J. Massey, real estate investor, entrepreneur, sales coach, instructor, master facilitator of Robert Kiyosaki’s CASHFLOW 101 games and creator of Cashflow™ Diary, offers free training courses for new and experienced investors. Break through the clutter of learning real estate and business investing and become a successful entrepreneur. Listen to beneficial strategies to improve your skills in prospecting, placing offers, closing deals, buying, selling, wholesaling, fix & Flips, rehabs and much more. By way of Cashflow™ Diary, J. Massey basically gives away current industry strategies by simply teaching what he does daily as a real estate practitioner. Start Learning For Free Today.
How to Launch Your Side Hustle with Troy Underwood
Troy R. Underwood is an industry disruptor. Part technologist, part economist, and all innovator, he revolutionized the motor vehicle industry with the nation’s first electronic title system for financial institutions, which was later sold for $106 million. His healthcare venture, benefitsCONNECT, innovated healthcare benefits administration and resulted in a highly successful acquisition. His new book is How to Launch Your Side Hustle: Start and Scale a Business with Minimal Capital. Learn more at troyrunderwood.com. Podcast Highlights Who is Troy Underwood? Troy considers himself a necessity entrepreneur and has been doing the entrepreneurial thing since elementary school. Troy has sold all sorts of products including greeting cards, seeds, and computers. Whatever the opportunity was, Troy was willing to take advantage of it. For the average entrepreneurial minded person, the problem is having too many ideas. They need to take these ideas and pick one, then execute, and then when they get bored they have to keep pushing instead of flipping to the next one. Ideas are everywhere, execution, perseverance, and discipline is what’s rare. Even a mediocre idea, when executed well, can work out. Troy’s original plan was to become a doctor, not an entrepreneur. It wasn’t until Troy took an economics course on a dare that he realized that he loved the study of economics and completely switched tracks. He kept up his involvement in computers and software development, and found himself in the right place and the right time to offer a solution that jump-started a business. Is now the right time to start something? Now may actually be a great time to start a new business, especially for those who have been laid off with nothing to go back to. If you’ve been thinking about it for a while and you have an idea, if everything else is relatively stable, now could be the right time to give it a shot. Being an entrepreneur isn’t an exact science, you just have to take the cards you're dealt and play them the best you can. If you’re someone who craves certainty and security, don’t be an entrepreneur. You are able to mitigate some of that risk by being a business owner instead of an entrepreneur, for example opening a franchise which has a higher rate of success. If you’re looking for certainty, you’re not going to find it in your own business. Who should be an entrepreneur? Creative thinkers and risk takers are the people who should be entrepreneurs. There is a lot of risk and opportunity cost in building a business and you need to be okay with taking that on. If you’re driven by necessity you are going to have much more motivation to push through the difficult times and figure out solutions to complicated problems that can keep a business running. Why a side hustle instead doing something BIG? Troy compares a side hustle to a rocket ship launch. It’s not just about keeping a side hustle, it’s about building something that you know will be big eventually, something that replaces your full time job in time and is worth investing in. For Troy, it’s not abou
5/11/2020 • 37 minutes, 18 seconds
Be Your Own Banker and Grow More Wealth with Mark Willis
Mark Willis, is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, a #1 Best Selling Author and the owner of Lake Growth Financial Services, a financial firm in Chicago, Illinois. Over the years, he has helped hundreds of his clients take back control of their financial future and build their businesses with sophisticated, tax-efficient financial solutions. Mark Willis specializes in building custom-tailored financial strategies that are unknown to typical stock-jockeys, attorneys, or other financial gurus. As co-host of the Not Your Average Financial Podcast, he shares some of his strategies for investing in real estate, saving and paying for college without going broke, and creating an income in retirement you can’t outlive. Mark Willis works with people who want to grow their wealth in ways that are safe and predictable, become their own source of financing, and create tax-free income in retirement. Podcast Highlights Who is Mark Willis? Mark’s college years are where the story begins. It was then that Mark met his future wife as well as the first woman they rented a room to. The year that they graduated school was 2008 and they left with $120,000 in student loan debt. With no jobs in the middle of a recession that was a big problem. Over the next few years the goal of Mark and his wife was to figure out a way to build true wealth and be better than debt free. Since then Mark has learned how to become the banker in his own life and become financially immune to recession. What was the plan you were thinking about going into school pre-2008? Like many students, Mark assumed that the money would keep on coming and didn’t think too much about the future. Studies have shown that the area of the brain associated with our future selves is the same part of the brain that’s associated with thinking about strangers, and how much are you going to save for a stranger’s retirement? The problem is not just the 18 year olds being handed thousands of dollars of student debt, the entire country has been on a trajectory to become a nation of debtors for generations. We have become a nation enslaved to bankers, credit cards, and debt and it’s not the interest that’s the problem, it’s the volume of debt that we are carrying around. Unfortunately the current crisis has hit us at a moment in history where we are completely unprepared for it at a financial level. Mark didn’t graduate with a finance degree and their journey began by taking baby steps towards becoming debt free. They went lean and put as much towards their debt as possible while also doing whatever they could do generate additional passive income. Figuring out the money situation became such a passion that Mark wanted to dive into on a professional level and started working for a CPA in the midst of the Great Recession. That was when he realized that the whole financial industry was a house of cards. Where is it written that we have to put all of our money into things we can’t access, have no control over, and multiple people with our hands in our pockets? The moment where things completely changed was when a mentor of Mark’s suggested that the path most people follow could be wrong. What needed to be different from what you were previously doing? There were two things. The first was taking action immediately instead of waiting for the perfect conditions. You might make a few mistakes but it’s better tha
5/7/2020 • 37 minutes
Contact Marketing Secrets: How to Get a Meeting With Anyone
Stu Heinecke is the Hall of Fame “Father of Contact Marketing" and Founder/President of the Contact Marketing Agency and Cartoonlink, which helps sales teams break through using contact marketing solutions to produce critical contact with accounts and prospects. He is a longstanding senior cartoonist for the Wall Street Journal and the bestselling author of How to Get a Meeting with Anyone: The Untapped Selling Power of Contact Marketing and the new book Get the Meeting!: An Illustrative Contact Marketing Playbook. He hosts Contact Marketing Radio and the How to Get a Meeting With Anyone podcast, and is Co-founder of Cartoonists.org, a coalition of famed cartoonists dedicated to raising funds for charity, while raising the profile of the cartooning art form. Podcast Highlights Who is Stu Heinecke? The ability to get meetings with anyone is a kind of superpower. Every great thing that happens in our lives is due to having the right connections at the right time. Stu studied marketing at USC but cartooning had been something that he always loved, so much so that by the time he was in college he was getting some of his work published in the newspapers in Los Angeles. Cartoons have an incredible power to captivate people’s attention so they became a fundamental element to Stu’s marketing strategies. Back in the early days of marketing, David Ogilvy used to say “humor doesn’t work in advertising, and people don’t buy from clowns.” Stu was one of the people proving him wrong. Initially there was a lot of resistance against the idea, but Stu was able to convince a couple of his first clients, including Rolling Stone, to give it a try and they ended up getting extraordinary results. Contact Marketing In marketing you are always testing a new campaign against a control group, usually the most effective thing the company has ever put out. Stu’s first test campaigns beat out the controls of both Rolling Stone and Bon Appetit and became their new records. He realized that he needed to reach out to some of the key players in the magazine industry and sent each of them a customized cartoon. Most marketers use the 1% rule to measure a response rate against the performance of a campaign, for Stu’s campaign he got a 100% response rate, and they also all became clients of his, so his conversion rate was 100% as well. That initial contact marketing campaign launched Stu’s business and career. How can we cut through the noise with contact marketing? Contact marketing is not just about cartooning, that’s only one way of breaking through. One of Stu’s favorite contact marketing examples involves a guy named Dan Walshman. Dan is a turnaround specialist and works with CEOs of companies that are in trouble. After combing the business news each day looking for earnings reports, when he finds one that looks to be suffering he gets a beautiful sword created that’s engraved with the CEO’s name on it. He sends that to them with a handwritten note and has been getting a 100% response from that campaign
4/23/2020 • 52 minutes, 21 seconds
Creating Passive Income with Chris Miles
As founder of Money Ripples, host of The Chris Miles Money Show, and co-author of the book Entrepreneur on Fire, Chris Miles is a leading authority on quickly creating wealth by increasing monthly cash flow and creating passive income. He has shown hundreds of thousands internationally how to free up or generate tens of thousands of dollars each year! Chris has been featured in US News, CNNMoney, and Bankrate.com and has a reputation for getting his clients fast, proven results. Many of his clients have the option to retire in less than 5-10 years, and Chris himself was able to retire twice by age 39! Chris’s passion is helping entrepreneurs, and high-income employees become financially prosperous by finding and fixing their money leaks and creating passive income. Chris and his family live in Utah, but enjoy escaping to warmer weather during the winter months. In addition to helping his clients increase their cash flow, Chris is a talented ballroom dancer, choreographed ballroom dance routines for Utah Valley University, and got 5th place in his third grade spelling bee. Podcast Highlights What’s going on in your world today? Since the last time Chris was on the show nearly five years ago Chris was able to retire for the second time in his life. The first time he retired was at the age of 28, this time around at the age of 39 Chris was looking for something new. He never wanted to be full time again and as an educator at heart Chris continued working on his podcast and teaching people the same strategies that he used. Chris is looking at the current situation in the world and seeing all the opportunities available to those that have been prepared. Preparation The previous recession caused Chris a lot of problems and that’s when he learned the key lesson of never relying on only a few streams of income, because when those get shut off you’re out of luck. Chris has a number of clients that are currently unable to work but because they have set up multiple streams of income beforehand they are able to ride out the problem. If you weren’t prepared for the coronavirus, you need to do whatever you can. So many people have no idea what to do right now it’s like they’ve been stunned. There are several areas that people are not taking advantage of their money right now. One is the money in mutual funds and retirement plans, people pouring more money into the stock market right now are making a big mistake. What should people do right now? Get lean, get liquid, and get out. Even during the great depression there were people that prospered and those that did were the ones who got lean and were looking for opportunities. Liquid cash is where you want to be right now, having enough cash on hand to weather the storm is crucial. Money never comes from the government in the time you expect so don’t rely on them for help right now. If you have time, start looking for ways to create value and make money. That could be short term rentals or other forms of real estate. Creating Passive Income The one big mistake that Chris made in the prior recession was in aiming for growth instead of plain old cash flow. The result was he went way too big on his deals and ended up losing the properties. This time, instead of going for sexy Chris went for certain. The trouble is flashy $80,000 che
4/20/2020 • 37 minutes, 13 seconds
Conquering Corona With Kyle Stanley
Kyle Stanley is the host of the Fearless Flipping podcast where he educates new hungry real estate investors about best practices for getting started. We flip the roles into today’s episode with J being interviewed for Kyle’s podcast. Find out how J is conquering the coronavirus and adjusting his short term rental business to be even more successful than before. Podcast Highlights How did you get to this point and what brought you into the short term rental business? The keyword for J is cash flow, everything he’s done in terms of business is around generating an income without physically going to work. Due to some very challenging physical ailments where both J and his wife were unable to work and earn money, they needed to figure out a solution which is what led him to real estate. Everything he should have been doing should have been geared towards creating cash flow. The next two years were transformational for J’s business. He had no money, terrible credit, no way to earn an income, and was selling his possessions on eBay when a friend recommended he start investing in real estate. His friend didn’t let those obstacles stop him and in a relatively short amount of time J closed his first subject-to deal. How did you find your first deal? You need to move at the speed of instruction. We need to be more like Walmart. Walmart perfected just in time inventory, we need to perfect just in time learning. There are certain parts of a real estate transaction that you don’t need to know yet, you need to learn the first step and then go out and take that step. There is no real benefit to understanding everything before you take any action. Trust yourself to learn what you need to know when you need to know it and go out there and take action. That’s exactly how J found and put together his first deal, one piece at a time. Real estate is a skill the marketplace rewards. We can all learn to play the real estate game once we’ve been told the rules and practiced a bit. Within 3 weeks of closing his first deal J closed an additional 10 deals in the span of a week, which was a complete mindset shift for him. Fear is what holds all of us back, but we like to tell ourselves that we’re just being prudent. When you’re afraid any excuse will do. You have to ask yourself has anyone overcome the thing you’re afraid of because if that’s the case, the fear is not an excuse. How are you operating right now? Most short term rental operators think about the business incorrectly and they need to understand what the problem actually is. Changing your thinking from “I have an Airbnb business” to “I have a short term rental business” will unlock your mindset and allow you to see new opportunities. The short term rental business has existed since the American Civil War. When the coronavirus hit, J’s business took a significant hit but that hasn’t removed the need for what his business provides. J’s business is still on all the marketplaces like Airbnb and Booking.com and he’s now adding additional channels that he planned on including later in the year. He’s also increasing the amount of online advertising he’s doing and offering coupons and discounts to previous customers. At the end of the day it comes down to whether you understand the problem. It’s not like the business is bad, it’s just that the person with the need doe
4/16/2020 • 36 minutes, 45 seconds
Protecting Your Assets In A Changing Marketplace
Let me introduce you to Scott Smith, a new breed of real estate attorney with a great sense of humor and a gift for simplifying the complex. His Austin startup, Royal Legal Solutions, has a different take on protecting your assets including real estate investments and already serves thousands of clients across all 50 states. As a former litigation attorney, Scott has a deep understanding of how lawsuits really work. More importantly, he is a real estate investor himself, with property in 10 states. Now he’s sharing his information with the world and is committed to helping other real estate investors protect their futures. Podcast Highlights Who is Scott Royal Smith? At the heart of it all, Scott is a guy that likes to solve hard problems and then show people the solutions he’s found. He can then connect with people in an empathetic way and help them make positive changes in their lives. Spiritual development is very important to Scott, the biggest KPI that Scott focuses on is his sense of well being and how he shows up in the world. Awareness of your own being is the only way to connect with other people. It doesn’t matter how great your ideas are unless you can connect with what’s true with somebody else. Scott’s mindset was passed down by his mother who taught him that there are two types of people in the world, people who think things happen to them and people that think that things happen for them. When life happens for you, you have a responsibility to reflect on and grow from your experiences. Why did you choose to become an attorney? Scott started his career as a litigator suing insurance companies with the overall goal of trying to change the industry. One thing he found along the way was you have to be really careful about what you want because you just might get it, and if it turns out you don’t like it you’re in trouble. Scott had been investing in real estate at the same time and was making more money investing than he was in his career, so he just decided to make the switch on what he was focusing on. It was in the process of learning the real estate investing ropes that he encountered a bunch of interesting problems that a lot of people were constantly asking about and that was the seed for Royal Legal Solutions. Now he teaches people how to make complex real estate investing problems simple. Scott doesn’t consider himself an attorney now. He may hold a law license, but what he does now is focus on helping investors. From a business owner perspective, what are the things that we should be thinking about but are overlooking right now? Real estate investing is also a business once you get to a certain point and protecting your assets becomes absolutely crucial. The things that impact business owners will also impact real estate investors. The first step is to tap into any established lines of credit you have. Long term secured debt is ideal with low interest rates. Pull out as much cash as you can because we don’t know what’s going to happen with liquidity markets and they are probably going to seize up. If they do and you have cash, you will have money on hand to take advantage of opportunities that come up. If
4/13/2020 • 46 minutes, 18 seconds
Public Speaking Tips and Strategies with Jacqueline Nagle
With a diverse career crossing professional services, mining services, civil construction, manufacturing, industrial relations Jacqueline has used public speaking-centric strategies extensively to launch, pivot and manage both growth and crisis across all of those organizations. For 15 years Jacqueline has successfully trained consultants, professionals, business owners, executives and the C-Suite in public speaking, sales, presenting, core messaging, negotiating and positioning, before turning her attention more specifically to the craft of speaking in early 2017. Since then Jacqueline has worked with 100’s of emerging and established speakers across Australia and the USA. Jacqueline’s training has been delivered to some of Australia’s major corporate brands including Tattersalls (The Lott) and Anglicare, and her programs have been picked up by the Australian Institute of Sport Gold Medal Alumni Program in Canberra, and she has recently been awarded Certified Speaking Professional. Podcast Highlights Who is Jacqueline Nagle? Jacqueline is a girl that had a plan for her life, one that involved becoming a lawyer in New York. But life happens and in her early 20’s she moved to Melbourne and fell into a job in recruitment where she discovered she loved the work. What originally started out as a temporary six week position turned into a sixteen year career. Much of Jacqueline’s later success can be attributed to all the different things she learned in that career. It was where she found her first mentor and learned that one of the best ways to excel is to be insatiably curious and constantly learning. Her mentor also instilled Jacqueline’s love of story for conveying lessons and that became the foundation for how she operates now. Jacqueline’s moment where she decided to venture out on her own occurred after she made herself redundant as CEO at a company she was working at. After a three month transition period, Jacqueline was in her early 40’s and had a moment to consider what she really wanted to do. She tapped into her love for public speaking and decided to go to every speaking event within a 50 km radius. That was when she found that there are actually very few good public speakers in the world and that something was missing. She put together a pilot program and got some great success teaching people that they have something powerful to say and when they know how to say it, they can create something powerful as a result. Plans Change Sometimes our plans change, but that doesn’t mean that the goal stops existing, just that the way you get there becomes different. For Jacqueline, she didn’t become a New York lawyer but she found that the skills she learned over the course of her career allowed her to operate similar to a lawyer. It wasn’t until she realized that was she comfortable with the fact that her plan had changed. We need to recognize that this is a moment in time, and it may be hard and difficult and your path may change, but the goal is still there. We have to let go of follow a rigid path and adapt to changing circumstances. The thing that we love to do and the way that we bring value to the world hasn’t changed. What does it mean to honor the audience’s time? Even if you’re speaking for free you have to honor your audience’s time because they are giving you their most precious commodity. You have to be there to serve, not to be self indulgent. You have the privilege of the platform when you’re speaking. Explain to people what you know to be true about the world through story and give them something of value. Storytelling is not about you, it’s about creating belief and trust and connecting with the people in front of you at an unconscious level. How can today’s entreprene
4/9/2020 • 45 minutes, 57 seconds
What To Do When The AirBnB Business Changes
Kyle Stanley is the host of the Fearless Flipping podcast where he educates new hungry real estate investors about best practices for getting started. Kyle is also a master with AirBnB and believes it's the best form of almost-completely-passive income in today's economy. Podcast Highlights Who is Kyle Stanley? Kyle doesn’t like the term “serial entrepreneur”, he prefers the idea of FOCUS (focus on one course until success). Kyle had to make a lot of adjustments over his career based on his skills and what he enjoyed. Kyle started out as a sports anchor in Colorado for a local news station, started a sports videographer company, and moved into the MLM world where he got his first taste of the idea of passive income. In 2018, Kyle’s dad’s health took a turn for the worst and ended up in a hospice which led to Kyle slowing down and reflecting on what he really wanted to do with his life. He began to listen to podcasts on real estate investing and found the idea to really resonate with him which was how he ended up getting involved with fixing and flipping homes. Coincidentally Kyle had been house hacking his home with an AirBnB business without realizing that that it would also count as working in real estate. Once he really started to look into what else he could do with an AirBnB business, Kyle went from earning $1000 a month to $15,000 a month over the span of five months in 2019. Even in the days of the coronavirus Kyle’s short term rental business is still doing very well. Why videography? Being a sports anchor means being a one man band so Kyle learned a lot of different skills as part of the job. He also learned that he didn’t particularly love being on the news and he saw an opportunity to make videos for athletes to help them get into college. He took what he learned working in news and put it into a business that he believed he could thrive in, but lacking mentorship at the time was a serious downside. The Passive Income Transformation Kyle hadn’t even heard the words passive income until he was 26 years old. Kyle’s model for entrepreneurship was his father who ran a very successful business, but running the business meant extremely long hours. When Kyle got older he realized that his father was a slave to his business, something Kyle did not want to be, and it wasn’t until Kyle started working in the MLM did he get exposed to the idea of outsourcing and making a business more passive. Getting around people on a higher level that had learned how to create systems that can automate income is what first changed Kyle’s mindset around business. The missing piece was something that he was passionate about and real estate ended up being the key. Kyle now helps more people in the short term rental industry than he ever did pushing vitamins and supplements. The Allure of Real Estate and an “AirBnB Business” The big thing for Kyle when he got started flipping properties was helping people get a better return on their money. Creating all the job opportunities at the same time was a nice bonus as well. Kyle is also a numbers person, so analyzing a deal and crunching the numbers makes him excited. When he started looking at AirBnB as a business and he found that he could make $20,000 to $30,000 on one project,
4/2/2020 • 36 minutes, 53 seconds
This Is Your Defining Moment with Chad Peterson
Chad Peterson is an expert business broker and the founder of Peterson Acquisitions, an award-winning M&A firm. Chad’s firm handles transactions in the $1 million to $25 million range, with some deals exceeding $25 million. He works with companies all over the United States and has completed international deals as well. Peterson Acquisitions was recently named by one publication as the #1 ranked business broker in the United States. What sets Chad Peterson apart from all other business brokers is his aggressive style, work ethic and tenacity that are rooted in his humble beginnings. Chad Peterson is a self-made entrepreneur that has been in the trenches. He has started, built and sold 6 of his own businesses. Chad wrote the book “From Blue to White: A Working Man’s Guide to Self-Employment”. Best-selling author Scott Alexander of “Rhinoceros Success” wrote the foreword. He also wrote the book “Swinging Doors: A Guide to Selling Your Business” and is the host of the podcast:Business Brokers: Buying, Selling & Growing Businesses Podcast Highlights Who is Chad Peterson? If you study people who are driven you will always find a point in time where it all began. For Chad, he grew up in a tumultuous house with a difficult upbringing and early on his defining moment was realizing that he had to do things on his own. In his words “if it was meant to be it was up to me.” He worked hard as a kid, earned his own money and quickly enough people started to recognize that and praise him for his effort. As a natural entrepreneur, Chad had difficulty in school and found himself in the work program. He eventually became a commercial pilot but that career was cut short by 9/11 and he quickly went back to his entrepreneurial roots. He built several companies and sold them over the next few years until the second inflection point of his life. In 2008, Chad had built a company that had 120 employees and was making $7 to $10 million a year. The trouble was the company was in the subprime mortgage industry and was completely destroyed by the crisis. In only a few short months, Chad went from a millionaire to broke. Instead of being defeated, Chad picked himself up and built a different company selling home services and things carried on. Eventually people started asking him how to build and sell businesses, which is how Chad ended up where he is now and a top business broker in the United States. The Impact of Mindset Chad feels that his mindset of his life being up to him is responsible for at least 85% of his success. When you’re hungry in your soul, you will make things happen. Success is survival, and for Chad if he doesn’t feel like he’s progressing he feels like he’s dying. Why $700 to $1000 a day? Home services between $700 and $1000 are still affordable for most Americans, even during a recession. By going for volume instead of a high price tag he knew that more people would take him up on his offer. During hard economic times, volume will beat out margin and a steady flow of income is important to keeping things going. Taking Risk When There Is Fear In The Marketplace There are people who act now that will make a huge amount of money during this crisis. It may seem logical to wait when you’re afraid or uncertain, but that’s what kills an economy. We are in a collapse scenario and fear is only going to
3/26/2020 • 41 minutes, 18 seconds
GoodEgg Investments Founders Talk Real Estate Syndications
Annie Dickerson and Julie Lam are the co-founders and managing partners of Goodegg Investments, a premier real estate investing company that helps people learn about and invest in real estate syndications (group investments). They are both moms (Annie has 2 kids and Julie has 3) and are passionate about helping other families build passive income so they can spend more time with the people they love, doing the things they love, and living a life by design. Podcast Highlights Who is Annie Dickerson and Julie Lam? Annie started as an elementary school teacher and after setting out to buy her first house with her husband she was exposed to the idea of house hacking. They purchased a row home, something pretty common in DC, and rented out the bottom portion to help pay down their mortgage. After that experience they started looking at investing in other properties out of state, and that later developed into property syndications and getting to know Julie in the process. Julie started investing in real estate in 2009 with her husband. They purchased a number of properties in the Bay area and as the market started to mature they sold off a number of those properties in 2013 and 2016. It was then that Julie started to really think about the best way of investing that will work the hardest for her lifestyle. That’s when she realized that investing for cash flow could be the solution. She quickly realized that that’s a long term strategy and she wanted to be able to scale. That led her to the idea of getting into passive investing in multifamily real estate with syndications. Julie and Annie met at a real estate conference and being among the few women at that conference, they hit it off. Partnership wasn’t discussed at that point but as they got to know each other and found that they each loved complimentary facets of the business, partnering up seemed like a great idea. Annie loves the content creation and education portion of the business and Julie loves the deal making and negotiating aspects, so they work very well together. Why GoodEgg Investments? GoodEgg is about building your nest egg and investing for good. It’s not about just putting your money to work for you, it’s also about leaving a legacy for your family and having a positive impact on society. Coming up with a business name can be a major challenge for new entrepreneurs. The process that Annie went through involved looking at the existing names of businesses in the space, and then thinking outside the box to try to find something really unique. The idea behind the name and the concept was what really brought Julie on board. Creating Content As A Real Estate Investor Before working Annie, Julie spent a huge amount of time on the phone with potential investors answering the same questions over and over again. What was missing was a better thought leadership platform that allowed people to get to know them. After establishing their platform and making content creation the foundation of the business model, those conversations became much easier as the investor often felt like they already knew them, liked them, and trusted them.
3/16/2020 • 50 minutes, 59 seconds
The Power of Mighty Networks with Gina Bianchini
Gina Bianchini is the Founder & CEO of Mighty Networks. Her mission at Mighty Networks is to usher in a new era of creative business built on community. Mighty serves “creators with a purpose” selling experiences, relationships, and expertise to their members via community, content, online courses, and subscription commerce–all offered in one place under the creator’s brand. Before Mighty Networks, Gina and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen launched Ning, a pioneering global platform for creating niche social networks. Under her leadership, Ning grew to ~100 million people in 300,000 active social networks across subcultures, professional networks, entertainment, politics, and education. In addition to Mighty Networks, Gina serves as a board director of TEGNA (NYSE: TGNA), a $3 billion dollar broadcast and digital media company, and served as a board director of Scripps Networks (NASDAQ: SNI), an $12 billion dollar public company which owns HGTV, The Food Network, and The Travel Channel that merged with Discovery Communications in 2018. Podcast Highlights Who is Gina Bianchini? The seed that ultimately became Gina’s mission in her work was growing up in a time and place and a family of incredibly curious people. Gina’s father had a passion for restoring old cars and her mother was always curious about the world around her, so much so that Gina can’t remember a time when she wasn’t reading a book. Growing up in Cupertino gave Gina incredible opportunities because she found herself surrounded by people who would go on to be involved with things that would become LinkedIn, Facebook, and other major social networks. It was then that her friend came to her with the idea to create a new platform that gave people the ability to create social apps the same way they could create websites. The common thread in Gina’s work has been the realization that people are awesome. Being able to bring people together around an interest or passion or goal is something that unlocks people’s abilities to create and participate in the world. One of the most powerful ways to go from point A to point B is through connecting with other people. What is so different about Mighty Networks? Gina has a very specific definition of community that helps describe what she is doing, namely “bringing people together to master something interesting or important together”. The real power is when there is a person leading a community and curating it to create those conditions of mastery. The network is the evolution and refinement of what’s going on at the intersection of online courses, podcasts, and communities. When you move away from thinking about all of those as separate pieces and start thinking your mission is to create the conditions for people to master something interesting together, that’s when the magic happens. People are craving transformation in their lives, and being able to master something interesting is how they do that. If they could do that on their own by reading a book, they would, but that isn’t always the case. That’s why they pull out their credit card and pay for courses and communities. People will pay a premium for being a part of courses or communities that master som
3/12/2020 • 54 minutes, 28 seconds
Jimmy Murray and the Power of Visualization
How do you house hack your way to financial freedom with hardly any money down? How do you build a best-in-class property management company? What is the best day to do a home inspection? What does it mean to be #rentready? Jimmy Murray has all the answers and he is ready to share them with your podcast listeners today. Over the past ten years, Jimmy’s multifamily real estate investments have blossomed into a successful property management company, Lyon Property Management Group. An investor himself, Jimmy intimately understands the needs of an investor landlord. And that’s why Lyon Property Management is tailored to the multifamily investor. Jimmy is also an investor educator along with Lyon Property Group co-founder Frank Patalano. Jimmy and Frank host a podcast called The Cashflow Kings where they have been known to pass out free golden nuggets of real estate wisdom. Podcast Highlights Who is Jimmy Murray? Jimmy Murray was always a thoughtful kid but he also had an entrepreneurial tilt. Real estate didn’t come along in Jimmy’s life until 8th grade when he wrote a letter to himself where he imagined what real estate and stocks he owned by the time he was finished high school. Jimmy tends to over analyze everything, which fits perfectly with his INTJ Myers-Briggs result. Acorn Theory Jimmy Murray recently learned about Acorn Theory, where we all start as a small acorn with a guide that helps us grow into a massive oak tree. Sometimes it takes longer to accomplish that, but your goal should always be to realize your oak tree potential. For Jimmy, he didn’t know what the path was that he would take, but he knew that Real Estate was going to be the shape of things. It doesn’t matter where you start, it matters where you finish. Jimmy’s degree which helped him land a job at a well respected financial firm came from Ohio State University, but he started off in a local community college. His original strategy was to get a job on Wall Street, make a pile of money, and then invest in real estate but it didn’t work out that way. Instead, he found himself failing the CFA exam and being forced to decide whether to invest more time and money in passing the test, or just jumping into real estate and buying his first multifamily property. Small, daily habits are the foundation for long term success. Progress happens a little bit each day, your goal shouldn’t be to get there immediately. Failures are the stepping stones on your way to success. Sometimes your closest mentors will tell you not to pursue your dream goals, but if you believe in it enough you should be willing to chase what you want. Is there anything you wanted someone to say to you when you were starting off? Not everyone is going to believe in your vision along the way, but as long as you do, no one else has to. Jimmy wouldn’t change the way things played out when he decided to get into real estate. Why did you go into property management? When Jimmy Murray bought his first property, he also started wholesaling with the belief that wholesaling would be the way he was going to escape his cubicle. Despite being an
3/9/2020 • 36 minutes, 55 seconds
How Much Money Can I Make With Short Term Rentals?
We’re exploring the question that almost everybody considering short term rentals asks, how much money can you make with a short term rental unit? The answer may surprise you. We’ve also got a recent Roadmap student on the line to tell us about their experience in securing their very first units, and yes, that’s plural, as in multiple units their very first deal. The Cashflow Diary Roadmap J and the Cashflow Diary are dedicated to providing hands on and direct training to students that want to create their own six and seven figure short term rental businesses. Members get access to hundreds of hours of content covering every aspect of building a short term rental business including cash flow, negotiations, operations, lead generation, seller financing, and more. Everything you need to develop the skills you need to become the bravest entrepreneur you can be. The content is one thing, but knowledge alone isn’t going to get you to your goals. That’s why the program is designed with hands on training and accountability built in, training that shows you how to use expert tools expertly. As Roadmap members you get access to every course and training J has produced over the last several years, some of which people have paid upwards of $5000 for, but you also get assigned a dedicated accountability to make it all happen. They will take you on a 12 month transformational journey through all three phases of the short term rental business, holding your hand each step of the way. Members are also the first people who will get access to the Cashflow Diary app which will tie everything together. The app will connect the content and the community in a way that we’ve never been able to do before. When it comes to short term rentals, things change every 90 to 120 days. Your customers will change, there are high and low seasons, and there’s always something new to learn. This is why the accountability coach is so important, they will make sure that you stick to the plan and hold you to accomplishing your goals. When I got started I set a goal of getting 10 units a year, and have had some interesting interactions with landlords so far and I may have to reevaluate my goals. This caller just started their entrepreneurial journey and ran into a little opposition right off the bat, but that quickly turned into an opportunity to pick up 3 units right now, with the potential to pick up an additional 40. He used the scripts exactly as provided by the training program to get to his first game changing yes. In doing the research for his area in preparation of setting up his business he found that the other short term rental operators are barely putting in any effort at all. After having some conversations with people, he was asked to join a local BNI group and speak on what he’s doing with short term rentals and has been generating a lot of excitement around the whole idea. How much money can I make with short term rentals? Go to rentometer.com and enter in whatever address you think may be a good spot to open up a short term rental unit. Whatever the rent number that comes up, multiply that number by 2. That’s a conservative number for the rest of your calculations. A good rule of thumb is that you can expect to earn around $800 per bedroom each month. You do have to keep in mind however that your firs
3/5/2020 • 45 minutes, 28 seconds
The Short Term Rental Entrepreneur’s Roadmap To Mastery Q&A
You’ve tried reading a book and watching a video, you’ve also probably tried going to a couple conferences, and the trouble is that’s not enough for you to make transformational changes in your business. That’s why J developed the Cashflow Diary Roadmap program, to provide short term rental entrepreneurs the hands on training and accountability they need to succeed in this business. Questions and Answers A question about wholesaling a property Inside the wholesaling course within the app is enough information to walk through everything you need to know when it comes to marketing and closing a wholesaling deal. The more important point is that when you are on the path of becoming a short term rental entrepreneur, you have to stay focused on short term rentals. You’re not going to get the success you want by constantly being distracted by other deals and opportunities. You need to focus on achieving a specific result, and members of the Cashflow Diary Roadmap are held accountable to those results. If you chase two squirrels, both will escape. It doesn’t mean the other squirrel isn’t valuable, but you need to focus. As you learn more, you will begin to see more opportunity, and that may actually become one of the biggest challenges for the accountability coaches. Their job will be to keep you on track so you can keep making progress instead of constantly starting new projects without finishing them. If we want to purchase an apartment for short term rental purposes, how are we going to make the bank recognize the performance and count as part of the income? You’re going to work with your CFO so you can get the correct type of financial statements together so that it ties into your tax return properly, but also when they are going to look for the raw data obtained from your bookkeeper, everything matches. The first step is to get a bookkeeper if you haven’t done that already. If you can’t present clean and accurate financial statements yet, there is no reason to talk to a bank. Is the “Add tax” feature on AirBnB additional? It is and the challenge with the feature is that it’s being done automatically for some people and not for other people in different areas. This can actually put you at a disadvantage in the search results. Got my first booking, what application should I be using to communicate with my guest? It comes down to setting up a separate email address that everyone on the team has access to that allows the team to communicate with guests directly. There is always a new pricing tool in the works that we are going to be talking about shortly that allows us to unify communication with all the different platforms. When the Q&A’s move to the app, are you going to make announcements when the transition happens? Yes and keep in mind that nobody is losing access to anything, only the platform and delivery mechanism is changing. Putting everything on the app will allow members to communicate with each other much more easily and that means we all get to take advantage of the increased network effects. Always make sure a property works as a long term rental as well as a short term rental. What do you think of that advice? The real question
3/2/2020 • 2 hours, 1 minute, 37 seconds
Move At The Speed Of Instruction Q&A
Humans don’t transform overnight. Most people can’t just read a book or watch a video and completely change their life immediately. You’re not going to be able to pick up a bunch of short term rental units right away. That’s the reason that J developed the Cashflow Diary Roadmap, the Roadmap is a program that combines an immense library of content and training and accountability coaching to make sure you achieve your short term rental goals. Questions and Answers Moving at the Speed of Instruction When you’re moving at the speed of instruction, you don’t have the time to question your capacity to do something. With a little bit of trust and follow through, you can accomplish more than you would believe is currently possible. Humans tend not to value as much as they should. If you want to achieve anything worthwhile, you need to be willing to fail. Fail frequently, and fail forward. One of the things about schooling that prevents you from getting ahead is the belief that you must learn everything in the program or book before you are qualified to act. It’s much more effective to read a chapter, then put the book down and put what you learned into action. You will get much more out of what you learn by combining it with actual experience. How do we secure POE cameras to prevent them from unplugging? The cameras that J recommends are hard wired directly into the electricity of the house so they can’t be unplugged. In the case of the caller, the installer didn’t run the wire through the walls so the simple solution is to bring them back in and redo the installation. I currently have a couple short term rental units and trying to figure out where to be next, where should I be looking? New Jersey is a good place to look since it’s one of the most short term rental friendly states in the country. I’ve been talking to a couple of landlords but have been having trouble conveying what we do, how do we approach this conversation? If a landlord has concerns about the number of people that are going to be staying in their unit, the key is to assure them that you screen guests just as thoroughly as they do and care just as much what kind of guests stay in the unit. Talk about the fact that you are always available because of your systems that you have in place and that it’s more common for you as a short term rental operator to have issues with long term tenants than they will have with your guests. Avoid telling the landlord the range of the number of people who could potentially stay at the unit, it’s better to describe a specific use situation so they can easily imagine the kind of guest you are describing. They don’t know that you have the capacity to screen people just as well as they do, so you have to be able to communicate that in a way that makes them feel more secure about doing business with you. If something does happen, you can also tell them the systems you have in place allow you to remove a guest from the property and involve the authorities if necessary much faster than they could due to the restrictions around their business model. Being detached from the outcome is also very important. If that particular landlord doesn’t take you up on your offer, that’s okay. You can move on to the next l
2/27/2020 • 1 hour, 19 minutes, 44 seconds
Short Term Rental Math and Your Magic Number
How would it feel to earn an entire year’s salary in only one month? When you understand the power of a short term rental business and crunch the numbers involved, the path becomes clear. J is going to break down everything you need to know about your Magic Number and how the Cashflow Diary Roadmap can help you achieve your business goals. If your short term rental business magically tripled overnight, how much more time would you have to spend running your business? If your answer is anything other than 0 extra time to deliver your service, you’re not operating as efficiently as you could. You’re not earning the highest revenue, or your expenses are higher than they need to be, or you’re investing too much of your time into delivering the service. With the right systems in place, you will be able to deliver more value to the marketplace without having to spend more time doing it. If the thought of your business tripling in 24 hours causes you anxiety around a particular area, that’s where the broken system is. The more systems you implement the more reliable and consistent your business becomes. Your Magic Number Math equals money. The one way you can measure how much money one unit can make compared to another is a metric called Revenue Per Available Room, also known as RevPar. To calculate your RevPar, you take your average daily rate and multiply it by your occupancy. This gives you a metric that tells you how much you’ve earned per day, per room. The occupancy rate for the entire hotel industry in 2019 was only 66.1%. The average daily rate for those hotels was $138.21 per stay. The average Revenue Per Available Room for hotels in 2019 is $86.76. The average customer review score for those same hotels was 80% with Marriott and Wyndham being tied for first place since 2008. To compare, J’s numbers for 2019 was an occupancy rate of 70.17%, an average daily rate of $128.34, a RevPar of $90.26, and average customer review score of 92.55%. Think of all the things that you believe are holding you back, now imagine what would happen if all those obstacles were gone tomorrow. How many units would you have by the end of the year with nothing in your way? Take that number of units and run the numbers, multiply by both the average hotel RevPar and J’s RevPar and that will give you a range that will tell you exactly how much money you could make every day if you accomplished your goals. Multiply that number by 365 to get your earnings per year. You can also break that number down even further and determine how much of an opportunity cost you’re paying each and every hour that you let those obstacles hold you back. The Cashflow Diary Roadmap J and the Cashflow Diary are dedicated to providing hands on and direct training to students that want to create their own six and seven figure short term rental bu
2/24/2020 • 2 hours, 24 minutes, 59 seconds
The Key Short Term Rental Systems That Allow You To Scale Your Business To Six Figures
The short term rental industry is waiting for people like you who want to be professional operators delivering a high quality experience. The hardest way to do this business is to go through the first year with only one unit. Putting the right short term rental systems in place that allow you to grow past that point and start running more units is the secret to long term success. Learn what systems you must implement in your short term rental business. Have you ever asked a traditional real estate investor or landlord about short term rentals? A good analogy is imagining what a person who owns a Costco franchise or someone who owns a vending machine business. Each person will have firmly believe that what they are doing is the best option, but the Costco person probably thinks the vending business is too much work, and the vending machine owner thinks the Costco is too much money upfront. The traditional landlord is like Costco, they are wholesaling their property in 12 month terms. Short term rentals are like the vending machine business, you’re both selling the same product, just with a different package and sales channel. The differences are the customers being served and the level of services you are providing. Short term rental operators are the retail version of real estate, we sell the property one day at a time, and the power is in our ability to be efficient. It’s the system that delivers the service, and that’s the difference between the two. As a resource becomes more available and efficient, demand for that resource starts to go up. Cell phones are a good example, they started off big and clunky and difficult to manufacture, but now they are small, powerful, and ubiquitous. Short term rental operators make real estate more efficient. The more efficiency we bring to the table, the more revenue we can drive in our businesses and other people’s organizations as well. The key to your future is putting this principle into effect for your life. Putting Short Term Rental Systems In Place There are a few key short term rental systems that have to be in place if you’re going to capture this efficiency. This includes a system for cleaning the unit on a regular basis, a maintenance and repair system for fixtures like doorknobs, a communication system for communicating with your guests, and a system for managing the availability of multiple calendars per property. Most of the time, we recommend people start out with AirBnB because they have the absolute best system for customer acquisition. But there are other platforms as well, and if you can operate efficiently on those platforms, you can make much more money per booking. If you’re going to make the maximum amount of profit in this business you need to have a system in place for availability 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This is probably the easiest area for us to outperform the market because the average short term rental operator has no system in place to handle inquiries and can sometimes take days to respond. You have to provide more value to the marketplace than just you are able to provide. It has to be bigger than you. That kind of thinking is how you unlock five figure paydays, six figure success, and seven figure freedom. Learning how to provide value to the marketplace efficiently allows you to scale and reach levels of income that most people have no idea how to achieve, in
2/20/2020 • 1 hour, 45 minutes, 41 seconds
Cashflow Diary Roadmap Q&A
Get the lowdown on the Cashflow Diary Roadmap program and how the program has been designed to get students to six and seven figure businesses as quickly as possible. Find out what makes the Cashflow Diary Roadmap different and how becoming a student in the next enrolment period could completely transform your life. What is the difference between what’s offered to Cashflow Diary Roadmap students versus traditional students? Cashflow Diary Roadmap students are the first to take advantage of the new Cashflow Diary app, a one stop location for training materials, networking opportunities, and additional features like a vendor marketplace. The app also allows us to bring on subject matter experts to provide help with specific areas. The app also connects Roadmap students to their accountability coach in a real time format. There are also a number of assessments that your accountability coach will help you get through, all of them designed to help you become a bigger, better, badder entrepreneur and keep you on track. You will have access to a monthly 45 minute coaching call and additional tracking tools to keep you on target. Cashflow Diary Roadmap students also get access to 3 weekly training calls that cover topics and tactics that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Everything in the Roadmap is centered around facilitating the transformation necessary to create six and seven figure businesses. Who are the accountability coaches? Each accountability coach is someone who has accomplished the things we are helping Roadmap students achieve. They have proven they have mastered the same material you will be studying as a Cashflow Diary Roadmap student. The whole point of the accountability coaches is to provide real time help for the students and eliminate what they perceive as roadblocks that are preventing them from moving forward. Does the Roadmap focus on a particular market? There is no one market that the Cashflow Diary Roadmap focuses on, but for the more exotic use cases of short term rentals there will be either additional training or resources made available for them. Will you be discontinuing the Q&A’s? The short answer is no, but where they are done and how they are done is changing. They are only going to be made available to members only. The previous format came with a lot of restrictions that prevented it from really solving the problems we are looking to solve. By changing the format we will be able to better serve the members and help them advance in towards their goals. Will there be a Facebook presence after this transfer? There will be a presence on Facebook, it will be focused on the other group. We will be doing more free training for members of that group but our primary focus will be on working with existing Roadmap students. The challenging thing with Facebook is disseminating information because Facebook gets to determine who sees what, which can make things difficult. The Roadmap is our effort in providing a solution to that problem. All the recommendations we have made in the program are tailored to help you get results as fast as possible without getting distracted by the next shiny new object. What is the opportunity cost
2/17/2020 • 55 minutes, 21 seconds
Getting Landlords To Say Yes
One of the unique things that you need to understand is that people do things for their reasons, not theirs, and their reasons make sense to them. Be careful about assuming that the way you think is the way that everyone thinks. When it comes to talking to landlords as a short term rental operator and getting them to say yes, there is a proven process that you can use to start the conversation and close the deal. Why do you think that landlords want? If you’re the one offering a solution to a problem, you’re in business. That means you need to understand the pain of the problem in order to make a sale/present yourself as the solution to the problem. If you’re not getting the answers from the people you’re talking to, it’s not the business model that’s broken, you’re probably just approaching the situation incorrectly. Many of us put off our pain until the last possible moment, landlords have pain too, you just have to understand what that pain is. When someone is in pain, they don’t care about a person’s pedigree as long as they believe they can solve their problem. When it comes to talking to landlords, their biggest problem is vacancy and as long as you can speak competently by understanding that the landlord conversation becomes much easier. The conversation is only difficult because you don’t yet have a thorough understanding of their problems yet. As you continue to have a better handle on the problem, you will run into another set of challenges. Namely, getting the person to admit that they have a problem. The average short term rental guest stays at a venue for 5.6 days. That means that roughly five times a month, the unit has to be cleaned from top to bottom, which is an interesting point you can bring up in conversation with a landlord. How often does that happen with a traditional long term rental situation? The answer is almost never. Another benefit to the landlord is a general decrease in wear and tear on the unit. Guests typically spend their time somewhere other than the unit itself, especially compared to long term tenants. Your relationship with a landlord is a symbiotic relationship where you are both helping each other. What do you think the landlord gains by working with you as a short term rental operator? The benefits of a consistently occupied unit not only leads to more reliable payments for the landlord, the building is valued based on its net operating income and if they can show that vacancy is going to be consistent, it can add up very fast for the landlord. The landlord also gets the advantage of decreased leasing fees and management fees. Working with you as a short term rental operator can save them thousands of dollars in leasing fees and every day the unit is vacant they are losing money, which is a problem you can solve directly. As a short term rental operator, the landlord can be confident that their property will be sufficiently covered by the right insurance, which is not something they can always rely on with traditional tenants. Short term rentals also get to take advantage of all the technology available that most landlords have no idea how to make use of, including increased security and fire protection. We can protect their property better than they or their tenant can. Professional operators can’t be taken advantage of in the way that the scare stories on the news are saying they can. How To Star
2/13/2020 • 1 hour, 43 minutes, 28 seconds
The Secret To Raising Capital From Investors
Do you want a six or seven figure real estate business that will actually allow you to retire from your job? Raising capital is a key skill you need to understand. The window of opportunity is wide open and there is more opportunity than you think in the short term rental business, now is the time to take action and get started. Why would a landlord allow you to lease their property and make more money than them? Landlords are in different places in their lives and the value different things, that’s what creates the opportunity for us. In fact, most retail businesses do exactly the same thing. The lease a location where they operate out of, in order to make more money than the cost of the lease. The principle is basically the same. What do you believe investors are looking for? What does it take for investors to say yes to giving you money? There are basically two things you need in order to get investors to say yes to you. Character and confidence. There are many different ways you can demonstrate those, producing content like a podcast or Youtube videos and they show up consistently. Demonstrating competence is also very important, because he who educates the market, dominates the market. Always answer at least one question with your content and actually helps people. When it comes to raising capital, there are three types of people that you want to be in front of: guests, landlords, and investors. Another thing to keep in mind is that investors are often the people right next to you, they are not always the person in the fancy suit. Every person has an investor identity and the most interchangeable piece of the process is the deal. Even if you don’t currently have a piece of property under contract right now, you should still be able to talk about who you serve, how you serve them, and everything the customer prefers. If you can’t talk confidently about that without having a particular address in mind, that’s where the problem in raising capital lies. You must become a professional information gatherer because that will put you into a position to diagnose, make a prognosis, and then prescribe. You can’t do it any other way because you will never know what the investor wants. The challenge is you can’t ask them directly because most people don’t even know they have an investor identity. If you walk into any given Starbucks, there is probably several million dollars in investable capital sitting around. You are the operator and the one with a solution, make sure they know that. There are many different reasons someone will choose to invest, and your job is to figure out what that is and solve their problem. Invite them into your world and show them that you are an expert by educating them. If you lead with a deal based on what you believe is great without uncovering what the investor is actually looking for, you both lose. The Profit Analysis Quadrant Conversation There are four areas of profit: appreciation, amortization, depreciation, and cash flow. Each of those can be manipulated to create the outcome that the investor is looking for. You have to know how to use these tools to create a deal that solves the investor’s problems. Show them you’re an expert by educating them and asking the right questions, find out what they are doing and what problems they are trying to solve, then explain how your tr
2/10/2020 • 1 hour, 25 minutes, 42 seconds
Why Short Term Rentals?
