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More Profit First Lesson and Tips from Jerry Green, founder of Real Estate Solutions, Inc on how

Episode 158: Profit First Lesson and Tips from Jerry Green, founder of Real Estate Solutions, Inc on how to manage Real State and  Financial Systems

The Profit First REI Podcast

February 23, 2023

David Richter 

Summary:



As investors, we’re always at the mercy of the market. Because of that, learning how to navigate economic challenges and adapt your business is crucial to keep your business surviving and thriving.

 

At 28 years in the business, our guest today has experienced the many changes in the economic climate and the real estate industry. Jerry Green is the president and founder of Real Estate Solutions, Inc., beginning his journey in wholesaling and retailing. Now, he is a successful business owner and has expanded his mission into sharing his knowledge with other people who want to enhance their businesses.

 

Tune in as we talk finances, operations, sales, and the many systems that make a business work from the insight of someone who has been tested by time! 

 

Key Takeaways:
[00:45] Introducing Jerry Green and His Background

[07:30] Making Money and Keeping Money are Different Skills 

[08:38] How Jerry Would Rank Business Skills

[10:27] Entrepreneurs Who Get Into the Real Estate Industry and the Tendency to Not Initially Treat It as a Business

[19:12] “Hodge-Podge” Properties

[23:28] Real Estate Entrepreneurs and Having Financial Systems

[25:30] The Importance of Knowing Your Numbers

[28:12] Advice for Real Estate Investors: Make Sure Your Sales Team is Dialed In 

[31:55] Connect With Jerry

 

Quotes:

[07:10] “Now what happens is all these mortgage reps, they have to sell [but] they don’t know what to do…It’s the same way with real estate investors…they’ve got to change us up here first to realize that it’s no longer the marketplace that’s going to take them through, it’s their skills.”

[12:50] “Real estate’s no different than any other product or service out there….All we [have] to do [is[ concentrate on the business component…If we build that up, then that allows us to be able to turn more product.”

[30:57] “We can grow during this time (of economic shifts). We can produce more revenue…we just gotta realize that now’s the time to grow up and be business owners—true business owners.”

 

Connect with Jerry

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jerrygreenrei/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejerrygreen
Real Estate Training Website: https://www.thejerrygreen.com/
REI Sales Academy Website: https://www.reisalesacademy.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:



Jerry Green:

When you’re in that position where you can actually look at the business from above more,

David Richter:

yeah,

Jerry Green:

You can play success and you’re being very strategic about moving things like, well, if I do this, what happens to this? If I do this, what happens to this? Versus checkers, what are we doing? We’re just hopping around all over the board, right?

Outro:

If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.

David Richter:

Jerry Green has been a real estate investor for 28 years, been in the business world, he has seen different markets, and he talks about what to do in a down market or in a regular market or in upmarket. He’s going to give you what his formula for staying in business for that long is, which I love cuz it touches not just the finances, but also operations and sales and systems. And just really encapsulates, okay, 28 years of experience. Dow down into a 30 minute episode here. I really think it’s going to help you no matter where you are on your business journey, help you think more like an owner and not just an individual running around from property, property deal to deal. I want this to help you a lot. Thank you so much for listening and enjoy the episode. Jerry Green, man, I am super excited about this episode and really wanting to dive in about what you teach, what you offer, but then also just a lot of the things that you do to help real estate investors. So Jerry, thanks for being on the Profit for Star podcast today. So

Jerry Green:

Absolutely my man. I’m glad to be on our brother and uh, like I said, good to see you dude.

David Richter:

So, yeah, well it’s, it’s exciting cuz I get to see Jerry at a couple different masterminds we’re a part of and like out there and he’s making a big impact with a lot of people and it’s helped a ton of people. So I wanna kind of just dive into it in a declining market. Like what are you seeing in the real estate world right now? Are a lot of people panicking? How are you doing with your real estate business? Like, maybe give a little bit of background about what you do, but then just go into like what you’re seeing around the marketplace, you know, this Well, where we are right now.

Jerry Green:

Yeah, well, you know, I’ve, you know, first of all David, I think, um, I’ve been around the block a couple times on things.

