00;00;00;00 - 00;00;36;11

Unknown

Knowing that you have experienced people in your corner, you know, like you. You're not super worried when you get a little bit and you start going. Like April start April, start March. March was okay and I think March was all right. February stopped in April, sucked. And when you're sucking at a runs a run of 250 K a month of expenses between marketing and payroll, that starts to suck really fast when you're bootstrapping the something.

00;00;36;14 - 00;01;02;09

Unknown

But I guess so. All my, like, money is here and so that can. I can fucking irritate you mind fast. Right. So that having having you guys in my corner when. All right. What are we doing? How we figuring this out? And I made that knee jerk, knee jerk little bit of data. And we had our quarterly and I came out said, hey, we're going to do this guy in the fall.

00;01;02;09 - 00;01;19;28

Unknown

Christina said, hey, this is what we're doing. And we just kept an eye on it. And then we broke it down and said, okay, this is what we got to assign. We're spending that extra 40 K a month this is what we got to assign each week to make sure that when you're not burning that money, that you still out there.

00;01;20;00 - 00;01;37;03

Unknown

Hey, welcome back to the Profit First right podcast. Have special guest Jo Terrio on, but she's been on before. But he's doing some pretty awesome things in the real estate space. And he's having a pretty great year this year. And I just want to get him on here, showcase what he's doing and some of the things that he needs.

00;01;37;03 - 00;02;00;18

Unknown

So Joe, thanks for coming back on the podcast. Welcome. Happy to be here. Yeah. Well, I wanted to dive right into it. So you've been in the real estate world. How long now have you been in the space? I've been in this, like this space, like ten years since I left my job full time. I've been a nurse and then part time buying apartment buildings years before that.

00;02;00;25 - 00;02;22;23

Unknown

Yeah. Awesome. Full time in this brain damage and and plenty of brain damage before that. There we go. So then tell us about your journey in the last, I don't know, five years or so where you've been able to start growing a very sizable company. You've got how many employees? Now, let's 20 right now. 20. That's that's pretty incredible.

00;02;22;23 - 00;02;49;10

Unknown

So do you want to talk about that journey of, like scaling up into 20 employees now how has that been brain damage. It's like the constant that it's like the theme. It's the theme. We're going to call this the Brain Damage podcast, right. The the title of the this but the it's just it's evolved. You know, one of the big things that my business partner when we came into this one employees.

00;02;49;11 - 00;03;12;27

Unknown

Right. So I was kind of fighting, fighting that because I didn't want employees like, we don't treat people the right way. So the, that that's kind of like how it ended up morphing. And, I didn't want to be out there doing rehabs. That's what I was originally doing ten years ago. I was the one still out there managing them and doing them and all that.

00;03;12;27 - 00;03;36;02

Unknown

So well, how we got there and how we got employees, it just it's inevitable for me, I guess. It's like I've always managed it's just managing people and I'm always just done it. It's where I end up falling into. So there's the I think there's a degree of like, I'm a manifesting generator is something that Annie keeps referring to.

00;03;36;04 - 00;03;58;18

Unknown

So it's like I tend to manifest what's in front of me. And then, like, how did we get there in the past five years? It's like, wow. I think one of the things that that, like, really just just popped into my head to a certain degree, was this like, you know, we were on this, we wanted to grow.

00;03;58;18 - 00;04;23;24

Unknown

I was probably just about I want to say, we're just coming out of Covid. We had moved into our last new office and, I had flown out to someone's office and watched their operation, and they were down the road of, like, higher than the sales. My, car sales, my, like, wheelman. Wheel them out. Right, like hire for keep one.

00;04;23;27 - 00;04;48;06

Unknown

And I noticed that I did like what I walk into a more during the day. Right. Like I didn't I didn't want to help you. Right. And that's not a good place to be for me. So. And I still had the business partner at that time, and we moved into, like a 5000 square foot space, which was a good sized space for us to grow into.

