[00:00:00] Mike: Hey, good afternoon. And it’s Mike with Insider Secrets, another episode for you that’s brought to you by My Core Intentions. I always ask, what are you thinking about as your intentions? What is your Why? What are you trying to accomplish?

Until you get crystal clear on what you want in life, what you want personally and professionally, you’re not going to be able to accomplish much. And I always say that the how will come as a direct result of that. At My Core Intentions, we invest in our client’s future. Our educational platform, our teaching and coaching is designed to help you create short-term cashflow, long-term wealth and empower you to execute better in your business.

And today I’m joined by a guest who executes really well. And he’s going to talk to us about that today. I’m [00:01:00] excited to introduce my friend and multifamily syndicator, John Casmon. John, would you say hi?

John: Hey Mike, thank you for having me on the show. It’s great to be here today, and I’m really excited talking about everything we’re going to get into today.

Mike: Yeah. Good. I’m glad you’re here too, John. So listen everybody, John is a real estate entrepreneur. He’s partnered with business professionals to invest in over $90 million worth of apartments. Does a lot of syndications. John also consults active multifamily investors to help them grow their business.

He hosts the target market insights, multifamily marketing podcast, and is the co-creator of the Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit. A no pitch event to connect like-minded investors. And that’s what we all like to do, just connect people together. Prior to becoming a full-time investor, John worked in corporate America, overseeing marketing campaigns for General Motors.

Nike Coors Light and building his personal multifamily [00:02:00] portfolio. I’m sure that John’s going to have a little bit about marketing to teach us today. John, that’s some impressive background and I’m really glad that you’re here because I always like to interview people who are smarter than me.

Because it just makes things go so much smoother. Here’s what I’d like you to do. Tell us in one word, John, what sums you up as a investor, maybe even personally and professionally.

John: I think in one word, I would say character. I think the biggest thing is bringing character to the table. Being clear in our communications, with our expectations, with our goals and the way we approach things and making sure that we are taking care of our partners. When we look at investing, especially working with other investors, we want to first and foremost protect their investment.

And then grow it. So we’re looking at deals and opportunities that allow us to do that. And being a person of high character is probably the biggest thing that I can say about myself.

Mike: Yeah. Great. You know what’s interesting is I ask everybody that question at the beginning of the [00:03:00] podcast.

And I want to know what that one word is for people. And 27 episodes now, nobody’s ever said the same word. And I just find it interesting that everybody has a different word for themselves. So I think that’s pretty great. Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your backstory?

We know that you’ve been in corporate America, but tell us what was the key factor for you going into real estate?

John: Yeah. Like probably many of your listeners, I was taught to go to college, get a great job, work that job until you retire. And that’s the key to success, I’m the first person in my family to actually go to college. Unfortunately I still probably the only person who actually graduated from college and that was my mission. No, my parents were blue collar. My dad worked at a factory, worked at a car dealership for awhile.

He’s worked at I think two jobs or three jobs I should say, in the last 40 some years. So as long as I’ve been alive, he’s had three jobs. And the third one was only because the second job went on [00:04:00] strike for a little bit. So he absolutely was about get a good job, you stay there. You work there until you retire.

And my mother was, worked in the office more clerical type roles and has also worked in blue collar jobs as well. So for me to go to college and to get a good job that was really what I saw as success and the path to progress the path to success. And that was the blueprint.

And I followed that path, but what happened for me when I got into corporate America, I was working these jobs and I was doing well, it was, I was moving up into a company that was being recognized as a young leader that was recognized by a black enterprise magazine is one of the top advertising and marketing professionals in the country.

And I was working for general motors at the time. And what ended up happening was this was 2008, by the way. So you guys may know where this conversation’s going, but if you’re being a young executive, in your mid to late twenties, you’re rising up a company and you start reading about your own company.

In the press, and you’re starting to realize that there’s this too [00:05:00] big to fail company actually may have some flaws and it wasn’t just the company at the time. I thought it was, I thought it was just our company. And then I thought it was just the automotive industry. And then I realized that, Hey, this was a.

Big economic impact that was going to take place, which ended up being that recession. But at that time we were living in it every day. I was just trying to figure out whether or not I was going to have a job the next day, what was going to happen. And it ultimately came to the point where, we found out that we were going to have some layoffs.

We found out that we were going to go through an organized bankruptcy and, the layoffs were going to happen on a certain day or that day I went in late. Cause, I didn’t want to be there just in case I saw people getting their boxes and I got to my desk and I saw that my phone had a red light blinking, a voice message for me.