When you understand the “why?” behind your business, it can often help you with the “how?” of your business. In this episode of the podcast J reveals the story of how he came to realize that short term rentals are perhaps the greatest opportunity for people getting into real estate investing in a very long time, but also why the window to take advantage of that opportunity is closing a little bit every single day. The Power of Real Estate Prior to getting into real estate, J and his wife went through some incredibly difficult times personally. His wife was unable to eat or drink due to a condition she developed while pregnant, and J suffered an injury where he punctured his lung which prevented him from walking and talking at the same time. His back was against the wall with no money and a terrible credit score, and that was when a friend recommended he look into real estate investing. At that point J’s best ideas are what got him into that position, which is something you should consider as well. Wherever you are now, your best ideas got you to where you are. It wasn’t until J left his comfort zone and stopped pretending that everything was alright that things started to change. J started doing what he was being asked to do and after closing his first transaction in June of 2008, he realized that his beliefs around money were holding him back and preventing him from seeing the opportunity that was around him. You can play any game if you are taught the rules, and real estate is no different. Once J got started, everything snowballed and accumulated and in the course of the next 12 months his life was completely changed. His business eventually developed into buying apartments and multifamily units, billboards, cell towers, and other types of property all over the United States, all along the way he fine tuned the systems that allowed him to scale. As great as that success is, J wasn’t satisfied. J started thinking about how he could make more of a difference in the world which lead him to create the Cashflow Diary and started helping other people with their own entrepreneurial journey. It was actually one of those people that introduced him to short term rentals. One of the interesting things about real estate is that it’s a great way to build wealth, but a horrible way to build income. A lot of landlords lose money on long term rentals for quite a while. Short term rentals are a response to the change in consumer habits and change the way we look at real estate. Short term rentals have been around for a long time, but what is new about the industry is the impact that technology is having on it. Technology is transforming everything about real estate and the short term rental industry is leading the way. Planning For The Future The rules of money have changed and most of us were never taught them in the first place. People are finding out the hard way that social security is more like social insecurity and their 401(k) isn’t going to last as long as they thought it was going to. We all must have a way to produce income not only when we are awake, but passively as well. Inflation and tax increases are coming in the future, and we need a way to protect ourselves from that. For most people, their first transaction is real estate is about taking on a massive obligation with almost no experience, but one of the game changing realizations with short term rentals
2/6/2020 • 1 hour, 25 minutes, 53 seconds
The 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Got Started In Real Estate
We are talking about making short term rentals happen for you, making them easier and faster, bigger, better, and badder. If you feel the need to get started and need that extra push to make things happen, you can go to cashflowdiary.com/roadmap to finally build your business. J reveals the 10 things he wishes he knew before he got started in the short term rental business as well as answers a number of questions from the viewers. How many units does it take to retire? When you’re in pursuit of an outcome, you may not know what the goal is. When people are getting started in real estate, they often have a dream of retiring but have no idea how many units they need to achieve that goal. If you want to know exactly how many short term rental units you need to retire you can go to cashflowdiary.com/howmanyunits to calculate your magic number. Is it possible to get my first unit in the first month? The most reliable answer is it depends. If you follow the program and do exactly what it says, you shouldn’t have any problems landing your first unit, it all depends on whether you are willing to put in the work and how comfortable you are with failing. You may have to hear a large number of ‘no’s’ before you get a yes, but if you can push through and put in the work, it’s definitely doable. You just have to move at the speed of instruction. This program is best suited to people who are okay with leaving the ‘why’ for later so that you can provide value now. Even people who have been in the short term rental real estate world can get stuck if they don’t have a system for scaling and the tools and team to support their growth. It takes time to learn systems, but they can’t be implemented just by reading a book or watching a video. It requires hands on experience to make them work. Will we be able to plagiarize all the systems and everything you do in your short term rental business? You not only get to plagiarize everything, the program literally contains the exact messages that J sends his guests. It’s easy to replicate the ingredients, but we also give you the recipe. You need to learn more than just tactics. As the marketplace matures, you’re going to need to have the skills to build a real brand that will allow your business to continue growing. Do short term rentals work in Chicago? The short term rental business works everywhere there is a need for housing. Is the app available to current students or only people in the Roadmap? People joining the Roadmap get access to the app first but it will be coming to existing students that are currently in Facebook. Do I have to under price if I’m new? You don’t have to approach this the way you would with traditional real estate, you would be doing things in the wrong order and costing yourself some opportunity. You also have to be aware of how difficult it is to get accurate data to set your prices and they can be manipulated. #10. I was not aware of the use cases for short term rentals The real secret to the short term rental business is specialization. Who you are trying to serve will determine so much about your business and is really the foundation for everyth
2/3/2020 • 1 hour, 42 minutes, 10 seconds
The Cashflow Diary Story with Brett Swarts
J Massey was the featured guest on the Capital Gains Tax Solutions podcast with Brett Swarts recently and they talked about everything from how J got started in real estate investing, to key short term rental strategies, growth mindset, the Cashflow Diary, and more. Questions and Answers What is your background and what’s your current focus? J started out from a very difficult situation in life. J’s wife has a condition that when she’s pregnant she can’t eat or drink, and at the same time as her pregnancy J had a punctured lung and brutal asthma. The challenge was that neither of them could earn income by going to work so they needed to find a solution. A friend recommended that he look into real estate investing so with literally no money and terrible credit J began wholesaling properties. After being introduced to taxes, J started keeping the properties and that developed into a portfolio that included single family houses, mortgages, and cell phone towers. Eventually people started asking how he’d been able to achieve all of that, so J began teaching others how to do the same thing. One of J’s students introduced him to the idea of short term rentals, and three years ago J switched his focus to teaching people how to create their own short term rental business. What is your super power and how does it shape how you help others today? J grew up as a military kid outside of the States and growing up overseas has given him the ability to adapt to new situations very quickly. J is autistic and has ADHD and he considers those his super powers as they help him connect the dots and learn new things surprisingly fast. It’s also a gift being able to share that information and help other people as well. How did you transfer the idea of a weakness into a strength? Being able to provide for your family is great but when that’s accomplished there’s not much else to do. At the age of 38, J found himself functionally retired and with nothing to do until one person came to him and asked to learn everything he knew. In the process of teaching this person the skills of real estate investing, both J and the other person went through incredible transformations. He realized how fulfilling and valuable it is to help other people achieve their dreams and that ultimately put him on his current path. Does your approach to life filter into your basketball game? J judges his success in a basketball game by the number of rebounds and blocks he made, the things that enable someone else to be able to be great. Setting the example of helping other people is very important to J. In many ways, entrepreneurs can be some of the most selfless individuals and since they are so connected to so many different people, they have the ability to make fundamental positive changes to their communities. Walk us through the tactical parts of what you do and how you help people create more wealth. One of the things that people rarely tell you is that owning real estate long term is a great way to build wealth but horrible for building income. Income doesn’t materialize until the debt servicing is complete. When J had 450 units, there was always something to repair and something to do, so they started looking for ways to increase income and reduce the work. This is where short term rental units come into the picture. Short term rentals have a number of advantages to the user compared to a traditional hotel room th
1/27/2020 • 1 hour, 3 minutes, 59 seconds
Thomas W. Jones: From Campus Revolutionary to Powerful Financial Services Leader
Thomas W. Jones is the Former Vice Chairman, President & COO at TIAA-CREF, the largest pension system in the country. He was the former Vice Chairman of Travelers, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Freddie Mac, and the Former Chairman & CEO of Smith Barney Asset Management. He was the former CEO of Global Investment Management at Citigroup and Former Treasurer at John Hancock Insurance Company. Thomas W. Jones is currently the Founder and senior partner of venture capital investment firm TWJ Capital and author of the new book From Willard Straight to Wall Street: A Memoir. Podcast Highlights Who is Thomas W. Jones? Thomas W. Jones was on the cover of Newsweek in 1969 as an iconic revolutionary while studying at Cornell. As a student, Thomas felt that America was at a crossroads and that his generation was tasked with the job of raising the price of oppression. Due to his effort and the effort of countless others, America chose to embrace the spirit of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and has made significant progress over the last 50 years towards equality. In a certain way, Thomas’s life story and career in business is like a microcosm of the story of the growth and development of America as a whole. Did the fight look like what you thought it would? Thomas was pleasantly surprised when America took the path of opening up opportunity instead of the path of oppression. He believed the toughest fight would be in the business world and he figured that he would have almost no chance at success, but he needed to try. He had to approach business in a way that he provided his own psychological support, because he knew he wasn’t going to receive any from the outside. He discovered that if you actually deliver a true 100% commitment, there is a large gap over time between the people who are delivering only 95%. The 5% gap seems small but it compounds over the years and people start to notice. For Thomas, this meant people in the upper echelons of business recognizing that he was getting the job done and eventually taking him on in a mentorship type of relationship. Where does your motivation and fortitude come from? It takes a certain level of self belief and self confidence to take on tough challenges. For Thomas, his confidence came from his experience in school. At that time, the philosophy of school in dealing with a gifted child was to accelerate them, and that meant that Thomas had skipped two grades. This meant that he was much younger than his peers and once he had entered high school he encountered a number of bullies. It was then that he decided that he wouldn’t let others define who he was. That self possession developed into the mentality that even if he was facing insurmountable odds, Thomas might as well try to get it done. Most people never figure out what they are capable of because they never actually put 100% into trying to be their best. You can never know what you can do until you give 100% effort. It’s a wonderful gift that you can give to yourself to learn what your highest potential is. When you learn what your capacity is, you will be able to channel and master it, and you will find arenas where you can give 100% and be successful. Thomas’s faith discipline has been another crucial element. Even in the midst of a crisis, praying and trying to see the good in the situation allowed Thomas to continue to fight. Life is going to have times of trial, and having s
1/23/2020 • 1 hour, 5 minutes, 12 seconds
TaxDome and How Technology Allows Small Businesses To Compete For a Fraction of the Price
Co-founder of TaxDome - a cloud based practice management solution targeted to small/medium sized firms (1-25), helping entrepreneurs scale quickly & easily. TaxDome is an all-in-one solution for tax and accounting professionals to manage their business. Podcast Highlights Who is Ilya Radzinsky? Looking back Ilya always had an entrepreneurial spirit and when he was younger he wanted to own a restaurant. He managed to get a job as a busboy but found it was much harder than he thought it would be and didn’t last more than a week. He pivoted his focus and got creative with his first business of selling digital items on eBay. With some encouragement from his parents, Ilya followed the footsteps of his brother and went into finance as a banker and financial analyst. Several years into his career, Ilya’s boss shut down the hedge fund he was working at and took a three month sabbatical. During that time, his brother was getting into product development and found a big opportunity. Ilya decided to team up with him and that’s how we get to present day with TaxDome. Generally, Ilya tries to adapt to the times and look for new opportunities. Getting Into Finance Finance has a bit of a bad reputation but in many ways it’s like Medicine. There are a number of different roles that you can play within the industry. Ilya enjoyed his career in finance and if it wasn’t for his boss getting divorced he would have probably just continued working at the hedge fund and wouldn’t have gone on to start a business. Oftentimes, the experiences that feel uncomfortable lead to better things in the future. Adversity often refocuses your vision of the world in a more clear way than before and the successful person usually follows a winding path with plenty of setbacks before they get to where they are. Why TaxDome? In 2010, the trends were moving in the direction of more people completing tax returns online in some way and back in the day, Ilya and his brother started working with a firm that was looking to go fully remote and scale their business. They started building that product for them and it went on to transform their business. A few years ago, Ilya and his brother saw an opportunity with the emergence of SaaS companies and that’s when the idea for Taxdome came alive. They created a similar platform to the one they created before specifically for accountants that allows them to access a plug and play solution for their business without requiring a major IT investment. If you’re an accountant, you need a lot of different services in order to run your business and TaxDome is an integrated solution that aims to eliminate as many of those services as possible. TaxDome is trying to reduce the software burden for accountants and allow them to better compete with other businesses as technology changes the way transactions occur. In a lot of ways, small businesses are facing a large challenge of cobbling together a number of software solutions to be able to compete with larger businesses and their economies of scale. TaxDome is championing small businesses and trying to give them the tools and ability to compete and win. Adopting a new software solution can be daunting so in order to lower the barrier to entry and give clients an idea of what to expect, TaxDome offers a simulated account without having to sign up. The simulated account allows people to experience the soft
1/20/2020 • 39 minutes, 59 seconds
Making Sure Your Insurance Company Pays Up Q&A
J is answering all your questions about business, short term rentals, personal growth, and whatever else it is you’re curious about. We’re also exploring the subjects of insurance and occupancy in particular, how much insurance do you need and what metrics should be looking at to maximize your occupancy. Insurance is one area that you don’t want to cut corners so make sure you understand how to make it work for you. Questions and Answers How do we handle bad guests? The first step is to breathe and realize you will survive. Everyone will experience this at some point. The process of removing an unwanted guest that has broken your rules is the same no matter the infraction. One thing to note is if the person is willing to pay the fees for breaking the rules, take the money and move on. If you have to file a resolution with Airbnb you’re going to need to do it immediately. Your window of opportunity is very small to file a claim so don’t wait to do it. If the guest wants to write a bad review, waiting to make a claim is not going to stop them from writing the bad review. You will have to rely on the content policy to protect you from an unfair negative review. A question about improving a listing’s rankings The caller has multiple listings but is wondering why a couple of them aren’t performing at all. Before a booking can happen, inquiries must happen, before that views must happen, and before that impressions have to happen. Each one is a statistic that can measured and looked at to identify where in the process the problem lies. For this caller there seems to be an issue with the inquiries on her listing. The words in the listing itself may be the problem since people are clicking on the listing at a high rate, but something is turning them away at that point in the conversion process. A lack of reviews may also be a barrier for converting people that are landing on the listing. A question about guests receiving packages at the unit It’s always better to have guests route their packages to a local UPS store instead of the unit itself. You don’t need the liability of a guest receiving potentially illegal packages and the UPS store is insured against those kinds of things. That also comes a paper trail for an extra level of protection. Does insurance cover lost business income? The caller had a unit that got flooded which required a rehab and resulted in 12 months of lost income. In her case, the insurance only paid out for the days that were already booked that were canceled. She had the right insurance coverage at the time. When it comes to down to getting insurance there is replacement cost and actual cash value and it’s very important to understand the distinction. When it comes to lost business income, J sets the limits at $120,000 and the contents limit at $40,000 because he knows the insurance company will always try to minimize the pay out. The caller also made the mistake of registering her insurance under her own name instead of an entity like an LLC. That means she is paying more than J is on each unit, despite having considerably less coverage than he does. Since the caller hasn’t deposited the insurance checks yet, she still has the opportunity to make further claims. A public adjuster is someone who can help her claim additional pay
1/2/2020 • 1 hour, 24 minutes, 33 seconds
Scaling A Short Term Rental Business Q&A
One of the most important things to understand about the short term rental business is that it gets easier with the more units you have. If you’re ready to scale up your business and start acquiring new units, you need to take the steps necessary to set yourself up for success. Questions and Answers What do we with units that have carpets in them? Carpets can be challenging because they are gigantic sponges for bacteria. If your unit does have carpets you need to have a process for keeping it clean in place. Establishing a relationship with a carpet vendor that your cleaning crew can contact to get the work done without getting the approval from you will save you a lot of time. How many customer service managers do you have and how many hours do they work? J has a pair of customer service managers working for him that cover a total of 16 hours a day. He chose each of them to hire as managers and he trained them directly through a screen sharing app like Zoom or Loom. I have some people interested in working with me and my short term rental business but they are wary of marketplaces like Airbnb. Is there anything I can do to help them be more comfortable with them? You would think these people would be more comfortable with markets like Airbnb and HomeAway than they would with Facebook. If the caller wants to reassure these people, showing them the listing so they understand what details are being revealed is a good option. Starting with Airbnb as your first platform also gives you the advantage of benefitting from their existing background check process. What the landlord really wants to know is the contact information of the person in the case of an emergency, and that can be solved by simply automating parts of the reservation process. If you explain to the landlord that you are on the same side of the table and will be making major investments in the unit and don’t want unsavory guests as well, things will go much smoother. In many cases, you have the ability to correct the issue if it does come up than the landlord could with a traditional tenant. Should I use Guesty if I am bringing on three additional units? J recommends using Smartbnb and Lodgify instead of Guesty to his students. Everybody who brings on multiple units at the same time gets overwhelmed but it gets easier the more you do it. It’s also important to understand the difference between using a tool and using it expertly. If you don’t know how to use the tool well, it’s not going to be able to help you scale your business. We’ve got our first short term rental unit up and running and want to scale. Should we wait until we’re making more profit to scale or push ahead now? The short term rental business is easier with more units than it is with less. Starting a new unit in a slow season can be very challenging bu
12/30/2019 • 1 hour, 8 minutes, 43 seconds
Bookings, Marketing, VA’s, and Landlords in the Short Term Rental Business Q&A
Robert Vocolla guest hosts the Q&A show with J today and they’re talking about some very important short term rental business questions. Find out about security processes, managing VA’s, marketing your business, getting out of problematic leases, and more. Questions and Answers A question about processes around security technology Rob uses a simple analog process to make sure his guests don’t run into issues with the security system in his units. He uses sticky labels on each panel that warns the guest not to tamper with it and has a basic template in Smartbnb that gets sent out that lets the guest know how to interact with the security system. This has drastically reduced the number of false alarms. I’ve got three VA’s covering 18 hours a day, seven days a week and they’re great at following SOPs but not so good at doing customer service work? Hiring is always a major challenge, if you want to find someone that can handle managerial level tasks it’s going to take a lot of searching. You may have to review, hire, and fire a number of people before you will find that gem of a person that checks off all the boxes. For this particular caller, they have multiple units in multiple cities and that’s adding to the stress of working with his team. A good rule of thumb is to be prepared to train someone for 30 hours for every hour a task would take you to do. A quick tip for your customer service manager is to look at what time of day your business is getting the most messages because that will inform what hours you should assign your team. What are the most important marketing KPIs to track? There is a whole set of metrics around leads, around customer conversion, and average order and frequency. All of them should be measured and tracked and each one can have a compounding impact on the growth potential of your business. Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of your marketing on Airbnb is about working with the algorithm correctly. Make sure you have the right pictures with good descriptions because your search position in the rankings will determine your success on that platform. Tools like Smartbnb are crucial to understanding the most important metrics in your business. The only way to have metrics to look at and measure is to gather data. What is the difference between Basic and Pro in Lodgify and Smartbnb? The biggest difference between the two is one uses and API to communicate with other apps and the other uses the older iCal method. Since the caller is using Smartbnb, they should just stick with basic because they already have a built in sync feature that makes Pro unnecessary. What are you guys doing to get more bookings from booking.com? Getting guests on booking.com is similar to the other channels even if it feels like it’s more work. One of the secrets is to have every single field filled out for your listing and setting your prices correctly with Lodgify. Keep in mind that guests from booking.com may be more seasonal as well. Mirror the same types of policies on booking.com that you have on other channels to keep everything consistently. How do you guys do your messaging for booking.com?
12/27/2019 • 1 hour, 29 minutes, 16 seconds
Business Owners Don’t Need to Fear The Next Recession
Jonathan Slain is the Founder and CEO of Recession.com, an author, a highly respected keynote speaker, and an expert on recessions & why business owners don’t need to fear them. Jonathan spent the last Great Recession huddled in the fetal position on the floor of his office. He borrowed $250,000 from his mother-in-law to survive. Jonathan paid his mother-in-law back and is now a highly sought-after consultant (and, yes, he’s still married!). Jonathan understands not only how to prepare your business for the next major recession but also how to turn it into a profitable opportunity. Podcast Highlights Who is Jonathan Slain? Much of Jonathan’s life has been spent in the metaphorical Batcave, doing the research and preparing for whatever it was that he was working towards. Deep preparation has been the common thread in Jonathan’s life all the way back from high school. Studying people who were successful during major recessions is what drew his attention and his experience during the recent Great Recession is what put him on his current path. Jonathan is also a recovering investment banker, studying different companies and economic indicators for 100 hours a week over the course of two years. He learned that as entrepreneurs, we all always have a recession coming, even if it’s not an economic recession. There are a number of personal events that could put your business into a recession and Jonathan’s focus is on being prepared for the next one, whatever shape it happens to take. How does one plan for things we can’t control? One major change recently in California has been the recent regulations around single use plastic. These regulations are going to have major impacts on many different kinds of businesses. In these situations, there will always be a few entrepreneurs who see the signs and put themselves in a position to take advantage of the coming changes. There have been 11 recessions since World War 2 and they last an average of 11 months. When they do come around, they create a massive amount of disruption in the market that also comes with a number of opportunities. Every business can do things to prepare and position themselves for the major recessions. The Next Recession We should be looking forward to the next recession, it will happen eventually so you should be prepared. All it really takes is a little forethought and some work upfront that will allow you to pounce when the recession hits, instead of spending the first few weeks or months of the recession trying to catch up. Every major recession shares some common elements that you can look at historically and predict what may happen in the future. Marketing dollars go extra far during a recession, can you put some money aside now that will allow you to take advantage of this? What if you had a war chest available to buy distressed businesses and assets? The #1 thing to do to prepare right now The first step is to assess where you are in your recession readiness. You can go to recession.com and take the free survey to get your recession readiness score. It will also let you know which areas you need to start improving. The second step is to tune up your personal and business finances. How much debt are you carrying right now? Do you
12/23/2019 • 51 minutes, 48 seconds
Dealing With Bad Reviews Before The Holidays Q&A
This is a review based business, and that means you will probably get some bad reviews at some point. The question is what do you do about them? More than bad reviews, we’re talking about preparing for the holidays, click bait photos, and more. Questions and Answers For the inventory checklist, how detailed do you get? You can be as detailed as counting the silverware, the question is “at what point will you file a claim?” It probably doesn’t make sense due to the manpower and hours it would take to follow up on that. A better way to think about it is “is there enough silverware in the unit?” The benchmark for detail should be somewhere around where you would file a claim for. Preparing for the upcoming holidays Now is the time to get ready for the holidays. Change the batteries for any automatic door locks, replace the pilot lights for any gas furnaces, get blankets into the units where the climate gets chilly. Have a chat with your crew now to find out if they are going to be working during the holiday. We had a guest break the do not obstruct the camera rule. How long should we wait to leave a bad review without the guest retaliating? How is the guest punished for not paying the fee? Many of the platforms have a content policy and if the guest leaves a review that violates the policy it will be hidden. The review is basically the guest’s experience with your service so that means it can be very subjective. When leaving a review, neither party will be able to see the review until both have posted it. Ideally you should wait until the last minute of the fourteen day period to avoid a retaliatory bad review. If the guest has already left the review, then you have to rely on the content policy to help you out. In terms of fees and guests not being willing to pay, just state the facts of what happened. Remove the emotion and Airbnb may be able to take care of the fee for you. I have a new short term rental unit, how long should I need to wait to get my first booking? The first issue with the caller’s unit is that since they are targeting business travelers their unit may be too large. Two bedroom units that are pet friendly don’t usually have vacancy issues. They tend to be perfect for small families going through an insurance claim so linking up with a local insurance company may be a good move. For J, if he’s going to be working with a two bedroom unit, he’s going to gear it towards a market that he knows works well with that much room. Take a look at the events that are happening locally and focus on the kind of customer you want to serve. Another thing to note is that the winter season is slow for the area where this caller is from. There is a stream of revenue that’s right in front of you, you just need to get clear on who they are and get in front of them. What are they searching for and how can you appeal to them? Being insurance friendly Note in your titles for your listings that you are insurance friendly. This has made a big difference in the occupancy rates of J’s units. Regarding an arbitrage unit, are you protected by your lease if there is a change in ownership? If you’ve done your lease correctly, they can’t end your lease early as long as you pay your rent and follow t
12/19/2019 • 1 hour, 35 minutes, 21 seconds
Learning Is The Only Skill That Matters
Jonathan Levi is an experienced entrepreneur, angel investor, and lifehacker from Silicon Valley. Jonathan is known for speed learning his way to all achievements in life: from entrepreneurship to podcasting and even dating. Since 2014, Jonathan has been one of the top-performing instructors on Udemy, with his course Become a SuperLearner® (now retired) earning him over 60,000 students. He has since snowballed this success into the launch of his own brand and platform, SuperHuman Academy, which produces such products as the award-winning SuperHuman Academy Podcast (3 million+ downloads) and numerous online courses. He is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, preparing to release his 3rd book “The Only Skill That Matters” Podcast Highlights Who is Jonathan Levi? Jonathan grew up in Silicon Valley and was always meant to be an entrepreneur. In many ways he struggled in school because he couldn’t learn the same way that everyone else seemed to do. Deep down, Jonathan is a maker and a creator that is focused on solving problems and learning new things all the time. Jonathan was always a bright kid but he had problems in the classroom environment. The only way he made it through high school and got through the curriculum was by being medicated. When he got into business school, he knew that medication wasn’t going to cut it. He needed to figure out another way to learn that made sense for him. It was around that time that he found someone who had developed a methodology for speed reading and accelerated learning that completely changed Jonathan’s life and gave him his first real world super power. After meeting multiple real world super humans, Jonathan learned that anyone can do these incredible things simply by learning the techniques and practicing. Jonathan is a big believer in the law of attraction, but he’ll be the first to tell you that it only works if you implement the law of action first. There are very few things in life that can’t be accomplished if you put in the work to learn the ropes. Whatever challenge you are facing in life, the difference between excitement and anxiety is knowledge. For Jonathan, it was a series of individual moments that culminated in his super power. He didn’t plan for online courses to be his business, it just sort of happened after moving to Israel and exploring entrepreneurial opportunities. After discovering a course on coding and seeing how successful it was, Jonathan dug into what it took to create a course and put out his first one on Udemy. Slowly but surely, it developed into a full time business. Learning Is The Only Skill That Matters Learning is the ultimate meta skill and the only skill that matters. There are proven techniques to improve your ability to learn. There is no genetic advantage that
12/16/2019 • 46 minutes, 42 seconds
The Listing Reviews Q&A
Sometimes your technology breaks on you! Even so, we’ve got a number of listener questions tackled today including a couple brutally honest (but helpful) short term rental listing reviews. We always come from a position of honesty in hopes that you will make more money, so we’re not going to tell you comforting lies just to make you feel better. Listen in to learn why the bad photos can sink your listing and what you can do about it. Questions and Answers A question about a 37 day booking and the importance of reviews One of the things to know about the short term rental business is that it is definitely a review based business. Experience in this business is generated specifically by scaling up and doing the work more often. For this caller, they shouldn’t pass on the 37 day booking unless it is going to hurt their business long term. A long term booking will always make that unit’s performance suffer when compared to other more short term reservations. But if it allows them to add another unit financially, it may be a good move because it will allow the caller to achieve Super Host status by the end of the quarter. It can also be important to run an AirDNA report on your zip code to understand the trend for your area. That will allow you to understand whether your prices are on point or if you’re leaving money on the table. How do I get an affiliated link from Uber and Lyft? Inside the app, you can find your share code which is the code you can use for your bookings and guests. Working with restaurants by sending them business instead of getting paid for the referral may actually be superior to an affiliate relationship. Having them on your side in political or municipal issues will probably be more important than having an additional revenue source. J reviews a caller’s first post on Airbnb When creating a short term rental listing, lead with photos with the inside of the unit instead of the amenities. Photos of the exterior can also lead to security issues if it’s possible to identify the address of the unit. The caller’s photos should probably be reshot due to the handheld nature of them as well as the general poor quality. They suffer from lighting and focus challenges and the caller’s bookings will probably be lower than what they could have achieved. Another good tip is to stay away from vertical photos at all times. The caller has definitely put in some work on the short term rental listing, but seems to have skimped on a few crucial elements like the photos and design. In order to tell the right story with your photos, you have to make the investment and do them right. The ideal reaction to your short term rental listing should be the reader feeling like they must stay at your unit. I’ve got a meeting with the zoning department, do you have any pointers for me? Since the caller only has three minutes to talk, he should be using his time to instill doubt in his listeners because right now they are certain that the caller is the bad sort of short term rental owner. He should show them that he’s a professional and has systems in place to deal with all the common issues that people complain about with other less professional short term rental owners.
12/9/2019 • 1 hour, 5 minutes, 18 seconds
Finding Good Deals in the Short Term Rental Business Q&A
There is no definitive good deal in the short term rental business. If you want to know if your deal is good or not, you need to know one simple thing first. It’s something that’s going to drive your reviews and the growth of your business, and that’s meeting your customer’s expectations. Figure out who you want to serve first and that will make the answers to your questions much clearer. Questions and Answers Are you still hunting for apartment deals? J still loves apartments, he’s just changed who he puts in them. With apartments, net operating income is the name of the game and most importantly, if you can manage that properly the value goes up as well. J is not getting out of the apartment game anytime in the near future. Do you think it’s a good idea to incentivize guests to do a load of laundry before they end their stay? Quality control becomes an issue here. How do you know the laundry was cleaned correctly? There are other ways to lower your cleaning costs if that’s the goal. J tends to shy away from asking his guests to do anything, some guests will actually become offended by getting the request to do additional work. For this particular caller, the issue may lie in the cleaner that he’s using and their method of billing for work. Ideally, with a linen service, you should only be paying for your laundry that has been weighed while dry. When it comes to a guest checking out, if you have a checklist for them to complete, be upfront with the reasoning for the tasks so they don’t have to wonder why they are putting in some extra work. What’s the best way to avoid bed bugs before they appear? Bed bugs tend to come in with a guest, they don’t typically just appear. A good tip is using a metal luggage rack to reduce the incidence of a guest putting their luggage on the bed directly. Protecting the mattress with a casement is also a good precaution. Bed bugs are typically pretty rare, but there are still steps you should take to minimize your risk. Insurance is one example of a way to cut the cost, the trick is making sure the coverage is actually what you need. It’s not uncommon for a bed bug infestation to cost you thousands of dollars to remediate. Be sure that your insurance actually covers bed bugs specifically. You don’t want to get into a situation where you save some money on your premiums but aren’t actually covered from the risk you’re trying to mitigate. How do we get around the key fob issue? We tend to leave the key fob inside the unit and the trick is getting the guest to the unit for the first time. Module 3 of the Mastermind product covers this in more depth. Go to cashflowdiary.com/star to learn more. Pricing in the Short Term Rental Business As you enter into your slower season, pricing becomes even more important. If you aren’t doing dynamically adjusted pricing, you’re either leaving money on the table or having a lower occupancy than you should. I have an opportunity to buy an eight unit apartment building and I want to use them for short term rentals, do you think this is a good deal? There is no definitive good deal. What’s a good de
12/5/2019 • 1 hour, 30 minutes, 2 seconds
Is It Too Late To Start The “Airbnb Process”? Q&A
If you’re thinking about starting the “Airbnb process” and aren’t sure if you’ve missed the boat, listen up. Real estate is changing but it’s not too late. Airbnb is just one of many marketplaces that we use. Short term rentals are here to stay and if you want to learn how to build your real estate portfolio, now is a great time to start putting the systems in place. Questions and Answers I’ve been able to get the landlord to agree to the short term rental business model in general but I’m not sure I can make a profit, what should I do? Step one always comes down to understanding who it is you want to serve. When you focus on who you want to serve, one of the criteria you’re looking at is their income. That will help you understand what area of town to be in and how much they will pay for certain experiences. All your streams of income will be based on how much income your ideal guest makes. Once you know all your potential areas of revenue, you will be able to subtract out all those things and complete the picture of profitability. It can be difficult to use aggregated data to determine what your prices should be. The spread is so wide that it’s not very useful for identifying a specific case like your listing. Once you complete the exercise of figuring out who you’re serving, it becomes much easier. Keep in mind that your revenue is much more than just your room rate. How do I automate my messaging system? Lodgify has a rudimentary system for messaging. What we do to shortcut that is provide our guests with a link to an electronic house guide where all the relevant data is included. Everything except the dynamically generated door code because we still want to be able to maintain control of the access to the unit. A question about a listing review The caller’s photographer did a good job on the photos for the listing. Since the caller has followed the system closely most of the details are on point. One area that could be improved on is the copy detailing the neighborhood. Your listing is your first line of customer service, if you answer the question before the person asks you have one less question to answer later on. This can really help save time once you have a number of different units. Which program should I consider to learn how to manage resort properties? In terms of execution, resort units are very different from residential. In some ways resort units are easier because the kinds of customers you are serving are more obvious. For this particular caller and his thirteen units, the Mastermind Product is his best choice. Go to cashflowdiary.com/star to learn more. When it comes to negotiating with the owner of the property, the structure the caller is using is the same one that we use. If the owner wants a cut of the business, they have to be able to contribute more than just the space. Otherwise, renting the property from them is the right way to go. How do you dynamically generate a door code? It depends on the platform you’re using. Sometimes the software you’re using can integrate directly via an API to create the door code, other times a personal assistant can do it.
12/3/2019 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 40 seconds
Shawn Harper’s Winning Edge
Shawn Harper is a former American football offensive tackle in the National Football League. Harper was drafted by the Los Angeles Rams in 1992. He also played for the Houston Oilers, the Indianapolis Colts, and three years in NFL Europe with the Amsterdam Admirals and Frankfurt Galaxy. Shawn Harper appeared on the hit MTV show Made. He has helped transform thousands of corporate environments, built leadership, trained teams and impacted youth development in schools, and churches with high energy keynote speeches that activate winners. Shawn Harper is the bestselling author of The Winning Edge: 8 Principles That Will Bring Out the Winner in You! and founder/CEO of American Services and Protection, which has provided Ohio small and medium-sized businesses, corporations, municipalities, non profits, government agencies, colleges, and universities and organizations with a wide range of security solutions that focus on providing highly-trained professionals, tailored to the specifics of each job. Podcast Highlights Who is Shawn Harper? For Shawn, it’s very hard to define who he was looking back from today’s perspective. We tend to gloss over the story in the process of becoming who we are. Shawn was plagued with setbacks and adversities in his youth, he was actually voted most likely to fail in school. Adversity can make you or break you. Shawn’s school days were tough and early on he believed himself to be the loser that everyone else thought he was. It wasn’t until he changed his mindset from victim to victor that everything changed. Never allow people to create your world because they will always create it too small. When Shawn made the decision to focus on his dream of playing in the NFL instead of listening to what other people thought he was capable of, nothing was the same. Once you change your focus, you change your life. What was the transition like from playing football to the world of business? In the case of the NFL, there is an established system in place for growth and development. For many people, when they leave that team and system to go do something else on their own the result is usually failure. Even superheroes have friends and support to help them achieve their goals. When athletes leave the game, they must build a team and find mentors to help them in the new arena. That was the secret to Shawn’s later success. It took years for Shawn to come to that realization. All success in life comes from people having a team around them. Playing To Win We are created to win. Your perspective is everything in this regard. We are attracted to winning and nearly everything we do is geared towards winning. In third or fourth grade we are introduced to a different concept called success. Success teaches you production, but winning teaches you re-production. Successful business people are productive, but winners scale their business. A lot of people get dismayed, depressed, and angry because they know they are successful but deep inside they know they are not winning. Winning has been hijacked by success. The secret is to start moving, get out there and start connecting with people in whatev
11/25/2019 • 44 minutes, 39 seconds
Introducing The Instant Book Special Q&A
Get unstuck and get one step closer to making short term rental real estate a real thing for you. Get answers to your questions so that you can keep moving forward towards your financial and business goals. Questions and Answers We are entering into the slower winter season, what additional things can we give to our guests so they book with us over others? The first time experiencing a slow season can be a challenge. The caller has been leveraging his membership with his local BNI group which is a great place to start. Another potential avenue is to connect with the travel agent in the group and ask them about working together. It’s possible to start generating instant book specials that allows you to acquire a guest at your advertised rate while also creating a referral for the travel agent. How would you pitch to a BNI group? It takes a while to get any sort of response from a BNI group because their reputations on the line. As you build your relationships in that group you want to focus on creating a power team, where each individual has different strengths. Think about your centers of influence, like doctor’s offices that are members of the BNI group and start building those relationships. How do you deal with a secured building? There is a module is the Mastermind Course that members of Cashflow Diary can access that helps with this issue. The key question to ask is “if I order food, how does the food delivery guy get to the front door?”. Whatever the process is, that’s how your guest will access the unit. How can we have properties in a state that we are not even in? To have a property all you need is a lease, so it doesn’t matter where you are located. If you run the system properly, it only takes around an hour a day of your personal time to manage your business. If you have to do everything yourself, you don’t really have a business, you have a job. With the short term rental model the business is completely location independent. That being said, start where you live. How would you offer the instant book special on the platform? You would simply change up the title and description of your listing to describe what your extra offerings are. It’s also possible to set up an automatic sequence that connects the guest to your offering once they make a reservation and then sets up the connection with the travel agent as well. How soon should I be negotiating for first right of refusal for a property? Since the caller is willing to purchase the remainder of the units in a multifamily property, it should be very simple to ask the landlord for the first right of refusal if at some point in the future they consider selling. Now’s as good a time as any to start negotiating. What are your feelings about incorporating in another state? This is not legal advice, but since the person resides in California incorporating in another state may save them some costs. They should consult an attorney. What are some ways to identify the city and zip codes near me so I will be profitable? Rather than focusing on the money, think about the perso
11/21/2019 • 1 hour, 12 minutes, 44 seconds
How To Take Good Photos Of Your Short Term Rental Listing Q&A
Taking the right photos can make or break your short term rental listing. In today’s Q&A episode of the podcast, we do a full review of a caller’s listing photos and everything their designer and photographer did right, and all the things they did wrong. We also cover why it’s so important to have your spouse on board with your business, as well as the pros and cons of bringing cleaners in house. Questions and Answers What is the best way to see if the HOA is okay to turn my home into a short term rental? The best way to figure this out is to read their Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC&Rs). They will typically let you know what they like and don’t like, be aware they may not use the words “short term rental” but they will probably mention something along those lines. A question about setting prices across multiple platforms The caller currently has Price Labs connected to Lodgify, which is then connected to Booking.com and Airbnb. In order to change their prices between Booking.com and Airbnb, the caller needs to take Price Labs and connect it directly to Airbnb. Once that’s done, she can create a child listing in Airbnb. I have some photo violations on my listing, what should I do? It appears that the caller’s designer and photographer need to make some changes. Photos where the angle is not level or where the property appears dirty because of poor lighting are going to be major problems. Be aware that when your photographer uses HDR, it’s going to reveal lots of imperfections so it’s probably best to avoid it. If you’re not providing a laptop with your rental, don’t take photos with a laptop in it. People will make assumptions about that sort of thing. Same goes for sheets and towels of different colors. Avoid lights that don’t have a daylight balance for your photos. Short term rentals are a review based business, and reviews are primarily about setting the correct expectations at the beginning. Poor photos can end up costing you money, because what you photograph is what your guests will expect. If you deviate from that, that’s when you run into bad reviews. Be careful with the wording on your post as well. What are your thoughts on the Airbnb custom URL link for listings? It’s a band-aid at best. You want to have control and if you’re going to take the time to promote a listing, you should drive that traffic to your domain. That’s what is going to build your business long term. The importance of having your spouse on board As entrepreneurs, we tend to believe that things will work out for us. It’s just how we’re wired. Having a spouse whose perspective you trust on your team will make a huge difference for you. If you’re spouse is not already on board, keep in mind that they are mainly concerned with whether or not they will be okay, especially at the beginning of a new business. This business is a team effort, just like raising a family. Make sure they know what contribution they are making, because without them, things would not be where they are. Go find your right hand person. What calendar rules should we set for the holidays? When it comes to the holidays, your calendar rules
11/20/2019 • 1 hour, 31 minutes, 53 seconds
Al Williamson on the Secret Behind the Extended Stay Model
Al Williamson is a professional engineer, full-time real estate investor and the author of several real estate books. He began investing in 1996. Al is best known for publicly documenting his quest to create enough secondary income streams to cover the 1st mortgage of his eight-unit apartment building (which he accomplished in September 2015). He is now trying to figure out how to maximize the cash flow of a small portfolio so it can generate enough income to replace a middle-class job. Al is a proud family man who now spends his day managing and expanding his corporate housing business in Sacramento, California. Podcast Highlights Who is Al Williamson? Before everything that people know Al Williamson for today, he was training to become a professional gymnast. That was until he broke his arm on the high bar and realized that he was going down a risky path. He switched course and learned to be an engineer and started creating things. It wasn’t until meeting his wife did he consider getting into real estate. He met a guy at a church picnic that turned him on to real estate investing and after reading everything he could about the subject at his local library Al realized that it was exactly what he was looking for. Al Williamson and his new wife purchased a triplex and it eventually quadrupled in price. That early experience brought his wife on board with the whole idea and taught them plenty of valuable lessons. He leveraged that into his next purchase where he had a major focus on cleaning up the local neighborhood. It was a relationship with a local health center that later got Al into the short term rental space. One of the easiest ways to get into the real estate game and put yourself into a profitable position quickly is by leveraging short term rentals. Was it a challenge in making the short term rental model work in California? Initially the numbers didn’t work out for Al because of maintenance costs. Owning property is a great way to build wealth but a bad way to generate income because something is always broken that needs to be replaced. You don’t get to keep the money because it has to go back into the property until that debt service is finished. In a lot of ways, short term rentals were the answer to Al’s problems. There are a number of different ways that short term rentals solve the issue and there are tons of opportunities to increase your cash flow. By experimenting with one unit for short term rentals Al was able to generate the same net income as his three other units. The extended stay model is changing the way Al is structuring his business because the trend of people wanting to live in one place and work in another is taking off. How do you market for long term guests? Al has 14 different marketing strategies that he uses to bring in extended stay short term rental guests. A good indicator that your market can support the model is if there is an extended stay hotel in your area already. From there you need to get out from behind your computer and have a conversation with real people. Talking to the bartender at the hotel can yield some valuable info. Extended Stay America is doubling down on the one month and two month guests. It’s a big business and major hospitality companies are beginning to recognize that. If you’re working with Airbnb you’re going to have to put y
11/6/2019 • 58 minutes, 10 seconds
The AirBnB Way with Joseph Michelli
Dr. Joseph Michelli, Ph.D., C.S.P., is an internationally sought-after speaker, author, and organizational consultant. Dr. Joseph Michelli is the author of numerous national bestsellers, including The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary Into Extraordinary, The New Gold Standard: 5 Leadership Principles for Creating a Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, and the New York Times #1 bestseller Prescription for Excellence: Leadership Lessons for Creating a World Class Customer Experience from UCLA Health System. He was named as one of the Top 10 thought leaders in Customer Service by Global Gurus. His new book is The Airbnb Way: 5 Leadership Lessons for Igniting Growth through Loyalty, Community, and Belonging. Dr. Michelli is an opinion columnist for the CEOWORLD magazine. Podcast Highlights Who is Joseph Michelli? Joseph was a kid raised in a small town in Colorado and his parents imparted a key lesson to him when he was young. Namely, the responsibility of being raised in that family was that he would give more to the world than he took, and if he did the world would give more to him than he could ask for. Being accepted into graduate school was quite an achievement for Joseph, no one else in his family had graduated from college at the time. He was pretty focused on his own success in his career for a while until he realized that it wasn’t really about him at all, it’s about telling the stories of the clients he worked with as a consultant. Ultimately, those experiences helped Joseph write books about other people to tell their stories. All of the art of success is taking great principles and celebrating the victories of people you work with and people who are doing inspiring things in the world. The world is hungry for uplifting positive leadership and tools that enable them to experience their own greatness. Inspiring Greatness We are in a world where short term rentals have blown up and AirBnB is a point in that journey. They created a marketplace that unlocked incredible potential for millions of people and now they are on the same playing field as historical giants like Marriott. What is hospitality? Hospitality is taking the basics of service like being responsive, acting with urgency, get it right and make it right, and consistency, and then adding on the understanding of human needs that go beyond a transaction. It’s about an emotional experience where someone cared for and about me in a world that is often very lonely and strange. The real estate itself is the table stakes of getting into the game. The experience is far more important and that’s the element that’s missing in the corporate way of doing things. In many ways the big hospitality companies are trying to emulate the more successful short term rental operations. Solopreneurs will always have an edge over massive businesses because they’re more nimble and can provide a more
11/4/2019 • 35 minutes, 43 seconds
Innovation in Healthcare, Boon Is Changing The Game
Ryan Vet is an innovative leader, entrepreneur and author. He has presented to audiences around the globe on four different continents on leadership, marketing and reaching your maximum potential. Ryan’s experiences range from start-ups to well-established multi-national, Fortune 500s. From starting his first business at age 14 to launching and successfully exiting start-ups, Ryan is a serial entrepreneur. Currently, Ryan serves as the CEO of Boon—an on-demand, temporary healthcare staffing platform (imagine Uber meets eHarmony meets healthcare staffing). He has been featured in countless publications for his entrepreneurial endeavors and has been inducted as an official member into the exclusive Forbes Communication Council. In addition, Ryan hosts The Dental Experience Podcast. As an experiential marketing and branding consultant Ryan has worked companies from start-ups to iconic household brands. And in his spare time, he co-owns a series of craft beverage lounges called The Oak House. Ryan also sits as an advisory board member for a number of organizations including Elon University’s Doherty Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership Podcast Highlights Who is Ryan Vet? Ryan has always loved creating and it’s been at the core of his career. His first real business was a lemonade stand where he learned how to diversify his products and captivate his audience with marketing. Somewhere in between his petting zoo and his lemonade stand, Ryan also developed a trading card business at the age of 11. It was a long journey from the lemonade stand to Boon. When Ryan was younger, some local businesses realized that he had some talent with websites and basic graphic design and this actually lead to his first real business. He built a marketing company that served 200 clients in 25 different countries, and eventually this led to his first startup software company. Every startup yielded additional skills and connections that allowed Ryan to build his next business. One such startup was in the medical and dental space. Ryan began building his platform and started speaking at dental conferences about patient experience. It was there that he saw a common need for staffing. About a year and a half ago he started researching how to provide temporary team members for the medical industry. During the research he found that the industry size of medical staffers was 16 times the size of Uber and Lyft combined. Boon is the system that Ryan came up with, it provides innovation in healthcare that allows hospitals and health care providers to connect directly with practitioners that are open and available. Not Taking No For An Answer Ryan’s always had a driving passion to get things done. If Ryan wanted something, his parents rarely told him no but they also didn’t get him things very often as well. Ryan had to earn the money to get the things he wanted and his parents would help him out. If more people interpreted “no” as “not yet” or do it yourself, more products would come to market. Why did you get into software? At the advent of web based software, Ryan found his passion for enabling people to solve their problems using technology. He wanted to be able to use platforms and apps to solve people’s problems. Digitizing vs. Innovating Ryan’s first start up was straddl
11/1/2019 • 40 minutes, 59 seconds
Francis Greenburger on Risk, Real Estate, and Business
Francis Greenburger is the legendary real estate developer who is Chairman & CEO of Time Equities and owner of the literary agency Sanford J. Greenburger Associates, which has represented noted authors such as Dan Brown, James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, and Nelson DeMille. He is the founder & chairman of Art Omi (previously Omi International Arts Center) and The Greenburger Center for Social and Criminal Justice, and the bestselling author of Risk Game: Self-Portrait of an Entrepreneur. Podcast Highlights Who is Francis Greenburger? Francis Greenburger grew up in New York City where his parents were upper class but his father as a solopreneur never really made a significant amount of money. The first thing that Francis was blessed with was the confidence of his parents in his ability to achieve his goals. That went together with his natural knack for business. He started working for his father after school when he was 12 years old. His innate qualities gave him the early characteristics and motivations to be an entrepreneur. One of the things that Francis has said is that if you don’t like risk, you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur. For Francis, risk is just part of the gig. Do you see any parallels between cell phones and digital communication and the advent of television? The evolution of digital communication has changed the nature of communication. It’s also made it more personal with social media and email, there is a lot of interpersonal communication happening now. Humans have a basic need to communicate and now there are more ways than ever. Parental Confidence There are certainly people who have parents who are not encouraging or present. Francis recalls a comment made during a tennis match, where two different players of equal skill are compared, and the observation was that the deciding factor will be self confidence. Having parents that believe in you alongside his mentors empowered Francis and gave him the confidence to face the challenges that all entrepreneurs have to face. The buy in that someone gets from mentors they respect can be very empowering and confidence building, even when parents haven’t provided that. What do you consider risky? Francis uses the term “intelligent risk” to describe the process of evaluating risks. Intelligent risk is not a gamble, it’s a calculated and measured action with research and analysis behind it. Francis has a theory that if you’re going into a generic marketplace where you are just offering more of the same, it’s very hard as an entrepreneur to compete on price and that’s all you’re really left with. Look for markets that aren’t being addressed and try to find solutions to meet those unmet needs. Imagine what you could accomplish if you weren’t afraid to fail. What would you say are unaddressed needs in the real estate space? Under occupied office buildings are one such issue. Sometimes an office maybe be under occupied because of a reputation problem from the past but it may have the features that allow you to lower your cost basis, which means you can also rent out the space for less. These can be the ingredients that allow you to be competitive in the market. Why did you go into real estate?
10/30/2019 • 43 minutes, 42 seconds
Self Directed Retirement Accounts with Rocket Dollar
Dan Kryzanowski is an active real estate investor and fundraiser, leveraging Self-Directed accounts - SDIRA and Solo 401(k) - to create a diversified real estate portfolio yielding double-digit returns. He specializes in self-storage investments, multi-family and hard money residential property loans. Dan has personally raised millions of dollars from family offices and individuals, and empowered his partners to raise seven-figures on multiple occasions. Dan serves as Executive Vice President at Rocket Dollar, unlocking the $10T pool of untapped retirement assets for the real estate community. He is also a Capital Partner for Pinnacle Storage Properties and Corporate Board President for Hugh O'Brian Youth Central Texas. Dan, a Wharton graduate, previously led commercial real estate initiatives for GE Capital in Mexico and South America. Podcast Highlights Who is Dan Kryzanowski? Dan attributes his business success to his magic afro and his early basketball success. Dan had a very blessed life for his first 30 years, he followed what would be considered a pretty normal path that most people in his generation would follow, right up until the crash of 2008. That made him rethink things a bit and Dan found that he wasn’t particularly interested in working for General Electric for the next 30 years of his life. He and his wife moved back to Texas and started looking at alternative investment. There were a few signs that GE wasn’t going to be a great place to spend the rest of his career at. Ultimately it was a personal decision to change the path from following everyone else and being led by fear or having the confidence to do things on his own. Why Real Estate and self directed retirement accounts? While working his traditional career Dan had always been interested in things he could do with his 401(k). When he had a fateful conversation with a guy that flipped houses at a wedding, Dan was exposed to the world of self directed retirement accounts. Once he realized that there were a number of benefits using your retirement funds to invest in real estate, it all just made sense. Instead of making 2%-3% with a traditional bond or fund, he can earn double digit returns working with someone he trusts and can look at the real estate and see the asset. Using self directed retirement account was the key that unlocked everything. The idea has been around since the 70’s. Self directed retirement accounts are where you take full control of where your retirement dollars go. There are an infinite number of investments you can access and there are no fees or early withdrawal penalties. Rocket Dollar has completely eliminated the friction involved in using self directed retirement accounts to invest. Dan’s company is very focused on education and informing people the options that are available to them. You have full control of your money at all times for a low monthly fee. If you’re self employed, you are eligible for the Solo 401(k). Not only can you contribute ten times as much as an IRA, you also get full checkbook control by default. What if my HR department said my 401(k) is already self directed? By one definition your 401(k) at work is self directed, but it wouldn’t count as Self Directed. You get a handful of choices in what you invest in but you don’t have true freedom in where yo
10/28/2019 • 44 minutes, 13 seconds
October 2019 Q & A 8: Negotiations, Slow Seasons, and Protecting Yourself
Questions and Answers I have a person that wants to book through February to November but I’ve already got someone with a reservation in the middle of that time. Do I offer the other guest to switch to another short term rental unit to accommodate the person who wants to stay longer? This can be pretty common with new short term rental units or you are new to operating. When you put up a new listing it often gets promoted and for people looking for longer stays there often aren’t a lot of options. You should offer the current reservation the option to move to another short term rental unit, even if you don’t have another unit in that particular area. The ideal situation would be to get all the days booked with both individuals while also getting the money upfront. The revenue from the long term reservation can actually be used to acquire another unit for the shorter reservation if necessary. There are also a number of incentives you can offer to close the deal. A major cancellation issue with AirBnB J has had a similar situation occur with a guest that said they were going to cancel but didn’t. We continually sent the person messages as well as keeping in communication with AirBnB. In both cases we were paid in full for the days that were stuck in limbo but only because we were being hyper diligent about following up and making sure the reservation was actually cancelled. If you’re at the 70 bedroom stage like this caller is in, you really shouldn’t be involved in this sort of issue. Your staff should be able to handle everything. Your business should also have an established system for making sure your guests actually arrive for their reservations. For the caller, they need to have a customer experience manager that should be able to handle all aspects of this sort of issue. When you encounter something new, create an SOP (standard operating procedure). My fear of not being sure of where to begin is holding me back. What should I start with first? All of our short term rental mastermind students get a six hour kickstart session with J specifically to address this problem. Outside of that, the very first question you have to answer is “Who do I want to serve?”. Once you answer that, you can figure everything else out. What if I can’t find a management company for one condo that’s out of town? Remote management is challenging. If you are going to do it remotely you must have a cash management system in place to make sure that no money gets released without a verification that the work has actually been done. Find someone who can be your eyes and ears on a job site. If you can find an actual landlord in the area to assist you that has experience with rehabs that would be ideal. You can find them through the local real estate investors association or meetup.com. If a guest leaves a review but you haven’t you reviewed them yet, can people still see it? Nope, not until either you review them or 14 days pass. Are the metrics you used in the SmartBnB training available to the public? SmartBnB is great for their ability to see data and metrics and then use that to drive higher revenue. It’s not currently available to the public.
10/25/2019 • 1 hour, 25 minutes, 35 seconds
October 2019 Q & A #7: Bed Bugs, Insurance, and Bad Reviews
Questions and Answers How do I improve my rankings so that I can be viewed more frequently and more often? Also do you have any tips on attracting last minute guests? The first step is to run a Market report using SmartBnB on the caller’s location. Start making incremental changes to the pricing specifically for the available dates coming up in the future. The market report will reveal the low, high, median, and average prices for any comparable listings, you should be pricing your listing relative to the market for your available weekends. You should also adjust for seasonality. The change from August to September can be quite drastic. Since the optimal booking window for the caller is 25 days, it may make sense to start experimenting with the discount curve beyond 14 days. Being on page 11 of the rankings is basically the same as not being present at all. Look at your title and thumbnail as possible places to improve alongside pricing. My closing was put off because of the hurricane, can I go ahead and list the property but not go live? There is a window of time when your listing is considered new and it gets a boost in exposure and rankings. You should maximize the SEO bonus when it’s available. We also have a number of students that have optimized their locations as possible shelters from bad weather or natural disasters. If you have a property in an area that is exposed to bad weather, a good tip is to have a generator so that your property doesn’t lose electricity when everything else does. Any updates regarding automation getting agreements signed? J had to put this project on the backburner due to some issues scaling out the customer service team. The goal is to have two way communication through as many channels as possible. Once we’ve worked through that we’ll be making more steps towards automation. What do I do about bed bugs? Ideally when you are building a business you want to build in systems so that your amount of time working in the business instead of on the business is as minimal as possible. Hopefully you never experience bed bugs but having systems in place will definitely help. We have only seen one instance of bed bugs in all the history of tenants that have been our guests. It occurred in a two bedroom unit where the guest reported the bed bugs to us. We learned that you should hire the best pest control company you can right away, even if it’s delayed by a day or two. It’s better to resolve this properly, even if it costs you some revenue. Before a unit is sprayed, cleaners should strip the beds, vacuum and clean the unit, and while doing it they should be wearing gloves and masks. We originally thought we would have to throw out all the linens in the unit, but that wasn’t necessary. Just bag the linens up and mark them as contaminated, the cleaners will wash them in extreme heat in order to eliminate the infestation. Sadly there is no guaranteed fix for bed bugs. In order to get a heat treatment on the unit we had to hire a company that can drain the fire sprinkler system. The outlets should also be dusted in the adjacent units because bed bugs move quickly and get into the walls as well. Another major lesson is to notify your insurance company immediately, and if possible y
10/23/2019 • 1 hour, 9 minutes, 58 seconds
October 2019 Q & A 6: Why Are My Short Term Rental Bookings Declining?
Questions and Answers Our short term rental bookings have been plummeting recently and I’m not sure why. Am I discounting too early or too slow based on data? You have to decide how far out in advance you want to be comfortable with for your bookings. To really know what’s going on you need to get the right data in front of you. In the case of the caller’s short term rental unit, the average number of guests is 4.1 with a 7 day booking window. Since all the data came from the one platform, one solution may be to get on additional platforms that will increase the booking window. If there is a conversion rate decline, the question becomes “what changed?”. If customer preference is what has changed, that may mean you have to adjust the way you are describing the rental and modify who you are trying to attract. It’s important to look at last year’s data as well so you can compare. If your conversion rate is down to 56% from 70% in Q4, maybe that’s what you should expect based on historical data. If you have the same number of leads, it may be something to do with your listing, or your communication, or your response time that is affecting your conversions. For a house, do you put a camera in the backyard? When it comes down to an expectation that a space is going to be private you can run into issues. You can put a camera in the backyard but you should make sure it’s looking at the backyard and not into the house. If you do do it, make sure you disclose it to your short term rental tenants. If there’s a pool in the backyard, you have to be especially careful. You are probably concerned about the number of people coming into the unit at that point and if that’s the case there are other solutions to that problem. You could use devices that detect cell signals or wifi connections that would indicate the number of people present. Links: cashflowdiarypodcast.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes and Stitcher Radio!
