The Essential Legal Checklist for Real Estate Investors

June 11, 2024

Title: “The Essential Legal Checklist for Real Estate Investors”

Episode: 236

Joining us in this episode of Profit First for REI podcast is Chris Johnsen. He is a lawyer in the real estate space and worked primarily for commercial real estate.

In this episode, Chris talks about the common pitfalls people go through in real estate and when you need a lawyer in your business.

Listen as he explains why you should hire a lawyer for your business contracts. Enjoy the show!

Key Takeaways:

[01:03] Introducing Chris Johnsen

[04:34] Getting into a specific niche as a lawyer

[09:03] Education as an investment

[14:52] The Golden Handcuffs

[17:21] Most common questions he gets as a lawyer

[23:20] Operating Agreement

[26:48] At what point should people get a lawyer?

[30:47] Connect with Chris Johnsen

Quotes:

[02:43] “I saw two things in lawyers. I saw that they provide value that is needed and are expensive.”

[09:03] “You should look at your education as an investment in yourself.”

[23:20] “Operating agreement is a contract between the company’s owners on how to run the company… there are so many pitfalls.”

Connect with Chris:

Website: https://www.johnsenlaw.com/

Tired of living deal to deal?

If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David

Transcript:

Speaker 1 (00:00):

So if you do it wrong and you don’t make disclosures, what it means if the deal goes south, you might have to return all the money to the investor. So if they put in a hundred thousand dollars in a deal and they lose all their money, you are going to have to come up with a hundred thousand dollars out of your pocket. So hiring a securities attorney, not just a real estate attorney, but a securities attorney that knows how to do syndications is a type of insurance policy.

Speaker 2 (00:36):

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 (01:03):

We have Warrior Chris Johnson on the podcast today. Really excited about this one because he talks through the common pitfalls, the common things that people go through. When do you need a warrior in the real estate space? If you need help here, he’s got some great practical info, puts it on the bottom shelf. He’s real estate investing specific, so understands those needs there and is just no bs. Like when should you hire a lawyer and engage one on a more permanent basis rather than just for the one-off contracts. So hopefully this is very helpful to you and very practical and thank you for being a listener of the show. Hey, welcome back to the Profit first RI podcast. Have Chris Johnson today excited to talk about this because we don’t put many warriors on the podcast and it’s not by intention or design. It is though. I’m just kidding. Chris, thanks for being on the show. Excited to have you here today.

Speaker 1 (01:54):

Thank you. And if it makes you feel any better, I’ve never put a CFO on my show either.

Speaker 3 (02:00):

That’s great. Touche, touche. I love it. Okay, so being a warrior in this space, how did you get into this? Did you say? I woke up one day, I was like, yes, want to? I want to go and do this, I want to help or how did it morph into this?

Speaker 1 (02:18):

Yeah, I get asked that question all the time. So I’m a business person first and a lawyer second. Nice. My first career was really in real estate and doing that, I started about 20 years old working for a company that did commercial real estate more in the retail sector and I interfaced with lawyers. We used lawyers and I saw two things. I saw that they provide value that they’re needed and that they are expensive. So that kind of stuck in my head. Also being a business major, I think pretty much everyone that has a business degree has taken business law. I thought it was fascinating. I loved the class. It was one of my favorite classes. So that’s kind of a number two and then number three, which is really the deciding factor is my mother and she did not tell me to go to law school.

(03:15):

I’m actually the first lawyer in the family. But what she did say is an education is something that no one can take away from you. So when I was about that age graduating from undergrad, you make the decision, am I going to just go work or am I going to go keep going through school? I knew that if I didn’t keep going through school that I never would. And so I was like, okay, it’s now or never and a law degree is a worthwhile investment in myself. I never intended on actually practicing law at a law firm. I was just going to go to law school and then go back into developing real estate. I was going to go move back down to southeast Florida where I grew up and do townhomes and different developments like that. But somewhere along the way, an attorney friend of mine said, you don’t learn shit in law school. You really need to go practice for a while to learn the law. And so fortunately I did well and law school and decided to go practice at a firm for a while.

Speaker 3 (04:17):

How did you get into the niche of where you are today and go down that path?

