How Profit First Helped James Manning Marry the Girl of His Dreams After Hitting Rock Bottom

Episode 90: How Profit First Helped Jim Manning Marry the Girl of His Dreams After Hitting Rock Bottom

THE PROFIT FIRST FOR REI PODCAST

June 1, 2022

David Richter

Summary:

James “Jim” Manning is a true industry professional who is well-known for his excellent communication skills and quick wit. His attitude, grit, and determination helped him to surpass many challenges and earn a couple of milestones along the way.

In today’s episode, we’ll hear how Jim was able to climb the success ladder in tandem with the Profit First methodology.

Key Takeaways:

[4:08] How did he manage to do 3,000 deals in a span of 13 years?

[9:22] You need to keep an eye on your books and the bottom line. 

[11:00] Knowing your numbers and keeping track of how the money is flowing within your organization may feel like you don’t have time, but that is one of the most valuable investments that you could possibly make for your time and business.

[17:06] Having that money for yourself and being able to think a little bit differently and having that system in place, having that profitability and seeing the true cash flow.

23:53 If you’re a new investor, there’s a system to help you avoid making mistakes.

[25:25] There are all sorts of resourceful ways you can make Profit First.

[27:36] There are riches and niches; don’t try to be the jack of all trades. Find something that you’re passionate about, that you’re good at, and that you can do over and over again.

Quotes:

[4:50] “If you’re just starting out in business, don’t compare yourself to someone who has 13 years of full-time effort building a business.”

[9:49] “The highest dollar producing activity that you can possibly do is to cut expenses and audit your books.”

[22:52] “Do not lie to yourself that you don’t have enough time. That’s just not how it works.”

Links:

Door To Deal Website: http://doorstodeals.com

Doors To Deal Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/5ylH82AN6t0SF4mgfGRJ6u?si=climrZ4OQnKkxAl2nZAuQA 

Company Website: threedoors.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:

James Manning:

I really wanna start implementing Profit First too, because when I look back at it and I think about having a model where you have to take your Profit First and then get creative with what’s left to then be able to grow your company.

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:

Everyone. It is David Richter again here at the Profit First REI podcast. Have another signing guest on today. Jim Manning three doors, real estate, and excited to have him here. And I had the priv the privilege recently to be on his podcast just a couple weeks ago. And that was exciting time. And just going through and answering questions about Profit First for real estate. And now we’ve got Jim here and he’s doing a lot of cool things with his business has scaled up quite a bit, and he’ll talk about, you know, where he was, where he is, come from, and we’ll dive into that. But Jim, thanks for being on the podcast today.

James Manning:

Oh yeah, absolutely. I guess the, the tables of turn now I’m in the hot seat, right?

David Richter:

Exactly. <laugh> yes, yes, indeed. Now, now I get to, to fire off the questions for you. So let’s, let’s start at the very beginning. What got you started in real estate and, you know, kind of that journey. How did it begin?

James Manning:

Absolutely. So I got in back way back in 2007. I started studying and I didn’t get in and do my first deal until 18 months later in 2008. And I got in cuz I was in a corporate America job and it didn’t matter how good of a job I did. Uh, my boss wouldn’t notice, you know, I could just bust my tail do really well in a month. And, and no one noticed it was just pushing paperwork at a corporate America job. And I thought there just has to be something more in a life than having kind of like a, a dead end corporate America job that if I do really good, maybe I get a 1% bonus at end the year or 1% raise or whatnot. Right. And so I started studying man rich dad, poor dad, Warren buffet books, you know, like I just had this passion for kind of numbers and investing.

James Manning:

And I ran into my now business partner, Ryan Wessel’s coaching baseball, and he was doing this real estate thing and I, I got a little jealous. I said, well, man, he’s living the life the way he wants to make him making a lot more money than I am. And, and you know, if he’s doing it, why can’t I do it? And so I, I ended up falling in love with that idea. I fell in love with the idea of, of, of really high financial ceiling. If I did really good, I gotta make a lot of money. And if you flip a property there’s also an emotional appeal to me too, that I can make that little piece of the world better. I can literally create a home for a family that they can raise and, and whatnot. So so I got in and I you know, got in full-time in 2008, about 13 years ago and, and lots of ups and downs and, and, and here we are today, 3000 plus deals later, so. Awesome.