And they told me I was fine not to worry about it. I just sat there Oh man, what’s someone’s voicemail. I hesitated, I had a bit of fear. I ran through every scenario I could write. I’m like, did they lie to me? Was this just something that they told everybody just that they didn’t have to deal with it face to face.

And then finally I said, let me [00:06:00] just listen to the voicemail. So I listened to the voicemail and it was one of my coworkers. And he basically said they had been, let go. He had worked there for over 20 years, he had some medical issues and he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle that. And two things ran through my mind first and foremost was empathy for someone who had dedicated their career to this company and had lived the dream that I was told.

Get a good job. Stay there forever. This was a guy who believes in that he was eight years away from retirement, and I had empathy for him and what he was going through at that moment. And the second was fear and motivation to not put myself in that same position.

that’s what I’d want your listeners to take away is that you have more control over your future than you believe doesn’t mean you need to quit right away and just be an entrepreneur. But it does mean that you need to find a second source of income, a third source of income, alternative multiple revenue streams so that you are not solely reliant.

On a W2 job, because if anything happens in that W2 job goes away. Now you are stranded. And I didn’t want to be in that position where I [00:07:00] had to, whether I left a voicemail or not, I felt like I’d given myself to one company or a firm and I didn’t really have a plan B. So at that moment, I decided to really focus on developing passive income streams, alternative revenue sources, and in particularly investing in real estate.

Yeah.

Mike: Interesting. What’s you said a couple of things that really made the hair on my neck, stand up. I remember growing up right. That my dad always talked about the blueprint, go to work for a major company, 40 years, 40 hours of work. And when you retire, you get a $40 watch, right?

And those days are long gone. And so you talk about college, right? And I have to tell a quick story. Last night I do on Monday nights, I do a meetup mastermind group. And it one once in a while, I do it for every other week I do for multifamily. And then the opposite weeks I do for property management.

Last night, a young lady shows up on the call and [00:08:00] she’s 18 years old. And she S I said, how did you wind up here? And she lives in San Antonio, Texas. I’m in Chicago, and my group is very, eclectic because I have people from Detroit and California and everywhere on the call. She said a friend of mine pointed me in this direction because I’m struggling with going back to college.

All these people right now are thinking, wow, is college really the way to go? I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to wear a mask and the Corona thing and online teaching. And if I’m going to study online, maybe I’m going to choose my own destiny. And that’s kinda what you’re talking about is the education process.

So she came out and I said, listen, I said, I didn’t go to college. I said, but I know a lot of people that did. And I don’t know that it makes any sense either way, but I have encouraged all my kids to go to college. And what I would tell you is go back. Get some education around it, but really pursue your dream.

And I think that’s what you’ve done too, is you’ve really pursued your dream. So what was the deciding factor? Was it just the change in a [00:09:00] job in the corporate downsizing, or did something happen real estate

John: wise? Yeah, I think there are a couple of, there’s never really like one thing, right?

There’s always like a little. A trail of things that build up to it. So if I’m rewinding the story just a little bit, one of the first pieces is, again, I knew that. Within my family, I was the anomaly, right? No one in my family thought about money in the way I was thinking about it.

I was trying to figure out why no one else invested in the stock market. Things like that were the questions I had. So as I sought out answers, I stumbled upon rich dad, porta, which I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with. And that was like the light bulb for me, that kind of helped crystallize.

The way money works in this country, the way rich wealth works. So that never left me. And one of the things that stood out of that book was to work for knowledge and experience. Not necessarily just for the paycheck. And once you [00:10:00] get that knowledge and experience to kind of transition that into, moving from one quadrant, there was a four quadrants, moving from the employee quadrant into more of the business owner and investor quadrant.

So that concept always stuck with me. I just didn’t know the trigger points to pull it. I think the. The turning point in my GM career was one of the big things. But the reality is that I actually thrive coming out of that. I was young, a lot of the bureaucracy that slowed the company down was removed.

We were sleek. We were, streamlined. I had more of a power, my voice, and we were moving. We actually made Buick. The fastest growing brand in America during my time there. So I had a lot of wins and a lot of reasons to stay because I was, on an upward trajectory. But at that moment, I realized that if I went down that pathway, I really needed to buy into the corporate dream, which meant lateral movements going into the field and all this other stuff.

That was really not what I was passionate about. I’ve always loved marketing. I loved building campaigns and solving problems and [00:11:00] understanding messaging and all that stuff. I didn’t want to go and work at a dealership or work in a region and all these other things that the company wanted me to do. So at that moment, I realized, all right, you need to pivot.

So I moved to an agency, but also needed to start building my own portfolios. So when I moved to Chicago and the first property I bought was a two unit building. I lived in one unit rented and the other rented out the other unit in that really got the ball rolling for me. So that was the first step was actually getting that first.