Speaker 1 (04:23):

And so you mean practice areas?

Speaker 3 (04:25):

Yeah, your practice areas, and I know you would work with real estate people. I know that was a little bit of your background, but it’s like how did you pick going down into your specific niche?

Speaker 1 (04:34):

Yeah, so this is important for kids in law school or kids that think they might want to go to law school. So I’m not sure if it’s particularly helpful for the listeners, but definitely their kids and I think people should know this and it probably is applicable to any type of degree. So I’ll start here. You don’t always get to do what you want to do. Things just kind of pick you and that depends on the economy. So I think that is relevant a lot to real estate, just depends on how the economy’s doing at the time. So I was going to be a real estate attorney. I came from real estate, that’s what I was going to do. I went to intern at a big firm. I had an offer in their real estate department with the managing shareholder of that offer. What

Speaker 3 (05:22):

Year was that?

Speaker 1 (05:23):

That just taking

Speaker 3 (05:24):

Place?

Speaker 1 (05:24):

2007.

Speaker 3 (05:26):

Okay.

Speaker 1 (05:28):

You can see where we’re going with this. Yes. 2008 was when I was going to start and they said, well, good news is we want you still have a job. Bad news is you’re not going to be in real estate because there is no real estate work. You are going to be in litigation. I didn’t even take trial add in law school because I was like, I will never need that. I’m never going to step foot in a courtroom, never going to do anything like that. My MBA professor urged against that. He said, you know what? This is the advice I’m giving right now is you don’t know where life’s going to take you and you said, tag trial ad you should learn how to do litigation. I was like, yeah, that’s garbage. I’m only going to be a transactional attorney. So I did a stint in litigation doing a lot of real estate litigation because we had foreclosure work and things like that. So it wasn’t like I was completely removed from real estate, but I went into litigation which definitely didn’t fit in with my disposition and personality type, but I didn’t have a choice.

(06:31):

I was newly married, I had a baby on the way. I didn’t have the luxury of just saying, you know what? I don’t like this so I’m going to quit. So I was like, okay, suck it up and do it. This transitions into how I got where I’m at now. I have a litigation background, but I transitioned more into into really started with employment work and then it started with corporate work and then I went in-house, meaning I was general counsel of a company. I was their employee rather than working for a law firm. So there was zero litigation. Everything was corporate work, the nuts and bolts of corporate work. And so I went from doing that to doing more transactions and now I kind of couch myself as outside general counsel as I have my own firm and I do corporate work for number of companies, but that a lot of that includes some litigation.

(07:31):

If it gets real hot and heavy, I send it over to litigation team. You never know where life’s going to take you. My path, I wouldn’t have picked it, but I went along for the ride and didn’t fight too much about it, and what it did is it made me very much a generalist, which is good. I’ve done both litigation and transactional work. So I think it gives me a deeper understanding of when you’re doing deals where some of the pitfalls are going to be, and unlike someone that’s only a deal person, I am not scared. I’m not as scared of a fight. I know the process. I can trust the process. I know it’s ugly, I know it’s slow, and unlike someone that only does litigation, I actually understand transactional work too.

Speaker 3 (08:21):

Yeah. Now you’re in an interesting position, I think because business owner also got an education. I feel like the rallying cry or battle cry of entrepreneurs, don’t go to college, just go out there and make the money, be an entrepreneur. Where do you sit on that side of the fence? You got the education your mom heavily fluency of. That’s something that no one can ever take away. I really like that perspective because I feel like in the entrepreneur world it’s the opposite. Don’t go to school, don’t do all that. So where do you sit on that fence there? I know for your own life which route you took, but looking back,

Speaker 1 (08:57):

So where I sit, and I think it’s a really common sense, reasonable approach is you should look at your education as an investment in yourself. So I make investments and every investment I make, whether it’s a stock or a bond or real estate, I’m going to look at the return, I’m going to look at the risk and I’m going to look at the opportunity costs. Those are really the three factors that you’re going to look at in any investment. So when I’m choosing to do my education, I want to look at what kind of return am I going to get, and a lot of that’s tied to the type of degree that you’re going to get. The risk I think would be,

