Building Your Network and Monetizing Referrals

Introducing Mike um actually the day I got back and started on the entrepreneurial Journey so I started a company in the fintech space which stands for financial technology we did credit card processing and we built some software systems and then I later sold that in my early 30s and now I’m in my mid-30s and I’ve gotten into real estate about two and a half years ago or three years ago and now I’m primarily wholesaling real estate and then also investing and build their own portfolio so there’s a lot of like micro stories and things like that between you know that time from when I started on in entrepreneurship and now but knowledge she kind of lead us from here bring it up you so you left your job the day after your honeymoon man was that planned was that kind of I’m just curious how all that went down well we were waiting to see how much we got in gifts like monetary gifts and at the time you know we didn’t have a lot of expenses so it didn’t have to be much but we always I had already started kind of on the side this credit card processing thing and if you don’t know about it it’s a business where you help businesses take credit cards and the thing that I liked about it was it it gave you residual income uh once you signed up in an account and it was much like you know owning rental property you get residual income from the cash flow and when you want to run a property so I did that a little bit had some a little bit of income coming in from there but we got six thousand dollars in gifts and I just like used that as my Runway to start my business and you know for the first year my wife supported us the really first second if you know year one and year two my wife supported us on her salary at the time we were only 26 like I said so expenses were low and then like the third year it just like really went gangbusters and took off so just had to stick with it for some time to to make it work very interesting okay yeah Starting in Real Estate so that’s digging to there too because a lot of people like gotta have this big Runway or gotta have all this ready before I could leave my job but really you were like I got six thousand dollars and I’ve got a spouse that’s got enough that we can cover our expenses and and that was it huh you felt like even like how about like people talk about seed capital or what was good what it was going to take to get your business off the ground but I guess was it kind of a model where you felt like you could start with relatively low investment and just stack it and build it yeah so it was super it was really you know it was very Scrappy I hated my jobs at the time so I knew like I needed to go do something else try something else I didn’t after college I had a tough time like it was a weird time in life and just trying to find out what I was good at and was not good at and what I liked and didn’t like I did not like the jobs that I had um so and I always had an entrepreneurial spirit and so I had a rich neighbor when I was growing up that did credit card processing and so I was like okay maybe this is something I should give a shot give you know give a try and uh he actually was a mentor of mine early on and so yeah it was a low barrier to entry you just really needed to go sign like walk into the front door of like restaurants Medical Offices things like that try to get them to switch over to you so really all you had to pay for was like gas if you drove a car which I didn’t even I was in Chicago so I just walked door to door make phone calls those types of things and uh yeah rent was only thirteen hundred dollars a month at the time uh which is super low for Chicago and we just were like economical in the way we spent our money um so we were able to make it last a long time still had a lot of fun though but yes I don’t think at the time there you know I have this mistaken belief where I’m not you know sometimes like I have an imposter syndrome or like I’m not good enough for this or I haven’t hit that level to be able to raise money or things like that but so at the time I 100 you know would not have had the Utilizing your resources to your advantage confidence to take someone else’s money to try to start my own business so that wasn’t even a thought so I used just that Capital that we had to give it a shot yeah and I love it and then the other part is the sales experience right so and I’m curious how you’ve utilized that you know it sounds like you immediately implemented that in that kind of startup but even I’m sure you put it into real estate and the reason I’m asking is I don’t know when I first read Rich Dad Poor Dad he talks about like hey you should do a sales summer job or like you gotta learn everybody’s got to learn to sell but to me that was like crap I’ve never sold or I grew up my background I was an engineer I was a math guy I felt like I never knew how to sell but once I started my first business it you just kind of figured it out but I’m curious your experience and then how you’ve kind of parlayed that yeah I really don’t I don’t like like the traditional sales but I did learn the basics you know in my jobs that I had when I left college and started to go into the real world so I learned all the basics there but it was really sales is just all about discipline honestly I still am not the best sales person definitely not probably not top 50 but you just got to be disciplined and follow up and just you know when you get you know kicked out of a place because they don’t want to talk to you and they don’t like credit card processors or whatever you’re doing you know that’ll affect you for sure but don’t let it affect you for too long and go back to it you know a lot of us you know we get told no and then