Insider Secrets Podcast Episode #34

 Guest: Mike Morawski

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Guest Bio:

Episode 34 guest Mike Morawski

Michael Morawski is a 30 plus year real estate investment veteran.  He has controlled over $285,000,000 in real estate transactions. Mike is an entrepreneur, author, real estate trainer, public speaker, and personal coach, with strong personal resilience and a deep desire to help others live an extraordinary life. He has coached hundreds of real estate investors to fulfill their dreams.

Michael’s background began as a general contractor in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago with $5 mm in annual revenue he sold his company. Michael entered the real estate industry as a sales agent building a team and selling over $20 mm per year in production.  In 2005 Michael started a private equity firm, raising $18 mm in private equity and acquired $60 mm in multifamily apartments 4,000 units in five different US markets. As part of the company’s growth, Mike built and developed a property management division, which managed 7,500 units.

SHOWNOTES

Standout Quotes:

“How many people do you keep employed by what you do?” – [Mike]

“I think that a lot of times we don’t succeed or we don’t get to the place that we want to get because we don’t ask enough” – [Mike]

“What is in control of your calendar? Do you let other people around you or in your business dictate the amount of time you get to spend with your family?” – [Mike]

“You can’t achieve anything unless you take the next step… so live ridiculously” – [Mike]

“All smart business people know their numbers” – [Mike]

“The mind works like a rubber band, anytime you stretch it, the elasticity comes out of it” – [Mike]

“Investors are eager but often held back… Fear is what ultimately holds investors back” – [Mike]

“There is no passion to be found in playing small, in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living” – [Nelson Mandela]

Key Takeaways:

  • Make sure you’re thanking people and being grateful for the part that they play in your life and how important that is for you.
  • The focus and goal of MCI is to teach you how to own and operate a multi-family Real Estate
  • Right now there’s a lot of first-time home-buyer grant money in the country, so a major city you might live in, might have a grant.
  • If you think through every move that you’re going to make, it makes a big difference in your investing strategy and career.
  • Real Estate can be very distracting from everything else in your life unless you have control of your calendar
  • Mike’s coaching is aimed at delivering more straight forward factual data that’s gonna grow your business
  • No matter what industry you’re in, networking and team building is critically important and it’s what helps your business grow
  • Masterminding with people who are more successful than you, is going to help you grow.
  • The 5 closest people to you in your life right now, are how you’re going to turn out in 5 years from now.
  • Every Real Estate investor possesses a continual desire to grow and learn.
  • Mike’s mistakes over the years: Don’t over-leverage, don’t under leverage, don’t overpay, and don’t fall in love with a deal
  • Make time for your education, make time to expand your mind.
 

Episode Timeline:

[00:11] Today’s unique episode with Mike Morawski

[02:54] Appreciation from Mike to everyone who has been a part of his life

[05:36] MCI invests in her clients future through an educational platform

[16:40] Making a transition into Commercial Real Estate

[19:00] How do I help you live a more balanced lifestyle while still growing your business?

[19:51] About Mike’s newly released book, “Exit Plan”

[26:29] How do we live a ridiculous lifestyle moving forward?

[28:59] Mike shares some techniques he used to get more listings and sellers

[32:45] Mike’s Multi-family mastermind

[39:38] Events lined up for the coming year.

[42:00] The My Core Intentions Multi-family summit

[51:43] Some of Mike’s mistakes over the years

TRANSCRIPT

Kristen: [00:00:00] Welcome to this week’s edition of Insider Secrets. The show that turns multifamily investing into reality. Each show we interview guests who are seasoned professionals, actively closing and managing real estate deals. Your host Mike Moraski has more than 30 years of multifamily, real estate investing and property management experience.

[00:00:22] Mike is the founder of my core intentions. And he’s been involved in over $285 million of transactions focuses on helping you create short term cashflow and long-term wealth. Here’s your host, Mike.

[00:00:39]Mike: [00:00:39] Hey, good afternoon. It’s Mike and this is Insider Secrets. I’m your host brought to you every week on Tuesday at 12 o’clock. We are sponsored by My Core Intentions. We’re going to be a little bit different here this week. Normally I have a guest on, and today I’m going to  just talk to you about this past several months and where we’re planning to go over the next year. So I hope I bring some ideas and some thoughts around planning and things like that, that I’ve worked through while working on this to bring you and My Core Intentions to the next place.

[00:01:16] But, most weeks over the last several months, I’ve had a guest and those guests have fallen into a couple of different categories, right? They’ve all been around the multifamily space, but they could have been a multifamily investor, somebody new or somebody thinking about going into the business could have been a property management professional.

[00:01:36]And let’s not forget all those individuals that support those property management people, those real estate investors, those brokers, but the attorneys, the accountants, the tax planners, financial planners. 10 31 and cost segregation, intermediaries. These are all people that are important in the industry.

[00:01:57]I had somebody tell me one time w I used to do a lot of cold calling and I’ll talk a little bit about that later on. But when I was selling real estate, I did an awful lot of cold calling. And  would happen is an attorney said to me, one day, he goes, Hey, just think about how many people you keep employed by picking up the phone and doing a cold call.

[00:02:17] And it got me thinking. I said, geez, every time I pick the phone up, somebody from the phone company keeps their job. There’s an operator involved. There’s a tech guy who puts lines in or does repairs that’s involved?  Make the phone call right. If I connect with a homeowner, who’s going to sell their property then all of a sudden we have a realtor involved. We have a title agent involved. We have an attorney, a lender all kinds of people become involved  from that one cold call. So really when you think about it, how many people do you keep employed by what you do and the people around you?

[00:02:53] It’s just an interesting process. If you think about it. But I want to start today by thanking everybody. Who’s been a guest on my show over the last year. Who’s had a real impact in my life and in the life of so many of my listeners, I know from all types of topics and things we’ve talked about from small multifamily investing to creative funding and creative  financing.

