dollar that they spend what the return on that is. Because if you wanna run that type of business, that’s what it takes. I just realize that my game is a very simple business where I can really only keep track of about 10 expenses, <laugh> and know where every dollar is going. Anything more complicated than that, it’s probably not a good fit for me.

David Richter:

So where was that realization? Was that from oh, you know, like just being in the business for a couple years and like, oh shoot, like something’s gotta change your, or was it after you read Profit First or a book? Or like how did you go from, okay, I wanna be compared to everyone, to No, this is, I need to scale this back. I need a simple system for myself. I’m tired of <laugh> of the more mentality.

Paul Sparks:

Yeah. Well, like I said, it started with Profit First. I went through a program called, uh, certainty Certified Advisors with my business partner now. Okay. His name’s Dan Nicholson. And over the course of about six weeks, he taught, so Dan helped Microsoft in the early two thousands and several other Fortune 500 companies build what he calls a business treasury. So it’s this idea where, um, you know, if you look at Microsoft for example, they have 200 billion of investible assets. They’re not just taking that money and putting it in Chase Bank.

David Richter:

Right.

Paul Sparks:

They are taking that money and they’re investing it so that they can create a return ideally to offset the operating expenses of their business. So it was this idea like, Hey Paul, if you could keep more money, we can take that money and use it in what he called a business treasury, and we can get a return off of that so that the operating of your expenses of your businesses is essentially covered. So whether you do a deal or not, you’re operating at net zero. That was the turning point, right? When he was able to show me why it was so important to keep the money. Right. Why, and how you could actually make use of it. So since that was, let’s see, that was January of 2022, when I went through that sort of, uh, I don’t know if I would call it a class, but like a mastermind sort of thing.

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Sparks:

Through that process, I had completely, reoriented my business. This was the same time when Steve Trang, uh, myself, the author of the book, Dan Nicholson and another gentleman named Nick Peterson, we partnered to bring the concepts and the principles that are written about in this book, rigging the Game, how to achieve financial certainty on your terms, bring that to the real estate world. Again, that’s why I was like, oh, David, what he’s doing with Profit First is so similar to what we’re doing. It’s just a slightly different language. It’s a slightly different approach, but the fundamentals and the concepts are almost identical. Right. You have to know what you’re keeping because we’re doing business for a reason. We call it the solvable problem, to solve some problem in your life, whether that’s financial or to make an impact on certain people. But again, you have to keep profit in your business in order to achieve these things. And so that’s why I resonate so well with your message, just because Profit First was the book that first hit me over the head and was like, Hey dummy, you’ve gotta start paying attention to this. Otherwise you’re gonna just continue to spend every dollar that you’re making. And in fact, we were probably losing money. I just had, I didn’t even know at the time, right?

David Richter:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Paul Sparks:

So yeah, I feel a massive amount of gratitude and indebtedness for the work that you’ve done and the message that you’re spreading because it was the catalyst for me sort of getting the help that I needed to start running the business that I wanted to own, that didn’t own me. Right.

David Richter:

Yeah. So talk about that. Talk about where you’ve come from, you know, we’ve always got the story there to where you are now. Like how has that been using it for, sounds like at least a couple years at this point and running off of it. Has it given you more clarity? Do you actually have more money to be able to keep to, to towards those, you know, like the treasury and stuff? Like has it helped you along that route?

Paul Sparks:

Yes, it has. Um, I have also learned a challenging, well, I would say I learned the difference between liquidity and solvency very recently. Right. I thought that a lot. So for those who aren’t familiar with that, I’ll try to make it very simple. Liquidity is anything less than a year. So the ability to pay for things in, in the next year is your liquidity. Anything beyond a year is your solvency. And what I realized was that I was allocating a lot of my money into long term assets, things that I was going to hold long term. Um, but now that, uh, well, and so I have a liquidity problem essentially in my business right now. I was downshifting into a lot of long term investments. And so now what I’m doing is trying to, um, bring more liquidity back in my business, keep it in cash or cash equivalent type places because I was allocating it to, like I said, a bunch of long-term investments that aren’t exactly liquid. So right now, the first thing that happened was I was able to, like I said, to reduce my overhead from about, I think it was like 38, $40,000 a month down to about five. And the real reason that I was able to do that is because I started leaning into my unique strengths, which is not paid marketing, it’s doing podcasts, it’s relationships. That’s how I built every business, uh, relationship up to this point was flying typically to another city and meeting with them for lunch and getting to know them.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