we just never start again we never we get hurt and don’t want to feel that way anymore and so we stop but really you know you just got to keep going and you’ll get better at your craft as you go and that’s kind of how like I’ve done everything through real estate and this and my sales jobs as well love it cool mainly people talk about hey you gotta be able to overcome fear Overcoming fears and overcome being rejected right but like you just categorize that as hey or you just I think articulated it as hey you just have to have discipline it’s not necessarily overcoming that it’s just like hey you’re just gonna be disciplined enough to not give up right and go do it again yeah because I you know see stuff on social things like that where it’s like oh you can’t let that bother you everything bothers me I’m super sensitive person I always have been and so but you have to have that discipline to keep going back I would not have assumed that about you but being that’s the type of person how do you continue to over I mean you’ve talked about a little bit but anything else you’ve done to when you do take it personal and yeah you know there’s so many different tools that I have I’m huge into like leveraging tools to be able to live my life like intentionally and so you know those types of situations where you know I get thrown out of a business or whatever you know you know I I’ll make a phone call sometimes like somebody that’s like been there done that or is super supportive and I know will have the right words to you know keep me going and then also you know I’ve done a lot of emotional intelligence training and those types of things so just like really feeling it and knowing that that’s like you know it’s not a bad thing those feelings aren’t a bad thing and it’s not a bad thing then that I’m sensitive just knowing that I’m highly sensitive and that I feel those feelings deeper sometimes than most people is helpful just like knowledge is power I really do believe that in that case and so just being able to be like okay you know you’re hurt clearly being able to label it it’s okay you’re not gonna die and move on to the next one you know because we all have these feelings and things like we all we all are running away from you know the lion or tiger or something that’s chasing us you know we all feel like you know we still have cavemen brains and feelings and those types of things so I’m not gonna die in this situation let’s just keep going and maybe it’ll hurt less in the future and it does a little bit but it still hurts ethical takeaway I mean I loved everything you said but my big takeaway is calling somebody or having somebody supportive like ready to go when you feel like that because I’m with you like I might watch something on something inspirational on Instagram or Facebook or something or yeah just having the right person to talk to that gives you perspective you’re right that literally you forget about it right yeah for sure there’s also bad things that you like immediately go to like food if I know I’m like going to the pantry and I’m not even hungry it’s because I’m feeling something I’m like okay what are you feeling here you know like I’m trying to it’s the soft addictions as they say and so like that type of thing or just like trying to get myself distracted doing something else or whatever the more like the better things for me are calling someone going on a walk those types of giving myself space those types of things yeah well let’s transition too so you when you kind of sold out that company and then any stuff maybe you did in between but Embarking on a Real Estate journey then specifically like what led you into real estate and kind of got that kicked off or started that Journey yeah actually it’s funny because like I sold my company and it should have been like one of the you think it’d be one of the best times of your life but it was really a tough time for me because I really didn’t have a lot of Direction and I didn’t know what I was going to do next and so I was really like just kind of fumbling around trying out different business ideas and none of them really hit and I would spend a ton of time at the gym there’s like this gym that I go to that’s also like a social club in Chicago I met a lot of people in real estate at the gym and one of the guys in particular kind of took me out under his wing it’s a long story but he turned out to be a crook but at least it got me into real estate he did end up taking a lot of my money but it got me my first steps into real estate so we did some projects together I funded the projects and we did about 10 projects here or so in Chicago and then it ended up like pretty badly but I got I had caught the real estate bug and so I was going and you know networking events and I was meeting with people on Bigger Pockets and things like that and then I eventually met my partner and then we kind of you know decided we didn’t want to invest in real estate in Chicago and you know went in search for another Market found Raleigh Durham in North Carolina and the rest is really history talk through that though so I mean a lot of them back there but the bad experience right most people that’s game over they never go any further so like Conquering new obstacles and learning from them how did you overcome and have the mindset to be like man it’s just my first dealing in real estate I get you get screwed yeah I see it now at first it was like really bad um it hurt really really bad because I thought he was my friend and he had done it to a lot of people like he kind of like get past that because it was really bogging me down and now I just see it as like it was almost the same price as a an Ivy League NBA or graduate program so I see it as my Master’s