(09:46):

I don’t know where I’m going with that, but the return, I’m definitely on that piece with your education, just look at it, return on investment, and then the opportunity cost is I guess the amount of time that you’re going to spend not doing what you’re doing. So let’s kind of boil that down into education. And I don’t mean to demean any profession because I’m truly not doing that. This is the same advice that I would tell my kids. First of all, I would discourage my children from doing any degree where the only jobs are teaching more kids how to get that degree. To me, that’s a fundamentally broken system because it’s just like feedback loop. Whatcha going to do go to college so you can work at a college to teach more kids to work at a college? That doesn’t make any sense to me.

(10:38):

And I also think that there are trade schools out there that are fantastic for what someone might want to do. So like a welder, you could go to trade school for welding and work in oil and gas and easily make six figures easily and do very well for yourself. So why would you go to a four-year degree just so you can go out of school and be a welder? That actually doesn’t make sense. You’re spending money, it’s not giving you return on investment and then the opportunity cost, you’re losing out on career path trajectory than if you just went in first. However, I do think college degrees and other things, open doors, being a lawyer certainly opens doors to me being on deals.

(11:34):

So if I was a doctor, I wouldn’t be networking with business people and they’d be like, oh, you’re a doctor really? I need to get you in on this deal. I could get a board seat of a medical tech company or something like that if it’s transferable. So again, I got to look at the transferability of my degree and what I’m intending to do with my degree. It certainly can help. So I think being a lawyer has helped open tons of doors and I think it was the wise move for me. Another thing that I’ll point out is cash. So I don’t think you should forget the value of cash. I see a lot of investors that want to get involved in the hustle that real estate and other things like that. It’s funny when you talk to people that their sole job is syndicating deals or finding investors who do they go to? A lot of dentists, doctors, lawyers. So those professions might be demeaned by other people as oh yeah, you’re going to be miserable and you’re never going to make seven, 10 figures on an exit. So you’re giving up and those professions are very cash oriented. You can make a very good living every year, but you’re giving up equity growth. You’re certainly not the tech company start off. So again, that’s like an investment. You have different kinds of investments, you have dividend stocks and you have growth stocks.

(13:16):

So back to that example, I think a lot of entrepreneurs tend to focus on the growth, which is fine. I think there’s nothing wrong with that, but don’t discount the value of cash, the ability to make half a million dollars a year and just shove money in deals and real estate and investments in a way it makes it easier for people to get off the train than if you had to start scrapping it together. So I know I threw a lot on the board, but I don’t think education should be totally demeaned. Of course I love education, but what I don’t like is people just going to school just to go to school. They don’t know what they want to do. There’s no path and their parents pay for it. That’s flushing a hundred thousand dollars down a toilet

Speaker 3 (14:03):

And that was a mature perspective. It’s like you have to figure in your whole plan of what you’re also thinking of doing. And like you said, you can’t dig it the four year degree if you’re going to do welding or something, that’s totally not going to be beneficial to it and that’s going to be your long-term play if you know that and if you don’t know it, it’s be cautious and maybe invest some of that time upfront. Then on the back end, I like what you said most people do demean it from the aspect of some of those high paying jobs. It’s like, yeah, but it’s just a high paying job that you’re chained to. Well, it’s also a path to becoming that and Robert Kiyosaki’s four quadrants an investor making that cash work for itself. So it’s another way to access it just if that’s the way that you’re going. So I really like that

Speaker 1 (14:47):

If you’re disciplined, David, if you’re disciplined. So what happens is a lot of these high paid professionals just end up raising their spending and so they’re constantly stuck in that Go Rob Kentucky, the rat race and I call it the golden handcuffs. But yeah, making a shit ton of cash very quickly in life can be the way to an out.

Speaker 3 (15:15):

Yeah, no, I agree. That’s so good. I like what you said, discipline. This is a profit first I podcast. So we’re trying to teach discipline on the cash side to a lot of the investors and it’s like that’s just as important no matter where you’re stationed in life is to have that discipline, especially when, and I love that you brought up the value of cash. You can’t overlook that in whatever career or path or entrepreneurship direction you’re going.