David Richter:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Green:

Uh, I’ve been doing this since 1994, so 28 years going on, going on 29 real shortly <laugh>. So, and over those years, um, obviously I’ve got to see a lot of different market shifts. So it’s something that, uh, I’ve seen more than once. And, um, yet it’s super important to understand, you know, going into these is that, um, you have to adjust from one. I think that’s important on that side, but I think you have to understand too, uh, David is like understanding where the adjustment really needs to be made. And, um, I, you know, one of the, I’ll tell you one of the big things that I see right now is that over the last, you know, two years or so here, you know, since Covid and stuff, I what I’ve seen so much is a lot of people are in a position where they’ve been, uh, really riding the wave of the marketplace.

David Richter:

Yeah

Jerry Green:

Okay. And I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot too on things. But, so, and what’s interesting on that David too is when people are doing that, what it does is a lot of times it gives ’em a, um, it gives ’em a whole false indication of really what this business is about. Okay. And how we do this. So yeah, and I tell you what I’ve seen on this too is that a lot of people doing this, like I said, what’s happened is a lot of their success is not so much from what they’ve been actually doing, but it’s been so much of the marketplace driving things.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Okay. And now David, well, it’s interesting and look, I’ve had to talk a lot to my own team on this. Even it’s, I told him, I said, guys, look, the last, these last two years or so, you guys have really been living in a fantasy market, okay?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And it’s never been a real market that, and now what’s happening is that things are adjusting and as we’re adjusting, it’s getting back to really not this freak out market, but a normal market.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Okay. And that’s what I spent majority of my career in, is a normal market. Yeah. But a lot of investors or team members have never experienced that, especially if they came in the last couple years. Right? Right. So they never had anything else to, uh, reference to. So what happens is they come in and they used to just locking up deals and people just buying ’em because it’s the market driving it.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And I had to, like I said, I had to reset my team on this and I’ve had to work with a lot of my students and I said, look guys, you’ve gotta look at really what the number one thing is right now you gotta depend on is not the marketplace but your skills. Okay. And David, that’s a big component. So for one is like, let’s just look at acquisitions. So acquisitions on the sale and dispositions the same thing on sales. All that was. So it was a lot easier with the market the way it was because one people were locking up deals higher and they were just pushing ’em out and they were getting it prices anyways, right?

David Richter:

Yeah. Yep.

Jerry Green:

And then dispo, if you’re, you know, even if you’re doing fix and flip or if you’re doing wholesale whatever, you were able to go out there and push to a lot of your lists and people would snatch those up and it’s you know, that’s changing. And what happens is all the people that really ignored, like true sales training are getting bit in the ass right now.

David Richter:

Okay.

Jerry Green:

Okay. Because what happened was there was not much skills in that. Okay. And another example too is in the mortgage business right now, David. Okay. So I see a couple mortgage companies I work with, uh, consult with a little bit, and I’m looking at coming in and helping their sales teams. All right? And one of the things, uh, that I’m looking at on this is like they said, everything was so easy before, cuz people just come in and they say, yeah, hey, there’s a, here’s the rate, great, and here’s a few points. Oh good, let’s just go, let’s go. But now what happens is all those mortgage reps, they have to sell and they don’t know what to do.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And it’s the same way with real estate investors or acquisitions people or dispo people. They’ve gotta change us up here first to realize that it’s no longer the marketplace that’s gonna take ’em through. It’s their skills that’s gonna take ’em through.

David Richter:

Yeah, That’s really good. Because I feel like in this market they haven’t even, you know, like, uh, if you know that statement, it’s one thing, it’s a one skill to make the money, it’s another skill to keep it, you know, we talk a lot about that, obviously on this podcast, both of those skills. And I feel like in this market for the last two, three years, you haven’t even had to have much in the way of the skills of making it. You just had to put in the offers or you were able to, if you, even if it was a horrible offer and it got accepted, you were still able to sell it for more <laugh> than what you got for. So

Jerry Green:

Yeah, exactly David. And that’s been a whole false market on things and it created a, um, I always say this, it there’s a lot of dumb people. A lot. It made a lot of money. <laugh>

David Richter:

nice. Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And I’m not trying to insult anybody, but I’m just saying this because , it’s true. And we just have to realize that you know, the people are gonna really excel during the time is the people that hammered down on their skills.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Okay. And that’s in multiple areas of the business.

David Richter:

Yeah. So obviously sales is a huge one. Where would you rank like the skills to learn during a down market? Would it be sales number one and, you know, I don’t know, operations, finance, marketing, like you’ve got a lot of different options for other skills to be a warning during the down market or any market?