10/21/2019 • 19 minutes, 46 seconds
October 2019 Q & A #5: How Long Does It Take To Get Started In Short Term Rentals
Questions and Answers Does AirBnB work the same globally? The idea is the same, but some of the functions will be different. For example, payment systems will be different depending on the country you live in. Same with cleaning services. The basic idea of offering someone a place to stay in exchange for a fee is the same. I have a landlord concerned with a privacy issue regarding a camera on the door, what should I do? Since the unit already has cameras pointed at the hall in the building, there shouldn’t be any issues. The important legal idea is where there is an expectation of privacy you can’t place a camera, but that doesn’t apply in this case. You would just be adding what is essentially another security camera to a hall that already has them. From a privacy standpoint, having a doorbell camera pointed at another unit’s door can be a problem since the camera could potentially see into the other unit when the door is open. This could lead to complaints from the other tenant which is why J tries to avoid those kinds of units. If you can control both sides of the hallway, that removes the issue so that’s a good strategy if you can swing it. How long does it take to get started in short term rentals? This is a hard question to answer because of all the variables involved. Some markets are more difficult than others, but in general for most people it won’t take too long to get started. Cashflow Diary students get a big advantage because they get the knowledge to select the best properties for their business, so they can earn the most money and continue growing. Having had the privilege of teaching a variety of real estate strategies, short term rentals is the one that has allowed people to learn the most the fastest and get their business up in running very quickly. It is possible to go from lease signing to operation in 72 hours if you have the systems in place. Can you talk about your process for finding and training cleaners? Finding the right cleaners is a big piece of the puzzle. Ideally you don’t go looking for cleaners, you make them find you. One way to find a cleaner is to make a reservation at a short term rental you don’t own, and when the check out happens just wait until the cleaner shows up. Another method is to join your local BNI, because that organization is referral based and a cleaner is likely to already be vetted by the person referring them. Chances are you will have to work with a few different cleaning companies before you find one you can rely on. How do you recommend I leverage the leads I’m getting from a real estate broker with other local businesses? It’s a great idea to try to leverage your existing leads with other local businesses, but it really depends on the size of your business. The simplest way is to just go into the store and tell them who you are and what you do. If you can show them that you can help lower their customer acquisition cost, you’re set. When is a good time to start a new unit? It’s always a good time to start a new unit. When you start a unit into the low season you are building up a profile so that in the high season you will have enough reviews to maximize your profits in the high
10/18/2019 • 1 hour, 32 minutes, 50 seconds
October 2019 Q & A #4: Short Term Rental Pricing and Becoming More Efficient
Questions and Answers We currently use two different pricing platforms. If I’m using a tool like Price Labs, how do I set it up so the price is good for relocation companies and change it so I’m netting all that I can from the other booking websites? Since direct bookings to relocation companies yields the highest net profit, the ideal set up would be to have Price Labs reflect that in the Lowest price. You should also have an anchor for the Base price. In general, because of the way things are set up and connected this way, price for your highest possible outcome. If someone books at that price, that’s great but that’s not the end goal. You want every customer to feel unique and special, and you accomplish this by giving them a personal discount code or adjusting your mark down so they see a price closer to the natural price. This way you will always be in a position to make the adjuster look good. Is Hawaii completely out for nightly short term rentals? No, we have active students in Hawaii right now who are doing quite well. If you desire to be an entrepreneur, you are making decisions where the outcomes are completely uncertain. The environment we all play in is uncertain and every business has regulations and changes, it’s unavoidable. Some people will quit, some will keep going, and some will waffle back and forth and get bought out. At the end of the day, entrepreneurs adjust. How do you price listings that require a minimum 30 day stay? What if there is a 15 day gap, do you keep a 3 month booking window? Pricing is the most complicated aspect of a short term rental business. There are too many pieces to give a quick answer because you need to know all the variables first. The key is to always price it profitably, whatever that means for you. It comes down to a pricing strategy that accomplishes your goals and who you are trying to serve. Do you have any tips or tricks to attract small apartment owners and property managers without actually driving around the neighborhood? Loopnet.com is a good tool for researching an area. You can use the site to look for owners and operators that have the most listings and use that info to get on the phone and talk to them about the listings that are not yet on the site. Even if that particular realtor has nothing in their inventory that you want to purchase, they can help you get in touch with the top three property managers of that class of real estate. Once you get them on the phone, you do the same thing and find out if they have problems you can solve. Have you ever marketed to landlords? J avoids direct marketing at all costs. It has always proven to be too expensive and take too long, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work, just that he doesn’t like it. How has your faith affected your business outlook? J’s faith has directly affected his business outlook, it’s a major reason he’s even in business. To whom much has been given, much is expected. If you’ve been given any talent, the expectation is that you will at least double it. It doesn’t matter that you succeed, just that you attempt it. Can you offer daily/nightly rentals between monthly rentals? If you’re in a 30 day market, proba
10/16/2019 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 9 seconds
October 2019 Q & A #3: Get More Faster
Questions and Answers How many units do you have and how long have you been in the business? J currently has 37 units and has been in the process of getting to this point for nearly 15 years. He had to find a way to make money without trading time for dollars and real estate was the path he took. How do I have my prices on Lodgify use AirBnB and Booking.com but ignore the prices on Home Away? If you’re on the basic plan for Lodgify, it automatically ignores Home Away. J currently still uses the basic plan since the professional plan is still in beta. If you have multiple accounts, you will need to work directly with them to avoid certain errors. How should we structure a deal for a 100 units if the other party wants to sell the property in five years? It’s all down to the contract and how the services are signed for. To make things easier, use two separate entities, one for the property and one for the services involved. How do we add a 0 to our income? We will never out earn our personal growth. The image you have of yourself is part of the challenge. Part of the process in business is personal growth and consuming information with the intent of being a better person in all areas of life. Personal growth doesn’t just happen. Any idea given to you has a certain level of value to you. What you need to do to make sure you becoming better over time is to not just collect ideas, but also implement them. The majority of us don’t realize what might be in the way that is holding us back from the results we want. You have to set aside time dedicated to self improvement and find those blind spots. When you’re ready to take on that task, you will find the information that will move you further along the road. It’s not a three day process, it will take time to get there but it can be done. Is the sofa bed you have in all your units custom made? The sofa bed is custom made each and every time. One size does not fit all in our market. A question about Ring camera and AutoLock Anytime we talk about a system, it’s about efficiency and a single point of failure. You can save money buying an individual system, but you will pay with additional power requirements or lack of redundancies. Especially once you start to scale, this is why we’ve put together packages that help with that. AirDNA gives my area a B+, does that rating bear any weight? It all depends on how the data was collected, you won’t know for sure until after operating in that area for about 12 months. Scott and his team have a ton of work to improve the service, right now J puts more weight in their trend data instead of absolute numbers. I want to run a short term rental business with my parents basement, should I speak to the HOA first or just do it? We try to run everything above board and documented. Typically HOA’s are something we avoid but that doesn’t mean you can’t work with them. Get a copy of the CC&R’s so you can find out exactly what the HOA says about short term rentals. It can mean having to only run a 30 day minimum model or having a conversation with the HOA if you w
10/15/2019 • 1 hour, 12 minutes, 53 seconds
Short Term Rentals Business Q&A #2
Questions and Answers What’s your system for rewarding or getting rid of cleaners that work for you? The best way to make this work is to make sure that everybody you work with understands the metrics that you are measuring performance by. You should know what your revenue was before you hire someone, and you should see a reflection of that person’s productivity in that after you hire them. You should have a minimum standard for review scores the you require your cleaners to maintain and then keep that number in front of them. If the landlord feels the negotiation around the lease is too much work, is there a better way to go about it? There isn’t much to deal with a lease other than the specific clause around being able to use the property as a short term rental. Other than that there is a clause around marketing and making sure the lease is in the company name. Those are the three main things that you need to address, other than that there shouldn’t be much you should have to fight for. The more units and the more revenue you’re bringing to the table, the easier it is to have this type of conversation. Start using future language to help your side of the negotiations. Failing fast and failing frequently is the secret to success in the short term rental business. You won’t be able to get the ball rolling if you are trying to get it right the first time and are unwilling to fail. Do you find you have more success when you are having a conversation with someone in person or is more of a numbers game? Being in person is a major advantage when you’re getting started because when you’re new, you have a lot working against you including the mainstream media. You have to overcome a bunch of assumptions which is a big challenge over the phone, which is why your only goal on the phone should be to secure a face to face appointment. Can you talk about how many towels, sheets, and linens you put in your units for each stay? There is a file in the program that breaks down what you need based on the number of beds and bathrooms. Basically you want to stock for maximum occupancy. Can you speak to the Cashflow Game, where do you find it, host it, why do you consider it important? The Cashflow Game was developed by Robert Kiyosaki and his wife but the best way to buy it now is through Amazon. Being an introvert, J had to figure out a way to increase his odds of attracting customers. The way to do that is to filter, and the kinds of people who are willing to show up and play a Cashflow Game are self selecting as people who are willing to take action. He or she who educates their market, dominates their market. Can you talk about obtaining guests that are looking for short term rentals due to being displaced and using insurance claim to fund the rental? Who do we need to build relationships and how do we meet them? You tend to need a lot of inventory to meet these people. You won’t typically find them, they will find you, but once that happens, developing the relationship is crucial. When someone comes to you ask them who their adjuster is or if the adjuster is contacting you, get to know them and their company. Do you have any ideas to generate more income from
10/11/2019 • 1 hour, 9 minutes, 41 seconds
October 2019 Q & A
Questions and Answers We are making our first short term rental unit listing tomorrow, when should I set up Wheelhouse and AirBnB? That should be done now since that all happens at the same time. If you are ready to make your listing live go ahead and get that done now. What is the best way to attract guests to stay one month or longer? When it comes down to length of stay, being able to attract someone who wants to stay longer has a lot to do with what platform you’re on and your pricing strategy. Each site markets to its database differently and displays your listing differently. Booking.com is a discount marketplace, so your ranking depends on how much of a discount you’re giving. Craigslist is not recommended for this purpose. The best way to get a 30 day reservation is to work with insurance companies. When a homeowner gets displaced during an insurance claim, it will often be for 30 days or longer. Should tenants have list agreements signed? There are times when a list agreement makes sense, for example a deal with a corporation. If you want to protect yourself from a tenant’s rights issue a listing agreement can be a good idea. What is considered an automatic cancel with regards to someone’s reservation of a short term rental? If someone causes a disturbance and then becomes belligerent, that creates a completely different issue and can be subject to cancellation without any sort of refund. Within the house rules list it outlines what the words “our discretion” means. Typically that means the process goes from warning, to fee, to cancellation, but there are some issues that warrant an immediate cancellation. A question about using a four-plex as a short term rental The more you can divide a piece of real estate, the higher your utilization rate becomes but it is a double edged sword. This kind of rental requires different levels of services and a much higher level of management. Pricing can also be pretty cutthroat and can make screening more difficult. You will also probably need someone on site 24/7 and there may be a separate license required. Depending on the layout of the four-plex, it could be possible to get away with less management. Finding someone to actually manage a hostel style short term rental is another big challenge. Should the damage waiver fee be the same when your in the 30 day market? The damage fee should be increased to closer to $300. In a traditional market where you get $59 you would get in theory five or six reservations, so you should try to make up for the potential lost revenue. Now that AirBnB is currently favoring businesses as hosts instead of individuals, should we rearrange our inventory? J has started putting all the inventory onto a single host account for AirBnB. When you have your team document resolution income claims do you find value in having the unit added to the spreadsheet? Yes. If there are multiple claims from the same short term rental unit, that may indicate it’s priced incorrectly and attracting the right client. Are there any corporate
10/4/2019 • 49 minutes, 16 seconds
Wealth Without Wall Street
Joey Mure decided to join Russ Morgan and co-founded a company called Wealth Without Wall Street. They teach people to stop trading time for money to achieve financial freedom by following the 5 Pillars of Wealth Without Wall Street. Russ, aka, The Idea Guy, started his career in the financial industry. With 4 years of planning under his belt, Russ was stunned in September of 2008 to see the DOW Jones plummet 800 points. He had no idea that the market could react in such a volatile manner and knew this was something he could never have control over. Russ began a journey that day to passionately understand more about how to take back and gain control over his money, as well as his clients. Joey, aka, The Stallion started his career in the mortgage business in 2003. He grew to become a branch manager with one of the Nation’s top mortgage lenders leading 25 loans officers. By 2010 he had achieved national recognition. Despite earning an impressive income he still had significant questions about how to save for the future without having to borrow from banks. How does anyone save aggressively for retirement AND simultaneously pay for automobiles, save for college, weddings, and vacations? In 2010 Joey met Russ, who shared the Infinite Banking Concept and everything changed. IBC allowed Joey to get completely out of debt besides paying off his mortgage, he started saving four times the amount he had previously been saving, and now had a clear plan of how to save for all our life’s expenses without giving up retirement savings. Podcast Highlights Who is Russ Morgan and Joey Mure? When Russ was a kid, one of his favorite uncles used to give him green Tic Tacs, but he called them Hulk pills. Imagination has always been a part of his background, he was constantly envisioning things as they could be if they were bigger and better. The motivation to help out his family as well as other people has been a key driver in Russ’s personality. For Joey, the Italian Stallion Rocky Balboa is his unconventional hero of choice. Rocky was the constant underdog taking on Goliath, and Joey always felt that way, especially about his education. His parents wanted him to get an education but they didn’t have the money to pay for school, so Joey had to make it happen on his own. They’ve given him the vision and he put in the work, became valedictorian of his high school, and secured a scholarship to university. The vision of wealth in the future and being able to take care of his family is what drove Russ to get into the financial world. For Joey, having the end goal in place and then achieving it showed him what was possible. While in school he encountered a number of mentors that helped guide him towards the mortgage industry. While working in the mortgage business and generating a significant income, Joey realized that there was still something missing and it was around that time that he met Russ which changed the course of their lives. Wealth Without Wall Street Success leaves clues, as a financial advisor Russ saw what wealthy people did with their money and it wasn’t going into Wall Street. When the market crashed in 2008, nobody knew what was going and he realized that he couldn’t be a part of an industry that just pretended like they understood how wealth was built. The wisdom is in wealth, and the wealth isn’t on Wall Street. Real estate, business ownership, and private lending were the main asset classes that Russ saw his clients using to build their wealth. There are five main pillars in the Wealth Without Wall Street plan. There first is about keeping more of the money you make, also known as cash flow. Where are you unnecessarily spending money that you don’t need to? That involves optimizing your tax strategies and paying down certain kinds of debt. Invest in w
10/2/2019 • 43 minutes, 51 seconds
The Land Academy, Buying and Selling Land for Fun and Profit
Since 1999, professional real estate investors, Steven Jack Butala & Jill DeWit, built a $24m land resale empire completing close to 16,000 transactions without incurring any debt or leverage. In 2015, they co-founded Land Academy to share their experience and provide access to professional level tools for like-minded investors at all stages of their careers. To date, they have produced more than 1,000 podcast episodes and provided over 500 hours of live webinars all in the name of education through sharing their transaction experience. Podcast Highlights Who is Jill DeWit and Steven Butala? If Steven had to choose a superhero to be like it would have to be Batman, being an entrepreneur is a lot like the way that Bruce Wayne took his circumstances and resources and found a way to use them for good. For Jill, she identifies with Wonder Woman and the way that she operates. Wonder Woman is forthright and truthful, and that’s how they run the Land Academy. Steven graduated in 1989 and became a commercial real estate broker in one of the worst real estate environments possible. It took him several years to make it work but he learned a lot about real estate by working on some of the most complicated and difficult types of deals you can do. That lead him to look for a simpler way of doing a deal and towards a different kind of transaction. Jill’s father raised her to believe that she could do anything that she wanted and to act like she knew what she was doing. She followed in his footsteps in many ways but was never very far from real estate. She worked with some developers in her early 20’s and when she eventually met Steven it all clicked together. Steven’s Unique Abilities include the ability to analyze data and make connections that other people can’t see as well committing to a project and following up until it’s complete. For Jill, she can connect with people from all backgrounds and situations. This makes her very good at talking to sellers and developers and making everyone feel good about a deal. She’s never had trouble seeing anyone as another human that has similar hopes and dreams to herself. Formal Education Steven believes that some form of formal education is important but that doesn’t necessarily mean the traditional four year degree. Getting the experience in a professional environment is important to be able to make a go of it when you do decide to go out on your own. Jill was raised to think about what she was going to do with her life and was encouraged to go for the big stuff. Formal education does not prepare you in any way for the politics of an office. They prepare you academically for what’s possible but they don’t show you how to do anything. Formal education also doesn’t teach the skills of scrappiness, talking to people, and dreaming big. In many ways formal education places limits on people’s abilities to think about and achieve big goals. In many ways a vocational education has more value in today’s marketplace than an education from a more well known and traditional institution. Land Academy and Buying and Selling Land Landing is one of the easiest product types in the real estate business. The majority of the time there is just a seller and a buyer, there is no appraiser, agent, lender, or inspector. With just those two people you can close a transaction very quickly. There is always somebody out there that is interested in a piece of land that you wouldn’t be interested in at all. Jill and Steven’s business model is predicated on not improving property, they buy property and then immediately resell it to people who then go and sell it on terms. The secret is in the offer campaign that reliably generates consistent results. The real key to successful direct mail campaigns is se
9/30/2019 • 58 minutes, 46 seconds
The Power of the Deferred Sales Trust
Brett Swarts is the Founder of Capital Gains Tax Solutions. Each year, he equips hundreds of business professionals with the Deferred Sales Trust tool to help their high net worth clients solve capital gains tax deferral limitations. His experience includes numerous Deferred Sales Trusts, Delaware Statutory Trusts, 1031 exchanges and $85,000,000 in closed commercial real estate brokerage transactions. He’s an active commercial real estate broker and investor with brokerage experience and ownership in multifamily, senior housing, retail, medical offices, and mixed-use properties. He is a licensed California Real Estate Broker who holds series 22 and 63 licenses. Podcast Highlights Who is Brett Swarts? Brett is a Christian so he believes that each of us were given unique gifts to help others, and that shaped his world view when he was young. At the age of 12 he encountered several different mentors that helped him develop and realize that challenges are an opportunity to grow. In terms of superhero powers, Brett is a careful observer that can learn from the mistakes of others and see better ways to get things done. In college, Brett was guided by one of his older cousins towards investing in commercial real estate which lead to him getting an interview with Marcus and Millichap. It was there that Brett learned that he loved the business and competition, and that the moment you learn more about someone’s business or piece of real estate than they know themselves is the moment you start adding value. Brett’s career started off rough but he kept persisting until he found the results he wanted. We are forged in the fire, all the difficulties and challenges that Brett worked through are how he developed the tools and skills he needed to succeed. The Power of Persistence When Brett was working on his business he didn’t take the negative opinions he often heard seriously. He had his wife supporting his vision and felt like he was on the right path. Persistence has always been part of Brett’s personality so without a challenge to keep him engaged he tends to get bored. The strategy of the deferred sales trust is something that caught Brett’s eye that he saw as something that could serve people’s needs, so he invested a lot of time into understanding it. This turned into Brett becoming a trustee and educator who teaches financial advisors, brokers, and high end realtors on the strategy. Deferred Sales Trusts You can defer your taxable gains on real estate by using the 1031 exchange as long as it’s done within a certain time period. The challenge is that if that’s the only tool in your toolbelt you may be put into a situation where you can’t make the best decision because of the 46 day window. It’s a seller’s market today, so if you sell today and buy 180 days later you are likely paying more with a higher interest rate for example. Debt is not your friend in a highly appreciated, overpriced marketplace. The 1031 exchange requires you to buy something of equal or greater value, which means that you will have to take on that debt or more on the next deal. The intent is to take on smart debt when it makes sense, usually during a buyer’s market. A deferred sales trust gives you multiple options for what you can do with your money. According to the American Banking Association
9/27/2019 • 1 hour, 7 minutes, 17 seconds
Sharon Lechter on Loss, Life, and Playing Big
Sharon Lechter is the former CEO of Rich Dad and Pay Your Family First. She is an entrepreneur, #1 New York Times and international bestselling author, philanthropist, international speaker, mentor, licensed CPA and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. Sharon Lechter is the co-author with Robert Kiyosaki of the international bestselling books Rich Dad, Poor Dad, co-author with President Donald Trump of Why We Want You to Be Rich: Two Men, One Message, co-author with Greg S. Reid of Three Feet from Gold: Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities!, and author of Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success and Think and Grow Rich for Women: Using Your Power to Create Success and Significance. She and Greg Reid just released the new book Success and Something Greater: Your Magic Key. She was a member of Presidents George W. Bush and Obama’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy Podcast Highlights What has been happening with Sharon Lechter over the last five years? Sharon has been through some pretty difficult times during the past five years, having lost her younger son. She ran her life in neutral for a while thought that if she wasn’t going to play big in her life she should probably retire. She got some push back from her family and made the decision to re-fire instead of retire. In changing her attitude from one of mourning to there being more for her to do amazing things started to happen. She found her passion for writing again and her latest book in being released in a few weeks. She is now recommitted to living life to its fullest and giving people information to take control of their financial lives. Living Life in Neutral Comfort turns into complacency. So many of us in life are in neutral because we do the exact same things day after day. The only thing that changes us in a state of complacency is a crisis, and that puts our lives into chaos. The only way out of the chaos is to be creative again. You’ve had your successes and your learning opportunities, there are other people who can benefit from what you know. The more you start giving the more you are going to start feeling alive again, supporting others will get you out of neutral and back into drive. The importance of your environment and your associates are paramount. Are you putting yourself into your place of greatest potential? When you’re an entrepreneur, when you have the right people around you will keep your head above water when you feel like you’re sinking. Surround yourself with people that challenge you, that are strong where you are weak, so that you have the greatest opportunity. Are you putting negative thoughts into your brain or empowering thoughts that help you see the world of possibility? Have you added value to someone’s life today? Success is more than money, it’s also about contribution and impact. Refiring Your Life It took a while for Sharon to come to terms with the loss of her son. It wasn’t until someone asked her if she realized how many people she could help if they knew that someone like her had gone through something like that. A failure is an occurrence, not a definition. Too many people with a failure in their life feels like it defines them, and it doesn’t. You just have to pick yourself back up and redirect your energy. Success is not a single pathway with a special one size fits all key, for Sharon success is about how you feel about yourself when you look in the mirror. If you want to succeed, do the homework and look towards where you want to go. How does experiencing failure events define your idea of success? No one has ever had a straight line to success. Failure is a learning opportunity, a chance to recalibrate and refocus on the end goal.
9/25/2019 • 45 minutes, 57 seconds
Future Money Trends, Buying Cash Flow, and Financial Independence
Daniel Ameduri is a self-made multi-millionaire, a full-time skeptic of conventional thought, and a proud father of three. He is the cofounder of the Future Money Trends newsletter and FutureMoneyTrends.com, which, with nearly 150,000 subscribers, is the most widely recognized online authority in investment ideas and economic advice. He’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, on ABC World News Tonight, and on Russia Today TV. Daniel correctly predicted the collapse of Lehman Brothers, AIG, and Washington Mutual on “Vision Victory,” the YouTube channel he launched in 2007 and which now has had more than thirteen million views. Podcast Highlights Who is Daniel Ameduri? Daniel is a guy that has always been fascinated by money. As a kid Daniel thought of money as a video game and later on as an adult money meant freedom. We’re all told we’re born free but for that to be true you need to be financially independent. Right out of high school Daniel bought his first rental property but that was completely derailed in 2008, to the point where he gave up on his dream of becoming financially independent. Lucky for Daniel, his high school sweetheart kept encouraging him and pushing him toward what would eventually become Future Money Trends. Daniel has a saying in his home office, “Everything in life is a gift, even the worse things have always lead to the best lessons in my life.” Without the 2008 crash Daniel may have been burned even worse later on but it was lucky that he was young and he had time to recover. Have people missed their opportunity? Even if someone has a small amount of money in their retirement account they could still take that money and put it into cash flowing investments. This is one of Daniel’s biggest frustrations, that people are living this dream of deferred life. If they just shift and start buying cash flow, they could be on the road to financial independence in 12 months. What are the top 3 things that you have learned on your way to 7 figures that you would never have learned through formal education? School never teaches us about personal finance. The top three things that education doesn’t teach people but should are about getting down to the basics. What are you going to do with the income you make? Most people have been conned into just buying things that will hopefully gain in value. Why not be relentless about buying things that bring in checks? How are you going to maintain a sustainable life? It’s not about copying everyone else and never ending debt. The third thing is how to actually buy an investment and how to analyze a good rate of return. We should be able to break down the numbers and figure out if an investment makes sense. This is something that is completely absent in formal education. The Turning Point That Lead to Future Money Trends In 2008 Daniel and his wife were in a bankruptcy attorney’s office. But they had one duplex left that they didn’t want to lose and that was the reason they didn’t actually declare bankruptcy, which ended up teaching them an invaluable lesson. They learned that cash flow trumps appreciation, even in the worst housing crash ever in the US, so from that day on they only bought things that made them money. The next step was to make sure they wouldn’t become poo
9/23/2019 • 51 minutes, 56 seconds
Patrick Donohoe on Rethinking Retirement, Success, and the Meaning of Life
Patrick Donohoe is the author of the bestselling book Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: A Financial Strategy to Reignite the American Dream. He is also the Founder and CEO of Paradigm Life, one of the largest private and independent financial planning and advising firms in the country. Patrick and his team teach thousands how to build wealth, create lifetime cash flow, and leave a meaningful legacy. Patrick Donohoe was recently honored by Investopedia as one of the Nation’s Top 100 Most Influential Financial Advisors. He is a highly sought after presenter and speaker at financial-based events around the country and is the host of The Wealth Standard podcast. Podcast Highlights Who is Patrick Donohoe? Patrick has always been driven to succeed, which has given him a lot of the things he has achieved in life but also made him extremely unhappy. He has a hunger to understand the way things are and no matter what the achievement or result he was looking towards, he knew that he could have it. The way in which we look at the world today is shaped by our experiences when we’re younger. We link the things we all end up wanting with certain emotions, and for some people that can mean believing they are not worthy of their goals, or if they do achieve them they’re unhappy anyway. What are the top seven things that your formal education never taught you on the way to seven figures? Understand that you are your best asset. You have infinite potential. You have uniqueness that you need to discover and then invest in it and magnify it, that will allow you to apply it to the marketplace and add value to the world. The school system and the workforce were originally created to train workers and the military, but that paradigm is being turned on its head. Just because you don’t do well in school, that doesn’t mean you’re not smart. You’ll make way more money if you focus on yourself instead of something external. Nobody likes to be managed, everybody likes to be lead. Leadership is one of the hardest things to do but it’s one of the most fulfilling things you can do. Everybody has in them the ability to lead and if you adopt that in yourself it can be very powerful. The deeper the emotional level your pain and sadness goes, the more you’re capable of experiencing the positive. You don’t know the light if you don’t know the dark. People’s tendencies to avoid fear and pain means that they restrict themselves from many of the possible positive experiences and lessons in life. The wider the spectrum of experiences you have had, the more meaning life will hold for you. School is very focused on the individual and assumes you should have all the skills you need to succeed, but that’s not the way life works. You have to understand the value of teams and what can be accomplished. The things you are not good at are things you should hire other people to do for you, so you can focus on the things that you are good at. Teams with a good culture will look at unforeseen events and see them as opportunities instead of potential threats. All investment is business, and all business is people. One of Patrick’s biggest failures in business is in not understanding other people an
9/20/2019 • 54 minutes, 48 seconds
Investing Overseas with Lief Simon
Lief Simon is co-founder and investment director of Live and Invest Overseas. He is the Editor of the Offshore Living Letter and Simon Letter. He has lived and worked on five continents and traveled to more than 60 countries. In his long career as a global property investor, Lief has also managed multi-million dollar portfolios of rental properties, for others and for himself. Podcast Highlights Who is Lief Simon? Lief grew up in Phoenix and his goal in high school was to specifically go to graduate school and get an international management degree. He didn’t really know what that meant at the time, but the opportunities that came out of that degree were what opened the doors to him being able to move overseas for the first time 21 years ago. Lief knew that he got bored easily, so a career in accounting or some sort of office wasn’t something that he was interested in, even at the age of 14. What lessons did you not learn during your formal education? It’s easier to find real estate listings because of the internet, but if you’re looking at an English listing for a property in another country, you’re probably seeing the most overpriced property in that area. You have to be able to drill down to the local pricing if you want to start investing overseas. The easier something is in looking for real estate, the higher the price. You pay a premium for convenience. Lief has no problem making an “offensive” offer because it means actually getting closer to the proper price. Most Americans are willing to pay whatever the price on the price tag is, they don’t typically negotiate, but for other cultures that doesn’t hold true. In many cultures, negotiation is expected and with real estate there is almost always some room for movement on price. Another big lesson is that outside of the US, make sure you use a real estate attorney to help with your deals. In many countries there aren’t as many protections for buyers and there are rarely any safety nets so you will need some help investing overseas. How has your relationship with fear changed? Lief has always been a little more aggressive than most people, if he can live with the worst case scenario he will move forward. Many people aren’t comfortable with the worst case scenario, if they even consider it. What did you gain from your formal education? If you want to compare opportunities you have to find your Internal Rate of Return (IRR). If you’re a real estate investor your annual yield is your IRR, but with other types of investments like teak plantations that can be quite difficult because you can’t just compare the cash flows. Having a handle on certain accounting concepts has been an asset. As Lief gets older he’s become less focused on capital appreciation and has started looking at agricultural opportunities. The timeline on those investments is much longer, but it gets away from some of the challenges of finding a good deal in real estate.
9/18/2019 • 45 minutes, 42 seconds
Find Your Second In Command With Cameron Herold
Cameron Herold is host of the Second in Command podcast and bestselling author of The Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs: Elevate Your SELF to Elevate Your BUSINESS, Meetings Suck: Turning One of the Most Loathed Elements of Business into One of the Most Valuable, and the new books Free PR: How to Get Chased By The Press Without Hiring a PR Firm and Double Double: How to Double Your Revenue and Profit in 3 Years or Less (in its seventh printing). Herold is the founder of COO Alliance, which helps COO’s become better leaders. He is the mastermind behind hundreds of companies' exponential growth and has built a dynamic consultancy, including his time as COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?. His current clients include a 'Big 4' wireless carrier and a monarchy. Podcast Highlights Who is Cameron Herold? Cameron’s first entrepreneurial memory was when he was seven years old. He was cold calling dry cleaners about how much they would pay for coat hangers. His parents raised Cameron and his siblings as entrepreneurs right from the beginning so there wasn’t really a time before then when he wasn’t doing his own thing. Why Second in Command? Cameron started off his entrepreneurial career with College Pro Painters within a franchise which super charged his growth as an entrepreneur. He went on to work in three other companies where he was second in command and helped those companies grow. All that prepared him to take 1-800-GOT-JUNK from 14 employees to 3100 employees and that’s where he found the match between the CEO and the COO. A lot of the time the entrepreneurs that start a business have all the vision in the world but don’t have the skills they need to grow their business, so it makes sense to bring someone in who has those skills. The CEO in the early days of a business is the Chief Everything Officer, but that eventually evolves into the Chief Energizing Officer once the business gets going. When they transition in the later stage they can deliver on the why of the business but not necessarily the how, which is when the COO comes in. When should a CEO bring on the COO? You need to completely trust the person as your COO on day one. If you don’t have the trust level built up, you need to keep interviewing and doing reference checks until you can trust them with the keys to your house and password to your bank account. Try not to get wrapped up in the title, the COO could also be the VP of Operations or General Manager. You can find multiple people to shore up your weaknesses, the point is to find someone with skill sets that you don’t have. The entrepreneur needs to know what has to happen and the COO needs to know how it has to happen. They are the executors of the business and need to be given free reign to accomplish the entrepreneurs vision. Playing out of position The CEO and the COO work in tandem. Whatever the
9/16/2019 • 48 minutes, 13 seconds
The Art of Being Productive
Nir Eyal writes, consults, and teaches about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business. The M.I.T. Technology Review dubbed Nir, “The Prophet of Habit-Forming Technology.” Nir founded two tech companies since 2003 and has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. He is the author of the bestselling book, Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, Nir’s writing has been featured in The Harvard Business Review, TechCrunch, and Psychology Today. Podcast Highlights Who is Nir Eyal? Nir describes himself as a chubby immigrant from Israel. He moved from Israel with his family when he was 3 years old and always had a bit of a weight problem, which was actually how he started exploring the idea of how certain products can get us hooked and change our behaviours. A phrase that authors like to repeat is “research is mesearch”, which is exactly why Nir likes to write. He wrote his first book because he couldn’t find a satisfactory answer out in the wild around how to use technology to build healthy habits in user’s lives, so he wrote it himself. It was the same with his second book, we all know what we need to do so the question was why don’t we do those things? It’s certainly not a lack of knowledge. Changing Behaviours Unless we figure out why we are distracted on a psychological level, we will go back to our default behaviour and old habits. The opposite of distraction is not focus, it’s traction. Traction is any action that pulls you towards what you want and distraction is what pulls you away. The key is that it’s not the technology that’s the problem, it’s the idea that technology is the problem. As long as we have a scapegoat to blame the issue on, we don’t have to do anything ourselves. Imagine how powerful you could become if you simple did everything you said you were going to do. Becoming Indistractable Most people will tell you that motivation is about the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, but it’s not true. Neurologically speaking it’s pain all the way down. All products cater to uncomfortable sensations because wanting something is neurologically and fundamentally uncomfortable. This means that time management is also pain management. We have to come to terms with the fact that our behaviour is driven by the desire to escape discomfort, and we only have two choices to deal with that. We can either learn techniques to cope with the discomfort, or fundamentally change the source of the discomfort. There is nothing wrong with watching cat videos, it’s only when it distracts you from the things you value like being with your kids. Time you plan to waste is not wasted time. Living Your Values When it comes to external triggers, there is nothing inherently bad about them. It comes down to whether they are helping you gain traction or pulling you into distraction. By far the most distraction comes from internal triggers like boredom and fatigue. You have to make time for traction, put time into your
9/13/2019 • 43 minutes, 15 seconds
Innago Creator On Building A Software Company
Dave Spooner is a co-founder of Innago, a property management software designed to simplify life for small to mid-sized landlords. He has been involved in the real estate technology space for the last 5 years, working to enhance the way landlords and tenants communicate. In addition to his expertise in content marketing, Dave utilizes his experience with entrepreneurship and management to help landlords achieve sustained success. Podcast Highlights Who is Dave Spooner? Before getting involved in entrepreneurship Dave was a History and English major in college. The process of putting together his thesis was his first encounter with entrepreneurship and where he got the bug of trying to build something yourself. No matter what industry you’re in being an entrepreneur takes a lot of work and effort, but once you have the bug you can’t turn away from the path. Dave was actually surprised himself when he chose to be an entrepreneur, but there is a lot of overlap with people who are going through the process of education and looking for unique experiences and entrepreneurs. Dave’s first venture was really the piece of scholarship he was putting together for his thesis. It involved applying for grants and research, as well as negotiating. Creating a Software Business Creating software is a difficult proposition, even when it goes to market you will have to constantly modify and fix it. Even features that are specifically asked for will end up being the wrong things to include and need to be scrapped or fixed. One of the keys to Dave’s success with Innago is listening to not just his customers and what they want, but also the customers who said no. The beauty of software development is that it is constantly changing and for Dave that means he gets to take on different challenges everyday. There is always something new to learn which is something that Dave really enjoys. Similar to Google, the origin of the name Innago was designed to create a sense of simplification and ease. Why should a landlord choose Innago? The ease of use is the main feature of Innago. There are other options available but they are extremely complicated and difficult to use. For one of Innago’s major competitors they actually have people on LinkedIn who claim to be experts in the software, and for Dave that is exactly what he wants to avoid. Once they started building out the platform Dave realized that the other major barrier to entry was cost, so they decided to make Innago free to use. The only costs involved are paid for by the applicant/tenant. When a potential tenant applies they have to pay for a background check, and the second way Innago makes money is by taking a small percentage of the rental transaction. What Innago is meant to do is to automate the things that are basically data collection and other tasks that you as the business owner aren’t required to be involved in. It puts everything in one simple, easy to access place so that you can make better decisions about your business. One of the biggest challenges that landlords face is that real estate laws are different in each state and within each sector each landlord does things differently. Flexibility was another major focus in designing the software so that it could se
9/11/2019 • 40 minutes, 4 seconds
The Slicing Pie Model of Funding Your Company
Mike Moyer is the author of the bestselling books Slicing Pie: Fund Your Company Without Funds, and the new book Bird's Eye Business: A Primer on How Companies Work. He is an Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Moyer is an entrepreneur who has started a number of companies including Bananagraphics, a product development and merchandising company, Moondog, an outdoor clothing manufacturing company; Vicarious Communication, Inc, a marketing technology company for the medical industry; Cappex.com, a site that helps students find the right college; College Peas, LLC which provides publications and consulting on college admissions; and Trade Show Samurai, LLC a company that teaches trade show exhibitors how to capture lots and lots of leads. In addition to his experience as an entrepreneur he has held a number of senior-level marketing positions with companies that sell everything from vacuum cleaners to financial data services to motor home chassis to luxury wine. He has taught entrepreneurship at both Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. Podcast Highlights Who is Mike Moyer? Mike got the entrepreneurship bug in high school, he wanted to be a veterinarian and was keeping and healing animals in his backyard. One day he found himself as the owner of 24 baby rabbits and had to do something with them, so he took them down to the state fair. His aunt suggested that he sell them for $25 each and he sold them all in a matter of hours. That put him on the path to starting his own clothing manufacturing company in college and a number of other companies since then. Mike pivoted from the veterinarian career path due to poor grades and his parents subsequently refusing to pay for his schooling. Instead of finding a job Mike started a clothing company to pay for his education and he ended up selling the business after he graduated. Mike values both education and practical experience. Education saves you a lot of time doing your own work and Mike spent much of his time split between startup companies and established companies. A combination of all three has been very useful in building Mike’s later businesses. Real Jobs, Real Companies, and Startups At a real job you’re getting paid for your work and that’s pretty much it. With a startup you are basically betting on the future of the company, and until that company starts generating revenue and profit it doesn’t qualify as an asset. With a bootstrap company the way you get started in the early days is by not paying the bills. What this means is that for an employee who would normally be paid $100,000 a year they are basically betting that salary on the success of the company. For those employees, their share of the equity in the company should be proportional to the size of their bet, the challenge is that it's very hard to know the value of the entrepreneur’s idea. In the grand scheme of things, a person capable of execution is comparatively rare to the accessibility of capital in the beginning stages of a business. An idea is simply an intention to do something. Without the actual value created through production, the intention isn’t worth anythi
9/9/2019 • 56 minutes, 32 seconds
Credit Unions Are The Solution You Didn’t Know You Needed
Mark Ritter is the CEO of MBFS and an expert in credit unions and business lending. His primary role at MBFS is overseeing the strategy of helping credit unions assist members with business needs and consulting with credit unions on planning the delivery of services to their membership. In 2002, Mark started Members 1 st Federal Credit Union's business lending program as "one person and a desk" with no policies, products, staff, systems, or business members. That program grew to be one of the top ten in the nation in the number of loans and balances outstanding for federal credit unions. In addition, Mark developed a participation program that grew to one of the top buyers and sellers of credit union business loans in the eastern United States. He has done extensive work with branch retail staff, business lending operational and sales staff, and credit unions to educate and train them on the merits of business lending. Podcast Highlights Who is Mark Ritter? Mark always tells people that he is a blue collar guy in a white collar world. He grew up in a town called Burwick in Pennsylvania and despite being a marginal football player he found himself with the opportunity to work for the Penn State football team. Without that chance he would probably still be working in that small town. In many ways he can attribute that one thing to getting him to where he is today. Mark remembers his father talking about their credit union fondly and that has always stuck with him. Once he got older and looking for new areas to work in he thought again of the credit union space. In terms of superheros, Mark considers himself like Aquaman. Aquaman has a number of non obvious superpowers but they are quite useful when you need them. How are credit unions different? When you walk into a credit union you’ll see a lot of the same features that you would at a bank. The difference is in the underlying structure, credit unions are a cooperative business that focuses on building relationships and doing what’s right for people. The shareholders and stakeholders of a credit union are the members of that union, and in some ways they are similar to mutual insurance companies. Credit unions were originally created for businesses, and since then there has been a revolution in what credit unions were capable of that has lead to them really taking off. Credit unions can be friendlier when it comes to fees, and terms and conditions on the financing they offer because they are considering what is best for the membership of the union instead of just the shareholders. One out of every three people have an account with a credit union. They are generally smaller institutions when compared to banks but even then they are still managing many millions of dollars. There are twice as many credit unions in America as there are banks, but getting the word out is one of the main challenges. Most people want a relationship with their financial institution and with credit unions that’s possible. The numbers are the same for everybody, where credit unions excel is in the qualitative analysis of a loan and taking the story into account. Where do credit unions operate? Most credit unions prefer to lend within their region but there are some that will consider a wider area. If a customer comes to Mark with a need for financing in an
9/6/2019 • 43 minutes, 26 seconds
Tower Capital and Financing The Real Estate Business
Adam is the Founding Partner and Principal at Tower Capital, a Phoenix-based Commercial Real Estate Finance firm. Since 2015, the firm has been involved in over $500 million in successful debt and equity placements on behalf of investors across all major asset classes. Adam is an active member of Forbes Real Estate Council and has been featured and published in numerous national and industry publications including Forbes, Globestreet.com, National Real Estate Investor, Phoenix Business Journal, Commercial Executive Magazine, Multi-Housing News, and many others. Podcast Highlights Who is Adam Finkel? Adam is a regular guy from Boston, Massachusetts. When he turned 18 he headed out west and went to school at Arizona State University. It was there where he found an opportunity to get his foot in the door of doing commercial real estate from some of the older members of his fraternity. Prior to that Adam didn’t have any experience in the industry, he just saw the opportunity that was available and went for it. Doing the transactional deals and putting in the work gave Adam a good understanding of what tenants and landlords need, and that served him well once he moved onto the finance side of the business. Investing in real estate doesn’t need a college degree, anyone can do it, which is the great thing about. Adam recommends that people start small since it’s more attainable and makes financing larger deals much easier. The first question Adam gets asked is “who is the sponsor?” because that’s even more important about the details of the deal itself. Getting Started In Real Estate Many people get their feet wet in the real estate business by buying single family homes. That’s where Adam tells people to get started in real estate. From there it’s possible and easier to move onto multi family homes, apartments, or commercial real estate. For some people, they have to learn from personal experience and make those mistakes. For those people they usually find that it can be very challenging trying to buy a larger building and they end up starting off small anyway. When Adam was getting into the real estate business in 2003 the market was picking back up again and there was a lot of activity in his local market. He believed that there was no better way to build wealth than real estate so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. Adam loves working with people and finds the capital markets very exciting. There are so many facets to commercial and traditional real estate so there is tremendous potential for people to tap into. With most things in life, it takes exposure to many different things to find out what you like and don’t like. If an opportunity comes along you should try it out and see where it leads you. Tower Capital and The Finance Side of the Business Adam wasn’t particularly interested in getting into the financial side of things. After working for a few years he began to get tired of the tenant rep leasing side of the business. He met a man named Neil Churney who invited him to work with Johnson Capital as an analyst helping Neil with the finance side.
9/4/2019 • 49 minutes, 15 seconds
EverybodyFights and the Quest to Make Fitness Free
George "Monk" Foreman III is an entrepreneur, professional boxer, trainer/coach, founder of EverybodyFights, and son of businessman and former two-time heavyweight champion George Foreman. He serves as the business manager and Executive VP of his father's business empire George Foreman Enterprises, Inc. He also starred on the E! network's reality series Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive. He opened a boxing fitness gym in Boston called "The Club by George Foreman III". In an effort to further promote the core beliefs of the gym's culture George eventually changed the name of the gym to EverybodyFights. In 2016, the company received a series-A investment from Breakaway in the form of $4 million and soon after announced the opening of another location in Boston. Since then, Everybody Fights has opened 5 locations and plans to open over 20 new locations by 2020 for growth in other major cities across the U.S. Podcast Highlights Who is George Foreman III? George describes himself as a really sad and quiet child. He cried when he got his first B in school and he didn’t see his next one until he was 17 years old. To George, the real risk is life passing you by and never coming back. If you have the chance to look back at your life in your last moments, the real risk is regrets. As part of George’s boxing career, he had an agreement with his father where his dad would train him, but at the same time George had to train other people as well. After finding some success in his boxing career, George realized that if he could make a reasonable living doing what he wanted to do, which was to teach and instill fitness in others, than that would be a success as well. EverybodyFights When George decided to open his gym he put his business plan together in seven days and it was during a brainstorming session with his friend where the EverybodyFights name came from. As soon as he heard it he knew he had a winner, but it actually held him back initially. When trying to lease a space George had to adjust the name to The Club by George Foreman III. It wasn’t until a few years later and the business had found its footing that he decided to change the name back to EverybodyFights because it fit his core message better. Brand is what you make of it. If you execute and your company culture is on point, your message is clear and consistent, and you act with integrity you can make a big brand out of any name. Another Fitness Club? At the time there weren’t a huge number of boxing clubs around so the market wasn’t too saturated. As part of his strategy with investors George took a large pay cut to prove his confidence and dedication to the business. Once he had the money in place, he also had to prove the concept to the community and that involved a lot of meetings with the city. When you sign the right deals and have a business with a decent profit margin, you can take some chances and experiment with things. When George opened his first gym he had boxing and yoga under one roof, in addition to pilates and cycling. He also taught a number of classes and within a year his gym became the best gym in Boston. George’s ultimate goal is to make fitness free. He would like to create a way where other co
9/2/2019 • 49 minutes, 55 seconds
Tom Tancredo Talks Shop in Mobile App Development - Replay
Tom founded DOM & TOM, a mobile application development shop, in 2009 and has since grown the company (along with twin brother Dominic) into one of the INC 500’s fastest growing companies in 2015 with over 45 employees. D&T has worked with clients including: Priceline, Fitch, Bloomberg, GE, CliffsNotes, PowerRangers, the Emmy’s and more on over 250 digital projects. Tom is also a fervent entrepreneur, having personally invested in multiple startup ventures in New York City, including John Brown’s Smokehouse, which was named Best BBQ in New York City in 2012 by the Village Voice. Tom has given presentations on digital culture at multiple events including Hearst, AOL Ventures, Tabula Rasa, and sat on multiple digital engagement panels.
8/30/2019 • 52 minutes, 3 seconds
Marital First Responder Hits $100K in SEVEN DAYS!! - Replay
Are you a marital first responder? If people confide in you about their relationship, you might be! Or you could be if you want to be. That’s just one of the things that Cash Flow Diary podcast guest Elizabeth Doherty Thomas from The Doherty Relationship Institute discusses in this episode. Discernment counseling is something Elizabeth talks about in this episode. But what is it? That is something you’re going to want to learn more about, but it is based in using discernment in your responses to other people when counseling them… even if you aren’t a therapist! The interesting thing is that Elizabeth must have struck a nerve with her approach because she had an impressive six-figure launch of her business in August 2014. And forget the $100K month; she achieved that figure in a much shorter time frame.... just SEVEN DAYS!! Today Elizabeth's multifaceted business revolves around ways to strengthen marriages where possible and allow a graceful divorce if that is where the couple ends up. So, was Elizabeth always a counselor? Nope. As with many successful entrepreneurs, she took that long path and became what she calls an accidental entrepreneur. In fact, she ended up partnering with her therapist father. And it all started with throwing a website up. Then she learned about SEO, branding and messaging. She put in a lot of time to create her initial success. Then she made improvements and aimed for the gold. Today Elizabeth helps couples, businesses, entrepreneurs and all sorts of people with her unique brand of counseling. As a result of their efforts and the amazing response to what they are doing, Elizabeth and her father have gained exposure in Elle magazine, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Listen in as Elizabeth shares the steps in her personal and business journey to reach her goals in her online business. From wearing all the different hats and walking in faith to overcoming bad instincts so she could create a highly successful business, Elizabeth has a lot to say. Learn more.
8/28/2019 • 52 minutes, 45 seconds
Kevin Kruse is All about Wholehearted Leadership and Employee Engagement - Replay
In my continuing Cash Flow Diary podcast series focusing on individuals who’ve earned $100K in a month, I’m talking to Kevin Kruse, a true employee engagement and leadership strategies superstar. The cool thing is that Kevin hasn’t just earned $100K in a single month; he’s earned a whole bunch more than that… like a million dollars in a month. But here’s the deal… Kevin wasn’t always wealthy nor did he have the skills necessary to earn the figures he does today. Kevin said that he decided as a pre-teen to become wealthy. He wrote his goal of wealth in his journal! That’s after he witnessed a visit to his father’s home by a scary, one-armed man who was there to collect a debt. Harder lessons were to come, but the good news is that Kevin made it through his circumstances to succeed as an adult. That path started right out of college, when Kevin started different businesses fresh out of school. Though Kevin moved through a series of failure events, he didn’t let them stop him. He kept moving toward his goal of financial security. He set his first at $100K in a year. He did some house-flipping and it didn’t work; he tried an MLM and that didn’t work; he moved down the line and didn’t have success until he realized the secret to success is to build a business about which he had a great deal of passion. He had to find mentors, he had to learn his way and work really hard. He also realized that ANY of the things he had done could work if certain elements are in place. Today, Kevin’s mission is to convince everyone that wholehearted leadership for employee engagement is the key to unlocking dramatic business results and lots of other positives! Learn more about what Kevin does and how he got there... and how he reduced his work hours to attain the success and wealth he always wanted.
8/26/2019 • 54 minutes, 26 seconds
8 THINGS TO GIVE UP - Don’t be a Fraidy Cat. Fear of Success is NOT an Option… - Replay
You might think it sounds funny, but some people are just as afraid of achieving success as they are of failing. It’s true. That’s what I share with you today in my 7th installment of the 8 Things to Give Up series of my Cash Flow Diary podcast. Hey, success can be scary. It’s sort of like “senioritis.” You know… where you’ve been going to college for four years and you’re in your final months before graduation. It dawns on you that life outside the campus awaits… Some people seize up while others seize the new adventures ahead. Maybe you’ve known someone struck down by their fear of success? They work really, really hard. They get to a pinnacle of success that causes onlookers to drool. They have the cool house, the nice cars, and the fat bank account… and then suddenly “something” happens and they lose it all. Why? The answer can be shocking. Truth is that they subconsciously made that “something” happen. They didn’t feel like they deserved the success. It’s more comfortable for them to live within their failures than to push themselves out of their comfort zone to achieve not just any dream but rather the biggest dreams. Here’s a quote by Marianne Williamson that I like, which sums up fear of success pretty darned well. She says, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate; our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." While not all things are in our control, such as when a traumatic illness or death in the family strikes, most things really are in our control. Like our response to fear… We ALL experience fear. It’s a basic human emotion; it even keeps us safe. But avoiding things you think are scary is not the path to success. You must do what scares you to get beyond the fear. When I first started out as a real estate investor I was scared that I’d do things wrong. I did them anyway. I learned what I needed to learn to get the tasks done one at a time. I knew that I could not let my fears rule me. I had no other option than to make this real estate investing thing work. If you haven’t heard my story, you need to. I had no place to go but up! Staying “safe” wasn’t going to work for me and it’s not gonna work for you. Success is within your grasp. All it takes is the right action steps. When you get there, don’t stop. Keep moving your goal posts forward. In fact, make your goals bigger and bigger. I promise that you deserve the success you are working for and when you get to your first goal, second goal, third goal and so on, it’s time to celebrate. Don’t look around and decide you don’t deserve what you’ve worked so hard to achieve! Close your eyes and give thanks, then get back to working on your next project. You’re an entrepreneur. You have endless opportunities. Succeed and don’t look back. Help others to succeed when and where you can. And when you have had your first successes, I want to hear from you. Right now, however, I want you to listen to this special episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast. LISTEN NOW.
8/23/2019 • 24 minutes, 11 seconds
8 THINGS TO GIVE UP - Criticizing Others Says More About You Than You Think… and It’s Gotta Stop! - Replay
We are into another new year now and I hope you’re off to a great start. That’s why I’m doing this 8 THINGS TO GIVE UP series in my Cash Flow Diary podcast. So far I’ve covered three of the things you need to toss out the window. Go back and listen to those episodes if you haven’t already. Today I share with you why you don’t want to put your time into criticizing others. Criticism just leaves you looking (and feeling) harsh, vindictive and cruel. Criticizing others may make you feel superior to others, but in reality that’s not the truth. How in the heck does that serve you, especially as a real estate investor? It doesn’t. Real estate investing (and most other businesses) require you to build relationships. How are you going to do that if you are hyper-critical? Let’s take the example of a property. You’re walking the property and you are there to assess it so you can make an offer and figure out how you can help the seller. If you walk around with a superior attitude, tearing the property apart with your words, I promise you’ll have a real hard time getting that seller to want to work with you. You are setting up an adversarial relationship and it’s going to leave the seller feeling bruised and upset. You may as well pick up a heavy stick and follow the seller around while poking them with it. That’s how your criticisms feel to the other party. It is horrible and unnecessary. When someone is receiving criticism, it puts them in a defensive position. That sets up sour ground for negotiations. The seller will push back with their own criticisms. Both of you will walk away feeling bad about each other and the property. Have you ever heard that old saying that you catch more bees with honey? It’s true. You don’t have to embellish; you simply have to learn to communicate in a more positive way. You can say absolutely anything if you frame it correctly. If you form an actual connection with the other person, put yourself in their shoes, learn a little about their situations and challenges, and you stop putting yourself first your negotiations will go better. Your business will do better. Your income will improve. As a real estate investor you are supposed to be solving problems for other people. You are alleviating pain. You don’t have to say every little thing that’s running through your brain. The seller knows the problems with the property. They want you to make an offer. They want to sell the property. Here’s the bottom line: No one and nothing is perfect… not even you. So, if you are prone to being critical, you need to learn how to communicate better. A book that helped me is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. And in researching the topic for this episode I found some really cool articles. There were several. Here’s just one: How To Stop Being Critical Of Others. It’s written by an NLP trainer and it’s pretty interesting. Read it. If you recognize any of the points in your own behavior it’s time to fix it… right now. You might want to listen to this episode a few times, especially the end, because I give you the way to word the negatives in your negotiations. There is a way to say everything. Learn more. LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE NOW.
8/21/2019 • 25 minutes, 18 seconds
8 THINGS TO GIVE UP - Get Used to Failure Events… Cuz That’s All They Are. - Replay
As I continue with my “8 Things to Give Up” series today, I take you where you may not want to go. In this episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast, I ask you to do something for me… for yourself… for your loved ones. Give up your fear of failure! In fact, I’m asking you to look at failure in a whole new way. I want you to embrace it! Any successful entrepreneur has had plenty of failure events, and that’s how you have to look at things when they don’t go as planned. They are not “failures” in the truest sense of the word. They’re just events in your life and your business that didn’t pan out as you expected. So what? Now what? Next… You have to learn to move past hold-ups, challenges, issues, problems and unexpected twists and turns. That’s part of life. None of us magically know how to do things the right way the first time. Everything takes practice… or do you think I suddenly and without hard work and PRACTICE became a successful real estate investor, coach, educator, author and speaker? When I first started in real estate investing there were tons of things I didn’t know. If I had let the fear of failing at those things where would I be now? I didn’t exactly have a choice. My wife was very ill; I had no job; my kids were hungry. Regardless of how scared I may have been in the beginning I had to put those fears aside and take the necessary steps to get to my first goal, then my second, then my third and so on. I had to educate myself on those steps. See, that’s the thing… It’s your reaction to your thoughts, feelings and emotions that you need to learn to control. Everyone has fears, but it’s our responses to our feelings that makes the difference between success and not being successful yet. You must learn to calm your inner negative, doubtful, fearful chatter. That’s all it is. Chatter. Understand that you CAN do what you set out to do… because you aren’t the first person who has ever tried this new thing you are trying to do. Plenty of people have come before you, which means you have just as much chance as them to get to your goals. In this episode I talk you through your fears and how to gain control over your emotional reactions. You’re gonna be just fine. Trust me on that one. Learn more. LISTEN NOW.
8/19/2019 • 26 minutes, 42 seconds
8 THINGS TO GIVE UP - Negative Thinking Serves NO ONE… - Replay
As a real estate investor, success comes to you once you understand whom you serve. So, let me ask you something… Are you serving anyone well (or at all) by allowing negative thoughts to intrude the corners of your mind and walk all over your goals? You’re certainly not doing yourself any good, and unless your intent is to attract negativity to your life, you need to stop negative thinking now. I MEAN RIGHT NOW. That’s what this episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast is all about. It’s the second in an eight-part series dedicated to the things you must stop doing immediately if not sooner to allow success to enter your life. (If you didn’t listen to part one, go back and do that now.) The funny (or not-so-funny) thing is that we can all be big negative thinkers from time to time. (That means being our own worst enemy, too, by the way.) Truth is negative thinking kills. It kills opportunities… it kills relationships… it kills deals… it kills goals. So why participate in something that isn’t going to help you get further down the path in your journey? Replace your negative thoughts with those of a more positive spin. If you’re prone to being negative, learn new ways to express yourself. Like Tony Robbins says, you can learn to replace words with negative connotations with those that bring more positive meaning. For example, instead of telling yourself (and others) that you are “nervous, scared, anxious or frightened” about learning something new and putting it to use, try replacing those words with “excited.” Just that minor difference makes a huge impact on how you feel about what you are doing. Did you know negative thinking can make you sick? Yes, sir. There are reasons to take on a more positive outlook. It’s simply healthier all around… for everyone. Think about your daily conversations with people. Who do you like to talk to? I’m betting it’s not the Negative Nellies and Debbie Downers who have a lot of negative thinking going on for themselves. It’s more likely that you are drawn to those confidant individuals who display positive thinking, communication and actions. You want to be around those who are moving forward with a smile, and who have good things to say about other people and the world. You get excited for them when they start talking about what they’re doing, because positivity attracts. Conversely, negativity repels. Big time! I recorded this episode of my podcast because I want you to be your most uplifted, positive self. I want you to stop the negative self-talk and negative thinking all-around. For more reasons you want to stop your negative thinking, give this episode your ear. Then practice what you’ve learned here today! LISTEN NOW.
8/16/2019 • 22 minutes, 33 seconds
8 THINGS TO GIVE UP - Wanna Reach Success? Dump the Doubt! - Replay
Recently on Facebook I shared an image of what you need to give up if you want to be truly successful. In short, there are 8 things: Doubting Yourself Negative thinking Fear of Failure Criticizing Others Negative Self-Talk Procrastination Fear of Success People Pleasing This is such an important list that I thought it would be neat to do a special Cash Flow Diary podcast series on these topics. So that’s what I’m doing over the next 8 episodes. I hope it helps you move your needle forward. Today I tackle the #1 thing you have to stop doing immediately… that’s Doubting Yourself. (It’s a soul-killer.) It is critical for you to have a belief that you CAN do what you set out to do. Whether that is real estate investing or any other path. When you set out on any new journey, don’t let doubt stop you from trying new things. When you get into a place of doubt, stop and ask yourself… has anyone before you ever done what you are attempting to do? The answer is yes, of course. That tells you what you’re attempting is absolutely possible. You CAN do it if you stick to it and learn the system by which other people have reached your same goals. You think I was confident when I first started out as a real estate investor? Heck, no. But I prayed and kept going. I messed up and kept going. I learned new things and kept going. I did what I feared I couldn’t do… and I moved forward anyway. After all, I didn’t have a lot of choice. I literally could not fail. To understand this statement, you need to know my story. Then go listen to my very first Cash Flow Dairy podcast episodes. You’ll see what I mean. I built my confidence over time. That’s not to say I don’t have doubts some days even now, but I have learned to control my responses to those doubts. That’s what you need to do in order to dump the doubt! This episode of the Cash Flow Diary will help get you there. LISTEN NOW.