Degree I learned a ton on what not to do and it got me into real estate I literally would not be having this conversation with you right now if I would not have met him so at the end of the day I’m actually pretty appreciative that I met him I lost low six figures but you know I’ve made much more than that in the time since then in real estate and I would not have I don’t know what I’d be doing right Charlie still be fumbling around trying to figure something out well how about your perspective day or on so basically you were either a partner or private money lender what advice would you give knowing that yeah you’ve been burned those other people thinking about lending money what due diligence would you recommend such a great question because he was really good like he had duped his his Bankers his hard money lenders everybody is Insurance Brokers so he would take me around to those offices and those people at those offices those super professional people would say oh you’re in with the right guy you know you’re perfect guy to learn from like everybody was giving me this validation outside like that I respected I guess and you would respect anybody would disrespect these people but they got screwed at the end of the day as well they will get left holding some of the bag as well but there were little red flags you know that I saw you know I’d go to his office Red Flags in Real Estate and there would be papers everywhere he had no like he wouldn’t do any formulas when it came to like he had no set formula when he would go look at a property um he would just bake offers willy-nilly and just not even you know he had no intention of what he was going to do the property or how much it was going to cost he would just kind of throw out a number I was like okay break that down for me and he couldn’t break it down and these are all little things that I noticed that were red flags that I should have caught on to and then I didn’t ask to see his financials it’s a scary thing it’s a weird thing to ask to see someone’s financials but you should absolutely do that you should ask to see their profit and loss statements on deals he would have never had a profit and loss statement on a specific deal ever and I should have asked for that I knew he didn’t have it but I just wanted to believe it so bad and everybody else was validating it for me so just like the little red flags like listen to them yeah sounds like yeah and that’s follow-ups because maybe that would have led you down a trail of uncovering more yeah so you get really got to pay attention though like really definitely ask those follow-ups and don’t let them you know because usually these those types of people are super charismatic and are able to like pull the wool over everyone’s eyes and so the little red flags that you see just be hypersensitive hyper aware to those things so that you can continue to dig in and ask and protect yourself from making a bad decision I mean it was so bad for me it was such a mind F I don’t know if you swear on this private business I don’t think you do but mine you know mind with that process because I actually went to a lender event where he was showcased from this hard money lender they had brought him to the event as the person they were lending to like an example of someone they were lending them to and they had all they did about 100 super wealthy people in the room and it was like this is this guy he does very well for us we lend him your money like he’s a really good operator and so I went with him I’m like oh my gosh everybody thinks this guy’s amazing but at the end of the day he wasn’t right he was you had this Ponzi scene scheme going so the red flags there were red flags that I just didn’t listen to and make sure that you do that’s great feedback yeah for somebody who’s lived it well let’s get into the yeah what we talked about at the beginning kind of the networking and like building relationships so like when I’d love to see how hear how that’s evolved and then how you leverage that The unique approach of the BRRR strategy because I know you don’t just do it real estate you do it across the board when did that kind of start I’m sure you’ve had it really since birth right yeah I I don’t know probably you know innate lead but in my when I started my business we made most of our money through referral Partnerships so like one of my once I realized that you know going door knocking was not the best way to spend my time and the best way to spend my time was with people that already had relationships with the people that I wanted to meet and a lot of them I started focusing on referral relationships and so I would go take Bankers out to lunch lenders out to lunch people that were working with business owners drinks whatever and try to get them to refer me business through credit card processing and then I would give them you know a fee for referring me so I did that in that space But I kind of transferred I did that I do that in the real estate space we have you know we’re a wholesale company we have investors that are on our investor email list we have about a thousand on our investor email list and so what I do is I partner with like cost segregation Specialists property management companies insurance companies those types of companies first of all you have to add value to these people right like you can’t just be like trying to force something down their throat that they’re never going to use or have no interest in and so what we do is we partner with people and companies that are going to add value to their lives and their business our to our investors lives and businesses so our investors they’re buying single family rentals small multi-family those types of things they should be doing cost segregation which