BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 323: How to Attract Deals and Earn More Through the Magic of Networking With Travis Chappell

Episode Date: March 28, 2019

Would getting more deals through your network help your real estate business? Today’s guest specializes in just that! Brandon and David sit down with Travis Chappell, host of the “Build Your Network” podcast, and dive into how to create success through other people. Travis shares strategies for using his network to find deals, mastering the art of giving to increase your success, and becoming a leader in any space you are passionate about—no matter who you are! You won’t want to miss his “anchoring” negotiating strategy, his advice on the right way to reach out to mentors/influencers, and his five tips for starting off an effective working relationship! This is one of the most value-packed shows BiggerPockets has done. Download it now! In This Episode We Cover: How Travis uses his network to source deals Why he rents his primary residence The power of creating a platform like a podcast or meetup The key to successfully partnering with family Why givers are more successful How his networks really affect his net worth The reason why he’s selling his real estate properties The beauty of adding value first to others His five effective tips for reaching out and connecting with anyone His “anchoring” negotiating tactic and how he used it to land a deal Why house hacking is his favorite way to get started in real estate And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Forums BiggerPockets Webinar BiggerPockets Events BiggerPockets Podcast 314: How to Find Rockstar Contractors and Manage Like a Boss with Andresa Guidelli Build Your Network 186: The Bigger Pockets Podcast with Brandon Turner  BiggerPockets Podcast 227: From Single Family Houses to $130,000,000 in Multifamily with Joe Fairless Best Ever Podcast by Joe Fairless BiggerPockets Podcast 108: Building a $350 Million Real Estate Empire Using the 10X Rule with Grant Cardone Entrepreneurs on Fire with John Lee Dumas BiggerPockets Podcast 113: Becoming a Millionaire Real Estate Investor Using The One Thing with Jay Papasan Jordan Harbinger Show Noah Kagan BiggerPockets Hard Money Lenders BiggerPockets Podcast 169: Using Hustle and Persistence to Build Wealth Through Real Estate with David Greene Books Mentioned in this Show Give and Take by Adam Grant Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller Never Split the Difference Chris Voss Fire Round Questions Any advice on finding deals to flip in a hot market? Do you think it’s a mistake to think about investing out of state, given my lack of experience at this point? Any tips for motivating contractors to move quickly? Tweetable Topics: “Most of the things that we need to master fall under the communication category.” (Tweet This!) “You don’t have to be an expert to start a podcast or a meetup.” (Tweet This!) “Every deal is different. What works for me may not work for you.” (Tweet This!) “The deal is in the numbers. If it’s a good deal, it will make money regardless of all the other stuff.” (Tweet This!) “What you focus on, you get more of.” (Tweet This!) “There’s deals for everybody out there!” (Tweet This!) “Not all debt is bad.” (Tweet This!) “The number one thing about networking is giving value.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Travis Travis’ Personal Website Meet Your Hero Course Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Bigger Pockets podcast, show 323. Building a platform is like so important because the number one thing to become a better networker, the number one thing is to add value, to learn how to give without the expectation of receiving anything in return. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online.

What's going on, everyone? This is Brandon, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. David Green. David Green, tell me, on a scale of 1 to 10, how you feeling today? I'm feeling 11 after today's episode. This guy is really good. Yeah, today, this, I know we say this all the time, but this is, again, one of my favorite shows we've done in a long time. We are interviewing a guy named Travis Chappell. He runs a podcast on networking.

We'll talk about that in the show a little bit later. It's called the Build Your Network podcast. But we talk a lot about, he's also a real estate investor. We talk about his real estate is flipping why he's getting out of rentals. But then we really dive into how to network with influential people, how to build mentors in your local market, how to get people that you consider your heroes like online or in your local market, how to get in touch with them, how to have coffee with them. A few things I've just pulled out from today's show that just kind of to, I guess, tease you

with is coming. make sure you guys listen to the key to success when partnering on a real estate deal with family or really anyone. There's like one thing that we pull out there that's really, really important. We talk about the most important skill that Travis has pulled out of over 200 interviews with people. Like when it comes to networking and being able to find success, he pulls out one skill he's find over and over and over works really well.

And then towards the end of the show, we go into five key elements of an effective reach-out message. In other words, when you call text, email somebody that you want something from. You want to go out to coffee with somebody. You want to network with them. You want to whatever, right? There's like five key elements you've got to include in there. And in fact, Travis actually did this.

We actually, like, laughingly, like, it was pretty funny. He did this exact thing to me, which is how me and Travis became friends. Like, I looked back in the very first message I ever got from Travis, and he totally did this on me, and it totally worked. So if you want to learn how to get in touch with people, you got to listen to this show. You're going to love it. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time-consuming, and expensive.

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the co-host network. While you're away, you can hire a vetted local co-host with hosting experience to help take care of things. Communicating with guests, preparing your space, managing reservations, everything runs smoothly while you're off making memories. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host. I don't want to forget the best part of the entire Bigger Pockets podcast, and that is the quick tip. I didn't know if you knew I was going there, David, but you caught on quickly. Well done. Quick tip. All right. Quick tip. Today's quick tip is simple. We talk a lot about some of the show today about networking at local events. So I'm just going to pull out again.