[00:03:17] But not only that, as we’re going into the holidays here and at year end, I just thought it would be really a great time to acknowledge everyone who’s involved. And when you put on one of these podcasts it’s interesting, going back to who you keep employed by what you do, but it’s not just a matter of going out and buying a microphone and sitting down and recording a video or putting an audio out there. But there’s people that are involved. You’ve got people who do the audio editing who do the video editing, who do the show notes who post it to notify the people who’ve been on your podcast. So what I want to do is I just want to think all the people who’ve been involved in my life the marketing team and their efforts Joel, Carol, Kristin , Michellene, if I forget anybody, please forgive me. But these are all people that have been instrumental in helping put My Core Intentions together and put Insider Secrets together and where we plan to go next year. All these people are going to play a real important role in that. And I’m really grateful for that.

[00:04:22] So I want to thank you all personally and let you know how much you mean to me around the help and the support you’ve been. Most importantly, I can’t forget my co-host on Saturday morning, Moose, see Gordon Moose, who we probably call moose every Saturday morning on our multifamily unplugged show.

[00:04:42]That’s been an interesting show to, that Saturday morning we just get on and we really have nothing scripted, no topics. We pull some local area headlines. And what happened over the last week and how do we convey that, in a raw unscripted content and we’ve just had fun doing it.

[00:05:01] So just think about all the people in your life who are involved in what you do, whether you’re doing a podcast, whether you’re doing a syndication, whether you’re buying a piece of real estate or searching for a piece of real estate, how many people are involved and make sure this time of year you’re thanking people and being grateful for the part that they play in your life and how important that is for you.

[00:05:23]But again, thank you everybody for all you’ve done and continue to do. We’ve had a lot of fun. We’ve had some technical challenges, but we’ve learned a lot as a result of them and I know that what they’re going to do is they’re going to take us to the next stage over the next year on what we’re going to do as a company and a growth cycle.

[00:05:43]Insider Secrets is hosted by My Core Intentions. Let’s talk about that for a little bit, right? So MCI or My Core Intentions invests in our client’s future through an educational platform, we teach a number of different classes. We do a number of different presentations, training seminars, and coaching programs, three different levels of coaching programs.

[00:06:06]I do a couple of meetup groups and we have some events and I’m going to talk about those events  as we go along here. But what we do is we have some proven education, I’ve been in the industry for over 30 years. So I’ve been able to bring a lot of content, a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience and skills to the table to package up and to teach other people.

[00:06:29]Our focus and our goal is to teach you how to own and operate multifamily real estate, starting with small multi-families right? Two to four units which is on the residential side. Cause that’s still, up to four-unit, you’re still able to get a residential mortgage. You’re not on the commercial side yet. And what I like is that if I can teach people on that small multifamily, how to have some ownership, how to get in a deal, how to operate a deal, how to get some on the job experience and then move into the larger properties, on the residential side, moving into larger assets, creates more short-term cashflow and long-term wealth.

[00:07:13] One of the things I like to talk about a lot about and has just been my mantra over the years is that short-term cash flow and long-term wealth. New multifamily investors who are house hacking today. I used to do this years ago and back then, it wasn’t really considered house hacking. It was just, you lived in a property that you were rehabbing, but today it’s fashionable that you move into a single-family house and rehab it at your first investment. But what if you did it on the multifamily side? So what if you went in and you bought a four-unit or a three-unit building and you lived in one of the units and rented those other units out.

[00:07:52] And here’s the other piece that I really try to teach my investors and new investors, especially if it’s a, if it’s a first time purchase for you or it’s been over a certain period of time around three years, that you can go and get an FHA mortgage, FHA is the Federal Housing Administration, right?

[00:08:12] Now they don’t supply the mortgage, but it’s a government-backed insurance program that allows the borrower to go to a bank and put less money down, have less qualifications, have a lower FICO score and be able to get a loan. So why could you not just utilize that great process that they’re helping you do as a first time home buyer go and find a property to move into as your first property? You want to become a real estate investor.

[00:08:43] You’ve raised your hand. You’ve said, Hey, this is what I want to do and where I want to go. Let’s get you moved into a two to four unit, preferably a three to four unit. Because now you have that economies of scale. You got a little bit more income coming in and get some on the job experience, right? So FHA takes lower down payment.

[00:09:05] So your typical property that you might go spend 3 or $400,000 to purchase and as a multiunit and you’ve got getting a couple of thousand dollars a month rent coming in from other tenants can be used as your income and you move into one of the units. It’s a simple kind of no brainer, right? But you can put less money down three and a half percent in most cases.

[00:09:30] So your down payment is less, you don’t need a 10 or 20% down payment. Your insurance is less cause you live in the property and your homeowner. Here’s one of the interesting things right now, there’s a lot of first time home buyer grant money in the country. So a major city you might live in or an area of the country you live in, might have a grant.

[00:09:52] They might have the ability for you as a first-time homebuyer to go and buy some real estate. Get gifted, some money that you might not even have to pay back. What’s interesting is with some of these grants is you don’t pay them back. If you live in the property two years, five years, 10 years, depending on what the grant is, you never have to pay that money back.

[00:10:15] So bring this to your attention because what if you could buy your first multi-family deal, live in it, no money out of pocket. Now, how do you do that? There’s different ways, different transitions you can do, but you can find these programs that will help you do that. The other piece is, some creative funding, right?

[00:10:37] So we asked the seller to participate. Can the seller pay those FHA points or some of the closing costs? You never know unless you ask. I think that a lot of times we don’t succeed or we don’t get to the place that we want to get because we don’t ask enough.  There’s that great book  that’s written that in the book it says ask and you shall receive knock and it shall be opened unto you. We need to knock more. We need to ask more. These are the things that will open more doors for us and help us, I bring this up. The other night we played cashflow and there were a number of us on the phone and we were playing a virtual round of cashflow.