David Richter:

Wow. Yeah, that that’s a lot of deals. So what type of deals are you doing or have you done in your past?

James Manning:

Oh, we’ve been a little bit of everything, whether that’s wholesale. Uh, we have an agent team our agent team’s a top 10 team in Missouri in the state of Missouri. Um, you know, we’ve done flips, we’ve had in our heyday, we had three full-time construction managers running projects on flips. Um, we’ve done additions on homes. We have a couple commercial buildings that we own lease, purchase stuff, creative financing stuff. You kinda you name it. We’ve, you know, we’ve probably tried it out. <laugh> Airbnb done that a little bit vacation rentals. Um yeah, with a little bit of everything.

David Richter:

Okay. That’s awesome. Yeah. Cuz I was gonna say we’ve probably got the Schmo sport here, listening to the podcast. So just wonder what that background is. And you said 3000 deals you later, like that’s a lot to do in 13 years. I mean, that’s more than, you know, that that’s, that’s a lot. So like how have you done that many deals? What marketplace and how big’s the team and like tell about kind of the journey that you’ve taken to, to that many deals.

James Manning:

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I mean, I think the biggest thing that I like to tell people is, yeah, we’re gonna do five, oh, I just looked at this board something like we’re gonna do around like 560 deals this year. Um, but don’t com if you’re just starting out, don’t compare yourself to the five 60 and think, oh, that’s something that you have to do. That one deal my first 18 months guys. So if you’re just starting out, like don’t compare yourself to someone that’s like 13 years of full time effort, like building a book of business. Um, but out of those deals, it’s a little bit misleading cuz our agent team accounts for about um, 30% of our revenue mm-hmm <affirmative> and you know, and they do about depending on the year 30 to 40% of the deals will be just strictly agent deals, like advising someone how to buy and sell a house.

James Manning:

Uh, so yeah, I mean we’re still doing a couple hundred investment deals in a year though. Uh, so we have six full-time acquisition. Uh, managers is what we call ’em property buyers, just going out, hunting for deals all day. Um, our ops team has about eight people in it. Um, you know, so we have a, a couple VAs doing the text blasting thing. We have a couple internal people that are just here in local in the office doing some cold calling on the prospecting division that we have. And uh, so the, yeah, the, the way we do most of our deals is prospecting through texting and cold calling and then networking networking accounts for anywhere from 60 to 80% of our deals. Um, typically depending on the, the year, even though, you know, we have all these people lead generating and that’s all they’re doing too, so.

David Richter:

Wow. Yeah. That’s awesome. And what is the main exit strategies or that you’re doing right now? So besides the agent side, what are on the investing? What are you, what are you focused on right now?

James Manning:

Yeah, you know, I so we start out doing a ton of flips and I, those around 2010, 2011, I remember looking at my business partner and saying, Hey, like this property here on the MLS, we can give them exactly what they want and it’s gonna cash for like $150. It’s like a really good deal. Why don’t we just buy and hold on all this stuff. And, and then we both looked at each other, we talked about it and we were like, nah, that’s just the property management. I don’t wanna deal with it. And my goodness had, we just flipped the script and started doing that, you know, fast forward 10 years later. I mean, I guess there’s a silver lining to it cuz we’re having this conversation, I’m meeting friends, but you know, I, I may be retired <laugh>, just buying rentals. So, so that’s like we have more of a long term approach now for the wealth building. Uh, we’re doing lease purchases like rentals and uh, really buying and holding onto the, the quite a bit of what of what we do is, is, is the, is the goal there for sure.