I know we talk about this a lot, but I'm going to say it again. If you're not going to a local Bigger Pockets event, you're missing out on one of the most important things you can do as a real estate investor. So go to BiggerPockets.com slash events, find an event in your area and go to it. And if there isn't an event in your area coming up or you don't like the ones that are there, go start your own. Right? Like it's just such a good way to build connections with people and to really drive your business, your success forward. Again, biggerpockets.com slash events. And now, I want to just go right into this show because, again, today's show is fantastic.

So I'm not even going to let you talk anymore, David. Okay, I'll let you say. One more thing. Yeah, the one thing I want to say is make sure you listen all the way to the end because it gets really good at the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, really, really solid. So if you're like driving to work right now and you're not going to have time, listen on your commute home because this is powerful. Oh, also, I didn't say it earlier, but make sure you guys listen to his negotiation tip. That was one of my favorite things he said all day is how he negotiates a lower price on properties.

There's like one tip he uses on price anchoring. You're going to love it. So stay tuned for that. But without further ado, let's get to today's interview with Travis Chapel. All right, Travis, welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast. How you been, man? Yo, what's up, guys? How's it going?

You know, not too bad. Not too bad. You know, I was on your show a little while ago. And we got to talking, you know, all about, you know, networking and how to build your brand and get people to, you know, like you essentially, right? And it was a ton of fun. And afterwards, I didn't know this while we were recording really much, but you were a real estate investor as well. So I was like, well, dude, we had a great time.

I got to get you on the Bigger Pockets podcast and make this happen. So yeah, that's why you're here. Every time I talk to you, I got to stop doing it on video because I always see the background of Hawaii. And, yeah, yeah, from now on, just audio only. Yeah, it's not too bad. It's not too bad. I always tell people when they're like, you know, what's it like in Hawaii? I even said it's you this morning.

I'm like, oh, man, it's really rough lately. Actually, I mean, the winter is kind of cold out here. Like, normally in the summer, it's like mid-80s and now it's like mid-70s. And it's like, it's hard, you know. And all my friends in like Minnesota and Washington. Yeah, exactly. Winter is coming. All right.

So let's jump into this thing. We'll go through your real estate story first. And I really want to get to later talking about, I mean, you've interviewed over 200 people on your show about networking and about building your, you know, the people around you, right? And it's so good. But before we get there. I want to go through your real estate story.

So let's start the beginning. What did you do before real estate? And let's talk about how you got from there into your very first real estate deal. Yeah, good question, man. So I did nothing before real estate because I grew up in a real estate household. So my dad has been a real estate agent since I was like three or four years old. So I was walking properties on Saturdays and Sundays since I could walk. You know what I mean?

So basically as soon as I graduated high school, I was in my first deal. My parents helped me out tremendously with that one. Me and my sister did it together. But I will say that during that time, before I really got into, you know, knowing what I was doing, I did a lot of door-to-door sales. So I was actually in college. I grew up in a super traditional, let's say, strictly Christian home. So I went to college actually for church ministries. I have my degree in Bible and church ministries.

I actually have a degree in biblical studies. Oh, no way. Yeah, I didn't know that. So you want to talk theology then instead? Yeah, we can go to theology all day. That's great. All right. But yeah.

So during college, a buddy of mine started knocking doors for the solar company. And I remember it being super intriguing to me because he had told me that he had made more money that week than he did the previous summer when he was working two full-time jobs. And he only worked 20 hours that week. And so I kind of caught my ear and asked him if he could get me an interview with the supervisor. And he did. So I started in door-to-door sales right then. solar for about a year and a half and then got recruited into the alarm industry and that got recruited into the water industry. And then it wasn't really until I was in the water business

that I started doing a little bit more with real estate and actually starting to look to do deals just because I was making some good money and I wanted somewhere to throw it. And I always believed in the long term of real estate. And I personally, genuinely believe that if you ever desire to build any sort of wealth, that real estate has to be a part of that. And so I basically joined up with a mastermind where I learned a little bit more about it. I started consuming a lot of content. That's when I first started listening to your guys' show. This show, Bigger Pockets, is like one of three shows that I've actually listened to from when I first started listening to podcasts and that I still currently listened to today. So it's an honor

to be on, bro. It really is. Well, thanks, man. I'll take that as a win. You know, it's funny you mentioned you're in Dorda to Sale. So we had a guest, Andresa Gidelli from back on the show like 314. She talked to a lot about how Dorda or Sales helped her get. get used to rejection and get that mindset right. Did you find the same thing? Like, you get good at, okay, yeah. Can you talk about that from me? Like, what is that mindset that you have to get into

that you learn to deal with that? Yeah, it's instrumental, bro. But I so much believe in door-to-door sales, really direct sales of any sort in terms of learning how to communicate. This is a question that I've asked a ton of people on my show recently. What's the number one skill that you think is important

to really develop as an entrepreneur or to be successful? in whatever area of life that you're trying to be successful in. And the number one thing, the number one answer, I was expecting more specifics, but the number one answer I've been getting is communication, because most of the things that we need to master as business people, as investors, as agents, whatever you are, most of those things fall under the communication category.