[00:11:14] And I don’t know if you know what that game is, but if you’ve never heard of it, it was developed by Robert Kiyosaki. Robert Kiyosaki’s a famous investor, famous author, wrote a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad that everybody talks about. And it’s one of been one of my favorite books over the years as well.

[00:11:31] But what he teaches in  cashflow is how to invest and the strategies behind it and to think ahead. So it’s not just about real estate investing, but if you’ve ever played monopoly or the game of life, This is like that, but on steroids, right? So it’s really blown out, but it was very interesting the other night when we played, because the banker who facilitated the game and operated the game, continued to tell us that, Hey, just ask.

[00:11:59] So finally, I started asking a little bit more and I got better deals. I got better discounts on the deals. I got the bank or the seller to pay for points, pay for closing costs. And then what was really interesting was when I went to sell out of something to trade it back, the bank bought it back. And whether the bank made money or not, I don’t know, but I know that I was. The piece there with a lot of that is you create a win-win scenario a win-win situation that the banker was winning, I was winning, other people at the game we’re winning. So when you get a chance to do that and you play through that strategy and you think about things. It helps you grow a lot more, I’m a really big advocate for thinking things through, not just making rash decisions.

[00:12:47] Let me ask you this. How many times have you gotten an email from somebody and you felt like you got attacked or it was an initial response, and all of a sudden you blast back an email. What happens? You wind up in trouble, right? But what if you take time to think it through? What if you take time to sit back and just really try to understand that other person or what they’re saying, and then you deliver a different message don’t you?  Well it’s the same thing in the real estate space. If you think through every move that you’re doing and make, it makes a big difference in your investing strategies, your investing career.  When we talk about investing too, I want to talk to the people who are making a transition.

[00:13:29] Maybe you’re currently in the single family space, maybe your a fix and flip investor or a buy and fix and hold investor. Maybe you own a number of single family properties. One of the guys I coach is a single family investor. He owns a number of properties and what he’s done over the last couple of years, as he started to back out of those properties and his focus is going to be to liquidate all his single family homes, take the capital 10 31 into multifamily properties.

[00:14:04] But I want to talk to the people who are in that single family space and maybe seeing some struggles even with where we’re at in the economy today, and people paying rent. I think the little investor is a one that’s going to probably get a little bit more affected over the next year by what’s happened with this pandemic and the Corona virus and things like that.

[00:14:27] But that’s just my own opinion. I think that the owner operator who owns 10, 20,000 units will not be as affected as the little guy. But what I want you to start thinking about the transition, because the economies of scale, when you have more properties, when you have more units, not properties necessarily, but more units in one location, it makes things easier.

[00:14:51]Your cost of entry is a lot less money. Your cost of operations  is less money. Your cost of exposure is less money. So there’s a lot of advantages. And I talk about these in a white paper that I wrote, multi-family fundamentals, but it just talks about some of the differences between single family and multifamily operations and investing.

[00:15:13] But if you’re in that transition space and you’re thinking that there’s a better way I owned and managed a property management company for a period of time and it was a  scattered house, residential operation. So I had about 120 units that were scattered all over the county. So there’s a lot of driving, right?

[00:15:33] There’s a lot of effect that goes into it. That can be difficult and take a lot more time than you might really want to be putting into it or might be worth putting into. And I tell you this, because think it through. Because if you have one single family property and you have a tenant, that’s not paying rent and you’re paying that mortgage out of your pocket, that can become pretty painful or stressful over time.

[00:15:57] But if you have a three unit or four unit and you have two tenants that aren’t paying the mortgage or paying their rent, you might still be able to make that mortgage payment with the money that’s coming in. So there’s different ways to look at it. And there’s different strategies. But if you’re thinking about making that transition, or if you’re already in the small multi-family space, and you’re thinking about making the transition into the commercial space, there’s a lot of different aspects to think through and look at.

[00:16:26] And I encourage you to walk down that road because I was never disappointed after I made that transition myself. But once you do it, you don’t really want to look back. You start to understand the ability of having more cashflow, less expenses in one location. Hey, listen, I had that scattered  property management company 120 units, different locations.

[00:16:50] But when I owned an apartment complex of a hundred or 200 units in one location, five roofs, less furnaces, less doors to take care of. Man. It was so much easier than that scattered site operations. But I want to empower you to execute, to be able to make that transition. There’s sound real estate investing in property management principles that we can teach you along the way that’ll help you get to that next level.

[00:17:20] One of the things  that I find really important and helpful is the ability to scale. So when you own one, it’s a little bit more difficult, but when you own multiples, it becomes a lot easier. And then another thing I want you to think about is the quality of life, right?

[00:17:37] Your balance in lifestyle. What I found over the years in real estate is real estate can be very distracting from everything else in your life. And what that tends to look like is I get. Commanded by my buyers or my sellers and they dictate my time unless I have really blocked out time, unless I really have control of my schedule, my calendar.

[00:18:01] And I would ask you right now, what is the control of your lifestyle? What is the control of your calendar? Do you let other people around you or in your business dictate the amount of time that you get to spend with your family or taking care of the more important things in your life. See, one of the lessons that I like to teach is how do I help you live a more balanced lifestyle, more quality lifestyle while still growing your business and enjoying the benefits of that real estate portfolio.

[00:18:37]If I can help you to develop a strong foundation of practical principles, I hope over the last year that I brought guests to the table and messages that grab a hold of that, I’ve had guests on, we’ve talked about being an entrepreneur and I believe that as an owner operator in the real estate business, whether you’re just owning an operating a real estate, or if you’re doing third-party management as well, that there’s a lot about being an entrepreneur and there’s those lessons that we need to learn.

[00:19:08]I also share a lot of these principles in my newly released book, Exit Plan. I had the fortune this year of getting my book out. Something that I’ve worked on a labor of love, really for the last couple of years. But in there I talk about, it’s your complete guide to multifamily investing and why you need an exit plan before you buy.