David Richter:

Yeah. Awesome. Well, that’s good. That’s uh, yeah, it’s definitely for the long term and yeah, I can, I can feel that gut check, you know, of like, oh man, cuz 2000, I that’s when I first started in the early 2000 tens there and you know, that’s where it’s like, ah, man, if we had just had kept on and held onto all those, the crazy appreciation that we’ve seen, especially in just the last few years here. So, and definitely, definitely feel your pain.

James Manning:

Yeah. And it’s yeah, it’s funny cuz it’s like you think of flipping as being a real estate investor, like flipping, I mean it’s kind of just a, it’s a job. Like you do that for income. Yeah. That’s not like an investor, like you’re looking to, to move money and invest, you know, and, and hold on and build wealth and um that’s really, I mean the majority of the money is that that’s slow dollar. Right. That’s that’s as opposed to the quick nickel, you know, like that’s right. That’s really where it’s at for

David Richter:

Sure. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And I, I love that you’re, you’re faced that way now and you’re, that’s what you’re that’s what you’re doing. So I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned there for any real estate investor listening here. So since this is the Profit First REI podcast, let’s talk about money a little bit. So I like asking some deeper questions first. So what early lessons did you learn about money and how does that compare to what you think about money today?

James Manning:

So the early lessons I think the, one of the most important things is back in, was it 2017, we were on a quest for like a six, seven year run. More, I need more deals. I need more deals. I need more deals so I can generate more revenue. And what we lost our side of was if you generate an extra a hundred thousand on revenue or in our case, it was like an extra million, but your expenses go up an extra million. It’s not worth it. <laugh>. So I think the biggest, the first thing when it comes to like money and, you know, being a small business owner and entrepreneur is keeping an eye on your books and the bottom line, I thought I, and I, I had this excuse, all that, that I would default to, like, I don’t have time to go through my expenses and audit them and, and cut expenses that where it’s necessary.

James Manning:

I just need to, I only have time to go do another deal. And Gary Keller, I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to the one thing podcast. Yeah. Outstanding podcast. And I was listening to him talk and he says the the highest dollar producing activity you can possibly do is to cut expenses and, and audit your books. And I got to thinking about it and I was like, holy cow’s right. If I just spend three hours once a quarter, once a year, whatever the heck I can do, I spend three hours. I find like a subscription to a MailChip account that I don’t use anymore, a hundred bucks or another coaching platform that I’m not using anymore. That’s 200 bucks a month and you do all the math and it’s like, like relatively easily, you can shave off 10, 20, 30, $40,000 off your overhead. It’s like took three hours to save. You know, we ended up when everything was going on and our expenses were scaling. Uh, we were at around $160,000 a month in overhead. Wow. That, that we cut down a hundred and ten thousand dollars a month. And yeah, our deal flow went back a little bit, but it actually didn’t go back as much as you would think.

David Richter:

Right.

James Manning:

And the whole thing swings around the whole profitability swings around. So, so I think the biggest thing that I would say is, knowing your numbers and keeping track of how the money’s flowing within your organization, you may feel like you don’t have time, but it’s one of the most valuable investments that you can possibly do with your time for your business and for your life. And there’s no question about it. Yeah. Um, think about all the stories that we hear on what famous athlete, you know, makes millions of dollars a year, then they retire. And like they don’t even, they don’t end up with anything. They end up poor, completely broke because even though they made 5 million that year, they spent 5.1 million that year.

David Richter:

Right. Exactly. And not on investments. So <laugh>

James Manning:

Yeah. Not on investments like a party in Vegas or something. Right.

David Richter:

And that’s really good because, and I like what you said there that, you know, like how Gary Keller says that it’s, you know, that’s the best activity that you could use with the highest dollar per hour or whatnot, because if you cut expenses that goes right to the bottom line. I mean, it goes right to the bottom line. And like you said, I could go and find, figure out how to do a million dollars more a year, but that usually comes with a price tag of how much do I have to spend to get that million dollars. So it’s like that there’s always a cost for bringing in new revenue usually. And then, but cutting the expenses usually just takes thinking power. And that time, that discipline to sit down and say, okay, we need to go through this to see what’s what we can go through. So I love that. I think that was great advice. Uh, if, no, if you just, if you’re listening right now and you just go and do that in your business, you could probably find no matter what size you are, probably from a hundred dollars to a thousand to 50,000, like Jim found here. So that’s just something that you could go and do right away.