And so when I started doing that in real estate, I started realizing actually the leads continued to flow in, the opportunities continued to flow in, but my overhead just went way down. So first thing, the impact that it’s made on me is this noose has loosened around my neck, right? It’s really tough when you’ve got a $40,000 a month overhead and you’re not even sure where it’s all going. You’re not sure whether it’s coming back. Um, so getting clarity on my buckets, right? I’ve got my operating expense, there’s rules associated for that. This bank account needs to stay above a certain amount, otherwise we have a problem, right? Then you’ve got your tax account. Okay. Every single bit of, uh, money that comes into the profit account, there’s, what do you call that? The taps, the target versus the cap. Yeah. And so I have all these things laid out and these rules that I’ve defined in advanced so that I don’t have any questions around where does the investor money go? Where does the profit go? How do, when am I gonna get paid? How much money do I need in my operating expenses? So I’ve got, uh, what I call an investment thesis. So a lot of this just took me writing it down, doing the headbutted, you know, I say headbutting the nail. That’s, that’s a little exaggerated right now. I, now I actually look forward to these things cuz I know how it impacts my life. I was able to connect the chore to like the result, here’s why you need to do this. So I, like I said, I have a couple things. I have my, I call it a business thesis and I have an investment thesis. So here’s the rules of what I’m gonna do before it even a dollar even comes into my account, I know exactly where it’s going and that’s exactly what Profits first does. And I allocate a significant chunk of that to my treasury that continues to grow and build as an investment vehicle for my business. Hopefully that’s specific enough. If you want to dive in more, I’m happy to, but yeah, that’s what it looks like for me.

David Richter:

No, that’s awesome. I just wanna make sure on the other side, you know, that it’s giving that clarity and that it’s helping you. And it sounds like one of the big things too was just the mentality of being able to not think of it as the head button in the nail or like, you know, the chore or whatever and being able to think of it like, this is the result that I really want. This is what I have to do, the rules, you know, the rules of the game in order to get to that other, to the goal that I want. Now this has been great. I think you’re giving a lot of people hope here that, you know, going from where you were to where you are, but then also just the mindset too of being able to shift from, okay, this is something that I don’t enjoy at all to this helps me get to what I do enjoy. You know, like, this is where I get to be fulfilled. Let’s ask this then. What advice would you give to a real estate investor looking to implement Profit First and get it started?

Paul Sparks:

Well, first is you gotta have a good reason. If you don’t have a good reason, you’re just gonna probably avoid it. Now I’m probably, I’m gonna speak to the people that are these salespeople that have this bias and this tendency towards I’ll just go sell more. Like, we’ll just do more deals and then that’ll cover it all up. Um, that might work for a time, but if you’re trying to build a reliable source of income, ideally that’s, oh, I shouldn’t say ideally, but likely that’s probably why you got into business in the first place, is so that you could work for yourself and have a reliable source of income. Well, it’s really, really tough to have financial freedom, financial certainty if you don’t have your finances dialed in.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Sparks:

So it just, you have to find a way to make it worth your time. And you have to, it’s kind of like saying you gotta eat your vegetables. You’re not gonna like it if you’re a salesperson and you’re biased towards sales and the way that I was, it’s a habit that’s going to be tough to build, but if you don’t have a reason to do it, if you haven’t clearly defined what success means and then define how much money is it gonna take for me to have that life, and then you have a plan to start working towards it, then the finances is gonna be this forever endless just chasing more and more and more deals. So yeah, I would encourage you, if you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t really wanna deal with the finances, or maybe there’s a, I think there’s oftentimes there was a lot of guilt and shame associated with it. I had all this guilt and it’s like, boy, it’s been like a year and a half before I’ve, and I really haven’t done anything inside of my business to get my finances in order. Well call me, seek a community of people who have gone through this guilt and shame and have come out the other side because I can tell you it is worth it. Only if you have something to get closer to. If your answer to businesses like, let me just see how many deals I can do per month to compete with everybody else, you probably won’t take the time to dial in your finances. If you don’t have clarity on what you’re doing, you’re probably not going to spend the time to make sure you keep more money. You’ll just err on the side of making more money. Which as we know, it’s very different. So yeah, just recognize that a lot of us deal with that guilt and shame. A lot of us deal with avoiding the scorecard and avoiding the, uh, the necessary things to become a business owner. It’s totally normal, but if you want to go to the next level, you have to make that jump one way or another. So,

David Richter:

No, that’s good. That’s good stuff. And then you said even in there to reach out to you. So I want to ask as the final question here, since you know lots of good value here around the Prop first system and just a lot of good stuff in general, how do people get ahold of you? How do they reach out to you? What websites or, you know, social media or whatever?