Jerry Green:

Yeah, I mean, definitely I look at, um, sales, uh, I would look at definitely sales and operations being up there in the top ones because, you know, I look at when, after 2008, uh, went through a period of time there where I would say David, probably 85 to 90% of the people that I knew in business during that time, after that whole craziness that went on the actual crash in the market, I bet close to 85 to 90% of ’em went out of business.

David Richter:

Oh, wow.

Jerry Green:

And a big shift that I saw, uh, or a big reason behind all that was a lot of it was because so many of ’em were so involved into all the, they were so involved in the business and they could never, uh, have enough time to look at the business on a higher level and, you know, be able to see really what was going on. They were just grinding so fast and so hard when it shifted, they were just caught up in the grind mode to continue.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

The grind, the grind, the grind. And they never got a chance to look at it on a higher level, uh, like you guys do, you know, for a lot of entrepreneurs in this space and be able to look at those numbers and say, Hey, oh geez, we, you know, this is what I’m doing here. Not, you know, it’s the numbers, it’s the team, it’s strategies we’re using and all these things. And a lot of times you, you don’t see that stuff. And what’ll happen is a good market will cover up a lot of those sins.

David Richter:

Right. So would you say then, a lot of people that get into just business in general, do you think they start out running it like a business seen, you know, like where you’ve been able to see a lot of people, especially in the real estate investing space, or would you say

Jerry Green:

No, no, most people don’t. It comes in and it’s, um, especially I think real estate is probably one of the ones that they, people are even, um, I think this is the area that people are really bad about this more than other businesses.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And I’ll, and tell you, I think why on this is because, uh, real estate is looked at so much like on a personal level a little bit more.

David Richter:

yeah

Jerry Green:

And if you look at, you think about this David, and a lot of this comes too from what we see on television on stuff like that, right?

David Richter:

Right.

Jerry Green:

HGTV and all this. And so people get involved in that and they look at, oh, I can do this, I can do this. And if I, you know, I can just go out and I can make these improvements. And then they think they’re the home designer. And then what happens is they get emotionally involved in these properties. And you know, once you, uh, look, I always say this, if you fall in love with a property you’ve been had

David Richter:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerry Green:

And you know, and I think a big, a big change for me, and this was many years ago, and I took a lot of hard hits on this over the years is when I came down to the point where literally I drew the down a center of a piece of notebook paper. One side I wrote real estate, the other side I wrote business. And what I did, and what was interesting on this, David, was I realized something up to that point, all I was doing was I was just in the real estate business and I was just, uh, real, I was just not even really state real estate business. I was just in real estate chasing deals, constantly rehabbing, doing all this, managing stuff and you know, project management and all these things. And I never looked at it on the other side of the paper. And that is really looking at as a true business. I never looked at it in regards to, okay, let me think about this. There’s overall a operating system. There’s processes back in this operating system up there’s uh, people in different boxes. There’s true numbers that people have to be accountable for all these things. And when I started looking at that, I started, wait a minute, I mean, real estate’s no different than any other product or service out there.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And all we have to do, we have to concentrate on the business component. Right. And then realize if we build that up, then that allows us to be able to turn more product. Now, it doesn’t matter if what you’re doing, I don’t care if you’re fixing, flipping your wholesaling, whole tailing ions, buying whole, it doesn’t really matter when it comes to that, what you have to look at. It is a true business model and you have to start looking at it that way. And it took me a long time to do that. And a lot of investors don’t do that. And I get asked that question a lot too. A lot of people say, Hey Jerry, just say, you know, hey, you know, when you first started this, um, back 20 some years ago, anything he would’ve done differently. And I said, oh yeah, one, I would’ve slapped myself upside the head and realized that, you know, why not look at this day one that you really truly have a business on day one.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And that’s, and let’s start looking at it that way and start planning it that way. And it’s just like you two, you know, you guys teach too, David, the same thing. It’s, you know, let’s run it as a business. Let’s understand the numbers as a business. Uh, because ultimately in the long run, you’re gonna be much better off on things. You’re gonna be happier, you’re gonna be able to remove yourself quicker from that day-to-day side of things. And it truly becomes, um, the business. And I got a friend of mine, he always looks at this way. He says, you can have a business or you can have a company.

David Richter:

hmm

Jerry Green:

And he says, a business will be in a position where you can have a hotdog stand on the corner and have a business.