James Manning:

And for the record guys, that was a month, 50,000 month that we were doing. So it’s like literally $600,000 a year and less revenue, less deals that we had to do. Yeah. And when you go down that rabbit hole, guys of trying to get more, drive more revenue to cover expenses and you need more and more and more, do you think you’re making this quality of decision on a, a yes, no. On a buy or you’re saying, well, no, I need to buy this. Cuz I have a shot at making 20 grand on this float because I need to pay the, and keep the three construction managers that I have on salary right now. Like I need, you know, now you’re exposing yourself to making poor decisions on the buy, which leads to issues. And, and, and we lost control of it, man. I mean, we, we got to a point where we built it so big, so fast that, that, that we completely lost control over the, the profitability.

James Manning:

And we looked at it, we’re like, holy cow, we just did 565 deals. This was like four years ago, 565 deals in a year. And we broke even like literally three-fourths of our sales team made more money than we did this year, our ops team’s ready to kill us cuz they’re, you know, they did an extra, 150 deals with transaction coordination, stuff like that than they were used to doing, you know, at that point. Right. And it was just like, like why like what are we doing? We were like, felt like the hamster on a wheel and aren’t you supposed to get off the wheel? Like, that’s why you’re an entrepreneur to not be the hamster on the wheel. And it’s like, we had created this thing. And uh, one of the things that I think is so powerful and uh, when I’m digging into Profit First and, and fold, so our perspective is a little bit different in that since we’ve been doing this 13 years we actually do have our books in pretty good shape.

James Manning:

You know, we have knowledge and like I know what our expenses are. I know what our profit is. And at the same time, I really wanna start implementing Profit First too. Cause when I look back at it and I think about having a model where you have to take your Profit First and then get creative with what’s left to then be able to grow your company. I mean, I just wish I had those 10 years ago because the couple lean years that we had it, it wouldn’t have been possible to have them, had we been running a Profit First model appropriately. So so even though we actually really know our numbers and maybe need it to less of a degree than what we would have, like 5, 6, 7, 8 years ago I think we’re still gonna implement it, because it’s just really phenomenal, it’s just a phenomenal way to do it, to know instantaneously what’s going on. Right. Uh, now have you seen, um have you, have you seen anybody that’s been like 10 plus years doing Profit First David?

David Richter:

Well, the, the book officially came out in 2015, so, but there are people that have separated out accounts, you know, longer because it’s, it’s the envelope method, you know? So some people have done that for their business and, and it’s almost like the people that I’ve heard that I’ve been doing it for a long time. Like over a decade of like separate accounts usually had the long term like rentals or, you know, like passive, passive type of investments where they’re like, okay, you know, for my investors, I have this account over here for the deposits. I have this over here, you know, like for my cashflow, that’s mine to keep like I have this bucket. And they were like, yeah, when Profit First came out, it almost felt like, you know, I was doing that for a while, but yeah, I’ve, I’ve talked to some people now that have been doing it like five, six years.

David Richter:

Like once the first book came out originally and they’re like, yeah, it’s like, now it’s on automatic. We have, you know, six figures in our profit account or in our you know, or in the inside of there and like in the actual cash. So this is something where, like you just said, that is, that is exactly what I hear the most from people is I wish I would’ve started this sooner. You know, like, or I wish this system would’ve been out 10 years ago. That’s why I want people looking back now like 10 years from now to say there is a system, you know, like there is profit burst for real estate investing now. So now we can start it from square one and get that out there. But yeah, it’s the people that I’ve been doing it a long time. No one says, man, I wish I wouldn’t have been doing this. <laugh> cause it’s all about the mindset of, like you said, having that money for yourself and not in being able to think a little bit differently and have that system in place to be able to pay yourself, have the profitability, see the true cash there.