Speaker 1 (15:39):

Hence, I haven’t quit doing what I’m doing, Dave. Right,

Speaker 3 (15:41):

Right. I was just going to go into that.

Speaker 1 (15:43):

Yeah, I mean if you want hear, a lot of people want to do passive investing, which is fine, but man, I can’t support it in my lifestyle and I’ve built up some investments, but first of all, I want to reinvest my dividends. I want to reinvest my income because that compounds growth. Second, I love what I do and third man cash has its place that earning income that I can just spend on the crap and then have some leftover to invest has its place. You got to have a lot of real estate to have a lavish life on real estate, and I do. I come from a family of real estate people and they just naturally knew the live below your means mentality. They don’t drive flashy cars or any of that. They have no desire for that. So you wouldn’t know that they have millions of dollars in real estate, but you have to have tons to actually make that cash work for you and with a fancy lifestyle that the average person wants with vacations and sports cars, boats and all that crap,

Speaker 3 (16:50):

Right? Yeah. It’s one thing to get out of the rat race where you stand today. It’s another thing to have the discipline to keep building to where most of people don’t live or don’t live. So no, that’s a really good perspective. Okay. Shifting to your actual profession, what are some of the, I don’t know, the most commonly asked questions you get or the most common cases that come across your desk? How can people help themselves with some of the stuff that you might get on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis that keeps recurring popping up?

Speaker 1 (17:21):

Okay, that’s a good question. So one thing the listeners can do is go to the Johnson Law YouTube channel, that’s J-O-H-N-S-E-N. It’s with an E, not an O, so Johnson Law. And then they can also go to the Fidelity Lake Houston YouTube page. So Fidelity, Houston’s my title company I underwrite through Fidelity National Title. Johnson Law is the business law firm. I also have estate planning firm, but I’m not going to go into that for your listeners, but for the real estate stuff, I tend to, it’s either on one or two of those channels. Fidelity tends to be a little more realtor focused. Those are a lot of the clients. Johnson law tends to be a little bit more like investor focused, but when I see a reoccurring issue, something that pops up a lot, I will spend the time to make a video and put it on there.

(18:14):

It’s hard. So what we do is really is so broad that there’s so many things. Let me say that as a firm, that is hard for me to really drill down on some things and go into detail, but I think what I might just do if this is more real estate focused is go over some of those issues that I see commonly come up. Okay, so when you’re a real estate investor, I think definitely just basic corporate formation work. You hear a lot of asset protection attorneys talk about it like it’s asset protection. It is, but it’s really, it’s so basic. I just view it as corporate work and that’s just creating buckets, different buckets for different things. So you’re isolating your exposure to that bucket for risk purposes. Then you can get real complicated with asset protection and there’s difference between different types of trusts and family limited partnership.

(19:24):

I’m not going to go into that stuff, but that is a topic that’s of interest to investors, something that we handle. Series LC is commonly used in real estate, so that’s a common topic. That’s something that I have on the YouTube channel as well as some tax deferment strategies like 10 31 and some other tax things you’ll find there for real estate. Other things of interest? Well, if you have a real estate business, one thing of interest right now, and I’m going to present it at family David, I decided this is going to be the topic of the masterclass. I think I have in a month or something. I’m not sure. The FTCs ruling on non-competes is very interesting and that’s very timely.

(20:15):

I think a lot of people, I’m going to wait until the C said what they’re going to do. They haven’t done it yet, and you got to wait for the rule to actually come out. And then there’s going to be a lot of nuances on non-competes. So the umbrella that non-compete falls under is restrictive covenant and there’s different kinds. There’s a confidentiality agreement as a type of restrictive covenant, a non-solicit as to customers as a non-solicit as to employees as a type. None of those that I just listed were a non-compete, and I don’t think that was intended by the FTC to ban those types of restrictive covenants. So there’s a lot of other tools in the toolbox. Then you have your non-compete and those are, they’ve been pretty much wiped out and that’s okay. There will be some exceptions to that. Look, lawyers aren’t subject to non-competes and they’ve been going out without ’em for a while. And let me say too, that everyone’s already gearing up to fight this ruling is unconstitutional because it came from an agency and it didn’t come from a legislature and there’s going to be other issues. I think that’s going to be really big over the next couple years for business people.

