Insider Secrets Podcast Season 2, Episode 30
Guest: Mike Morawski
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Guest Bio:
With over 30 years of experience in real estate investment, Mike Morawski has overseen transactions exceeding $405 million. As an accomplished entrepreneur, author, educator, public speaker, and personal coach, Mike serves as the Chief Investment Officer of a multifamily hedge fund. His career is marked by personal resilience and a dedication to empowering others to achieve significant success in their endeavors. He has mentored hundreds of aspiring real estate investors, helping them realize their ambitions.
Mike’s journey began in Chicago’s Northwest Suburbs as a general contractor, where he built a thriving business generating $5 million annually before selling it. He then transitioned into real estate, quickly becoming a top sales agent and leading a team that consistently achieved over $20 million in annual sales. In 2005, he founded a private equity firm, raising $18 million and acquiring $60 million worth of multifamily properties, totaling 4,000 units across five U.S. markets.
Today, Mike is driven by a passion for sharing his extensive knowledge and experience. He hosts the Insider Secrets Podcast and co-hosts the Multifamily Unplugged Vidcast. Through his platform, My Core Intentions, Mike provides training and coaching for real estate investors and industry professionals, focusing on strategies to generate immediate cash flow and create lasting wealth. His training includes both live and virtual sessions, along with three tiers of personal coaching.
What distinguishes My Core Intentions is its emphasis on developing exit strategies and fostering wealth through small multifamily properties. Clients achieve remarkable results, completing deals within 12 weeks and experiencing annual business growth of over 20%. My Core Intentions empowers clients to set high standards in their personal and professional lives, allowing them to realign with their core values, including family and personal growth. Mike’s mentorship helps clients discover their true passions, leading to a more balanced and fulfilling life.
https://youtu.be/QZh49jrcpxQ
SHOWNOTES
Key Takeaways
Start by establishing your company identity with a strong business name and an LLC, set up by a business attorney, to provide a solid foundation.
Building a website is essential—even a simple one boosts credibility and acts as a digital business card to attract investors.
To develop relationships and begin raising capital, focus on networking to build valuable connections, as strong relationships are key to securing investment funding.
Use a database to nurture leads effectively. Tools like Capitalist Pro help centralize contacts, streamlining communication to guide leads into active investments.
Creating a company thesis/slide deck allows you to showcase your business to investors with clarity and polish, setting you up to make a lasting impression.
Standout Quotes
“Your database isn’t just a list; it’s the foundation of nurturing relationships that will eventually invest in your deals.” – Mike Morawski
“You need to build a system that matures your leads because someday, you’ll be ready to harvest them when it counts.” – Mike Morawski
“Our industry thrives on relationships. If you’re not building connections, you’re missing out on one of the most critical elements of capital raising.” – Mike Morawski
“Capitalist Pro is designed by capital raisers for capital raisers. It’s not just a database; it’s a lead-nurturing powerhouse that supports your growth.” – Mike Morawski
“There’s no real competition here. The playing field is level, and success is about what you make of it with the same 24 hours.” – Mike Morawski
“My new book isn’t just theory—it’s a hands-on guide packed with strategies, stories, and insights for the real-world investor.” – Mike Morawski
“Get the fundamentals right: a name, an LLC, a website, relationships, and a database. Those are the building blocks of a sustainable real estate business.” – Mike Morawski
Episode Timeline
[00:00 – 01:00] Introduction
[01:00 – 03:30] Establishing Your Business Name
[03:30 – 06:00] Forming Your LLC
[06:00 – 08:30] Importance of having a professional Website
[08:30 – 12:00] Building Relationships for Capital Raising
[12:00 – 13:00] Importance of a Database
[13:00 – 14:30] Implementing Capitalist Pro as a powerful CRM tool
[14:30 – 16:30] Nurturing Leads with the Eight-by-Eight Program
[16:30 – 18:00] Mindset and Approach to Competition
[18:00 – 19:00] Introducing Mike’s New Book: Multifamily Investment Secrets
[19:00 – 20:00] Closing Remarks
Contact
Website: https://mikemorawski.com
Email: mike@mikemorawski.com
TRANSCRIPT
Kristen: [00:00:00] Welcome to this edition of Insider Secrets, the weekly podcast that turns real estate investing goals into reality. Each show, we interview guests who are seasoned real estate professionals actively closing and managing real estate deals. Mike is the founder of My Core Intentions and would like to help you make your real estate investing dreams a reality.