James Manning:

So if I can make an observation here, guys, those of you that are listening what David’s doing, do you feel his energy? Do you feel his passion? Do you feel how excited he is about it? Like David’s operating in his unique genius zone around this he’s operating something that he really cares very deeply about. And like that’s a piece of advice I would give you, like when it comes to whether it’s investing or being an agent or what, it doesn’t matter what business you’d be a loan officer for a like, Hey, is find something that you can feel the way David feels about Profit First, take the time to get the right mentor, to get good at it and then just do it over and over and over again until you get to that mastery level. And, um I love when I, when I get to interact, I meet with the high level people such as yourself, that, that are really into something that just gets me so pumped up.

James Manning:

It gets me so excited again for sure, I mean it’s life changing stuff, man. so we were on the quest for more and kind of go back to my story a little bit. Yeah. We were on the, so we were on the quest for more and couple years in doing some deals, making some money, having some setbacks, making some mistakes. And then at one point Ryan and I bought three houses that were on the market that weren’t selling. Hmm. And I was living on credit card debt. And because I was the, the disclaimer, the, the belief system that we had or, you know, whatever, what we kept telling ourselves is, well, we’re just gonna reinvest all the profits into this business and grow it and get more and grow it as fast as we possibly can.

James Manning:

Right. And so we get these three properties, all the money I had made from the last three plus years of investing are in these houses. And then they sat on a market and didn’t sell. And I had 40,000 in the first one, I had like 10,000 in the next one. And I forget what I had in the third one, but I also got into a game of Russian roulette and that I had to sell the one that I had more money in to pay for the loss that I was gonna make on the second one. Ah, so like, so not only did I have these three properties sitting, I had to sell ’em in the right order to be able to make it work. And it got so desperate. It got so bad that I end up having a double closing that I was able to figure out and make like an extra 15 K that, that allowed me to sell one of the properties off.

James Manning:

I was gonna take a hit and gave me the cash to bring that to closing. So we were going through all this cuz like we didn’t know our numbers and we’re working through all this and just trying to reinvest and grow the business and not pay ourselves anything kind of be as slaves to our business. And then I hit my head and I had two seizures cuz I hit my head really hard. And when you hit your head and you have two seizures, you’re not supposed to drive for six months. So not only was I facing these financial difficulties, I couldn’t drive. And I remember being in the hospital, it was on a weekend. So I had two days to think about my life before on Monday they could, would gimme the test to tell me, Hey, did you just pass out and hit your head?

James Manning:

And that’s why you had the seizures or is there something worse happening? Are you dying? So I remember sitting there thinking like, am I gonna die or not? I don’t know. And then my girlfriend at the time, my now wife, she was there by my side. And I remember thinking like this was the rock bottom moment of my life. And simultaneously one of the best moments of my life is I was like, holy cow, here’s this woman. I wanna marry her. I’m in love with her. She is the person, my person, I wanna spend the rest of my life with. And then that was immediately followed by. I don’t have enough money to buy her a ring right now. I don’t know if I’m even, you know, so I remember praying to God and I just remember thinking, okay, if it ends up being, I was just a wimp, I passed out, hit my head too hard.

James Manning:

And I’m like, actually, okay, I do everything I can to figure out this whole financial thing. That’s like just a nightmare and, and, and marry this woman. And if, you know, and then I’d ask for help. And for some grace, if it ended up being something that, you know, I wasn’t gonna make it through. Right. And so, so then ended up being like, you know, just kinda like supposed to be a one time thing. And we just, we hustled, we grinded, we did like 50 short sale listings just as agents that year to somehow some way, figure it out on and write some of the mistakes that we made. And you know, it’s interesting is, is because like, had we just known how to structure the financing a little bit better on those deals and had we just not had that belief that we had to reinvest everything into the company and actually paid ourselves something, you know, to have like some proper growth, not some uh, not some kind of overinflated growth.