Real investment. And then moving from that, we bought a three unit building. And from there we started to really build and grow. So I would say that if I were to pinpoint a couple of key points, it was, reading a book that truly gave me the blueprint, which was rich dad, poor dad. I read a lot of books by the way.

I went to a lot of. Real estate meetings and meetups and, REI clubs. I went, I listened to a lot of information, watch a lot of videos. So there’s a ton of education that we, I wouldn’t even have time to jam into this, but all of that time I was reading, educating myself. And then it just got to a point like, you need to buy [00:12:00] something do until you buy something, this knowledge doesn’t mean.

Yeah. So that two unit was really pivotal because it was the step of saying, all right, you’ve read. Dozens and dozens of books, you’ve attended dozens and dozens of meetings. You’ve been around enough investors. You’ve read as much crap as you can read. You just need to go out and do it now. That’s right.

And that’s the biggest thing is you have to do it. If you’re listening to this show, you’ll listen to Mike. You listen to macho. It’s great, man. We love the listenership. That’s amazing, but we’d rather you go out and do a deal. To understand you hit on it at the beginning of your show about getting crystal clear on your intentions.

And once you are crystal clear on those intentions and you have a pain point that you want to run from, and pleasure that you want to run towards, if you can remember those things, it makes it a little bit easier to pull the trigger. And that was really the point for me is I think when I left, I got married.

And me and my wife, we sat down before the day before we got married, we went through what does our life look [00:13:00] like? Not today, not over the next five years. And over the next 10 years, we said, when we’re 80 years old, what are we gonna be saying to each other? What is the life we will have lived. What trips do we want to take?

What do we want our kids to do? How many do we do? We have kids, how many kids, you know? So we talked about that. It’s what are the steps it’s going to take to get there? And I’ll tell you what, working a W2 job until we’re 65 was not one of the things we discussed.

Mike: Yeah.

Interesting. It’s funny how, execution becomes so critical, right? Because we can have all this knowledge and we can understand the process and we can understand it, but until we actually execute and how’s hacking like you did on that first two units, that’s the best way. So I always teach people.

I say, look, if you’re going to be a brand, if you’re a brand new investor go right in the multifamily, Segue past the single family market and house hack that first two or three unit building Chicago is a great market for it. Live in one unit rent. The other is out, get your feet wet, learn the [00:14:00] business and move on from there.

And you’d be surprised that in seven to nine weeks, I can take a person from zero to that first building, that first unit. And they’re in. They can’t believe that it happened. And I think that’s what we do as good coaches here. Here’s what I want to know. You obviously went right into the multifamily space, bypass the single-family space started in small multifamily, grew into bigger units.

Talk about that transition a little bit. So from your small multifamily portfolio into the bigger syndications.

John: Yeah, so first and foremost, they’re part of the reason I skipped over the single family is every book that I’ve read. And I read a lot of books, especially on multi-family investing.

I got clarity that’s, what I really wanted to play was multi-family and not necessarily large multifamily, but just, I wanted four units, six units, 12 units. I wanted those size. Properties. And every book that I read basically said, you don’t have to start in single family, so I took that and said, all right, I’ll have to start there.

I’m not going to start there. I’m [00:15:00] gonna start with a two to four unit. And as you mentioned, I completely agree even as a large multifamily syndicator, and focusing on larger properties, I tell anyone, Hey, if you can go and get a two to four unit house Hackett, go get FHA financing with only three and a half percent down, live in a unit, rent out the other units.

And live rent-free. Yeah, that’s the go do that? It absolutely helped me. My confidence built my credibility allowed me to grow into the investor. I’ve become, but we bought a two unit three unit. The next property we bought was an eight unit building. And that eight unit was a commercial property. That was just my wife and I.

So that was our own property, but we hire a property management. I wanted to gain experience, truly managing the manager. Being in a commercial space because I thought that would make it easier to talk to other investors about investing with me on a 12 unit or a 20 unit, because I at least had some experience now working with property managers and doing a commercial deal, with that said, is that necessary?

No, it wasn’t a hundred percent necessary, but it gave me [00:16:00] some confidence to move into that space. The next day we do as 192 units now for a lot of people, that’s a huge jump and it absolutely is. But I want to give you some context here and I want to give your listeners the secret. So here’s the secret of multifamily investing.

You don’t have to do it by yourself. I want to say that again, because a lot of people think about real estate and they do it because they want to, balk against the system. They don’t want to do the corporate job. They want to be their own entrepreneur and they want to do it all their way.