Mike coaches you to buy investment real estate, creating short term cashflow and long term wealth. Your host and real estate coach, Mike Morawski has more than 30 years of real estate investing and property management experience. Here’s your host, Mike.
Mike Morawski: Hey, welcome back everybody. I hope you’ve been having a great week and settling in on the weekend here. This is my solo podcast where I’m going to talk this week on Business Structure. I think that business structure is something that we need to start talking about early on when you make that decision or that [00:01:00] commitment to be a multifamily investor.
You’re going to go in the apartment business, and you want to syndicate and build a portfolio. And I don’t even want to rule out anybody who might be doing 2 to 4 unit properties, build in a smaller unit mix portfolio. But as you are scaling and growing, there’s a few things from a business perspective, a business structure perspective that you need.
So I usually get into this probably around the third or fourth week of my coaching program with my coaching clients. I get into talking about business structure and what specific processes need to take place and things that you need to have in place. The first is, and you may have already done this, you might not have, but the first is have a business name.
What is the name of your company? I have a couple of different companies, but capital raising company that I’m a managing partner in is Resilience Equity. Resilience cause of my resilience, bouncing back and overcoming life’s [00:02:00] challenges and building a business. And I always tell people, I say, Hey, don’t ever let your past define your future because you’d be amazed at what you could do when you take initiative and action and move forward.
But that company’s Resilience Equity. My coaching platform is Mike Morawski, LLC. So it’s just a matter of what you want your business to be. Do you want to use your last name and call it capital? Or I think that with the access to ChatGPT and AI today that you can go in and you train those systems to know who you are.
The more you interact with the system, the more responses and things you’re going to get back in order to utilize and it gets to know you. So go to ChatGPT and get some business names. Say you’re in the equity business, the capital raising business, the multifamily apartment business, and then get some ideas for a business name for yourself.
Once you decide on a business name, the next thing you’re going to want to do is open a company. You’re going to want to have an [00:03:00] LLC, that limited liability corporation that gives you that added protection, that arm’s length reach from people who may try to sue you down the road. Or when you go and you start buying buildings, you want to be able to put those buildings in LLCs.
So this kind of becomes your parent company. Now, who helps you set that up? Well, I have a couple of business attorneys that we’ve used over the years. I have a very good friend of mine is a business attorney. We use him to set up our entities and I also have a legal consultant consulting firm that they set up business entities as well.
So if you need a referral, don’t hesitate to DM me, reach out. I’ll get you a referral on an attorney that can help you in your area. A couple things to think about when we set those business entities up. Where do you want to set it up? Now, we need to start talking about and thinking through tax purposes.
If you set up an entity in Delaware, [00:04:00] Nevada, Wyoming, you’re not going to be paying sales tax on those entities or income tax in those states. So those are great places to set entities up in and have your corporation there. If you do it locally to your home, and you’re paying state income tax, try and alleviate your tax burden because we all have a tax burden.
But to alleviate that tax burden, think through using a Delaware or a Wyoming or a Nevada corporation. Somebody told me the other day, which I found was really interesting, car shopping, looking for a new car.
And they said, hey, when you get the car license it in Montana, because there’s no tax and that’s interesting, but you can’t do that unless you’re paying cash for the car. So, if you’re financing it, you’re not allowed, you can’t do that. So, there’s different things to think about when it comes to that business entity. Business attorney, not to be confused with your securities attorney.
As you’re going through this entire [00:05:00] process, make sure that you’re working on building a relationship with the securities attorney. So, when I look at our company and how we have things set up, we have a corporate business attorney. We have a securities attorney help with 2 different aspects of the business.
Your securities attorney is going to help you build and put together your offering documents, your reg D documents that are required by the SEC that securities and exchange commission when you file a syndication offering out there. So make sure that you have a good syndication attorney, somebody that’s truly going to be able to help you put that together.
They’re also going to help you put together that LLC and subscription agreements for your investors when they come in. So think through your business name, think through your LLC, get that structure all set up. The third thing that you want to look at is your website. As we’re raising capital, one of the things that becomes really [00:06:00] important is we need to have a presence in the marketplace.
And unfortunately, those websites give us some type of a presence out there. So, once you get your business set up, you’ve got your LLC underway. You can start to build a website. Maybe you’re somebody who can do that on your own. Maybe you want to reach out to someone on Fiverr or on one of the other gig economy apps that you’re going to be able to find somebody to help you build a website.