is going to save them a ton on their taxes they obviously are getting insurance they need a hard money lender all of those things we vet all of those good vendors out for them and we add that value by referring in them so we’ll just in the emails we’ll just we’re not and we’re not going to sell hard on it but we’re gonna say hey we have a great hard money lender that we use for our own business we know that money is hard to come by right now check these guys out and then in turn we set up a referral relationship intern you know we’ll get a super small fee for referring that person and so we’ll add value on that side and then we’ll also add value on the the hard money side too there does that make sense yeah 100 percent then I’m curious too dude and I’m sure it’s some relationships maybe not all but are you able to leverage like buyers for example like getting more or them sharing other buyers or introducing you to where they’re referring people back because you’re you’re trying to bring your buyer’s value right but say that hard money lender or that I mean it might not work as well with a cost seg company but those guys are also hey by the way I’ve got this other guy who’s buying in Charlotte really great point I’m glad you said that yeah they are also referring us business so it’s a reciprocal relationship so anybody that closes that we don’t actually have on our list already or that’s buying a lot of deals for the hard money lender example they’re referring investors back to us so it’s when relationship and it also like builds our brand as well like this company a lot of companies you have to think about it I mean do you want to just serve deals to your investors or do you want to be you know like the go-to company or person for them when they need anything relating to real estate right you want to be you know a resource for them and we want to be a resource like we want to have a meaningful company I think there’s a lot of wholesalers out there right now that it’s very transactional super transactional and they’re not building a lot of the relationship and you build a lot of the relationship when you’re you’re providing an offering value as opposed to just like hey I got a deal do you want it or no and then if they don’t want to okay talk to you the next time I got a deal that type of thing you want to stay in front of them yeah huge especially with yeah right now with everything happening in the market where people are pulling back are you have you guys seen a big difference now is with or buyers and investors have pulled back because of interest rates that now they’re still maybe taking a harder look at your deal or is it I’m sure it’s still a challenge it was really rough at the end of the year but now I mean to be honest it’s been a phenomenal first quarter I think we’ve done more deals than we’ve ever done in a quarter uh this quarter and so it’s it’s a lot to you know I contribute a lot of it to the work we did during last quarter when we were having a down Market we had a hard look at ourselves we put systems into place that we’re now seeing the benefits from I heard a quote my partner and I heard a quote over the last quarter and is it it was uh I forget who was but you don’t raise to the level of your goals but you follow the level of your systems and it’s totally true right so if you raise your systems you’re just raising your floor and so what we did during the down Market is we just raised our floor so we put systems in place on the sales side on the dyspo side and just like work really hard at systemizing that systematizing that and then now we have a higher floor and so now we can’t fall any further than that floor nice nice curious what systems did you guys focus on Acquisitions is dialed in right now so we do did a coaching program for Acquisitions or like more of a coaching like a mentorship I guess uh one-on-one mentorship with Ren um and that was really helpful we weren’t doing a daily huddle before and so we’re doing a daily huddle now our kpis and scoreboard and scorecard are like on steroids compared to what they were before like we’re keeping you know a lot of great metrics and showing the team and making sure that they see them on a daily basis and then we do training a lot of training we aren’t doing much training before honestly it was just the market just you could be lazy and make a ton of money you know you didn’t have to be trained up and you could make a ton of money and now it’s like we focus really focus on training listening to their calls giving our feedback doing a training a one-hour training session after a huddle on every Wednesday and uh Exploring creative finance options doing other things there so that’s what we’ve done to really raise the level there great answer I’m curious too because I know you’re a sub 2 Guy created Finance how have you guys started to weave in kind of creative Finance into your systems or were they were they always there have you scaled that up or we have we have so we’re on track for like one to two creative deals for our home portfolio a month at this point so what we did we’re in a really unique position we have one guy in our business that has the he’s the most experienced in the wholesale World we’re able to recruit him actually we were able to hire him when he was moving to Raleigh Durham from Washington and he was a wholesaler in Washington and so he had like five years of experience wholesaling before I even did and so he’s got a super high real estate IQ very smart guy very good with the seller finance stuff and he was doing a lot of like a lot of our other sales guys were calling him asking him questions if they if I they couldn’t get a hold of me and that type of thing and he was giving a lot of Direction and so we