But multi-family truly is a team sport. And if you understand that concept and you’re willing to be on a team and not necessarily just the coach and the star player yourself, the opportunity to just open up. And I spent about maybe a year and a half, two years. Trying to be the coach and the star of the team looking for deals that I can quarterback myself and bring in some investors and hire a [00:17:00] property manager and run it all myself though.

And I had a hard time finding a deal that works. I just did. And we’re in Chicago and I was focusing on castle first and using appreciation as just a, an upside potential. And we couldn’t find a deal where the investors can make enough money and I can make the money that warranted us moving forward. And I started to talk to other folks in my network at a great connection with a group out of Texas and Texas obviously is a great multifamily market.

Lots of apartment buildings down there built in the eighties, and one of the guys that said, listen, man, if you find something that works, I’d be open to partnering with you. And sure enough, about six months later. They found something. And we were talking and I said, listen, if you need some help, I can certainly help with marketing, market research, marketing just the deal.

If you need help with marketing plans, just implement the business strategy as well as working with investors and doing some investor relations stuff. So I ended up moving forward in partnering with those gods and that deal, [00:18:00] and that was how we got into this 192 unit. And the big takeaway is. Why did I do it all by myself?

No it wasn’t. John, Kasmin running his own show, but on the same note, if you are willing to be a part of a team, The opportunity is just open up and that’s what happened for me. And that’s really changed my viewpoint and allowed us to grow a portfolio in a way we have, because it’s been less about me and more about how do I serve both my investors and my audience, as well as partnering in serving the team, playing my role on the team where everyone benefits and we can grow collectively as opposed to what works for me by myself.

Mike: Yeah, very interesting. Team is really important, if you think back to Michael Jordan, when he was playing belt ball for Phil Jackson, and once Phil got him to realize that it was a team sport, not a Michael sport Boyle boy, that whole Stape of that team changed.

And that’s the same thing with us, and jan, I think you would agree with me that you to close an eight unit, it’s not much more [00:19:00] difficult to close 190 units. It’s the same process. They’re both commercial deals. There’s just a few more units in the bigger one. So talk about, marketing though.

We’ve alluded to that a few times, but talk about the marketing and the different aspects of it of the marketing, because I think you can market for tenants. You can market for investors, you can Mark it for buyers, so

John: talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. Sir. First of all, marketing is multi-dimensional.

Okay. I think a lot of times people say marketing and they really mean promotions. When I was in school for marketing, there were four PS, there was price. Product place and promotions. I think they’ve since added some peas, but, I’ll go with my old school definition there of the four PS.

And the price is obviously, whatever you price the product that the product itself is, what are we talking about? So in this case, we’re talking about apartments. The place that’s obviously the location, but it’s not just location is the distribution. So let’s come back to that.

And then last is promotions. So a lot of times people think about promotions. [00:20:00] Only when you think about it, it’s all starts with market research, understanding what can the market bear, what is the opportunity? How do you know how to price something? How do you know what you should pay for something?

If you don’t know what it’s going for? So this is basic business, but yeah. That’s where the pricing model comes in. So that’s understanding, okay, what are similar products going for? And in this case, if you’re buying, if you’re looking to buy an apartment building, you have to understand, how much should it cost?

How much should I pay for it? It’s not going out to the store and buying something where you can see. A demand is up or demand is down. You really have to look at it and talk to brokers into a lot of analysis. So the market research is one thing. Even in market research, that’s just the price that you should pay.

There’s also, how do you anticipate future demand for apartments? So you’re looking at supply and demand. You’re looking at new construction, there’s something that is called a absorbed net absorption rate. So I don’t want to bore your listeners with all these technical terms, but the bottom line is.

You need to understand is the demand of the future going to be higher than it is today. And when you [00:21:00] do your modeling to figure out pricing and all that stuff, you’re going to take all these things into consideration. Okay. So that’s your market research component of it, right? You move on from the market research, then you get into, the actual product itself.

What is your business plan? What do you want to do? And to your point, when we model something out, we want to know. All right. What are the current rents? And if we were to do XYZ in this case, it might be catering to a younger professional. Maybe it is a younger professional, has a pet. It may be if we make it pet friendly, they would be willing to pay a little bit more money in rent.

We could charge for pet rent. And if we put in a dog park and maybe put in some pet wash stations and maybe even, go to the next level and really make it pet friendly, not just accepting pets and add in That Neri services and get a vet to come on the property once a quarter.

Something that really makes it, pet centric. Those are things that can elevate it. Where now someone said, Hey, yeah, I want to stay at this [00:22:00] property. They’re going to make my family member, this pet. They’re going to treat it like a family member and not just another tenant that needs to pay a $30 premium to live here.