When we first built our website at Resilience Equity. We just built a static website, two or three pages, just an about you page, our thesis on what we do and how to contact us. It was not really anything impressive, but as we grew a little bit, we knew we needed to take that website to the next level and make it a little bit more interactive where we could actually have some downloadable items on the website, an ebook that we give away a passive investing ebook [00:07:00] guide.
It’s a lead magnet. So somebody downloads that, we get their name, their phone number and their email address, which gives us the ability then to call them and talk to them about investing in real estate and what type of investing do they like to do.
So, you have to start thinking about lead generation and all of this, and I’ll get to that in a minute. The other thing you want your website to be able to do is you can put your current offerings on there, and then you can lead them from the website to the investor portal, which is another piece that you’ll want to have put in place as you build that first syndication for yourself, or even a joint venture deal.
Joint ventures are a little bit easier. Can have 1 or 2 people joint venture with you, which is different than raising capital on a syndication, but always talk to your attorney. So, I always tell people, and I qualify this. I am not an accountant and I’m not an attorney.
I only tell you what’s worked well for us from it to give you education. I’m really not giving you legal or accounting advice [00:08:00] in any of this. So, get that website built for yourself to have some nice pictures on there. If you’re partnered with some people and you are building a team and your team has a track record, get the track record on your website.
You want people to see who you are, what you do and, where you’re going. And, it’s that those 3 phases of business that I talk a lot about. It’s like when we’re underwriting and I’ll just use this as a quick example. There’s 3 ghosts. You have the ghost of the financials. The past, the present, and the future. And it’s the same thing in your website design.
Now, another thing that I want to talk about is putting together a slide deck for your company. Once you have your LLC in place and you have your name picked out and put together a slide deck, a slide deck would give what is going to be your thesis.
Hey, who we are. Who’s in our company, who’s part of our company, little bios, pictures, a little bit of background about the company players, the team players, and then [00:09:00] your track record, what have you done in the real estate investing business. Hey, if you have flipped 10 or 20 or 100 single family houses or small multifamily deals and put that in there, let people know that you’ve been in real estate, that you’re active in the real estate business.
The other thing you want to put in there is what you do. Like if I look at our thesis, it says, Hey, we are multifamily syndicators. We buy B class properties that are 1990s and newer. I talk about that buying strategy in there. And then I talk about what our mission is. Our mission being, Hey, We want to provide safe and secure housing for our tenants.
That’s one part of it. And the second part is that we want to be good stewards of our investors, invested capital with us and bring them above average, high rates of returns. And then go on to talk about the returns your investors have the potential to see. I see a lot of people get crazy on this at this point.
Mid 20 percent returns, unachievable things, especially in [00:10:00] today’s environment. When you put together those potential returns, I think if you’re mid to upper teens, IRR on an annual basis, that’s digestible. That’s very realistic for people. If you put in that they’re going to receive a 6, a 7, an 8 percent preferred return and how that’s paid back.
And then the tax planning, how do you help people put more cash in their pocket throughout the year? And that’s by the depreciation or the tax planning strategies. So I always try to accomplish 3 things for my passive investors. One is cash flow along the way and helping them increase their cash flow. Two is creating long term wealth for themselves, and then three is are those tax planning strategies, and how do we help people create more income for themselves over time.
The next thing I want to talk about is relationship building and, raising capital. I talk about this early in the coaching process, and the [00:11:00] reason I do is because once you make a decision that you’re going to go out, you’re going to syndicate multifamily deals. You are going to raise capital.
Then what you need to do is you need to be talking to everybody about it. Family and friends are great. That’s where maybe you get your first early round of investor dollars. But now you need to go beyond that. What systems are you going to put in place? What things are you going to put in place to help you keep enough lines in the water to be catching those potential real estate investors?
So this is about building relationships. Going out and I have a great training session in my coaching video library on relationships, couple of sessions on raising capital, but just make sure you’re talking to people every day. Even if you’re in the gas station or at a restaurant, you start a conversation with someone, or you’re at a networking event and you meet somebody new.
Now the question becomes, what are you going to do with that new relationship? How are [00:12:00] you going to treat that new relationship? Well, you need to have a database. So this is your fifth point. And I’ll recap them at the end, but your fifth point is the database. You have to have a place to house those contacts.