Paul Sparks:

Yeah, so I’m putting out a ton of stuff about what we, again, you and I have very similar, uh, messages, just slightly different language. We call it the solvable problem. We call it financial certainty. And I put a lot of content, let’s just say on my Instagram, uh, Paul Sparks official, so you can find out more about that. We’ve got a community as well for real estate investors who are looking to get financial certainty. We’ve got a framework and an operating system that we teach people how to do. A lot of it has, um, it’s very similar to Profit First, but it’s also how to deal with these biases, how to deal with these, uh, you know, the guilt and the shame associated with all this stuff. Right? We have a whole bunch of information at realestatecertainty.com. That’s a business that’s Steve Trang, myself, uh, the my mentor Dan Nicholson who just wrote the book Rigging The Game, which I highly suggest you picked that up. It was a Wall Street Journal bestseller, rigging the Game. And uh, you know, those are some of the best places you can find out more about what we’re doing and and more about me.

David Richter:

Awesome. No, that’s good stuff. So this has been another episode of the Pro first REI podcast. If you’re also wondering like, okay, I want the same exact stuff that Paul, you know, like that he has now that financial certainty and I wanna make sure that I know where every dollar’s going in my business. You can head over to simplecfo.com with our fractional CFO service to make sure that we can help you as well too. Implement the Profit First System. Uh, we’ll love to help you there and make sure that you have financial peace at the end of the day. Don’t be running around like a chicken with your head cut off. Don’t have that if you’re wanting to, uh, hit a nail with your head, uh, head over and get that, uh, get that book and then also book a call. It’s simplecfo.com. Remember, make profit a Habit inside of your business. Paul, thank you so much for being on today.

Paul Sparks:

Thanks David for having me. It was a pleasure.

Outro:

This episode of The Profit First for REI 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 at simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on the Profit First for r e I podcast with David Richter.

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Title: “Profit First Strategies with Jay Conner: The Power of Private Money”

Episode: 242

There are 15 reasons to love about borrowing private money over traditional money. One of them is making your own rules for your private money.

In this episode of Profit First for REI podcast, Jay Conner, a nationally renowned real estate investor and the king of private money. He talks about how private money works.

Jay helps you get your money from private lenders and will share with you the mindset that will get you money in the door without you ever having to worry about it.

Listen and enjoy the show!

Key Takeaways:

[01:01] Introducing Jay Conner

[05:00] Introduction to private money

[08:30] The Great News Phone Call

[11:23] Why don’t you use your own money?

[13:18] Maintaining relationships with private lenders

[15:40] Private money vs traditional money

[22:05] Things that make them want to recommend you

[25:18] Advice for real estate investors

[29:01] Connect with Jay Conner

Quotes:

[07:34] “If you are talking about private money and raising private money with an individual and you got a deal for them to fund, you already sounded desperate.”

[12:07] “If you want to scale your business, private money is the way to go.”

[16:05] “In this world of private money, we make the rules. We set the interest rate, we sent the length and all of that.”

Connect with Jay:

Website: https://www.jayconner.com/book-details/

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:

Speaker 1 (00:00):

I got 15 reasons I love private money over traditional money. I won’t share all 15, but the biggest one is it puts you in the driver’s seat. The traditional way to borrow money is you go to the bank and get on your hands and knees and you’re begging and chasing. Well, they are making the rules right? Like the lender is making the rules. But in this world of private money, we make the rules, we set the interest rate, we set the length of the note and all that.

Speaker 2 (00:34):

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.

Speaker 3 (01:01):

We have Jay Connor back on the podcast. I love Jay Connor. He helps you get your money, the money from private lenders and that whole framework and process, but he does it from a passion and a place of heart. And servant Teachership. I feel like he goes out there and is a servant teacher of how private money works. Listen to this episode. He gives the magic question he tells about desperation and private lending, and I thought his perspective was so good, and then ultimately the mindset that will get you money in the door without you ever having to worry about it. So listen to this episode. Can’t wait for you to get value from it. Thank you for being a listener of the Profit First. RII podcast. Have a great episode. Hey, here’s the profit first RI podcast. Really excited to have Jay Connor back because he’s the came of private money. And this is where I love to go into this topic because I don’t care what kind of business you’re in, you probably need help with this, but especially if you’re in the real estate world, this comes up all the time at every event I’m at with every conversation I have. So we’re having the cane here talk about private money today. So Jay, thanks for being on the show.

Speaker 1 (02:07):

Hey David, thank you so much for having me come on here to talk about my most favorite topic. Of course, that being private money. And why is that? Because private money’s had a bigger impact on our real estate investing business than any other strategy that we’ve implemented in our business.