It's sales, negotiation, marketing, networking, like persuasion, all of that stuff falls under the category of communication. And there is no better crash course in how to communicate. communicate with people than door-to-door sales. Like, because we all know that, oh, maybe not we all know, but our communication is 7% the words that we say. But you don't know that and you don't, you don't hone the ability to learn how to read between the lines unless you just go out and do it.

You can read as many books in the world, like as many books as you want to listen to as much audio as you want to. But the number one thing that's going to sharpen that skill set is just by getting out and doing it, by going out and talking to people. And door-to-dor just cuts your teeth on that kind of stuff, man. Like it was a really, really big crash course for me in all of the above. Plus, I got to get into the recruiting of new reps. I got into training reps on how to sell.

I got into managing reps. And so there was so many lessons that I took from that and now have used in a variety of senses, especially coming into the podcast because, man, that's just a whole different type of rejection. With door to door, you know, like I'm knocking on Joe Schmo's door down the street and trying to sell him an alarm, you know, if he tells me to get the F off his porch, which happened multiple times. Like, I don't really care. Like, it doesn't really bother me that much. Like, it hurts a little bit. For me, like, one of the things that I did just to kind of cope with it was

I would just turn it into a game. So anytime anybody was, like, remotely mean to me, I would just, like, really challenge myself to see how long I could hold them on their front porch without closing the door in my face. So I would just, like, flip it around and turn it into something fun. And then when I left, I was pretty much done with it. Like, I would, I left and had that, like, continuous conversation going in my mind like you do. You know what I mean? Like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. F me, F you. And you have like all these like different back and forth.

But by the time we knock on the next door, like mine's cleared and you're ready to go. And that kind of stuff has been been super valuable. But coming into the podcasting space, like now I'm reaching out to people that like I respect and I admire. And like I want to have a relationship with like I want to learn from and be mentored by. You know what I mean? People like, honestly, people like you, people like my one of my other podcasting mentors, John Lee Dumas or my buddy Jordan Harbinger now. And even people like Grant Cardone and J. Papazan and some other of those people where it's just like, Like, man, I look up to these people.

Like, they're, they're like the people that I want to be like. I want to model certain parts of my life after. So reaching out to them was a lot scarier than like knocking on somebody's, some random person's door. But having that experience behind me when I started reaching out to these people helped tremendously in my ability to be persistent without being super pushy. So, yeah, it's been instrumental for me. Yeah, that's awesome.

All right. So I want to dive into that actually a little bit. I'll go back to the real estate right now and then we'll go back to the network. because I think that's fascinating. So to go, you said you started making some money. Walk us to your first deal you did by yourself then. I mean, I know you said you did something with your sibling back when you were younger with your parents.

But what was the first deal you did on your own? Yeah, the first deal I did on my own was just a little bit of a house hacking situation. Okay. I basically just tried to find a deal. It wasn't like a technical house hack because we weren't renting out a room or anything like that. But it was basically like we just wanted to get into, we knew that the market was going up.

This was like 2014. or so. So still like right in the middle of when, you know, everything was on the on the increase. And so we had just gotten married. My wife and I'd just gotten married. We just graduated college and just moved out of Southern California up to Fresno, Central California. And when we were moving there, I really wanted to get into my first deal. I wanted to buy a house and like own something. But I was 21 years old. I didn't have my, the commission income that I had was not the two full years, which obviously after the crash, you have to have two full years. You have to have two full years. You years of 100% commission or 1089 income in order to prove to the banks that I can pay my mortgage. So I literally took an internal transfer in the solar company that I was knocking doors for so that I could get a salary for a certain period of time just so that I could get the house under contract. And then literally, that was the longest time, by the way, that I've ever held a nine to five to five. That was during that week of time, that was the only time I ever, like, had to actually go and, like, stick to a schedule and, like, work for somebody else.

And so literally a day or two after we closed escrow on that property, I quit that job and went back to what I was doing. But it was a small, it was like a, it was in a planned unit development. So a really small, like, 4,000 square foot lot, 15, 16, 100 square foot house that we picked up for, it was listed for like 180 and we picked it up for like 163, 164. I didn't know a ton about real estate at the time, but I knew that looking for foreclosures, was typically where you're going to get a better deal. So when I was looking for properties, I told my realtor like only pull up foreclosures because I'm not interested in buying a house in like an emotional state to, you know,

raise my family in. I'm looking for a deal here. So I want to make sure that if I can buy it, it's in decent condition so I can move in immediately. But it's not in perfect condition because while we're there, I want to be able to fix it up so that when we move away, we'll actually be able to have some increased equity in the home. And that's exactly what we did.