So there are things like that from a marketing standpoint that can really elevate you, right? So what’s your business plan. And then the promotion comes into, how are you going to get the word out there? How are you going to communicate the listings? Where are you going to place it? And all those different things.

Now that’s. All property centric. Then there comes to, if you need capital for these deals and if you’re not using your own capital, you may need to work with investors and attract investors to come partner with you. So there’s a whole separate marketing initiative that you can do to really attract investors, to come to partner with you on a deal.

Mike: That’s probably another podcast that we could do is talking about private equity. Because I think we both have some experience around that and raising private equity. Talk about this though. How about marketing for off-market deals? So I’m sure that, being in the space, deals get tight in some [00:23:00] places where we’re looking, how do you market for off-market deals?

John: Absolutely first and foremost is networking. I think networking is the strongest thing you can do, right? And that’s word of mouth marketing, but that is building relationships. And you want to build relationships with brokers. You’re going to build relationships with wholesalers. You have to build relationships with industry professionals.

So these are property managers. These are appraisals. For appraisers, these are contractors. These are insurance, adjusters these are inspectors. These are people in the industry that may have a connection or understanding of a property, maybe a property that’s struggling.

Think about it. Owners tend to be more forthcoming to an insurance adjuster or to someone. When they’re talking about the building and, Oh man, if I could sell this thing for, for X amount of money, I would absolutely. So they may say that to an insurance adjuster. You probably won’t say that to you if you call them, but they may say it to someone else randomly.

So if you have these [00:24:00] connections, these relationships and you ask them, Hey, do you know anybody who might be interested in selling a property? Anybody who’s expressed, maybe some frustration. They may know that person, and they may be able to make an introduction, with brokers, there’s a lot of competition right now.

So if a deal is on market, it can be a challenge, especially if you don’t have the track record and the credibility to put forth a great offer and to stand out amongst the sea of other offers. So the best bet you can do is try to get a deal before it goes out to the masses and get it off market.

But sometimes that’s tough if you haven’t built a deep relationship with the broker. So there are things you can do there to help. But outside of that, and you can also go to wholesalers, you can connect with other investors. And one of the things that you just mentioned was you host a mastermind group, every week, but being a part of a mastermind, being a part of.

Real estate, investor, association groups, or clubs, and just talking to other investors, because as investors, we all are looking to grow our portfolio, but we may have a property, our [00:25:00] portfolio that we’re interested in selling at some point. So understanding that is simply asking the question. Ask the question, Hey, is anybody interested in selling or at least curious, to see what their property may be worth?

I’m looking for something right now. And even if it’s not a fit, I’d love to just take a look and see if there’s something we could do. There may be way more willing to work with you. Then by the time he goes to a broker it’s listed, they’ve blasted it out to thousands of people. And now you’re competing with you basically.

Racing to put into the highest offer. But if you can do that in a situation where you can solve a problem and make it easy for that current owner, then that works, marketing specific though, direct mills and other ones, direct mail is a little bit tricky, when it comes to multifamily, but direct mail can work really well.

And I would say the key there is just persistence, being consistent. Being persistent. Those are really the key things from marketing standpoint to really connect. But I think networking in really using the word of mouth building that connection is tapping into those [00:26:00] relationships. That’s the most powerful thing you can do if you want to get an off market deal.

Mike: Yeah. So you said a couple of really key things in the first. The first thing I just want to touch on real quick is relationship. I think relationships are so important. You talked about one of the best books you read, which was rich dad, poor dad. I think one of the best books I ever read was how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie.

Cause he talks about. Building the relationship with people because, I think we’ve all heard the old cliche that nobody cares what until they know how much you care. And that goes back to that whole relationship thing. The other point that you made well taken is the marketing program mailing program.

I just had, it’s funny. I have to go back to my last night mastermind because there was a woman on the phone. Who said the market’s so tight? I can’t find deals right now. What are you doing? I’m working at, through the MLS and talking to my broker and look, you have to go outside the box, right?

Go down to the courthouse. Pull [00:27:00] a list of an owner occupied properties, they will provide that list for you. Then you start, if you are in that two to four unit market, or even a bigger market, but if you’re in that small multi-family marketplace, go pull a list of an owner, occupied properties and start a mailing campaign.

They might not call you the first time, but if you’re mailing them consistently every 30 days, Hey, people’s lives change every 30, 60, and 90 days. You never know what’s going to come

John: up. Can I give a very powerful tip as a followup on that? Yep. So here’s a real powerful tip, right?

Because when you’re sending out messages, that’s outbound marketing. Okay. And you don’t know if they’re ready, so you, they talk about a one and a half percent response rate is a great rate. You send out a hundred pieces. And one and a half people respond. That’s a good rate, right?