Speaker 3 (02:24):

Why did you go down that road though? I mean, you teach this all the time. You’re helping a ton of people, like anyone I’ve ever talked to that works with you is like he taught me how to do and I got money and it actually works. So I mean, how did you even go down that road where it made a difference on you and then you wanted to get it to others?

Speaker 1 (02:43):

Well, I actually backed into it. I didn’t do it on purpose. So here’s what happened. So my wife, Carol, joy and I, we’ve been investing in real estate, single family houses, other real estate full time here in eastern North Carolina since 2003. And here’s what happened. From 2003 until 2009, David, all I knew to do in my real estate investing business was rely on the local banks to fund my deals. I mean, all I knew to do was go to the bank, get on my hands and knees, put my hand underneath my chin, raise my skirt up so they could look at all my personal financial statements and stuff and actually beg to get my deals funded. That’s all I knew to do. And so I had a big wake up call in January of 2009 after being in this business here in Eastern North Carolina. I called up my banker.

(03:38):

I told him about these two deals I had under contract in Newport, these two single family houses. And David, I learned like that over the telephone that my line of credit had been shut down with no notice. My banker, his name was Steve, and the bank was bb and t at the time. I said, Steve, what in the world are you telling me? My line of credit is shut down. I got two deals under contract. You gave me no notice. Why is the bank closing my line of credit? He said, Jay, don’t. There’s a global financial crisis going on right now. I said, no, but now you just gave me a global financial crisis. Financial crisis, yeah, I ain’t got no way to fund my deals. And I got ’em under contract. So I hung up the phone and here’s what happened, David. I sat here and I asked myself a very important question.

(04:27):

And so I’m going to share this question with your audience right now. This question I’m going to share with you will help you solve any problem you’ve got. I don’t care if it’s business, financial, career, health, relationships. I don’t care what your problem is. By the way, David, these people going around and saying, any problem, you got some opportunity I want to throw up. I didn’t have no opportunity. I had a problem of not funding my deal. So here’s the question I asked myself. The question I asked myself was, Jay, who do you know that can help you with your problem? And when I asked myself that question, I immediately thought of my good friend Jeff, who lived in Greensboro, North Carolina at the time, and he was investing in real estate. And so I called him up and I told him what happened. And he said, well, Jay, welcome to the club.

(05:18):

I said, what club? He said, the club of the bank shutting you down and losing amount of credit. They shut me down last week. I said, well, how are you funding your deals, Jeff? He says, well, have you ever heard of private money? And I hadn’t. So Jeff told me about private money. He told me about self-directed IRAs and how people can use their retirement accounts and funds that they currently have and move them over to a self-directed IRA company and then loan that money out to us real estate investors, either tax deferred or tax free depending on the type of account they’ve got. Well, that just opened up my whole world. I’d never heard of that. And so what did I do? How did raise $2,150,000 in less than 90 days after being cut off from the bank? Well, here’s what I did, and here’s the secret sauce I put on my teacher hat.

(06:10):

So I put on my teacher cap, which is my private money teacher cap, and I just started teaching people in my own network what private money is, how they can earn high rates of returns safely and securely. And what’s interesting, Carol, joy and I, we got 47 private lenders right now. Not one of them had ever heard of private money and private lending. Not one of them had ever heard of self-directed IRA companies and what a third party custodian is. That’s important by the way, to establish a relationship with a self-directed IRA company because over half of my private lenders are using their retirement funds. And if I didn’t have that relationship to introduce them to move their retirement funds over, I’d be missing out on over half of my private money. So how did I go about raising all this money when I was cut off from the banks?

(07:02):

I led with a servant’s heart. I led with education. And here’s a really, really important point. I separated the activity. I separated the conversations of telling people what private money is and how they can earn high rates of return safely and securely and having a deal for them to fund. You see, desperation has got a smell to it. And when you talk about is that not true, David? Yeah, very true. So if you’re talking about private money and raising private money with an individual and you got a deal for them to fund, you’re already sounding desperate and you’re not even trying to sound desperate. So we don’t talk about deals and when we’re first exposing somebody to how they can earn high rates of return, we talk about private money. So how do we separate those conversations? Well, when someone has told me that they’ve got, let’s say they’ve got $150,000 they want to invest and get high rates of return conservatively, I’ll say, great, I’ll put your money to work for you just as soon as possible.