Yeah, that's great. You know, we talk a lot about house hacking. And it's kind of a loose term. doesn't have a perfect definition, but since I invented the term, I'm going to give it a definition right now. Like, I mean, like the way I look at house hacking, it could be a, it's like any real estate deal that you can combine an investment with primary residence, right? And so that could include a single family house. Like my buddy Connor, who works up bigger pockets. He helps with all the ad sales. Connor bought a single family house, rented out the bedrooms. He even did my trick of like buying,

like finding a two-bedroom house with over a thousand square feet. So then he was able to add a third bedroom in there and now he house hacked that way, right? Other people, like, I bought my first thing was a duplex. I lived in one unit right to the other out. That's probably the most common way to phrase it. But the third way that we don't talk a lot about, but it's very powerful, it's that buying a really good single family house. That's for people, especially if you don't want to live in the duplex. You can't find the duplex triplex. Find a really good deal on a single family house, live there, especially if you live there for a couple years and then sell it, if you get a great deal when you buy it and prices go up, you can make a ton of money that way that can then

propel you into further real estate stuff. So I would include that as house hacking. That's That's cool. Perfect. Cool. As long as the person who invented the term includes it. I guess it counts. You just got blessed by the godfather. The godfather of house happy. Yeah. Perfect. No, actually, yeah, that term came from an article I wrote like five and a half years ago called how to hack your housing and get paid to live for free. It was all on like, I was like, you know, about to do it. It's like everybody does stuff and then nobody has a name for it. So when you put a name to it, like this goes to marketing. Right. Now it's a thing now. Yeah. When you put a name to it, it's a thing. And now like, yeah. Burr investing. Like burr, house hacking. Yeah, we got all these terms we throw around. Isn't that a good point to illustrate Travis's point that like communication is so important? Because all you're doing is taking a word and applying it to a concept. But because now it's being communicated well, everybody feels like, oh, I can go do it.

It's been around forever, but no one was doing it because it wasn't being communicated well. 100%. In fact, that is a good tip in general. Like if you're going to go ever pitch a deal in front of an investor, a lender, a partner, your own spouse, your husband or your wife, like, man, like get, get, clear like get like like people like use all like all this jargon of like I'm going to do this and this and this and this but like when you just get clear it's like hey I'm going to house hack like it's like people just like the simplicity of that kind of like when you present a deal

be simple in your presentation skills and your PDF document you give people in the way you describe it right those things simplicity is plus that was speaking of selling your spouse that was that was a much easier sell for me a single family home that we got a good deal on that we put sweat equity into while we lived there and then selling it in the year and a half rather than because in the in certain parts of California it's difficult to find like multifamily that aren't in really sketchy parts of town so we we initially moved we were actually looking for a duplex because that was my initial thought and it was just kind of sketchy I didn't super like feel comfortable bringing you know my my my brand new wife to this like here's here's what I'm providing for you

babe you know so moving to a single family home that was in a little bit of a gated it was in a gated community and all that kind of stuff and finding a really good deal on that home. And then just it was livable, but it wasn't perfect. So we just moved in, put a bunch of sweat equity into it. And a year, a year and a half later, we picked it up for 160, 165. We sold it for 205, I think, like a year, year and a half later. That's awesome. That's very cool.

We're going to coin a new term today. We're going to call that burr hacking. Yeah. You buy a little bit of a fixture upper, the foreclosure. Or, oh, as Kevin said, burn key. Instead of turnkey, it's burn key. Burr key. We can go that.

Burr key. All right. I say burkey, but that sounds like turkey. Anyway, all right. So you bought this house. You sold it. What came next? Yeah.

So next was when I made the mistake of thinking that that was what I was going to do for a long time. And the second house, remember the first house I said I wasn't, I wasn't emotional about it at all. It was just a house. I was going to sell it and make some money. The second house, we got a little bit too emotional about it. And that is when I officially made the rule that I am not going to buy the house that I live in unless it's like a stellar deal. There's always exceptions. But for the most part, I made a rule that for where I live, I'm probably just going to rent.

And that then I can buy where I can rent out. And so we bought that second house. And it wasn't a bad deal, but it wasn't a good deal. Like, we still own that property. And we'll probably, well, we're putting it on the market actually in the next couple of weeks. And this is like three or four years later. and we'll make a little bit of money on it, but it wasn't great. We had to put some work into it.

It's been more of a nightmare to manage it. What would have been better is if we really wanted to move, we should have just moved into like an apartment, rented somewhere, and then bought multifamily out in the same area that we were living in. Like looking back is what I would want to do. But that is not what we did. We went back to the single family route. But yeah, yeah, you live and you learn.

