Episode 105: Overcoming the Challenge of Fear in Real Estate With Brad Blazar
The Profit First REI Podcast
August 18, 2022
David Richter
Summary:
Brad Blazar has studied the habits of success. He’s an expert when it comes to raising capital and has been raising hard-earned money since the young age of 23. After years of managing his oil company, Brad realized that his true passion lay in helping others while still raising money for himself.
Brad’s coaching program , Capital School, has garnered praise across the globe and is highly recognized in the REI space. Helping budding real estate geeks on their business journey.
Today, we invited him over to have a chat with us and talk about how to climb up that success ladder the smart way.
Key Takeaways:
[2:16] How did he start on his real estate journey?
[5:46] He learned the value of trust and building relationships with the people around him
[7:53] The story of how he launched his first oil business at the age of 23
[12:21] Does he teach people how to raise money from different sources?
[15:23] How to get off the transactional treadmill and create a passive lifestyle through commercial real estate
[16:27] Tips on how to raise money the easy way
Quotes:
[16:56] “We, as human beings, know how our brains are wired, are not wired to be successful. Our brain is programmed into one thing and that is to keep us alive. “
[21:46] “Investors do not invest in great ideas.”
Links:
Brad’s Website-https://www.bradblazar.com
Books by Brad Blazar-https://www.bradblazar.com/the-book
Capital School-https://www.bradblazar.com/capitalschool
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:
Brad Blazar:
We as human beings, the way our brains are wired are not wired to thrive and be successful. Flat out. Our brain is programmed to do one thing and that’s keep us alive.
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. Welcome back to the Profit First REI podcast. I’m your host David Richter. And I have another special guest here today, Brad blazer. And if you haven’t heard of Brad, I don’t know how you have it because he has done some incredible things. He has raised over several billion dollars with a B in capital over his lifetime. He has also done a lot of the rehabbing space and he’s created big syndications. He, and now he teaches people as well, how to raise money and does puts on some events and stuff. And like, this is a guy who doesn’t just teach it, he’s done it and is doing it still. So that’s what I love. He’s got several books. I want him to talk about those books that he has, you know, available on Amazon because he is an expert on raising money, getting it out there. And then also something we probably don’t think about as much if you’re a mom and pop wholesaler or fix and flipper or landlord that, you know, exiting businesses and like starting up, you know, and those, those types of things as well too. And he’s an expert in that and can speak to that as well and how he and how he looks at those different types of businesses. But Brad, super excited to have you on today. Thanks for being on the podcast.
Brad Blazar:
Great. Thanks so much, Dave. I’m real excited to be here today with you.
David Richter:
Awesome. Well, let’s dive into it. Like you’ve done so many things in, in this space and you’re like, you’re a speaker too, which is awesome. You spoke like with Floyd Mayweather, Kevin Harrington, you know, Sharon lector, like a, a bunch of big names, which is very, very cool, but like, that’s not where we start. So, so let’s say, where did you start out? And as you were you know, on this journey now re like I said, raising that much money and like teaching other people. So how did it start and what was that journey for you?
Brad Blazar:
Yeah, so, you know, I always went on, on stage kind of share what I call my backstory. Yeah. And so I grew up like a lot of people just typical middle class. Certainly didn’t have a silver spoon in my mouth. Certainly wasn’t wealthy. My dad was an executive. My mom was a stay at home mom. But much like Robert Kiosaki writes about in his book, rich dad, poor dad. I had a rich uncle and you know, he was very affluent. My uncle Henry never had more than a sixth grade education. He was an orphan. And you know, as he was growing up, he was largely put to work inside the textile mills in New York city. And he was just approached one day as a young man by a gentleman that was a, a philanthropic you know, industrialist that said, Henry, I really have taken a liking to you.
Brad Blazar:
You’re a hard worker, you’re industrious. And because you work in the textile factories, you really have a good feel for fabric. Like when you feel cotton, you know, it’s cotton, or when you feel a good silk, you know, it’s silk, I’d like to partner with you. And so my uncle Henry and this gentleman launched a very successful woman’s fashion line called R and K fashions and R and K fashions was ultimately sold for millions of dollars. My uncle Henry became very affluent and started investing alongside the daltons and built hotels. One point on the Palm beach country club in Palm beach, Florida. And I’ll never remember, or I’ll never forget, rather I must have been about seven or eight. And I was there for Thanksgiving, with my family in Florida. And my uncle Henry took me by the hand and he was walking me around the dining hall in the Palm beach country club.