David Richter:

Right.

Jerry Green:

He says, but how can you take it to a company that thrives without you being involved in the day-to-day side of things?

David Richter:

Yeah. No, that’s good. Would you say too, cuz you mentioned a lot of investors that went down before, like 85%, 90% wiped out in the last correction. Would you say a lot of them had businesses or companies at that point or they were, had the business mindset? Or were they more the, just do the deal churn and burn? Do you know, deal after deal? What?

Jerry Green:

Yeah,

David Richter:

I guess 5%.

What would you say they had?

Jerry Green:

They definitely had the, the big chunk of ’em had that mindset of just, you know, constantly grinding on things. I,

David Richter:

yeah.

Jerry Green:

I remember one in particular, uh, nice couple and, um, really nice people and I really enjoyed them and stuff, but they were so caught up in it all that, and, and, and I remember the, one of the owners, he spent majority of his time running from property to property, uh, make sure the rehabs that were being done, things like that, and just constantly out in the field on things. And what, what he wasn’t doing, it was actually overseeing to how the business could grow, how it could adjust into marketplaces. And um, and if you think about it, he was just really being an overpaid project manager. Yeah.

David Richter:

Okay. So you’ve seen different markets for the last 28 years, like you mentioned. Have you seen anyone who did have a company who was of that business owner mentality, how often do you see people like that go down in this space versus the, that other side? Well,

Jerry Green:

I think it’s greatly reduced on that side of things. I think that, um, you know, probably in that 15% or, uh, you know, to 20% range and, and there that went through the last cycle, people were more focused on that side of things because Yeah. Was thought about that. They thought about the numbers and, and, and all this all, all these moving parts that we have in any business. And they were more aware of that and they could actually plan. Right. And you know, and, and I think that’s a big component of that. They could plan, they could make, uh, strategic type moves. Cuz I, I, you know, I’ll, I’ll never forget one of my, um, friends that I got to know, and he’s been a mentor to me as well. Um, now this, not in the real estate space, but it was another business. But he took a company to uh, about 300 million a year in revenue. And, you know, he always, he, he, he always look at things too in the regards to, you know, um, he would compare it to plan, um, chest to checkers.

David Richter:

Okay.

Jerry Green:

Okay. And he says, you know, then when you’re, when you’re in that position where you can actually look at the business from above more,

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

You can play test and you’re being very strategic about moving things. Like, well, if I do this, what happens to this? If I do this, what happens to this? Versus checkers, what do we doing? We’re just hopping around all over the board. Right,

David Richter:

Right. Yes, I understand that game with a five-year-old daughter. So

Jerry Green:

<laugh>. So, you know, and I think that’s a good comparison on that and head home on that. And that’s like, yeah, that, I mean, it’s exactly the way it is. And I’ve experienced myself, I’ve seen a lot of investors go through this side of things. And I think, um, really to, you know, especially in this adjusting marketplace here, I mean, you know, with this adjusting market too, I mean, we’re not seeing anything. We don’t have the crash thing that we have going on before, you know, we’re having an adjustment, but the reality is we needed an adjustment. Okay.

David Richter:

Right, Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And we needed to get that back to a little but more normalized market on things. And, but if you’re not used to that, this is gonna be more of a freakout stage than anything. And then I think, you know, the other side of that too, David, is that way I see a lot of investors dealing with, and even with our sales team, we’ve had real continue to work with them even daily, I mean daily to the point where they start understanding that, you know, uh, sellers are pretty well six, seven months behind the reality of things.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Okay. And our job is to also not only put deals together, but to get to that point of putting deals together too as a salesperson is you’ve got to, you gotta educate your, your clients.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

So,

David Richter:

Man,That’s really good. That’s, there’s a lot of good stuff there because, you know, we need to make sure that people are business owners and not just, you know, just running around like from deal to deal or project to project chess versus checkers. I like that you said you’re daily working with your team or other teams as well too. It’s like you gotta start educating these sellers, that’s where you call back to the, the most important skill. Right. You gotta be skilled and it can’t just be, you can’t just throw stuff at the wall anymore and it’s gonna stick.

Jerry Green:

Right? Yeah. You know, I, you know, David, the funny thing is, and look, like I said, I’ve seen this in my own team, even on some sales where they would throw a hail Mary and it would, and they would get it sold, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Well you can’t do that anymore.