00;04;48;09 - 00;05;25;06

Unknown

And I just I didn't like it. And when I started to buy him out and go down that path, we really started to focus on the because we come from the, you know, Gary and Susan Harper, right? We come from the, EOS US stuff. Right. And then we, we had tripped on to scaling up and some of the coaches, Howard Shaw and his bunch, and they really helped us define like the company beyond EOS.

00;05;25;08 - 00;05;57;23

Unknown

And we we got out into metronome and we really came up with like what what I wanted at that time of like, what do we want to be known for? And I wanted to truly be the best company to work at, like, and that was kind of the driving, the driving, you know, driving force for a while and trying to pull up some of the, some of the metrics now that we had set back then, and it was.

00;05;57;26 - 00;06;14;09

Unknown

Yeah. So that's how we kind of ended up there. So then tell me about how you drove your culture. You wanted to be the best place to work at, and you wanted to work with the best. So then how did you go about selecting the best? Because this is the thing that everyone struggles with is finding the right people.

00;06;14;15 - 00;06;54;07

Unknown

How do I get them to stay? How do I make sure that they're going to actually produce that type of stuff? Yeah. So and you know, 50,000ft view. Right. Because this is, you know, you basically asked me a condensed everything down. Right? So 50,000ft, you were about, where we're at and I'd we get there now. Right. Like lots of brain damage and, and lots of we did take, we do have a really solid hiring process now for the size we're at and what we do like if you look at below, look at other 20 person companies, you're you're not the you know, they're not running like, they're not running iOS and you're

00;06;54;07 - 00;07;13;18

Unknown

not running this type of stuff. They're running and gunning. Maybe they grew, you know, they don't have all these systems and processes in place. So to answer your question there, it was more of like we did we did move to a scale up model to a certain degree. We did really push into top grading. And we came up.

00;07;13;18 - 00;07;40;24

Unknown

We took top grading and modified it for us. So the interview process is very, it's like a top grading light. Is, is is one of the things that we did with big predictive index people like we live and breathe by predictive index. We've done a bunch of predictive index trainings from, from shopper. We've done stuff there and all the coaches talk in that language.

00;07;40;26 - 00;08;05;23

Unknown

So like we know, generally speaking, what what profiles do well in all these different seats. Right. In that in the the typical word is 80% of the time if you get just the profile right, you're way ahead of the curve. So like just that on the front didn't answer the like how did you get the culture established of like you make sure you can hire the greatest people.

00;08;05;26 - 00;08;40;15

Unknown

And that's kind of just like the quick answer on how did we hire them and now how do we keep and retain them? Is, what is basically the there's a bunch of stuff that I try and do for them, and I actually give a shit about them. I think that's the like core principle at, at is you actually have to give a fuck about if you don't, if you just want to buy stuff and, and go be a real estate investor, and they're guys that have gone way faster than I have bought, way more.

00;08;40;18 - 00;08;58;15

Unknown

I challenge you on how much they've changed, how many people's lives they've changed. I wish that was a KPI that you don't see, you know, because I saw the other day, I was like, man, that guy started at the same time. He's like rocket ships ahead of me. And I'm like. And then I think, and I'm like, it's probably not, in the grand scheme of things.

00;08;58;17 - 00;09;34;16

Unknown

So what? So the overarching to answer that is you have to give a shit about people, but you're like, okay, Joe, I care about people. All right. Let's let's dial down on that. What does that look like? Right. What does that. Yeah. Let's that like is what is that look like. Right. So that's so much so I one of the again and I'll go down the 25,000ft view would be one of the things that I do is I give everybody access to the people that I have access to.

00;09;34;16 - 00;09;59;06

Unknown

That took me 47 years to get access to. Right. That's life changing, right? I wish that would have happened for me. So I just, I just I just shot in your, learning knowledge gap. So 25,000ft view. And now we'll get down to some of the nitty gritty of like, the employees I quit them. What any. Yeah.

00;09;59;09 - 00;10;19;26

Unknown

Right. We got sales issues or people issues or people are trying to work through stuff. Personally I put them through the same coach that I'm using to fix my personal life, my professional life, like stuff that I pay really good money, and people that go down and meet with Andy for a weekend pay absorbing and amounts of money to go do a program like that.