So when I meet somebody new for the first time, I take them and I go and I put them into my database. I put their name, their email address, phone number, maybe a mailing address, and I put them on a marketing program. So when you meet someone and you put them in your database, you want to nurture that lead now, because the more you nurture that lead, at some point you’re going to harvest that lead.
So you’re going to bring a deal to the market and now you’re going to harvest that lead and they’re going to invest in your deal. We use a database today called Capitalist Pro. I used a couple others over the years, but Capitalist Pro was built by Capital Raisers for Capital Raisers. And they have systems in there.
They have a lot of lead magnet opportunities in there. They have a lot of email, [00:13:00] follow up, text messaging, different processes that you can implement and put in place. And, if you’re going to go out and over the next several years, you’re going to raise one to a hundred million dollars for real estate syndications, then you’re going to want a good solid platform.
I suggest you reach out to Capitalist Pro. You could DM me for contact information there, somebody that will take care of you and help you get your system in place. But they also have a ton of training and the training just really helps you to build that platform. So use your database, use it wisely, use it often.
When it comes to marketing around maturing those leads, what you wanna be doing is I’ll meet somebody new, I put ’em on what I call an eight by eight program, which means that over the next six weeks, I’m gonna touch them eight times. Because when it comes to real estate investing, I want them to remember. Mike Morawski or Resilience Equity about being a place that they can invest [00:14:00] their capital and we’re going to be good stewards for them with that capital.
And so you get these systems in place for yourself. If you need help building out some systems, thinking through your current position. Hey, you know what? I’m willing to jump on the phone for 15, 30 minute call, strategy session with you to help you build that out for yourself. And if you’re a passive investor and you’re looking for opportunities to invest in multifamily syndications, especially moving out of this down cycle that we’re in a stronger market, then definitely reach out to me and let’s talk about your current position.
So, let me recap the 5 business structure or business building items that you need to have in place. The 1st is that company name. The 2nd is building, creating an LLC, having your business attorney build that LLC out for you. The 3rd is the website. Having a website built, as I said, [00:15:00] even if it’s just a static website.
The fourth is relationships and starting to raise capital. So if you’re in my coaching program or you’re looking for a coaching program, one of the first or second weeks, we are immediately jumping in and starting to talk about raising capital. Remember this, we all get paid for what we, there’s a saying that says we eat what we kill.
And so we only get paid when we take down a deal. And in order to take down a deal, we’re a function of capital. We have to be able to raise capital. So it’s hard to get these in place for yourself. So relationships and raising capital is extremely important. And then of course, number five, your database.
And in the midst of this, don’t forget to put together a slide deck, a thesis on your company for yourself. Now, what I will tell you is if you want some examples, reach out to me, shoot me an email. I’ll send you out our company thesis to give you an idea. I’m a big proponent of borrowing information from other people and seeing what my peers in the [00:16:00] business are doing.
People say it might be competition, but I don’t look at it as competition. I believe we all have a level the same level playing field. We all have the same hours in a day. We all have the same capacity for work and to do things. And so there’s really no competition, that competition’s between your eye, your ears. It’s in your own mind.
So you got to keep your mind in the game. Okay, one last thing that I’m going to talk about today. Super excited for the launch of my new book coming out. Multifamily Investment Secrets, your guide to explosive wealth in multifamily real estate. Hey, you can go to Amazon. This is on Amazon right now.
And, it’s $18.99. It’s a great read. 240 pages of data, information, statistics built around a few stories, a couple of stories on how to do some creative financing in the real estate business, some other clients that I’ve [00:17:00] had along the way, and some of their stories. So a lot of great information. It’s really a how to manual, how to guide to be an active investor. But if you’re a passive investor, it’ll give you a really great idea around what to look for and types of deals and deal structure to look for.
So I just want to thank everybody for being here. This week is great to have you here. Hope that you took a ton of notes. If you have questions, don’t hesitate to reach back out and I will certainly look forward to talking to you over the next week or so. Don’t hesitate to reach out. Have a great week, everyone.
Kristen: 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 Core Intentions. Wherever you hang out on social media, you will find Mike and My Core Intentions. Please like and follow us to get the most up to date real estate investing trends.
Visit mycoreintentions.com where you can get expert coaching on [00:18:00] all things real estate investing and property management. If you’re looking to become an expert, Mike’s coaching will help you scale your real estate investment business. We’re looking forward to having you back again next week for more Insider Secrets.