David Richter:

No.

Jerry Green:

Okay. It’s changed on that side of things. And then even, um, what we call, um, I would call ’em like, um, hodgepodge properties, <laugh>

David Richter:

Hodge properties. Okay.

Jerry Green:

Yeah. So here’s what, uh, the thing I would see a lot of, and my team’s done it too, and I’ve seen, but I see a lot of investors do this. So over the last couple years, what they’ve done is they’ve taken properties that, what I call hodgepodge, and it’s all put together. So it’s, it looks like it’s a, um, they call it a multi-family, but it’s really a single family home with a, uh, bunch of rooms converted and they turn it into,

David Richter:

yeah

Jerry Green:

Right. You’ve seen that dude, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And then what happens is, um, they take those and they say, oh, great. And an investor, somebody else wants to sell it. So it comes into like my team or somebody else’s team and they think, man, I got this great multi-family deal. What’s something about multi-family deal?

David Richter:

Right.

Jerry Green:

Okay.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

It was a hodgepodge put together on things. Now before the last couple years you’ve been able to sell that stuff, but now what we’re seeing already, those type of deals, if it’s an oddball one, boom, it’s out.

David Richter:

Right, Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And it could be even from the appearance. So literally I tell my team, I said, look, you can look at the appearance of a property literally on a street view photo from Google, and if it’s got a front of the property that cannot be fixed, your chance is, oh, you’re not gonna be able to sell it now.

David Richter:

Right.

Jerry Green:

Okay. It’s got like a really oddball, you know, like very low hanging front porch or uh, could be something that, I’ve seen stuff before where you can’t figure out if it’s a commercial building or if it’s a house and they converted it, you know, from, who knows what, you know, one time an old drugstore into an apartment or something

David Richter:

right,yeah

Jerry Green:

Like that old corner drug store and see those things you were able to push out because it was such a demand on that. But as the market shifts, people became, become more particular. And then all of a sudden that buyer pool, that was really the ones that we buy anything, they start to go away.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And then all of a sudden you gotta think about, again, more strategic in saying, oh, I met this stuff, you know, I had before, I gotta change it the way I’m doing things or change your strategy. Right. So, like I remember back in um, nineties as the market was shifting and things like that, I had buildings like that and I’m like, man, there’s no way I’m gonna make this thing happen. So I would just do an option on it.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Okay. So I control it with an option. I didn’t have to do anything with it, you know, it was a, basically a unilateral agreement. I have the right to act on it, but I didn’t have to. So, and I, but I controlled the deal.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

So, I’ve done that like, on a lot of like small commercial properties and stuff like that. And that’s the thing that we can do. So, you know, it’s realizing too that not only your skills, but sometimes you have to change your strategies when you’re going into a deal. So you have more strategies on your exit.

David Richter:

Yeah, no, that’s really good because you don’t wanna get stuck with one of those hodgepodge properties.

Jerry Green:

Yeah, Exactly.

David Richter:

Shoot. You know, like, what do I do with this thing? I’ve gotta convert this to some office space or something. Make it worth it so you’re not just, you know, draining money there. And then I like what you said, give yourself options so that way you can give strategies. So lock it up with an option. Or just making sure going into the deal, what am I gonna do with this before I, you know, before I try and sell it first, or if I had to keep it, what would I have to do? That’s really good stuff. Would you say then, cause you say okay, sales operations, you see a lot of that on that side. Would you say a lot of the people that you help at work with, how many of them have systems for their finances and for the financial side of their business?

Jerry Green:

Very few <laugh>. Very few on that side of things. In the beginning stages.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

On things. Um, you know, I think it’s obviously as they go further into things, we really talk about that a lot, you know, in regards to putting that more in place setting, you know, because I think, um, David, and that, I know that you see this a lot cuz you’re on the front lines of this, but I actually most, uh, entrepreneur, especially in this, uh, business space, that what they do is they operate off a checking account balance versus actual financials.

David Richter:

Right? Yep.