were like you know what we’re going to give this a shot you’re bringing in a lot of our deals but I think he was on the same level so he was an Acquisitions manager you’re bringing a lot of our deals probably 50 of our deals but I think you could help our Acquisitions team that you’re currently working with if you move to the manager role and I think you could help them do more deals and we’d probably potentially do more deals than we’re doing right now with even if we take away the deals that you’re doing personally via just having you there supporting them and what happened was we do more deals now now that he’s in that position and he’s super good on seller and creative Finance so he’s having those creative those calls with our uh with our Sellers and so he’s locking those up and I think next year hopefully we can do two a month and keep going from there personal tactical one but does he do you let the more Junior people and Acquisitions negotiate solar Finance or do you feel like or do they just feel like hey this is a seller finance candidate kick it up to your manager yeah the latter so they don’t talk about it their real estate IQ is not super hot I mean it’s it’s decent but uh and it’s getting there but we just kind of want to him to handle all of those conversations and so he’s handling all those conversations for us because that’s just a challenge I’m trying to there’s so many deals that are like that and it’s how do you create a system and a training to where other people could close creatively that’s what I’m struggling with for sure it’s tough and the thing is is we’re very generous very generous at our company and if you like show us that you’re bought in we’re gonna do things for you that I don’t think a lot of other companies do so this guy he’s he he’s pivotal in our company that I’m talking about the lead the the the guy that we just promoted Empowering workers to participate in deals and gets us helps get us our uh seller finance deals we actually started to give him equity in the deals he has to bring money that’s we we’re offering to to give him Equity or giving him an opportunity to get into the deal he still has to invest in the deal like so like you know the entry fee we call it right is 20 grand or 15 grand let’s say we just split it between the three of us so it’s five grand five grand five grand and he owns 30 of the deal so he’s building his portfolio and I don’t think without that being the case I don’t think we’d do as many creative deals because he’s just not that he wouldn’t be that focused on him so I think there’s other ways to do it other than give them Equity because that’s kind of a slippery slope we really really do trust this this guy and he’s you know he’s a good friend and good partner and so we did that but you got to really vet it and just make sure that that’s a good fit before you do something like that well let’s go back to the networking a little bit just curious you sharing more of how yeah just the other strategies Networking strategies for building your real estate network other tactics other ways that you kind of maybe like you message the discipline right when you were working sales discipline of like keep going and if you get rich Jack to come back but I’m curious like even like the cadences of like I try to I try to spend this much time a day or I try to do go out to lunch x times or what are some kind of tips you have to really for somebody really maybe starting to try to go to zero to one on like building a better Network and doing it like authentically yeah though that’s a great that’s a great question so I think and I could do I could be better at this I was really good at it back when I was doing credit card processing because my entire business relied on it but honestly I’m a big fan of keeping your own personal CRM and so like keeping your own contacts in a CRM it sounds silly but keeping your friends in the CRM keeping your your vendors in the CRM referral Partners people that you meet people that you meet at masterminds like CG like that type of thing and then figuring out what Cadence you want to like how you want to get in front of them and how often you want to get in front of them so like say it’s like someone at CG and you’re like wow I really connect with this person I want to connect with this person want them once a month put a notification in the CRM and tell you to reach out to them once a month and then you’re gonna then hopefully if you’re disciplined enough you stay on that and you follow up with that person and it can be something like I really appreciate when it’s somebody that you know I do meet at a mastermind or something like that you know occasionally I’ll get someone to reach out and be like hey hope you had a great week have a great weekend or crush it like hope you crush it this week on on a Monday or something or or like if I think of something that we you know I always put our notes in our conversations into the CRM as well and so I know what to talk about too be like hey how is how is volleyball tournament for your daughter this past weekend or something like that just build a relationship stay in front of them and be intentional about it because if you don’t do that CRM type of thing they’re just going to go into your phone book and then you’re never gonna really do it most likely if you don’t set up notifications for yourself if they’ll keep going but build on that to you have you started to build in a little bit of automation into and not necessarily a personal one and that’s actually the question right when you balance automated text or an automated email or an automated piece of like content or article to go out to them yeah it’s super it’s super different between the personal that I was talking about