[00:19:28] You see what I have found over the years, I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching and training real estate, seminars, books, and tapes  self-study. And,  I’ve been experienced to a lot of really good trainers, a lot of really good coaches out there. The thing that I keep finding them, as I walk away from these seminars, I walk away from these events  and I leave empty, like I’m missing something.

[00:19:54] And what I finally realized was that everybody teaches you how to find a deal, how to get in a deal, how to operate a deal. Nobody ever teaches you how to get out of a deal. I just finished reading a book by really well-known author, really well-known real estate investor, 379 pages. When I got to like page 370, there was a little eight line paragraph.

[00:20:17] And the title of it was, “And now for the exit after all your hard work”, and I thought to myself, geez, why didn’t we think about that before I ever got to the closing table ? There’s that old cliche in the real estate business that says, you make money on your real estate purchase when you go in the deal, right?

[00:20:38] That’s true, we do.  Based on how we buy the deal and at what discount or how we structure the terms, that’s all important, but what’s even more important is how we get out of the deal. And how do we realize that gain? How do we realize that capital as we get out of the deal, and that was my passion and my theory around writing that book.

[00:20:59] God, I’ve shared so many stories in that book experiences that I’ve had with coaching clients, with other investors that I’ve worked with over the years. And I’ve really developed numbers of philosophies and thought processes on how to do the business more effectively, how to be a more effective and efficient multifamily or just real estate operator, owner, and operator.

[00:21:25] So if you’re looking for some direction, My Core Intentions, would like to help you. We’d like to sign up for that and be your guide and help you discover your why. And help you to live a more balanced lifestyle so you can focus more on what matters most. And what’s really more important, right? So if you’re looking for  that guidance and direction give me a call today.

[00:21:48]When this is over, go ahead and email me or pick up the phone and text me and I’ll be more than happy to help you. Listen, I think there’s a couple of topics that deserve a lot of conversation in today’s market. And where we talk about them with no fluff and no conversation or no no side conversation, you have gone to a lot of seminars and I really leave with a lot of fluff and a lot of wonder about geeze, what did I really get out of that ?  The upsell to the next event and things like that. And trust me, I’m going to do some of that too. But the fact is that I want to deliver more straightforward, factual data. That’s going to grow your business, that you’re going to be able to  walk away with and start doing the business.

[00:22:32]I’ve had people read my book.  And I really, I put together a focus group. I had 12 different individuals read the book before I ever published it. And two of the 12 that were brand new investors, never invested in real estate. And today they’re investing said to me, You know what I feel like I could go out and do this business.

[00:22:51] And what it made me think was I gave and delivered some straight forward factual data, factual, simple information that somebody could take and go and operate their business. And that’s what I like to do in my coaching and my training.   Let’s have a conversation about it. If you’re thinking about it, if you’re on the edge, you know what?

[00:23:09] Let’s have a one-on-one conversation. Get on the phone, we’ll do an initial coaching call, a free coaching call for 45 minutes with you and see how we can help you give you some guidance, give you some direction. And one thing I want you to do right now is I’d like you to go tell somebody about this podcast and that we’re on the air right now and have them come and listen to this with you.

[00:23:29] Because I think that the more people that have some of this information, the more it’s going to help you and help grow your business too. So go tell somebody and when we’re done, please like it. Subscribe to my media, to my Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, all the platforms and love it, listen, we’re all trying to live a ridiculous life. And I talk about this a lot lately, are you living a ridiculous life? Are you stepping outside of your comfort zone? Are you doing things that you might not normally have done? You can’t achieve anything unless you take the next step, you can’t achieve anything unless you move to the next level of your life.

[00:24:06] So live ridiculously be outrageous, do things you wouldn’t normally do.  Here’s what we can expect in the upcoming year for My Core Intensions and what you can expect as a listener and get enjoyment, education, and execution out of it. But we are completely revamping and rebranding the MCI logo. The look, the feel, the sound  over the last several months, we’ve been working on a new branding and you’re going to start to see that implemented over the next few weeks.

[00:24:38] And by the first of the year, hopefully right after the first of the year, everything will be in place. You’re going to see a new look, a new logo, new branding, new approach, a new strategy, all in all. And you know what you’re going to like it, I had it tested. We’ve looked at it, we’ve worked with it and I think you’re really going to like it and enjoy it.

[00:24:57]I’m excited about it because I know I love it. And again, my team has worked really hard on it and I’m very appreciative of them for that. So the goal is to bring more education, deeper education, richer filled with more information, knowledge, and experience to you to help you grow, to help you learn more, to help you go to the next level.

[00:25:18] Okay. I want to help you learn at a higher level right? In the new year as we come across everything that we’ve gone through in this past year, how do we live in outrageous lifestyle? How do we live a ridiculous lifestyle moving forward and take things to the next level? We all know that the markets have been tight lately.

[00:25:42] So we all know they’ve been tough. Cap rates are compressed. Pricing is high interest rates are low. You may be looking for a deal, right? What are you doing differently to look for a deal? So one of the pieces of education that I want to start to talk to people about is how do I help you source better real estate deals off market? What if you had the skills and the knowledge to find great deals and you could find them before anybody else found them? Would that help your business? Would that change your investing strategy a little bit? Hey, whether it’s a four unit or whether it’s a 400 unit, these strategies and skills that I have will work.

[00:26:22] Let me give you an example. So when I was in the real estate sales business, I had developed some techniques through masterminds that I was involved with networking, some things. I developed them, myself, where I could go out and I knew that if I prospected a certain amount, so I dialed the phone 20,000 times a year.

[00:26:43] Okay. Most people would go, Oh my gosh, how do you do that? You do that one dial at a time. Why did you do that? I did it because I knew that every time I pick the phone up and dialed it, I made $8. Okay. So that’s how the numbers equated see all smart business, people know their numbers. Do you know your numbers about your business in every aspect of your business?