It’s hard to believe, but that’s truth the key. And if you really want to get, 21st century, it’s 2020, you want to step above your competitors is send them [00:28:00] something of value in that direct mail and then send them to a website or a squeeze page where they can get value here. Here’s one idea.

Instead of just saying, Hey, you’re just going to selling your house. If so, let me know. I’ll be willing to buy it. That’s not really valuable to someone is if you’re trying to sell, but otherwise it’s not. But if you were to say, Hey, did you know your rents are 20% below your neighbors? If you’re interested in learning more about the real value of your home, go to this website.

And then let them go to the website, put in their name, put in their email, put in their address. Now you’ve got all their contact information and they’re at least curious to know what their property is worth because they came to you and then you call those people. You email those people, that’s inbound marketing.

So instead of you going out there and trying to use the direct mail and direct mail is a great way to fish them out. But if you can focus on those that reach out to you. Now you can close at a much higher rate because these are people who’ve raised their hand and [00:29:00] expressed interest. So if you can tie that tactic, you talked about direct mail with this inbound marketing you’re using the power of an online presence, which by the way is 24 seven.

I don’t care if you come to the website at three o’clock in the morning, three o’clock in the afternoon, I can sleep and I’ll have that lead in my inbox. That’s very powerful. So that’s a tip that is really powerful. If you want to take that direct mail campaign to the next level, right?

Mike: Yeah. It’s interesting when you get up in the morning and you have leads in your mailbox. So now, because of this great tip that you just gave everybody I’m going to have to sell this podcast. I can’t give them,

Hey, listen. We’re in the midst. So the Corona virus right now, right? The world is crazy before we started the call, we were talking about our kids and going back to school and yeah. Virtual learning or not wearing masks. And what do you see as a downfall today for today’s new investor or a seasoned investor where, you know, and in your opinion, where’s the market going.

John: I think the [00:30:00] biggest challenge for every investor right now is there is a lot of uncertainty. And because of that uncertainty, I think if you’re trying to time the market, you may get caught up. Because we just don’t know. We don’t know what’s going to happen in the next six months, 18 months, 36 months.

So what I would say is those investors are taking more of a long-term view. I think you’re going to be a little more protected, a little more insulated, where at least you have the flexibility. If you have the. Option to exit, or you have the option to stay in a deal longer. Those are the ways we are looking at deals right now.

We’re not looking to get in a situation where we have to refinance in 24 months because I don’t know what the market is going to look like. In 24 months, we can be optimistic and expect that, Hey, if the market is bad interest rates to still be low, so it’ll be fine, but we just don’t know. We don’t know what’s going to happen there.

So for us, I think the best thing you can do is. Stay in control, make sure that your loan terms, give you flexibility and you have enough reserves to withstand, any rough periods, especially when it comes to rent collection or [00:31:00] anything like that. Heavy turnovers. So making sure you have more reserves, making sure that you have a loan on your investments, that gives you flexibility.

Those are two things that we’re looking for, whether you’re a new investor or a seasoned investor. I really hope you take that into consideration is not to say that you can’t flip properties or. Or do hard money is just to say, I think those are more risky investments in today’s environment. If you are banking on, a certain sales number or a certain value six months from now, 12 months from now, two years from now, because demand may shift very quickly.

Banks may dry up on their financing or change their lending terms. And, you may be stranded or left out to drive you. If you have a loan that you absolutely have to, renew. In the next two, three years. So I think just make sure you have some flexibility. There would be the most prudent thing any investor could do in today’s market.

Mike: Yeah, great points, really great points. And what’s interesting is people say, you can’t make any money right now. Listen, I’ve been in real estate long enough, and I know [00:32:00] you have to John that we’ve made money in good markets and we’ve made money in bad markets and you can make money in real estate.

It doesn’t matter what the market is. It’s about your strategy and how you buy. One of the things that you’ve done, John is the Kasmin group is, is really a good, solid, strong brand. And what advice would you give people about building up their brand, a strong brand?

John: You start we’re at the top of the show talking about that clarity of your intentions.

And I think that really comes down to a brand, figuring out what you want to stand for, figure out who you serve. And I want to say that really intentionally and say it again. Think about who you serve, think about them. What challenges do they face? What questions do they have? What do they need and build your business, your solutions towards that individual.

And if you can do that’s how you build a strong brain by serving other people, by putting yourself in a position to help them, to bring them along, to answer their questions. So for us, we [00:33:00] have, I have one of my students who is getting ready to close are her first apartment deal. And going back to the brand there was a deal sheet brought to me.