00;10;20;01 - 00;10;45;12

Unknown

Right? I take them, we do a one year plan with them. I break down every single one of their things that they want to do in that year, and help them achieve it, walk them over to the bank, make banking introductions, set them up with my accountant, not through somebody else. And, like, whatever it is, like, I'm truly trying to impact their lives, right.

00;10;45;12 - 00;11;11;20

Unknown

So just that their of what it could be in their financial side, like some people didn't even have financial goals on their stuff. Right? It could be relationship eating food. I'm pretty balanced most of the time. Pretty balanced person. Across like the five channels of things. Right. So that I think is the one of the biggest things.

00;11;11;20 - 00;11;34;21

Unknown

But I mean, the obvious stuff of, to a certain degree is, all the stuff of what every company should be to be a legit company of, like, the paid time, like all that's not like paid time off health and benefits and insurance and all that. The 41K where 3% company match not a lot of real estate guys are doing that type of stuff.

00;11;34;24 - 00;11;52;21

Unknown

Therefore 1KI spent a bunch of time last year on making it so you can buy real estate with your 401 K. Everyone's going to say it's not possible. I'm going to say you just don't know how to do it. It is possible I've done it. You got to set the 41K up the right way within the trust.

00;11;52;23 - 00;12;16;22

Unknown

So like really been able to do that stuff for employees. And yes, there's lots of benefits for me as an owner. But those aren't things that people normally have auctions to. And, and we just took everyone down to Puerto Rico in January all paid. We all stayed in this big, huge place, like just. Yeah, not stuff that 20 person companies.

00;12;16;22 - 00;12;35;10

Unknown

Me there was only 15 of us that went 1240, whatever. I don't know, but I like my VA that's been with me for years in the Philippines. I bought out a contract this year, you know, means they come on to the company telling me forever, like, you can change your life, pay 15 bucks an hour in the Philippines.

00;12;35;13 - 00;13;13;21

Unknown

You know, I mean, like, yeah, the that's the Das like Das is stuff that you can do. I got to tell you to come and work here near me. Mean like, if you don't like that, fucking go work somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's that's incredible what you've been able to do for them and what you've been able to create that change in their life in a tangible way, where you're actually making a difference in their daily life and in their work life, and allowing them to also have access to all those people that you've gained knowledge and access to over the years, which it that makes a personal difference in their day to

00;13;13;21 - 00;13;32;17

Unknown

day. And you too, you do care and it shows through those actions, which is awesome. So I love hearing that. I think more people need to hear that and need to hear that in the real estate space. So I commend you for that and glad that you brought that up here on the podcast. Let's switch gears to the financial aspect, like you've been working with us for a long time.

00;13;32;17 - 00;13;55;07

Unknown

You've been work with Christina, like talk about that process and just talk about that a little bit. And then we'll go into the JV and the mobile home parks and all that. So the yeah, that journey is, you know, still a strong relationship, you know, without I mean, you've always got along and, there's a mutual, respect there for the both of us.

00;13;55;07 - 00;14;26;11

Unknown

And, the Christina has been with me before. I bought out the business partner when I was nervous about the money. And, that's when I contacted you guys. Was. That was the. That was the, guy light to contact you guys, to be honest with you, was. I was like, I had to run this company. I don't know, fuck all about, like, how to really minimize that kind of money, you know, besides, in and out, you know, income, expenses, those.

00;14;26;11 - 00;15;08;08

Unknown

Right. Like, that's all I really knew. You know, so that has evolved over the years. We're probably coming up. We're probably at four years now. And, actually it's probably right. There's probably four years and, somewhere in that realm anyway. And, you know, it's, you know, like, and again, it's, it's going to take me a second to kind of like, get my brain firing on all that stuff of, like, going there for a second on the, the stuff is, trying to kind of get it going here.