Jerry Green:

And, uh,

David Richter:

yes, indeed,

Jerry Green:

<laugh>,

David Richter:

no, If you’re seeing that too, then it’s all over the place

Jerry Green:

yeah, <laugh>

David Richter:

because where it’s what we see for sure. But then, yeah, I was just curious because I know you work with a lot of people and you help them with their sales, their operations, you know, just really tightening things up and so I was just genuinely curious like how many people you walk into and they’ve got the financial portion buttoned up, but

Jerry Green:

Yeah, very few actually have it buttoned up on things. Um, I think one other thing that I see a lot of things too, David and I experienced this years ago too, was that, um, this is another reason too, people, if you think about it, when you’re working really heavy in the business

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

What happens is, and you know this, you see this a lot, um, that the financial side becomes so down, it becomes way down on the to-do list,

David Richter:

right, Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Right way weighing down on there. So they’re just like boom, boom, boom, boom, going, going, going, going, going. And uh, then what happens is they get behind on tax, uh, returns, right?

David Richter:

Right. Yes.

Jerry Green:

Yeah. And, uh, I’ve been there, done that.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Um, and you get behind on that side of things and you just, and that starts piling up and then what you’re doing is you’re just flying blind.

David Richter:

Yeah, exactly. Oh man. So then I guess, can you speak to that just a little bit? What is the importance of, in your business and the others that you see, the financial portion, being able to see what your numbers are and being able to know where you stand financially?

Jerry Green:

Dude, it’s critical. I mean, it’s, look, I mean, ultimately it’s really hard to make the decisions that you need to make without that day. But, and you know that too, man, I’m, you see it all the time, but it’s, I think it gives you, um, the cool thing about it is when you really start understanding that side of things, then you can really, uh, start understanding what type of returns you’re actually getting on your marketing dollar for dollar. You start understanding too, um, you know, uh, team members you’re investing into, are they making a return? Okay. Uh, and we start understanding that side of things, which to me is, you know, it’s like, it’s easy to get to the point where you’re just pouring money out into team members and all these things, and you’re not really sure if you’re getting a return on that, uh, on that money, And you know, really once it comes down to that, once you really understand that side of things and you’re working within those parameters, then you can ramp it up, you can scale, you know, damn whatever you need to, but you know where you’re at and it really makes a big difference on that component, you know, and it’s, and you know, we like to try to go in and plan and look at any company. Like we, you know, we took over the sales academy this year, the

David Richter:

Yeah,

Jerry Green:

R R E I Sales academy from John Martinez. And, you know, we went in, we had a monthly, uh, budget that we planned with, uh, right out of the gate. Um, you know, and, uh, we had those numbers from one historical data where, you know, where the company operated at and we know what our monthly, uh, you know, our monthly nut is

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

On things. And, uh, we know where we need to be on that. And, you know, we understand our margins on that side of things. And, it makes a big difference on that component instead of just waiting to get into a p and l to find out, you know, if you made any money or not. So.

David Richter:

Right, man, that’s good because especially, I like that example, like, you bought a business, he had to know the numbers, he had to know what were they bringing in, what was going out.

Jerry Green:

Yeah, absolutely.

David Richter:

So I mean, that’s just part, like, I like how you said too, business versus company. You, if you’re going to acquire, you’re going to acquire companies, you want to acquire companies that have like systems, processes, list data, people, whatever it might be. So

Jerry Green:

Absolutely.

David Richter:

That was really key. I just have a couple last questions here, uh,

Jerry Green:

Sure.

David Richter:

With our time here today. So then what would be some just last minute advice that you give to the real estate investors listing here? It could be on anything sales, the skills, operations, it could be finances, whatever you think that the real estate world needs to hear right now.

Jerry Green:

Well, I think a big thing is, um, no, I really, and it’s not just because I own the sales academy now, but

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Um, I think it’s extremely important to make sure your sales team members are really dialed in right now. Okay. And I mean, really, and to the point where they’re heavy on the training side because they have really been able to do a lot of stuff the last several years here that they can’t do anymore. Okay.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And, David, if people don’t get that, I’m telling your brother on that skills is going to really push you through this time and let you also not, not just put you through, but put you way ahead. I mean,

David Richter:

Yeah,

Jerry Green:

Look, during this time you can kick butt during these next, you know, couple years. But the thing is, is you gotta rely on your skills. And it’s amazing on that side of things, but you know, if you, it’s just like, if you think about things, David, a perfect example, if I’m talking to a seller and I don’t, uh, you know, we talk about a lot of times in like in the sales academy about price anchoring people. Okay? But also you have to learn how to market anchor people.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

So what you do is you anchor them based upon what’s going on in the marketplace.

David Richter:

Yeah, that’s true.