Well, let's talk about this for a minute because this is something that comes up a lot I hear on the forums or at meetups. people ask the question, should I, like, is it weird for me to rent, but still invest in real estate? Like, can I rent somewhere? Isn't that wrong? Doesn't that, like, violate some kind of 11th commandment to rent and to invest in real estate? What do you think on that? Yeah, I don't think so at all. When I first, I think it was actually, I think it was actually Grant Cardone, the first person that I heard say that. And it, like, blew my mind because it went against everything that we're taught. You know, like, that's the American dream is like,

you buy a house. So, like, when I bought my house at 20, I was like, yeah, I'm killing it. I'm 21. I own my own house. And then afterwards, I realized after I bought my second house that it's really not a great deal all the time. Like, unless you're planning on owning it for the next two or three decades, then it might not be a good move because your money can make you more money in other areas.

So the reason is that when you buy a house to live in, it's no longer an asset. It's no longer the definition of an asset. It doesn't pay me any money. All it does is cost me money. I have to, like, I'm the way. one paying the mortgage. Like, I'm the one paying the interest on the mortgage. I'm the one that's paying for any repairs. I'm the one that fixes stuff. If, like, now in a rental property, like, if something goes wrong, I don't fix it. I don't have to pay to fix it. I call the

landlord and they come out and fix it. And then you still invest into real estate, but just not where you live because you want to own assets. You want to own cash producing assets, not liabilities that cost you a bunch of money and then, you know, hold you down to a certain location for a long period of time because you can't ever time the market, you know what I mean so? Like you might think the market's going up, but then what if it doesn't anymore? And now you have a mortgage payment on a house that's worth more, that's worth less than what you paid for it. And now like market rents go down a little bit. And now you're barely covering your mortgage or maybe you even have to come out of pocket every single month to make the payment on that house if you put a renter in there. Or are you

going to stay in that house forever? Like, are you going to be chained to a certain location, even though there might be an opportunity that maybe have like came up across the country or maybe down the street or something like that where you could have gone to this other thing and done way better and made more money, but you're going to be chained to this one single family little location because that's the decision that you made a few years back. And then if you do move, you're not going to get a good deal on rent. You're barely covering your mortgage. You've got to come out of pocket in tax season. Like all of those different things like you don't really think about, but they're definitely there. Whereas if you just buy an asset that's for the

cash producing part of it, that stuff is. like a non-issue. Like you can, you can weather the storm if you get a good deal because you're making money the whole time regardless of if the market goes up or down during the time that you own it. So you're you're renting now instead of owning. You're pretty committed to real estate. It sounds like if you're willing to do that. Can you give us an idea, big picture of how many rentals you own now, where you're making money, how many houses you're flipping, stuff like that? Yeah. So my real estate stuff is all a side hustle for me. I right currently we in the last year or so, we've started offloading all of our rentals. We had four. We had a duplex and then three single family homes,

but we've sold two of them in the last three or four months. One of them's on the market, and we're putting the last one in the market in the next couple of weeks. So right now, I am cashing out on all of my rentals. And then last year we did about four or five, five flips. And then this year we just put one under contract. And what's causing you to want to cash out on the rentals? Wispers, I guess. It's mainly just the fact that I see, interest rates starting to go up a little bit. And they've leveled out. I'm not expecting like a crash or anything like that. But I mean, you got to know that there's some sort of a correction coming. It's just history. It's facts. Like it's going to happen at some point. And for me personally,

I'm in a position where the money would be better served, not sitting in an asset, but more producing income in my main business, like in my main hustle. So I'm pulling money out of investments so that I can use it right now to put more money into my brand equity and build more of a build build more into my main source of income. It's very interesting. So I'm assuming you're not doing a 1031. You're not exchanging the money into another asset class. No. Yeah. And that's this is okay, right? Like a lot of people just think the idea of paying taxes is just so horrific. It's like unfair. They shouldn't have to. But I mean, if you're paying a lot of taxes. Yeah, it's not fun. But right, you made a lot of money. That's why you have a lot of taxes to pay.

Right? There's something to be said for that. And if you look at the money that you would pay in taxes and you compare that to the return you think you're going to get investing in yourself, if the return investing in yourself is better, you're making the smart financial move by paying taxes. And I just want to highlight, it's easy to get into a mindset of like, this is the only way you do stuff. This is what other people did. This is all I'm ever going to do. Rather than take, kind of take a step back and look at the big picture and say, well, for the opportunities that I have available to me, what's the best option? Right. Right. I think people get confused and think that that that money is the ultimate asset. And I disagree with that. I think the time is the ultimate asset. So whatever I can do to give myself more time. And a lot of times that's going to be real estate investing. But at the moment currently, for me, I would rather take that out and put it into my brand equity, especially like if I'm going to try to, if you're going to look for an exchange on a deal and then like put yourself in a not great deal just because you don't want to pay taxes, like I just don't see the point. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely danger in that. I mean, I even look back on the deal that I bought, you know, I had a 1031 exchange.

people listen to the show for a while will know that. Like I was in the middle of one. I bought something like honestly, I know that I probably overpaid for at least one of the properties. One of them I think I got a home run on. The other one, like I probably overpaid because I was emotional at the time. Now it'll turn out fine. I'm sure it'll make money on it. But like had I had more time and not been under the gun of the 1031 exchange, I probably would have spent more time looking for something better or, you know, maybe just like held the money for a while and then done something else. You know, so like there's definitely a pro and con of the 1031 there. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I think every deal is different. You know, I mean, like, this works for me specifically. It may not work for you. If you're listening, just evaluate, do your research, and figure out what options can be best for you. Yeah. For decades, real estate has been a cornerstone of the world's largest portfolios. But it's also historically been sort of complex, time consuming, and expensive.