and like the referral because a lot of the referral relationships do turn into personal relationships so it is difficult like I don’t really send out automated content to uh like my referral Partners will probably put them on our like buyers list if they’re cool with that like so that they kind of see those emails but as long as you for me at least as long as I put a notification that I need to reach out to this person and I’ll get notified be like hey it’s been three weeks since you’ve reached out to this person I’ll think of something that’s relatable to talk about or just like hey what’s up how have you been you know like that type of thing and and then usually you’ll get on a phone call and then you give your updates about what you’ve been doing what’s been going well for you and you talk about what’s been going well for them and then you can kind of like start to talk about how you can work together right you don’t oh you know it’s a dating process right you don’t go on your first date and ask the girl to get married right that’s weird so you just kind of like you date each other for a little bit make sure your your core values align that’s huge just don’t don’t pick anyone to refer like don’t refer any business they’re not all going to be a fit for you right so they have to align with your core values and you have to run with their align with their core values and you just have to get a good feeling otherwise it’s not going to work out um so yeah going back long answer your question I don’t really automate much but I personalize it um and get automated notifications to reach out yeah makes total sense and you’re just you’ve got the reminder make it personal goes that much farther yeah just like the time of it do you feel like do you allocate a certain amount of time or or any guidance there to different people of like hey man if you’re because if you’re busy in operations working 40 hours a week or maybe you should dedicate at five hours of like hey any metrics there and I should you know like I still work still have that little I don’t know what you call it the ego or whatever that’s kind of like you know whenever I’m not being sometimes I don’t feel like it’s not productive to be doing that type of thing and I just need to be busy to be productive and I still fight that which is not the case whatsoever the most valuable work is really like connecting with those other people doing the high level stuff at least the position I’m in right now you know thinking of ways to grow the business reading you know intentionally thinking about how I can Implement that into the business those types of things but I still fight the like okay you’re not busy you need to be finding something to do to make it seem like you’re busy when there’s really no one looking over your shoulder or anything like that it doesn’t matter but I do fight that even too I’ll bring a specific one like sub two that’s a so it’s a huge Community you can spend hours networking and honestly we get hours of value just curious maybe use that as an example of like how do you leverage a great platform like that that’s been created to ultimately have a community and have relationships have referrals like how do you how do you even start the attack something like that yeah like the sub 2 Community I never thought like some of the people that I’m able to get on the phone with are I’m just like I didn’t know there were people like you in this community because there’s a lot of there’s like a lot of people that have never done a deal in the community which good for them that they made the investment in themselves and they’re they’re trying to to you know build a portfolio or whatever they’re doing but then there’s also people that have done tons of deals or done commercial deals or have done you know things that you want to do and that are further along than you and sometimes I get on the call get on a call with someone sometimes it’ll be a waste of time like Frank it’s like okay this was not worth it and this these people really don’t hit my core values and they don’t I don’t hit theirs and you know we’re probably not gonna be friends but then there’s other people that are really you know get along with and see they’re doing really cool things and our personalities mesh and we have the same core values and just kind of build a relationship from there yeah times when yeah it feels like you’re spinning your wheels or you’re not doing it but you’re yeah any more on that of like how you just I guess that’s just part of it on you’re going to spend some time where it’s going to be not worthwhile but but the times if you are and you connect yeah I mean you got to find your tribe and I don’t mean by like I’m not like I don’t mean that if you’ve done zero deals it’s a waste of time because I really do like to Mentor people like I like to talk about what I’ve done about the successes and failures that I’ve had so that other people don’t have to go through those failures and they can learn you know they can take a shortcut and I really do like teaching people that are are starting at zero about the business so I’m not talking about that it’s just people that like I don’t know that just I don’t get along with I guess I wouldn’t like hang out with outside of business or choose to be associated with there are those people out there and that’s just gonna happen you’re gonna have those throwaway conversations but just know that like back in the day like I would have just tried to leverage every meeting and every conversation and and keep in touch or say I’m gonna follow up when I know I’m not going to follow up and now it’s just like choose my tribe like who’s who’s a good good fit for me and my personality and my Private money and referrals in Real