And I knew the broker. She didn’t have the track record. This is our first deal. So I call it the broker and I said, Hey, listen, one of my friends is looking to buy this property. I want to hear the backstory on it. I want to know, give me the real, what kind of offer will you take? And I the broker gave me as much information as he could.

If that, all right, here’s her name? She’s going to be calling you, work with her, let me know if you have any questions. Did that she’s under contract. She’s going to close at the end, into September. And, that all worked through a brand really and building relationship and having that where I could step in on her behalf, make it an easy transaction for her and get the deal done, from, not having to do anything other than.

Letting them know she’s serious, she’s credible. She doesn’t have the experience today, but she’s been working with me and she’s gonna, do what she needs to do to get the deal done. And I think the brand is really about the way [00:34:00] others perceive you. Now there’s not the brand is not my logo. It’s not my color.

It’s not, my website, those are just extensions of the marketing. Your brand is what people think of you when you’re not there to talk for yourself. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it’s how other people relate to you. Perceive you going back to the opening question. You asked me if I could describe myself in one word, I talked about character.

That’s what your brand is. Your brand is going to be how other people describe you. What words will they use to talk about you, to talk about their experience, working with you, and all of those different things. So you have to be mindful of that and your brand can exceed you and it should exceed you.

So when people are thinking about working with me or work with the Kasmin capital group, there are certain expectations or certain words and phrases and emotions. That I want people to have. I want them to have a great experience. I want them to know that we’re transparent. We’re honest, we are going, we’re responsive.

So we’re not a group that you invest with and the moment you invest, you [00:35:00] can’t get in touch with us for two weeks, we’re accessible and we are always looking out for our investors. So those are the things that our brand is really built on. Those are values, and we try to convey that through. The different conversations we have through the different marketing touch points, but building a powerful brand starts with understanding your why, understanding who you serve, what challenges they face, and then creating content information and messaging that addresses those concerns.

Mike: Yeah. And what is, you’ve just said some really key things, and if I walked away from this right now with two ideas about you, John, and I know you already, but if I walked away about two ideas about the Kasmin group and you one would be character, and the other one would be empathy.

And I think both of those things come through really clear about your heart and who you are as a, as an individual. And. And I think that goes to that building relationship side, people don’t care what, until they know how much [00:36:00] you care and that’s what it’s about. So tell me this.

What would you, what advice would you give a new investor today? Somebody just coming in the business, uh, maybe going to do a house hack, maybe going to go right into a eight unit or 10 unit. What advice would you give them today?

John: First and foremost is, figure out what challenges you face. Let’s go back to the whole intention thing.

Ask yourself, what’s stopping me right now from doing it. Is it money? Is it experience? Is it confidence? Be honest with yourself, because if you’re not honest with yourself, you can’t address it. You can’t pretend, you know that this is not something you can psych yourself up and just run through a wall.

That’s not what this is. You can walk around the wall. Okay. So just do a real honest assessment of what’s the issue. And for a lot of people, it may be. Hey, I want to do this. I’m committed to doing this. I’m interested in doing this, but I still have some fear. I don’t know if this is a good deal. I don’t know if my analysis is right and I don’t want to buy something and then realize overpaid for it.

So a lot of people have that. They don’t want to say that out loud. And if that’s your fear, I would say. [00:37:00] Seriously consider if you’ve looked at free resources, if you listen to podcasts, if you’ve read books, if you’ve been online on bigger pockets and other websites that have a lot of great free information, and you’re at the point where, you want to do this, but you still have some trepidation, it might be a good time to think about a coach.

And getting a coach or mentor that can look over your shoulder, look at the deal and tell you, yes, this is a good deal. Or, Hey, you missed a couple of things here that you need to really be mindful of. That may be the thing you need to get over that obstacle or that hurdle. If it’s capital, how do you talk to people in your network?

Who may be interested in investing, that may be something that you want to do again. Maybe a coach can help you with that, or maybe it was just a conversation where you talk to somebody and say, Hey, here’s what I’m doing. Would you be interested in partnering with me on it, but I would say get clear on what challenges you face and then address that thing directly.

Because as much as I’m a big fan of hiring mentors and work with mentors are not magicians. They can’t snap their fingers and make a [00:38:00] deal work for you. So you really have to understand what challenge you’re trying to solve and then who is best suited to help you get around that. And if you can do those things, you can be really successful, but you have to get out of your limiting beliefs.

You have to figure out how you can do it. And some of this is mindset, right? If you ask yourself, how can I. How can I buy this eight unit? How can I raise a million dollars for this deal? How can I get this broker to take me seriously? If you ask yourself, how can I, instead of the inverse of that, which is, Oh, I can’t get this broker to take me seriously, or I can’t raise a million dollars or I don’t have a million dollars or, I don’t know how to buy this property.