00;15;08;08 - 00;15;33;10

Unknown

Bear with me. So. All right, here's, here's some stuff that that, you know, like a fractional CFO, they usually don't probably fly to the client's office and bring their family up and spend time with each other and then go down to Boston with, with their family and spend that, spend time with their whole family down in Boston.

00;15;33;10 - 00;15;55;05

Unknown

Right. Like that's probably not what happens with not many in my fractional people want to spend time on me. Right. Yeah. I'll tell you, they are the only fractional team that's actually come up to spend time with me. And, and her husband's a very successful, real estate entrepreneur as well, or whatever investor, whatever you want to call it.

00;15;55;05 - 00;16;21;28

Unknown

Right. So, you know, that alone speaks in amount of volumes to the like that same type of authenticity that I align with is important with, for me, anyway, just from an emotional standpoint. Never mind, because this money and all this stuff is very is very fucking dry. I got spreadsheets in front of me from you guys, right?

00;16;21;28 - 00;16;55;19

Unknown

Like that's not dry. And it can get most financial people are very dry. That I've met in, you know, CPAs or whatever it is. It's like I am a robot, you know, and, so really, the big thing nowadays as, like, we're coming in to having some of the best months, wherever having right now in the history of the company is and we've grown and we set the budget at the beginning of the year together, me and Christina.

00;16;55;19 - 00;17;03;03

Unknown

And, you know, we do all the planning for the year. Take a look at everything we did. Hey, how much do we want to grow?

00;17;03;05 - 00;17;24;15

Unknown

We usually do that before the quarterly that comes in for, for the annual planning. I'm already kind of prepared about, like, hey, where do I want to go with my, you know, with Christina, the, you know, my CFO is to you guys is okay. I already have an idea. Now, can I get the team bought on at the quarterly?

00;17;24;21 - 00;17;54;05

Unknown

Right. For the beginning of the year? Well, what ended up happening this year was Q1 sucked. I saw that we needed to throw some money, and I did it talk to Christina and said, I'm going to deal with this fallout. And basically threw an extra 40 grand at Market, in that, in that, coming into Q2, because I saw that direct mail for every four leads were getting in, were yet in their contract.

00;17;54;05 - 00;18;26;22

Unknown

So data did show me, like, hey, if we did this, I could make us really successful for Q2. But I'm kind of going to the point now. Now we had that and now we had 40% of growth. So not only did we grow, we also assigned 2 million in, assignments, innovations in Q2. So, I could see some metrics saying, hey, go do this, go do direct mail, increase your marketing.

00;18;26;24 - 00;18;49;16

Unknown

We assigned two point something million for Q2, which then said, okay, let's keep going. But now what? I'm trying to figure out what Christina is, okay, what's Q4 look like and what's Q1 look like. So we're trying to get ahead of some of those things right now is like where I haven't had these problems to a certain degree before.

00;18;49;16 - 00;19;10;22

Unknown

It's been, you know, we've been working together in for a long time. So it we got a pretty good understanding of like, she knows when my bank account goes to a certain point, I usually get a little freaked out, right? To a certain degree. But it used to be far worse. You know, it will far worse when you from years ago.

00;19;10;22 - 00;19;36;27

Unknown

And she's laughs now with me about stuff and and now and it's like whatever. So and that just comes from knowing that you have experienced people in your corner, you know, like you, you're not super worried when you get a little bit and you start going, like April sat, April sat, Max March was okay. And I think March was all right.

00;19;36;28 - 00;20;03;04

Unknown

February sat in April suck. And when you're sucking at a runs a run of 250 K a month of expenses between marketing and payroll, that starts to suck really fast when you're bootstrapping the company, I guess. So all my, like, money is here and so that can.

00;20;03;07 - 00;20;20;15

Unknown

I can fucking irritate you mighty fast. Right. So that having having you guys in my corner. When. All right. What are we doing? How are we figuring this out? And I made that knee jerk, knee jerk little bit of data, and we had our quarterly, and I came out, said, hey, we're going to do this guy in the fall.