8/14/2019 • 22 minutes, 59 seconds
You Can’t Please Everyone… and You SHOULDN’T! - Replay
Recently I read an interesting article about how being a people-pleaser is actually a selfish act. Then I found a quote by motivational speaker and life manifestation coach Christine Hassler that lays it down straight. She says, “People pleasing is a terrible investment, because it depletes your most valuable resources: your time and energy. Just think about how much energy you waste by obsessing about what other people think of you or trying to strategize your actions to appease others” I couldn’t have put it better myself! People pleasing isn’t something that works well for real estate investors. That’s because you’re going to have to say NO sometimes. For instance, you’re going to have to say no to some investors. Just because someone has money doesn’t make him/her the right person to invest in your deal. You’re also going to have to learn to say no to deals, to potential partners, to buyers and to sellers. Everything has to be in alignment with your Investor Identity. That’s the secret sauce! As you move forward and do more deals, you’re likely going to become a go-to person. Lots of people are going to want to work with you. You’re going to see all sorts of deals… and they won’t all be right for you. You’ll learn to say no. You’ll learn that you can’t please everyone. What did Abraham Lincoln say? You can’t please everyone all the time? Hey, he’s right! And this is what I talk about in today’s episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast. It’s the final installment of my 8 Things to Give Up series and you’re going to want to give it a listen. By the end of it you’ll understand why if you are a people-pleaser that you have to stop. It’s bad for your health. Studies show that the behavior actually causes higher levels of stress and debilitates the immune system. So why participate in such a negative behavior? Anyone who has ever seen me give a presentation knows I am definitely not a people-pleaser. In fact, I go the opposite way. I practice what I call Carefrontation™ which is a nice way of saying I tell people things they sometimes don’t want to hear. I tell them the truth. I ask questions that lead them to get to the truth themselves. It’s the only way I know to keep people on the right path in investing… to keep them focused on their Investor Identity so they can be their most successful. Hey, just because you say no doesn’t make you a “bad” person. It’s better that you learn when and how to say no. You aren’t in business to be liked by everyone you meet. Sure, it would be great if you were the hero all the time and well-loved by all, but that’s not life. So stop wasting time and energy thinking about it, worrying about it or trying to get to that goal. I guarantee you that there are lots of other better goals. I have a lot to say on this topic, so grab your ear buds, and say no to outside distractions. LISTEN NOW.
8/12/2019 • 23 minutes, 43 seconds
You Can’t Please Everyone… and You SHOULDN’T! - Replay
Recently I read an interesting article about how being a people-pleaser is actually a selfish act. Then I found a quote by motivational speaker and life manifestation coach Christine Hassler that lays it down straight. She says, “People pleasing is a terrible investment, because it depletes your most valuable resources: your time and energy. Just think about how much energy you waste by obsessing about what other people think of you or trying to strategize your actions to appease others” I couldn’t have put it better myself! People pleasing isn’t something that works well for real estate investors. That’s because you’re going to have to say NO sometimes. For instance, you’re going to have to say no to some investors. Just because someone has money doesn’t make him/her the right person to invest in your deal. You’re also going to have to learn to say no to deals, to potential partners, to buyers and to sellers. Everything has to be in alignment with your Investor Identity. That’s the secret sauce! As you move forward and do more deals, you’re likely going to become a go-to person. Lots of people are going to want to work with you. You’re going to see all sorts of deals… and they won’t all be right for you. You’ll learn to say no. You’ll learn that you can’t please everyone. What did Abraham Lincoln say? You can’t please everyone all the time? Hey, he’s right! And this is what I talk about in today’s episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast. It’s the final installment of my 8 Things to Give Up series and you’re going to want to give it a listen. By the end of it you’ll understand why if you are a people-pleaser that you have to stop. It’s bad for your health. Studies show that the behavior actually causes higher levels of stress and debilitates the immune system. So why participate in such a negative behavior? Anyone who has ever seen me give a presentation knows I am definitely not a people-pleaser. In fact, I go the opposite way. I practice what I call Carefrontation™ which is a nice way of saying I tell people things they sometimes don’t want to hear. I tell them the truth. I ask questions that lead them to get to the truth themselves. It’s the only way I know to keep people on the right path in investing… to keep them focused on their Investor Identity so they can be their most successful. Hey, just because you say no doesn’t make you a “bad” person. It’s better that you learn when and how to say no. You aren’t in business to be liked by everyone you meet. Sure, it would be great if you were the hero all the time and well-loved by all, but that’s not life. So stop wasting time and energy thinking about it, worrying about it or trying to get to that goal. I guarantee you that there are lots of other better goals. I have a lot to say on this topic, so grab your ear buds, and say no to outside distractions. LISTEN NOW.
8/9/2019 • 23 minutes, 43 seconds
Top Tips to Help You Curb Your Fascination with Procrastination - Replay
There’s an old adage that tells us, “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” I couldn’t agree more. Procrastinating only serves to hurt you. That’s what I share with you in this episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast. There are lots of reasons to move tasks from your to-do list to your to-done list. (And, yes, I believe in to-do lists.) One reason is simple; it makes you feel great knowing you took care of business. You didn’t put the to-do’s off; now they’re done and scratched off your list. (I talk about this in this episode, but because it is really important, I also talk about it in my book.) The bigger reason to stop procrastinating is that it’s a bad habit that holds you back from success. Literally. I’m not the only one who thinks so. I found an interesting article in Psychology Today in which you’ll learn that procrastinators sabotage themselves. Here’s the link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200308/procrastination-ten-things-know This article breaks down the types of procrastinators and gives reasons for the “maladaptive” behavior. That’s a fancy way of saying BAD HABIT. If you procrastinate, you are sending the world a big message. Not a good one. Fortunately, there are lots of things you can do to help yourself stop being a procrastinator. For example, you can track your time in 15-minute increments. You can break your larger tasks up into bite-sized nuggets. You can change your scenery. (There’s a reason I choose to make a nearby Starbucks and the busiest malls my office!) Here’s the deal… You can cut back on distractions and force yourself into a corner where success is the only outcome. It starts by taking action at the speed of instruction and then continuing to take steps without putting tasks off. If you find that hard to do, it might be that your bad habit is being supported by likeminded pals. Maybe it’s time to change the types of people you hang out with. Another old adage says, “Birds of a feather flock together.” Hey, it’s true. If you surround yourself with motivated non-procrastinators that’s gonna be a whole lot better for you in the long run than if you surround yourself with I’ll-do-it-tomorrow types. While you’re at it, get a few accountability partners. They’ll help keep you on track. (But it’s still all up to you to get to your goals.) Be clear on your goals, too. Stop overthinking things. They aren’t as complicated as you are your inner voice of fear and negativity make them out to be! If you want to learn more about the negative self-talk, go back and listen to the previous episodes in this 8 Things to Give Up podcast series. The bottom line is that we can be our own worst enemies. When it comes to achieving the success we desire, we can get in our own way. The good news is that we can step out of our own way, too, and we can totally change our bad habits. That’s another thing I talk about in this special episode. Don’t put off listening to it. LISTEN NOW.
8/7/2019 • 31 minutes, 54 seconds
8 THINGS TO GIVE UP - Get Used to Failure Events… Cuz That’s All They Are - Replay
As I continue with my “8 Things to Give Up” series today, I take you where you may not want to go. In this episode of my Cash Flow Diary podcast, I ask you to do something for me… for yourself… for your loved ones. Give up your fear of failure! In fact, I’m asking you to look at failure in a whole new way. I want you to embrace it! Any successful entrepreneur has had plenty of failure events, and that’s how you have to look at things when they don’t go as planned. They are not “failures” in the truest sense of the word. They’re just events in your life and your business that didn’t pan out as you expected. So what? Now what? Next… You have to learn to move past hold-ups, challenges, issues, problems and unexpected twists and turns. That’s part of life. None of us magically know how to do things the right way the first time. Everything takes practice… or do you think I suddenly and without hard work and PRACTICE became a successful real estate investor, coach, educator, author and speaker? When I first started in real estate investing there were tons of things I didn’t know. If I had let the fear of failing at those things where would I be now? I didn’t exactly have a choice. My wife was very ill; I had no job; my kids were hungry. Regardless of how scared I may have been in the beginning I had to put those fears aside and take the necessary steps to get to my first goal, then my second, then my third and so on. I had to educate myself on those steps. See, that’s the thing… It’s your reaction to your thoughts, feelings and emotions that you need to learn to control. Everyone has fears, but it’s our responses to our feelings that makes the difference between success and not being successful yet. You must learn to calm your inner negative, doubtful, fearful chatter. That’s all it is. Chatter. Understand that you CAN do what you set out to do… because you aren’t the first person who has ever tried this new thing you are trying to do. Plenty of people have come before you, which means you have just as much chance as them to get to your goals. In this episode I talk you through your fears and how to gain control over your emotional reactions. You’re gonna be just fine. Trust me on that one. Learn more. LISTEN NOW.
8/5/2019 • 26 minutes, 42 seconds
Fearless Wealth and Living The Undiversified Life
RC Peck, sits at the intersection of money and human behavior. For over 20 years he's helped people hear what their money is trying to tell them. His struggle with dyslexia, watching his parents' life savings get embezzled, and his background in Neuro-Linguistic-Programming (NLP), taught him to question the obvious. He now uses his ability to see what others can't see which brings clarity and insight to a world that is often described as confusing and overwhelming. His fearless wealth message is clear. Listen to your money. It's trying to tell you how to get the life you want. Podcast Highlights Who is RC Peck? The first answer that came to RC was a time when he was in 7th grade and taking martial arts. He was able to buy throwing stars for $2 and take them to school and sell them for $8, it was just something made sense for him to do. It just came naturally, he saw the excitement in others and the opportunity became obvious. RC didn’t know that he was dyslexic until his 30’s, all throughout school RC felt like he was smart but his teachers and test scores told a different story. This lead him to pursuing more creative courses like art, something that came easily to him and that he excelled at. He thinks of his dyslexic journey and sees a lot of people going through the same process, but with their money. There is a form of investment dyslexia that is holding people back. When RC’s parent’s life savings were embezzled when he was 19, that was when he realized that something was wrong with the investment world. The biggest investment mistake in the world is the belief that “I trust and like fill in the blank!” People trust anyone other than themselves to grow their money. Where does the idea of diversification and fearless wealth come from? Diversification is an idea from the 50’s, from academia before there were computers as we know them today. The idea of diversification is not inherently wrong, you will still eventually get to where you want to go, but there are probably better options depending on what your goal is. We are never given the choice to not diversify because it is so common place we never even question the idea. Doing things that go against the mainstream current can be scary, so people rarely look at their assumptions and the common wisdom around investing. There are only two things that humans can not tolerate, the first thing is not belonging. The second is not knowing the rules. A good parent can be much stricter, as long as they are consistent with their rules. People can even feel “good” about losing half of their investment portfolio value, as long as everybody else is losing too. People with investment dyslexia know there’s a problem, they just don’t have the words to describe it. What are the words that will set us free? The stock market is an idea that is loaded with negative emotions. When you read a headline that screams “Market Crash!”, your brain is interpreting that as a real, tangible threat. But if you look at an image of a graph of the stock market, you’ll put the whole thing in context and that can shortcut your brain’s fight or flight reaction. We are not taught to think visually, we are taught to think in words and sentences and the whole time your brain is bringing up associated images that is driving your life. When in doubt, zoom out. We are under attack, not by animals with claws, but from people who are paid very well that know that if they can make you angry or scared. Simple and easy are not the same thing. The defense and offense for fearless wealth is simple but not easy. You start with an image because that will rewire your brain. It can prevent your brain from going into panic mode, and can prime you to push toward your goals. To be successful in any area, you have
6/10/2019 • 46 minutes, 45 seconds
The E-Myth Entrepreneur: What Every Small Business Owner Needs To Hear
Michael E. Gerber is the founder of Michael E. Gerber Companies and E-Myth Worldwide. He has had nearly 100,000 business/coaching clients over his career and has consistently been called “the World’s #1 Small Business Guru” — the entrepreneurial and small business thought leader who has impacted the lives of millions of small business owners and hundreds of thousands of companies worldwide for over 40 years. He is the #1 New York Times' bestselling author of The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, Awakening the Entrepreneur Within: How Ordinary People Can Create Extraordinary Companies, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, E-Myth Mastery: The Seven Essential Disciplines for Building a World-Class Company, The E-Myth Real Estate Investor: Why Most Real Estate Investment Businesses Don't Work And What To Do About It, The E-Myth Contractor: Why Most Contractors' Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It, and the new book The E-Myth Chief Financial Officer: Why Most Small Businesses Run Out of Money and What to Do about It. Podcast Highlights Who is Michael Gerber? Michael didn’t find his path in life until he was 41 years old. His brother-in-law owned an advertising agency and was working with a high tech client that was having trouble converting the leads they were getting for them. He wanted to bring in Michael to help even though Michael believed that he didn’t know anything about business. The conversation started off pretty strangely, since Michael truly didn’t know anything about that client’s business, so he just started asking questions. That was how he discovered that just because someone owns a business, that doesn’t mean they understand what business is. That was also when Michael realized that he did know something about business, and that is that selling is a system. Working with that first client was the beginning of Michael’s business, although he didn’t think about it that way. The more he worked with them, the more he realized how critical what it was that he was doing for them. It went beyond sales, it was transforming the way they thought about the business of business and the purpose of them being there. After a moment of clarity in a McDonald’s, Michael realized that the idea of the system is what’s missing with every client he had been working with. The trouble was Michael’s brother-in-law didn’t see his business the way Michael saw all his client’s businesses. He could never truly take in what Michael was saying to him, this lead to him bringing someone in to replace Michael named Tom Travisono. After working with Michael for a couple of weeks, he decided to join him and they started the first business development coaching company on the planet. Technician vs Entrepreneur The truth is when you start a small company, you are doomed to misunderstand what the reality of starting a small company is. That’s why the majority of small companies fail. 1 out of 10 businesses will reach their 10th anniversary, but that doesn’t mean they’ve succeeded. They’ve just persisted harder and longer than others. You can’t learn everything that must be known to operate a successful company, but your company needs to. The question then becomes “what is it that I absolutely need to know to start my company right?” The E-Myth Dreaming Room The absolutely critical role that you need to fill as an entrepreneur is that of the founding entrepreneur. Not the person that sells real estate, the person who designs, builds, and launches the company that sells real estate. At the heart of the entrepreneur there are four critical personalities. If you are going to play the entrepreneur game, you need to understand the rules if you want to win. We
6/6/2019 • 53 minutes, 30 seconds
How Property Management Can Change The World
Jason Hull’s personal mission statement is “to inspire others to love true principles,” which means he is passionate about learning what works in business and life, and sharing what he learns with others. As a world-leading property management growth expert, Jason devotes much of his time to finding unique ways to help property management business owners to grow their companies. He believes that good property management can change the world, by impacting thousands of families & lives. He is the founder & CEO of DoorGrow, a company whose mission is “to transform property management businesses & their owners.” Jason leads a contribution-focused community, the #DoorGrowClub, a Facebook group full of property management entrepreneurs that believe in this vision. He also shares his wealth of industry knowledge with others through his podcast, the #DoorGrowShow, by helping thousands of property managers throughout North America to pinpoint powerful ways to take their businesses to the next level. Podcast Highlights Who is Jason Hull? Jason considers himself more of a nerd that has been pushed into the limelight in order to help entrepreneurs. He credits a lot of that to his entrepreneurial mother. In college Jason decided that he wanted to start a band and went around preselling a CD that didn’t exist in order to fund the recording time, he did this despite not really thinking of himself as an entrepreneur. Later on in life, Jason got married really young and the marriage fell apart. He needed to figure out a way to be able to spend time with his kids and around the same time his employer got hit hard by the financial crisis and no longer pay him. All this forced him into the entrepreneurial life as a freelancer web designer. Jason has an insatiable desire to learn which has served him very well as a business owner. Now he teaches property managers how to win. Jason helps property managers clean up their branding, marketing, and help them find revenue and growth. During his youth, Jason always had the entrepreneurial spirit without even really knowing that’s what it was. At the core of people who are entrepreneurial, they know they are unemployable. For Jason that means that he creates positive uncomfortable change wherever he goes. Entrepreneurs need to allow ourselves to do what we need to do to lower the pressure around us instead of playing everyone else’s game. Jason’s super power is his ability to see what other entrepreneurs can’t, combined with his curiosity that pushes him to figure things out. Confidence has always been an issue for Jason, he’s had to deal with imposter syndrome since the beginning, especially since he never considered himself the go to expert for property managers. Solving Interesting Problems Opportunity can be very distracting for entrepreneurs because we tend to see it everywhere. On the positive side, we see that the world can be better. Entrepreneurs have always been the ones that have made people uncomfortable and moved the world forward. Jason never planned on being a property management coach. In the beginning he tried to work with multiple types of businesses and resisted it becoming his niche but a lot about the niche really started to appeal to him. Jason found that he loves working with property managers and seems to resonate with the type of entrepreneur that’s found in the industry. Property Management and DoorGrow Every business exists to solve a problem and for property managers they face two major challenges. The biggest challenge is awareness. Only about 30% of rental properties in the US are professionally managed and most people don’t really know what property management entails. In many ways propert
6/3/2019 • 59 minutes, 17 seconds
Mobile Home Park Investing with Ryan Narus
-Wake Forest University undergrad degree in Psychology/Statistics. -MBA also from Wake Forest University with concentrations in Business Analytics, Operations and Marketing. -Former award winning car salesman, selling over 800 cars in 4 years, then author of the book "Car Deal Hacks" discussing how to buy a car for the best price using Psychology. -Self taught in Spanish (es malo pero funciona). -Co-Founder of Archimedes Group LLC, an owner-operator company that specializes in Mobile Home Parks with equity in 8 MHPs (roughly $20MM in purchase prices) spanning over 500 lots all acquired within the last 3 years. -Started with nothing: no money, no experience, and no network. Podcast Highlights Who is Ryan Narus? Ryan Narus is a kid who does not quit. In his own words he’s a boring, vanilla, Irish Catholic kid who just shows up everyday and puts in a little bit of work. Apparently Ryan was a lazy kid who never really cared until around grade 10, at which point he had a fire lit under his butt that has been pushing him forward ever since. If he had to pick one moment, it was back during his freshman year of highschool. Ryan grew up watching Tim Duncan play basketball and grew up as a Wake Forest fan because that’s where he father taught. After taking his PSAT’s in ninth grade and falling well below the cutoff point, Ryan knew he was staring down the barrel of not going to his dream school. That sparked his motivation to turn things around. Ryan had the excellent luck to graduate in 2009 with a Psychology degree and the intention to go into sales. Unfortunately/fortunately for him, the only job he could get was selling cars. He went on to sell over 800 cars in 4 years and write a book on how to buy a car at the best price using Psychology. After spraining his ankle, Ryan realized that the job was not sustainable in the long run and even if he made it to the top he wouldn’t want the lifestyle. If you don’t know who you are and what you like, you will quit. Clarity leads to power, the power to decide and act. Lack of clarity creates confusion. From Car Sales to Mobile Home Park Investing When Ryan first started talking about real estate and mobile home park investing, both his dad and his wife were against it. If your significant other is not on board with what you’re trying to do, Ryan brought on his wife to his podcast to discuss the matter and it’s a good episode to listen to. Mobile home park investing matches Ryan’s skill set like a glove, which is why Ryan focuses on them. He loves operations and organization and speaking to people face to face. Maybe more than all that, he loves helping people. Mobile home parks have allowed Ryan to do things that he wouldn’t have been able to do with other forms of real estate. The value add that he brings to his tenants wouldn’t be possible with retail or self storage. Understand your customer is not your investors. You make your investors happy by generating a strong return and you do that by pumping your properties full of value, not ripping your tenants off. A lot of people getting into mobile home parks because they think it’s easy and profitable, but ultimately the tenants are the ones who pay for that kind of mindset. The Future of Mobile Home Parks Equities are completely overpriced and investing in real estate is now the sexy thing to do now. Huge amounts of money are pouring into the major markets and that’s pushing out the little guy. Ryan believes the future is going to change. Interest rates will probably climb back up and people will get into mobile home park investing thinking it’s easy money and will find out they overpaid. Ryan wants people to come into the industry but not because it’s a chance to just make
5/30/2019 • 45 minutes, 57 seconds
Alternative IRA Secrets
Eric Satz (rhymes with “cats”), founder and CEO of Alto IRA, is a serial entrepreneur who’s seen both wins and losses. Eric knows investing is no longer just for the wealthy, and is living out his mission of delivering 21st-century investment opportunities to everyone, even non-accredited investors. Eric is a former investment banker and early-stage investor with a passion for nurturing startups and raising capital. He teaches an entrepreneurship class to high school students in Nashville and served on the Board of the Tennessee Valley Authority from 2015-2018. Through Alto IRA, Eric is making alternative asset investing available to all by giving people the support they need to choose amd make their own investments using their IRA savings. Podcast Highlights Who is Eric Satz? Eric is a product of his parents, two very different individuals. Both had significant impacts on who Eric became in life with his mom bringing the entrepreneurial mindset and his father the steadiness and in many ways an entrepreneurial spirit of his own. Eric started out his career as an entrepreneur selling classically selling lemonade and delivering newspapers. Once he graduated, he went from academia to Wall Street to a company called DLJ. It was there that he worked with a number of entrepreneur clients. From DLJ, Eric opened up a coffee bar in New York City in the same year that Starbucks opened their first NYC venue. That was Eric’s first real failure, but luckily that paved the way for Eric to get back on Wall Street. Long story short, Eric has opened an online foreign currency exchange, since moved to Nashville, started an online organic grocery delivery business, and venture capital firm. It was at that last one where Eric discovered the opportunity to invest an IRA in alternative assets, also known as the alternative IRA. Now, Eric’s mission is to give everyone in America to have the choice in retirement. If nothing changes the way we invest today we will have 25 million Americans living in poverty by 2050. Retirement and Location The financial industry has gone to investments in ETS mutual funds and index funds, and that means the expectations for returns shouldn’t be any higher than 4-6%, which is a big problem for people that are looking to retire. Another problem is the public market has changed, the average person no longer has the opportunity to participate in most deals until they are already overvalued. Most people raising money don’t know they can accept IRA money as investment, as much as people who have money in their IRA know they can invest it in privately owned businesses. 90% of all savings in the country reside in retirement accounts. Eric’s alternative IRA platform has solved this problem by making it simple and easy for people to invest their IRA money. There are a lot of sophisticated investors don’t know that this kind of investing is even possible. The Alternative IRA Alternative assets are not publicly traded securities which can be bought through a traditional broker. Also, a self directed IRA is not an alternative IRA. With a self directed IRA, you only have the choice between the approved list of publicly traded securities. Retirement savings dollars should be invested in long term, illiquid assets because those are the assets that will generate the returns you need to get to actually retire. Investing in liquid assets like stocks and mutual funds for retirement is exactly backwards. Accredited Investors The idea of an accredited investor has its origins in the Securities Act in 1933 and 1934. They were originally created to protect investors from shady people investing their money in railroads that were never going to be built and at the time, they probably
5/27/2019 • 52 minutes, 14 seconds
Courage Goes To Work With Bill Treasurer
Bill Treasurer is chief encouragement officer of Giant Leap Consulting, a courage-building company. For over two decades, Treasurer has worked with thousands of leaders across the globe, strengthening their leadership influence. He is the author of the new internationally bestselling book international bestseller Courage Goes to Work: How to Build Backbones, Boost Performance, and Get Results. His previous book, A Leadership Kick in the Ass: How to Learn from Rough Landings, Blunders, and Missteps, provides practical tips for building confidence and humility. His other bestselling book is Leaders Open Doors: A Radically Simple Leadership Approach to Lift People, Profits, and Performance. His clients include NASA, Saks Fifth Avenue, UBS Bank, Walsh Construction, Lenovo, Hugo Boss, Children’s Miracle Network, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. More at BillTreasurer.com and CourageBuilding.com. Podcast Highlights Who is Bill Treasurer? Bill grew up in the suburbs of New York and they tend to have a particular swagger due to trying to people trying to make their way in city that is crowded with other people trying to do the same. Bill found springboard diving as an avenue to compete in and started winning championships, ultimately getting to the point where he was having scholarships offered to him. The trouble was, Bill was afraid of heights and wasn’t experienced with any high dives, which were a requirement to get those scholarships. Lucky for Bill, he had a coach that wouldn’t let him quit. Bill’s coach put him into gradually increasing situations of fear, raising the board higher and higher, eventually getting him to the point where he was able to do dives in excess of 100 feet. Human beings don’t grow in a zone of comfort, we grow, progress, and evolve in a zone of discomfort. If you walk through the fear instead of running away from it, there are rewards on the other side. Bill basically didn’t enjoy the idea that his own fear was the only thing in his way and holding him back from having a life experience that very few would ever get. High Diving Into Business When Bill was the captain of his high diving team he had no idea who he was as a leader so he modeled the leader he knew best, his father. This didn’t turn out well. He started to read books on leadership and ended up working with companies that worked specifically with leaders. Eventually, after accumulating a lot of experience, Bill wanted to take his own big leap and start his own courage building consultancy. You have to know what your values are in order to be congruent with them. For Bill, that meant creativity and independence, which is why working at someone else’s business wasn’t the best fit for him. It eventually became a soul question, he realized that if he didn’t make the leap he would be suppressing his soul forever. He wasn’t prepared to live a life of dangerous safety. “Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” -Henry David Thorough What will you regret the least? Will you regret taking the chance and failing? Or not taking the chance at all? Why Courage? Bill wanted to have a risk leadership company, but the term risk didn’t really resonate well with executives that Bill wanted to work with. Bill worked with Mark Levy on the brand and he pointed out that the core concept was really courage so that’s what he should focus on. Once Bill realized that, it all came together. Courage Goes To Work You have to do something to make the courage happen, and it usually involved discomfort. Courage is not something you are, you have to go out and get it which is how courage goes to work. Courage has a rel
5/23/2019 • 48 minutes, 32 seconds
The Employee Experience and The Magic of Engagement
Tracy M. Maylett, Ed.D., SPHR, SHRM-SCP, is the CEO of DecisionWise, which for over two decades has advised organizations in more than seventy countries on employee engagement, leadership, and organizational development. He is the bestselling author of The Employee Experience: How to Attract Talent, Retain Top Performers, and Drive Results and the new book ENGAGEMENT MAGIC: Five Keys for Engaging People, Leaders, and Organizations. Podcast Highlights Who is Tracy Maylett? Tracy believes his real purpose in life after going to perhaps too much school, is creating environments that allow people to do their best, either through his writing, teaching, or his efforts in his business. There were several moments that changed the course of Tracy’s life including his experience in retail and when he realized that in order to be a successful human resources person he needed to understand business in general. He didn’t start out wanting to be a CEO (he actually wanted to be a football coach) but that’s where he ended up one step at a time. When Tracy was in college he felt that being an entrepreneur or a CEO just wasn’t worth the risk. But as he started working for large organizations he realized that he could control his own destiny better if he was the one calling the shots. He redefined what risk meant to him over time. Founder vs Entrepreneur Founder and entrepreneur are often considered interchangeable but that’s not true. An entrepreneur is an individual that is able to understand the purpose and vision of the organization they run and match that to what people need, but they don’t have to be at the top of the organization. Founders aren’t necessarily entrepreneurs. They start the company but in many cases it makes more sense for them to move on and hand off the reins to someone else. The transition out of the founder role is a tough one for many people to make, including Tracy. There is a point where you realize that you can’t do everything and what you really need to do is manage the people with the right skills instead of trying to do it all. Employee Experience Engagement in the employee experience has two parts. The first is some sort of emotional level and the second is taking action. Where most organizations mess up with engagement is that they need both, not just the positive emotions. Just paying your employees more will not get you the results you want. The fact that someone is safe at work does not motivate them, but if you take that safety away it certainly reduces their motivation. The same thing applies to pay. When we receive something, we adapt to it very quickly. Compensation has to be there to meet the employees needs, but it’s not going to motivate them for more than 10 days. Increasing pay is the lazy leaders way. Engagement Magic You still have to pay your employees enough, but once that’s done the question becomes “what’s next?” When Tracy did the research into engagement he discovered there were five keys factors that drove engagement in someone’s life and work. Meaning is the first. When you find purpose in the job beyond the job itself. Autonomy is the second. When you find a way to use your skills in a way that works best for you and allows you to make decisions. The third is growth. People will leave a business or organization for growth opportunities more than anything else. Impact is the fourth. You’re getting results for your effort. The fifth is connection. Doing something beyond yourself and feeling a sense of belonging. When all the elements are present that’s when people start to engage. Autonomy is one of the toughest elements that business owners deal with. The key is to set constraints and boundaries and then allowing the team to o
5/20/2019 • 46 minutes, 24 seconds
Multifamily Real Estate Investing With 37th Parallel
Chad Doty has 12 years of experience as a multifamily investor, but he wasn’t born with realestate in his blood. Originally, Chad was a management consultant for Arthur Andersen. Watching that company meltdown prior to him making partner made him realize that letting outside circumstances control his life wasn’t for him. So Chad then founded his own consulting company, only to realize he was simply trading time for money. Determined to control his own destiny, Chad decided to leverage commercial multifamily real estate to develop recurring, passive income. He formed 37th Parallel Properties, a private real estate acquisitions and asset management firm. Podcast Highlights Who is Chad Doty? Chad was very driven as a kid, mainly due to his military father. He had aspirations to get into the Navy but because of a variety of reasons he wasn’t able to join. He decided to go into school and try to find something that he was really going to enjoy, he ended up becoming a network engineer and being very disappointed. He went back to school to get his MBA, found himself working for Anderson as a consultant and moving up through the ranks there. When you can answer the question of who you are a hero to, you will be playing an entirely different game from everyone else. Based on his DISC profile, Chad is a defined D and that heavily determines how he works and how he interacts with people on his team. What was it like to make such a drastic change? Chad didn’t really get the entrepreneurial bug until his mid 30’s. Most people can imagine what their perfect day looks like, but most people can’t imagine what a perfect month looks like. When Chad’s wife became pregnant that lit a fire underneath to make sure that when his child was born that he wouldn’t be an absent father. He was in the position to shift to his own client base and consultancy and in the following months made the move. When you go to do something different, a very powerful question you should ask yourself is “what is the worst that is going to happen?” You are 100% responsible for the results in your life, at least in how you respond to the events that occur. The Right Business Real estate wasn’t the first business that Chad attempted to get off the ground, he initially thought he didn’t like it. He started trading the market but felt that there were better ways to use the same engine and real estate fits the bill. People are always going to want a roof over their head so it passes the evergreen test. You can determine all things the affect you as an owner and if you focus on the fundamentals you can find success in real estate. Multifamily is going to be here for the foreseeable future, demographics basically ensure it’s a solid investment. What kind of market do you operate in? Chad uses a concept called your MAC profile, it stands for Market, Approach, and Capability. There are a million ways to make money in real estate but for Chad, he knew the approach they wanted to go with being long term holders of cash producing assets. They will hold the asset for as long as it performs at or above the market and the market hasn’t changed. When you get into real estate, you have to think about what kind of investor you want to be. The market has to match the approach and capability you bring to the table. People don’t pick properties to live at, they pick where the best part of town they can live based on job, school, and entertainment. There is no secret market for Chad, the markets they operate in just have the fundamentals that make them attractive. Syndication Chad hears two things that he refers to as real estate mythology. The first one is that a building can be a deal at som
5/16/2019 • 57 minutes, 21 seconds
Wealth Made Easy
Dr. Greg S. Reid is author of the Think and Grow Rich Series and Founder of Secret Knock. New York Times' bestselling author of Three Feet from Gold: Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities! with Sharon Lechter (which turned into a successful documentary), Thoughts Are Things: Turning Your Ideas Into Realities with Bob Proctor, Stickability: The Power of Perseverance, which is part of the Think and Grow Rich series, and the new book Wealth Made Easy: Millionaires and Billionaires Help You Crack the Code to Getting Rich. Podcast Highlights Who is Greg Reid? Greg grew up in the mean streets of Delmar, California. When he was younger and graduated from high school, Greg decided to skip college and instead get a place of his own and find work in sales and marketing. His father told him that he would never make a living talking to people which was obviously not true. Parents often mean well for their children, but that doesn’t mean they always give good advice or have the right information. Greg believes his super power is not caring what other people think. People have told him what Greg could not do his entire life and he went and did them anyway. If you spend your day seeking counsel and ignoring opinions, that’s the day your life will change. Greg knows the power of working towards his strengths and hiring his weaknesses. When writing his first book, Greg was turned down 268 times in a row. He realized that he was missing something and hired a ghost writer to shore up what was clearly one of his weaknesses. What would you say to entrepreneurs that are hearing no right now? Greg spent three years travelling the world meeting people worth millions of dollars and asked them exactly what steps they did. One of them told him that you have to get to bat 26 times. You have to swing the bat 26 times in business before you hit a homerun. This means that if you want to succeed, all you need to do is keep trying. Stop planning, stop caring about the way you will get to your goal and instead just start taking action towards that goal. The most successful people are also the most available people. Seeking Counsellors If you can talk to people on a human level and you can understand what they want and give them what they desire, you can ultimately have everything you want in life.. Motivation Greg loves what he does, which is why he keeps doing it. Greg managed to complete his bucket list last year, a list which included some pretty incredible things that seemed completely impossible when he wrote them down. As soon as you have a dream and move toward it, you look for unexpected opportunity and people will be surprisingly eager to help you. Once he completed his bucket list, Greg felt a little lost. That was until he discovered the fun of helping his son accomplish things on his bucket list. Wealth Made Easy Time plus land is wealth. Wealthy people are often happy to share how they did it, mainly because no one ever asks. People know about the law of attraction and action, but they often forget the law of gestation. You have to plant the seeds of success and let the law of gestation run it’s course. If you want to make a lot of money, all you have to do is create a product, good, or service that will people will save their money to have. Following your passion and the money will follow is one of the biggest lies that people in the world believe. Stop following your passion and look for and seize opportunity. There’s a concept called CPC, it stands for Clues, Patterns, and Choices. Everybody will show you who they are by giving you clues and acting in patterns, ultimately it’s your choice whether you interact with them.
5/13/2019 • 44 minutes, 14 seconds
Strike Social and Advertising Intelligence
Patrick McKenna is the Founder & CEO of Strike Social. He co-founded and sold telecommunications company WCI in 1996. He was recruited by Microsoft as part of a 50 person team to develop the internet audio and video industry. By the end of Patrick’s 12 years at Microsoft, the department had developed into the Windows Entertainment Division now employing 40,000 people. Patrick has spent his career mentoring and investing in startup companies and in 2013 founded Strike Social, which was named the No. 17 fastest-growing private company in the U.S. for 2017 by Inc. Magazine. Strike Social develops AI- powered software and services for digital advertisers across industry verticals with over half of the Fortune 500 benefiting from its solutions including brands like Beat, Xbox, Honda, Mattel, Lionsgate, and large financial institutions. Podcast Highlights Who is Patrick McKenna? If Patrick were a superhero, he would be Batman. He’s always learning and has a ton of great gadgets to help him get things done. Curiosity has always been a major driver in Patrick’s life and he loves figuring out how things work. That includes early computers, technology, and the beginnings of the internet. Patrick started off as an entrepreneur in the telecommunications industry which is where he became immersed in the idea of being his own boss. One of the small startups Patrick became a part of were teaching corporate training via videos over the internet. Microsoft noticed what they were doing and snapped up the team that Patrick was a part of and that’s how he ended up at Microsoft. The Bleeding Edge of Advertising While working on the audio and video technologies at Microsoft, Patrick’s team was on the bleeding edge. It was a time before broadband, before YouTube, before a lot of the technologies that we know today. Now his focus is on using machine learning and AI to make the internet experience even better. Labor costs will be 80% to 90% of your business in most cases. If you’re not building processes and automation, and you’re not using the software and technology that’s available you’re company is not built to last. Strike Social Strike Social helps large organizations through video advertising reach their audience. Machine learning plays a major role in that by optimizing and customizing the types of ads that are shown to people. Data science is largely misunderstood, meaningful data that will help you make informed decisions can’t be done with just a spreadsheet. For smaller businesses and entrepreneurs, there are many different companies and technologies that are heavily invested in AI and data science that they can take advantage of. As time goes on the technology will become more accessible and affordable, similar to the way audio and video tech has evolved. The best thing you can do if you want to grow is to find someone who is really good at the social media platforms and bring them on board, the challenge with that is your company will only be as good as that person’s knowledge base. Machine learning is how companies avoid diminishing returns to some extent in their paid advertising, but you will never be able to really escape it. You should test every aspect of your ad, but just one at a time. When it comes to creating video, working with existing creators and influencers is one way of testing your creative efforts. Patrick’s Takeaway You have to understand what the platforms are good for. If you’re just starting out, you should start with search, Facebook, and Instagram, and then look to your competitors. Study what they’re doing and see what resonates and then go test it out. Try to get an immediate return so you can
5/9/2019 • 51 minutes, 14 seconds
The Incredible Story of Tenacity and the American Dream
Ron Coury is a former casino dealer and a realtor, as well as a partner in restaurants and gaming bars, major graphics and glass companies, and several automobile dealerships. He is a board member of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Foundation and bestselling author of Tenacity: A Vegas Businessman Survives Brooklyn, the Marines, Corruption and Cancer to Achieve the American Dream: A True Life Story. Podcast Highlights Who is Ron Coury? When Ron was 12 years old he went to your average small school in Brooklyn and his parents gave him a wooden shoe shine box for Christmas. Not only did it held him avoid being punished in school for not having shined shoes, Ron started shining shoes for $0.10 before school. His experience making money when he was young led him to the belief that he was niche finder and when you find a niche you can do better than others, you should take a shot at it. Ron was drafted to fight in the Vietnam war after he dropped one of his college classes, he was trained for war but never deployed. That’s how he ended up in Las Vegas, he was trained in the area and really enjoyed the city so he never went back to New York. One of the major concerns Ron always had when he was young was what would happen if he couldn’t work due to cancer, which happened to run in his family. This led him to look for ways to earn money and be in business for himself. After 4 years in the casino, he became a realtor during the day while maintaining his dealer job at night, and this allowed him to accumulate enough money to buy his first tavern. Asking The Right Questions Ron lost his dad to cancer as well as his dad’s three brothers and sister, which led him to the thought that “how do I make money if one day I can’t work anymore?” and building a business was the logical conclusion. Tenacity and Overcoming Obstacles Everyone encounters obstacles in business and life. The Marine corps gave Ron the tenacity to not accept defeat easily. When he encountered an obstacle, Ron looked at it as a challenge to overcome. Even death threats were dealt with in a straightforward way. Each business that Ron started allowed him to see the need for other businesses. Being an observational entrepreneur has been key. Ron saw a need and then figured out how to fill it. Time management and hiring the right people has been critical to Ron’s success. He made enough time in his life to get all the important things done by being very intentional. Don’t be a self defeatist. Many people don’t pursue their dream because they can’t do it. You can’t hit the baseball if you don’t swing the bat. Not having the money isn’t a reason to not do something, there is always a way. What was your overarching goal? For many people the goal is some amount of wealth or net worth, for Ron that was never a consideration. He was always looking for new challenges to stay interested which is why his businesses were so diversified. The challenge to build something new and do it well. Making Mistakes You are going to make mistakes, that’s unavoidable. You can’t just let them get the best of you. Not every venture Ron began was a success. Even when one of his businesses failed, Ron didn’t let that dissuade him from starting his next business. Reference: Tenacity: A Vegas Businessman Survives Brooklyn, the Marines, Corruption and Cancer to Achieve the American Dream: A True Life Story, Ron Coury Ron’s Takeaway Live your life by certain guidelines. There is never a wrong time to do the right thing. If you have an idea, don’t hesitate to show it to people and bring on partners that can help and that you trust. Don’t be af
5/6/2019 • 41 minutes, 17 seconds
Going From Homeless to Billionaire Real Estate Developer
Andres Pira is the CEO of Blue Horizon Developments and Managing Director of Phuket Condos & Homes. He is the author of Homeless to Billionaire: 18 Wealth Attraction Principles for Creating Unlimited Opportunity. Podcast Highlights Who is Andres Pira? Andres is a real estate developer based in Thailand and before he achieved everything he has so far he was thinking of things in a very different way. When Andres hit rock bottom in Thailand, he was homeless and sleeping on a beach. The first time he got his hands on a self development book, it changed the way he thought about life and set him on the path to where he is now. Whatever you want in life, make sure you create it in your mind first. When Andres first read this principle, he went out and did it just to prove that it didn’t work. Lucky for him it actually worked for him and changed his life. He started to get results by practicing the visualization principle and discovered that by self doubt is what prevents you from creating what you want. You can’t have both opposite energies in your mind at the same time. How often have you found that solutions come in a form you are not expecting? All problems are just opportunities in disguise, you just have to look at them from different angles. Knowledge is much more powerful than money. We are always waiting for the perfect moment to take action but perfect moments don’t exist. You have to just take imperfect action. Every success that Andres has had has come from his taking action despite being terrified. Most people never try and that’s why they never get any results. Why become a real estate developer in Thailand? Andres always wanted to live in a tropical country and make his own way. When his grandfather died, Andres inherited $2000 and took a leap of faith on a one way ticket to Thailand. He didn’t know anyone but he knew that in the worst case scenario he could always go back to his family. That gave him the confidence to go take the risk. When Andres arrived in Thailand he got a job at a hotel but due to his frivolous mindset he wasted his money and found himself evicted from his apartment. He was too ashamed at that point to go back home and reached out to a friend for money, instead of sending money he sent Andres the book that changed the way he thought of life. He took massive action and eventually got a job with a Real Estate agency that took a chance on him. He put all his energy into doing his absolute best at the job and got promoted again and again, eventually getting to the point where he had enough money to start his own real estate company and became a real estate developer himself. Taking leaps of faith and always striving for more is now part of who Andres is. Getting out of your comfort zone is vital. Success doesn’t mean being a millionaire, success is doing the things that make you happy. Start with small goals so you can build your confidence and courage to accomplish bigger things. Changes in the Real Estate Industry Technology is making it easier and easier to reach new people and show properties, in many cases without even meeting the person because of the advent of sophisticated VR. There are people coming from all over the world to buy properties in Thailand. Andres doesn’t believe that he would be the person he is today without being in Thailand but at the same time he’s always open to possibilities. Whatever you want to do, you have to study the field if you want to succeed. Read about it and learn about it. Building a Team Behind every major success is a team. Andres’ team is the main reason he has achieved everything he has achieved.
5/2/2019 • 43 minutes, 41 seconds
Getting Started and Staying Started in Real Estate Investing
Whitney Nicely went from no investments (or strategies) to 19 houses, 19 apartment units and 7 chunks of land in less than three years all bringing monthly money to her bank account on autopilot. She has traveled the United States speaking on stages, teaching her simple strategies, and meeting with other successful real estate investors- and still buying houses the way she teaches others. Since 2016, Whitney has led and trained hundreds of future real estate rock stars to grow their portfolios, collect checks and achieve financial freedom. 100's of real estate newbies are securing leads, signing deals and scaling their dream incomes through the First Deal Done Fast Program. Podcast Highlights Who is Whitney Nicely? Whitney is a local small town girl that had a big dream to break into the good old boys club. She was born into an entrepreneurial family and she noticed that real estate investing was dominated by men. She decided to push the bounds of what women should be doing and what being a real estate investor means. Why did you choose real estate investing? Whitney’s mom was an old fashioned real estate investor and was the inspiration, in a way, for her to try it out. Instead of showing her the ropes though, she taught Whitney to stay started and learn for herself. She gets more done by dealing with the things that are right in front of her instead of the things she could worry about that probably wouldn’t happen. How did you go from girl scout cookies to real estate? Whitney was raised by people with the mindset of “if you want something, go out and do something.” She started her career flipping furniture, moved on to flipping dump trucks, and graduated to real estate after helping her mother flip a rental house. This is where she discovered her love of the world of real estate investing. How difficult was the transition? It wasn’t very difficult at all. You start with something small and you grow into more zeros and commas. Most people can save enough money each month to invest in real estate. Give yourself permission to move forward. Did being a fourth generation entrepreneur help you growing up? Being in an entrepreneurial family has both advantages and disadvantages. Whitney has always been very comfortable in the world of business, but it also comes with tremendous pressure for her to not fail. Whitney didn’t jump into the deep end of real estate investing right away, she worked four jobs before she bought her first property. Go slow and steady, and when you are ready, pull back on your time at your other job when you need to. Can anyone who wants to, do this business? Everyone has the same problems. There are opportunities everywhere and anyone can get started by starting small. Starting something like real estate can seem scary from the outset. When you focus on your seller and buyers, that takes the pressure off you. Your goal in this life should be to help as many people as you can, keep your efforts small, personal, and smooth. Why shouldn’t we talk to realtors? Realtors are in the service business of helping people who don’t have the time to do the research themselves. The best agents are investors, and the best investors don’t have a license. Agents are necessary, but for investors, this is not the best option. If you want to get started, stop watching television. You will instantly have three more hours each day for you to get out there and make some money. What does your tea
4/29/2019 • 44 minutes
Consistency Beats Intensity, Finding Abundance With Real Estate Investing
In 2015, Paul Thompson wanted out. His corporate office had become a suffocating cell. Paul decided to start buying rental houses, build passive income and break the chains of Corporate America. He was so successful, he secured 20 deals in his first 18 months of investing. Since that time he has acquired more than 2 dozen rentals without bank financing. Now he teaches others how to raise money from regular people that have some funds to invest. In addition to coaching others and still investing himself, Paul hosts a podcast to educate others. Ready Investor One offers tips, hacks, insights and more for listeners interested in creating opportunities for passive income. “Level Up Your Life through real estate investing.” Podcast Highlights Who is Paul Thompson? Paul was a normal average person working in corporate America trying to climb the corporate ladder. Eventually he realized that the ladder he was climbing was against the wrong wall and needed to find a way out. He started looking for way to replace his income and considered a lot of opportunities including a new job and buying a franchise, but he decided to go down the path of real estate investing. He purchased 18 properties in the first 18 months, but took the process one step at the time. Real estate investing can be uncertain but it can be done with less risk than starting a business. Neural science has proven that to make any lasting change, you have to have one of three things: you have some sort of an epiphany, you change your environment, or you take baby steps. For most people they need the epiphany which is what happened with Paul. He realized that the freedom to choose what he does with his time was what he really wanted and had to do something to make that a reality. Teaching Children Kids do what they see, not what they hear. Paul wants to be an example for his children and for them to remember the time he spent with them. Kids don’t really care about what you’re doing for income, they care about how much time you spend with them. Real Estate Investing Day One Paul was actually laid off from his job which is usually quite a rough event in someone’s life, but for Paul it was the fourth happiest day of his life after his wedding and his kids birthdays. He had already been planning for the day when he would put in his resignation so he was quite ready by that time. One of the very first influencers that Paul had found was J Massey and one of the things that J talks about a lot was private money, so that’s what Paul focused on at first. He met a local wholesaler and a private money lender and managed to put a deal together that made sense for everyone involved. As Paul has expanded and gotten more savvy his criteria has gotten more strict but finding the right kinds of properties has actually gotten easier. New Ways Of Thinking Paul has codified his mindset around money. Most of the things that we’re taught about money is wrong. You’re taught to be an order taker and to finance all your consumer activities. We hear the cliche all the time that time is money, but only people who are not entrepreneurs think that way. You have to switch your mindset and recognize that the money isn’t in the time, you use your time to set up systems that scale and separating your time from your money. When people ask Paul how he makes money he tells them he doesn’t make money, his money makes him money. Paul has found his zone of genius is in taking information and breaking it into smaller pieces that allow other people to make transformations in their lives. Ready Investor One Real estate investing is a game and Paul teaches listeners how to take the individual approach and how to
4/25/2019 • 37 minutes, 17 seconds
Turning The Great Bubble Burst To Your Advantage - Replay
Harry Dent is the Founder of Dent Research, Editor of the FREE newsletter Economy & Markets, and the author of the new book The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Can Make You Rich. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and was a successful consultant to Fortune 100 companies at Bain & Company. Harry Dent has also spent much of his career speaking to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/FN. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni. He is also a regular guest on Fox Business. Podcast Highlights Who is Harry Dent? Harry started out by working for Fortune 100 companies after college and later went to Harvard Business School which is where he really discovered his true talents of seeing the big picture. thinking on his feet, and being able to argue very well. While consulting, Harry learned nearly everything there is to know about demographics. What was it that clued you into what you were meant to do? Harry’s experience in Harvard debating real world business scenarios is where he learned that he was really good at communicating. Some people know what they want to do when they are 14, and some people like Harry discover what they are meant to do through a series of fortunate accidents. Leaving Bain & Company was like jumping off a cliff, but entrepreneurs have to take calculated risks on top of having a vision for the future. Where did you develop the confidence to make the jump? You have to take risks intelligently. Start your business on the side, and make the transition step by step. Test everything and don’t gamble your whole enterprise on one thing. What is it about demographics that gets you so excited? Prior to President Ford, there was no middle class. With the creation of the middle class and the advent of the baby boom, demographics became incredibly important. Demographics give you an insight into the behaviour of very large groups of people. If you’re taking a risk, you’re going to have a better chance of succeeding if you take that risk on a trend that is growing instead of declining. Marketing is always the biggest initial challenge of starting a business, not the technology. What do you think about trends in real estate? Nursing homes, funeral homes, and hospitals will all see upswings in terms of real estate value. Harry predicts another big financial crisis coming, but he believes it’s going to be a major opportunities for entrepreneurs. How can we see bubbles coming and what can we do about them? You have to have a different strategy for each season. When bubbles occur, they don’t see them because they are getting something for nothing. Bubbles rise exponentially, come to an explosive climax, followed by a tremendous crash. You can’t keep a bubble going forever. As high as they go, the crash twice as fast. It’s better to get out early, rather than late. When things go down, the opportunities open up at the speed of light. The businesses that hunker down at the top of the bubble with cash in reserve will find themselves in a solid position to pick up assets at a deep discount. Where do precious metals come in? Harry told his clients to get out of gold and silver at the top of the market. Gold is an inflation hedge, but this bubble will be deflationary. What are the four indicators that you looked at to see
4/22/2019 • 48 minutes, 6 seconds
Turning The Great Bubble Burst To Your Advantage - Replay
Harry Dent is the Founder of Dent Research, Editor of the FREE newsletter Economy & Markets, and the author of the new book The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Can Make You Rich. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and was a successful consultant to Fortune 100 companies at Bain & Company. Harry Dent has also spent much of his career speaking to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/FN. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni. He is also a regular guest on Fox Business. Podcast Highlights Who is Harry Dent? Harry started out by working for Fortune 100 companies after college and later went to Harvard Business School which is where he really discovered his true talents of seeing the big picture. thinking on his feet, and being able to argue very well. While consulting, Harry learned nearly everything there is to know about demographics. What was it that clued you into what you were meant to do? Harry’s experience in Harvard debating real world business scenarios is where he learned that he was really good at communicating. Some people know what they want to do when they are 14, and some people like Harry discover what they are meant to do through a series of fortunate accidents. Leaving Bain & Company was like jumping off a cliff, but entrepreneurs have to take calculated risks on top of having a vision for the future. Where did you develop the confidence to make the jump? You have to take risks intelligently. Start your business on the side, and make the transition step by step. Test everything and don’t gamble your whole enterprise on one thing. What is it about demographics that gets you so excited? Prior to President Ford, there was no middle class. With the creation of the middle class and the advent of the baby boom, demographics became incredibly important. Demographics give you an insight into the behaviour of very large groups of people. If you’re taking a risk, you’re going to have a better chance of succeeding if you take that risk on a trend that is growing instead of declining. Marketing is always the biggest initial challenge of starting a business, not the technology. What do you think about trends in real estate? Nursing homes, funeral homes, and hospitals will all see upswings in terms of real estate value. Harry predicts another big financial crisis coming, but he believes it’s going to be a major opportunities for entrepreneurs. How can we see bubbles coming and what can we do about them? You have to have a different strategy for each season. When bubbles occur, they don’t see them because they are getting something for nothing. Bubbles rise exponentially, come to an explosive climax, followed by a tremendous crash. You can’t keep a bubble going forever. As high as they go, the crash twice as fast. It’s better to get out early, rather than late. When things go down, the opportunities open up at the speed of light. The businesses that hunker down at the top of the bubble with cash in reserve will find themselves in a solid position to pick up assets at a deep discount. Where do precious metals come in? Harry told his clients to get out of gold and silver at the top of the market. Gold is an inflation hedge, but this bubble will be deflationary. What are the four indicators that you looked at to see the crash?