If you stop with I can, or I don’t, or. I’m lost. You’re never going to move forward, but if you ask yourself, how can I, the options start to become clear. You may not like all the options, right? It may be scary. The scary option might be called my brother and asked him to vessel me. You may not want to talk to your brother.

I get it. You may not want to hire a coach. I get it. But it’s one way to do it right. And if you’re [00:39:00] serious about it, asking yourself, how can I, as a great way, if you get out of your own head, go through some options and then plan for, what, maybe you don’t want to look great in any healthy, but if you want to, if you want to actually be healthy, you got to stop eating cheeseburgers and French fries and start salad.

Mike: That’s what it is. So you got to eat the veggies

John: man now, too. So ask yourself, how can I put you in a powerful position to control your narrative? I think at the end of the day, If you are in corporate America, and you want to have multiple revenue streams, if you are trying to find a way to get into multi-family investing and start to change, not just your trajectory, but that path for your family create more free time for your family, where you can have fun and play and travel.

The you need to do this, ask yourself how can I and take that step forward?

Mike: Yeah. A couple of interesting things. I think you said, coaching, mentoring, coaching is not counseling and it’s not [00:40:00] even mentoring. I believe that coaching comes down to self discovery. You are helping, your client to discover the answer themselves.

So you talked about questions. I’m an advocate of this. Listen, first of all, I’ve been coached for the last 20 years and I’ll never forget John. The first day I wrote that check for a thousand dollars for that first month of coaching and thought, Oh my goodness, this was 20 years ago, John. And I’ve been in coaching ever since, and I can directly equate year after year, a 20% increase professionally, not to even, and you see the personal increase in your life is.

Is priceless. You can’t even put a price on the things you learned from coaching, but coaching is self-discovery and how can I help you do more? And that you talked about that, and that’s really critical. But Oh questions are, if we help people ask the right question and then write down enough answers, Tony Robbins always talks [00:41:00] about.

If you write down 20 answers to a question that by the time you get to 17, 18, 19, and 20, those are the right answers. The first five don’t matter at all. It’s the last three or four answers. That’s where you really find that self discovery. So John, I really appreciate you being here today.

It’s been great. I think that our my listeners have really gained a whole bunch of knowledge. How do people get ahold of you if they want to talk to you? If they want a little more information, pick your brain, find out about an investment you might have going on. How would somebody get ahold of you?

John: Yeah, thank you for having me on Mike, for listeners who want to learn more about us and what we do. One of the first things you can do is actually go to our website and check out a sample deal package that we have. You can go to Kasmin capital.com/sample deal in there. You will get a sample deal package.

That’ll help you just. Visualize what a deal looks like. And then what a deal package looks like. If you want to be active and, have some [00:42:00] interest in working with investors and raising money, you need to present your deals in a way that is credible and polished. And this’ll give you a sense of, the way we do that.

And if you are passively investing, if you’re working that corporate job or, you’re a busy professional, and you want to find ways to put your money to work so you can focus on the things that are really important to you, right? This will give you a sense of what you can expect on these deals.

From there. We’ll add you to our investor list. You’ll see our investor database, and if you’re really just want to reach out and have a conversation, feel free to shoot me an email. My email address is john@kasmincapital.com and I’d happily respond and we can set up some time to chat from

Mike: there.

Awesome. And I’m going to spell Kasmin for everybody. It’s C a S M O N. Just so everybody knows. And we’ll have John’s information on our website, John, thank you so much for being here today. I appreciate you and all that you stand for and all that you do, listeners. I appreciate every one of you too, for being here for your support.

And I hope that today you walked away with some good learning [00:43:00] and some good direction. And if I can be of help. Or do anything for you? Don’t hesitate to reach out, go to my core intentions.com. And if you’re thinking about coaching, sign up for a free coaching session, we’ll spend 60 minutes together.

Hopefully get you a couple of little nuggets that might point you in a direction, in a way that might help you a little bit better. Even if you don’t pursue coaching after that, at least get some direction, John. Thanks for being here. You want to say goodbye.

John: Mike, thank you again for having me on and look forward to following up with you.

And, you’ve got an event coming up that I’m really excited about as well. We didn’t get to talk about it today, but I’m excited for your event coming up and I hope your listeners are going to check that out as well. So looking forward to being a part of that.

Mike: Yeah, me too. Thanks, John. And I’m glad you’re going to be a part of that.

And we will just run out of time. So thanks for being here and everybody have a great week. We’ll be here next Tuesday again at 12 o’clock.