Brad Blazar:
And he said, you see that guy over there. That man makes all of the hangers that hang in your closet. And, and this guy over here, he makes all the little erasers that are at the end of your pencils in school bread. And he put his hand on my shoulder and I’ll never forget this. It was a revelation. And for those of your students or the people that listen, that don’t know what a revelation is, a revelation is like a major aha moment. I mean, it hits you at the core. It stays with you throughout life. And he made a comment to me that was like a revelation. He said, Brad, someday, by finding out what you’re really, really gifted at packaging it up and delivering it to the world, you can change people’s lives. And in the process, get wealthy doing it. Now at a seven year old age, I had no idea what that meant.
Brad Blazar:
It just like went one in ear and out the other. But I always knew being around my uncle, Henry was a lot more fun than hanging out with my parents. If I had to choose being rich over being middle class, I’d definitely wanted some of the things my uncle Henry had. So at a young age, I always knew I wanted to be successful. Well, I took the path that most people do because my parents largely ingrained in me. You’re gonna go to college, you’re gonna get a career. You know, you’re gonna get a job you’re gonna save. And so that’s largely what was ingrained in me over the course of growing up. And so I went to college, I went to school, studying architecture, wanted to be an architect. And while I was in my senior year, I just happened to open up the newspaper, respond to an ad and ended up going to work for a very small oil company in Texas.
Brad Blazar:
My job was to get on the phone, call out to people that did not know me. I did not know them. And over time, build that trust and build a relationship so that they would ultimately invest with us. And I got really, really good. I guess I was just a good salesman. I was confident, but you know, at a 21 year old age, working 12 to 15 hours a week between class after school, I was making close to a hundred thousand dollars. And this was back in the eighties when a hundred thousand dollars was really a hundred thousand dollars today. It’s not. So back then it was so I’m like, well, Jesus, if I’m only working 12 to 15 hours a week making this kind of money, like, what would it look like if I actually worked 40 hour work week? So I basically, without telling my parents just turned my back to school, quit going to classes, obviously got straight Fs, flunked out, but working for this other company, I increased my skillset became much more proficient.
Brad Blazar:
And then unbeknownst to me, it was actually discovered by one of my investors who was a petroleum geologist. We found out that this second company that I had gone to work for was essentially committing fraud. Oh wow. And so I went in and I resigned didn’t wanna be any part of it. They actually had my dad as an investor, you speak about stealing from people while, you know, when you steal from the families of people that work for you, that that’s even worse. Right? But we organized a class action lawsuit, which we ultimately won. But the investor base that I had cultivated over roughly two years never met me because this was at a time, you know, back in the mid, late eighties where we didn’t have internet, we didn’t have zoom. I was doing all of this over the phone, pitching people by telephone.
Brad Blazar:
So, you know, they must have thought I was in my thirties or forties. They didn’t know I was a 23 year old kid. So they’re like, Brad, well, you know, what are you gonna do now? And I looked back at that comment that my uncle Henry said that was like that revelation. It’s like, wow, this huge door just opened up. And I said, well, why not start an oil company now? I’ll be honest. I never drove the, well, I didn’t know anything about running a business. All I knew how to do was get on the phone and raise money. And so I printed up some letterhead. I printed up some stationary. I got a geologist, I got a landman. And before I knew it, I was a 23 year old kid telling everybody, Hey, I’m launching an oil business. And my parents are looking at me like, are you crazy?
Brad Blazar:
You don’t know anything about building a business, running a company. There were all the haters, the naysayers. And so over the course of a decade, I built a pretty successful oil company. We had 35 employees. We were drilling for oil and natural gas in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana raising, you know, hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars a month. And then in the late eighties, early nineties, two things happened. The tax reform act took away. Most of the incentives for investment capital and then second oil prices just plummeted. And so over the course of about a year and a half, I just slowly consolidated and collapsed the business until one day we no longer existed, never had to file for bankruptcy because we had no debt on the books. I, I like to say we did it the right way. And then there was a period in my life about a year where I was like completely disillusioned.