(08:11):

I don’t talk about a deal upfront. If they’ve got retirement funds that they want to get higher rates of return on, I’ll introduce ’em to the self-directed IRA company that I recommend. They’ll get their funds moved over. And so here’s what happens and here’s the magic sauce, David, I give ’em and I call ’em up with what I call the great news phone call. What in the world is the great news phone call? Well, the great news phone call is not a pitch. I’ve never pitched a deal in my life ever since I started raising private money in 2009. I pick up my handset with my cord attached to it here in North Carolina and I call some of your, don’t even know what that is. And let’s say, David, let’s say you’re one of my private lenders. So I’ll put my phone right up here and you’ll answer the phone and we’ll have a little chitchat and I’ll say, Dave, I got great news for you.

(09:06):

I can now put your money to work. I got a house in Newport with an after repaired value of $200,000. The funding requires 150. Closing is next Tuesday. You’ll need to have your funds wired to my real estate attorney next Monday. I’m going to have my real estate attorney email you the wiring instructions end of conversation. Notice I didn’t ask If you want to fund the deal, of course you want to fund the deal. You’ve been waiting for the phone call. I’ve told you the program. I’ve taught you the program, you know what kind of rate you get, what the maximum loan to value is, the program that I’ve taught you. And so now you’re waiting for the good news phone call, which I just gave you. And in addition to that, if you as my private lender, if you’ve moved your retirement funds over to a self-directed IRA company, you ain’t earning any money until I put your money to work.

(10:04):

You moved it at my recommendation. Now I’m ethically bound to put your money to work. You ain’t earning any money until you actually put her to work. So again, we separate conversations, we leave with a servant’s heart, we educate, and by the way, David, these people going around saying don’t just get the deal under contract. The money is show up. I want to throw up where is the money going to show up? Is it just going to rain out of clouds or something? No, get the money lined up and you can get it lined up fast. Just like me. There’s always going to be deals.

Speaker 3 (10:38):

Yeah. Oh man, that’s really good stuff. I love how you went down that road and it helped you personally. Now you’re just teaching a lot of people. I love that magic question. Who do you know that can help me with my problem? It’s that who, it’s not always the how. It’s the who did I know, and in that point it really helped you. I also run into a lot of times, I don’t know if you see this, where there’s someone who’s like, I could save a couple interest points if I just use my own money versus a private lender’s funds. What are your thoughts on that of always taking down your own deals versus going out there and putting the work into getting a private lender?

Speaker 1 (11:17):

Sure, I get that question all the time. They say, Jay, you making all that money? Why don’t you use your own money to invest in real estate? Why are you still borrowing private money? Well, here’s the answer. If you’re just going to do one deal, that’s a great use of your money. That’s a fantastic use of your money. But do you want to scale your business? I mean, right now we’ve got seven different projects going on, single family houses simultaneously. Well, I don’t want my money buried in seven houses or projects simultaneously, which here in our local market can easily be over 3 million with the prices of our homes. So if you want to scale and really, I mean most people have got a bottom of the bucket in their checkbook. So if you want to scale your business, then private money is the way to go. Another answer to that question is, do I want to pay myself 8% or do I want to use my money for something else,

Speaker 3 (12:22):

Right? Yep.

Speaker 1 (12:24):

So that’s a couple of answers to why I use private lending and why I’m still using 47 private lenders,

Speaker 3 (12:33):

Which is great. I love what you said. If you want to scale, it can run out of cash real quick. If you just keep using your own money where a lot of people have to choose between, okay, paying some percentage points or sleeping at night, and it’s like, I think I like your option a whole lot better, especially if you’re looking to grow. But I like how you said that one deal. That’s okay, but if you are looking to be a real estate investor, this is something you’re going to have to go down that road. Now, last time I asked you some questions about the private lending process. I don’t think I asked this one though, is how do you maintain a relationship with that many private lenders? You’ve got 47 people in your network that you call up with the good news call. So is it like how do you maintain a relationship with all those people?

Speaker 1 (13:22):

I mail ’em checks.

Speaker 3 (13:25):

I love that. That’s a great answer. Oh man. No better way to keep a relationship there.

Speaker 1 (13:33):

I mean, they love getting money in the mail, right? Yeah. They love mailbox money, so I mail ’em checks.

Speaker 3 (13:41):

So you mail ’em checks. So you’ve built a good enough business where you can keep 47 lenders busy and their money active.

Speaker 1 (13:50):

Well, to be totally transparent, I mean, it is a juggling act to tell you the truth. I mean, there’s more money than there is deals.

Speaker 3 (14:00):

Yep.