[00:27:05] And I don’t mean just your P and L, but what it takes you to acquire a lead and a lead for you could be that new listing. A Lead for you could be that new seller who’s selling a house. You see a listing agent, whether you’re a residential or commercial or a real estate investor. The same skills apply in  those arenas in order to find properties to sell, to list, to buy.

[00:27:31]Okay. So what if we put a system into place that helped you get off market deals? One of the things I always thought about is enough lines in the water, help you catch more fish, the more lines you have in the water, the more fish you catch. So it’s a simple analogy. So how many of those systems or techniques can we put in place to help you catch more listings to help you catch more sellers and grow your business?

[00:27:58] Hey. Wouldn’t it be a great problem, iIf you had to say, geez, I can’t take any more listings. I can’t take any more sellers, but let me flip out of them and wholesale them. Wouldn’t that be a great problem to have? How do we get you there? So I want to teach you these skills, these techniques that you can implement immediately.

[00:28:17] Okay. And how do we source those sellers? Let me go back to the numbers for a minute here cause I got off track,  I would pick the phone up 20,000. Thousand times a year. And I nailed that all the way down to, I sold 125 listings a year as a result of that. Okay. That was in all the follow-up that was in the listing appointments.

[00:28:37] I went on 325 listing appointments a year. It was almost one a day. So it’s the same thing. When I was looking for off-market properties, I had a direct mail program in place. I had  a telemarketing program in place. I had a door-knocking program in place, how do we secure those leads?

[00:28:58] How do we find those sellers? These are the things that we’re going to work on, that we’re going to develop these skills in you this year to help you go to the next level. So networking and team building is the next thing. See, because in order to do the last piece, you have to be building a strong team around you.

[00:29:16] You need to have those people in your circle, in your life that will help you get to the next level. No matter what industry you’re in and this, the thing I always teach is no matter what industry you’re in, that networking and team building is critically important. And it’s what helps your business grow.

[00:29:35] So look at it this way. You have four circles around you. You’re in that inner circle. That’s you that’s who you are, but around you, who surrounds you that first circle is your inner circle. That’s your closest people, the people maybe you talk to on a daily basis, those are the people that are your real estate broker, your wholesaler, your coach, your intermediaries that infect your life with good positive input, right? Your mentors, the people that are close to you to help spur you on. I know I have a couple of coaches in my life, but I also have a couple of really good friends in my life who are supportive of me and who want to see me succeed and go to the next level and that’s who you need in your life.

[00:30:18] But then there’s the next level. That’s the support level. And in that support circle, it’s your contractors, your property management people who aren’t as close to you, but are a little bit closer. You don’t communicate with them every day and you might not have over for Christmas dinner, but. They’re important in your life.

[00:30:36] And then there’s that outer circle. The other people that you don’t have real relationships with, but you know who they are and you talk to them and you communicate maybe once a quarter, you send them a little handwritten note or once a quarter you send them an email or a text. Now I have friends in my life that come holiday time, come a couple of times a year.

[00:30:56] I’ll just text them and say, Hey, just thinking about you. Hope you’re well, And these are the people that, you continually build these relationships with. So I teach about those four circles and the importance around that and having this network who buys into your success and the people around you. On Mondays, I host two meetup groups.

[00:31:17] One week. I host a meetup group on multifamily mastermind.

[00:31:21]Yeah, multifamily mastermind is a combination of new investors, seasoned investors. We come to the table with really sometimes I have some things scripted out and I’ll teach a specific lesson. Maybe something happened that week that I want to talk about or give a light to. But the other piece is that people show up with questions.

[00:31:43] So I’ve been in a mastermind group for years and, they say that. The five closest people to you in your life right now are how you’re going to turn out in five years from now. So let me ask you this. Who’s in your life today, who are the closest people to you in your life, whether they’re your coach that you pay money to, or whether they’re just a best friend that you’ve walked with for years.

[00:32:10] Are they pulling you back or are they pushing you forward? Are they keeping you in the same place or are they helping you go to the next level by being in a mastermind group and masterminding with people who do more than you who are more successful than you, it’s definitely going to help you grow.

[00:32:28] You become more. So where do you want to be in five years from now? So my meetup mastermind groups are designed around property management and investing. Even if you’re a broker come to those, because you’re going to meet people, you’re going to meet leads. You’re going to learn what investors look for, what investors need and how do you satisfy that need for those investors.

[00:32:50] If you’re an investor, come to those, because now you’re going to learn what operators look for. If you’re an operator, now you’re going to learn what investors look for. So come talk, bring your trials, bring your successes. That’s what I always try to teach with people. But over the last few weeks, here’s what we’ve done.

[00:33:08] So we started on week one of this process and we reviewed the year were you in the place that you thought you would be? Did you get to the point where you thought you would be?

[00:33:18]Was the year turning out? Like you thought it would turn out. So we wanted to review you see any good business, does a review annually, quarterly of where they’re at in order to see where they need to go. Then we took a week and we talked about goal setting and I went through a couple of techniques.

[00:33:35] I taught a couple of strategies about goal setting, smart goals, and about a business planning process that I use called a one three five. And if you need to know what that is, and you’re not sure about it, call me and I’ll walk you through it. It’s a very simple model, actually, some major corporations in the country use it, but it’s a one, three, five model.

[00:33:55] And then we set some goals around that were the goals measurable and attainable? Did they have time constraints on them? So who’s going to hold you accountable after that also. So all that got talked about, then we talked about building strategies. You see every aspect of our business should have a strategy built in it.

[00:34:16] What’s your buying strategy? What’s your selling strategy? What’s your exit plan. So these are strategies that you need to look at and think through and build, if I would have opened my office manual and my syndication company, you would see all the different strategies that I have for buying, selling,  exiting, exit planning, business planning, construction planning, operations.

[00:34:39] The list goes on, and then you have to plan your execution. So it’s not just having a great plan and it’s not just having one plan in place, but it’s planning to execute properly. See, because we’re only as good as the execution. Either you’re going to execute yourself or you’re going to get somebody else to execute for you.