Jerry Green:

Okay. That’s really, so I might be talking to Davis and David. Hey, uh, as you know already, man, um, you know, inflation’s really hitting us hard gas prices are going through the roof, you know, all these things and we’re just, we’re anchoring, you know, uh, feds are raising rates and all this stuff. So we’re anchoring on that side of things.Okay.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And, it, I think it’s important for people to understand that and that’s how you’re gonna really excel on this. So I think that’s a big component, and I’m wanna give everybody a tip on that is focus down on heavy on your sales teams in the training.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

That is a huge, huge component. Okay. And then the other things is really understand your business and your numbers and uh, make sure you really tighten that up. Because ultimately what you wanna do is you wanna have a really, um, mean lean machine right now.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

Okay. And understand, you know, what’s really, what’s given you the ultimate, uh, return and let’s cut out all the fat crap. Okay.

David Richter:

Yeah, no, that’s really good.

Jerry Green:

So I think if you focus in on those things, you’ll see your business grow. That’s the cool thing about we can grow during this time. Yeah. You know, and we can produce more revenue and everything else. We just gotta realize that, um, now it’s time to grow up and be business owners, uh, true business owners, right?

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

And not just let a market take us on a ride, but now it’s time to become and you know, that real business owner, that company that you wanna take, get and build.

David Richter:

Yeah. No, that’s really good stuff. So this has been awesome because we’ve gotten down the road from, hey, you need to work on those skills to become not only to survive but thrive during this time play chess. Now checkers, you know, working with the team sellers are seven months behind, like being able to get them up to date. I like what you said there at the end, anchoring the market, not just price, but like now you’re anchoring the market, this is where

Jerry Green:

Yeah

David Richter:

The market is. So really helping there. And then, oh, I love what you said about the numbers and making sure people know the numbers and have the grasp on their finances to really become those business owners. Last question is, you provided a ton of value there. Where can people reach out to you? What are you working on right now? I know you have the sales academy, but what else would you wanna Uh,

Jerry Green:

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks David, I appreciate that. Sure. Yeah, so a couple places you guys can reach out to me, obviously through social media, you can follow me. Um, easy to follow just uh, on Facebook. Uh, it’s Jerry Green, um, I got a business page, Jerry Green and my personal page. I think I’ve still got some friend requests. I try to clean that out of once in a while.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Jerry Green:

So you can follow me there. It’s pretty simple to pop up on that. I’m right on Ohio in, uh, Dayton, Ohio area, so you can pop that up pretty easy there. Um, the other side, uh, two guys is uh, Instagram and uh, I think my hand on has, uh, the Jerry Green. Okay. So that’s easy. And then I, uh, I have two main websites you can go to, David one is djgreen.com. Very simple. You go on there. Talks about my systems and operations training that we do. We do a two day event, show people exactly how to do what we’ve done on our business to systemize it. Um, two days. We actually got come on coming up December 1st and second right in my office. We do a small group, keep it about 20 people, and we just go through our complete business, all our departments. And then day two, you get a complete roadmap to take, run your business with.

David Richter:

Awesome.

Jerry Green:

So yeah. And then if you need help on your sales side and you really wanna master this game of, uh, converting more deals, um, and creating bigger spreads, then um, you know, check out my RDI I sales academy. That’s rdisalesacademy.com. Okay,

David Richter:

Cool. Well, there, there you go. That’s how you can follow Jerry. And then that’s where you can get in touch with him depending on what you need. Sales operations, he covers a lot of different things and I love that he flies, you know, that people fly in to watch and get to see the day-to-day operations there and get to learn from different people and get to see what go is going on in it and actual true company. So that’s good stuff. But

Jerry Green:

<laugh>,

David Richter:

Jerry, this has been great. I wanna do, if you’re listening right now and you’re a real estate investor and you wanna make that leap to business owner and run a company, reach out to simple CFO as well too. We can help you get the numbers in place and know exactly where you stand and be able to get your cash flow and everything that you need to be on the financial side. Don’t just make a ton of money. Keep it as well too. You can head over to simplecfo.com, you can make sure we can see if we’re the right fit for you, but wanna make sure you remember make Profit a Habit in your business. Jerry, thank you so much for being on today, man.

Jerry Green:

You’re welcome, brother. Thank you.

Outro:

This episode of The Prophet 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 REI podcast with David Richter.

 

 

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implementing Profit First...

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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.