4/18/2019 • 45 minutes, 2 seconds
Innovation, Marketing, and How to Disrupt Yourself Before Someone Else Does
Dr. Simone Ahuja is the principal of Blood Orange, a marketing and strategy advisory boutique with digital media capabilities, and special expertise in innovation. Headquartered in Minneapolis with teams in Mumbai, Blood Orange uses an agile and cost efficient content production framework built upon principles learned through extensive work in India. Dr. Ahuja is the author of Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth and the new book Disrupt-It-Yourself: Eight Ways to Hack a Better Business—Before the Competition Does. Podcast Highlights Who is Simone Ahuja? Simone began in the traditional educational system and was originally in school to become a dentist. After finishing her schooling Simone realized that wasn’t where she wanted to end up and decided to pivot to something else. What she didn’t expect was to be afflicted by a bout of typhoid while travelling in India. By the time she recovered she decided to commit to the things that were calling her instead of just dipping her toes in the water. Simone started exploring film making, theater and comedy, teaching, and writing. Oddly enough, Simone’s experience in dentistry prepared her quite well to deal with the anxiety of commiting to something like becoming an entrepreneur. Simone didn’t have a lot of support in her decision to walk away from what could have been a profitable career, but it turned out well. In any entrepreneurial endeavor, there will be people who tell you that it can’t be done. Not having mental barriers and trusting herself to make it happen has been Simone’s super power. Combined with getting sick enough to make her consider her own mortality, Simone had enough motivation to commit to changing her life. Why Blood Orange and innovation marketing strategy? When you’re stressed or thinking too much with tension, it’s really hard to get into a flow state. Taking up improv theater taught Simone to relax her mind and enter a flow state, and that’s when things get funny. Around this time in her life, she decided to make a film about what’s changing in India and this lead to her becoming a market expert which drew a lot of attention from Fortune 500 companies. She started formulazing her expertise and made a shift from film maker to market expert and started doing consulting work. Until Simone started working on the second TV series for Best Buy, she had still been working as a dentist part time. At that point it still felt very risky to walk away from something so reliable. By taking the leap Simone felt more motivated to create a business that sustained itself and added value. Disrupting Your Business In larger organizations change is very difficult and innovation takes time. Entrepreneurs have a leg up on older businesses because they are more agile, the trick is figuring out how to maintain that agility as your business grows. Even if you’re fairly small, you have to be willing to adjust your business to your client’s needs. Entrepreneurs must have a deep sense of purpose, something that goes beyond a mission statement. The Why of what you are doing helps shape all your decisions. Who is joining you in solving the problem? Don’t make assumptions about what the problem is, bring in the customer to help articulate what the problem actually is. Be willing to make the necessary changes to your business in order to take it farther. If you’re doing something really different, it’s hard to really have an idea what the outcome will be like. Stay connected to what you love so the work doesn’t become work anymore. Why is disrupting ourselves necessary? There are a lot of big problems that need to be solved. It’s not
4/15/2019 • 43 minutes, 7 seconds
Building Systems To Create The Lifestyle You Want
Cliff Hayden is a real estate investor, broker-owner of Altec Properties, and founder of ShowMeTheRental.com, a unique online service that automates the most difficult part of property management: finding and screening qualified tenants. Cliff knows the importance of finding the right balance of priorities in life, especially as a business owner. This quest for a more abundant life inspired Cliff to walk away from his fruitful career and into the often-chaotic world of real estate investing. After quitting his day job to pursue real estate investing as a career, Cliff found himself overwhelmed by the responsibilities of managing multiple properties, keeping the business running smoothly, and finding time for his family. As someone who’s personally struggled with this juggling act, Cliff knows the emotional, mental, and physical toll it can take on real estate investors, property managers, or landlords — whether it’s their full-time career or a side hustle. This struggle was Cliff’s impetus to develop ShowMeTheRental.com, which screened all his leads so he didn’t have to. ShowMeTheRental.com takes all leads (phone, email, or text) and pre-screens them with customized questions, then arranges for qualified leads to see the home, follows up with these leads, and even takes care of the application process — leaving more time for property managers to work on the things that matter most, like spending quality time with their loved ones or growing their business. Podcast Highlights Who is Cliff Hayden? Cliff Hayden is a happily married man with five kids who is focused on spending as much time with his family as he can. He’s automated the majority of his real estate business and reorganized his priorities so now he’s very mobile and enjoys meeting new people and doing new things. Cliff started out working a regular job as a construction worker, he transitioned to real estate while he was still working his job. He realized that the corporate life wasn’t everything he thought it would be so he wanted to find a way out. His brother was really into Robert Kiyosaki and when he came back from the military he introduced Cliff to the Cashflow game which was a complete eye opener for him. Cliff joined a real estate club and found a mentor, then he started buying real estate with the money he had saved up. The moment he realized that it was time to quit was when he had earned his entire salary in a fourth month period. Cliff’s first day as a full time real estate entrepreneur was very exciting. He got into the office earlier than anybody else and left after everyone else. Financially he was doing very well but his family life was suffering due to him not being very present when he was home. Cliff joined a mastermind group and had a major realization that something had to change. He began to focus on building systems and putting them in place to allow him to be mobile and put his life and family first. Building Systems It comes down to what you want for your life and what lifestyle you want. When people are on their deathbed, they never say they wished they made more money. The wished they spent more time with their family or did things differently. Cliff decided that building systems was going to be the only way he could achieve the lifestyle he wanted. Cliff started to educate himself and found that when you don’t have a lot of debt, you don’t need a lot of money. He began to focus on paying off the majority of his houses and avoiding or selling the properties he owned that caused the majority of his headaches. Once you get to a certain number of houses, you will always have to deal with turnover and issues that come up. Cliff knew that there must be a way to automate the process and started looking for it, when he couldn’t find the solution he was looking for Cliff decided to c
4/11/2019 • 40 minutes, 30 seconds
Geoff Cook On Going From Idea To Implementation
Geoff Cook is the Co-founder & CEO of MeetMe and The Meet Group (NASDAQ: MEET), a social dating and live streaming company with a $400+ million market cap; Geoff has spent $200 million in the last 3 years buying 4 companies, including most recently, Growlr, a dating app for gay bears. Geoff is also the CEO of myYearbook--a social network to meet new people. Geoff Cook helped raise $20 million and grew myYearbook to profitability with 100+ employees and $30+ million in revenue. Geoff started his first companies EssayEdge and ResumeEdge from a Harvard dorm and sold them to The Thomson Corporation for millions of dollars at age 24. He sold his second company for $100 million. He also runs the leading podcast player, Podcoin, and can drive thousands of listening hours and hundreds of subscribers to podcasts on which he appears. Podcast Highlights Who is Geoff Cook? Geoff is a husband and father in addition to an entrepreneur. He started his entrepreneurial life in school because he didn’t want to get a job making only a few dollars an hour. Before then he didn’t really have any ideas about being an entrepreneur. Geoff realized that if he wanted to really make some money, selling your time wasn’t going to cut it because it has a linear relationship. You need to create something that isn’t tied directly to your time. He thought that instead of working a regular job, he could create something and potential make nothing, but also potentially make way more money, and at the very least have some fun. Geoff’s first venture was an attempt to just solve a problem, in his case essay and resume editing. He built a website from scratch and slowly grew his business from $10k a year in his first year in college to over $300k a year by the time he graduated. His second business was the social network myYearbook, within 9 months he had acquired over a million users to the site by leveraging existing platforms like Myspace. How much did your education contribute to your business success? In the early days of his first business, Geoff’s education did actually help him figure out what to charge and better tailor the experience to certain people. But it’s hard to draw a straight line from his education to everything that has happened since. Growing a Business Geoff runs a public company called the Meet Group which has a heavy focus on live streaming video. The cost to execute live streaming lead to them start acquiring other apps so they could leverage the infrastructure they already had. In the early days of Myspace and Facebook, creating a viral campaign that acquired email addresses was much easier and very powerful. Today you need to either buy it or build it, in the case of building it you need novelty in order for it to grow. Instead of relying on a lucky strike of a marketing campaign, another strategy to grow is to just buy companies that have already acquired the audience you want to reach. Why is live streaming such an important tool? Regular media like photos are very flat, where live video is much more interesting and interactive. The interaction is key and in the next few years, the quality and quantity of live streams available is only going to go up. Live streams are becoming part of many more traditional broadcasts as well. Podcoin Live streaming video is a lean in media, it’s very interactive and keeps your attention. Audio is the opposite, most people consume audio media while they are doing other things, it’s more passive. Podcoin was born out of the idea of “what if we paid people to listen to podcasts?” It allows the listener to share in the rewards of the organization that they are directly generating. The hardest pr
4/8/2019 • 47 minutes, 24 seconds
Leadership Is More Than A Title
Rick Miller is an unconventional turnaround specialist, sought-after speaker, servant leader, and expert in driving sustainable growth. For over 30 years, he served as a successful senior executive in roles including President and/or CEO in Fortune 10, Fortune 30, nonprofit, and startup companies, including AT&T Global Services and Lucent Technologies. Throughout his career, he has been recruited from the outside to turn around poor performance in difficult times. His new book, Be Chief: It’s A Choice, Not A Title, helps leaders at all levels achieve their true potential. To learn more, visit BeingChief.com. Podcast Highlights Who is Rick Miller? Rick was basically raised by his father due to some really unfortunate health circumstances with his mother. Rick’s dad was a personnel guy and he focused on people. Rick father’s help create an environment in his workplace that despite the industry being heavily unionized, there was never even a union vote in 27 years. In a lot of ways, Rick wanted to grow up to be like his dad. Leadership and Power Titles or not, everyone has power in their situation. An element of control and authority comes with a title. Power used to be about centralized decision making at the top of the leadership pyramid, but that’s not the only way it can be done. If power is defined as energy and clarity, everyone can make a choice to have more influence. When people say corporate, they usually think the old style factories. In many ways the hierarchy was similar to a military leadership structure. The difference now is that speed of execution is paramount and the workers on the front line have more decision making ability than ever. The challenge of power is that it is never given, it’s always taken. The cost to businesses of people who are not engaged with their job is incredible. If people are waiting for permission to step into their greatness, it’s never going to happen. If you asked the five people that know you best what they think you stand for, you’re might get a lot of different answers. Take all those answers and figure out what the few vital things are that you want to stand for. Self understanding is the key to power, when you take a stand you develop confidence and you take power. Leadership Responsibilities Just because you have a title, that doesn’t mean you get a pass on clarity and confidence and energy. If you’ve got a team, what can you be doing to allow your team to be their best? Are you recognizing the contributions of your team? You have to select your team members carefully. If you bring on a team member that isn’t aligned with your organization’s values, it can be debilitating to everyone involved. Communication is the joint construction of meaning. It’s an active process and has to go both ways. The Interview Process The only time Rick has gotten in trouble when hiring people is when he rushed the process. It’s important for you to get a feel for how a person will fit into the organization and the people on the team. Give them an opportunity to show all the different sides of themselves. You want the whole person, not just their game face when they are in the office. Work life balance is the wrong goal. Balance only occurs when your life is still, and it’s almost never still. Work like integration is what you should be working for. Reference: Be Chief: It’s A Choice, Not A Title, Rick Miller Rick’s Takeaway First, go online and take the assessment to find out what kind of power you currently have and the simple choices you could make to be more powerful. Second, read the book Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. Vulnerability is th
4/4/2019 • 38 minutes, 37 seconds
Industrial Real Estate Investing and Building an Empire
Welcome Wilson is the Founder & Chairman of the Board of Welcome Group, a privately held real estate development firm that owns ninety manufacturing and other industrial facilities in Texas comprising just over 4 million square feet of space. Wilson is also a principal in Kingham Dalton Wilson, Ltd, a regional industrial construction company. Mr. Wilson has been a real estate developer in Texas for fifty-seven years beginning with his first project in Galveston County, which is now the incorporated City of Jamaica Beach (1,600 home sites). He was also the developer of Tiki Island in Galveston County, now an incorporated City of 1,200 home sites. In total, Mr. Wilson developed 8,000 home sites in four counties in Texas. Podcast Highlights Who is Welcome Wilson? Welcome has had six life changing conversations in his life. The first one was with his father when he was 17, just before he was about to join the Army. He told him that in order to succeed in business you need to have guts and determination. The guts to make a pitch for what you believe has been a talent that has served Welcome for many years. Welcome’s father convinced him that being able to make a pitch was vital to success and taught him how to become self reliant. Real Estate Empires Welcome has never met anyone who is an entrepreneur who thought they were rich. Welcome’s company is now worth $77 million dollars, but he knows that there is always somebody who has more money. You learn from scrambling, so by not inheriting anything in particular Welcome had to do the work to build his real estate investments from scratch. Some people think real estate is a risky play due to its speculative nature. To protect yourself against potential down times, you should bring on multiple partners, each with different areas of expertise. The important thing to remember is to make sure the partners have enough at stake so success is important to them. You have many advantages today that weren’t around years ago. Banks are more willing to take a chance on different kinds of deals today than when Welcome got started. Regardless of how big your business gets, you have to deal with cash flow. When Welcome was running his business years ago, it cost him $20,000 a day to operate the business. You can’t get around the need for cash flow. In many cases, a single long-term committed tenant is better for cash flow than multiple less stable, less reliable tenants. Industrial Real Estate Investing Welcome has built nearly every kind of property possible including residential, apartments, and office buildings. Early on in his career, Welcome had the opportunity to buy a few industrial buildings but the caveat was he also had to buy an industrial development business. Once the deal closed, by running the development business and after seeing the cash flow generated, he never looked back. Now industrial real estate investing is Welcome’s main source of business. Now Welcome focuses entirely on single tenant industrial buildings where the cost of construction is well over $100 per square foot. Reference: Always Welcome: Nine Decades of Great Friends, Great Times & (Mostly) Great Deals Links: Always Welcome: Nine Decades of Great Friends, Great Times & (Mostly) Great Deals Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
4/1/2019 • 40 minutes
Building An Audience By Building Trust
Gregg L. Whitt is the Chief Strategy Officer of Engage Youth Co. and co-author of the insightful new book The Gen Z Frequency: How Brands Tune In and Build Credibility. He was named a "Top 5 Youth Marketer to Follow" by Inc. in 2016 and has also been featured in Forbes and Fortune. Witt is also a VansWorld Champion Amateur Skateboarder who defied critics while growing up in the Midwest and at age 16 launched the Goodtimes Intelligence Agency, a skateboarding and apparel company that became a globally recognized brand. Podcast Highlights Who is Gregg Witt? The moment when Gregg found his identity was when he picked up skateboarding and went down the path to becoming a professional. Skateboarding was his love as well as his connection to a bigger world. Work wasn’t necessarily in the plan for him, work was what Gregg’s busy dad did. He didn’t have an aspirational career goal but he knew he wanted to keep the community of fellow skateboarders connected which is why he started his own skateboard company. Gregg is someone that likes to problem solve. He has a natural ability to engage youth in a way that connects. Gregg didn’t start off with a lot of confidence, he was made fun of a lot as a kid and the more people told him that he wasn’t going to be able to make it, the more it drove him to succeed. Even by the fifth year of his business, Gregg was still figuring things out which filled the role of real world university and taught him the ropes that most people never experience. Each lesson and obstacle that Gregg encountered brought him further along the path to what he does now, which is creating youth focused marketing. Building an Audience You’re building an audience or you’re risking being a one-hit wonder. Pure convenience and utility have their place, but if you want to build a business you have to focus on building an audience. The fundamental function of building an audience is to share stories that will increase awareness and break through the noise. A lot of business is done with people who like you. If you’re building a quality audience, you’re establishing trust and there is no industry that doesn’t benefit from having your customers trust you. You can’t measure that you’re reaching people through the marketing methods of yesterday. You can’t tie television to a conversion at the bottom of the funnel. A mix of integration is required. What is the purpose of your company and what you’re doing? Who are you and what perception will your market have of you? Authenticity is the foundation to trust, and trust is everything. When you’ve established an identity that’s relatable and that your audience cares about, now you’re ready for relevance. The most successful brands are helping their customers reach further in an aspirational way. If the experience you create is memorable and brings people together with sense of belonging, that’s pure magic. It’s hard to create but extremely powerful, it takes a village to execute. What are the most common mistakes entrepreneurs are making? We get caught in our head and believe we have a great solution, when we might have missed the mark by not involving our customer in the process. A lot of the big brands still focus on broadcasting. It’s easier to push messages than it is to spark a conversation, which is a common mistake. Social media is supposed social, don’t treat the feed like inventory. Reference: The Gen Z Frequency: How Brands Tune In and Build Credibility, Gregg Witt Gregg’s Takeaway Anything you do, get really good at communicating your solution. Know the what, the how, and the why, and tie your outcomes to the what and the how. Your audience cares about the why, and if they do and things
3/28/2019 • 43 minutes, 55 seconds
The Secret To Happiness
Tal Ben-Shahar is the Co-founder of the Wholebeing Institute, the Happiness Studies Academy, and PotentialLife. He's the New York Times bestselling author of Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment, Choose the Life You Want: 101 Ways to Create Your Own Road to Happiness, and the new book Short Cuts to Happiness: Life-Changing Lessons from My Barber. Podcast Highlights Who is Tal Ben-Shahar? Tal was bitten by the happiness spider in college while studying computer science in Harvard. While doing rather well academically and socially he found himself to be quite unhappy, so he decided to switch majors to Philosophy and Psychology to pursue the answers to two questions: “why aren’t I happy?” and “how can I become happier?” He became focused on how he can help himself, individuals, organizations, and nations increase their happiness. Tal felt that he wouldn’t be able to find the answers he was looking for in code, so he started looking to ancient wisdom from many people in the past. We’re told we should become successful and then we’ll be happy, but that’s something called the Arrival Fallacy. Success will at best give us a short lived spike in happiness, we need to do other things to increase our levels of well being. The Secret to Happiness Happiness is tough to define but we know it when we feel it. You can tell when you are going through good times and bad times. It’s also important to differentiate between happiness and pleasure, because they are not the same thing. Meaning and purpose are major components of happiness, but they aren’t the whole picture. There is no one secret to happiness. You can feel committed and driven, but still be generally unhappy. Physical wellbeing, curiosity, as well as emotional and interpersonal wellbeing. Striving towards happiness is no different than other goals, you have to put in the work and invest in the effort. The journey can also be as fulfilling as the destination. You have to strive for something that is meaningful to you, that you can also enjoy the journey of getting there. What do you mean by the levels of happiness? When someone asks Tal if he’s happy, his answer is “I don’t know.” He can say he’s happier than he was in the past, but happiness is a journey that ends when life does. We can always strive for more, but we have to accept that there are ups and downs. One of the first lessons that Tal learned is that he first step is to allow yourself to feel unhappy and embrace the negative experiences that are inevitable in life. Don’t compare yourself to an unattainable, unrealistic ideal. When you accept negative emotions and difficulties, you open yourself up to happiness. When you reject negative emotions, they intensify. Taking action when faced with difficulties is the only viable next step. Engaging in things that are meaningful and relationships are the other major components of happiness. Spending time with people that you care about and that care about you is the best predictor of overall happiness and wellbeing. What are the things that are preventing entrepreneurs from being happy? The first question for an entrepreneur should be “what is most meaningful to me?” rather than “what will make me the most money?” Learn to fail, or fail to learn. The most successful entrepreneurs are those that have failed many times and learned from each of those failures. It’s easy to see the successes, but the failures are more valuable. Is there a system to attain happiness? Write down things for which you are grateful and focus on the progress that you’ve made. When you do that, your job satisfaction increases and you become more successful. When you appreciate the
3/25/2019 • 40 minutes, 17 seconds
Trustwork: The Future of Work
Peter Rex is the Founder of InvestRes and Founder & CEO of Trustwork. InvestRes has purchased 17,000 units throughout Florida, Texas, Arizona, and Colorado, maintains $1.5B+ in assets under management, and has consistently beaten the Preqin Top Quartile in returns. InvestRes is a vertically integrated company, handling acquisitions, property management, construction management and portfolio management in-house. Trustwork is a technology business driven to empower the global workforce and recreate the world’s economy. Trustwork’s initial focus is on recreating the “old economy” industries of real estate and construction, but will eventually empower every person in the global workforce. Podcast Highlights Who is Peter Rex? In developing the plan for Trustwork, Peter had visited over 85 countries and gained a Law degree from Harvard. Before even that, Peter is naturally rebellious, service driven, and self motivated. Being rebellious didn’t work out very well when Peter was younger, but it served him well as an entrepreneur later in life. Surprisingly, starting a business was a last resort for Peter. It wasn’t part of the plan when Peter was in school but it turned out well. Peter’s rebellious nature lead him to look at things differently, especially when people around him see things another way. Peter spent a few weeks at a Christian monastery when he was younger and during that time he felt like he was being called to business, it was more of a pull than a push. Technology and Trustwork Peter used to do a lot of construction work when he was younger, and that gave him a great understanding of the construction industry and how things worked. He leveraged his leadership skills and love of reading and learning to start and grow his business. After a few years in the real estate space, Peter felt like there was a bigger idea on the horizon, which was some sort of entrepreneurship platform. The obstacles in your life are challenges, you can falter or you can overcome them. Peter’s experience travelling the world taught him a lot about how people operate in different countries. You have to play the game with your talents, when you do that you can’t be beaten. Trustwork is an international entrepreneurship platform build on the experiences and notes that Peter took while travelling the world. When it comes to owning property, one of the hardest things you can do is find trustworthy contractors that you can rely. Owning property is one thing, turning it into a profitable asset is something completely different. The real estate industry is very feast or famine, when you need to get something done, that’s usually the time that everyone else needs to get something done too. Trustwork solves this issue by creating a platform for entrepreneurs and property owners to connect with people to get their jobs done. It creates transparency for everybody involved. Trustwork is the future of work. Peter’s Takeaway There are going to be negative people around you no matter, tell the pessimistic people to check themselves and draw a line. Those types of people are only going to distance themselves from you. Other people may be telling you that they believe in you but not in your idea, listen to their concerns and figure out ways to overcome those obstacles. You should assess yourself realistically and use your friend’s perspectives for this. Don’t run away from who you are by trying to become better in an area that you’re weak at just hire people who make up for your weaknesses. Find out where your strengths are and structure the game to play to those strengths. Play in an area that love to do. Links: trustwork.com @peterrex Thank you for listening
3/21/2019 • 43 minutes, 44 seconds
Live True With Mindfulness and Authenticity
Ora Nadrich is the Founder & President of The Institute for Transformational Thinking and bestselling author of Live True: A Mindfulness Guide to Authenticity. Ora is a frequent blogger for the Huffington Post, and has been featured as a panelist on Huffington Post Live. She's written many articles on Mindfulness, and can be found on Yahoo Health, YouBeauty, Conscious2, MindBodyGreen, and many other publications. She leads workshops on "The Says Who? Method", a step-by-step process of confronting our negative thoughts, which are what often create the obstacles in our lives. Ora was an actress and screenwriter, where she worked in film, episodic television, and commercials for more than a decade, which she feels provided her vast experience in exploring motivation and the process of self-discovery. Podcast Highlights Who is Ora Nadrich? Ora likes to say “a vision always starts in the mind with a single thought.” She considers herself a visionary, as someone who wants to manifest the vision in her mind. When Ora’s sister became afflicted with mental illness that completely changed the way Ora looked at life. Being an actress was no longer what she felt like she was meant to do. She found that some of the most difficult times in life can be a gift that will lead you to understand more about yourself. Where did you get the courage to make the switch and Live True? This is a question of Nature vs. Nurture. Many people have come from terrible situations and achieved great things. There is usually a moment, a distinct event that defines you. The thing that drives Ora is something that she teaches to other people. Ora wakes up each day with gratitude and presence. Be in the moment of now and think about what you want that moment to be. You are the creator and master of your internal dialogue which will create your reality. Overcoming Self Doubt Energy goes where energy flows. We start to believe the thoughts that we tell ourselves and often get attached to thoughts that keep us back. If someone came up to you and told a bunch of negative things, would you outright believe them? Probably not, but when we do it to ourselves we do. Take one negative thought you have and write it down, crumple it up and throw it away. Then write down its positive counterpart. You have to be diligent and committed to switching out your negative thoughts that don’t serve you for positive ones that do. Staying In The Present We are bombarded more than ever before, you need to make an effort to pause and work with the voices in your own head. The number one anchor in meditation is to focus on your own breath. Being in the present means you are showing up and what of yourself do you want to bring with you? If you want to get in shape without exercising, you’re kidding yourself. If you want to be present in your life, you have to do the work. How do we reconcile mindfulness and authenticity? Ask yourself what feels inauthentic to you. If you are an entrepreneur just getting started, you are probably under a lot of pressure to put up an image of success that you may not have had yet. But real is good, being vulnerable is okay. Give yourself credit for what you’ve done. Wake up in the morning and get your thoughts on straight. Think thoughts that support and encourage what you want to achieve. Entrepreneurs are the visionaries of the future. They will change the future. Ora shares her ideas of thought transformation because she knows they can change the way people think and that can change the world. Changing your thoughts is one of the most powerful things you can do. How do you deal with the stigma around mindfulness? Everybody has
3/18/2019 • 43 minutes, 40 seconds
Effective Communication And Overcoming The Fear of Public Speaking
Diane DiResta is the founder and CEO of DiResta Communications, Inc, a New York City-based communications skills consultancy serving business leaders who want to communicate with greater impact, whether one-to-one, in front of a crowd, or from an electronic platform. DiResta is the author of the book Give Fear the Finger: How to Knock Out Fear of Public Speaking and Knockout Presentations: How to Deliver Your Message with Power, Punch, and Pizzazz, a widely used text in college business communication courses. Podcast Highlights Who is Diane DiResta? Diane is a connector, truth seeker, and lifelong learner. She grew up in a military family so she moved around a lot during her childhood, that’s where she found her love of foreign cultures and developed an attitude of adaptability. Her first career was as a speech pathologist after graduating from Columbia, but she was too ambitious for the opportunities available in that position so she switched careers to giving public speaking training for a consulting company. After working in various businesses and industries, Diane realized that she loved the job but didn’t like the culture of Wall Street. She realized that the reason people don’t fit is not because of a skills mismatch but because of a culture issue. She kept searching for the right position while freelancing for a couple of years and came to realize, with the help of her husband, that she wanted to have control of her own work and didn’t actually want another job. Now she takes good speakers and turns them into great speakers and nervous speakers and make them confident speakers. Even as a child, Diane was always correcting people’s speech. Her first love was English and teaching, but that wasn’t really an option for her at the time, which is why she ended up in the field of speech pathology. Effective Communication Every master was once a disaster. Diane wasn’t always a professional speaker. Gifted speakers are born, but effective speakers are made. Her first exposure to public speaking was in college and she was not a natural stand out, but she still managed a ‘B’ in the class. She knows what it takes to go from an average person who’s anxious about public speaking to someone who trains professional speakers for a living. Speaking is a skill, anyone can be effective at conveying a message. The language of confidence combined with your stories and background is the art of effective communication. What’s the difference between verbal and vocal? Vocal is your tone, verbal is your language. The message is in the tone, not in your words. When it comes to language wimpy words will undermine your ability to sell or persuade someone. When you use weak words, you are communicating that you’re not confident in your statements or position. Don’t suggest, recommend. The confused mind says no. Use more definitive powerful words and hold your ground. Once people learn the skills of executive presence, they take off. Mindset and Skill Set The first stage is to address your limiting beliefs. You’re not confident because you don’t believe in yourself. The second stage is recovery strategies. What is your worst nightmare and how would you recover from it? Understanding that helps develop the skill set you need for effective communication. Speaking is not a soft skill. You have to understand who you are in front of the person that you’re communicating with. Can you think of anything that happens in the absence of communication? You’re not going to get funding from a VC without being able to communicate effectively. The stock market is psychology, fear and confidence at the basic level. Communicating with analysts effectively can have a massive ROI and impact on your company’s stock
3/14/2019 • 39 minutes, 34 seconds
How to Grow Your Influence and Impact
Michelle Tillis Lederman is the CEO of Executive Essentials and bestselling author of The 11 Laws of Likability: Relationship Networking. Because People Do Business with People They Like and the new book The Connector’s Advantage: 7 Mindsets to Grow Your Influence and Impact. She has worked with clients ranging from government to academia to non-profit to Fortune 500 companies, including Madison Square Garden, Citi, Johnson & Johnson, Ernst & Young, Michigan State University, Sony, and The Department of Environmental Protection. She has been featured on CBS and MSNBC, and in the NY Times, Forbes and Working Mother magazine. Podcast Highlights Who is Michelle Tillis Lederman? Michelle describes herself as a petite powerhouse. She grew up as a have-not, not that she was poor but her family knew what it was it like to struggle on the lower end of the financial spectrum. All she dreamed about as a child was financial security which directly influenced her choices later in life. Michelle originally started out as an accountant because she was good with numbers and thought that would fulfill her desire for financial security. It didn’t work out very well so she explored other similar positions looking for the right fit and purpose. After finding herself as the only woman on a global venture capital team, she realized that communication in that industry was terrible. She began to explore the idea of effective communication and one of the first trainings she ever taught was how to give effective feedback. You need to recognize in yourself what you really want to do and believe that you can do it. You have to own it and then go make it happen. Michelle wasn’t necessarily seeking her current career but she was open to learning more. Be open to those moments wherever you are. You have to design your ideal. If you’re questioning whether or not someone will pay you for something you are considering offering, ask yourself why they need it and how can you tie it to their bottom line. Providing Effective Feedback You cannot make anybody like you. Once you accept that, you can enable them to see what is likable about you. It’s not about who you are in isolation, but who you are in relation to who you are trying to connect with. When you have information to give to somebody that they might not take well, you should start the conversation with “Are you open to…” By saying yes, they put themselves into a position to open themselves up for the information that’s coming, even if the feedback is negative. Connecting, Influence, and Mindset There is an advantage to being a better connector, it makes things faster, easier, better. If you’re trying to grow your business, you’re going to do it better if you’re a connector. That means connecting with other people and helping other connect as well. There are seven mindsets of a connector: open and accepting, they have a clear vision, believe in abundance, they trust, they are social and curious, they are conscientious, and they have a generous spirit. The mindset of abundance may be one of the most difficult of mindsets. Reputational and competitive risk is always something to overcome because they come from a mindset of scarcity, which is very common for most people in society. Having a clear vision is another common challenge for many people. How can you make something faster, easier, or better without knowing what that looks like? When you ask for something, you don’t want the possibility of someone saying no putting the relationship at risk. You have to trust that what you give will eventually come back and that the spirit of generosity is in the other person. Connectors follow up and follow through, so they don’
3/11/2019 • 42 minutes, 39 seconds
The Company of One and Scaling Without Growth
Paul Jarvis is the bestselling author of Everything I Know and the new book Company of One: Why Staying Small Is the Next Big Thing for Business. He is a veteran of the online tech world, and over the years has had such corporate clients as Microsoft, Yahoo, Mercedes-Benz, Warner Music and athletes like Warren Sapp, Steve Nash and Shaquille O’Neal. He’s founded several start-ups, toured the US and Canada in the band Mojave, and has worked as a web designer for almost two decades. Paul’s writing appears in Fast Company, 99u, The Next Web, GOOD, Elephant Journal, Design Taxi, Medium.com and many other publications. With an international reputation as the designer whose vision and web design strategy builds multi-million dollar businesses, he teaches online courses, runs several software businesses, and hosts a handful of podcasts from his home on an island on the West Coast of Canada. Podcast Highlights Who is Paul Jarvis? One of Paul’s favorite quotes is from Uncle Ben, the iconic “with great power comes great responsibility.” Paul has always been interested in the relationship between technology and people which is why when the internet started he realized there was an incredible opportunity available. When Paul started out he was doing web design and he did that for 15 years. He loved working with the clients but not so much working for the agency, so he decided to leave but the clients sought him out and wanted to keep with Paul no matter where he went. This lead him to realize that he could just work directly with those clients and could just start a business instead. Where did you get the courage to venture out on your own? Having a client list was a big help but being focused on fostering the relationships in the first place was very important. It wasn’t just courage, Paul felt the fear but he acted anyway. Paul wanted to be in control of the relationships that he had with his clients so freelancing was really his best option and that’s what drove him to go out on his own. Paul is generally a little contrarian so he’s always done things a little differently. Company of One A company of one doesn’t necessarily mean literally one person, it’s more about challenging the idea that growth is always good. People assume that the byproduct of business success is always getting bigger, Paul thinks the byproduct of success is more about getting to choose where and how you work and where you want to get bigger. Growth can make sense, but it doesn’t have to. A lot of people start their own business because they want freedom. They also tend to focus on the what if questions around failure but forget about the questions of what if their succeeds? Entrepreneurs should be able to make decisions about how to spend their day and the work they do. There are two stages to business, pre-enough and post-enough. In the first stage you take the work you can get because you have to. Once you have enough, you have more choices than you think you do. You can make choices in your business that line up with your values. It’s more important to focus to the results than the traditional methodology of how to achieve those results, especially in the age of the internet. Scale Without Growth Paul can reach 30,000+ people with the click of a button. Technology enables you reach people and scale a business without hiring more people. Adding more people is the easiest solution but not necessarily the best one. It’s possible to build a business that has collaborative freelancers on the team instead of employees. Whenever starting a business, Paul asks the question of “how would this cost to support and maintain?” If it’s too much, he won’t pursue that business. The trick to figure out at
3/7/2019 • 44 minutes, 14 seconds
Boosting Your Creativity With Innovation Engineering
Doug Hall is Founder of the Eureka! Ranch, the Innovation Engineering Institute, and Brain Brew Custom Whisk(e)y. He is the author of the bestselling book Jump Start Your Business Brain: Scientific Ideas and Advice That Will Immediately Double Your Business Success Rate and the new book Driving Eureka! Problem Solving with Data Driven Methods & the Innovation Engineering System. Hall has been named one of America’s top innovation experts by Inc.magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Dateline NBC, CNBC, CIO Magazine and the CBC. His Innovation Engineering system is responsible for over $16 billion in growth and system improvements projects in active development. He is an inventor, researcher, educator and craft whiskey maker. Podcast Highlights Who is Doug Hall? Doug is a compulsive experimenter, he measures the results and then innovates based on the results. Doug is just a curious guy. He started his first business at the age of 12 just to see if he could do it. Everything he has done is driven by genuine curiosity. When he tried something to make money, it always failed, but when he approached things from a point of curiosity it always worked much better. Creativity Systems Doug has measured over 9000 teams in an effort to learn what allows people to create more meaningful ideas. The first thing is stimulus, people think that to get good ideas they need to sit in an empty room and the ideas will come, but that’s the last thing you should do. You create a system of gathering stimulus together to get your mind to react off of and create new ideas. The second thing is diversity in view points. When you combine people with diverse perspectives that trust each other, you get an exponential effect on the creativity of the group. The third thing is fear. Fear is the creativity killer so trust is very important, the key to driving out fear is to use data to build your confidence. Big corporations are usually more interested in getting a big idea given to them than having their team taught how to generate big ideas. We don’t believe in our people and we have to believe in our people to create great things. A team can’t win with just one all star. People are typically hired because they are innovative and creative but then they are told to just do what they are told. As a leader, it’s your job to set the vision and then give your team the training and tools to do the job. Innovation Engineering and Inventing New Things Doug made the conscious decision to become an inventor. He ended up working a Proctor and Gamble for ten years in an inventing centered role and set a lot of records at the company. Doug’s rule is simple, every six months ask yourself the question “am I smarter now than I was before?” If not, it’s time to move on. After getting fed up seeing ideas get killed by the corporate bureaucracy, Doug went into academia and created Innovative Engineering programs that have gone on to teach 35,000 people how to create better ideas. When ideas go into the development system in most organizations they will lose half their value because people will compromise. Ideas get killed as they go through the bureaucracy because the teams are fighting each other instead of working together. Being data driven is the solution to driving out fear. So much of our society teaches kids that they aren’t or can’t be creative. There are a lot of habits that need to be unlearned if you want to innovate. Reference: Driving Eureka! Problem Solving with Data Driven Methods & the Innovation Engineering System, Doug Hall Doug’s Takeaway The first truth is your idea stinks, but if you have the mindset of never ending continuous improvement of that idea you are guaranteed suc
3/4/2019 • 48 minutes, 23 seconds
Build Your Real Estate Investing Team With Bob Lachance
Bob Lachance has been an active business owner and real estate investor since 2004. Bob is an entrepreneur by nature and currently owns, operates and manages many different businesses around the world. Bob helped create one of the top Real Estate Coaching and Mentor programs in existence today and also created one of the premiere Virtual Assistant Staffing companies, REVA Global LLC. Bob is an expert in the real estate investing space and has an incredible reputation for creation, implementation and execution. Bob Lachance is a sought-after mentor and industry expert, lending his voice to countless real estate investors, startups and entrepreneurs looking to take their businesses to the next level. Prior to getting into the business sector, Bob had a successful 8 year professional ice hockey career which allowed him the privilege of traveling and living all over the United States and Europe. Bob was also a member of the 1995 National Championship Boston University Ice Hockey Team. Podcast Highlights Who is Bob Lachance? Bob is definitely not a Harvard grad but he would say he is a coach. He’s played pretty much every single sport in addition to hockey and in each instance Bob’s father was the coach where his coaching style was to coach each child the same way. His motto was “each kid is going to get as good as they are going to get, not as good as their parents wanted them to get.” As much time, energy, and effort as you put into something will determine how good you’re going to get. Bob was born to coach and help people. Why was real estate the thing for you after hockey? Bob went to Boston University on a full scholarship but when you get something like education for free, you tend not to take advantage of it. After choosing to play for the St. Louis Blues instead of completing his education, Bob didn’t have much to fall back. After searching the internet for careers that didn’t require a degree to get into and real estate kept coming up, he decided to jump in with both feet. At the time of Bob’s first purchase, he was missing a lot of resources and knowledge but he figured it out as he went along. Goal setting plays a major part in your success. Setting small goals and attaining them will give you the fuel to keep going. If you want to really accomplish something you have to give it your full effort and stop listening to the naysayers. The 2008 recession was the perfect example as to why passive income is so important. What’s your favorite part of investing in real estate? When Bob started he had no systems or processes to keep attaining his goals. He knew he needed to create those things so he started looking for a team to join. Bob believes that you are only as good as your team. After running a number of short sale transactions, Bob and his partner started looking for what they can add to help more investors become successful. This drive lead to Bob’s many coaching programs as well as his virtual assistant company. REVA Global Real estate is essentially a very simple process that has five steps: Marketing, Lead Intake, Deal Analysis, Offers and Contracts, and Selling the Property. REVA Global trains virtual assistants to take different tasks off your plate. The top tasks for REVA VA’s in short term rentals are managing the CRM and coordinating maintenance. Minor repairs can take up a crazy amount of time out of your day and a VA can take care of all of that for you. Transitions Problem solving is the ultimate skill. There is a million dollar business no matter where you go. In the end it’s about filling a need. Coaching and the communication behind it has been a very important skill set that Bob has transferred over from hockey. <
2/28/2019 • 36 minutes, 33 seconds
Avoiding The Doom Loop With Lucid Meetings
ELISE KEITH is the founder and Meeting Maven for Lucid Meetings. She leads their research, publication, and product management efforts, constantly seeking the best ways to make it easy for people to enjoy meetings that get work done. Leaders call her blog "a treasure trove of valuable info and guidance" and "a game-changer for our organization." When she isn't working on the industry-leading Lucid Meetings software platform, Elise shares her meeting expertise in presentations that audiences say are “inspiring,” “full of practical methods we can apply,” and “fill in all the gaps I didn't even know I had!” With a combination of experiences that gives her a unique perspective on meetings, Elise brings the awareness of a business owner, a software developer, a service provider, a researcher, and person who doesn’t like to have her time wasted, all combined with a deep expertise in meeting practice. Podcast Highlights Who is Elise Keith? Elise graduated college with a degree in theater, so that make her a creative that loves meetings. She ended up going into technology instead and found herself working for companies that believed they were going to change the world. She saw people spending a lot of time in meetings generally being unhappy to be there, but eventually during the course of her career she saw the missing link that those companies were missing. What if I don’t like meetings? We have a negative association with the word ‘meeting’ as a society and that usually leads to a self fulfilling prophecy. If you think meetings are a waste of time, you aren’t going to put a lot of time in making it better. Our belief informs our action. The place to start is to change the belief. Meetings at a company that cares about what they are doing, where the goal is to align and recreate the kind of culture they want to live, is a complete game-changer. One of the keys to breaking the Doom Loop is to stop calling them meetings. What does a good meeting feel like? At a certain point in your organization you can no longer grow with just individual conversations. You need a formal meeting system to find solutions to the problems you’re facing. Create a greeting ritual that communicates who you are and what you care about. A meeting is your moment to design what it means to be part of your company. The icebreaker is a great ritual to open a meeting with. An icebreaker is a chance to be human and connect that way for just a few minutes. You must have structure, but that doesn’t mean an agenda. Go over your numbers so you can keep score and help your team understand their contributions to the overall goals. Take the rest of the time and look at the top 3 problems you’re facing and figure out how you’re going to solve them. Find a structure that works for you and then use week after week. Use one hour to learn a new meeting structure and save hours by not having to meet people one on one after your initial meeting. Lucid Meetings Education is a major component to the Lucid Meetings service. Meetings are a part of the business operating system, and communicating that is a big focus. Only 20% of managers in the US get any sort of meeting training. You are designing the system of how your business is going to run. When you stand in front of the group you are marketing your vision of what it means to be a part of that group. Meetings are teachable skills and the businesses that are thriving run really solid meetings. Bridgewater Associates, Pixar, Amazon, Oprah, and elite military teams like the Wildlands Firefighters have excellent meeting systems in place. Without it they wouldn’t be able to do what they do. To move forward, you have to a
2/25/2019 • 46 minutes, 1 second
A New Kind of Leadership
James Arthur Ray is considered one of the world’s foremost leadership and performance advisors, coaches and consultants. He began his career consulting with C-Level Executives at the AT&T School of Business. It was here that he realized his purpose for helping others find their unique gifts, and then leveraging them to take their life and business to new levels. His extensive study of behavioral sciences, experience as an entrepreneur, and tireless quest for spiritual knowledge gives him a unique and powerful ability to address issues in both life and business from an integrated level; much deeper and more fulfilling than most can accomplish. His company hit The Inc. 500 in 2009 as one of the fastest growing privately held companies in the United States. James was featured in the film documentary “The Secret,” a ground-breaking feature-length film, and New York Times bestseller. James has been interviewed in numerous national media outlets including a full-feature article in Fortune Magazine, People Magazine, Larry King Live, Piers Morgan, the Today Show, CNN and Oprah. He is the author of the New York Times Bestseller Harmonic Wealth: The Secret to Attracting the Life You Want which focuses on his principle of Going Three For Three: how to effectively bring your thoughts, feelings and actions into harmony with bold application. James states vision without bold action is a total waste of time. James’ new book Redemption: The Price of Leadership in Both Life and Business is scheduled to be released in 2018. Podcast Highlights Who is James Arthur Ray? James is the dark knight of leadership performance. He didn’t grow up in a wealthy family though. He was a skinny, scrawny, awkward kid that got bullied in school. James father was a dynamic speaker and Protestant minister which contrasted quite a bit with James personality. Early on in James’s life, he had many questions about life and the way things work which lead to him studying a variety of topics including business, philosophy, psychology, biology, and even quantum physics. He started looking for ways to synthesize the common threads between all these very different areas of knowledge. Leadership We live in very disruptive times, AI is on the rise and the fact is if you are not doing something unique and accessing your full human potential you’re going to be left behind. Leadership isn’t a title or position, that’s positional power. It’s also not the number of social media followers you have. Leadership is first and foremost about leading your own life. Self awareness is the number one necessity in today’s world in leadership and entrepreneurship. There shouldn’t be a dividing line between life and business. Most people who preach balance aren’t actually balanced in their lives. Balance and Wealth Most people think wealth means money, but the root definition of the term means well-being. For every person is successful, 20 people attempt and are not successful. We’re in a technology and psychologically disruptive world. In perfect balance nothing happens. Noone is in perfect balance. Life balance is one of the greatest causes of suffering in the entrepreneurial world. You have to be able to put attention to the five pillars of success in everyday life and put them into harmony, not balance. These pillars are Financial, Relational, Mental, Physical, and Spiritual. There will be times when finances are tight. If you’re shooting for balance you’re going to feel depressed and guilty, but the fact is you’re going to have to realize that you need to hustle and let some other aspects of your life take a back seat. Don’t totally neglect the other areas but you have to focus. Balance as it’s perceived is not
2/21/2019 • 50 minutes, 26 seconds
Community Based Car Sharing With Envoy
Ori is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience in developing high growth businesses. He is responsible for leading the vision, strategy, and growth for Envoy, as the company continues to build out a robust global infrastructure. With nearly 2 decades of experience driving successful entrepreneurial ventures, including Smart IL and Lenn Ventures, Ori has a vast knowledge of various facets of business including new business incubation, venture investing activities, project management and business development. Over the past 10 years, Ori shifted his focus towards real estate related investments, including acquisition and operations, as well as actively initiating technology related ventures in the US market. Podcast Highlights Who is Ori Sagie? Ori believes that what entrepreneurs true heroes is the time and sacrifice they have to make to achieve their goals. Ori was born is Israel and has always been focused on the why of success. Why you want to do it and why people need it is the essence of the success of every venture. Looking at what people are doing to solve their problems is a way to figure out what solutions to work on. Is it still a sacrifice if you’re not aware you’re doing it? It’s always a sacrifice, there is always an opportunity cost to what you do. You have to understand your skillset and what you are willing to give up in order to reach your goal. You may want to be a tech entrepreneur, but maybe you’re a great singer. Sacrifice is about giving up something good for something better. Ori and his partner Eric have worked together for a long time, the development of their business is due to their evolution as people and observing the market. They realized that mobility is an amenity and a need for many people that needed a solution, which is where the idea for Envoy began. Time to market is the most critical thing for the success of an entrepreneur. Real Estate When you assess the market correctly and buy a good property that creates stability. For Ori real estate is nice but not where his creative genius lies. In order to succeed in real estate you have to know what you’re doing, it’s not a simple matter of leveraging your assets. There is a lot of information and research that goes into it. Spend a few hours looking at the physical property you are going to spend your money on. There is no silver bullet or free rides. Don’t build your life on the hope that you made the right choice. The key element is to be realistic with yourself and assess the situation. As Ori likes to say “go touch the wall.” Respect the hustle. Envoy Car Sharing Envoy is the 3.0 version of car sharing. There is a big difference between something becoming an amenity and something being a service. Envoy is community based car sharing, they provide electrical cars and infrastructure to properties so those vehicles become an amenity to those tenants or guests. A good comparison would be the gym in the building, with Envoy now there is a car in the building as well. For you to get rid of your car, you have to rely on another mode of transportation. The more options you have, the more likely car ownership is unnecessary. Multiple modes of transportation available to you becomes you mobility solution. Envoy’s current focus is on property portfolios of 100 units and higher, but they will eventually make their way to working with smaller communities. The number one thing people purchase after they choose their short term rental is a car service. The idea for Envoy came from Ori’s experience as a real estate investor himself. Real estate operators have an opportunity to provide an amenity that they can do at zero to low cost to thei
2/18/2019 • 45 minutes, 15 seconds
Lisa Phillips On Affordable Real Estate
Lisa Phillips is the founder of Affordable Real Estate Investments and #1 bestselling author of Investing in Rental Properties for Beginners: Buy Low, Rent High. After her second layoff and a foreclosure in the bloated Las Vegas, NV real estate market, Lisa found herself alone and halfway across the US from her friends and family with no job. She was left with a 35k condo and only enough money to renovate the place doing the work herself to stretch her unemployment check. It not only gave her a solid foundation of repair maintenance and costs, but also a taste of how owning real estate could be affordable and profitable. After purchasing four more rental properties around or under 30K in OH, MD, and VA, Lisa is now focused on doing one thing she loves to do: showing EVERYONE how they too can affordably start investing in real estate for high profits and cash flow. Podcast Highlights Who is Lisa Phillips? Lisa Phillips was born in an impoverished situation but has a strength and conviction that the world can be a better place. Everyone has a need for a house, but there is another process that goes into turning a house into a home, which is one of Lisa’s innate talents. Lisa was born and raised in Las Vegas and saw the real estate market in the area and thought it was going to the moon. After getting laid off, Lisa had to move to Ohio to find a job that paid a similar salary to what she was making before, which she needed to covering the mortgage on the condo she had purchased. One of the main lessons she learned from that experience was to make sure the average rent of the neighbourhood can cover the payment in case you need it to. While living in Ohio, she was laid off again after purchasing a small condo and realized that low priced and affordable homes are a great protection in times of recession and uncertainty. Saving Money For Real Estate When you’re single you choose what level of savings you want to achieve. Once you have a family it becomes much harder to save the same level because your dream of frugality may not be theirs. Courage Courage comes from being true to who you are. It comes from acknowledging your soul and not letting other people tell you how you live your life. Listen to your own internal intuition and guidance, don’t ignore it. Lisa noticed that every time she didn’t listen to the voice in her heard, she tended to regret it so she had some practice with it. It can be very hard when everyone around you is going in one direction and your intuition is telling you to go the other way but Lisa found that the more she listened to her soul the more she came out ahead. Optimism and confidence in yourself to figure out something for yourself or ask for help are two other tools that will help you succeed. You can weather through the storm. Lessons learned can help you when you get burned. By having such a negative experience with her first real estate purchase, Lisa learned a lot about the economics and math of the whole process and that helped her with her future deals. Why do you help people? Lisa felt that even though she doesn’t have a massive portfolio of properties she still had some knowledge that other people could really benefit from. Inspiring people and creating a culture of responsibility are big reasons why Lisa continues to talk to people about her real estate methods. She knows that it doesn’t take a huge number of properties to change the way you think about life and allow you to do things that you always wanted to. If even 10% of the people in the world had the financial ability to spend most of their time doing the things that they really love, the world would be a different place. Sometimes you just need to see someone
2/11/2019 • 40 minutes, 20 seconds
Keyword Phrase: Rob Jolles Rob Jolles On Getting Other People To Believe In You
Rob Jolles is a sought-after speaker who teaches, entertains, and inspires audiences worldwide. His live programs in and around the world have enabled him to amass a client list of Fortune 500 companies including Toyota, Disney, GE, a dozen universities, and over 50 financial institutions. He is the best-selling author of six books, including his latest release, Why People Don't Believe You...Building Credibility from the Inside Out. Podcast Highlights Who is Rob Jolles? Rob Jolles was raised by a Marine and taught discipline quite early. He stumbled out of the University of Maryland and found himself working for New York Life Insurance. When Rob thinks of superheros, he sees someone that can take a punch, just like entrepreneurs. Everything in Rob’s life relates to getting knocked down and having the discipline to dust himself off and get back up. Once Rob graduated the only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted to generate income. For him life insurance was the fastest way to accomplish that goal. Since he had 36 first cousins in the state of Maryland he had a bit of a safety net to rely on. Rob says that once you get through your relatives and family, that’s when you find out who you are. One of the easiest ways to end a conversation is to tell people you sell life insurance. The reason people take a step back when you mention selling is because of bad actors that treat selling as a hiring mill. The constant churn of salespeople creates a terrible reputation for sales in general. Why is sales such a difficult subject for people? Most people are exposed to the lower end of the sales world which creates a negative imprint. Sales is more than sales though, it can also be thought of as influence and persuasion and a way to get an idea into someone’s head that allows them to take an action that’s good for them. Sales and belief are intrinsically connected. Before we can get others to believe us, we have to believe us. If you believe your product is bad, you’ve got a problem. If you honestly believe your product is good, it’s so much easier to get other people to believe it too. Belief We have a lot of negative voices in our head that tend to chirp at us and we think they may not add up to much but they have a huge impact. They accumulate and you start believing it. Take yourself to a moment where you were at your best. How do you think you felt? Train yourself to find that place where you felt powerful. The body doesn’t know when the mind is acting. People say no to the person you were being at that moment, not because of the words you used. Rob helps people that have the words but lost the tune. He started applying acting skills to his teaching methods and showing people how to be authentic. Everyone can lose their tune, some have never even heard it. It’s important to deemphasize the words, everyone has a limp. We have to come to grips with our limp and realize that it’s ok. Learning The Tune Everyone has their own tune. You will never have someone else’s tune, you have to work with what you got and trust yourself. We obsess on things that are not in our control. Play the course, not the opponent. When you realize that worrying is a misuse of your imagination and focus on your authentic tune, that’s when you win. We are born to extract the greatness that is buried inside. Be who you are when you’re not selling. People don’t fix small problems, they fix big ones. A well trained salesperson is someone that has your best interests at heart and has the passion and the skills to spare you the pain of your big problems. If you’ve ever been to a well trained therapist, you have already experienced what a well trained salesperson is like. They don’t pai
2/4/2019 • 43 minutes, 25 seconds
Consistency Beats Intensity, Finding Abundance With Real Estate Investing
In 2015, Paul Thompson wanted out. His corporate office had become a suffocating cell. Paul decided to start buying rental houses, build passive income and break the chains of Corporate America. He was so successful, he secured 20 deals in his first 18 months of investing. Since that time he has acquired more than 2 dozen rentals without bank financing. Now he teaches others how to raise money from regular people that have some funds to invest. In addition to coaching others and still investing himself, Paul hosts a podcast to educate others. Ready Investor One offers tips, hacks, insights and more for listeners interested in creating opportunities for passive income. “Level Up Your Life through real estate investing.” Podcast Highlights Who is Paul Thompson? Paul was a normal average person working in corporate America trying to climb the corporate ladder. Eventually he realized that the ladder he was climbing was against the wrong wall and needed to find a way out. He started looking for way to replace his income and considered a lot of opportunities including a new job and buying a franchise, but he decided to go down the path of real estate investing. He purchased 18 properties in the first 18 months, but took the process one step at the time. Real estate investing can be uncertain but it can be done with less risk than starting a business. Neural science has proven that to make any lasting change, you have to have one of three things: you have some sort of an epiphany, you change your environment, or you take baby steps. For most people they need the epiphany which is what happened with Paul. He realized that the freedom to choose what he does with his time was what he really wanted and had to do something to make that a reality. Teaching Children Kids do what they see, not what they hear. Paul wants to be an example for his children and for them to remember the time he spent with them. Kids don’t really care about what you’re doing for income, they care about how much time you spend with them. Real Estate Investing Day One Paul was actually laid off from his job which is usually quite a rough event in someone’s life, but for Paul it was the fourth happiest day of his life after his wedding and his kids birthdays. He had already been planning for the day when he would put in his resignation so he was quite ready by that time. One of the very first influencers that Paul had found was J Massey and one of the things that J talks about a lot was private money, so that’s what Paul focused on at first. He met a local wholesaler and a private money lender and managed to put a deal together that made sense for everyone involved. As Paul has expanded and gotten more savvy his criteria has gotten more strict but finding the right kinds of properties has actually gotten easier. New Ways Of Thinking Paul has codified his mindset around money. Most of the things that we’re taught about money is wrong. You’re taught to be an order taker and to finance all your consumer activities. We hear the cliche all the time that time is money, but only people who are not entrepreneurs think that way. You have to switch your mindset and recognize that the money isn’t in the time, you use your time to set up systems that scale and separating your time from your money. When people ask Paul how he makes money he tells them he doesn’t make money, his money makes him money. Paul has found his zone of genius is in taking information and breaking it into smaller pieces that allow other people to make transformations in their lives. Ready Investor One Real estate investing is a game and Paul teaches listeners how to take the individual approach and how to
1/31/2019 • 37 minutes, 17 seconds
Muck Rack And Creating Powerful PR To Get Your Message Out
Gregory Galant is Co-founder & CEO of Muck Rack, Host of the Venture Voice podcast, and Co-founder of The Shorty Awards. Previously, Greg was an associate producer at CNN.com. In 1996, Greg founded Halenet, an award-winning Internet strategy firm while in high school. Podcast Highlights Who is Gregory Galant? Greg has been a lifelong entrepreneur. He got onto the internet very early on and taught himself to create and code websites, skills which he then used to build a business while in high school and beyond. While working as an associate producer at CNN.com in 2005, Greg had the idea to download mp3’s of spoken word content, more commonly known as podcasts. He started one the very first podcasts focused on entrepreneurs where he interviewed people like Reid Hoffman, the founder of Yelp and more. One of his podcast guests named Evan Williams was working on a prelaunch company that ended up being a failure, but that lead to him pivoting to his side project which turned out to be Twitter. Greg’s philosophy when starting a business is if you can try it out quickly and cheaply, don’t think about too much. If it doesn’t work, you only lost a couple of weekends. Greg has found that the longer he thinks about an idea before launching it, the worse it does. The Shorty Awards lead to Greg noticing that journalists were using social media to figure out what to write about. This lead directly to the idea for Muck Rack. What is the business model behind an awards show? In the beginning sponsorship was the main revenue source for the Shorty Awards. They quickly found out that sponsorships are very unreliable so they needed to figure out another way to generate revenue. Greg noticed that agencies were doing more digital work and were used to paying an entry fee to be entered into an awards show. They decided to keep it free for individuals but for branded agencies to charge an entry fee. Thousands of companies pay The Shorty Awards a little bit of money so they aren’t beholden to any one company. Dealing With Uncertainty If you want to have a reputation as a good business person, be sure to get into a good business. Does your business have a good revenue model? Revenue diversity is important to eliminating some of the risk inherent in business. No one customer should make up more than 10% of your revenue. It’s okay to start with a less than optimized revenue model if it allows you to transition into a more stable one. PR And Muck Rack Greg saw that journalists were on social media but that it was hard to find them. He came up with the simple idea of a website that allows you to see the journalists on social media and what they were sharing. They ran it as a free resource site on the side of the Shorty Awards but eventually realized that it more potential. Muck Rack transitioned into a subscription service to pitch journalists after feedback from one its users. The big difference between Muck Rack and HARO is Muck Rack is really more of a search engine for journalists that allows specific targeting of journalists based off what they write about. It’s more of a proactive approach to getting PR. The number one thing for entrepreneurs to keep in mind when they are pitching journalists is that they are human beings. Be personable and thoughtful in your outreach. If you do your research and send them a relevant pitch, you are actually helping them. The generally love hearing from an entrepreneur because of your natural passion for the business. Try boiling the down your pitch to a tweet. What’s newsworthy about your business that you can convey in one sentence? Write the headline to see if there is something really interesting or if you’re just caught up in your own story.