Speaker 1 (14:01):

There’s more money than there is deals. And so we got 47 private lenders. Some of them have got $30,000 with us, some of ’em have got a million dollars with us. I can’t buy a house for 30,000, but I can use 30,000 for rehab money. You can use private money, borrow private money in a junior position, you’ve got to disclose that. But I can put private money in a junior lien. But what comes into play there is what we call total loan to value. So I’m not going to be borrowing more than 75% of the after repaired value. I didn’t say the purchase price 75% of the after repaired value. But let’s say back to that example that we just talked about, David, where if I’ve got a after repaired value on a home of 200,000 for easy figuring, I can borrow up to 150,000. That’s 75% of the after repaired value. But if I buy it for a hundred thousand, which I do all the time, 50% of the after repaired value, I can have a private lender in first position at a hundred grand. I could have another private lender in second position at 50 grand. So add a hundred to the 50, now one 50 divided by 200,000 after repaired value, I got a total loan to value of still 75%.

Speaker 3 (15:27):

Yeah, I love that. And it seems like private money gives you flexibility and

Speaker 1 (15:32):

Options. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (15:34):

Yeah, that makes sense. A hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (15:37):

Oh, absolutely. Flexibility is where it’s all at. I got 15 reasons. I love private money over traditional money. I won’t share all 15, but the biggest one is it puts you in the driver’s seat. The traditional way to borrow money is you go to the bank and get on your hands and knees and you’re begging and chasing, well, they are making the rules, right? The lender is making the rules. But in this world of private money, we make the rules, we set the interest rate, we set the length of the node and all that.

Speaker 3 (16:14):

I love that. Flexibility is the ultimate play in real estate. You want to have flexibility and you want to be able to have that. So I love what you teach. Who is the person that you’re trying to teach out there? Is it the person that’s done one deal a thousand deals? Who are you trying to help the most with your business?

Speaker 1 (16:33):

Yeah, that’s interesting. At my live events, which is called the private money conference, and my live events, we have about 60% or so have already done deals. They’ve already done deals. They want to scale their business. They are real estate investors wanting to scale their business, and about 40% are looking to get their very first deal. So I’m helping everybody. I mean Stu and Harriet Baldwin from New York State, they enrolled and joined my mastermind membership community and they already had a portfolio of a hundred houses. They’d already raised over $2 million in private money, but they wanted to see how I went about it. Well, just one webinar that I recorded with them brought in 1.2 million in additional private private money. So I’ve worked with real estate investors that are brand new and those that are also seasoned to help them get more private money ready to go for their business.

Speaker 3 (17:33):

I love that. It sounds like a lot of people out there need private money, and even if you’re just getting started, if you don’t have the funds to do that first deal, like you mentioned, you do that first deal, that one deal at a time, it might be okay, but this sounds like a great spot where if you’re getting into it or if you’ve got lots of stuff going on, this could be another way to make sure your company can keep running without what you ran into with the banks back in 2007, eight or oh nine. Would you say that’s true as well?

Speaker 1 (18:04):

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I’ve met very, very few people. In fact, I can’t even think of one. I haven’t met any real estate investor that says, I got enough money.

Speaker 3 (18:20):

Yeah, me either.

Speaker 1 (18:22):

I can’t use any more private money. However, David, you are looking at one right now. I got about almost $2 million right now, what I call sitting on the shelf waiting to be deployed. And I tell you what, I’ve had new private lenders come into my world that want to invest and just to prove to them that I can perform. I’ll take the new private lender’s money and pay off a current private lender, refinance the deal so I can get their money to work for ’em, right?

Speaker 3 (18:53):

Ah, yep, that makes sense. I like that. As you grow and scale, you might run into that issue and you make one lender a little bit happy. I mean, at least they’re getting paid off, but then they probably come back to you and say, I want you to put my money to work again. Do you have that come up a lot?

Speaker 1 (19:12):

Quite frankly, when I pay ’em off, they’re not happy.

Speaker 3 (19:17):

That’s why I said just a little happy, maybe a little bit.

Speaker 1 (19:20):

But when I pay ’em off, they’re not making any money on that money. In fact, with a new private lender, I’ll get ready to pay ’em off cashing out on a deal and I’ll call ’em up and say, Hey, just want you to know that you’re going to have a check coming in the mail from a real estate attorney’s trust account. We’re paying off this house. And they’ll say, Jay, can’t you just keep the money? And I’ll go, no, I can’t keep the money unless I’ve got your money secured by a property because we do not borrow unsecured funds. Now, here’s maybe a little advanced strategy for some folks, but I do substitutions of collateral or loan modifications all the time. If it’s a small amount of money that a private lender’s invested 30, 40, $50,000, and we use it for rehabbing a property. So when I’ve got another property I’m getting ready to start on, I’ll substitute the collateral and keep that 30 or $50,000 note in play. So they keep earning money on that money, but we will substitute the collateral just to a different project that we’re moving to.