Estate business and then kind of like build it from there and and see if you know date a little bit and build a relationship that way so yeah you’re gonna waste your time but you’re also going to have some really great conversations too yeah part of it well cool well the other one I’d love to pick your brain on is like when it comes to a little bit more on raising private money and kind of how you approach those situations um and even yeah and honestly from both sides whether you’re the person raising the private money or whether you’re the one lending and kind of how you work referrals there yeah I you know do it off of like I show I’m not as consistent as you on social media I wish I was but I’m just not good at that but when I do show the deals that I do have and I or like what I’m doing on a daily basis occasionally you know I have people reach out to me that are interested everybody’s interested in real estate HGTV is a thing for a reason like people are just interested in in real estate for some reason and by sharing yourself and sharing what you’re doing on social or in a conversation or something like that you’re gonna have interest from people and so you just kind of Follow that that path that I was talking about earlier where you just you don’t ask them to get married right away you start to date you start to talk about what are you interested it in like what interests you about real estate like have you ever done a real estate deal did you do you own your house like what are your goals like or what are you doing for retirement those types of things and uh it’ll just be a back and forth conversation and then they’ll naturally ask what you do and how you do it and then you can kind of share and then you know you talk about how other people are investing in your deals and then you know naturally they’ll probably ask if they can invest in a deal as well and ride along and so that’s kind of how I do it in most instances and have you figured out curious feedback on like Furrow programs because when you talked early on I’m like I’ve Rich different referral programs and then there’s a delicate line right so for example the the self-directed IRAs like I had I brought that one up hey like I want to bring value to our investors by giving them a self-directed IRA company so I wouldn’t have a conversation with them but it’s like obviously they work with investors all the time trying to make it that can a referral go back and forth both ways but then then they have guidelines and yeah they definitely have guidelines that space is a little different and nothing I’ve done has been like super highly regulated to this point I guess my advice there would just be to like those those self-directed Ira companies like whoever your point of contact is there build obviously build a relationship with them take them out go golfing really try to do whatever you can to showcase the success that you’ve had like show them what you’ve done that’s when I invest in a deal like when I invest in syndications which I do I just invest in the best people like the best operators the deal doesn’t matter to me as much it does matter of course but the deal doesn’t matter to me as much as like okay has this person been successful are they conservative in their underwriting you know are they intelligent and do I get along with this person and so you just have to hit all those metrics and markers and you know eventually don’t ask on the first day okay the first golf outing and be like hey can you refer me people it’s like hey Bill we’ve been friends for like two months now like I really enjoy your company you see what I do do you have anybody that might be interested in investing in real estate that comes through your your company or whatever and just take it slow and you know who knows maybe they’ll bring you some investors you can’t refer them money though I don’t think there’s like regulations wouldn’t allow that you can’t get a fee for it right but to your point I mean it’s like you bringing them value or building a relationship to where they’re not expecting a fee I know that’s another one I’ve been balancing too it’s like hey if you know anyone looking for this like please do like but I can’t offer them a referral fee so I’m just curious too any ideas you have there of like I mean the easiest one is like hey we’ve been bringing each other value I’m gonna find hopefully you know me well enough that like I’m either gonna bring you more clients or there’s going to be some way that I’m going to bring you value down the road but like but but you’re making an Ask of hey do you want to make an introduction to me of anybody you think that might be interested in this investment or this property being a lender on this property yeah I mean I think it’s difficult when you can’t offer a fee I think you can add value in other ways than like giving referring them business like of course refer them business when you can but if you enhance their live in some lives in some way or whatever like if they’re overweight or something like that and you just you talk to them and be like hey I’m gonna go work out or I’m gonna go on a hike or I’m gonna do this I’m like I’m clearly really into fitness and you don’t say that but you like obviously you are by your content and who you are but like just help them get more disciplines stay on track or they like to go out to eat take them out to eat just be try to act like you’re dating that person or you want to be friends with them and you do I’m not saying you don’t like don’t do that to somebody that you don’t want to be friends with because it’ll come off extremely phony but just build a relationship right just add value to their lives outside of work right so like send them things that you’ve talked about