[00:35:01] Either way execution needs to be key. It needs to be spot on. And then we came to the last week and we played cashflow. And I know I talked about that earlier, but cashflow was so much fun. We will play that again. I know within the first quarter, we’re going to have another round of cashflow. So make sure you watch your emails and come out and play that with us.

[00:35:22] I think that we’ll probably try and play that once a quarter going through the first year here or the next year here because there’s so much to learn from it. And it’s about a learning process and we’ll just work it into our meetup group. It won’t be anything extra that we do. We’ll just do a little bit of marketing around it.

[00:35:38]So join the meetup group, go to meet up that comm, find those two groups, join them. So at least that way you’ll get the notifications on what we’re going to be talking about. Those weeks, Insider Secrets coming up. This year, we’re going to be doing a little bit different things. I’m going to fill three different buckets.

[00:35:57] I’m really going to fill a bucket with the property management sector. People who are in the property management space. If you’re a property management professional, whether you work for a big company or you’re a mom and pop raise your hand, let me know. Cause I would really like to spend some time with you in an interview.

[00:36:14] You have you on one of my podcasts. And if you’re a multi-family investor and we haven’t connected yet, please connect with me because the other bucket, the second bucket is going to be the multifamily investor and who’s investing. How are they investing? What are they looking for? What are the markets looking for?

[00:36:32] I’ll be real interested to see when the report comes out the first of the year here, what the top 10 markets are this year. Probably going to be Atlanta, Phoenix, Denver, but what else is going to fall into that bucket? And then the third bucket of people that we’re going to interview will be the support people, right?

[00:36:52] All the professionals that support those two first groups. Attorneys lenders, brokers, 10 31 self-directed IRA, financial planners, tax planners. All the necessary information. Now I’ve designed a series of questions for each of these groups. And what we’ll do is we’ll compile all this data at the end of the year.

[00:37:15]The long-term goal the end of the year for 2022, we’re going to go ahead and work on writing three books. So it’ll be on each one of those areas and we’ll compile that data and that information. So it’s going to be a pretty exciting year. And over the next several months, it’s going to be pretty exciting, but even moving forward.

[00:37:32] So I hope that you’re going to join us. I hope you’re going to be part of it. We’re going to do some bootcamps this year. So I’m going to talk about all of the events that we’re going to have in the upcoming year, we’re going to do three, one-day boot camps. One will be on exit planning. So we’re going to really dive into exit planning strategy structures, what to look for, what to look at, how to make choices, how to make decisions.

[00:37:57] And we’re going to really dive into that. And that’ll be a one day event. I’ll teach that myself. And we’ll open it up a couple of times throughout the day. For some question and answers, I may put a panel together. I’m not a hundred percent sure yet, but we’re going to really do a deep dive into exit planning.

[00:38:13] The second boot camp that we’re going to do in the second quarter will be understanding multifamily. So it’s going to be for folks making the transition investors, making that transition from single-family into small multifamily or from small multifamily into larger multi-family. See all of us think, I’ll never buy a hundred unit deal, but I never thought I’d buy a 200 unit deal.

[00:38:39] And I was buying three, 400 unit deals. See, you’d never think you can until you do it. So I want to stretch your mind. They say the mind works like a rubber band, right? Every time you stretch it, the elasticity comes out of it. And it never goes back to its original shape or its original size.

[00:38:58] It’s the same thing with our mind. Let me fill it with stuff for you. Let me pound stuff in there for you. Make it cement in there because what’s going to happen is it’s going to cause you to do more. I’m seeing some of my coaching clients right now who are taking that next step and they’re leaping out there and they’re starting to do things that caused their business to grow.

[00:39:19] Property management is going to be the third bootcamp that I do. Property management is going to be around the operations. What do we want to look for on the day-to-day operations? How do we find tenants? What about the financials? What should those look like? How do we run small deals? How do we run big deals?

[00:39:37] We’re going to go across the gamut. We’re going to talk about all that. So those are all going to be events that you won’t want to miss, because they’re going to bring you deep dive information, possibility for you to grow and do even more. And then in October next year, we’ll do our summit. We’re going to rebrand the summit.

[00:39:56] It’s going to be called the My Core Intentions Multifamily Summit. That’ll be in October next year. Again, it’ll be the three-day live event, but it’ll be held virtually. All of my events this year are going to be virtual. If we go do anything live it’ll because they’ve released some restrictions on COVID and we can drop into a market and doing an event in a market, maybe Chicago or Kansas City, or somewhere that it makes sense.

[00:40:24] But until we really get back to live events and people are really wanting to go out. We’re going to just continue to do virtual events. So you know what? You might want to get two or three people that come together and come to the summit, come to a bootcamp, watch it at one place, engage network, talk to each other.

[00:40:44] You may have a business partner. You might have a team that works for you. Get them all there to watch it, and we’ll deliver that content for you. But that summit again, it’s going to have three days. We’ll have 20 speakers again. We’ll play cashflow. We’ll get breakout rooms. We’ll do it a lot similar than we did it this year, but it’s going to be different.

[00:41:04]I think we’ll take it to another level this year. So stick with us. I think that you’re going to see some great events and some great results. Expect another book this year that’ll come out probably third quarter we’re shooting for, but that’ll be on property management, winning strategies in the property management field.

[00:41:24] So whether you are managing and operating your own properties or you’re doing third party or a combination of both.  I always did a combination of both I’ve managed and owned my own properties, but I also third-party managed for other people. So there’s a lot of expertise and a lot of experience you’ll get for that expect the completion of some coursework this year.

[00:41:46]I have written and have all the material that I need to redevelop. And we’re putting in a system for home study courses for multifamily investing. Property management operations and we’re going to be using the platform it’s up and running. Now there are some things out there it’s called teachable.

[00:42:05] You could go to the teachable platform, look for My Core Intentions. And on that teachable platform, you’ll find a couple of classes that I have out there currently. What I seem to believe being some of the more important things, right? The team building and networking, the locating and sourcing deals.