1/28/2019 • 44 minutes, 10 seconds
Lessons From The Founder of Upwork
Beerud Sheth is the Founder of Elance (now Upwork). He is also the founder & CEO of Gupshup, the world's leading messaging and bot platform. From immigrating to the US at 20, to founding Upwork (then Elance) in a cramped Jersey City apartment, to creating chatbots for the biggest companies in the world, Beerud’s journey as an entrepreneur and tech visionary has taken a number of surprising turns. Podcast Highlights Who is Beerud Sheth? Beerud grew up in Mumbai, India in an average middle class family and was blessed with decent analytical skills. He was always good at math and computing but more than that, he had always been driven and determined with whatever he was working on. Those are the traits that have served him well in his life because no matter how hard you work, things don’t always go as planned. Elance to Upwork It took 20 years to take Elance to IPO, this is a reflection of the typical overnight success story in Silicon valley. There were many challenges along the way. The IPO is not the end goal. In many ways Upwork has barely scratched the surface of the freelance economy. The point is not the IPO itself, it was to build a company that adds value to millions of people and generates a profit. In that, Upwork has certainly succeeded. Entrepreneurs tend to overestimate the short term and underestimate the long term. All of Beerud’s skills and experiences culminated in the idea that would eventually become Elance and later on Upwork. The core idea has remained essentially the same even though the business has evolved quite a bit. Entrepreneurship is a balance of irrational exuberance and a strong realism. When you’re trying to execute something you have to be realistic about what your customers want and how long it will take. The 2001 financial crisis forced Beerud to reevaluate his company and restructure it in a lot of ways. If you don’t have runway, it doesn’t matter what your ideas are because you can’t execute. Planning For The Bad Times Much of it comes down to psychology. Try not to get too excited when things are going great but also try not to get too down on yourself when things aren’t going well. You can’t control what happens in the world, but you can control how you respond to it. Your own psychology can get in the way of your own clear thinking. Entrepreneurs tend to take on all the stress upon themselves. Focus on what you can control and can do. It’s not the bad stuff that is happening to you it’s how you respond to it that determines the outcome. Beerud relied on the advice of VC’s and mentors that were involved in the company. Leverage whatever resources you can and people’s willingness to share their wisdom, that’s one of the greatest strengths of Silicon Valley. When you start a company people rely on you. Beerud always had an immense sense of obligation to the people he worked with so quitting wasn’t an option to him. If there was no Upwork, would there be no AirBnB or Uber? You can’t say for certain but Upwork definitely blazed a trail. In many ways those companies were able to take advantage of the lessons Upwork learned and the validation it provided. The success of those companies validates the initial idea of Upwork even more. What’s coming in the future? Gupshup is Beerud’s latest project. It’s a messaging platform that enables businesses to communicate with consumers in more intelligent ways. Gupshup basically simplifies your messaging channels by combining them so it’s easier to manage and then allows you to automate a lot of the most common questions. Businesses have to be where the consumers are but the proliferation of messaging channels is making that much more
1/24/2019 • 45 minutes, 44 seconds
Scaling Past Your First Deal With Syndication Real Estate
Todd Dexheimer, CEO of Venture D Properties, LLC started investing in Real Estate in 2008 in mainly single family homes and multi-family. Since 2008 he has purchased and renovated roughly 500 units. Todd has completed over 150 flips, including a 20 unit mobile home park, a ski resort and a 15 unit apartment complex, while using those profits to build his rental portfolio. Currently Todd owns approximately 350 units located in 4 states. His focus is on syndicating value add multi-family in emerging markets. Todd is also the host of the podcast Pillars of Wealth Creation and does some coaching for multi-family investors. Todd is passionate about teaching others how to create a business and how to take control of your finances. Todd was a high school industrial tech teacher prior to investing. Podcast Highlights Who is Todd Dexheimer? Before real estate Todd was a high school shop teacher and he wasn’t particularly entrepreneurial, but he always had an itch to do something more. Within three years of working as a teacher Todd dipped his toes into the real estate world. Todd started by reading about business and eventually made his way to learning about real estate where he became obsessed with the idea of investing in it. When he was working as a teacher, he knew he needed to find a way out and real estate appeared to be the best way. Teachers don’t get paid a lot so it wasn’t that hard to replace the income with cash flowing real estate. When you look at the numbers and think about the time and money it takes to get there, being a teacher is a tough call. What inspired you to pick up the books? Trying to figure out what’s next was the main reason Todd started reading, even though he was never a big reader. Todd didn’t have any real mentors around him to learn from so books were his only option. You don’t have to live next door to someone to learn from them. Real estate became the path because the numbers just make sense. Real estate replaces the requirement to work, at least not very hard, and makes retiring much more achievable. Going Full Time Into Real Estate By the time Todd quit his job, he had already been investing in real estate on the side for a few years so the transition wasn’t very difficult. His income from real estate had already exceeded his income as a teacher by that point. You don’t need to always graduate, you can start now and gradually work your way up. Scale as quickly as you can and look for partnerships/syndication real estate opportunities that can help you reach your goals. Education and experience is great but it doesn’t take years to get started. You have to get off your couch and go do a deal. You have to go find it, because deals won’t come to you in the beginning. There are lots of ways to go big, it doesn’t have to be the traditional path that you think it is. You have to put yourself out there to take advantage of opportunities that come your way. Syndication Real Estate Eventually you run out of your own resources so syndication real estate is a natural next step. If you want to scale, partnerships are required. Syndication is how to scale past your first deal. If you become known for getting your investors a good return on their money, you will have a list of people happy to give you their money. Once you start to understand what opportunity looks like, you can’t stop seeing them all around you. Todd’s Takeaway It starts with your ‘why’. You have to fully commit and can’t take no for answer. You’re going to get punched in the face, get told you’re crazy, and get told no, and if you listen to that you’re never going to get st
1/21/2019 • 38 minutes, 56 seconds
Breakthrough Innovation In Your Business
Nathan Furr is an Assistant Professor of Strategy at INSEAD, where he teaches innovation and technology strategy. He is a recognized expert in the fields of technology strategy, digital transformation, and disruptive innovation. He is the #1 bestselling author of Nail It Then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation, The Innovator's Method: Bringing the Lean Start-up into Your Organization, and the new book LEADING TRANSFORMATION How to Take Chargeof Your Company's Future. Podcast Highlights Who is Nathan Furr? Nathan cares about the dreams that people have and them getting the chance to pursue those dreams. He started his career in industry and even tried his hand at a start-up where he learned a lot of lessons the hard way. This lead him to ask the question of “how does breakthrough innovation really happen?” and eventually to Silicon Valley. That’s where he stumbled upon the fundamental dilemma that he’s been trying to answer with his books and work. We live in an environment of uncertainty and change and the tools we use today were designed during the industrial revolution, they were not designed to address an environment of radical uncertainty and hyper change. Uncertainty is the main theme that runs through all of Nathan’s work. It’s hard to see beyond the fence of your daily life what’s possible. The driving force behind new tools and frameworks is technology. Technology has lowered the barriers and made the world more dynamic and rapidly changing than ever before. Is change accelerating? Before the industrial revolution there was no such thing as Management, there were no courses you could take, and no business schools. During the 1700’s technology changed the nature of industry and introduced new problems. Business schools were created to solve these new problems. The question Management tries to solve is “how do I coordinate, how do I optimize, and how do I execute?” There are more new companies and new inventions with more new people participating in the process than ever before and this is contributing to the environment of dynamism. This is the golden age for hardware entrepreneurs. The framework has shifted from “how do I coordinate, optimize, and execute on the capture of value?” to one of “how do I create new value?” Breakthrough Innovation The big players are getting bigger and the smaller businesses are growing around the opportunities around mass customization. Many big companies are now looking to work with start-ups. Software is making the world more modular and allows businesses to work with each other rather than just compete. There are more automobile related start-ups in the last five years than almost any other category. INSEAD INSEAD was founded to be the Harvard of Europe. Once you get outside the United States, INSEAD is very well known. Breakthrough innovation crosses borders. We’re all in this world together and we all have to figure out how to deliver efficient, effective service wherever they our customers are. Staying On Top Of Change Nathan found that innovators engage in five fundamental behaviours. The number one behaviour is associating, where they look at other areas of life and applying an idea to another area. There is a lot of innovation that gets stuck in some area that can transform the way business is done in another area. Observe the world and keep your eyes open. Question and challenge the status quo, notice the world around you and look for problems that can be fixed, experiment and network for ideas. Digital transformation is not about technology,
1/17/2019 • 50 minutes, 45 seconds
Networking Strategies For Cracking The Funding Code
Judy Robinett is the founder of JRobinett Enterprises and author of How to Be a Power Connector: The 5+50+100 Rule for Turning Your Business Network into Profits. Robinett is a business thought leader who is known as “the woman with the titanium digital Rolodex.” She has been profiled in Fast Company, Forbes, Venture Beat, Huffington Post, and Bloomberg Businessweek as a sterling example of the new breed of “super connectors” who use their experience and networks to accelerate growth and enhance profitability. In her more than 30 years of experience as an entrepreneur and corporate leader, Robinett has served as the CEO of both public and private companies and in management positions at Fortune 500 companies. Podcast Highlights Who is Judy Robinett? Judy went to school in a small town in Idaho and always loved making things happens and solving problems. She learned how to break out of her shell but found she couldn’t survive in the corporate world. She saw men all around her getting promoted and making more money and decided she needed to understand what was happening. She learned about the connections those people had and the importance of knowing the right people. Most networking groups are a waste of time. You have to be careful what room you get in. The people with money tend to be in different kinds of groups. There is no lack of money in the world, the trick is figuring out who you need to know and coming up with a plan to get to know them. The thing Judy found out is the millionaires and billionaires are just like everybody else. They have problems and if you can solve their problem, you go to the front of the line. Networking Strategies Learn to talk to strangers. Only 12% of the population is clinically shy, but over half of us believe ourselves to be shy. The two tricks to talking to strangers are to ask a good question, or offer a heartfelt compliment. People want others to care about them and you never know who the other person might be. The common advice of keep your head down, work hard, and people will notice you doesn’t work. Judy didn’t figure out that networking was something she wanted to learn until she was 30. During her journey, she learned that she could add value to the people by connecting them to each other. After realizing that owning a business was the path to success for her, Judy nearly went broke. That was when she heard words that would change her life from her bankruptcy lawyer “They can break you, but they can’t eat you.” If bad things hadn’t happened in your past, there is a good chance that you would be in a worse situation today. Sometimes it makes sense to explore some expensive hobbies instead of trying to squeeze value out of networking events. The secret to networking strategies is to get to know people and build a relationship. The goal is to get the second date, not close in the first conversation. Joining a not-for-profit is another good option. Charities often have the top local business leaders as part of their board and they need people to help. Everybody’s problem is someone else’s solution. All the people you need to meet probably have either a banker, a lawyer, or an accountant. The good ol boy network is being chipped away at one day at a time. In nearly every town there is an incubator and wealthy people are always looking for a good deal. If your story is good and it’s a good opportunity, people are going to want to meet you and talk with you. Don’t ask for money, ask for advice. Make sure you’re with the right investor, not everyone invests in your niche. There is no perfect platform to connect investors with people who are looking for money, that’s why we have so many intermediary groups and have to do the le
1/14/2019 • 44 minutes, 41 seconds
The Problem With Healthcare And How To Fix It
Dave Chase is the author of The CEO’s Guide to Restoring the American Dream and co-founder of Health Rosetta. He was also co-founder & CEO of Avado, a digital health company acquired by & integrated into WebMD & Medscape. He was named one of the most influential people in Digital Health due to his entrepreneurial success, speaking & writing. Chase spent several years outside of healthcare in startups as a founder or in consulting roles with LiveRez.com, MarketLeader, and WhatCounts. He was also on the founding & leadership teams in two $1B+ businesses within Microsoft including their $2 billion healthcare platform business. Podcast Highlights Who is Dave Chase? Dave is a congenital optimist but he’s also a straight shooter. The genesis of his journey started out with his career in consulting while working with hospitals. Once he learned of something referred to as Revenue Cycle Management and realized the impact it has had on the middle class, he knew he needed to make a change. Healthcare has a number of ways to bill for services with plenty of ways to pad the end result. This billing paradigm is responsible for about half the revenue in the industry, roughly $7 trillion. By the time Dave was 30 he had 10 friends that were his age or younger die, with the last one being an egregious example of healthcare failure. In many ways, the state of the healthcare industry is responsible for the decline in public education quality. The good news about what Dave is working on is that government is not the answer, once people have the hope that the system can be improved, we already have the tools to get it done. Belief in Healthcare Change Dave knows the secrets of healthcare without being shackled by them. Dave believes that once you see a problem, you are obligated to fix it or you are complicit with it. For Dave’s business the failure scenario is to reach 10 million people and they are already halfway there. Dave went looking for a market gap, and found the greatest heist in American history. Dave works with businesses as small as a single person, the tools you have access to are just a little different from larger businesses. The typical family of four will pay over $20,000 a year for pretty poor healthcare benefits whereas smaller organizations could get coverage for as low as $6,000 a year. You’re in the healthcare business whether you like it or not. From Dave’s experience, there hasn’t been a hospital bill over $5,000 that hasn’t gone out without an error. The most common issue is something called pricing failure which is when there is no connection between what you pay and the value you receive. A lot of the times the places that are most expensive have the poorest quality care. Part of high quality in healthcare is not doing procedures that aren’t necessary. Some of the procedures performed today are going to be seen as lobotomies and bloodletting in the future because they just don’t work. 2% of the entire US economy is squandered and tied up in non-evidence based, non-value add procedures that have no evidence to prove they’re effective at all. How did this happen? If you increase costs by 5% every year, after 20 years, here we are. Healthcare used to be 2% of payroll, now it’s 20% and healthcare is close to a fifth of the economy. This is why employees have had 20 years of wage stagnation, it’s not because employers don’t want to spend the money on their employees but because it’s all going to increased healthcare spending. The underlying costs of healthcare haven’t gone up in the past five years, but premiums and prices have gone up. You can employ more people, better people, and have more profit in your business if you just pay attention to your hea
1/10/2019 • 36 minutes, 26 seconds
Making An Impact With Frank McKinney
Frank McKinney is a real estate artist and international bestselling author of Make It BIG!: 49 Secrets for Building a Life of Extreme Success, Burst This!: Frank McKinney's Bubble Proof Real Estate Strategies, and Frank McKinney's Maverick Approach to Real Estate Success: How You can Go From a $50,000 Fixer Upper to a $100 Million Mansion. He created 27 self-sufficient villages in 24 cities in the last 16 years, impacting the lives of 12,000+ children and their families. McKinney is a five-time bestselling author in 4 genres, real estate “artist” who creates multi-million dollar oceanfront homes on speculation on the sun-drenched canvas of the Atlantic, Hollywood actor, ultra-marathoner, and acclaimed speaker. Podcast Highlights Who is Frank McKinney? Everybody needs a place that draws out their creativity and ingenuity because that is what gets you ahead in business. Frank grew up in a small town in Indiana and always wanted to be Willy Wonka because Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was one of the greatest marketing films of all time. When you combine that with Robin Hood, it gives you a good picture of who Frank McKinney is. Motivation washes off and goes down the drain with the soap at night. Motivation and inspiration don’t last, but aspiration will alter your DNA. Who do you aspire to emulate? We have to start small. Frank began the first five years of his career buying houses that were worth less than $100,000 and flipping them. He put in his 10,000 hours into the craft of real estate. Approach your business like an artist would approach their craft. A lot of investors approach the business looking to cut as many corners as possible. Real Estate Artistry Most people that enter the real estate industry see a spreadsheet and look to squeeze as much as they can out of it. Frank looked at his career differently. He compressed his margins early on so that he could grow his reputation. He took the time to build his reputation before he built a house. You must set yourself apart in your industry with your personal brand. Personal branding is the art of amplifying your essence so your customers become intoxicated by your message and you as the messenger, and then in rapid fire succession with your product next. Your personal brand is very important in the real estate business because there are so many people in it that you have to stand apart. Authentic, Transparent, and Vulnerable is a great way to approach your life and your business. Frank had a lot of self destructive tendencies when he was young, but he swore off the dangerous habits and channeled those desires into his business. Speculation Building Frank’s niche is deeply local, the farthest project he’s done from his home is only 8 miles away. There are only roughly 160 opportunities for Frank to build on the oceanfront area he uses as his canvas. The big lesson is to carve your niche and deeper and wider than most. Know your market better than anyone else. Frank knows his market and the market knows him. Risk tolerance is like a muscle, the more you use it the more capable you are of taking risks that others would think are crazy. Fear is what stops us, it’s not the risk. Risk is always associated with a big change or a big challenge in our life. For Frank, the biggest risk is not taking one. Frank is still afraid, that’s how he knows he’s moving forward and making progress. Caring House To whom much is entrusted, much is expected. This is why Frank started Caring House and started building villages across the world. Frank describes himself as a simple thinker. If he’s building homes for the world’s most wealthy, shouldn’t he b
1/7/2019 • 54 minutes, 20 seconds
The Food Revolution
Ocean Robbins is co-founder and CEO of the 350,000+ member Food Revolution Network, adjunct professor in Chapman University’s Peace Studies Department, and co-author with his dad, bestselling author John Robbins, of Voices of the Food Revolution: You Can Heal Your Body and Your World with Food! and the new book 31-Day Food Revolution: Heal Your Body, Feel Great, And Transform Your World. He launched Youth for Environmental Sanity (YES!) at age 16, and directed the organization for 20 years. Ocean has spoken in person to more than 200,000 people and facilitated hundreds of gatherings for leaders from 65+ nations. Ocean has served as a board member for Friends of the Earth, EarthSave International, and many other organizations. He is a founding member of The Turning Tide Coalition, co-founder of the Leveraging Privilege for Social Change program, and founding co-convener of Leverage Alliance. Utne Reader recognized him as one of 30 “Young Visionaries” under 30, and both Time and Audubon magazines chose him as being among the heroes of the new millennium. He is the grandson of the great ice cream man Baskin Robbins and the son of 2 million copy best-selling author and health leader John Robbins (who walked away from his father’s Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire to become a spokesperson for health and social concerns). Podcast Highlights Who is Ocean Robbins? Ocean was born in a log cabin to a couple of parents who were practicing yoga for several hours a day at the time, hence the name Ocean. He started from an early age learning about food and the source of what we eat. His father decided to pursue a different form of success and walked away from the Baskin-Robbins empire. Ocean believes that we have made money more important than health or the Earth, but money is a tool that you can use to grow your service and your impact. The fact that Ocean’s father walked away from the ice cream fortune shows that he had integrity and was focused on something more than just making money. Once a business gets to that level, it’s almost entirely about making money and it’s very hard to bring in values like integrity that late in the game. Why food? Everybody eats, every issue is impacted by our food system. The United States is spreading food systems around the world and as that happens the associated diseases and problems are spreading as well. Food systems are a point of leverage that can change the world. Most people are trying to fuel their lives on a diet that is fundamentally flawed. 19% of the United States GDP is going to healthcare spending basically dedicated to symptom management related to nutrition and lifestyle. People become very attached to their food and what’s familiar. Ocean doesn’t want to take anything away from people, he wants them to be able to thrive. The junk food industry has done a great job of marketing and convincing people that it makes us happy, but there isn’t much pleasure in treating disorders. The standard American diet leads to standard American diseases. Many people don’t make lifestyle changes until they face a diagnosis, and at that point it may already be too late. We know where the status quo leads. You can see dramatic results in as little as 31 days. Entrepreneurs and the Food Revolution At the end of the day, what determines your health outcomes is not what you do at your peak levels of creativity. It’s determined by your habits. All your habits start as streams and eventually become rivers. The key to will power is to dig some trenches and helping the water go where you want it to go. Fill your fridge with healthy food, get rid of the worst offenders and prepare meals ahead of time so when you’re tired and exhausted your path of least resistance
1/3/2019 • 49 minutes, 23 seconds
How To Communicate With Influence
STACEY HANKE'S passion is teaching others how to communicate with influence Monday to Monday®. As a keynote speaker and mentor to C-suite executives, she helps individuals see through the eyes and ears of their audiences. The result is career-changing insights. She previously wrote the #1 Bestseller, Yes You Can! Everything You Need from A to Z to Influence Others to Take Action. Hanke holds a certification as a Speaking Professional for the National Speakers Association, is a member of the C-Suite Network Advisors, and a Member of the Forbes Coaches Council. Recognized as one of the National Speakers Associations “Top 6 Under 40,” Hanke has appeared in the New York Times and SmartMoney, has emceed TedX, and has appeared on the Lifetime Network and WGN Chicago. Over the last twenty-plus years, Hanke has trained hundreds of thousands of leaders, sales people, and business professionals across the United States and abroad. The influence skills and techniques she shares build the confidence, credibility, and presence that create lasting results. Stacey Hanke, Inc., the company she founded in 2004, provides keynotes, training, and coaching for organizations in a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, retail, advertising, financial, and insurance. Her clients encompass Fortune 500 companies and household brands such as Coca-Cola, GE, General Mills, FedEx, Kohl's, McDonalds, Nationwide, Leo Burnett, and several branches of the US Armed Services. Podcast Highlights Who is Stacey Hanke? Stacey comes from a humble background and her goal was never to start her own business. Out of college she landed some big jobs and found herself training on a wide variety of topics and she noticed something very important. It doesn’t matter how smart you are if you don’t have the ability to communicate a message that someone understands. Body language became a major focus of Stacey’s when she started to wonder how we can execute a behaviour without really knowing we’re doing it. How can we feel different when we are communicating from the way everyone around us experiences? The experience your internal and external clients have with you determines the amount of money in your pocket. Stacey was very fortunate to be part of an association that hired speakers and she really liked how they engaged and impacted people. She was the host for many of these events, and this lead to Stacey honing her skills and becoming sought after as a speaker herself. Where did you get the courage to make it happen? Stacey had the mentality of not wanting to look back and wonder what might have happened. She also always had her Starbucks back up plan to fall back on. How long are you going to sit and try to figure it out? Stacey gave herself a year to get her business off the ground, without a date in the calendar every day becomes someday. If it doesn’t get scheduled it doesn’t get done. How Clients Experience You We all get to choose the reputation that we want to create for ourselves everyday. Are you prepared? Do you come across that you want to be there? To you believe what you say? Does your body language match what you’re saying? Most of the time feedback is flawed. You choose how you show up. Your tone of voice and the words you use need to be a focus no matter how experienced you are if you want to create a reputation you can be proud of. Influence Everyone defines influence differently, you just have to be clear about your definition. Influence does not mean you can turn it on and turn it off. Influence is consistent every day of the week. Influence means you have the ability to get people to take action long after the interaction has occurred. Influe
12/31/2018 • 41 minutes, 10 seconds
2x Scaling A Business
Austin Netzley is a former athlete turned engineer, investor, entrepreneur and author. He is the founder of ONE Pursuit Investments as well as the host of the YoPro Wealth blog & podcast. Austin overcame $80,000 of debt and a middle class mindset to find financial freedom early on. At the age of 27, Austin left the corporate world to travel the world and scale his automated stock trading business while also doing what he is most passionate about - helping others take their money and mindset to the next level while scaling their business. He is the author of the bestselling book Make Money, Live Wealthy: 75 Successful Entrepreneurs Share the 10 Simple Steps to True Wealth Podcast Highlights Who is Austin Netzley? Austin was just an ambitious kid growing up in a small town in Ohio that was just trying to find his way. When he was 18 years old, he made a decision that someday, somehow, he was going to be rich. He thought that becoming the CEO of a major business was going to be his ticket so this lead him to get his Engineering degree and some sales experience. But once Austin dipped into entrepreneurship, it opened his eyes and he hasn’t looked back. Holding On To The Vision Austin started out interviewing the most successful investors, entrepreneurs, and influencers he could find and learned that the details of their journeys to success were completely different. But the main steps were all the same, specifically making the decision. When you make the commitment, the ‘how’ isn’t that important. You are committed to figuring it out, whatever that looks like. Your definition of success will change over time and that’s okay. A lot of people wait until there is a lot of pain before making a change. If you are still motivated about a decision weeks after you make it, you’re on to something. When you get into motion, you will encounter some roadblocks, how you respond will determine if you’re path is the right one. The real question is “what do you really want?” Wealth And Success When Austin was growing up he thought that having money meant being wealthy. Despite earning six figures very early into his career he realized that money is only one piece of the wealth puzzle. Austin had to look within and realize that what he really wanted was freedom. Freedom from debt and worry. He started his first business on the side and went all in. Financial freedom was way more valuable than the individual dollars in Austin’s bank account. It’s less about how much you have than it is how you earned it. Scaling A Business 2x in 90 Days Success breeds success. There is a formula that small businesses that have found success can use to unlock their potential. Most owners do not have a business, they have a hustle. The bottleneck in the equation is often the entrepreneur themselves. Scaling a business means you have to let go of the desire to be the center of your business. Once you do that, you can scale rapidly. You are your own problem. You have to get clear on what you want. Put it down on paper and compare it to the existing structure of the business then figure out what model you would need to achieve that vision. Most entrepreneurs cannot say with clarity what they really want. The vast majority of the time you spend on your business is actually what is keeping you from getting out of the way. Most entrepreneurs fail because they make things too complex. This works across every industry because it’s not about tactics. Scaling a business is about strategic and timeless moves. Austin’s Takeaway Get out a piece of paper and draw a stick figure
12/27/2018 • 41 minutes, 47 seconds
Commercial Lending That Works
Leslie led the launch of Commercial Direct and oversees sales and operations for the entire small-balance commercial lending division of Bayview Asset Management, headquartered in Coral Gables, FL. She has been instrumental in driving productivity and growth for nearly a decade within the Bayview organization. Leslie’s key contributions include building a banker education program, managing the top 50 correspondent relationships, and leading expansion into international markets, as well as overseeing Project Management, Vendor Management and Process Engineering groups within Bayview Loan Servicing. An experienced financial services professional with more than 20 years in the industry, she is a frequent speaker and presenter for national publications and media outlets. Podcast Highlights Who is Leslie Smith? Leslie started her career in a banking call center. That experience taught her to be fast on her feet and solve problems really quickly. This is where she developed her “spidey sense” superpower and allowed her to adjust to what her customers need and adapting to that. She later moved on to another company that was originating commercial loans which is how she got into the loan business. When Leslie was young, she wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice. Leslie has always aimed high for her career. Commercial Lending Small balance means a lot of things to lots of people. It typically means $250,000 to $2 million and Leslie’s average loan size is $400,000. Leslie’s company fills an important gap in the market because most lenders are looking to loan out much larger amounts. Business owners that have made it through the recession have a story that says a lot about them. The person on the other side is almost as important as the data analysis that goes into making a deal. Leslie’s business looks at more than just tax returns to understand how healthy someone’s business is. Tax returns are just a snapshot in time and don’t tell the whole story. What could people do better to get access to the financing they are looking for? People often underestimate how important their story is. Lenders want to know what your objective is and what your expected outcome is. Most people that come to Leslie don’t really have a good response to that question. After the credit score, the most common reason someone is declined is inconsistencies in their story. What challenges do women face in the commercial lending world? One of the biggest challenges is representation. It’s hard to come into an industry without seeing someone like you that has done it already. Leslie stopped taking it too personally and instead thinks about the misperception as an opportunity to open people’s minds to what is possible. Early Challenges Hiring the right team is definitely a challenge. Hiring slow and firing fast is very important, as an entrepreneur you don’t have the luxury of wasting money on a lot of bodies. Look for the unicorns, people that can take on a number of different roles. Don’t just focus on your industry, look at other industries and what’s happening around you to make your thinking more free. The most successful entrepreneurs are focused on solving a specific problem. Commercial lending is a problem that many people need a solution to and Leslie is grateful for her chance to solve those problems. Real estate has a place in everyone’s portfolio, one way or another. The Perfect Loan There is no real perfect deal in Leslie’s world. She is agnostic to industry and business because they are looking motivation and circumstances very closely. L
12/24/2018 • 39 minutes, 38 seconds
Writing A Book To Drive More Customers To Your Business
Gundi Gabrielle aka SassyZenGirl, is a Top 100 Business Author and Founder/CEO of SassyZenGirl - #ClaimYourFREEDOM, a platform that helps newbie entrepreneurs turn their passion into a thriving business. Gundi loves to explain complex matters in an easy to understand, fun way. Her “The Sassy Way...when you have NO CLUE!!” series has helped thousands around the world conquer the jungles of internet marketing with humor, simplicity and some sass. A 10-time #1 Bestselling Author, Entrepreneur and former Carnegie Hall conductor, Gundi employs marketing chops from all walks of life and loves to help her readers achieve their dreams in a practical, fun way. Her students have published multiple #1 Bestsellers outranking the likes of Tim Ferris, John Grisham, Hal Elrod and Liz Gilbert. When she is not writing books or enjoying a cat on her lap (or both), she is passionate about exploring the world as a Digital Nomad, one awesome adventure at a time. She has no plans of settling down anytime soon. Podcast Highlights Who is Gundi Gabrielle? Gundi has always dreamt of travelling the world and achieving the freedom she was looking for, specifically generating passive income. She started off as a musician and a conductor but tired of the hectic life and looked for alternative ways to creating an income. Gundi returned to California and many things happened all at once. She experienced a difficult time in her life that lasted quite a while, the entire time Gundi was looking for a way to start a business online. She learned from someone in a digital nomad group how they started their business by selling books on Amazon so she decided to give writing a book a try. That turned into her Sassy Zen series and really took off. She learned that creating a best seller on Amazon wasn’t necessarily that difficult but continuing to sell books is the real challenge. She expanded her efforts into courses and using the books she was writing as sales funnels to draw people into her business. The Digital Nomad Gundi has lived in New York and Las Angeles but has also stayed in South Africa for three months, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Bali, Dubai, England, and has been based in southern Spain for a while now. The opportunity to be everywhere is redefining work. Marketing Your Business You need to be a good communicator. Gundi ran her own ensemble as a conductor so she was learning a lot about marketing and networking without thinking about it as such. Music and writing are both creative endeavors so there’s a lot of overlap and the skill of communicating with people applies to both. We sometimes forget the opportunities we have in this day and age to start a business online and reach people. Writing A Book Short is the new long. It’s actually much smarter to write shorter books and create a series of them because then you build a brand they can cross promote each other. If people like one book, they often buy the whole series. Being a best selling author is very important if you want to be a speaker or a consultant if you want people to take you seriously. You can present yourself as a real expert in your field and by the time the reader finishes your book, they feel like they really know you. You can turn cold leads into hot leads by getting them to read a book. Writing a book will work in nearly any industry as long as you know how to market your book on Amazon and can get it found. Some are more effective than others like business, health, and self help. 25,000 words is probably as long as a “short” book should be. Aim for a lower price and then integrate it with your social media and whatever content you create. Audio books have
12/20/2018 • 38 minutes, 41 seconds
The Difference Between Being Successful and Significant
It would be safe to say that Aaron Walker is a veteran entrepreneur. Having started over a dozen businesses during his four decade journey has been pretty awesome. Beginning at 18 years old and selling to a Fortune 500 company just nine years later set Aaron on an adventure of a lifetime. The secret sauce for Aaron can clearly be identified with these four attributes: grit, authenticity, determination and perseverance. The glue that holds it all together is his weekly involvement in Iron Sharpens Iron Mastermind groups. Aaron started masterminding 20 years ago with Dave Ramsey, Dan Miller and several other notable Nashvillians. Today, he spends time with his wife, two daughters and five grandchildren. Podcast Highlights What’s been happening with Aaron Walker? Aaron is part of a mastermind called Iron Sharpens Iron and they are about to open up their 14th mastermind group. He also wrote a couple of books since his last appearance, created the Mastermind Blueprint, and is co-authoring a third book about finding the right mentor. Why is margin important? We all need margin in our lives. Accountability and trusted advisors are necessary to keep yourself in check. The idea of balancing life and work is a myth, things don’t need to be equal. The thing you need to do is prioritize your priorities and focus on what’s important. You have to be an inch wide and a mile deep. What are the three or four things that are really important to your life? If you’re not careful, you’ll come home one day with a pocket full of money and house full of strangers. You have to spend an inordinate amount of time on the things that are important to you. You only have one vantage point to see things in your life. Other people will have other filters you can use to see solutions that you can’t see. They can also help you see your blind spots. Starting at the Beginning Aaron almost lost his family because he was focusing on his business too much. There are seasons in your life and sometimes you need to focus deeply on work, but not all the time. Money is a tool, you need to value it but not make it the ruler of your life. The internet affords us so many opportunities now that it’s hard to choose what to do, this means that many people lack clarity. Passion is an exhaustible resource, you need to have purpose if you are going to do anything long term. The more you teach and give away, the more that comes back to you. If it gives you energy, there is purpose at the end. If it drains you, it’s not your passion. How can you add value today to other people’s lives? If you are intentional about it, you can build your work around your lifestyle. Getting perfect clarity before you launch is a mistake. Getting the courage to get something going is the hardest part. There are so many opportunities to make money today, just find something you enjoy and get some mentors or coaches around you, then do it until you want to throw up. It takes 1 to 2 years to get a business going so you need to be committed. The Top 3 Success Traits The process is what’s important. You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fail to the level of your processes. You need systems and processes to automate, eliminate, or delegate. Is something takes you an hour a day, you have to be willing to take 30 hours to teach someone how to do that task. But if you do that, you will achieve a massive return on your time. What could you do with that hour back every single day? You can get back money but you can’t get back time. Why write books? There are a lot of opportunities to learn today but books have some unique things about them that make them special. Books give you an
12/17/2018 • 45 minutes, 10 seconds
Private Lending Secrets From The Private Money Authority
Jay Conner has been buying and selling houses for 14 years and has been involved in over 52 Million dollars in transactions. For the past 7 years, Jay has completely automated his 7-Figure Income Business to where he works in his business less than 10 hours per week. He is a leading expert on Private Lending, once raising over $2M in less than 90 Days in private money while cut off from the banks. He is a contributing author to the best-selling book Real Estate: Getting Deals Done In The New Economy. Podcast Highlights Who is Jay Conner? Jay didn’t grow up thinking he would be a real estate investor but he was raised in the housing business. Jay saw the potential of real estate investing in the early 90’s when a couple of friends had the opportunity to renovate and improve a property that their father put up the money for. They split the profit on the sale of that property and used it as the downpayment for their first home. That stuck in his head and he moved out of the corporate world to start flipping homes and investing in real estate. When people say they love real estate, they probably don’t really mean what they’re saying. They actually love the benefits that real estate brings. There are not many strategies or vehicles that can give a person the kind of wealth, freedom, and return on their time that real estate can. As long as someone is trading dollars for hours you will be limited as to your return and the money you can make. Jay started out part time when he first began investing. He was the one talking to buyers and sellers, not his team. If somebody tells you that starting out in real estate investing won’t take some hard work, they’re wrong. You have to be dedicated and committed to following the systems and taking action. Making Mistakes Don’t go about this business by yourself, get a mentor or a coach to show you the way and avoid the minefields. A lot of times we don’t realize what we have and we need someone else’s perspective. Don’t be so afraid of doing something incorrectly that you end up doing nothing. One of the biggest mistakes in real estate investing that Jay ever made was not making sure that the rent could carry the expenses of the property in the event you have to hold it. Real estate can be a very forgiving type of investment because the cash flow it generates can give you some breathing room. Creative Tools and Private Lending One of Jay’s favorite tools is buying “Subject to”, it can be a very simple transaction and allows you take advantage of the interest rate that the seller has on their mortgage. The most difficult times in your life often turn out to be blessings in disguise once you get through them. Jay worked with the traditional banking routes for the first six years of his career but ran into quite the challenge when the bank decided that they wouldn’t fund real estate investors anymore. That was how Jay discovered the world of private lending. Until Jay got cut off from the bank, he had no reason to look anywhere else and would never have discovered private lending. There are three categories of finding private lending. The first category are people you have an existing relationship with, your warm market. The second category are people that are not in your warm market yet but could be, get involved with your local church or community and meet some new people. The third category is existing private lenders that are already lending money out. Why bother taking the time to share what you know? Jay grew up with the mentality of serving. He noticed that many of his real estate investment friends knew nothing about private lending and that you can only get so much fulfillment and satisfaction by just making mo
12/13/2018 • 45 minutes, 24 seconds
Building A Team That Builds Your Business
Sean Zalmanoff is a respected Speaker, Coach, Loan Officer, Real Estate Investor, and host of Next Level Loan Officers Podcast. Sean entered the mortgage industry in 2002, where he spent the better part of his first year in the business learning all of the tips, habits, and ‘best practices’ that he has since determined to be the underlying reason why the mortgage industry is broken. He knew there had to be a better way to run a business, so Sean started forging a new path for himself and his team, which lead him to the world of business and mortgage coaching. Sean now manages several mortgage offices throughout the country that produce over $100 Million in production, helping hundreds of people achieve the American Dream. Harnessing his greatest passion, helping loan officers, entrepreneurs, and business owners, Sean became a founding owner in Next Level Loan Officers, a coaching platform that not only helps people in their business, but all four pillars of their life; business, relationships, physicality and spirituality. Sean’s mission through coaching loan officers is to help them achieve a work life balance in an industry that has lied to them and told them they need to be on call 24/7. By deploying his systems and strategies, he’s helped LOs and branch managers build a better work environment, more support, and better systems, while installing the technology to achieve it all. Podcast Highlights Who is Sean Zalmanoff? Sean started in the mortgage business in 2002 and did the same things that everyone else did at the time. He realized that every day he woke up and knew less than he did the day before. Around that time he connected with a guy named Chris who opened his eyes to what he really needed to do, he realized that he who has the most friends wins. Sean began to seek out specific partnerships and genuine relationships with realtors. Making friends with people is the ground floor for any profession you want to excel in. Making Relationships Social media friends are not as important as real life relationships. If you are not meeting your clients and partners where they are at, you’re missing out. It’s about finding the medium where people already are engaging them where they already spend their time. The number one reason it’s hard to find a good loan officer is you have to find a loan officer that specializes in what you need, and the industry is very wide. Not all loans are the same, it depends heavily on your end goal and the strategy you’re using. To find the right person to work with, you have to ask them two questions. “What do you specialize in?” and “Tell me about the last 10 deals you have worked on”. If someone says they can do it all, they probably aren’t good at anything. If someone specializes in big money loans, they probably aren’t very skilled at smaller residential deals. Why lending? Sean graduated in 2000 and wasn’t really ready for the real world. He had actually been making more than his friends as a bartender than they did at their “real” jobs. Eventually Sean was convinced to work for a guy who owned a mortgage company that kept asking him to come work for him. He discovered that the job was a miniature version of the movie Boiler Room and learned a lot about what is wrong with the mortgage industry. He took those lessons and flipped them on their head. After venturing out on his own, Sean realized that coaching other loan officers was something he was really passionate about. Working with people and helping them into their first home or assisting people with the entrepreneur spirit can be extremely rewarding. Having clarity on what you do and what you are good at is very important. Short Term Rentals Government programs are not str
12/10/2018 • 40 minutes, 44 seconds
Building A Legacy That Lasts
Mike Cobb is the co-founder & CEO of ECI Development and President of Gran Pacifica. He has been named among the “100 Outstanding CEOs in Central America” by leading Central American magazine Mercados & Tendencias. At the height of a successful career in the computer industry, Mr. Cobb left to pursue more pioneering opportunities in the emerging real estate markets of Central America. In 1996, he and his business partner formed a company, Exotic Caye International, to provide loans to North Americans purchasing properties in Belize, Honduras and throughout the region. As the need for capital outstripped the supply, the mortgage company was converted to an international bank under the jurisdiction of Belize. It continues to provide mortgage services, but has expanded its services to encompass the full realm of financial products. Mr. Cobb also saw the need for a regional real estate company that would serve the Baby Boomer consumer with a North American standard product for the next 2 decades. He led the group into real estate development and created a holding company for several properties including a resort on Ambergris Caye, Belize. In August of 2000, Exotic Caye purchased 3.5 miles of Pacific Beachfront property due west of Managua, Nicaragua. This master planned community hosts world class infrastructure, homes and condominium units. In February of 2006, the ECI Development group acquired 1100 acres and 3 km of coastline in Costa Rica, setting the stage for expansion into this popular market. Most recently they merged their Belize property with a much larger parcel and have begun to develop 200 condominiums units on Ambergris Caye, Belize. Additionally, Michael has spoken at hundreds of international conferences about real estate financing and development. Podcast Highlights What has been happening since we last spoke? Mike bought his very first rental property at the age of 30 in Belize, he wasn’t originally planning on buying a property but he was vacationing there and decided that he wanted to come back often. The property didn’t knock it out of the part but it gave Mike a place to start investing in other properties and start a business. He has since purchased properties in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama with other deals on the go. Mike discovered a group of people he refers to as digital nomads that can work from anywhere that have a huge interest of living all over the world. Globalizing More and more people with children are picking up and moving overseas. It’s becoming more common for families to look outside the traditional paradigm and raising children in bilingual education systems. In many cases, people in their 50’s are buying properties with the anticipation of using them as a retirement investment. For families, more people are just buying homes in other countries because the process is much more achievable now than it has been in the past. Mike’s passion is in getting the word out. He is always shocked by people that say that all their net worth is tied up in the United States. Asset class diversification and building a legacy is very important to Mike and he tells people that the world is a big place with lots of areas to invest in. Building A Legacy There are major economic cycles that normal average people do not talk about, and the generational cash flow cycles that Mike loves to discuss are the ones that only the billionaires are really paying attention to. Building a legacy this way is something that the British have been doing for the past 200 years. As strange as it may sound, timber has been the playground of the billionaire set for a long time but it doesn’t have to be exclusively for the ultra rich. Just take 10% of your investable net worth and turn it into a generational cash
12/6/2018 • 44 minutes, 26 seconds
The Self Made Mindset
Nely Galan is the Former President of Telemundo and creator and producer of the FOX series "The Swan." She was the first Latina President of Entertainment for a U.S. television network and an Emmy Award winning producer of over 700 television shows. She founded The Adelante Movement to empower and train Latina and multicultural women. She is the bestselling author of Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self-Reliant, and Rich in Every Way. Podcast Highlights Who is Nely Galan? Nely Galan is an immigrant, her parents fled Communist Cuba to the United States. Many of the people that have left Latin America or countries in the Caribbean have a lot of trauma and are often grateful just ot be somewhere else. Nely had to be her family’s translator, therapist, and accountant all by the time she was 5. Her superhero moment happened when she was in the seventh grade. Her parents realized that she was great in school and put a bet on Nely. When you see your parents struggle to provide for you, you become a very empathetic person. It was then she decided that she had to figure out a way to help her parents and she began selling Avon out of her locker to help pay for her schooling. Would you consider your history as an immigrant to be your unique advantage? Being an immigrant has given Nely values that most people in America have forgotten. She is self reliant and believes that she can do anything she sets her mind to. She also has a perspective that most people don’t about the state of the world. Nely feels like there is an immense divide in this country, and people need to be compassionate to people who journey to the US in order to better their lives. Nely was once accused of plagiarism while in her sophomore year of highschool and it was then she discovered that being empowered can change your life. Acting like a victim will not solve your problem. This experience actually became the springboard for Nely’s career working as one of the youngest editors at a magazine and getting into television. Getting Into Real Estate When you take a risk and do something from your pain, it can be the greatest decision you make and have the greatest impact. Making decisions with limited information is much easier when you are empathetic to other people. While working as employee #1 at the television station that would become Telemundo, Nely noticed that the owners were very interested in owning the building they were working out of. Asking someone to be your mentor is very off putting, instead put yourself in the life of mentors you want so you can overhear their conversations and understand how they operate. Put yourself in the path of opportunity. Not everyone is an entrepreneur day one, but if that’s what you want to do treat your job as if it were your business and think about what you would do. You can fast track your learning if you pay attention. When you make money, don’t waste it on bling. Buy real estate instead, someday the real estate will be worth more than your business. Work your business, but real estate is historically one of the best investments you can make. Responsibility Just because Nely’s career worked out really well, that doesn’t mean she thinks college is a waste of time. Nely went back to school when she was much older and she realized that despite her success, one of the things holding her back was that she never really lived through all the phases of her life. Going to school allowed her emotional self to catch up with her intellectual self. If we don’t see people like Nely who have succeeded, it’s harder to see ourselves succeeding as well. Nely discovered her mission and realized that she had to change the family
12/3/2018 • 46 minutes, 32 seconds
Protecting Your Confidence
Michele is the founder and CEO of Nectar Consulting Inc., and co-author of the best-selling book “Breakthrough Healing”. She works with executives and entrepreneurs bringing over 25 years of experience, intuitive insights and strategic business savvy to their success. She is an expert at enhancing the capacity of leaders, to build high performing teams and exponentially increase bottom-line results. Michele’s unique Rapid Rewiring™ approach is a culmination of years of study in the realms of emotional intelligence, neuroscience, organizational psychology and Rapid Transformational Therapy. She helps catalyze shifts in thinking and eliminate mental/emotional blocks to rapidly rewire your brain for greater confidence and success. As a nationally recognized speaker, certified executive confidence coach, Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) practitioner, change management consultant, trainer, and writer, Michele’s passion for helping amplify natural talents and expand leadership is conveyed through all aspects of her work and writing. Podcast Highlights Who is Michele Molitor? At Michele’s heart she is a creator. She was a graphic designer and creative director for many years before she got into coaching and hypnotherapy. Her capacity to listen and be compassionate and help people eliminate their pain led her to what she currently works on now. Her work in the creative field and web development brought Michele from Atlanta to the San Francisco Bay area. She was in middle of an IPO with her company but their plans were derailed when the market crashed. A few months later Michele was actually bullied out of her job which shattered her confidence and put her in a very difficult situation. Her uncle recommended that she get a coach to regain her confidence and it was then she discovered her true calling as a confidence coach. We all have junk in our trunk that keeps us from moving forward. After discovering Rapid Transformational Therapy Michele’s life started to shift, she had found the missing piece of her puzzle. Working With A Confidence Coach Some people have therapists and see them twice a week for years without seeing any real progress in their life. A confidence coach is all about moving people forward towards their goals, by combining RTT with coaching Michele has been able to get long lasting for her clients in 30 to 60 days. RTT allows Michele to have a conversation with your subconscious mind where your limiting beliefs live. Those beliefs stay there until a new belief takes its place. One of the principles of the mind is that it can’t hold two conflicting beliefs at the same time, but the subconscious mind can hold onto beliefs that create a dissonance with the conscious mind. The more you tell yourself a thought, the more true it becomes for you. You can change the channel and one day you will wake up and it will be your new reality. Fear can manifest itself in a variety of ways, including physical ailments. Michele has helped people overcome several kinds of addictions, migraines, and other physical problems. RTT allows you to manage your fear response. What is the most common issue you help people with? A lot of entrepreneurs work with Michele to find the confidence they once had after some sort of event changed the way they think about themselves. The surface request is usually something like “I want to increase my sales” but it’s typically much deeper than that. One of Michele’s superpowers is to see her clients heart and help them see it as well. Typically clients come to Michele when something in their life isn’t working any more and they realize that they need to try something different in order to make a change. Life is short and we all have the ability to live h
11/29/2018 • 39 minutes, 49 seconds
Achieving The Lifestyle You Always Wanted With Turnkey Real Estate
Jeff Schechter, aka “Shecky” has had the entrepreneurial bug his entire life. He started his first business right out of college, and over the years been involved in numerous businesses ventures. His love for real estate investing began in the 1980’s, when he rehabbed 5 of his own residences, before the term “house-hacking” even existed. Since those early days of torn up kitchens and bathrooms, he’s bought and sold many properties, and is an active investor to this day. In addition to investing, he operates a private consulting practice. He thrives on helping people realize their full potential...not just in business and investing, but in all aspects of life. Podcast Highlights Who is Jeff Schechter? Jeff remembers getting the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” and always answering “rich”. He always knew that he wasn’t destined for a mainstream career after dabbling in many different things including dropping out of college. Shecky is a diplomatic rebel at heart. Whenever someone tells you what sort of path you are going to follow, it’s not going to be truly you. A rigid defined path restricts the room you have to discover who you really are. There is a lot of talk about following your passion but the reality of the situation is you have to go out and try a lot of things to figure out what works for you. As you get better, it becomes much easier to be passionate about what you’re good at. Hone your craft and it becomes easier to find your passion. The Courage To Fail Not being married gave Shecky the ability to be a little more risky than he otherwise may have. That being said, if you are married with kids that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. Failure is not a negative, it is a necessary stepping stone to success. Your other option is to live a life of quiet desperation. In the age of the internet, there are no excuses. Whatever you want to do, you just have to learn it and you can do it. It’s much easier now to be an entrepreneur than ever before. Before the internet, you had to shell out a lot of money to reach people and network. Starting a company required plenty of overhead, money, and effort. Now you can create a business with almost none of that, the barrier to entry is willingness, not money. The willingness to “figure it out” can be your greatest resource. There are always ways to hack the system if you are thinking like an entrepreneur. Turnkey Real Estate The two arenas in the world that build the most wealth is network marketing and real estate investing. There are a lot of different angles to real estate investing that can make it very exciting. You have to understand what your specialty is. Jeff found his business partner Jack by working with him as a client. He approached him with an idea for a turnkey real estate business that took on a life of its own. There has since been a long period of evolution in the business and it had undergone many separate transformations. Property management became a major hurdle for the business and the investors and ended up becoming another service Jeff had to offer. There were a lot of obstacles that had to be overcome before they could offer true turnkey real estate. Financing was one area that Jeff didn’t need to explore due to picking the market of Indianapolis. With cash flowing properties, it becomes very easy to refinance and use the money to purchase more investment properties. Jeff’s Takeaway You have to learn to separate the intellectual conversation that is going on in your head with the feeling of the soul conversation, sometimes that means meditation or just being quiet. Do your due diligence before making a decision, you have to not only be convinced int
11/26/2018 • 47 minutes, 50 seconds
Commercial Real Estate Investing Strategies That Win
Hunter is a full-time real estate investor and founder of Cash Flow Connections, a private equity firm based out of Los Angeles, CA. Since starting CFC, Hunter has helped more than 250 investors allocate capital to over 100 properties. He has personally raised more than $20mm in private capital and controls more than $60mm in commercial real estate. Hunter has been featured in Forbes, Globe St., Inside Self-Storage, as well as a variety of other media news outlets, podcasts, and radio shows. Hunter is also the host of the Cash Flow Connections Real Estate Podcast, which helps investors learn the intricacies of commercial real estate investing strategies from the comfort of their home, car, or office. Podcast Highlights Who is Hunter Thompson? Hunter realized he was an entrepreneur as soon as he understood what money was all about. At a very early age he had been obsessed with providing for his customer’s needs. When Hunter was in highschool, he was running events and providing DJ services for other highschool students. After poker became a mainstream competitive activity, Hunter had decided to become a professional poker player. He moved to California and fell in love with the state and decided to stay even after poker was no longer an interest for him. The ability to make decisions with a limited amount of information gave Hunter a good foundation once he transitioned into real estate. Once the government made playing poker online illegal, he had to make a decision about what to do next. This crisis in the poker world also created a unique opportunity for people to invest. Decision Making When the stock market took a nose dive in 2008, Hunter wasn’t already invested so instead of getting crushed by the decline, it was an opportunity to invest when the market was low. Most people are trying to accomplish the same basic things financially, predictable outcomes and cash flow to pay off their expenses. The problem is the stock market is not a great vehicle to accomplish those goals. The European debt crisis led to Hunter realizing that economic circumstances across the world could devastate his portfolio which led him to look for ways to mitigate those risks, which is where his real estate investing strategies came in. You don’t need piles of money, you need streams of income. There are many different paths to success in real estate to achieve that. Earning Trust Knowing who to bet on is the key to establishing a good track record. Understanding the systems that others have put in place is a way to establish trust, you can leverage the work that other people have already put in and shorten the curve considerably. Early success often leads to the belief that success comes easy. After running a live event with the goal of drumming up investments generating literally zero buy in, Hunter realized that even with success business can be a challenge. The reason the event was unsuccessful is that it required a pseudo religious experience for the people attending and their beliefs to radically shift from faith in the stock market to something completely different. Creating a infrastructure that attracts investors to you rather than chasing people is much more effective. Commercial Real Estate Investing Strategies People not in the business have pretty much no idea what a real estate deal really looks like. Having data to backup your ideas is always a good plan. We are currently in the 111th month of the expansion cycle of the market, nearly the longest period of economic growth in history. The way that mania happens is a change in mindset where people start to think the current state is the new normal. 50% of the wage earners in the United States make $30,000 a
11/22/2018 • 46 minutes, 32 seconds
Connecting eCommerce Entrepreneurs
Barth wants to live in a world where no eCommerce entrepreneur ever feels alone or has to vehemently defend to friends and family that leaving that corporate job WAS a good idea. As an executive for 20 years at a large cooperative in the flooring industry, he experienced how, joining together, independent retailers leveled the playing field with vendors and armed them with tools for their businesses to thrive. He brings that perspective as President of the Empowery eCommerce Cooperative to make the eCommerce world a better, less lonely place. Barth is an avid outdoorsman, triathlete, woodworker, golfer, beekeeper, arborist and a wannabe farmer. He lives on an old dairy farm 50 mil es from Pittsburgh in idyllic Ligonier, Pennsylvania. Podcast Highlights Who is Barth Getto? Barth grew up in a vibrant community of manufacturers where they believed that the good times would never end. Barth was able to witness the rise and fall of many established businesses and learned that creative destruction can’t be escaped. Will our great grandchildren remember what Amazon is? The major lesson everyone can learn from history is that everything changes and if you want to stay alive you have to be able to adapt. Entrepreneurs have to be around the right people and the framework and structure to stay ahead of change. eCommerce Cooperatives Cooperatives usually confuse people but almost everyone has been a part of a cooperative at some point. It basically means that the owners of the cooperative are also the shareholders. The idea of the cooperative actually predates the Declaration of Independence by 24 years. Everyone in eCommerce has to deal with similar issues like third party logistics, inventory financing, and dispute resolution. The Empowery eCommerce Cooperative help eCommerce entrepreneurs negotiate better prices and help them stay on top of what’s going on in the industry. The cooperative levels the playing field for eCommerce entrepreneurs and get economies of scale in place. Individually, entrepreneurs may not be able to sway a giant platform like Amazon but together they can negotiate on an even level. There are lots of eCommerce platforms beyond Amazon including Rakuten, Bonanza, Etsy, Ebay, and Wayfair. Even dominant players will eventually fall from the top of the market. Working with a cooperative like Empowery is like having a safety net and a roof over your head, it allows eCommerce entrepreneurs to freely innovate without having to worry as much. Getting Started With eCommerce Barth wants to see more people successful with eCommerce, if you’re just getting started feel free to reach out. The more programs you use within the cooperative, you get more cash back which can directly offset the membership fee. Because the individuals own the shares, the whole idea of a cooperative just doesn’t seem to get much press. Barth has been explaining the idea of a cooperative the same way for the past 20 years. Barth’s Takeaway There is a ton of bad information out there, the best way to get started selling online is to connect with Barth. He will point you in the right direction and once you get big enough, you can join Empowery! Links: empowery.com [email protected] Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
11/19/2018 • 40 minutes, 11 seconds
Strategic Real Estate Coaching
Chris Prefontaine is a bestselling author and real estate investor with over 26 years of experience in the field, including 18 years as a builder, realtor, broker/owner and investor. He’s always been an entrepreneur even when he didn’t know it. When he used to drag his wagon up to the street corner and sell junk from his closet or when he used to purchase gum by the pack and sell by the slice in middle school. In 1991, Chris began building homes and built 100 homes before starting his own brokerage. He then become a broker/owner and was selling 100 homes a year with his small team. Since the 2008 debacle he realized he needed to reinvent his business so that he no longer had to use his own money or credit. After years of strategic real estate coaching independently, Chris founded Smart Real Estate Coach in 2014. The company coaches investors on how to scale & automate their business throughout the US and Canada- all without using their cash or credit. Chris and his team, which includes his kids, have done over $80 million in real estate transactions. They mentor, coach, consult and have Associates around the country doing exactly what they do. On top of that, they run their own buying and selling business so they’re in the trenches every single week. Between their existing Associates around the Country and their own deals, they’re still doing 5-10 properties every month and control as of now between $20-$25 million of real estate with little to no money down. Podcast Highlights Who is Chris Prefontaine? Chris started building single family homes in the 90’s and moved into being a broker for a while. After selling the brokerage to Coldwell Banker, he got back into various real estate construction projects and got hit really hard in the 2008 financial crisis. The crisis taught Chris many valuable lessons that he’s carried forward to today. Strategic Real Estate Coaching Real estate changes a lot. Chris made the change to broker/owner and back out again due to changing life circumstances and changes in the industry. Working with real estate is an opportunity for Chris to work with his family and keep taking on new challenges. The 2008 financial crisis didn’t make the business bad, it made Chris’s decisions bad. He took the setbacks he suffered as a reason to reengineer the way he structured deals and thought about real estate investing. Find a mentor, but not just any mentor. They have to be in your niche, still doing what they talk about, and you can relate to them. Not pledging any of your personal assets is way better than having the stress of the liability that many real estate investors take on. Working With The Banks When your credit is perfect, it’s very easy to walk into a bank and get the money you need but things go bad, you’re on the hook. The bank will throw you under the bus if it means saving their own job. Don’t pledge your assets lightly. If you have it, protect it. You should work with a real human being that is likely to say thanks rather than a faceless corporate bank. Coaching and Mentoring Chris dabbled in strategic real estate coaching in the early 2000’s as a job and in 2013 was asked by a local Navy guy who heard about what Chris did and asked him to teach him. Now he has a number of students/partners that he teaches around the country. He teaches them while they do the deals together. Real estate professionals know that a number of different kinds of deals will come your way. Chris teaches people to become master transaction engineers so they can handle all sorts of different kinds of deals. When you buy on terms and protect yourself the way that Chris does, it doesn’t matter what the market does. Is real estate