Speaker 3 (20:25):

That’s awesome. So then sounds like you have a good problem. It’s like, I want that. Well, I think a lot of real estate investors would rather the problem, I have too much money versus I’ve got these deals and I can’t fund them. So I really like how you teach people that and where it could snowball into this, where it’s like, I’ve got 47 private lenders, I’ve got to go out there and get the deals for ’em. Absolutely. And I really like that. And

Speaker 1 (20:50):

For goodness sakes, you don’t start out with 47 private lenders. I started out with one, right? I started out with one and then that quickly became two and three and four and five because private lenders tell other people what’s going on. So I haven’t actively attracted private money for years because our current private lenders just keep sending us people. In fact, day before yesterday, day before yesterday, I got a phone call from the mother of a good friend of mine, his name’s Craig, lives in Newburg, North Carolina. Craig had told his mother about this investment thing that I got going on and she had never heard of it, which is really funny. I’ve been doing it now private money since 2009. So she calls me up and she says, Hey, my son’s been telling me about this investment thing you got going on. Tell me about it. So word of mouth gets around very, very quickly when you start doing business with private lenders the way I do.

Speaker 3 (21:53):

Yeah, I like that a lot. So in order to get people to talk like that, what are the biggest things that you do for your current private lenders that makes them want to recommend you?

Speaker 1 (22:07):

Well pay ’em on time.

Speaker 3 (22:08):

There you go. That’s a big one. Sounds like that would be a really great place to start.

Speaker 1 (22:12):

Pay ’em on time. But I also have three times a year I put on a party for our private lenders at the Dunes Club. So we have three times a year a VIP reception over at the Dunes Club on the beach, and it’s just an evening of private lenders getting together and we have a good old time and I feed them and give them all the soft shell crabs they want, and I tell ’em to bring their friends with them.

Speaker 3 (22:42):

Yeah, that’s awesome. So number one though, that anyone can do at any stage is pay people on time. So actually pay, would you say, what about communication? I hear that come up sometimes too. How do you do a good job on the communication with your private lenders as well?

Speaker 1 (23:03):

Well, it must be good enough. They never go away,

Speaker 3 (23:06):

Right? Yeah, that’s the big things I hear.

Speaker 1 (23:10):

Here’s one thing I have not delegated as far as communication. I personally, I mean my relationships with my private lenders are very, very important. So I personally pick up the phone, pick up the phone, and call my private lenders when I have got a deal for them to fund. I do not delegate that out. I could

(23:37):

Delegate that out, but I don’t, when I got a deal for them to fund, I’m the person on the phone keeping that relationship When I’m getting ready to pay them off. I don’t have a check just show up in the mail. Of course they got to sign a payoff instruction letter if a different closing agent is closing it for a buyer. But before any of that happens, I personally call ’em up and I tell ’em that we’ve got that property sold. We’re getting ready to pay you off. Or I’ll call ’em up and I’ll say, Hey, we’re getting ready to pay this property off, but I will keep your note open so you can keep earning money. I’m just going to substitute the collateral. We got some documents we’re going to email to you for you to sign and send back the communication. I’m personally involved in putting their money to work and letting them know when we’re cashing out and where they are on the deal.

Speaker 3 (24:31):

That’s awesome. Then since it’s the profit first I podcast here, I love this concept of the private money because you need your cash in your accounts. So to be able to run your business, do those things, and then setting up a separate account just for your private money lenders, so it makes it easier to do what Jay just told you to pay them back, to pay them back on time to be in good communication with them. So now this has been really good. Do you have any other advice before I ask you? How could they work with you? How can they get in touch with, because I know this is something that is needed desperately, that I send people your way all the time. I know I trust you to help people, but any other last minute advice here that you would give to the real estate investors listening to the podcast?

Speaker 1 (25:18):

Sure. I appreciate you asking that question. It’s going to be very hard to own a lot of real estate

(25:26):

Until you own the real estate between your ears. So what do I mean by that? People ask me, how do I start? How do I start raising money? I can tell you how you start raising private money. You get your heart right, you get your mindset right. So what do I mean by that? Well, what do you do? You lead with a servant’s heart, you lead with education, you put your private lender money hat on, you private lender, teacher hat on, and you leave with education, don’t pitch deals, and you really, really are concerned about the other person and realize, part of this mindset is realize you’ve got an opportunity to change people’s lives, right?

Speaker 3 (26:11):

That’s so good.