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properties and HOAs. Choose flexible payment methods like same-day ACH, international wires, card or check, and set custom roles in approval policies. There's even a dedicated bill inbox for each property to keep everything organized. Ready to simplify your workflow, book your free demo at bill.com slash bigger pockets and get a $100 Amazon gift card. That's bill.com slash bigger pockets. So okay, let's talk about the flipping then. So last year you did five flips, Was that purposeful or any of those live-in flips? I mean, kind of walk us through that journey a little bit. Yeah, none of them were living flips.

They were all purposeful. My dad was my partner on those. So I'm blessed to have direct access to somebody who has a lot of knowledge on the real estate markets. So for me, it was more about finding connections to people. I'm the networking guy. So finding connections and kind of sourcing deals. And then he had a lot of market knowledge to be able to tell us, hey, this is a good deal. This is a bad deal. This is where we should spend money on the rehab.

This is where we shouldn't spend money in the rehab. So he's more kind of like the managing partner. And then I was always responsible for securing the financing as well. Okay. Well, let's talk about a couple of those things. First of all, where are these flips at? Southern California. Okay. So you can't invest in real estate in Southern California. I hear it all the time. So clearly you're doing something wrong. Okay. No, that's great. Okay. So almost every, almost every big investor I know is in Southern California right now. And that, That's just me personally, just from the network that I've built, just because I'm in a high-level mastermind of a bunch of Southern California real estate investors.

And there's a lot of people killing it right now. So that's just a misnomer. If the deal is good enough, you can make money anywhere. But you don't live in Southern California. You live in Vegas. Right. You also can't invest in real estate at a distance. I hear that all the time as well.

So clearly you found a way to do that too. And that was through a partnership, right? Correct. Yep. Yep. Exactly. I think there's just every deal, man. Like every deal is going to be different.

Like, everybody's looking for these overarching rules, like can't invest at a distance. You can't, you know, you can't invest in L.A. You can't make money here. You can't make money there. Like, the deal is the deal. Regardless of all the other, like, cloud stuff, the deal is in the dirt. Like, the deal is in the number. So if it's a good deal, it's going to make money regardless of all the other stuff.

Yeah, I like that. The deal is in the dirt. I'm going to totally make that into an Instagram quote. Yes. The deal is in the, I've made it down. I'm literally good. I'm going to get a nice picture of you and put your, you know, quote card over your face. It's going to be great.

You're going to be a meme before you know it. All right. How did you find, like, how do you find properties? Like what's your guys' kind of strategy? MLS? Are you doing anything more creative? MLS, yes. But also, I think this is huge. And this may kind of sound like hokey or like magical or whatever. But I think that there's a lot to be said for just putting something out into the universe and then using your existing connections to like make sure that that comes to

fruition. So what I mean by that is like if you're an investor or if you're looking for your first deal or if you're thinking about doing a first deal but you're not sure where to start and you haven't told like everybody that you know that you're looking for a deal, then I think that you're making a mistake. Yep, 100% agreed. Because you'll be surprised like what you put out there is going to come back to you and what you focus on, you get more of. And so a lot of our deals have just found by saying like, hey, we're looking for a bunch of deals and then we tell everybody and then people bring us deals. Like it's, it's and and just telling the right people. people, you know, having the right connections, meaning that you tell, you know, people that are in

houses every, like, handymen, like one of our good deals last year we found from a handyman who was just, like, fixing somebody's stuff. And then she was like, oh, yeah, I'm thinking about selling my house, but I, you know, it's, it was in really bad shape. And I'm not sure anybody's going to buy it. So he came to us and was like, hey, I have this person who might want to put a deal together. And then that's where the deal came from. We didn't go searching for it. We didn't put out a ton of postcards or like yellow letters or anything like that. Not that any of those things are bad, but I'm saying, like, if you're looking for deals and you haven't told everybody, then like start there because you'll be surprised on what you can farm out of that. You know, I think I told the story when I was on

your show. And if not, you know, well, either way, I'll tell it again real quick now. I know I've mentioned it here before, but, you know, a year and a half ago, or when I was on that 1031 exchange, a little over, yeah, a year and a half ago. And I was looking for this property, right? I was telling everybody I knew that I was looking for deals. So I flew out to New York to hang out with a friend of mine, went to his local meetup. Darren Sagary has a meetup. I went there. and I was speaking to the group about just whatever the topic was. But of course, I mentioned, because I mentioned everywhere, I was looking for a mobile home park, right?