(21:41):

Another topic that comes up a lot for real estate people, just the basic contracts. I find that real estate investors tend to, they’re very DIY type of people. That’s just kind of the mentality that they are and there’s nothing wrong with that. But no, they’re cheap. Maybe they’re falling profit first too. Well, I don’t know. So the investment in the contract, I find that oftentimes real estate investors will do their own and they’re just really bad. I see ’em all the time, and if you get sued over one, it’s going to be like 10 or 20 times at least than what you would’ve just paid to actually have an attorney do it. Chad GBT might do a pretty good job. I don’t know. I’m sure with certain provisions and if you actually know what you’re looking at, you could use generative AI to create some decent contracts for your deals that work for you and you have some outs.

(22:49):

So back to corporate governance, anytime there’s more than one member of a deal, there should be a good operating agreement. That’s another one. I see tons of people screw up on that. Tons of litigation pop out of that because people pull a document off legal zoom and then they are like, I think there’s a common understanding amongst people like, oh, well an operating agreement’s just an operating agreement. It’s a template, which kind is true with bylaws. So I can see where that assumption’s made an operating agreement’s a contract between the owners of the company on how to run the company, and there can be so many nuances in it and there’s so many pitfalls and I’ve just seen it time and time again. And if you go to a lawyer after you signed it and there’s a problem, it is too late. I’m sorry, the answer is going to be, I’m going to need a $20,000 retainer to get where you could have done in the beginning for much less.

(23:48):

And it is just unfortunate. If whatever attorney tells you that is not taking advantage of you, it just is what it is. It’s just going to be expensive to fight it. I’ll end with this so I don’t ramble on too long, but syndicating deals, syndicating the real estate deal does not simply mean that you create an entity and have multiple owners. Anytime you are bringing in money for a deal, you are selling securities. In exchange, there is some, the securities laws are being implicated, which means that there are certain disclosure requirements that need to be made, and the extent of those disclosure requirements are very dependent on kind of more detail. So I’m just going to be real general about it, but real estate investors need to know that now. So who cares? Who cares if I do it wrong? So if you do it wrong and you don’t make disclosures, what it means if the deal goes south, you might have to return all the money to the investor. So if they put in a hundred thousand dollars in a deal and they lose all their money, you are going to have to come up with a hundred thousand dollars out of your pocket. So hiring a securities attorney, not just a real estate attorney, but a securities attorney that knows how to do syndications is a type of insurance policy.

Speaker 3 (25:22):

No, that’s really good. Now I like this. This is good because what I heard, a lot of the most common things, the corporate formation in that structure, the asset protection, the series LLC, the non-competes is a big one right now. Contracts. Oh, man, you touched on something there. I mean, if you’re listening to this and you don’t have good contracts in place, I think the person that I used to work with just he had spent thousands of dollars on his contracts for real estate. He was doing a bunch of different types of exit strategies, so it wasn’t just one templated contract. So I was like, he took that super serious, and I’m like, I just wish everyone would be as serious as that, the operating agreement. That was really good. I like how you said that. It’s literally that agreement between the owners of the company.

(26:08):

If you’ve got multiple people on that, that is your binding agreement there. And it’s not just a legal zoom thing where you’re just like, all right, yeah, let’s just spit that out. That was really good. And then the syndicating deal is like you could get real into trouble real quick, real fast for a lot if you don’t have the right people there. No, that was good stuff. I did want to ask at one point, should people get a lawyer or you guys or, because I know there’s probably different tiers of lawyers too because like you said, illegal zoom, which is like anyone can go out there and try and play a lawyer themself, which is also bad, but where do you see people on that scale, especially I would say in the real estate world since it’s that our show is around that

Speaker 1 (26:48):

I hate to be overly cautious and I’m really not. Maybe I’m under cautious. I think my answer is going to be pretty common sense and no one should rely on this. This is literally my opinion. I think for the average person, just forming an entity is pretty simple. I think they can figure it out. If it’s only one member, one owner, if it’s multiple owners, I think you should use an attorney for the operating agreement. I’ve really never, I’d just say I, I’ve never seen a non-attorney do operating agreements. Well, I I’ve seen them doing pretty good, actually. There’s one old guy I’m thinking of that’s pretty darn good, but he still makes mistakes that could be costly. So once you do those things for the majority of people, the next question is, and so you need an attorney to answer your question in the beginning a little bit.