James Manning:

Um, I wouldn’t have had to deal with any of that stuff. Yeah. Had to go through what I did. And um, so when David sent me the Profit First book, I got it on like Wednesday and I was done with it by like Friday like, I mean, I just devoured this, like it’s an incredible book. And what I see in myself and what I see through the book is, is like, gosh, I made all these mistakes and I, if I just had a, a path like this, but I just had a way to do it. Like I could have avoided all this trial, all this, all these issues that I ended up having. And, um so I cannot, I mean, this is important stuff and do not, do not lie to yourself that you don’t have enough time do not lie to yourself that, you know, you just need another deal. Um, that’s just, it’s just not how it works guys.

David Richter:

So yeah. No, and that was good stuff. That was really good stuff. So thank you, James, for for for doing that. I mean, it’s like just bearing your soul out here for the audience to hear. And, and I really appreciate that. Appreciate, you know, what you said about the book, but it is, it’s like, this is why, why I get so passionate cuz I don’t, I don’t want people to have to be in that anymore. At least they have a solution, you know, like at least now it’s like, let’s get this out there because yeah. I don’t want it to be, you know, 20, 25 and like, okay. You know, like people in the same predicament, only 10 years later now, you know? And so yeah, I really appreciate that. I think I think it’s those, it’s those moments on podcasts like that, that really hit home with people.

David Richter:

So if you, if you’re listening, go back, listen to Jim, what he was just saying right there about where he was. And I think he’s doing that for two reasons. If you are a new investor, please avoid that. You know, like there’s a system to avoid it and if you’re already there now you can get out of it. Cause I know Jim and his, his team, they’re incredible. They’re doing a lot of good stuff now and they’ve got their, they do have this stuff in place and they’re getting it. So it’s like, you can get through that type of thing. So thank you, Jim. That was, that was incredible. Thank you for,

James Manning:

For sharing that. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the thing I like a lot about the Profit First mentality too guys is like, like it used to be like how I would used to think I’d be like, ah, maybe I’ll just like throw money at it. And, and like, for example, like, like I was, I’ve been looking for a business partner on the agent side of things that could like be the manager, be the salesman manager, be the person in charge to take that company at a different level. And I thought to myself over and over again, well, we don’t have the money to do that. We don’t have the money to do that. There’s no way we can’t afford to do that. And um, the deal that we have now with Caleb, with Caleb, Caleb Davis is his name. Uh, we actually didn’t pay him a cent.

James Manning:

Hmm. We did. We structured a deal that gave him a tremendous amount of financial upside on growth and with, without a salary. Cause he wanted that financial upside. Yeah. The reason I share that with you is um, if you just say, well, I’m gonna just reinvest into my business. I’m just gonna kind of keep growing. Well, it’s kind of a little lazy. It’s kind of a little sloppy way to do it. There’s all sorts of resourceful ways you can do it. And the book talks about a, what’s the name of the principle where, um where if you have a hundred thousand dollars to spend, you’re gonna spend all a hundred thousand.

David Richter:

Oh right. Yes. It’s uh, I wanna say parade principle, but that’s the 80 20. No, it’s no. It’s um, oh man. Now, now you’ve put me on the spot where I would’ve to look it up again cuz it’s

James Manning:

All you wrote this darn thing

David Richter:

I was gonna say I do <laugh> oh man. That’s great. But uh,

James Manning:

But it’s so true is, is like, like it’s just gonna like, so like if you force yourself to have less money to work with, it will expand. You’ll find a way to, to spend, if you have a $50,000 budget, I promise you you’re gonna find a way to spend at least 49 of it. Right.