So one of the gentlemen sitting in the audience that day happened to be my friend Ryan Murdoch, who we had kind of know each other because he was on our podcast, but that was it. Anyway, two weeks later, he gets an email from someone who wants to sell their mobile home park. So then Ryan's like, oh, yeah, I'm Brandon one and once. So he contacts me. We end up partnering together. And now, I mean, like, now fast forward a year, Ryan lives out in Maui with me. And we're running our like kind of a real estate business together.

He's also on board at bigger pockets. all just because like all that started and and the mobile home parks printing money like an ATM machine. It's awesome. I was going to ask you how you like that deal. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I love that deal so much. I mean, no, everybody listening to this.

Mobile home parks are horrible. Stay away from them. They're absolutely horrible. Yeah. And leave them for me. And no, I really, really like it a lot. I mean, it took a year. It took a year to transition and there was a lot of rehabs in there.

But like it all came from that telling people what I wanted, networking and, you know, building that, you know, again, everything you're teaching. everything you're talking about. It's like a perfect example of that. Do you guys mind if I run Travis through a little exercise here to illustrate Brandon's point? All right. Travis, if you've already seen this, which you may have, please just go along with it. So what I want to do is I want to make an example of brand awareness and how important it is. So I'm going to say the name of a product. And then Travis, you're going to jump in with the first two brands that you can think of. So if I said shoes, you'd probably say Nike and Reebok, right? The very first two things you think of. All right.

Let's do it. Ready? Yes, sir, go for them. Toothpaste. Colgate and Crest. Okay. So as you can tell, Colgate clearly owns the brand awareness in Travis's head, and Crest is a close second. Now, here's the cool thing.

I've done this to about 50 people, and I have never heard an answer that wasn't Colgate or Crest. Those are the only two things. When people are under pressure, that's what they say every single time, right? So they're dominating that space. Now, here's why that is important. when you go to the grocery store and you have to grab some toothpaste for somebody, you're just going to, as soon as your brain sees Colgate or Crest, you're going to grab it and you're going to go, right? That's how most things in life work.

When Brandon told the world, I want a mobile home park, he was basically saying, I need some toothpaste. And when people saw, oh, there's a mobile home park, they immediately thought of Brandon because he's Colgate or Crest. So he's telling the world, here's what I want. And everybody sees a mobile home park, they immediately think Brandon Turner because he associated his name with what he wanted, which is really what networking or branding or marketing is in its core, right? It's associating you with a product. And that is where I think like the point Travis is trying to make of how branding and how networking gets you deals.

It's not handing out business cards to as many people as you can find. It's joining your name with real estate or mobile home park or house to flip or whatever you're looking for, getting your sphere to recognize, all right, that's what brandy. want. So how do I tell him? And that's how Brandon got the deal? Travis, I'm going to let you run with it from there. What are some things you've learned that have led to you using your marketing knowledge to get yourself deals? Yeah, man. First of all, that's really, really great insight. I appreciate you bringing that up. One thing on that too really quick is that it's not, it wasn't just the fact that Brandon was putting out into his network that he was looking for this particular deal. It was also the fact that

Brandon is like now become the real estate guy. Like he's the host of the Bigger Pockets podcast, the largest real estate podcast in iTunes, right? So like all of that is going to attract all of those people, right? Because if, if let's say that three people told that same guy that they were looking for a mobile home park, then the same guy that Brandon told. Yeah.

What like, what are the odds that they're going to tell Brandon first? Probably pretty high because typically people of, of people that have put themselves in a really good position, get access to those types of deals and that kind of information first because other people are looking to add value to those people. So if you can become a person who is a valuable person who has been set apart from a bunch of other people

because of a platform that you've created for yourself, then you're going to create deals where deals aren't because people are going to come to you first. People are going to actually do the legwork for you just to be able to connect with you and add value to you. So I think that that's a huge differentiator right there, not just putting out something into the world, but making it about who you are and like telling people that this is who I am. You know who does a really good job of this? So Joe Fairless, he's been on our show before.

Joe Fairliss has a podcast called The Best Ever podcast. And it's a daily real estate show. And it's really good. I've been on a few times. I don't know, David, you've been on it before? Yeah, twice. Okay, yeah. Okay, yeah.

So it's a great show, right? But here's how we, I mean, Joe owns 500 million or, you know, controls what you want to call it because the syndicator now. $500 million of real estate. And how does he raise money through his platform? I mean, like, you know, indirectly through his platform, build relationships, right? How does he get deals filtered to him indirectly through his platform? Like he just does this probably better than almost anybody I know.

Maybe Grant Cardone is up there too, right? I was going to say, grants the same way, yep. Yeah, I got the same way, right? Massive platform uses drive real estate. Now, let me focus on the newer investor or the newer, you know, I've got my first deal. I don't have any deals yet. I can't go build a real estate platform.