11/15/2018 • 36 minutes, 42 seconds
Scaling Your Business To Seven+ Figures
Allison Maslan is the President of Business Coaching Agency. She was named “One of the Top Women Entrepreneurs Who Inspire” by Self Made Magazine. She is the bestselling author of Blast Off!: The Surefire Success Plan to Launch Your Dreams into Reality and the new book Scale or Fail: How to Build Your Dream Team, Explode Your Growth, and Let Your Business Soar. Podcast Highlights Who is Allison Maslan? Besides being a business owner at heart, Allison is also a trapeze artist. When she discovered that you could actually do what you see in the circus, she began training with a five generation circus family and now she can really fly. She even built a trapeze ring in her backyard. Allison grew up in an entrepreneurial family. Her father built the largest chain of women’s clothing stores in the US. Watching her dad build his dream inspired her to build her own. If you want something go create it yourself. At the age of 19 Allison started her own business and by the age of 25 it had evolved into a full service advertising business. Like most entrepreneurs, she had no idea how to run her first business. Getting It Right The plan comes in the doing. When you have a product or service, you just need to put it out there. Don’t worry, be crappy. Get it out and then perfect it along the way. You have gifts inside of you, your purpose is to share them with the world. The idea of perfection keeps people small. Getting Unstuck If you are using the same mindset and strategies in scaling your business as you did when you first started your business, you are going to fail. You have to rebuild your company from a higher level. To scale you have to take big leaps, you have to be able to stop micromanaging your team and even be willing to let yourself go. Scaling Your Business You will hit a wall if you are the one providing the product or service. You have to train other people to do what you do if you want to scale. Your clients just want to be taken care of and it doesn’t have to be just you. Scaling your business really means to duplicate and multiply. There are five phases to scaling your business: the solopreneur, the pioneer, the ringleader, the co-creator, and the visionary. Each phase comes with its own set of challenges. If you want to scale, you have to build a team and be willing to let go of the controls. Scaling can take time or it can happen as soon as three years in. Scaling can happen too fast as well, if it grows too soon it can become unstable and fall apart. The longer you can stay with a single focus, the more stable it will be for years to come. It’s time to scale when you keep hitting the wall and are frustrated with working all the time for the same results. Being Present Business owners can be really hard on themselves, it’s important to recognize your accomplishments along the way. You should be enjoying the process. Having a mentor is crucial. New level, new devil. Every time you get to a new level of business, you will face things you have never faced before. Reference: Scale or Fail: How to Build Your Dream Team, Explode Your Growth, and Let Your Business Soar, Allison Maslan Allison’s Takeaway Make decisions from where you are going, not from where you are at. To really scale you have to pretend that what you want has already happened and work backwards. It’s amazing what happens when you start taking action, the people show up, the money shows up, the support shows up, but you have to be willing to take the leap. Links: scaleorfail.com allisonmaslan.com
11/12/2018 • 38 minutes, 9 seconds
The Science of Getting Rich
David Neagle is the bestselling author of The Millions Within: How to Manifest Exactly What You Want and Have an EPIC Life!. He is one of the architects of the coaching and personal growth industry, and has spoken or worked alongside Bob Proctor, Marianne Morrisey, and Tony Robbins. Podcast Highlights Who is David Neagle? David was a person that was truly confused about the meaning of life. He came from a place of dysfunction in childhood and sought the answers to his questions from his teachers, parents, and mentors but no one could answer him. He ended up venturing on his own and turned into a curious kid on the wrong path in life. He could really relate to the idea of “I don’t like what I am doing, but I don’t know what to go do.” At some point, David made the decision to follow the desires of his own heart which put him into a different emotional state, and his results soon changed as well. He wanted to set up his life so that he could do what he loved, with the people he loved. Why do we feel like we need permission? We are raised to believe that we need permission in order to advance in life. Permission is subconsciously linked to security which is something that is vital to human beings. The proper role of a parent is to turn over the power to make decisions to their children as they grow over time but many dysfunctional families end up with children taking care of the parents instead. We live in a world of conflicting ideas and information, without a set of core values to guide us through life we begin to look for others to guide us and tell us what we need to do. Questions About Suffering Are we meant to suffer? David had a near death experience when he was younger that completely changed his perspective on life and brought a sense of urgency to his life. David was working six days a week and couldn’t earn more than $20,000 a year and felt stuck. He was emotionally and physically exhausted while on the job one day that he had a complete breakdown and asked for direction. He received the answer “change your attitude” and decided to act like he loved what he did, do every job to the best of his ability, and treat everyone with respect from then on. Within 30 days he went from $20,000 a year to $62,000 and realized he was on to something big. Your attitude determines your altitude. The Science of Getting Rich For years the book The Science of Getting Rich had been around David but he always thought it was a book about economics, that was until many people told him he had to read it. After reading The Science of Getting Rich in a single afternoon, he realized that it contained the answers he was always looking for. Once he got clarity, David was able to make positive changes to his life much faster. Lack of clarity is the primary obstacle in people’s lives. There is so much conflicting information in the world and if the information you discover conflicts with the principles you were raised with, it creates an internal battle. Until that battle is resolved, it’s impossible to get clear on your life. Where did the courage to teach others come from? David was waking up in the middle of the night for six months. Every night he awoke with the thought that if he wanted to live his dream, he had to leave, but he didn’t understand what it was that he had to leave. He called his mentor Bob Proctor who told David to just quit. He learned that the decision always comes first. You always get what you need when you need it. You will not replay a pattern in your life that you haven’t experienced before. To grow you have to acknowledge the desire in your heart. The conflict that comes in for a lot of people is they believe that’
11/8/2018 • 44 minutes, 41 seconds
Eliminating Risk By Being A Nomad Capitalist
After starting and selling two successful businesses in the United States, Andrew left the country to travel the world and become a true nomad capitalist. While he always had an independent, entrepreneurial streak, he had followed the conventional wisdom of the time in a few ways that ended up costing him. He had invested a sizable portion of his money in mutual funds and real estate. When the stock market crashed in 2008, much of his savings disappeared and sensing the risks of the looming mortgage loan crisis, he managed to get out just in time and avoided losing even more money. On top of this, he had also just taken a huge loss in taxes after selling the businesses. The feeling of losing the fruits of his labor to something out of his control was quite devastating. It was extremely depressing to realize that while crony capitalists were succeeding at manipulating government policy, job creators running small businesses like him were essentially getting the shaft. While Andrew knew something was wrong with the system that he was willfully participating in, and he no longer wanted to play casino with his money, he still wasn’t sure of a solution. After having to call a business client while in Asia, it hit him that he no longer needed to be tied to one location to make money, and that each location offers different advantages to optimizing your business and lifestyle. Podcast Highlights Who is Andrew Henderson? Andrew’s story begins in his childhood. He learned his five magic words “Go where you’re treated best.” from his father by accident. He started thinking about this idea when he was 12 years old, and has been working on that idea for the last 22 years and it’s emphasized by his company, Nomad Capitalist. Nomad Capitalist Investing We are conditioned from childhood that the United States is the best country in the world, but it’s rarely the best in any category and that counts investing. We have a tendency to take small things in other countries and blow them up and minimize problems we see in our own country. Everyone has the tendency to believe they live in the best place, but how can we all live in the best place? You can live in California and invest in Georgia or anywhere else. Starting small by opening a bank account in another country is a good start. You’ll realize that there are opportunities all over the world. Do what you need to feel comfortable with travel and the rest of the world. Start making observations about investing and business opportunities while you travel, establish your objectives for your business and start thinking about which place would serve them best. Hire someone to work backwards based off your objectives. Working with Nomad Capitalist is a great option. You can’t just want to run away from something, you should be running towards something. It’s not a matter of knowing every option when it comes to all the countries of the world. Banking in Georgia works similarly to banking in the United States. The notion that everywhere else is different is incorrect, we are all pretty similar overall and institutions function similarly as well. Real Estate Investing Property investing in the United States can be a viable way to start a cash flow business overseas. Look for the best place to invest for you but consider diversifying your holdings into other countries as well. It’s a lot easier to start with wealth or cash flow behind you, but it is possible to start a business with a small amount of money by living in an inexpensive country and extending your runway. Bootstrapping isn’t for everyone, but it is an option. Tax optimizing a business makes the most sense once you’ve gotten started and are generating revenue already. Cryptocurrencies have a pl
11/5/2018 • 43 minutes, 46 seconds
Character Development and Overcoming Resistance
Angela Duckworth is the Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Founder and CEO of Character Lab, a not-for-profit whose mission is to advance, the science and practice of character development and the author of the New York Times bestselling book Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Podcast Highlights Who is Angela Duckworth? Angela grew up in New Jersey with a father that had extremely high standards. Her experience growing up led her to become fascinated by the mechanics of success, character development, and who gets left behind and who gets ahead. She realized that so much of what we do in life is a result of our passion and perseverance. Are entrepreneurs born or made? Entrepreneurs are mostly made, but they do inherit their genes from their parents. There is a lot to be said about what happens after you are dealt those cards from your parents though, in a lot of ways you are made by your experiences and your mentors. Perseverance, Grit, and Character Development Angela’s frustration as a teacher is what led her to studying grit. Being able to see around the corner and watching her students give up too early led her to wanting to understand psychology, which is essentially the study of human nature. It’s never easy to know when you should quit. If your life has a goal it can help you figure out how to approach a problem, if it’s just a means to an end, maybe you can find another means to get to that end. Grit is often unrelated to talent, success in the long run doesn’t seem to correlate to talent as much as to perseverance. The only thing that matters is the mission. To build a culture of grit in your company you have to model passion and perseverance. Don’t be shy, share your passion that is beyond the 9 to 5. You don’t need to show strength all the time, showing vulnerability and how you came back from a setback is a great way to show dedication. Angela’s husband told her that if she didn’t write the book about her character development research someone else would, during the process of writing the book she discovered that people who exhibit grit have somebody in their life that believes in and supports them. Outside Motivation Someone telling you that you can’t do something will often put a fire in your belly, but the question is what happens after success? The people who can continually approach life as if they are an underdog even if they are on top is a signature of people who focus on excellence instead of complacence. Behind almost every high performer, there is someone who encouraged them and helped guide them towards success. Quitting The Right Things If your feelings are getting in the way, seek a trusted advisor to give you an outside objective perspective. If your best friend would tell you to get out something, maybe you should. Nurturing Children Kids are best off when they are challenged and supported. Have a family rule that everyone has to do a hard thing and they aren’t allowed to quit in the middle. Start young and give them a choice in their hard thing and they will learn responsibility. Character Lab Character Lab is about helping parents and teachers use science to help their children and students with character development and grit. It’s all supported by institutions so all the resources are free. Reference: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth Angela’s Takeaway Look for a small win, grit is about the long game. Organize your life so there are daily and hourly
11/1/2018 • 39 minutes, 53 seconds
Jordan Goodman Answers Your Money Questions
America’s Money Answers Man Jordan Goodman is a nationally-recognized expert on personal and business finance. He appears frequently on The View, Fox News Network, Fox Business Network, CNN, CNBC, CBS Evening News and several other major TV, radio and podcast outlets. For 18 years, Jordan was on the editorial staff of Money Magazine, where he served as its Wall Street correspondent. While at Money, he reported and wrote on virtually every aspect of personal finance. He has also written or co-authored 13 best-selling books on personal finance including Master Your Debt, Fast Profits in Hard Times, and Barron’s Finance and Investment Handbook. He has written six special-focus editions of Everyone’s Money Book on College, Credit, Financial Planning, Real Estate, Retirement Planning and Stocks, Bonds and Mutual Funds. Jordan also hosts the Money Answers Show on the VoiceAmerica Business Network, which recently crossed 100,000 downloads per month. Podcast Highlights Who is Jordan Goodman? Jordan has always had a passion to help people make better financial decisions. At the age of 12, Jordan was writing a youth baseball column for his local newspaper and liked to sell the left over newspaper to tourists. He tries to help people by looking at the financial needs they have and finding a solution for them. Writing has always been a passion for Jordan, his first published book was a dictionary for financial investment terms which sold 3.5 million copies and is in its 10th edition. After 18 years of writing for Money magazine, Jordan was getting more opportunities than he could take and he decided to go out and do his own thing. A lot of entrepreneurs quit their day job before they have anything going, it can work out but it will be much harder. Jordan had been writing on his website for years before venturing out on his own. He now focuses on the money answers that people are looking for everyday. What are the most common money questions? The first challenge people are experiencing is getting a decent yield on their money without having all the volatility of the stock and bond markets. Jordan is on the board of a company called Secured Real Estate Funds that enables people to get an 8% yield by investing in commercial real estate. Inflation is pegged at 2%, but in the real world, the prices of everything are going up much faster than that, especially when compared to income. People lose purchasing power by leaving their money in a bank account. Reinvesting In Your Business You should diversify your money. Even if your business is a great place to invest your money, you should still invest in other areas. Many industries that made huge amounts of money for a long time can still get hit by large market events like a recession, and that could be your business too. For an employee, you can invest outside quite easily. As an entrepreneur, your life typically is your business which can make investing outside quite difficult. Tackling Your Debt The reality of the situation is 70% of people graduate school with some amount of debt and the average debt is $39,000. This is an enormous burden and can delay these people from getting started with their lives. You can refinance your student loan debt by working with a company called Credible, typically at much lower rates. Mortgages are usually the biggest debt people will take on, but there is a process that allows you to pay off your mortgage in 5-7 years without taking on more debt. You use a HELOC to control the flow of your money and drastically reduce the interest rates you pay on your mortgage. The more pressing the need, the bigger the market is. Finding solutions to problems people have is a gr
10/29/2018 • 36 minutes, 24 seconds
The Principles Of Sales Greatness
Jeffrey Gitomer is an internationally recognized sales, customer loyalty, and personal development speaker and New York Times bestselling author of The Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness, Jeffrey Gitomer's Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource: Including The 10.5 Commandments of Sales Success, The Little Gold Book of YES ! Attitude: How to Find, Build and Keep a YES! Attitude, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless: How to make customers love you, keep them coming back, and tell everyone they know , The Little Black Book of Connections: 6.5 Assets for Networking Your Way to Rich Relationships, and The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, and the new book TRUTHFUL LIVING: The First Writings of Napoleon Hill. He has won numerous speaking awards. Podcast Highlights Who is Jeffrey Gitomer? Jeffrey grew up in a family of business people and identifies as a businessman, not an entrepreneur. He had some great genes and was born smart enough to realize that he had to decide what to do with his mind. Everyday when he wakes up, he always does one or all of the following five things: Read, write, prepare, think, and create. How much do you do for yourself when you wake up? Everyone has a choice about what they do with their allocated time. Entrepreneur vs. Businessman A businessman is someone who has been in a family that has been in business for themselves for generations. Entrepreneurs are people who buy a franchise. Why do sales have a bad reputation? Jeffrey has done the work to understand sales and has sold millions of dollars worth of goods. Cold calling is a terrible place to make a sale, but a great place to learn selling. People don’t like to be sold, they like to buy. You have to engage them enough so they want to buy. Pressure, guilt, and manipulation are the reasons why sales have a bad reputation. It’s the classic case of the used car salesman. If you are consistent in your value message offerings, your business will grow. Anything less than weekly is not enough, you have to find ways to keep the message going. The art of sales is making the other person feel like they aren’t being sold. Letting Go Of The Sales Process The first thing you have to realize is that you have to let go of some of the things that you think the business won’t be able to live without. Napoleon Hill Jeffrey read Think and Grow Rich 10 times in 1972, after a while he understood Napoleon Hill’s philosophy and beliefs, while also working with a few other sales people on the same path. It all comes down to giving value first. There is life enhancing elements in the book that will make anyone who reads smile and do better. What do you want to do and how bad do you want to do it? Then, what are you willing to do to fulfill that emotion? Whoever wins, desired it more. Most people don’t have self confidence or self belief unless it is foisted on them by someone else. Deposit before withdrawal, give without expectation of anything in return. The best way to get a referral is to give one. There are five words that define someone’s ability to become successful: Imagination, desire, enthusiasm, confidence, and concentration. Concentration is the glue that makes everything happen. If you’re enthusiastic and committed, people will buy from you. Do things for love, not for money. Become so committed, you become emotional about it. Thoughts become things. Reference: Truthful Living: The First Writings of Napoleon Hill, Jeffrey Gitomer Jeffrey’s Takeaway Rather than foaming at the mouth at what they are thinking, try starting the c
10/25/2018 • 46 minutes, 29 seconds
Lead Generation Secrets That Will Transform Your Real Estate Business
Chris Watters is best known for building an independent brokerage utilizing the team-centric model in Austin, Texas. He built his business, Watters International Realty, in the middle of the Great Recession and in a highly competitive market that is home to some of the largest national real estate chains. His vision and entrepreneurial spirit led him from sleeping on his girlfriend’s (now wifes) couch in 2010 to becoming the first team owner to EARN $1Million in net income in three short years. Fueled by a desire to improve the success rate of real estate agents through proven training and innovative consumer-facing programs, Chris has built his business on helping others push past their self- imposed limitations and adding massive value to the consumer experience. In 2015, Watters International Realty began opening branches across Texas and partnered with other successful agents and team leaders, assisting them in duplicating our success. In 2016, his team successfully closed over $100+ Million in sales and helped hundreds of families in the purchase or sale of their home. As of 2017, Watters International Realty is now a national franchise system that has developed a proven and repeatable model to help expansion partners grow their brokerages using the team model. His partners have the ability to replicate the key ingredients used to make Watters International Realty in Austin, the recipient of the #1 Real Estate Team by the Austin Business Journal, Inc. 5000 Recipient for Fastest Growing Privately Held Company and the recipient as one of the top real estate teams reported by Real Trends in the Wall Street Journal. Podcast Highlights Who is Chris Watters? If Chris had to think of himself as a superhero, the one that comes to mind is The Hulk. Bruce Banner was more focused on research and learning, wasn’t super flashy and was more introverted, and Chris identifies with his humility. Real estate was not Chris’s focus initially, in college he ran a lawn mowing business that paid his way through school and he preferred to take classes on the stock market. In his younger years, he liked to learn how to build websites. All of which had nothing to do with real estate. Chris’s path into real estate is a long winding tail that goes from working in real estate for a few months, moving into the oil and gas industry, losing everything in trying to run a bar and restaurant, rebuilding his life by starting a lead generation company, and then ultimately getting back into real estate. During the process, Chris became psychologically unemployable and being an entrepreneur was his only option. His time in the oil and gas industry actually allowed Chris to learn a lot about the back end technical aspects of real estate that most agents never get to see. Lead Generation and Real Estate As a young man, Chris was pretty ignorant of the risks of running a brokerage but he managed pretty well. His skills with lead generation turned out to be perfect for the business, he was generating so many leads that he had to hire more people just to handle the deal flow. In the B2C world, lead generation can be easy. Google Adwords, retargeting campaigns, and content creation work pretty well. SEO is great too, but it’s a long term play and paying for Adwords is a much faster process. It’s about leveraging the low hanging fruit. The stage of your business dictates the lead generation strategy you should be using. If you’re a small business with a limited amount of money, you should go after the cheaper lead sources. The more expensive forms of lead generation like TV ads and direct mail take time to become effective but they have a very high conversion rate. Why write the book? Chris was 21 when he got into real estate, and the only rea
10/22/2018 • 46 minutes, 58 seconds
Digital Marketing For Small Businesses
Kade Wilcox is the owner and CEO of Primitive Social, a digital marketing agency focused on helping companies grow. Primitive Social works with clients all across the country to craft digital solutions that help them meet their objectives and reach their goals. Kade’s career started as both the Executive Director of a children’s camp and serving on staff at Redeemer Church where he managed operations, leadership development and church planning efforts. In 2011, Kade and his wife Lacey started Primitive Social, providing social media support to small local businesses. In 2013, Kade and Lacey connected with Jerred Hurst (now co-owner of Primitive Social) to focus on growing the company to help others grow their businesses. Over the past three years, Kade has helped transform Primitive Social from a 2 person team into a multi-million dollar company with nearly 50 employees! Podcast Highlights Who is Kade Wilcox? Kade grew up in a small town of only 350 people and a lot of his experiences in sports and the local community shaped the way he viewed the world. Learning how to work hard and rely on the people around him taught him many valuable lessons on the way to his entrepreneurial journey. When you are part of a small, tight knit community you share the good and the hard times. This means you learn how to depend on other people. Developing a Vision Kade was always a dreamer and no one tried to squash his dreams when he was young, this fostered his ability to develop a vision of the way things could be. Having people that support your vision and dreaming is crucial as well as having the opportunity to try to make your dream a reality. The self made person is a myth, to be successful as an entrepreneur you have to be able to lean into other people. That ability is one of the most important things an entrepreneur can do. People want to love their work, if you as the entrepreneur don’t nurture them as individuals and foster the environment that enables them to work, you won’t be able to run a successful company. Leadership is superior to managing. Management is organization and structure and it’s very important, where leadership is more about helping people be the best they can be in their work as well as the rest of their life. Kade’s business originally started out as a side hustle but eventually grew into a real full time business. When you have a small team, everyone is doing everything. When you grow your business, everything changes including the culture. Every dynamic of an organization changes at each different life stage of a company. Digital Marketing for Small Business Primitive Social can support a business on nearly every element of digital marketing including custom software and websites, inbound and content marketing, and video marketing. The common element between Kade’s clients is a clear set of goals and a focus on digital marketing that they can measure. Digital marketing has changed the marketing landscape, stop doing things that you can’t measure the impact of. Digital marketing can be measured dollar for dollar on the direct impact to your business. The people who are not successful are the ones that focus on tactics over strategy. Who is the audience, how can you add value to them, and where are they? Prioritize your goals and your budget, there is always a new platform to explore but you don’t have infinite resources to spread out to every platform. Focus on the basics, develop a strategy and then stick with it for a few months. You may not like Facebook, but it is still the number one platform to reach your ideal audience. The first step is to have a helpful website, then focus on the basics of social media and email. Email is another channel to be over-
10/18/2018 • 49 minutes, 28 seconds
Leveraging Earned Media To Get In Front Of Your Ideal Clients
Christina Nicholson is a former TV reporter and anchor who has worked in markets from New York City to Miami. With her business, Media Maven, she helps entrepreneurs reach thousands, even millions, of their ideal customers or clients in minutes instead of months through the power of media without spending big bucks on advertising. We’re talking coverage in Forbes, the Today Show, Washington Post, and more! You can still see her in front of the camera as a host on Lifetime TV, in national commercials, on WPTV for her monthly segment, and read her work online in Huffington Post, Inc. Magazine, and Fast Company. Podcast Highlights Who is Christina Nicholson? Christina has always looked telling stories through media, she’s someone that likes to hear, read, or watch a good story. The things that resonate online are stories. She started writing stories from an early age and now her daughter is following in her footsteps. Being in the media has always been something that Christina has wanted to do, even when she was child in her family’s home movies she pretended to be a news anchor covering the story. Traditional TV media is a very competitive industry with only a handful of positions available in a large city. Christina spent hundreds of dollars sending her resume tapes to studios in different markets and she didn’t get her first job offer until two years of effort. Is themedia more competitive today? Media isn’t necessarily harder or easier than it was years ago, it’s just different. In the beginning, you would have a photographer that would follow you around, today, you are responsible for everything yourself. The nature of media has changed, what used to be earned media in editorial is slowly turning to paid. This is why influencer marketing is picking up. If something is obviously an ad, the audience is going to ignore it. You have to be savvy with social media and be everywhere all the time to succeed in today’s media environment. Has does an entrepreneur attract attention to get their story out? The biggest secret to getting earned media coverage without spending money is to give the journalist what they want and need, when they want and need it. Your pitch should talk about the journalist and what you can do for them, not what makes you so important. You have to ask why people will care. A lot of coverage comes from timeliness, it creates a sense of urgency around the story. What if someone is afraid of being on camera? You don’t have to be on TV, you can be on print, online, and on podcasts. There are lots of different kinds of media that don’t require you to get in front of a camera. If you want to reach more people, you have to get comfortable in front of the camera. Start with videos at home and get some practice in. Any interview on TV is just a conversation, just like when you’re on a podcast. What does it take to get earned media? A lot of people will call you promising to get you into the media, but they are actually just advertisements. Earned media can’t be guaranteed. Be careful of someone that is promising you something. Pay attention to what is breaking in your industry, if you position yourself correctly you can get into the media in a single day. You have to be pitching different people with different ideas so that you don’t come off to spammy. Journalists are on Twitter, if you want to build relationships you should engage them on where they spend a lot of their time. Get clear on where the ROI is and who you need to get in front of, then ask what media serves that purpose. Start building your media list and adding value to the journalist to build a relationship
10/15/2018 • 47 minutes, 36 seconds
Building A Real Estate Empire
He is a bestselling author, a seasoned trainer, a captivating speaker, a real estate investor, and property manager with two decades of experience. There are many ways you can describe Bryan Chavis, but one comes to mind above all else: a tenacious entrepreneur. Bryan has spent the last two decades building successful real estate ventures. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Bryan explains how there is nothing wrong with the last time you failed, failure is the greatest teacher. Every day is a new day and a new opportunity, shake off that voice or it will ride you to the grave. Next, spend some time alone and figure out what you really want. Develop your spiritual side. Work on yourself and invest in yourself. You are going to make it and you are going to lose it, your character is tested by failures and opportunities. Do not fail in the same area twice.
10/11/2018 • 48 minutes, 31 seconds
It’s Easy To Find Good Help These Days With Freelancers
Nathan Hirsch is an entrepreneur and expert in remote hiring and eCommerce. He is the co-founder and CEO of FreeeUp.com, a marketplace that connects businesses with pre-vetted freelancers in eCommerce, digital marketing, and much more. He has sold over $30 million online and regularly appears on leading business podcasts around the world. Podcast Highlights Who is Nate Hirsch? Nate’s parents were both teachers and he grew up with the mentality that he would go to college, get a job, work for 40 years and retire, but he always wanted more. During his summer vacations, his parents made him work at least 40 hours every week. This gave him a ton of experience in sales and customer service, but it was also where he realized that he hated working for other people. For Nate, college was a ticking clock where he had to figure out a way to start a business before he got into a regular job and could never escape. Nate’s parents definitely had reservations about him becoming a business owner. By the time he graduated, Nate had been running an Amazon business where he was making more money than the job he had lined up after school. When he made his decision, they saw the success he was having and supported him in his pursuit. The Amazon Side Hustle Nate is the kind of guy that when something is bugging him, he tries to take action and fix it. When he went to college, he realized that the school book store was ripping him off so he started his own textbook business. It got to the point where he had so many customers lining up to sell their books, the school sent a cease and desist letter because he was stealing too much of their business. Nate knew books weren’t going to be a long term solution so he started experimenting with other products. He failed several times before stumbling on baby products, which is where his business really started to take off. He got really skilled at finding good deals and tracking down manufacturers. What kept you going? There are two things that Nate learned from his experience with Amazon: he had to stop being afraid of failure, and to not care what other people thought. He had to block the negativity of other people out in order to succeed. Amazon to Freelancers Nate’s accountant was the first person to ask when he was going to hire his first employee. He initially thought that was a terrible idea until he went through his first busy Christmas season, where he almost went crazy. He made it through and posted his first job offer. This is when he hired a bunch of people who didn’t end up working out and realized there must be a better way. Nate came to the realization that no 30 year old expert wants to work for a 20 year old entrepreneur. This is how he ended up looking to marketplaces like Fiverr and Upwork, but even then Nate found the experience frustrating and time consuming. He thought there had to be a better way, which is where the idea of Freeeup.com came from. You can have five different people hire the same person, and each one is going to have a different experience. No matter how much you prepare for a busy season, it’s always crazy. Freeeup? The whole concept behind Freeeup.com is free up your time, the third ‘e’ in the domain name stands for eCommerce. With Freeeup, you create a free account and it essentially works like a Tinder for hiring. You tell them what you are looking for and they will introduce you to someone within one business day. Freeeup covers all replacement costs in the scenario where a hire walks away half way throug
10/8/2018 • 35 minutes, 37 seconds
The Blockchain Revolution Will Change Your Business
Don Tapscott is the CEO of The Tapscott Group. He was Founder and Chairman of the international think tank New Paradigm before its acquisition. He is currently the fourth most influential management thinker in the world according to Thinkers 50. He is the Chancellor of Trent University and bestselling author of Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin Is Changing Money, Business, and the World, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, and Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing Your World. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Don explains how the blockchain revolution will change your business.
10/4/2018 • 45 minutes, 46 seconds
Having a Vision in the Real Estate Industry
Eddie Lorin is a multi-family real estate veteran with over 40,000 units transformed and over $3 billion transacted (acting as either Principal or Advisor) nationwide. He is passionate about helping communities have access to affordable housing and improve the quality of life. Eddie Lorin is the Founder of Impact Housing REIT, company that focuses on both impact investing and multifamily real estate to provide financial, environmental, and social returns to its investors. He is also the co-founder of Healthy Apartment Property Initiative, a 501C3 nonprofit that provides free on-site social, health, and wellness programming for families living in apartment communities. Podcast Highlights Who is Eddie Lorin? Eddie Loren prides himself as a dreamer, a doer, and a proponent of the underdog. He shares that his childhood was filled with love and respect while living in a small apartment with his single mother and siblings. Losing his parents at a young age became a pivotal point in Eddie’s life. At the age of 17, he was learning to live and survive alone. He remembers how tough it was emotionally, psychologically, and financially. ‘Just one more day.’ This is what he uttered to himself every single day. According to Eddie, as bad as things come into your life, take in mind that there could be worst. And instead of letting them get him down, he just looked forward, had hope, and dreamed for the day ahead. From his experience and his empathic observation of his surroundings at that time, he wanted to make a difference in the world. Eddie’s mission now is to provide clean, safe, and affordable housing for working class. He does this through his company Impact Housing. He’s also very outspoken on criticizing inflated housing prices in America. Having a vision in the real estate industry It wasn’t the easiest road to take when he started in real estate. While trying to make a name for himself in the industry, there were so many bumps on the road he had to pass through. First, he experienced being taken advantage by people because he was always ‘the nice guy.’ He learned that he had to be firm and also respectful to get his message across. There was also a feeling of despair, angst, and turmoil from time to time. He drove them away by calming and meditating. He always taught himself since then that from every mistake, you gotta keep going wherever your goal is. If one thing was made clear during those times, it was the fact that real estate is where he needed to be. At first, he tried dealing with commercial and industrial properties. But then he discovered that in multifamily business he can make a lot of money and at the same time help the masses. And thus, the birth of Impact Housing. Eddie says that his ultimate gift is having a vision in renovation. Just one look at an old property, he already knows how to turn it into something different. He says that he finds those properties through his connections or a brokerage community. Do well and do good simultaneously. Eddie chooses to invest on B and C class properties and turn them into something better rather than stick with the A class. Well, aside from the reason that A class properties don’t generate cash flows, he’d choose the option where the masses will be more benefitted. He was an expert in creating value for the property and making it not just livable but also a quality affordable housing for everyone. If he doesn’t renovate B & C properties, he brings the people together at apartment communities. Through Healthy Apartment Initiative, a nonprofit that he and his wife started, he provides free on-site social, health and wellness programming for families living there. He is also urging apartments to have community gardens to promote healthy living. It’
10/1/2018 • 35 minutes, 56 seconds
Blockchain Real Estate
Matthew is the CEO and Founder of QuantmRE, a cryptocurrency startup that supports homeowners by helping them sell a fraction of the equity in their home without taking on more debt. A seasoned entrepreneur, Matthew has a proven track record in real estate innovation through his experiences as Co-Founder of the $50M Secured Real Estate Income Strategies Fund, and as Founder and President of Crowdventure.com, a real estate crowdfunding company. Previously a stockbroker and corporate financier in the City of London, he worked with Richard Branson’s corporate finance team, was appointed Director and Trustee of Virgin’s London Air Ambulance, is a helicopter pilot in his spare time and is the host of his own podcast, “Hooked On Startups.” Podcast Highlights Who is Matthew Sullivan? The question is are you born an entrepreneur or do you become one? Matthew wasn’t one of those people who were entrepreneurs at the age of 7, but he has always been fascinated with challenges that were not the focus of his current job. He realized that he was essentially unemployable at that point. Solving Problems Finance is essentially a set of rules and processes and you can navigate that world the same way as technology. There are a lot of similarities between crowdfunding and the blockchain. Real estate is great because it is real and tangible, it’s something that we often take for granted. Combining real estate and technology comes with a lot of opportunities to create new efficiencies and increase the value of real estate as an asset class. Real estate is a tool, but it’s often slow and cumbersome. QuantumRE is trying to change that by creating a new asset, blockchain real estate. The Impact of Blockchain Real Estate When the blockchain was first introduced, most people didn’t see the importance of it, including Matthew. The blockchain is basically a layer of truth that cannot be changed, altered, or influenced. It means that you don’t require a third party to ensure an element of trust. The blockchain turns all of that trust infrastructure into programming language that ensures certain events will happen without any outside trust requirements. For real estate, if you could automate the process of buying a home you can increase the liquidity of real estate immediately and make international transactions more easily. The real friction with real estate is the time and the processes that are involved with changing ownership, and the reason for that is the world that it evolved. Blockchain technology will take real estate from analog to digital and eliminate the need for trusted third parties. Cryptocurrencies are a way of exchanging value on the blockchain, the key to the blockchain becoming widely adopted is people trusting the stability of future cryptocurrencies. QuantumRE plans to issue its own cryptocurrency that is backed by a portion of the equity in your home. The issues with HELOC’s is that lenders often stipulate how you spend the money, with QuantumRE the money is yours to spend as you want. It can actually be an additional source of funds for people who have reached the limit of their ability to borrow but still have equity in their property. Where did QuatumRE come from? Start by looking at the problem you are trying to solve. Great ideas are nice, but they don’t matter much without solving a specific problem. The issue with Bitcoin was that it was unpredictable and hard to understand what it was backed by. The solution Matthew came up with was blockchain real estate, a new cryptocurrency backed direc
9/27/2018 • 48 minutes, 12 seconds
Ralph Welborn On Growing Your Business In The New Economy
Ralph Welborn is the co-author of Topple: The End of the Firm-Based Strategy and Rise of New Models for Explosive Growth. CEO of CapImpact, he specializes in advisory and predictive analytics for new growth models. He is a former head of IBM’s strategy and transformation business in the Middle East and Africa. Sajan Pillai is the CEO of UST Global, leading the company’s founding team of 20 in 1999 to more than 18,000 employees in 21 countries today.
9/24/2018 • 45 minutes, 32 seconds
Getting To A Positive Cash Flow
Bill Janeway is the Vice Chairman, Managing Director, and Senior Advisor at leading venture capital behemoth Warburg Pincus. He is also the Co-founder of the Governing Board of the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) and part of the faculty of Economics at Cambridge University. He is the author of the new and updated bestselling book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Reconfiguring the Three-Player Game between Markets, Speculators and the State. Podcast Highlights Who is Bill Janeway? Bill has spent his entire life trying to answer that question. He was always pretty smart in school and ended up going to Princeton and later on to Cambridge. He eventually stumbled into the world of finance and helping entrepreneurs build their businesses. Unicorns and Positive Cash Flow When you are building something new, you have to build hedges against things that you can’t know in advance. Part of that is cash. Positive cash flow is the source of the ability to grow without having to worry about being caught by surprise. The internet has enabled companies to grow in ways that allow them to burn cash before reaching profitability. As interest rates start rising, the digital Unicorns will need to get to positive cash flow sooner rather than later. Even Uber is coming under pressure to exercise discipline and get to where it’s customers are paying the bills and not the investors. How does understanding innovation help entrepreneurs build their business? Technology is increasingly accessible and cheap. You can grow your business incrementally without a lot of upfront costs. A lot of new tech businesses are being bought when they are still small, this is often the best way to succeed and is a huge shift in the way technology gets out into the world. Design your business to be purchased by someone else. You should be asking if it’s the right time to sell at every stage of growth in the new business. As an entrepreneur, you have one interest which is the growth and the value of what you are doing. Selling part of the business too early to a major customer can potentially short circuit the path to positive cash flow. When it comes to technology, being different is more important than being better. When it comes to people, the founder doesn’t build a business alone, they need the right team to succeed. Reference: Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy: Reconfiguring the Three-Player Game between Markets, Speculators and the State, William Janeway William’s Takeaway Understand the market you are addressing, but make sure you have the cash you need to fall back when things don’t go the way you hoped. A great idea without the cash to put it to work, is just a great idea. You need partners and access to the fuel in order to succeed. Links: billjaneway.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
9/20/2018 • 41 minutes, 25 seconds
Low-Interest Business Funding With Fund&Grow
Mike Banks is the COO and Marketing Director of Fund&Grow and works directly with CEO Ari Page. With over 8 years of success and growth, they have built a thriving business based on offering exceptional service to their customers and a dynamic and rewarding work environment to their employees. Fund&Grow specializes in helping Real Estate Investors and small businesses get Business Credit Lines to fund their investments and obtain capital to grow. F&G builds up to $250,000 at zero percent interest for 12-18 months, the accounts are unsecured so there’s no collateral needed, and they don’t show up on the personal credit report. Fund&Grow has raised over $200M in 0% interest business credit funding for its small business clients, last year alone raised $40M. Podcast Highlights Who is Mike Banks? Mike is a regular guy who figured out how to make money and help people. He dropped out of college after realizing it wasn’t going to lead to the life he wanted and got into sales and that’s when he met Ari. Mike took a lot of knowledge from his previous jobs to Fund&Grow that helped them grow substantially in only seven years. Why are SOP’s so important at Fund&Grow? If you don’t know what you are doing, you can’t repeat it and have consistency. You have to record the policies and procedures. Even when it comes to requesting a testimonial or a review, that needs to be documented in order to get results. Your reputation is impacted by your procedures and your ability to deliver results that matter efficiently and effectively. Don’t bore yourself with the monotony of Standard Operating Procedures in the beginning, focus on revenue first. Once you do something a couple of times, it may be a good idea to document it. If you’re going to grow your business, you have to record what you’re doing. Low Interest Business Funding Business credit lines and business credit cards usually come with 0% introductory interest rates and they don’t show up on your personal credit report. If your credit is in good shape, you can get the lines set up within the next 3 to 4 weeks. You can use these type of funds for anything you need for your business. For people with a credit score of 700 or higher, you don’t have to prove income and don’t need a history in order to take advantage of these offers. Fund&Grow has relationships with the banks that make the process much more streamlined and you can often get much higher amounts approved in less time. 30% of Mike’s clients are credit challenged and there are still options for those people. They are very effective at cleaning up credit reports and also offer short term instalment loans that allow them to move personal debt to business debt at low to 0% interest. Mike’s Takeaway Don’t listen to that relative or voice, even Mike has had moments where he questioned his business. Fund&Grow is enabling people to chase their dreams and achieve their goals, they would be more than happy to help you out. Links: cashflowdiary.com/fundme Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
9/17/2018 • 45 minutes, 17 seconds
School for Startups
Jim Beach is the Executive Director of International Entrepreneurship and Founder of the Entrepreneur School. He is the author of School for Startups: The Breakthrough Course for Guaranteeing Small Business Success in 90 Days or Less and the new book Free Radio & Podcast Marketing In 30 Minutes: Fire your publicist and leverage free radio and podcasting to market your business, brand, or idea. Podcast Highlights Who is Jim Beach? Jim was the guy who got fired from respectable businesses all the time. He saved Coca-Cola over a billion dollars and they still showed him the door. They essentially told him to go be an entrepreneur instead because they thought he didn’t fit in with the culture. Jim went back to school and started looking for ways to earn money to afford the tuition. He ended up starting a summer camp business that went so well he ended up leaving school. Why didn’t you consider yourself an entrepreneur? Jim always considered himself a corporate person, he always wanted to work for a big company and the security that came with that. It was also before the time that entrepreneurs were considered rock stars like they are today. Jim had been a summer camp consumer as a kid so he had some experience with the idea beforehand, but it was really just the last idea on the list. Breaking even on the first year wasn’t actually an issue, since the business had already had the same number of people signed up in the future, Jim knew the business was growing in the future and they had stumbled onto a working formula. School For Startups You can be cash flow positive year one in business. By leveraging the existing branding and marketing of the schools they associated with and responding to the needs of the consumer, Jim created a remarkable business. Involving someone else’s brand name goes a long way towards establishing trust with your prospect. Import the best brand names you can, it’s a great way to differentiate your business and it’s not as hard you think. Go and ask ten businesses to sponsor, put together a proposal and start sending it. There are a lot of businesses that may want to be associated with your company. There are thousands of radio shows and podcasts that consistently need guests and they are a great way to spread your message. That goes for guest blogging as well. Reference: Jim’s Takeaway Jim is able to shut up his voice by saying one thing: “I’m not going to waste a bunch of money.” Jim promises to experiment with a business but limits his risk to $5000, it becomes an easier way to get started and succeed. The bar to success is significantly lower too. If you reduce your startup capital, you change the game. If you think you can’t start your business with only $5000, you’re probably wrong and someone has most likely already done something similar. Take the small risks, not the big risks. Links: jimbeach.com [email protected] Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
9/13/2018 • 38 minutes, 46 seconds
90 Days To 5k: Passive Income Real Estate Investing
Edna Keep, author of Multiple Ways To Wealth: Creating Your Prosperous Lifestyle and real estate investment teacher, has a deep understanding of what investors want in a deal. As a former financial advisor, Edna helps connect investors with everyday people who want to create true passive income for the long term. Edna’s team has a portfolio of $60 Million they built in less than ten years on primarily multifamily units and primarily with none of their own money. Her process is proven, which she now teaches through coaching and her Mastermind groups. Edna lives near Regina, Saskatchewan between Calgary and Winnipeg with her husband Warren and teenage daughters Desiree and Dhani. Podcast Highlights Who is Edna Keep? Edna recalls a teacher that once told her she was very social and if she could only channel that ability, she would inevitably become successful, despite the fact that she was barely passing his class! Whenever Edna has a challenge, she tends to call her key people and brainstorm with them, she prefers to think on her feet. Her natural curiosity and desire to get to know people is one of her unexpected super powers. Hope and Regret It doesn’t matter how old you are, tomorrow is a new day. You can always start being an entrepreneur now. Edna was 48 when she started in passive income real estate investing and she didn’t intend on becoming a full time investor. She actually walked away from her mutual fund investment business because she felt that real estate was such a great option. Where did the courage to make the leap come from? Edna originally had a decent job and made a good amount of money but she was extremely bored. She wanted more and had to do correspondence courses because she didn’t have extra money for school. The common thread in Edna’s experience is constant education and always being willing to try new things plus the desire for more. Edna always wanted to be financially free and being a financial advisor was the vehicle that initially got her there. Eventually she was down to working one day a week while doing passive income real estate investing part time Edna has a history of taking a chance, but she believes the key is taking a chance on yourself. Don’t try to do everything yourself, the most successful people have coaches that help them work through challenges. There is a four step process to success and the final step is teaching what you know to others. What have you learned about mindset? You are always beating yourself up for what you’re not, but literally everything in the world is learnable. School is not as important as an education. We have a great schooling system, but we have a poor education system. Edna always loved learning as long it was something she was interested in. A lot of people think education is limited to the traditional school, but there are a number of resources online you can access very easily. You have to get to know yourself to understand what you will be good at. What did you do as a kid that you loved, and is there a way to turn that into a business? Why bother coaching passive income real estate investing? People were always asking Edna how she had been so successful in such a short period of time, and she realized that it’s all about the steps you take and the systems you set up. She started helping people achieve what she has and it’s one of the most fulfilling things she’s done. Reference: Multiple Ways To Wealth: Creating Your Prosperous Lifestyle, Edna Keep Edna’s Takeaway Watch the Masterclass and take some action. Argue for your greatness, not your limit
9/10/2018 • 43 minutes, 4 seconds
Investing In Crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, And More
David Moadel is a part of PortfolioWealthGlobal.com Special Opportunity Research Team. He has nailed a number of key topics in the precious metals, cryptocurrency and USD bear market arenas. He now proudly serves as the Chief Analyst of the letter. He also has his own YT channel called, Looking at the Markets with David Moadel. Regarding his background, David has a master's degree in education and has taught at the elementary, high school, and college levels. The foundation of his trading/investing knowledge came from his father, who is now 83 years of age and has lived through the best and worst economic times you can imagine. In terms of investing style, David likes to combine fundamental knowledge and technical/chart analysis. He uses indicators but doesn't rely on them, and prefers to use data/information rather than emotions when making financial decisions. David’s passion for teaching is just as strong as his passion for finance, and he has helped many people to grow their income and, more importantly, to protect the capital they already have. With PortfolioWealthGlobal.com and his YouTube channel as avenues to help others, David has the financial know-how and a passion for teaching that has boosted the bottom line of countless clients. Focusing on data rather than emotions, David is always on the lookout for new pathways to financial freedom. Count on David for wealth-building strategies and resources for investors of all financial backgrounds. Podcast Highlights Who is David Moadel? David is not a superhero but he does have a team of researchers to help him make his trading decisions. He’s been pursued by many different investors and newsletters but ultimately settled on PortfolioWealthGlobal.com because they align with David’s core values and his focus on cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is derived from latin word “crypto” which means secret or hidden. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are based on a grassroots level movement that is frustrated with central banks and rampant inflation. Why Make Another Currency Like Bitcoin? We you pay a portfolio manager to invest your money, they are probably just sticking your money into the stock market. We are currently experiencing the longest bull market in history, you should be diversifying your portfolio into assets that are not correlated to stocks and bonds. The zero interest policies are not going to last forever and the savers are the ones that are going to feel the burn. Non-correlated assets go the opposite direction of the comparison. In the 2008 crash, real estate and stocks were correlated. It didn’t matter which one you owned, if one of them did badly, the other does too because they are correlated. Meltdowns are global now, the whole ship goes down together. Non-correlated assets will move up while other assets go down. Currencies in general don’t move together when there is a meltdown. Having all your assets in a single nation can be a bad idea, if one country melts down it will affect others. Hardly anyone expects a crash to happen but they will happen. Diversifying your investments with assets like Bitcoin are not the only way to protect yourself, finding other ways to produce income are important too. Being Prepared 7 out 10 new businesses fail in the first five years, you need something unique to help you to compete against the major players. A side hustle is also very viable, keep the costs low, and stay lean
9/6/2018 • 38 minutes, 56 seconds
Seven-Figure Decisions
Nick Vertucci is the founder and CEO of Nick Vertucci Companies, Inc. which aims to help people in real estate investment. He is also the bestselling author of the new book Seven Figure Decisions: Having the Balls to Succeed. Nick went from rags to riches, back to rags, and to riches once more. When his original tech business went under, he made a 180-degree turn. He achieved tremendous success by taking bold, calculated risks to reinvent himself after losing everything. Podcast Highlights Who is Nick Vertucci? Nick wasn’t really a big fan of waking up early, attending classes, and getting high grades. He knew after finishing high school, education wasn’t the journey he’ll be taking for the next years of his life. When he was 18, his father died and the rest of his family moved out. He was at a low point and knew that he needed his family close so he decided to buy a van and stay near them. To support himself, he worked for an appliance store as a delivery boy and luckily was able to move up to its sales department after some time. In between those happenings, something ignited a fire inside him to finally jumpstart his journey to where he should be. He knew then that he wanted to create as early as possible something valuable for himself and worthy of his time. As a result, at the early age of 22, he was able to start his own company. He built his career as a professional real estate investor and learnt more than a handful along the way. Nick says he wouldn’t exchange any part if his life because he’s happy where he is right now – teaching people about real estate investment through Nick Vertucci Real Estate Academy (NVREA). Take a calculated risk. Some of us are inherently adamant to adjust and accept change. Nick says people are wired that way. Humans don’t like putting their safety and comfortability at risk. But, to be the best, we must become something different. He started seeing everyone around him moving up and thought to himself: why waste all the hours and energy to a dull work if you could do something else more valuable and worthier? Embrace change, instead of familiarity. To be able to move on the next step of your own career or business ladder, initiate the action. You and you alone should do it. You create opportunities and you open doors if you choose to take the wheel of your own journey. Don’t let anyone or anything decide for you. Take the risk. Just know your resources. Surround yourself with like-minded people who’ll bring optimism and will push you forward. Failure is the best education you’ll ever have. Out of fear, we refuse to accept change for our personal transformation. Nick himself is not far from failures. He lost his company. He went bankrupt. He got cheated by his business partners. He got sued. You name it. But, in the end, he was able to make a company that has gone over seven figures and still stay impactful to other people. If not for the hard turns that happened in Nick’s life, he wouldn’t be able to build his foundation and have the wisdom to grow his business. His past was ‘littered’ with failure. He advises that if you fall, then stand up, dust yourself off, then just keep going. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Just push yourself forward to wherever you want to go. Acknowledge and accept that there will be ups and downs. Treat every unforeseen halt on the way as a lesson just like Nick did. Pattern Interruption Here’s an advice Nick got from his mentor who taught him real estate cash flow business: If there’s negative voices inside your head, block it out. Negative thoughts can be repatterned. Drown them with optimism and passion. Use it to convince yourself that you’re going to be the best in the business. Of course, there are some aspects i
9/3/2018 • 56 minutes, 17 seconds
Breakthrough With Personal Development
Brian Matsen is widely known and respected as a highly successful entrepreneur, sales trainer, investor, speaker and proven expert in personal development. His successful career has spanned over 20 years. He has worked for some of the largest financial institutions in the world including, 14 years as a Regional Vice President with ING and Voya Financial, a Fortune 500 company. He has received numerous national sales growth and achievement awards while amassing over one billion dollars in sales. Podcast Highlights Who is Brian Matsen? Brian is just a normal guy. He grew up in Orange County, California, loved sports, like most kids and wasn’t in love with school, like most kids. For Brian, school was always a focus challenge. He felt that his future success as an adult would be reduced because he couldn’t succeed like everyone said he should in school. Sports taught Brian to work hard and built his confidence. One of his most difficult experiences was when he volunteered in Puerto Rico without knowing a word of spanish. He was forced to confront his fear of speaking to people and grow as a result. The first five years after college were a real struggle for Brian. After being let go from his fourth job in five years, Brian realized that if he kept doing the same thing, he was going to get the same results. This lead him to personal development and focusing on growing his own skill set. Setting Big Goals Brian had the golden handcuffs at the time but he realized that he had a lot of the answers that people are searching for that could help them take their career to the next level. Fear is the number one cause of failure and it never goes away. If you’re going to expand as a person, you will always have to push through the terror barrier. Getting real clear on exactly what you want is key to personal development. Most people never set their goals and have no idea what they really want. The type of goals you should be going after are the ones you really want to achieve but have no idea how to do it. Setting a truly ambitious goal can change your life and your business. A C type goal is a tenfold increase, not an incremental gain. Paradigms dictate everything you do, if you don’t have the right mindset you are never going to achieve this kind of goal. Paradigm Shifts Paradigms are mental programs that have exclusive control over your habits. Paradigms come together to create a company culture. You become programmed to earn a certain amount of money over time. Your paradigm won’t change without a dramatic or tragic change in your life or constant spaced repetition. Most people that come to Brian feel stuck, they are unhappy with what they are currently at and know that their results won’t change unless they do. We inherit the habits of our ancestors, they are not easy to change but once you understand how to do it, you can make a quantum leap in your life. You need to rewire your subconscious mind because 95% of what you do is driven by your subconscious mind. It’s not about what you know, it’s about what you do. Brian’s Takeaway The voice is a great example of your paradigm talking to you. Ignore that and listen to your intuition that says you can do it. When you make a committed decision, you will begin to change your life. Links: brianmatsen.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
8/30/2018 • 48 minutes, 3 seconds
Consulting With Success
Michael Zipursky is an author, entrepreneur and CEO of ConsultingSuccess.com. He has consulted for organizations and advised leaders throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Middle East in over 30 industries, from service providers to billion dollar multinational corporations including Panasonic, Dow Jones, Financial Times, Royal Bank and many others. Michael is an in-demand speaker and gives keynotes and workshops for the Certified Management Consultants Association, Canadian Internet Marketing Conference, Chartered Management Institute UK and others. Michael’s work has appeared in MarketingProfs, Huffington Post, Financial Times, FOX Business, Maclean's, HR Executive, Business Edge, Marketing Magazine and in several other media and publications. He is the author of 5 books on consulting and marketing including his most recent bestseller The Elite Consulting Mind. Michael speaks English and Japanese and loves traveling and spending time with his family. Podcast Highlights Who is Michael Zipurskey? Michael grew up feeling like an outsider. In his early years, his focus on sports combined with his perspective as an outsider gave him the foundation for his career later on. Michael has studied multiple languages and has lived in multiple countries. Playing in sports gives you the fair advantage of practicing failure, a key skill for success in consulting and business. Consulting Business At the age of 16, Michael travelled with his cousin Sam to Vietnam to start a business together. They ended up starting a web design and consulting business which opened the door for new opportunities. The places you’ve been and the things that have influenced you when you were young shape who you become as an entrepreneur. Michael dove right into consulting by applying what he learned and knew directly to the business world. Michael is not a big fan of education in some ways. You can always go back to school, but school is no substitute for getting things done. Clarity On Your Goals Michael knew what he wanted and pursued it. If you know what you want, how committed are you to getting it? With the right mindset, you can achieve whatever you want. Getting clear is the foundation to achieving growth in your business. People think that they need to add more in order to grow, but in Michael’s experience, the best way to grow is to subtract. Do less, not more. The most successful businesses have a very narrow and focused set of offerings. What are you doing now that is having the greatest impact? Not all activities have the same value to your business. What’s stopping us? A lack of knowledge is not holding you back, it’s your mindset. If you have a goal and know what you need to do to get there, why are you not doing those things? People have fears that hold them back, get out into the marketplace and refine your offering. You have to work on the right activities for the stage of the business you are in. What do you feel will have the greatest impact in your business right now? Reference: The Elite Consulting Mind, Michael Zipurskey Michael’s Takeaway Give some thought to your ideal client, who you think you can help the most and have had the greatest track record with. Look for a hungry market and start building a relationship right away with them wherever they are. Links: consultingsuccess.com
8/27/2018 • 41 minutes, 15 seconds
Building A Real Estate Investing Portfolio With No Money
Author of the book “Free Houses”, Austin Miller has built a real estate portfolio of 16 units worth over 1.2 million dollars with little to zero of his own money. Over the course of acquiring several properties, he is fittingly labeled as a creative financing real estate investor. Thinking outside the box from traditional investing, Austin has outlined each of his strategies chapter by chapter in his book. After working for corporate America for five years, he was able to quit his job to pursue real estate and small business ownership full time. Aside from real estate, Austin enjoys spending time with his family and his church group. His other passions include music and hunting. He also enjoys talking about real estate with anyone interested—veterans and rookies alike. He is active in his local investors club and serves as a mentor for new investors. Podcast Highlights Who is Austin Miller? Austin wears a lot of hats but at the end of the day he’s someone who is willing to work really hard to achieve his goals. He has always been a collector and really liked acquiring capital and assets as part of his business. Living in the midwest gives Austin a unique perspective from the cities on the coast, he knows that slow and steady strategy is the way to win the race. Cards To Real Estate Investing It takes the innocence of a child to point out the obvious. Seeing developers as a child put Austin on the path to real estate investing. After getting a job with a commercial real estate builder in 2009, he observed the economy turning around and decided to pursue his dream of real estate investing. Austin needed to get some additional education in order to get started with real estate. Austin feels that he learned more in the six months after he graduated than during his whole time in school. Free Houses There is no secret in real estate, the education is out there if you look for it. Especially now with the number of podcasts available.Just being around people that want to do the same thing as you is very helpful. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but as long as you are willing to exchange time and effort, you don’t need any money. There are a lot of different ways to access cash to fund your deals and it’s normally the first hurdle people face. You have to start thinking in terms of possibilities instead of limitations. You can Google private money and you can find a funding source. Your average bank wants 20%, but when you change the conversation beyond the usual perspective you can open a lot of opportunities. Some people have a lot of drive, and some don’t. The world is made for disciplined men, if you get distracted you will never achieve your dreams. Most people will find excuses instead of doing the work. Real estate investing is an evolving game. Single family homes is one of the most solid investments you can make but there are lots of other opportunities on the market. Those who walk with the wise, become wise. If you want to learn, teach. Reference: Free Houses, Austin Miller Austin’s Takeaway Remove the naysayers, internal and external. If you have a goal, remove the negativity because it will only slow you down. Links: Free Houses [email protected] Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please
8/23/2018 • 38 minutes, 52 seconds
Digital Marketing Your Business
Greg Jameson is a Colorado Small Business of the Year and Inc 500 Award Winning Entrepreneur. As the president of WebStores, he is now focusing this expertise on CEO’s of both established and emerging businesses that need a profitable web store presence. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Greg shares how you must jump in with both feet and actually do it. There are few things you can achieve in life on your own, you are going to need a few partners along the way. Align yourself with the very best people you can but don’t be afraid to give your dream a shot.