David Richter:

Parkinson’s law. It’s Parkinson. Yeah. Parkinson’s law. I was like a Preto principle of Parkinson’s law. So yeah. It’s

James Manning:

Yeah. That’s why I threw you off cuz it’s a lot, not a principle, so

David Richter:

Yeah, exactly. So no it’s yeah, that comes up all the time, just in the real estate investing world. So yeah. I’m glad you brought that up because it is, you give yourself as much time and as you, you’re gonna take as much time as you give yourself or as that much money that you have in your bank account. So that is, that just is permeated throughout everything that we do as real estate investors and yeah, man guy, it is it’s, it is incredible to see this lived out through real estate investors and through, you know, through the business owners that we work with and that we talk to just like, you know, if you just split this out, you’re gonna save yourself a whole lot of heartache down the road, you know? Like you’re gonna be able to see what you have and what you have to spend, what you have for yourself. So yeah, there you go. Parkinson’s a lot. I’m glad, man. I’m glad I saved myself there cuz I was, would’ve been super embarrassed here cuz on the podcast it’s like, come on, I know this, I know this, so no that’s great. But yeah, you

James Manning:

Didn’t write the book.

David Richter:

right. I was gonna say I did write the book, but uh, Jim, just a couple last questions here. Two last questions. Number one. What’s some last minute advice you give to the real estate investor community. That’s listening to this podcast.

James Manning:

Uh, yeah. So there’s riches in the niches. Don’t try and be a drag ball trade. Yeah. Uh, really like find something that you’re passionate about that you’re good at and that you can just do over and over again and it’s okay to be a little bit boring. Um all the mastermind groups, whenever I meet with somebody, the more exciting something talks about their business and they have these 10 different entities going and they have all this stuff. I kind of start in my head, subtracting what their net worth is.

David Richter:

Right.

James Manning:

Then I’ll meet somebody else. That’s like I lend money or I may landlord and they say it in one sentence and it sounds kind of boring. I start adding to their net worth cuz I know they’re probably making a lot more money because they’re being more focused. Um, and then the second component is, make sure you get the right people around. You get, make sure you get the right mentor. Um, yeah, I’ve been trying to this is the first time in my life I’ve been trying to teach like really learn how to golf and not just be like a hundred golfer, like kind of start to get good at golfing. And I started out doing the YouTube thing, trying to learn some videos there and uh, I’ve since just decided, okay, I need this mentor. So I, I got a mentor for my golf swing and my swing is about 500 times better and like three lessons than it was working on it for 10 months on my own. Yeah. With all sorts of YouTube videos. Uh, there’s just something to be said about getting someone around you. That’s been there. That’s done that. And that can kind of show you the way. So I think that’s, that’s a really important thing is, is making sure you have the right people around you.

David Richter:

Awesome. That is, that is so good. And keeps coming up with people who are doing a lot of deals or that, you know, that are also profitable too. They, they always say it’s those, it’s the people, it’s the people that you’re working with and that, and focusing, like you said too, focusing on the things that you’re good at, cutting out all those other distractions. So Jim, this has been incredible. Thank you so much for being here today. Now I always ask how can our listeners provide value back to you? What do you have going on or do you wanna connect or need a connection or whatever it is that you might need?

James Manning:

Absolutely. So we doorstodeals is our podcast. You know, if you like here in our style, we have a whole podcast. So doorstodeals, feel free to check that out. And then since we’re in St Louis are markets really good for turnkey investment deals. So if anybody, any of y’all are listening that may want some passive income through some turnkey opportunities. Uh, our team’s been, um you know, doing, I think we got like 10 or 12 under contract right now. So we’ve been really kind of hammering all that niche lately and, and um, we, we have some good opportunities there. So yeah, so doors to deals and then, um you know, threedoors is the name of our company. So, our company’s websites, threedoors.com too.

David Richter:

Threedoors.com. And is that with a number three or is that spelled out?

James Manning:

Oh yeah. So this gets confusing cuz no, we’re not three doors down the band we’re <laugh> so it’s a T H R E E so three written out and then doors is plural, D O O R s.com. So there

David Richter:

You go. So that way you won’t, so that way you’ll go and to see real estate deals and not actual band or something there. So I love that. That’s great. Awesome. So Jim, thank you so much for being here today, sharing incredible wisdom and experience from your, from over a decade now in the real estate world. So thank you so much for being on.

James Manning:

Hey, thanks for having me buddy. Have a nice one.

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 applied 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.