Brad Blazar:
I mean, I had no idea what I was gonna do. I had just come off making a lot of money, made some of the most difficult decisions I’ll probably ever have to make because people’s livelihoods. People’s families were relying on me. I needed to now tell ’em, you know, we’re closing the doors, we’re shutting down, et cetera. And so I was living off savings. And then I went to work basically in corporate America because I made the decision falsely that, Hey, I gotta go back to school. I gotta get my degree, which I did graduated with honors. And now that I had that nice little piece of paper, we call a diploma. I went out looking for employment and it was very, very disheartening because people wanted to hire me, but they wanted to pay me a salary or a compensation that was close to what I used to make, like in a good month.
Brad Blazar:
<Laugh>. And so I just laughed. And I said, you know, I’m obviously very overqualified. I’ve been hugely successful at a young age. And so again, another year went by and I’m just living office savings. And then one day I was watching TV in Steve Harvey. The, the famous comedian that has a TV show was there and he was talking to his audience and he said, everybody here in this audience, listen to this. I believe that all of you here have something special. It’s like when you were created by the maker, he puts something inside you that I call your primary gift. And here’s the sad part. Most of you will never figure out what it is. Most of you will never figure that out. But for those of you that do that, is your something special. And about three days later, it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Brad Blazar:
I never forget. I was drinking a glass of wine on my patio, smoking a cigar. And I was like, oh my God, my, my hard skill, like my something special as I know how to raise money better than anybody I’ve ever met. And so I went to work in an industry consulting and raising capital largely for other people, large real estate syndicators, you know, big firms on wall street that have public real estate investment trusts you know, big private equity firms. And over roughly 30 years, I’ve raised $2 billion B and I’ve raised it from any and all sources. You can fathom the high net worth investors, family offices, brokerage firms, pensions trust. I mean, I’ve raised 50 million from a fund in Israel. So you name it, I’ve done it. And what I realized is that was my gift. I created mastery at it, cuz I’ve been doing it for so long. And so we crafted today what we call Capital School, which is my global coaching and mentorship program, where I literally, I teach people that wanna learn how to attract, raise and close high net worth investor capital, exactly how to do it. And in addition to that, I do it because I’m a real estate entrepreneur started off of course, like most, you know, single family fix and flips rehab and then fast forward today, we’re now co-investing and we’re syndicating multifamily properties.
David Richter:
That’s awesome. I absolutely love that cuz that’s where most of the investors listening here are in that space, you know, either the multifamily like you’re doing or they’re doing their, you know, single family investing. So that’s awesome because <laugh>, if there’s any, any group of people that knows about raising money or that how important it is to raise money, I think it’s the real estate investing community. Yeah. So I would say, is that what you teach? Do you teach people how to raise from different sources as well too? Like from private lenders or bank funding or like different, you know, family offices, you know, those different types of, you know, high net worth or whatever that might be able to lend on a real estate deal or real estate, you know, acquisition.
Brad Blazar:
The answer to that is absolutely 100%. And I, I think that is why people have sought me out. I think that’s one of the reasons that we become so successful globally, you know, teaching people today now in seven countries around the world, Australia, New Zealand, Canada here in the us, of course the UK it’s because when somebody comes to me and says, look, you know, I wanna learn how to just raise a hundred thousand dollars so I can fix and flip this single family. Great. I can teach you how to do that. Somebody comes to me and says, look, I’ve been doing this for two years. I’ve raised about 5 million, but I wanna go to the next level mm-hmm, <affirmative> put together a fund, you know, know how to put together my offering memorandum, like what to put in my pitch deck and like, you know, raise 25 million.
Brad Blazar:
Great. I’ve done that too. So it doesn’t matter David, where people are on the spectrum of their capital raising journey, whether they’re beginning, whether they’ve done it and they wanna scale to the next level or whether they’ve tried and they’ve given up because they’ve floundered making rookie mistakes, we can correct those. I can take somebody and literally teach ’em anything and everything they wanna know from a to Z. Why? Because largely I’ve done it. And I think that’s what makes me different. There are other people out there that quote, advertise or promote, Hey, I can teach you how to raise money too. Well, some of these people have only raised 40, 50, 60 million. That’s a far cry from 2 billion.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Brad Blazar:
And most of them have never even walked in the door of a family office or raised money from a pension or a trust or a fund in a foreign country. So when you’re looking to be taught, how to raise money, hire somebody, that number one has taught hundreds of people, but more importantly can teach you so that when you get here on the ladder, he can then take you here. And when you get here on the ladder, he can then take you here and stay ingrained in that person’s coaching and mentorship. So that in three to five years, you’re no longer raising 25, 50,000 from small doctors and entrepreneurs. You’re now knocking on doors of family offices, launching a 25 million fund or doing something much bigger with your business because you’ve graduated to that next level with somebody that can take you there. And so I think that’s probably the biggest difference between what I do and my team does.