(27:51):

Okay, just a little bit. There’s really not much money to spend, so what’s the next thing you could do? You could do, well, are you going to have employees or subcontractors? That’s kind of my question. If you are, you might need an employment agreement, subcontract agreement, and you might have a lease issue, some lease negotiation. Other than that, I can’t see you spending that much on a lawyer in the beginning of a company. And real estate is a funny business. I would say most real estate is not a business. I actually won’t be in real estate unless it’s not a business. I don’t want any more businesses. I have a title company that’s in real estate industry. I don’t need my real estate property to be a business for me. So I like ’em to be really passive. You’re not going to use any lawyer stuff for that.

(28:43):

If the more active you are in real estate, the active the business is, the more you’ll have. I think the general threshold for me is when a business reaches a million, now they need legal services on a pretty consistent basis, and this is the part that you got to just take with a grain of salt. I would not fault anyone for pretty much doing things themselves except for the operating agreement. I think they should invest in that, but for the majority, just kind of scrapping it together up until you get to that million mark. And then what a lot of companies do is they’re like, look, we scrapped this together. We’ve been in business for five years. We’re now hit a million because a million, you have some extra money to spend. You’re feeling good. You’ve got your stride. So now they can come in and just take a deep breath and they can say, look, can you just audit everything we have? And they’re going to spend some money to do that. They’re willing to. They don’t care at that point. They have the money. But I think it would be unrealistic for me to go out there, started businesses before. I know I’m not just some voyeur that doesn’t understand these things, but if you’re going to start a business, I mean, why are you going to spend five grand a month on legal or make a $30,000 investment when let’s be real. A lot of businesses fail. You may even pivot in six months to do something else.

Speaker 3 (30:17):

That’s a good perspective. I like how you said the million mark. You’re kind of getting hit in your stride there and the end, you’re more set like you said, because if you’re before that, you could be going the different ways now. I like that a lot and I’m sure that’s where you probably help people there a lot. Is that million or over as well too. Just the last question here. It sounds like people can go to your YouTube channel to find more out about you, but how do you want people to connect with you? Is it just YouTube or do you want to go to a website or is there somewhere else?

Speaker 1 (30:47):

We can go to the website as well. Johnson law.com and it’s SEN. There’s a scheduling link on there, like a widget, and it goes to my calendar and you can schedule a 15 minute call. Talk to me about anything that’s free, 15 minute consultation, happy to talk to anyone. I do what I do and love what I do because I just like businesses. I like business myself and doing what I do. I get to live vicariously through a lot of people. It would be impossible for me to understand this many types of businesses, but for being an attorney or maybe an accountant, accountants and CFOs do as well, and consultants. I find that we have very holistic understandings of different industries because we work with so many different industries.

Speaker 3 (31:37):

Yeah, no, that’s really good. So you can find him at, that was Johnson Law, so with an SEN at the end of Johnson, and then johnson law.com. He’s got the YouTube channel as well. And then Fidelity Lake Houston was another YouTube channel you gave during the episode as well too. So it’s how you can connect with Chris. Chris, this was awesome. Thanks for imparting wisdom here and giving very practical stuff of what people are usually searching for. What are the first things or when should you engage with a lawyer as well? I thought that was good and not telling them, oh yeah, you need it from day one all the time. Give us good stuff. So make sure to go to his site and remember if you need help on the financial end, if you’re on your way to that million and wanting to keep more of what you’re making, go to simple cfo.com. We can help you from the CFO and the financial department perspective. We want to help you get to where you want to be. Chris, thanks again for being a great guest.

Speaker 1 (32:30):

Thanks for having me on. I appreciate you for

Speaker 3 (32:32):

Sure. And remember, if you’re listening, make Profit a Habit in your business. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (32:39):

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.

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?

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):

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.