[00:42:22]Those types of things, funding deals. But  you’ll start to see more out there as the year progresses. I’ll start taking more product, more events and putting them out there. So remember, I have over 30 years of experience in the real estate business. That includes coaching investors during good times, bad times, I’ve discovered five common denominators of successful real estate investors. And I want to talk about those denominators because over the years, these continue to show up and they continue to really become prominent with the people that I coach and I teach.

[00:43:00] But the first one is every real estate investor possesses, a continual desire to grow and learn. They want to learn more. They want to grow more. They want to be more so if you’re one of those investors and you fit into that demographic or that category, how do I get more information to you? Let me know.

[00:43:21] Text me email me, let me know how I get more information delivered to you. What are you looking for? And how can I bring that to you? So they have this desire to grow. I know over the years for myself, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars coaching and training. And I’ve said it before, but I had that desire.

[00:43:40] I have that hunger. People say, Hey, why are you so passionate about real estate? I’m so passionate because there’s so much to learn. You could close a hundred to 100 unit deals in the same month and neither one of them would give you the same effect. They’d be the different processes. They have different results and different successes along the way.

[00:44:04] So what do you learn? You always learn something new. The second thing that investors demand are better standards,  best practices, better systems, better criteria for searching for business, building for techniques. How do I deliver that to you? I have some strategies in place. I have some thoughts in place, but if you are missing something, let me know and I’ll make sure that you get that personalized information.

[00:44:32] I’m going to deliver good strategies, best practices, best systems. I’m going to make this your best year ever. So stick with us as we deliver that information, investors are eager, but often held back. And the thing that I found is even as eager as you might be, as much as you desire, as much as you want to grow, you’re held back.

[00:44:57] What do I find that holds investors back? It comes down to fear and I believe that fear is what ultimately holds investors back. It makes us not do what we really want to do because we’re afraid. Sometimes we could be afraid of our success. Sometimes we could be afraid of failure or rejection, here’s the bottom line is we really can’t care.

[00:45:22] We really can’t care. You know what I have naysayers. And I compliment them and I go and try and talk to them and, on social media and comment back to them. And I have people who love what we’re saying, love what we’re doing, love what we’re teaching. So you’re going to always have both. You’re never going to please everybody.

[00:45:42]But what I want to do is I want to stay middle of the road with all those people. But I don’t want to be held back and I don’t want to be fearful of that and be held back as a result of it. The fourth one is that investors continually are in search of the best real estate purchases.

[00:46:01] So this goes back to what I talked about earlier. How do we locate better off-market deals? How do we find sellers that raise their hand that say, Hey, I’m ready to sell now. Get me out of this thing. And how do we show up and be in their life? Before anybody else? We’re going to teach those best practices.

[00:46:20] And that’s one of the things I really believe investors look for today. And then the fifth point is that investors are amazed when they discover the simplicity of investing in large multifamily complexes.

[00:46:33]You might be an investor right now that is investing in small deals, small multi-family properties, single family properties, thinking, God, I can never get to that next level. You’ll be amazed. I always tell people, I say, look, it’s no harder to close a 200 unit deal than it is to close a 20 unit deal.

[00:46:51] It’s no harder to close a 20 unit deal than it is to close a two unit deal. So we just need to change our mindset. Think differently. Let me ask you, what are you going to do this year coming up to think differently than you thought last year, are you going to let success or failure from last year, hold you back or help you move forward?

[00:47:14]My desire is to help you get there. My desire is to help you move forward and do more. I’ve had this mantra my whole life. Ever since I’ve been in the real estate business. And I think it came because I followed a trainer early on, who always said, buy your best listing once a quarter. Buy your best listing every quarter.

[00:47:34] But here’s what I always looked for in that I wanted to create short-term cashflow and long-term wealth. And that’s what I want to teach you. How do you create more short-term cashflow and long-term wealth? I’ve had this opportunity on a handful of podcasts lately to speak, some of this, and the common question I have been asked have been about some of the mistakes that I’ve made in the past.

[00:47:58] And, here’s what I want to say. We’ve all made mistakes. One of the things I talk about is a resilience around those mistakes. How resilient are you? Can you be resilient? When you fall down, do you get up right away? Let me ask you a question. When you’re teaching your toddler to walk and they fall down, do you say, Oh, you’re never going to get it, forget it, and walk away from him.

[00:48:23] Or do you say, come on, you can do this, come on, get up and stand them back on their feet and help them, right? It’s the same thing with the mistakes that you might make in business  We all make mistakes. Babe Ruth always got a recognition for the amount of home runs he hit. But nobody ever talks about the amount of strikeouts he had.

[00:48:43] Okay. Cause he had more strikeouts than anybody else and he actually had more strikeouts than home runs.  I’m just going to talk about a 10,000 foot view. Some of the mistakes I’ve made over the years over leveraged. So not enough money down on a deal. Listen, don’t cringe.

[00:48:59] When the bank says I want 25 or 30% down. Make sure you’re not over leveraged. Watch your price point. And let me back up for a minute. Cause that doesn’t necessarily go to that FHA house, hacker buyer one that really goes around those investment properties that you’re buying that you’re not living in.

[00:49:17] That you’re going to operate though. Don’t  under leverage. Don’t be 15 or 10% in the deal when you really need to be 25 to 30%. Watch your price point. Don’t overpay. You know what? We get excited. Sometimes we want to run a deal. The market’s hot. We  try to grab things. Don’t overpay and don’t fall in love with the deal.

[00:49:37]I talk about this a lot, right?  I tell a story and people say, Oh, you always tell the same stuff, but I tell a story because this is so important. Picture this, close your eyes for a minute. So it’s a beautiful spring morning. The flowers are just starting to pop through the top of the dirt.