00;20;20;15 - 00;20;37;29

Unknown

Christina said, hey, this is what we're doing. And we just kept an eye. And then we broke it down and said, okay, this is what we got to assign for spending that extra 40 K a month. This is what we got to assign each week to make sure that when you're not burning that money that you threw out there.

00;20;38;01 - 00;21;01;04

Unknown

Right. So yeah. Yeah. And you've asked me like three questions. So far and each one has been like a seven minute answer. So, you know, I could that. No, I, I like it, I, I like you going into it. So you're really getting into what really matters, though, in a real estate investors head because you talked about the sucky months.

00;21;01;04 - 00;21;24;13

Unknown

But like you, you feel like that you it wasn't as bad this year because you had a plan and you had some data to go off of. I'm sure Annie. And like what she does, like what you said, where she helps entrepreneurs like what their internal talk and like what their state of mind and then having on top of that, someone with the numbers being able to know the numbers and like help you, you know, like as you go into that, it helps on both those angles.

00;21;24;13 - 00;21;41;06

Unknown

So I think what you're doing with your team has also helped yourself as well to to be able to be like, okay, I can weather these storms and I can go into these different things and make sure that we're being taken care of. And it seems like it's paid off because of your knowledge of the numbers in the data and all of that.

00;21;41;06 - 00;22;04;24

Unknown

So I think what you've done is shown what a real estate investor can do with the right people in his corner. If, you know, like with what you've got going on. Yeah, 100%. Right. Like people of look at me like Joe, man, you pay a lot in consulting. And I'm like, you know, you we use, you know, you shopper, you know, I have and I have their coach use the ramp guys with Ben, right.

00;22;04;24 - 00;22;27;03

Unknown

And Joe and they're doing a bunch of coaching with my sales team. Just grew them out here for two days. That was that was, expensive, but worth it. Right. And he's here with us every week. You guys are here with us every week. Part of Collective genius, like all of that. Don't get me wrong. Like, that's a lot of consulting money I could.

00;22;27;04 - 00;22;50;19

Unknown

Yeah, like, if anyone wants to give me 50% off, I wouldn't fucking complain, you know what I mean? But but in this. In this. Yeah. I shouldn't ask you if you have a discount code. Any one of those reps. I just like fucking name drop for you, you know, you know, the but the, the macro thing is that I don't see the blind spots because I am trying to.

00;22;50;19 - 00;23;18;14

Unknown

I'm very forward thinking as, I'm trying to look ahead for the company and what's coming down the pike and where things are at, like let me be that in New Hampshire, in Massachusetts, in New England. Let me do what I do. Good. And hey, everybody else can kind of like help out, and I'm willing to pay the and I'm willing to, keep that, you know, keep those people around me, you know.

00;23;18;17 - 00;23;33;19

Unknown

Yeah. No, I love I love how you've done that. And you've gone down that road. And now I want to talk about, since you're in that area and, I want you to talk about, like, the JV deals you're looking for, and you're getting into the mobile home space. And, like, I just love it. Sounds like you're very giving.

00;23;33;19 - 00;23;57;22

Unknown

Like, you give to your team. You obviously surround yourself with the people that invest in you and so that you become better. So like, what are you looking for? Because we had talked about some of the things you're looking for at this point, I'd love for you to be able to share what you're going into and talk about that and appreciate that the, the, you know, one of the things we set out for this year is to I've generally kept my head down and just worked.

00;23;57;22 - 00;24;20;26

Unknown

I've never really come up. And then I come, Joe, the real estate investor. Right. Like General Lee speaking this year, I've gotten more podcasts and I've kind of been a little more active on social media. And we've brought in some, some deals with people that have authentically heard those things from me, like, hey, let's work together, right? I want to do more of that stuff.

00;24;20;26 - 00;24;48;23

Unknown

I want to help more people that JV, their deals, like, I truly believe in New England, in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire anyway. And we do a bunch in Maine that there probably isn't a better operator that knows all the different exit strategies on residential real estate. Right? Residential one, the four units type taker stuff, right. Of how to move that, how to monetize that the best.