Brad Blazar:
And a lot of the other people that are out there quote in the real estate space, because really what they’re teaching you, how to do is how to pick up that 40, $80,000 check to fix and flip a house. That’s great. I’m not knocking it. But once you do that, you start to realize, you know, I’m flipping houses, I’m wholesaling, or I’m doing the bur method and it’s all transaction based and I’m grinding. Yeah. I’m making seven figures, but man, I’m tired. I’m beat. And I’m like, dude, why you knocking yourself out? Doing that? Get off the transactional treadmill, create a passive lifestyle by shifting over to multifamily or some other form of commercial real estate, like triple net and sit back on easy street where you’re getting mailbox money every month. Yeah. You see. And that’s the difference in the lifestyle that I live is I don’t have to work. Why cuz I got mailbox money. I have multiple streams of income. It’s taken me a while to get there. But I understood that principle after reading rich dad, poor dad and understanding how important other people’s money was to building and scaling my business.
David Richter:
Yeah. I was just gonna say, that’s the key piece there to going to that bigger side is being able to know how to walk in those doors of the family office, how to, you know, approach them and, and for the real estate investor, if you are doing single family, I mean, this is another way to be able to know to up level your game from not being in that rat race all the time, you know, spinning your wheels. So I love that. So I know you can’t give us the, in depth of like what you teach people, but can you give us just some tips on like maybe some high level tips, maybe one tip or something about how to raise private or how to raise money or just something that you might teach and you know, like to your students?
Brad Blazar:
Well, here’s one thing I’ll share. And I’ve learned this over the years just being exposed, like you said, to some of the biggest, you know, celebrity speakers, people like Floyd Mayweather that I spoke alongside just recently, Kevin Harrington of course, one of the original sharks on shark tank. Yeah. You know, Sharon Lechter you know, other big speakers Brad Lea, Bobby Castro, 10 X partner, Brandon Dawson is we as human beings, the way our brains are wired are not wired to thrive and be successful flat out. Our brain is programmed to do one thing and that’s keep us alive. And once you understand that fundamental principle that your brain’s job is to keep you alive. Whenever anything presents itself that contradicts, or that is a limiting belief or is that fear or that self-doubt of doing something outside your comfort zone, your brain says up back up step away.
Brad Blazar:
Because anything that challenges your brain by default will back away from that’s the reason most people don’t have six packs abs even though everybody would love to have. ’em Why, because it takes a shit load of hard work and the brain says too much effort, too much work back away. It’s trying to protect you. Once you understand that principle of success, you can start challenging it and realize that fear stands for False Evidence that Appears Real. Hmm. It’s the same thing about raising capital. The Mo the real reason most people aren’t doing it is they’re scared of approaching other people. They’re like, I don’t know how to do this. Or it’s the uncertainty of what somebody is gonna say. And I’m like, who gives a shit? What they say? If you talk to a hundred people, I guarantee 10 of them are gonna write you a check.
Brad Blazar:
But once you take action and commit and start having small amounts of success, you realize, holy cow, I can actually do this. And then you start doing it and you become more successful as you create those new habits. But the one thing that I will tell you about raising capital, we see this all the time. It’s a lot of the rookie mistakes is number one. People do not take the time to invest in the relationship with that perspective investor. Hmm. You see when you’re approaching an investor that does not know you and you start pitching a deal, they’re gonna be polite and they’re gonna nod your, their head, but you haven’t developed what I call the front end of that process. That’s investing in them by asking them questions, you know, getting to know them adding value before you ever even pitch. Yeah. It’s just simple questions like David, you know, when you invest, are you looking for growth?
Brad Blazar:
Are you looking for income or you looking for both? You know, how important are tax benefits to you? Are you investing this money with the expectation to do something with it? Like put your kids through school or maybe buy a second home? What other types of investments have you participated in? Because by asking people questions, you build that trust and let’s face it. People like to talk about themselves. So invest one, call, two calls, maybe even three calls before you ever pitch disarm, the person let ’em know right up front. I’m not calling to sell you anything or to ask you to invest. I just want to get to know you what you like to invest. And so if I ever see anything that I think might get you excited, I’ll know to reach out to you. And there’s one question that I always teach people to ask, and this is at the end of the second conversation after you’ve invested two calls or had two meetings, and what it does is it validates that that person trusts you enough to now be called back with a deal.