[00:49:55] You can hear the landscaper cutting the grass in the background, the smell of fresh cut grass. You smell it right now. How about, can you see the steam coming off the swimming pool and look at the Dew on the grass. And you’re walking this property, drinking a cup of coffee, walking with the property manager, and you’re starting to fall in love.

[00:50:20]Now, at this point, you really can’t tell if you’re falling in love with the property or the property manager. But this is what happens. Don’t fall in love with the property. Don’t get emotionally involved. I have found some of the toughest deals to buy were the deals. I was emotionally involved with. See on that deal that I walked, where the grass was being cut.

[00:50:42] And it was early in the morning and I was drinking that cup of coffee and I could smell the grass. I fell in love with the deal and I missed the red flags. See, I didn’t understand when my analyst said don’t buy this. And told me 17 reasons why not to buy it. We didn’t buy it, but I fought her and fought and fought around it.

[00:51:03] So make sure that you are cautious and you don’t fall in love. Think things through ask better questions. Is what I learned a long time ago. The more answers we come up with for a question, write yourself down a question. Why am I paying this much money for this property? Why are the operations this?  Give yourself 20 answers to that question now.

[00:51:28] So when you do that, you really come up with some really good solid  answers at the end. Pay attention to the red flags. Be thorough on your due diligence, drill down if something is questionable and doesn’t make sense. Find out why it doesn’t mean you might not do the deal. It just means there might be opportunity that lies within that.

[00:51:52] How do I discover it? How do I find it go out of your way and drill down into the property. Look at the numbers. Talk about the landscape. Talk about the landscaping numbers that might be out of range, right? I’ll give you an example. I toured a property one time the landscaping numbers were about $11,000 higher than I estimated that they should be because I had another bid from a third party company.

[00:52:20] And when I was going through the due diligence, so I got with the owner and I asked the owner and the owner goes, Oh, you’re right. It was. $9,800 more than it should have been because  he was paying his brother extra money out of the operations of the property. And then he was taking money back at the end of the year off the books.

[00:52:40] Now I want to say this, that’s not a real ethical thing to do and what we do, we need to really operate in an ethical arena. So I’ve learned through my own mistakes. That operating outside of that box can get us into trouble, but we have to be careful. And then some of the other things that I learned over time have been listen to those around you.

[00:53:04]If you’re married, listen to your spouse. A lot of times they’re smarter than we are. I know that my wife said things to me that I didn’t pay attention to that today if I would’ve paid attention might be different, but listen to the other advisors, your attorney, the people around you. If they don’t see something, if something looks out of place to them, pay attention.

[00:53:24] So make sure that you take those red flags into consideration. What is your plan for the next year? What are you going to do? How are you going to grow your business? How are you going to grow personally as well as professionally? Let me ask you, do you have a coach? Have you ever had a coach? I’ve had coaches for 25 years.

[00:53:47] I still have coaches in my life today and just got a new coach. And it was interesting that I got a new coach because I’ve had this coach for years and he’s a good friend of mine and we built this friendship. We built a great relationship. But he wouldn’t call me on my BS anymore. So I had to get somebody who would and who I could work through some things with.

[00:54:08] So if you’re coaching now, maybe it’s time for a change. And I’m not saying that it needs to be me.  There’s a lot of great coaches out there and we all need coaches in our life. But find somebody get some coaching, somebody to help you go to that next level.

[00:54:24] And I do want to sign up for that. I do want to be your coach. So whether you’re a new investor, a broker, a seasoned investor, somebody in the property management space, I have a program that we can work for you, but more importantly, let’s custom design something that will work even better for you.

[00:54:43] That’ll help you grow. That’ll help you do more. That’ll help you be more. So I want to sign up for that. So if you have questions, you know what text me, email me, tell me on social media that you are reaching out and we’ll connect. We’ll can we do a 45 minute free coaching call? And if nothing else, you’ll walk away with a couple of nuggets going.

[00:55:05] Wow. I didn’t think about that. I should’ve thought of that before. So I want you to expand your mind this year. I want you to think, I want you to take this ride with us, cause we’re going to expand and we’re going to do things that are going to help you expand. I want you to be part of that. So join us at My Core Intentions.

[00:55:21] You know what? Follow us on social media. Go to Facebook, go to Instagram, go to YouTube, subscribe to our material, our content, and watch us, watch the emails that you get. Okay. Take part in what we have to offer, because it can only help you be better. I never went to college, not till later in life.

[00:55:41] And I did finally go to college, but early on, I didn’t go to college and I read a thousand books. And I went to a bunch of seminars and not only real estate, but all kinds of coaching and training. And I only tell you that not to tell you not to go to college, because I think that you should. And I think that you need to get your education, especially when it comes to math and finances and things like that.

[00:56:05] But. I read a thousand books. So make time for your education, make time to expand your mind, make time to put more in your mind. It’s important. I’m still reading books today. I can never get enough and if you’re hungry and if your starved for information, that’s the best way to get it. Hey, I want to thank you for joining me today.

[00:56:27] I know this was a little bit different than normal. I really enjoyed this and I hope that you did as well. I hope that you share with somebody. That it makes an impact, not only in your life, but somebody’s life around you who might need this right now. Nelson Mandela said that there’s no passion to be found in playing small in settling for less than is less than what  one is capable of living.

[00:56:53] So I say that because.

[00:56:56]Nelson Mandela said, there’s no passion to be found, playing small in settling for a life that is less than one you are capable of living. So we’re all capable of living a greater life, a better life, a more important life. And I say that because I want you each to live a better life and I want to help you get there.

[00:57:20]Whatever I can don’t hesitate to reach out good luck to you. And I hope that your year coming up is fantastic. And beyond your wildest dreams.

[00:57:31]Kristen: [00:57:31] Thank you, Mike, and thank you for joining us for another great episode of insider secrets as always insider secrets is brought to you by my corn tensions. Join us on social media and visit my core intentions.com where you can get expert coaching on all things, multifamily investing in property management.

[00:57:49] We’re looking forward to having you back again next week for more insider secrets.