you know if they like whatever so send them information a news article if they like a certain football team send a news article on the football team or whatever but just there’s other ways to add value other than just work fees do go a long way though being able to pay a fee is it does go a long way so if it’s an industry or something that you can do that like offer that up some people are a little shy shy away from that but there’s nothing wrong with it it’s the last thing before I wrap this up is like fee motivation for to make money or motivation of just to help and or get other value two different things is that and is it really just maybe personality driven or insight into that yeah so like when you can give a fee whether someone is interested in it or isn’t so when I I know when I’ve been doing credit card processing and I’m working with a banker like they’re either pretty they have an entrepreneurial bone or they’re not they may invest in real estate or they may do certain things on the side they’re probably going to accept a fee because they know that like multiple revenue streams is is a good thing whereas a lot of people that are like very very like company they just they’re a company man whether a company man they’re not gonna they’re probably not gonna take it and they don’t do anything outside of that they’re probably not going to take it it’s like a Rich Dad Poor Dad example right it’s like the rich dad is yeah he’s gonna be more inclined than like hey I want some residual fees but the poor dad is going to be like maybe a little bit more related yeah I’m not necessarily thinking about I need to get some income coming yeah they act like a lot of people act like it’s illegal and it’s just like it’s not I’m I’m not in a business that’s regulated at all I mean the the real estate side of things definitely is and I would not do that there but like if it’s not regulated it’s not it’s it’s okay and so yeah it kind of worked that way but there are times when they won’t take it but I felt Adding value to our customers really great relationships and they just want to add value to their customer so you know the other ways that you can do that is help them add value to their customer maybe you’re not able to help like maybe you’re not able to bring them actual customers but maybe you’re able to give them content you’re able to do some sort of like video video for them on how to do something in the real estate space or something like that that can really help them add value to their current customer base and show to new customers that’s also a good thing and that’s kind of the case one other idea that I have what other idea I have is also that person that is you’re talking about like the self-directed IRA they’re the custodian if they’re interested in real estate tell them hey I’ll take you along on this deal like I’m could be part of the equity on it I’ll open the kimono I’ll show you everything we’re doing on this deal if you’re interested in real estate I’ll show you how I go from A to Z I’ll show you the construction budget why I like this deal and why it’s going to make sense and just like that’s gives it provides a lot of value and if you pay charge for it it would cost a lot of money open up full transparency checkouts process yeah like this is what I’m doing we’re doing cool things people are super interested in real estate really interested in real estate just show them what you’re doing and then you know that’ll have a ton of value I think cool man a ton of takeaways I think my number one and I’ll let you summarize anything else you want to add Mike but my friend a lot of them are good but I love the dating one it’s like that’s just a good frame of reference when you’re networking or wanting to build a relationship is treat it like dating and get back in that mindset of like don’t rush it it’s gonna take time you’re gonna go on dates you don’t like but but you’re also gonna eventually find the right one right yeah exactly you got to Showcase your personality and that you’re a stand-up person before you ask for anything from somebody and also vice versa you need to look into that as well because like early on in my career maybe there were a lot of people that could have made me a lot of money and I tried to introduce them to a friend of mine or another uh a customer of mine and it didn’t work out because all I was looking at was the dollar science and you should not just look at that you need to make sure that you build a tribe that is of the same core values as yourself man cool anything else you want to add How to get in touch with us Mike no man this is super fun thanks for having me on I appreciate it yeah well cool we’re working people find you Mike uh Instagram where’s the best people to reach you my Instagram is I am Mike Kehoe and that’s k-e-h-o-e and then you can find me on LinkedIn as well I’m the owner of venture stack you can also email me at Mike Venture hyphenstack.com and I’d be happy to connect awesome thanks Mike appreciate it thank you as you may have learned by tuning in to this episode of Gregor sense the easiest way to make real estate investing hard is by going at it alone so as you continue learning and seeking knowledge of the industry I want to encourage you to build relationships with other professionals who are passionate about real estate whether that’s an agent a business owner or a managing investor like myself there are Pros that want to see you succeed and are willing to help you by sharing their experience you can always reach me by visiting Casey gregerson.com and scheduling a call I look forward to connecting with you and continuing to share my experience with you here on Gregor sense mobile until next time I’m Casey Gregerson thanks for tuning in