Brad Blazar:
And it goes something like this, David, you know, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you the last couple times we’ve spoken, but like I’ve told you all along the way, I just don’t have an investment opportunity right now that I can talk to you about. And here’s the reason we always like to give our existing investors, the right of first refusal on any new opportunity that opens up. And as a result of our success, they tend to fill up pretty quickly. But with that being said, what I’d love to do is just add you to a list of people that I keep on my desk. So that at some point in the future, if an opening ever opens up, I can give you a call. Does that sound fair enough? And when you, you say yes, I’ve just put the nail in the coffin because you’ve just said, yeah, Brad, I trust you now enough, right?
Brad Blazar:
To call me back when, and if there’s an opportunity send to me. But the second thing I also done with that is that I’ve psychology in the process. There’s a very powerful closing technique, known in sales as the takeaway. So he doesn’t know if I’m gonna call him next week, next month, maybe three months. I, I literally have given him the expectation. You may never hear from me again. But when I call I’m now able to create that sense of urgency. I’m now able to basically create the thumb or fear of missing out on this great opportunity. And that’s one of the principles I teach in addition to many others. The second thing is really just lacking the confidence in going to an investor with a great idea. Investors do not invest in great ideas. You could have the best idea. Think you’re gonna make millions of dollars and come to some of the biggest investors on the planet like Kevin Harrington or mark Cuban. And they’re gonna say no, no, no. Because what investors look for is people with great ideas or great investments that can execute on those ideas.
David Richter:
So, Brad, I think we’re having some technical difficulties, but it’s okay. I you’ve provided a ton of value here on this podcast. How do people get a hold of you? Or how can they provide value back to you? You’ve got capital con coming up. You’ve got some events, some of that type of stuff. So how can people connect with you?
Brad Blazar:
I always tell people there’s, there’s three different ways. Number one, you can find my books on Amazon winning at the capital game. You just go to Amazon type my name right into the search bar. There all three books will come up. Number two you can go to our website, just WWW dot BradBlazar.com, just B L A Z like zebra AR. And it’ll give you lots of information on who I am, what we do. You can connect, you can learn about our coaching. You can learn at capital school, which is our premier coaching program, where we teach people how to do this. Or you can come to our event. Every year in April, we do a big event called capital con. You can buy a ticket, you can get proximity to the speakers. You can learn from some of the best of the best we bring in some big time. Real estate celebrities, people like Bobby Castro, people like Brad Lea from Dropping Bombs, Kevin Harrington, Sharon Lechter, we’ve had. So, you know, it’s really just about getting in the room and getting the knowledge in learning from other people that are at a place in life where you ultimately wanna be
David Richter:
Awesome. Now that’s great. So that’s how you could connect with Brad. And as you saw and heard on this podcast today, he is the real deal raised over 2 billion with a B dollars. And this is someone who can help you at all levels wherever you are right now, level your game on the, the raising the capital and can really help you. So, Brad, thank you so much for being on today and providing a bunch of value here. And thanks for joining us.
Brad Blazar:
You so much, David, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
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 a Profit First and a podcast. So we’d love to be ranked on there and that’s thanks to your help. So we would really appreciate that if you would like to go give us a rating. Also, if you’re looking to connect with us further, I would highly recommend checking out our Facebook group Profit First for real estate investors. And that’s literally what it’s called. So you can type in Profit First for real estate investors, and you’ll be able to find <laugh>, you’ll be able to find our Facebook group right there.
David Richter:
So come join active real estate investors who are supporting each other and growing their businesses and profits together. That’s what that group is all about. The link should be in the description below. And if you’re interested in working with us and implementing Profit First in your real estate business, we offer coaching and guidance. So if you wanna work with someone who’s actually Profit First certified and who works right now currently with real estate businesses, you can actually go start your application process by going to simpleCFO.com/apply, or just go right to simpleCFO.com. And there’s an apply button right on there. If you wanna actually start your Profit First journey with someone who can actually walk you through those step by step and help, you know, and grow your cash flow. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the Profit First REI podcast. See you next episode.
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