8/20/2018 • 36 minutes, 50 seconds
Shortcut Your Startup
Courtney Reum is the co-founder of VEEV Spirits, which was the best-selling independent liquor brand in the U.S. before being acquired by Luxco. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, he shares how you can never go wrong by moving forward and doing something. No one should be able to steal your confidence, love an idea, put something out there and see what happens.
8/16/2018 • 44 minutes, 5 seconds
Ending Small Business Failure With The SmallBizLady
Melinda F. Emerson, SmallBizLady, is Americas #1 Small Business Expert. She has been a thriving entrepreneur for nearly 20 years and is an internationally known keynote speaker and expert on small business development and social media marketing. She publishes a resource blog www.succeedasyourownboss.com Her small business advice is widely read reaching more than 3 million entrepreneurs each week online. A pioneer in social media marketing, she is the creator and host of #Smallbizchat, the longest running live chat on Twitter for small business owners. Forbes magazine named her the #1 woman for entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. Podcast Highlights Who is Melinda Emerson? Melinda is a dedicated single mom, dragonslayer, and entrepreneur. Early on Melinda looked around and saw there wasn’t a lot resources available for small business owners so she decided to take charge of the situation. After creating one of the fastest growing small businesses in America, Melinda realized she had made a mistake and built a business that couldn’t run without her. After being put on bed rest for six months when she became pregnant, Melinda had to make some drastic changes to her business and she learned a lot of lessons along the way. Starting A Small Business You have to plan for success, success will not just happen to you. Melinda has a six step system for planning your small business and the first step is figuring out what you really want. Not liking your current job is not enough, you need to have a plan or you may just destroy your entire life. You have to think about the money component, most businesses don’t make a profit until 18 to 24 months in. Things come up and you need money to take care of them. You need to understand how much the business is going to cost and where the money is going to come from. The great thing about being in America is you can reinvent yourself. If you want to start a business, work part time in the industry you want to start a business in and get some experience first. Personal Growth You have to grow yourself to grow your small business. You have to learn the skills necessary to create a successful business. Just because you are entrepreneur, that doesn’t mean you are a good manager. You have to figure out what is your most high value business activity. You should not be spending your time doing $15 and $20 per hour work. As an entrepreneur, you need to figure out what you don’t know and go fill the gaps in your knowledge. People know what is wrong with their businesses, they just aren’t willing to confront and deal with the problems. If you’re having trouble with people, try looking at yourself first. Take one day a week to work on what you want your business to be. Hiring If you want a real business, you need to hire people and have some help. In the beginning you have to hire the people you know, but you need to create a process to hire the right people and also be willing to fire someone. Reference: Fix Your Business, Melinda Emerson Melinda’s Takeaway Buy Become Your Own Boss In 12 Months, then find an existing entrepreneur and go have lunch with them, then ask what the three biggest mistakes they made in their business are. Links: succeedasyourownboss.com
8/13/2018 • 39 minutes, 28 seconds
Cost Recovery Secrets
Neil Evans has the unique profession of Cost Recovery Consultant, finding hidden money for U.S. Businesses in the form of specialized tax incentives and cost-recovery programs. He and his company work on a contingency basis, meaning that if his firm does not uncover financial benefit, the client owes them nothing. He is passionate about helping businesses survive and grow. To date, his company has found more than half a billion dollars for its clients. Podcast Highlights Who is Neil Evans? Neil’s dad was an entrepreneur who owned a restaurant during Neil’s childhood. Watching his father work and helped him understand the fundamentals of business and stoke his creativity. Neil later on went to work at BeachBody and fell into the role of optimizing the money that was spent in the company. After leaving the corporate world in 2010, Neil got into the Cost Recovery space because he found he really enjoyed helping businesses save money. Good, Fast, and Cheap You have to set boundaries in your minimum level of quality. Most businesses have so much waste in their processes that there is a huge opportunity for saving money. Cost Recovery And Optimizing Your Expenses Money always represents time, saving money means unlocking someone’s time. Waste is an expensive proposition, most businesses don’t have the wherewithal to know if their vendor is treating them fairly. This is one of the areas that Neil’s team has an expertise in. You can’t be an expert in everything there is to know in the world, and you shouldn’t try. It makes more sense to work with someone who specializes in the areas that you don’t, like cost recovery. There a number of areas in a business that can be optimized by someone with the proper expertise. The day to day operational expenses are prime areas to optimize. Building owners need to take advantage of cost segregation studies. It allows building owners to realize the appreciation of their property earlier on in the life of the building and can open up a number of opportunities. When you first purchase the building is when you should start the study. There are a number of different tax credits that businesses can take advantage of but they really require a specialist to help them navigate the red tape involved. In a lot of ways businesses are leaving free money on the table but not applying for these credits. If you are in business, there is an opportunity for you to optimize cash flow and cost recovery. Neil refers to class action lawsuits as Vegas money, you never know when the money is going to come but they can be extremely lucrative to look into. Neil’s Takeaway Rumination is your ruination. You never really get to find yourself unless you get out there and see what you’ve got personally. You don’t know what you’re capable of unless you try, don’t miss an opportunity like this. Links: wefindhiddenmoney.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
8/9/2018 • 54 minutes, 59 seconds
How To Wholesale Real Estate For Fun And Profit
Brad Chandler has successfully flipped over 2,100 houses since 2003. He is currently the CEO of Express Homebuyers – a real estate investing empire that does more than 200 deals per year without his assistance. Brad wrote How to Wholesale Real Estate for Profits Without Bank Loans to help others achieve their real estate investing dreams. Podcast Highlights Who is Brad Chandler? When Brad was ten years old, he parents divorced and his family was facing down going into public housing. His experience lead him to reading How to Buy Real Estate With No Money down and it inspired him to make real estate the foundation of his education. After living paycheck to paycheck for a few years, he met an investor that purchased his neighbour’s house and he opened Brad’s eyes to the world of flipping houses. Eight months later he managed to find his first deal. Wholesale Real Estate Myths When people think of real estate, they think of banks and capital heavy investment. They don’t realize there is another way to do it. Most people who dabble in real estate give up too easily. You have to develop patience in the face of desire, the mindset is key. Mindset is the difference between people who achieve the success they want and those who give up. Luckily you don’t need an expensive degree to change your mindset. Not knowing what you are doing shouldn’t stop you, a growth mindset allows you to figure it out as you go along. You may not know the answer today but you will find it if you look for it. It comes down to what you want in your life. Walking Away Brad always wanted his business to work for him instead of him working for his business. The secret is simple, people and systems. If you build the people, the people will build the business. The easiest part of the wholesale real estate business is selling a deal. If you have a true deal, you will always find a buyer. Everyone’s problem in the wholesale real estate space is finding the right people. Brad takes his time to hire and fires quickly. If you feel the need to hire someone, it’s already too late and you should have hired them long ago. A poor hiring decision will cost you ten times the person’s salary. Take your time to find the person who is the right fit. Brad’s passion is marketing and by bringing in the right people, he has been able to focus on marketing his business and it’s now one of the most highly trafficked websites in the investing space. You must have a website in this day and age. SEO and pay per click advertising are the two main strategies that Brad has used to crush it online. Brad has always had a passion for teaching and seeing the low quality in the real estate investing space lead him to create his own coaching business to help people start and scale real estate business. Reference: How to Wholesale Real Estate for Profits Without Bank Loans, Brad Chandler Brad’s Takeaway Download your free report from the link below. If someone is doubting your path, make them sit down and watch the video. There are only a few different areas that you need to understand in order to succeed in real estate and the rest is just busting your butt and making it happen. Links: bradchandler.com/cashflowdiary Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
8/6/2018 • 38 minutes, 48 seconds
Andrew Yang on Creating More Entrepreneurs
Andrew Yang is the founder of Venture for America and former CEO of Manhattan Prep. He previously served as Presidential Ambassador for Global Entrepreneurship under President Barack Obama's Administration. He is the author of the bestselling book Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America.
8/2/2018 • 40 minutes, 9 seconds
Building a Lifestyle Business
Aaron Muller is the founder of Lifestyle Business Owner Academy and a serial entrepreneur who currently owns eight multi-million dollar companies that run without him, including an eco-friendly truck washing company, a search engine optimization company, three auto repair shops, an auto glass franchise, a green pressure washing company, a matchmaking service, and an online business selling eco-friendly pet hair removers. He is the bestselling author of The Lifestyle Business Owner: How to Buy a Business, Grow Your Profits, and Make It Run Without You. Aaron spends his time helping entrepreneurs succeed because it is what he enjoys doing. Over the last 15 years, Aaron has mentored thousands of small business owners as a business broker, consultant, and coach. His specialty? How to make a business run without you. Podcast Highlights Who is Aaron Muller? Aaron’s story starts in the fifth grade where he started up a little shrimp business. He sold shrimp to tourists and saved every penny he had. He didn’t come from a wealthy family and got his first job cleaning trucks at the age of 15, that’s where he learned to become so valuable at his job that he created his own opportunities. Aaron became an owner of that cleaning company and grew the business right out of highschool. Aaron went on to buy an auto mechanic business and has been an absentee owner ever since. Making Mistakes When getting his first SBA loan, Aaron was told that he was going to fail and the only reason they were giving him the money was because he had a business that could guarantee the repayment. You don’t need to invent original things to make money. Entrepreneurs are great at taking what other people are doing and improving and implementing. How does someone buy a new lifestyle business and not get trapped? A business broker is essential to the process. People buy a lifestyle business because they want to be an absentee owner. Aaron doesn’t recommend buying a franchise, the fees and rules involved make it more difficult and your money and effort can be better spent elsewhere. Look at the financials of the lifestyle business and make sure it is feasible to hire a manager to take care of the day to day activities of running the business. Contact a broker and if the financial info doesn’t make sense, walk away from the deal. Your broker should be able to make it very easy to understand the financial picture. There is no exact science to business valuation, it’s going to be selling for between 2 and 5 times the owner’s discretionary income. Keeping the owner on board after buying their business can create some conflict when you start changing things. It may be better to just hire a manager or promote one of the team members to a management position. You don’t need a special ability to hire the right people, you just have to keep at it. Why did you feel the need to write the Lifestyle Business book? Aaron had been buying and selling businesses for 17 years and saw many entrepreneurs essentially buying themselves a job. He wants to empower small businesses to be better and compete with the big box stores. What are the barriers to entry? Even if you don’t have the 10% to put down against a new business, you can still put in time becoming so valuable to the business as an alternative way in. There is always a way to structure a deal. Reference: The Lifestyle Business Owner: How to Buy a Business, Grow Your Profits, and Make It Run Without You, Aaron Muller Aaron’s Takeaway
7/30/2018 • 41 minutes, 27 seconds
Creating The Ultimate Customer Experience
Jeanne Bliss is Founder and President of Customer Bliss and Co-Founder of The Customer Experience Professionals Association. She is the bestselling author of Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine and the new book WOULD YOU DO THAT TO YOUR MOTHER? The "Make Mom Proud" Standard for How to Treat Your Customers. Podcast Highlights Who is Jeanne Bliss? Jeanne is the daughter of a man who owned a Buster Brown shoe store. In the course of selling shoes, Jeanne’s father became a part of his customer’s lives and people stood in a line two blocks long to say goodbye when he closed the store. He instilled the spirit of entrepreneurship in his children on the way. Even when Jeanne was working in the corporate world, she was very entrepreneurial and her focus on the experience of the customer and the employees lead her to become the conscience of the company she worked for. She went on to work for Mazda, Coldwell Banker, AllState Corporation, and finally at Microsoft, all in roles with a similar focus on customer experience. How does an entrepreneur deliver a great customer experience? There are 32 practices that define our experiences as consumers. The new book divides these into four main categories and gives you the toolkits you can use to build a customer experience focused business. By bonding your employees to your business you reduce your labor costs. You have to establish expectations before you begin. There needs to be an explicit understanding of the two way trust involved in the customer experience. The disconnect occurs when the customer doesn’t understand the process because there is usually a gap between what customers expect and what they actually get. Be deliberate with what you want people to feel and think about the experience you want to deliver. Start with the life experience instead of chasing the score. Memory creation is the currency of your brand. How are you measuring customer love? Track and measure how many customers are coming back and those who are never returning. You need to earn the right to grow. Do you hire and develop people who you trust to create memories or do you hire people who only execute processes? When customers come at you, it’s because they feel like they have been disrespected or unappreciated. Reference: Chief Customer Officer 2.0: How to Build Your Customer-Driven Growth Engine, Jeanne Bliss Jeanne’s Takeaway Go on Amazon and buy the book, connect with Jeanne on LinkedIn, read the book and if there are ten people who are interested, Jeanne will do a book huddle. Pick one thing to work on, not ten things to work on. If you try to do more than one thing at a time it will implode. Links: https://www.amazon.com/Chief-Customer-Officer-2-0-Customer-Driven-ebook/dp/B00TWK3Q3M/ref%3Dtmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1524868439&sr=1-1 customerbliss.com cxpa.org make-mom-proud.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
7/26/2018 • 45 minutes, 18 seconds
From Employee To Real Estate Investing
Tom Cafarella always dreamed of following in his grandfather’s footsteps (a very successful landlord) and become a successful real estate mogul. Instead, he followed everyone’s advice and took on a traditional 9-to-5 job as an accountant. The problem: his heart was in real estate investing. It didn’t take long to get fired from his job due to his daydreaming about his passion. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Tom shares that if he were to go back and do it all over again he would find a coach that is successful in whatever field he was looking into and align himself with them. The hardest part of going out on your own is the trial and error process, if you can shorten that time you will make money a lot faster and ramp your business up a lot quicker. By having some you can work with that’s a little bit ahead of you, you can limit your downside.
7/19/2018 • 42 minutes, 52 seconds
Generating Wheelbarrow Profits with Multifamily Investing
7/12/2018 • 41 minutes, 47 seconds
Agricultural Investing with Harvest Returns
If you want to diversify your portfolio, listen to this episode with Chris Rawley and Austin Maness. Emerging markets don’t have the same opportunities that traditional farmers have and that’s the sector Chris and Austin are trying to serve. Agriculture is changing and what is being provided to the world is evolving, which is part of the reason Chris and Austin believe it’s a good investment opportunity. Start doing your research if your dream is to start your own agricultural operation, traditional or non-traditional, and give Chris and Austin a call when you are ready to make it a reality.
7/5/2018 • 44 minutes, 15 seconds
Value Investing and Opportunity Mindset
Lior has been nicknamed “Globeionaire” by millionaire entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen who have seen him in action. He has a global approach to life and business, and that’s where the name originates from. Over the past 16 years, Lior has built, run, and managed various exciting ventures across 2 continents. With Wealth Research Group, Lior provides a glimpse into his inner thoughts and work processes, so loyal members get to grow and expand their financial expertise along with him. His drive to consistently outperform the markets with an elevated degree of safety on one end and his commitment to seek out and find the most explosive “under the radar” opportunities on the other end will be clear to you with every word you read. Lior’s essential goal is to help you become wealthier by arming you with advanced strategies and a rich plethora of tools. Lior’s background is the ultimate blend of dividend and value investing, specialized high-yield companies for retirement, and the inner circle of venture capital, where his rolodex and contacts will become your unfair advantage and secret gateway to opportunities. Readers and members can anticipate Lior’s meticulous and unceasing pursuit of in-depth knowledge and ambition of living a wealthier, more balanced life, inspiring you to act and pursue your financial goals. Podcast Highlights Who is Lior Gantz? Lior started out by playing basketball and learning the art of a team sport. Being a playmaker for the team allowed him to understand how to make other people better at what they do. This is where Lior developed the idea that not all people are built alike and you can’t expect the same things from different people and he became extremely self reliant. He was unique amongst his friends in that he learned early on that you need to save money and not spend everything and that you need to deploy capital in order to make money. For most people, investing should be secondary and not primary in their pursuit of creating a good life. An entrepreneurial focus is required first before value investing really begins to pay off. Instead of trying to put people where Lior needed them, he learned that he needed to find the right people initially and focus on that. People like to make things harder for themselves than they need to, in business you should go where the competition is minimal and the barrier to entry is low. Branding is the number one thing that people need to do in life. Building Your Capital and Value Investing The first thing that people needs is a start over fund. Set aside enough money to cover your expenses for a year. Keep it at your residence in case you have an emergency. You need to figure out your lifestyle burn rate is, what your skill is and what you can do to create value. In order to save, you will need to shut out a number of distractions. 95% of people are three paychecks away from being broke. In order to build wealth, you will need to make sacrifices and maintain discipline. Value investing takes time. If you service less people and specialize in a specific niche, you will make more money. Building a massive business is a massive undertaking and isn’t right for everyone. When you shut out distractions, you can become smarter in a narrow body of knowledge that the vast majority of people in only 6 to 12 months. The quickest way to the good life is ignoring your inner voice that says it’s going to take a long time, find somebody nearby that you want to work with and figure out how to add value to what they are doing. Do what you can to connect with that person and learn from them. It all comes down to being indispensable. How do we find areas of low competition? If there is an area where nobody wants to do anything, that is a
6/28/2018 • 50 minutes, 36 seconds
Team Building With Counter Mentor Leadership
Kelly Riggs is an author, speaker and business performance coach for executives and companies throughout the U.S. and Canada. Kelly is a former sales executive and two-time national Salesperson of the Year with well over two decades of executive management and training experience. His new bestselling book, Counter Mentor Leadership: How to Unlock the Potential of the 4-Generation Workplace, offers practical, actionable advice that improves workplace culture and enables organizations to bridge the generational divide. Podcast Highlights Who is Kelly Riggs? Kelly started off going to school for engineering but quickly realized that wasn’t the path for him. He found himself in a sales position where he didn’t know enough about it to be scared. He approached his work from a blank slate, ready to jump in and learn and found he was willing to outwork nearly anyone. You can do lot with people that have passion and perseverance and Kelly certainly qualifies. Team Building with the Right People People learn in different ways but the important part is that they don’t stop learning in order to stay current and stay on top. Asking your perspective hires what the last five books they read was and what they learned from them is a good way to find the right kinds of people. Just because you start a book, doesn’t mean you have to finish it. Give a book three chapters, if it doesn’t grab you, skim the table of contents to make sure nothing jumps out at you and if you don’t see anything, move on. How did you go from sales to Bizlockerroom? Our approach to team building typically involves looking at our top sales people to promote into leadership but that rarely makes sense. Just because you can sell, that does not mean you can teach or lead a team. Kelly had to commit to learning everything he could in order to be a successful manager. Leadership requires a coaching and teaching mindset. If you can’t grow people, how can you grow your organization? If not you, you can always bring someone onto the leadership team to fill that role but you can’t leave it empty. When do you need to start coaching? Most startups are a team of one with some assistants. Even with a small team, you need to be able to engage them. At a certain point, you will have to hire someone for a leadership role because leadership and team building are critical. Without a leader, the owner becomes the bottleneck for the business. How to you get good at hiring? As business owners, one of the most important tasks is to hire and train people. There are systems for hiring that work that you have to commit to learning if you don’t want to figure it out the hard way. Leadership is not generational, it’s relational. The Millennials The Millennials are not necessarily to blame, you can’t forget who raised them. Failure is a great teacher and builder of character and many Millennials haven’t had the same experiences other generations have had. You need to understand their perspectives and leverage what they do and how they work. You should adapt your principles to new definitions of success and work. The workplace has changed dramatically in the last 15 years. If you hold the rope to tightly, you prospective leaders will get discouraged. Too tightly, and they won’t be able to lead. The Counter Mentor system is a team building system you can use that allows people to fail small and continue to learn. Reference: Counter Mentor Leadership: How to Unlock the Potential of the 4-Generation Workplace Kelly’s Takeaway Find an account
6/21/2018 • 41 minutes, 8 seconds
AHP: Debts, Chaos, and Cashflow
Jorge P. Newbery is on a mission to help Americans crushed by unaffordable debts. He is Founder and Chairman of American Homeowner Preservation LLC and AHP Servicing LLC. AHP crowdfunds the purchase of non-performing mortgages from banks at big discounts, then shares the discounts with struggling homeowners. AHP Servicing LLC will bring social responsibility and a willingness to do the right thing to an industry often devoid of caring, compassion and basic human decency. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Jorge explains that the most important thing is to take that first step. Then the second step, then the third step. List the steps and take the first one. Don’t look all the way to the finish line, work on getting through the first mile. Break it down into achievable bites that get you closer to your goal.
4/12/2018 • 42 minutes, 19 seconds
Thomas Smith: From Football To Real Estate
NFL athletes are notorious for being ill-prepared for life outside of football. It is not uncommon for former players to fall into financial distress or bankruptcy soon after their athletic career ends. Sports Illustrated reported that 78% of NFL players are broke within three years of retirement, not the case for Thomas Smith. His preparations for a post-football career began before his time in the NFL. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary podcast, Thomas encourages us not to pay attention to the outside voices, just listen to the inner voice. But you have to understand why your inner voice may be telling you something negative and be willing to make a leap of faith. Once you take action, don’t worry about the how of getting things done, just put together a plan and start doing. The how will come to you as you move through life. The passion, will, and determination to succeed will make it happen. Don’t quit and keep going.
4/9/2018 • 54 minutes, 4 seconds
Developing the Ultimate Entrepreneurial Skill
Joe Yazbeck is the Founder and President of Prestige Leadership Advisors whose mission is to facilitate leaders in becoming dynamic powerful communicators so they can significantly influence the world around them. Joe has worked with heads of state to leaders of major corporations as well as high-ranking military officers, political candidates to best-selling authors.
4/5/2018 • 41 minutes, 45 seconds
Long Distance Real Estate Investing
David Greene is a real estate investor/agent, author, entrepreneur, and police officer in the San Francisco Bay area of California. David’s goal is to achieve total financial independence through real estate, and help others to do the same. When David is not out hunting for bad guys, he hunts for deals and loves talking real estate. This episode is all about the world of long-distance real estate investing.
4/2/2018 • 47 minutes, 31 seconds
Joel Solomon on the Clean Money Revolution
Joel Solomon is Co-Founder and Chair of Renewal Funds, Canada's largest mission venture capital firm at $98m, investing in Organics and EnviroTech in Canada and the USA. With Founder/Funder Carol Newell, he spent 14 years implementing a "whole portfolio to mission" strategy as leader of her activist Family Office. On this episode of CashFlow Diary Podcast, Joel shares how you need to find the mentors, voices, and the influences that you believe will help you think through the kinds of questions you are going through. Entrepreneurship is almost like a religion in many areas of the world, the number of resources available is immense.
3/29/2018 • 45 minutes
CFD 448 - Common Sense Business Growth
Kevin Van Eekeran started his career as a logistic officer for a SWAT team, which gave him insight into the criminal justice world, and he soon found that through training SWAT teams better he could reduce the use of force while bettering the national security of our country. Fulcrum Tactical was born out of that idea, and within 18 months he expanded it from a charity to a for-profit company. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Kevin shares how the first thing you should do is to get outside opinions. Once you get some positive feedback, take the amount of money you think it will take to get started and double it. It will probably still be too small of an estimate.
2/22/2018 • 38 minutes, 11 seconds
CFD 447 - Designing Your Life Around What You Love
Back in 2008, Kean Graham was working as a digital marketing manager, but lost my his job during the global financial crisis. With his career on hold, he decided to do the one thing he loved: travel. Standing on a mountain overlooking Machu Picchu, Kean realized he never wanted to stop. From that day forward he’s been combining my passion for entrepreneurship with his love of travel. Kean shares on this episode of the CashFlow Diary podcast that even if you don’t have an idea yet, write down every idea you’ve had and do the research. Just enough to narrow it down to one or two then reach out to potential clients and assess the opportunity within. Once you find the one that feels right, dig in and commit. Learn how to bring your client’s value and keep working at it. Get started and stay started.
2/19/2018 • 35 minutes, 23 seconds
CFD 446 - David Pogue and Mastering Money
David Pogue is the tech critic for Yahoo Finance, having been groomed for the position by 13 years as the personal-technology columnist for the New York Times. He’s also a monthly columnist for Scientific American and host of science shows on PBS’s "NOVA." He’s been a correspondent for "CBS Sunday Morning" since 2002. With over 3 million books in print, David is one of the world’s bestselling how-to authors. He wrote or co-wrote seven books in the "for Dummies" series (including Macs, Magic, Opera, and Classical Casino Music); in 1999, he launched his own series of complete, funny computer books called the Missing Manual series, which now includes 120 titles. On this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, David shares the only way you can break out of the dollars for time paradigm is if you create something of value. Create a company, write a book, compose a song, do something that you can be paid for way out of proportion for your time and starting generating geometric income.
2/15/2018 • 54 minutes, 27 seconds
CFD 445 - Dealing With Rejection To Achieve Your Mission In Life
Neale Godfrey is the CEO and President of Green$treet Commons and Chairman of The Children's Financial Network. She is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of nearly 30 books empowering children and their families to take charge of their financial lives. In this episode of the CashFlow Diary Podcast, Neale shares how to lower the noise of the people surrounding you who are saying you can’t do it. If it’s you, stop saying that. You need to have the goal and the vision and the tactics to get there.
2/12/2018 • 43 minutes, 59 seconds
CFD 444 - Bluefish and Getting Things Done
Steve Sims’s day job is to make the impossible possible. With his help and expertise, his clients’ fantasies and wildest dreams come true. Getting married by the Pope in the Vatican, being serenaded by Elton John, and connecting with powerful business moguls like Elon Musk are just a few of the many projects he has worked on. He rarely reveals how he accomplishes the feats that make his clients so happy. But now for the first time, Steve shares his practical tips, techniques, and strategies to help readers break down any obstacle and turn their dreams into reality.
2/8/2018 • 45 minutes, 19 seconds
CFD 443 - Getting Started and Staying Started in Real Estate Investing
Whitney Nicely went from no investments (or strategies) to 19 houses, 19 apartment units and 7 chunks of land in less than three years all bringing monthly money to her bank account on autopilot. She has traveled the United States speaking on stages, teaching her simple strategies, and meeting with other successful real estate investors- and still buying houses the way she teaches others. On this episode, she shares how starting something like real estate can seem scary from the outset. When you focus on your seller and buyers, that takes the pressure off you. Your goal in this life should be to help as many people as you can, keep your efforts small, personal, and smooth.
1/25/2018 • 44 minutes
CFD 442 - Ego Free Business
Shayne Hughes is the President and Culture Change Partner at Learning as Leadership. Shayne is also the bestselling author of the new book, "Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits that Hijack Your Business." In this episode, he shares how your ego will tell you a story that keeps you in your comfort zone. It is constantly making trade-offs that are aiming to protect yourself from something you are afraid of. Even people who tend to get a lot done, do so within their comfort zone. They aren’t doing anyone any favors by playing small.
1/22/2018 • 49 minutes, 7 seconds
CFD 441 - How to Build an Empire
Sean Dowdell is the Founder of Club Tattoo and author of, "Tattooed Millionaire: Building the Club Tattoo Empire" With the help of his wife/partner; Thora and partner (Chester Bennington), they created one of the most successful tattoo and piercing brands in the world and became multi-millionaires that give back to their communities and help other young entrepreneurs.
1/18/2018 • 37 minutes, 34 seconds
CFD 440 - Robert Dickie On Living Your True Genius
Robert Dickie III is the President of Crown Financial Ministries and has served as a decorated Air Force Officer, the CEO of an international company, and as the leader of several non-profits. He is the bestselling author of THE LEAP: Launching Your Full-Time Career in Our Part-Time Economy and the new book LOVE YOUR WORK: 4 Practical Ways You Can Pivot to Your Best Career. On this episode, he shares how the toughest critic to fight is the voice inside of us. It’s key to realize that our fears almost never come to pass, and our gut reactions are usually wrong. Check your thoughts, there is positive right around the corner and you just have to take the first step.
1/15/2018 • 46 minutes, 37 seconds
CFD 439 - The Truth About Money
Ric Edelman, Founder & Executive Chairman of Edelman Financial Services, has been ranked the #1 Independent Financial Advisor in the nation by Barron’s three times.1 His commitment to teaching consumers about personal finance has established him as a popular and trusted financial professional in the country. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Edelman’s eight books have collectively sold more than one million copies and have been translated into several languages.
1/11/2018 • 48 minutes, 45 seconds
CFD 438 - Buying a Business By Thinking Like An Investor
Moran is an investor, and the founder of ABD Assets he’s looking to buy and invest in good businesses and people. He’s now on his path to own more businesses than Richard Branson. In this episode, you will learn the following about Moran: Why and how you became an investor? What are your thoughts about starting a startup vs buying an existing business? Walk us through the process of buying a business what are the steps - Where you find them, what is your criteria, how do you finance them, who is running the business for you? How did you learn about this world and how others can learn?
1/8/2018 • 35 minutes, 23 seconds
CFD 437 - Breaking Through The Barriers That Are Holding You Back
Mitch Russo’s experience dates back to 1978 when he started working as an Electrical Engineer at Digital Equipment Corp in Maynard, MA. He migrated to application engineering for Mostek (a semiconductor company) and then to selling chips to large and small companies alike. Podcast Highlights: Who is Mitch Russo? What are the top 3 basic things that entrepreneurs skip? How should someone become an expert? Do you find more fulfillment helping others or in building something new? What are some of the most powerful strategies have you learned by doing your podcast? What are the top things that prevent entrepreneurs from breaking through?
1/4/2018 • 42 minutes, 34 seconds
CFD 436 - How The Best Keep Getting Better: Unlock Your Potential
Mark Sanborn is the president of Sanborn & Associates, Inc., an idea lab for leadership development and turning ordinary into extraordinary. He is also the New York Times bestselling author of, "The Fred Factor: How passion in your work and life can turn the ordinary into the extraordinary," "Fred 2.0: New Ideas on How to Keep Delivering Extraordinary Results," and, "You Don't Need a Title to Be a Leader: How Anyone, Anywhere, Can Make a Positive Difference." Mark’s spider bite moment came after he delivered a terrible public speech at the tender age of 10. He made the decision afterwards to learn everything he could in the realm of public speaking instead of giving up and considering it a weakness. The better you communicate, the more effective you will be as an entrepreneur and a leader. Influence is always born from communication.
1/1/2018 • 42 minutes, 39 seconds
CFD 435 - Making Games For Fun And Profit
Michael Mindes is the Founder and CEO of Tasty Minstrel Games (TMG) which is a multiple award-winning publisher of hobby board games. In this capacity, he grew TMG from a side business into a company approaching $2,000,000 in annual revenues, a team of 10 people, and all without any outside investment. As of October 17th, 2016 - TMG has receiving $2,546,682 in funds from Backers on Kickstarter from 26 individual hobby board gaming projects. Podcast Highlights Who is Michael Mindes? Michael started off when he was four years old playing games like Candy Land and trying to figure out ways to make the game better. He graduated to chess as he got older and later on to Magic: the Gathering. In the early 2000’s, Michael discovered German style board games like Settlers of Catan. Essentially, Michael has been immersed in the world of games for the last three decades. What made you decide that making games could be a business? Michael originally decided to become a financial advisor after becoming a father instead of going into the games industry. The depressing nature of the financial industry eventually got to him, and his wife encouraged Michael to pursue his dream of making games of his own. Michael began by identifying the things that he had to give up before starting his own business. He knew he couldn’t sacrifice time with his family or work, and so he had to tailor his life to make it work. We are currently in an environment where the cost of business is extremely low. In order to be successful, you have to compete with people who are willing to work crazy number of hours. If you don’t have that passion, you will probably not be as successful as you hope. How do you feel about the thought process of getting started? If you can’t get over the six month speed month and it’s not really going anywhere, you may not be in the right space or you just may not be good enough. If you want to be in a specific industry, start in a place where you can work closely with someone who has done what you want to learn. Especially if you are young. Don’t expect success overnight. How does an entrepreneur deal with obstacles like upfront costs? A lot of the obstacles that are out there as a way to make it okay that you are not putting forth the effort. The technology to get people’s attention is essentially free. You can’t sell something until you have someone to sell it to. Getting eyes on what you are doing is how you learn if you are moving in the right direction. How did crowdfunding come into your business? Michael’s first watershed moment was when he was first starting out. He posted a picture of a pile of board games that he wanted to give away, and then asked people to sign up to his email list in order to sign up. He had 700 people sign up in 2 days. Michael’s first kickstarter was the second. He was terrified of the implications of the kickstarter failing but it ended up succeeding and validating his ideas. What was the growing process like? Michael describes his business’s maturing process as moving a mountain. To move a mountain, you pick up one piece at a time and keep going. What does the game making process look like? TMG treats board games the same way that Simon and Schuster treats books. They take ideas that designers submit, separate the ones they think have potential and work together to develop them. From there it’s about coordinating with retailers, manufacturers, and shippers to figure out a solution that’s profitable for everyone involved. The turnaround time for a project can be anywhere from two months to six months, and sometimes lo
12/28/2017 • 44 minutes, 21 seconds
CFD 434 - The Art Of Connection
Michael J. Gelb is the founder and president of The High Performance Learning Center, a firm specializing in consulting and training for organizations interested in developing more innovative cultures. He is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of, "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day." Gelb is the world’s leading authority on the application of genius thinking to personal and organizational development. He is a pioneer in the fields of creative thinking, accelerated learning, and innovative leadership. Gelb leads seminars for organizations such as DuPont, Genentech, Merck, Microsoft, Nike, Raytheon and YPO. He brings more than 35 years of experience as a professional speaker, seminar leader and organizational consultant to his diverse, international clientele. Podcast Highlights Who is Michael Gelb? Michael was so energetic as a kid that he got kicked out of nursery school. He has a core of curiosity that lead him to create his own business geared toward serving people in ways that are aligned with things that he liked to do. The core aspect of Michael’s success and fulfillment thus far is due to the connections and relationships he’s developed over the course of his career. Communication skills are not getting better, they are actually getting worse. Technology is great for some things but it’s eroding the way we connect with each other as humans. What is your definition of connection? We are networked, but not connected. We have access to information, but not to empathy. Sometimes an information onslaught makes it harder to connect to ourselves, let alone each other. Technology is addictive. It’s taking your mind away, instead of your organs in the way cigarettes do. Have a digital sunset each day, and take a day off entirely every once in awhile. What are the seven different skillsets that have been broken by technology? The one factor that is the greatest predictor of health, wealth, and longevity is connection. Emotions are contagious, be careful what you catch and you spread. Narcissism ends up being very expensive in business, the new model is making the world a better place and making people happy consistently. Treat people with respect, and you will engage and motivate the people you work with and work for. How do introverts create new relationships? Whatever your personality type is, it’s important to do the opposite of whatever your natural inclination is. Growth comes from getting out of your comfort zone. Looking at the world from a different perspective is a core skill of leadership. What does that kind of discipline look like in practice? If you’re introverted, go up to five people you don’t know in a room and introduce yourself. What starts out as anxiety turns into exhilaration when you realize you are doing something you’ve never done before. Becoming a successful and wiser human being includes pushing your boundaries, especially with something that has a business application. Reference: How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day, Michael Gelb Michael’s Takeaway Write down your life purpose. Write down the major areas of your life and map it out, then write down the most important goal in each area of your mind map. Put your goals into the context of what drives you, when you have a higher purpose you liberate way more energy to make it happen. Links: michaelgelb.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please
12/25/2017 • 44 minutes, 25 seconds
CFD 433 - Turning The Great Bubble Burst To Your Advantage
Harry Dent is the Founder of Dent Research, Editor of the FREE newsletter Economy & Markets, and the author of the new book The Sale of a Lifetime: How the Great Bubble Burst of 2017 Can Make You Rich. He received his MBA from Harvard Business School and was a successful consultant to Fortune 100 companies at Bain & Company. Harry Dent has also spent much of his career speaking to executives, financial advisors and investors around the world. He’s appeared on “Good Morning America,” PBS, CNBC and CNN/FN. He’s been featured in Barron’s, Investor’s Business Daily, Entrepreneur, Fortune, Success, U.S. News and World Report, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, American Demographics and Omni. He is also a regular guest on Fox Business. Podcast Highlights Who is Harry Dent? Harry started out by working for Fortune 100 companies after college and later went to Harvard Business School which is where he really discovered his true talents of seeing the big picture. thinking on his feet, and being able to argue very well. While consulting, Harry learned nearly everything there is to know about demographics. What was it that clued you into what you were meant to do? Harry’s experience in Harvard debating real world business scenarios is where he learned that he was really good at communicating. Some people know what they want to do when they are 14, and some people like Harry discover what they are meant to do through a series of fortunate accidents. Leaving Bain & Company was like jumping off a cliff, but entrepreneurs have to take calculated risks on top of having a vision for the future. Where did you develop the confidence to make the jump? You have to take risks intelligently. Start your business on the side, and make the transition step by step. Test everything and don’t gamble your whole enterprise on one thing. What is it about demographics that gets you so excited? Prior to President Ford, there was no middle class. With the creation of the middle class and the advent of the baby boom, demographics became incredibly important. Demographics give you an insight into the behaviour of very large groups of people. If you’re taking a risk, you’re going to have a better chance of succeeding if you take that risk on a trend that is growing instead of declining. Marketing is always the biggest initial challenge of starting a business, not the technology. What do you think about trends in real estate? Nursing homes, funeral homes, and hospitals will all see upswings in terms of real estate value. Harry predicts another big financial crisis coming, but he believes it’s going to be a major opportunities for entrepreneurs. How can we see bubbles coming and what can we do about them? You have to have a different strategy for each season. When bubbles occur, they don’t see them because they are getting something for nothing. Bubbles rise exponentially, come to an explosive climax, followed by a tremendous crash. You can’t keep a bubble going forever. As high as they go, the crash twice as fast. It’s better to get out early, rather than late. When things go down, the opportunities open up at the speed of light. The businesses that hunker down at the top of the bubble with cash in reserve will find themselves in a solid position to pick up assets at a deep discount. Where do precious metals come in? Harry told his clients to get out of gold and silver at the top of the market. Gold is an inflation hedge, but this bubble will be deflationary. What are the four indicators that you looked at to see
12/21/2017 • 48 minutes, 6 seconds
CFD 432 - HEX Performance: Create More Possibility In Your Life With Access Consciousness
Gary M Douglas is an internationally-recognized thought leader, bestselling author, business innovator and founder of Access Consciousness®, a set of pragmatic tools and teachings that is transforming lives in 173 countries around the world. He is the author of Benevolent Leadership For A Better World. An avid investor and entrepreneur, Gary has established ‘The Antique Guild’ store in Brisbane, Australia, owns a thriving stud for Costarricense De Paso horses, and is currently building an eco-retreat in Costa Rica. Podcast Highlights Who is Gary Douglas? Gary Douglas has spent his life in the search of truth. He made a commitment to himself to be honest and stand by his word early on in his life. Gary’s experience in the horse industry taught him that you can’t lie with a horse, either you’re there or you’re not. If you’re true with a horse, they will be true for you. Gary wondered if it were possible to be that way with people too. This realization eventually lead to the creation of Access Consciousness. Do people not have a commitment to completing? Never give up, never give in, and don’t quit. But that doesn’t mean you won’t change if something is not working. Most people talk themselves out of even trying before they really know if it’s working or not. If you want something, what do you have to be or do to get it? If you are not being or doing that thing, how can you expect that you will get what you wanted? What did you learn that allowed you to come to that realization? Gary set his goal to own a horse. Once he knew what he wanted, he learned how to be so good at riding horses that he was able to get better deals on horses that no one else could ride. He would then teach the horse how to let people ride them, and be able to sell that horse for much more than he purchased it for. If you’re not willing to be or do what you need to succeed, you will not achieve your goals. Your level of commitment will reflect in your results. What was the genesis of Access Consciousness? Access Consciousness is about creating the tools and techniques that allow people to create more in their life. If you ask a question, the universe can give you an answer. You have come to a conclusion, the only thing you can be aware of is the conclusion you already have. What is the role of failure? Always look for a constant state of expansion instead of a result. You should always be aware of what is going on and assessing what is working and what isn’t. Once you make the choice to pursue a goal, you will discover the path to make it a reality. You need to find out what is possible, not just what is probable. Things that are easy for are not necessarily easy for everybody. The thought patterns we’ve been taught are not serving us anymore and we need to think of the world in terms of what is possible. Don’t try to create the change you want to see in the world, be it. Where should we look to discover our hidden talents? Think about the things that are natural and easy for you, and brainstorm ways you can use that skill to make money. Reference: Benevolent Leadership For A Better World, Gary Douglas Gary’s Takeaway Never give up, never give in, and never quit. Never listen to anyone else and don’t share your ideas with people. The one thing that most people will tell you first is why you can’t do it. Links: accessconsciousness.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please
12/18/2017 • 38 minutes, 14 seconds
CFD 431 - HEX Performance: From Athlete To Entrepreneur
Drew Westervelt is Founder & COO of HEX Performance. As a 9-year professional lacrosse player, Drew has traveled the world competing and performing at the highest level, discovering first-hand the challenge of washing performance wear and athletic gear. Born and raised in Baltimore, Drew has deep roots in his hometown. After graduating from UMBC, it was only natural to build HEX in the city he loved. Drew’s rejection of the status quo and his experience in team management both on and off the field led to the development of HEX products that are changing what clean means for laundry today. Podcast Highlights Who is Drew Westervelt? Drew viewed what most would call a disability a gift. Being dyslexic forced Drew to change the way he learns and approach things differently. Drew wasn’t always on the path of the entrepreneur. He got an uninspiring job out of college while playing professional Lacrosse on the weekend, which lead him to having the idea that eventually lead to the creation of HEX. HEX has essentially been a story of multiple pivots and innovations in the market and the technology. HEX is to detergents what Uber was to the Taxi industry a few years ago. What was the timeline on HEX performance? Being a professional Lacrosse player gave Drew a platform that he wouldn’t have had otherwise and opened doors for him that never would have been there. Drew realized that he needed to engage people and have a scrappy guerilla mindset in order to get his product out there. Targeting specific groups of people and letting the performance of the product speak for itself has been a very successful strategy. Beating the street and talking to people has been the method of choice. Drew’s Takeaway Dive right in. Being an entrepreneur is an incredible process. It’s completely empowering, it’s completely terrifying, but at the end of the day you’re much more fulfilled if you can find something that you’re passionate about. Even something as silly as laundry detergent. Links: hexperformance.com Use promo code CASHFLOW Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
12/14/2017 • 40 minutes, 22 seconds
CFD 430 - The Principles Of Real Estate Investing
Erik Stark is an Expert Real Estate Entrepreneur, Educator, Marketer, Ubercool Dad and Dedicated Husband of 13+ Years. Erik has purchased hundreds of properties, created masterful marketing pieces, shared the stage with the top real estate and personal development educators, helped thousands of people improve their lives and continues to pour his life into people, friendships, disciplines, breakthroughs and growth. Podcast Highlights Who is Erik Stark? If you want to know who Erik really is you have to observe him, not just listen to his words. Erik originally went to take the test for his Real Estate license right out of high school but after being told there wasn’t enough people in the class and the test was cancelled, he believed that Real Estate wasn’t for him. He later went on to work in an automobile detailing shop where he met up with a friend that convinced him they should go into the Real Estate business together. In the first eight months in business, they closed 35 deals and generated just under a quarter million dollars in profit. What was it like when you realized you could make that kind of money? The biggest breakthrough in Erik’s business life was when he realized he learned a new skill that he could take it wherever he went. Principles of Real Estate Investing “The man who chooses his own principles can gladly choose his own methods throughout life.” Ralph Waldo Emerson Success and entrepreneurship is not about what’s quick and easy. It’s about a systematic approach to testing and improving your process. What are your top three principles? Stop chasing an opportunity and work a strategy instead. Focus on lead generation. Focus on your vision and don’t abandon it for something new and shiny. There are a million ways to make money in Real Estate, but when you strategy aligns with your values that’s when you create something very special. Once you have a team that can execute, your job becomes generating leads to keep the team working. Taking lead generation to the next level is how you can stand out in the marketplace. Everyone questions their path every once in awhile. When you know your “why”, it will lead you to the right path towards greatness. You will never outearn your personal growth. What is it in your vision that helps you push through? There is no growth without trials. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. There is risk no matter which path through life you pick. Erik’s Takeaway You have to find something bigger than yourself that is going to help you keep it together when the negative voices start talking. Break it down to its core so you know exactly why you’re pushing so hard. With regards to Real Estate, learn it from a street level that is close to home. Have as many conversations with buyers, sellers, and lenders of Real Estate that you can. Links: realestatewhileyoudrive.com therealerikstark.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
12/11/2017 • 42 minutes, 32 seconds
CFD 429 - Surviving and Thriving with the Thriver’s Edge
Donna Stoneham, Ph.D. is a master executive coach, transformational leadership expert, author, activist and speaker. For twenty-five years, she’s guided several thousand Fortune 1000 leaders, teams, and organizations unleash their power to thrive™ in work and life. Donna's award-winning book, The Thriver’s Edge: Seven Keys to Transform the Way You Live, Love, and Lead was named by BuzzFeed as “Nine Awesome Books for Your Kick-Ass Career.” She is also a contributor in two books, The Coaching Code: Practical Tips for Cracking the Code and Building a Successful Coaching Business and Ask Coach (October, 2016). As one of the world's leading coaches, Donna will be featured in the upcoming full length documentary, Leap! The Coaching Movie Podcast Highlights Who is Donna Stoneham? Donna is fully committed to do everything in her power to help people work and thrive. Just over 50% of the people in the US believe they are thriving despite the fact the US has the world’s biggest economy. Seven out of ten people that go to work in the US are not engaged in their jobs. If you are one of the people that is thriving, it’s important to pay it back and pay it forward. Donna became very sick while running two businesses and completing her graduate degree, but that trial lead to her discovering the truth of what her mission really is. Where does the courage to make that decision come from? “At what price, freedom. At what price, responsibility.” Donna felt the financial freedom and sacrifices of being an entrepreneur outweighed the benefits of working for someone else. After getting sick, Donna decided that anything she worked on had to be in the service of a deeper mission. What constitutes thriving? There are seven keys to Thriving: Trust, Humility, Resilience, Inner Direction, Vision, Expansiveness, and Responsibility. Many of us have a limited perspective and are unable to see the full landscape of what is possible. You must be willing to change and learn if you want to enlarge your perspective. Balance is what makes life rich and robust. If all you do is focus on your work all the time, you are unable to grow. Use your intuition as your inner compass, the trick is to discern your intuition from your ego. You have to be willing to make the shift from “what can I get?” to “what can I give?” How did you evolve to that level of thinking? There are two ways you can learn or grow, either through inspiration or desperation. Equal parts reflection and reaction are important to growth in the right direction. Having a reflective practice as part of your day is crucial. Does business factor in thriving? Once you live your own personal mission, the sky's the limit on what you can achieve and accomplish. Reference: The Thriver’s Edge: Seven Keys to Transform the Way You Live, Love, and Lead, Donna Stoneham Donna’s Takeaway Surround yourself with soul tenders, people that will support you and your journey. Reconnect yourself to your mission and purpose daily. Before undertaking something, ask yourself “does this align with my mission?” and trust that the universe will send you an opportunity that will be a better fit. Links: facebook.com/donnastonehamphd [email protected] Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to the show on iTunes!
12/7/2017 • 40 minutes, 45 seconds
CFD 428 - Become an Irresistible Consultant
David A. Fields is the Managing Director of Ascendant Consortium, a group of elite, independent business consultants whose clients span the Fortune 500. He is the author of the new bestselling book The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients: 6 Steps to Unlimited Clients & Financial Freedom. Named one of Advertising Age magazine’s “Marketing Top 100,” Fields has worked with consulting firms and individual consultants all over the world who are anxious to grow their practices and earn a steadier, more reliable income. He has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, USA Today, CNNMoney and The Huffington Post, writes a monthly column for IndustryWeek and Consulting magazines. Fields is a sought-after speaker to national and international executive audiences. Podcast Highlights Who is David Fields? David considers himself an “everyday hero”. After business school, David started in corporate America doing sales before getting into consulting and spinning off his own firm with a partner. After four weeks, his partner jumped ship and David found himself with a company that had virtually no clients. Some timely advice from a colleague which revealed David’s innate ability to sell consulting services changed the course of David’s business. What makes you different? David is willing to persevere and try again, even in the face of failure. Be willing to find help, ask for it and keep trying. David’s philosophy is that all the answers come from outside your life. As a consultant, it doesn’t matter what you want to do. It’s not about you, it’s about the clients. The Rise of the Independent Professional There are an abundance of role models for kids that are 15, 16, and 17 years old that have been successful in business that are driving a generation of independence. Why do so many consultants have challenges landing clients? Consultants are too focused on themselves instead of paying attention to the market. It’s not about all the things you can do, it’s about what the market needs you to solve. When you are very specific with what you do, people will call you first if they have that specific problem. You have to pick a problem that is pervasive enough and expensive enough that people want to solve. Why do consultants undercharge? In many cases, people are undercharging for their services. When you charge higher fees, you have the room to do whatever you need to get the client the best possible result. Whether or not you are undercharging is the hardest question to answer. Can you create a higher value? If so, you can charge larger amounts. Clients aren’t paying you by the hour, they are paying you for a specific results. You don’t charge the same for every client. Have standardized systems and approaches, not a standard list of services. Tailor your solution to your client to fit like a glove. Discovering what is driving your client better than the even know themselves will make you the obvious choice. Before you can make a sale and get more visibility, you have to make a bigger impact. Reference: The Irresistible Consultant's Guide to Winning Clients: 6 Steps to Unlimited Clients & Financial Freedom, David Fields David’s Takeaway Listen to the voice and manage it, address and test its concerns. We all have that voice but the question is: does it scare you or do you use it to help you move forward? Links: www.winclientsnow.com www.davidafields.com Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this podcast, please