Speaker 1 (26:13):

We’ve got countless people that are particularly in their retirement years, that have thanked me and Carol Joy for making a difference in their retirement years to where they can, I mean, they don’t want to touch their principal. They want to live off of their principal investment. So they’ve been able to travel, go see grandkids, do all this stuff that they couldn’t do otherwise until they got involved in our program. So just know that you’ve got a way to really make an impact on other people’s lives. And lemme tell you another part of mindset. It ain’t about reaping. It’s not about reaping. It’s all about sowing. It’s all about sowing. I can’t be reaping all that private money and deals until I have sown and given and led with value first. So how you sow is how you’re going to reap.

Speaker 3 (27:08):

Yeah. Oh man, this is so good. I’m glad I asked that question because I hear the passion in your voice and I hear that you really care about the people you work with, the people that have private money lenders out there, you care about that relationship. I love what you said. Get your heart right, get your head right. I also think, like you said too, that if they don’t have that desperation has a smell. So if you’re out there, you’re desperate and you’re just going out there, then you won’t have people like you have that want to keep coming back, that want to continuously invest in you. So that was, I think, the best advice that you could give right there. Get it between your ears and get your heart right. I absolutely love that. And just to recap too, I love your magic question.

(27:55):

Who do you know that can help me with my problem? Then one day you’re going to wake up and you’re going to be like Jay, and you’re going to be helping other people with their problem. I’ve got money. I want to put it somewhere, and you’re the able to get them to where they can be. Desperation has a smell. I love that. And then honestly, I love that pivot. You are like, it’s not about the reaping, it’s not about the interest that I’m making or the profit I’m making for the deal. It’s more about sowing those seeds and ultimately you’re changing lives. That’s why you get private money, and it’s like that interest that you’re paying them is twofold. It’s like you get to sleep at night, you’re not using all your money and you’re getting to help someone else get a return that they wouldn’t be able to get anywhere else or in someone that they trust as well too, and that’s a little bit more tangible than the stock markets or all this other Bitcoin, some of that stuff that’s floating around out there. So this has been awesome. So how do people then, Jay, take that next step with you? Do you have a book? You talked about an event. What can people do?

Speaker 1 (29:01):

Absolutely. Well for your audience, David, I’ve got two gifts. First of all, I finished writing my book Where to Get the Money. Now, this is not a ebook. This is a book book that we actually send in the mail Autographic where to get the money. Now the subtitle is How and Where to Get Money for Your Real Estate Deals Without Relying on Hard Money Lenders or Traditional Lenders. It’ll walk you through step by step how to get all the private money you would want. Very, very easy to read. It’s $20 on Amazon, but you can get it for free. Being David’s audience, just cover shipping. You can go to www dot j Connor, J-A-Y-C-O-N-N-E r.com/book. So I’m an er, not an or. So that’s j Connor, J-A-Y-C-O-N-N-E r.com/book, and we’ll three day priority mail it out to you. Now, in addition to that, I’ve got an upcoming $3,000 per ticket live event right around the corner. But for your audience, Dave, I’m going to let everybody come for free with a measly $97 registration fee. This private money event. You can check it out at www.theprivatemoneyconference.com. The private money conference.com. That’s coming up right around the corner in June. Get on over there. Registrations are open, and I’d love to meet you in person at the private money conference.com.

Speaker 3 (30:31):

Awesome. I’m excited about that too. I love what you’re doing and you’re solving a big need that we hear all the time. Just like all people always needing to sharpen their acts when it comes to private money, you graciously have also invited me there to speak about Profit First. So I’m excited to get to tell people about that so they can get more private money and be more confident and not be desperate when they go and ask for people. So I’m really excited about that as well. So make sure we’re going to put those links there, but make sure either get his book or go to that event. I cannot endorse Jay Moore because I know how many people he helps, but then he also has the heart. You heard it right here. That’s how he wants to help you too. It’s very much a heart and a mission and a passion for him.

(31:13):

So Jay, thank you for coming on, for sharing your wisdom, your knowledge today. If you are listening to this episode and you feel stuck like, what the heck is going on? Where is my money? I don’t know what to do. I’m a little bit nervous to go out there and get private money. I can’t keep my own house in order. That’s where you could go to simple cfo.com where we can help you walk you through that process. We’ll link you up to Jay too. If you need private money or need to learn about private money, this is who we recommend. I recommend Jay to many people, so make sure that if you need that help you go to simple cfo.com. But Jay, again, thank you for being on the show and sharing your wisdom here today.

Speaker 1 (31:51):

David, thank you so much for having me. God bless you.

Speaker 2 (31:54):

This episode of the Profit First for REI 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 REI podcast with David Richter.

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