00;24;48;23 - 00;25;16;00

Unknown

I'm really strong in that space right of between innovations installment contracts owner finance offers you know obviously a cash pitch like all of that stuff plus the brokerage like I can I'm very good in rehabbing. I'm very good. And I have a track record of years and years and years of running in the black and making money and never losing on deals.

00;25;16;02 - 00;25;47;03

Unknown

I'm a really good track, right? Right. So I have a great track record. So bring a girls to me, right? That's one of the things. Bring them in like let's let's do some business together to get more deals closed. All right. That's one. And then the, the thing that I'm really trying to do right now for longer term, like business building and where we gotta go, I believe as a company, we need to move into, land home packages.

00;25;47;03 - 00;26;09;02

Unknown

So we've done a couple like this, but we're really building this out right now of buying land and putting the mobile homes on it. So actively start marketing for the land and the mobile homes. I have my rehab manager working on that, and we want to buy a mobile on park, which directly kind of all ties together, because then we'll put malls in parks as well.

00;26;09;02 - 00;26;32;19

Unknown

We're expanding them. It's just not a lot of them in the northeast. I'm willing to travel. I'm going to get my hands. What wherever I need to go, to put my hands into a mobile app. With that, these are my two, pet projects, not pet projects. That's where I'm drawn. There's a lot of alignment. Yeah. So that's the next place that you're heading.

00;26;32;24 - 00;26;46;09

Unknown

And, you know, like with that vision and planning it out and going down that road. Now, if people did want to reach out to you, what's the best way if they're wanting to JV deals or if they've got the land for sale, they got the mobile homes or the parks. So how do they get Ahold of you? Yeah.

00;26;46;09 - 00;27;16;28

Unknown

The, Joe Terrio, which is like thg area ult. Right. So on Facebook is is really where I'm at. Instagram is Boston, Joe Terrio is the other places I'm consistently on. My wife has told me explicitly not to give my phone number out anymore on podcasts. And so or Joe at IPS cash.com. Obviously the IPS cash logo.

00;27;16;28 - 00;27;37;08

Unknown

So if you just kind of remember the IPS cash, you'll be able to track me down and find me, for sure. Yeah. Interested in. So there we go. We'll make sure then that we'll put those in the links, those links in the comment, you know, like in the, in description, in the notes and all that. So that way if you're wanting to reach out to Joe, you can find him there.

00;27;37;08 - 00;27;55;23

Unknown

Joe, this has been awesome because I really feel like you talked about the real stuff that goes on behind the scenes. Like, not only do you have to find the right people, you have to keep them and you actually have to care about them by showing that you care and not just by telling them that you care. And so I like how you gave us specific descriptions of what you're doing with them and with your team.

00;27;56;00 - 00;28;14;06

Unknown

Then from there, having the right people in your corner, not just on the cash side, but like all the different consulting you get, you get consulting for your team, you get consulting for yourself, you get business consultant, you get personal consultant. It's like you are trying to become that human being that is just helpful to other people through the help that you get.

00;28;14;13 - 00;28;33;09

Unknown

And so I feel like that was like a really big piece that was right in the center that we talked about, that I really enjoyed. And then if you're listening to this, he's wanting to get into those deals more in the New England area and also mobile homes, the land, the parks, everything like that. So you can get him on his Instagram, Facebook, DM or email him.

00;28;33;12 - 00;28;51;03

Unknown

That's where you can find him at those different links. If you're like Joe as well, where it was several years ago, where he came to us and is like, what the heck is happening in the finances? What's going on? You could reach out to us at simple cfo.com. That's where you can find us, so we can help you make profit a habit in your business.

00;28;51;03 - 00;29;10;18

Unknown

Joe, thanks again for being on the podcast and being a great guest today. This episode of the Profit First for ROI 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 simple cfo.com right now.

00;29;10;21 - 00;29;27;11

Unknown

We'll see you next time on the Profit First for ROI podcast with David Richter.