I can't be Grant Cardone. I'm not that crazy, right? Like, what does, like, how does this apply to the 90% of people that don't have that platform right now? Yeah, I think that I honestly, like, I'm going to go a different route than probably you're asking, but I think that that's kind of a limiting mindset if you're sitting there thinking that about yourself because the coolest thing about all this online stuff, bro, is like, you don't have to be the expert right off the bat. Like, when I started my show, I was not a networking expert at all.

I'd never been to a single networking event before I started my show, Build Your Network. And in a year and a half, my name is associated with networking because I've built a show around that. But I've just been an investigator. All I've done is brought people along with me on a journey of discovering how to network the right way and how to teach people, how to build and cultivate genuine relationships with important people in their lives and how to do that the right way. And I've been learning along the way, just like an audience member. I'm just the one like captaining the ship. Right. And I'll give you another example.

I have a couple of friends. shout out to Stephen Randy who have this company. They invest in multifamily real estate. They didn't know a thing about real estate when they started, but they started a meetup group. So not a podcast, not a YouTube channel. Started a meetup group just about real estate. Started with like three or four people.

They had a thousand people at an event recently that they did a joint venture with another real estate company. Had a thousand people at an event recently. They now like control a few million dollars in real estate from people from private money, like people giving them money because they created a a platform, even though they weren't the experts. So I would say to somebody like that who's sitting there thinking like, man, I've never even done a deal before. You don't have to position yourself as the expert. Like, there's somebody in your market guaranteed right now that will be willing to come

and speak to a group of four people totally for free. Like go find a mortgage professional. Go find, go find a real estate agent, a top producer or an investor in your area and say, hey, I'm putting together this real estate related meetup. It's going to be on, you know, know at the end of this month. And to be honest with you, there's probably not going to be a ton of people. This is the first one. But I would love it if you came out and spoke to us and told us something valuable about the real estate market right now or something like that. First of all, you're adding value to a number of people. You're adding value to yourself because you're connecting with other people. You're adding value to the person that's coming to speak because you're putting

them in front of other people who they may be able to do business with. And you're adding value to any attendees that might be coming because they have the ability to learn something about real estate that they may not have known before. Plus, during this entire time, you're learning. You're learning everything that you want to know about real estate directly from the sources that you have around you. So I think that if you're thinking that way that there's, there's really no limitations. Like you don't have to be the expert and you don't have to lie about it because I hate when people do that too. Because some people will start their own platform and then lie about it and pretend like they are the expert just to get people to like them and to

get people to trust them. And they sell these crazy packages to them that actually have no value because they're not actually good at what they do. They just built a platform around lying about it. So I'm not encouraging to lie about it. Like be honest. Tell people like, look, I'm at the beginning of this journey. I just wanted to create something where a bunch of us could come together and we could all kind of learn from each other and really take the next step in our real estate career. And if you do that for a long period of time, like if you create that consistent, valuable

content with context. So consistent valuable content with context. You set, you put it in front of the right people. If you create that over a long period of time, you will build some sort of a following. You will build some influence. You will build a platform. And you will start attracting a lot of those deals. that most people are never going to be able to get their hands on.

Oh, man, that's so good. I think one point to make in this is that you, Crest and Colgate aren't necessarily known as the best toothpaste. I have no idea if they have like a better fluoride count than like aquifresh or something, right? All I know is that's what I know. So if you're that person to your sphere, when a house, when an old jinky house comes up and there's an opportunity to get it off market, you just needed them to think of you. And if you've been doing meetups to four people, to those four people,

people, you're the crest and the coal gate, right? Like, that's just the point I wanted to make. Yeah. And another thing, too, I have another buddy out here in Vegas. They do a lot of business. Maybe I can make an intro to you guys. Actually, his name is Luke. And they do like, I want to say they're doing like 300 flips this year. So they're cranking out, cranking out deals. And he puts together real estate meetup. And he's told me several times. He's like, bro, I know that there's people that do stuff during my meetups that I never get any money on. Like, I host the meetup. I pay for the meetup. Like, it's free food, free drinks. I bring everybody together. And I know people are doing business without me ever getting a slice of any of that. But guess what? I don't care.

Like, I'm like, if you're in that mode of like, well, what if I bring people together? And then, and then that guy does a deal with that guy. And I don't make any money on that. And that could have been my deal. Like, if you're thinking that way, you got to fix your broken scarcity mindset to begin with. And you got to like get more in that abundance mentality of like, look, there's deals for everybody out there. If you create that platform, you become a person of value. And you're going to get your hands on more deals, plus you're going to help source more deals for more people. And you know what the number one way to build influence is with people had value. Like John Maxwell blew my mind. He came on my show and I asked him like about leadership because

he's the leadership guy, right? And I was like, hey, what about influence? Like you're an influential person. How did you build influence? He's like, Travis, the number one way to build influence is adding value. If you add enough value to people, you will have influence with them. Because this is the age of the quote unquote influencer, right? Everybody wants to be. an influencer. But most people go about it the completely wrong way. They position themselves in this lofty area where like they try to be untouchable and be a celebrity and stuff like that. But it's not about any of that. It's simply about adding value to people. If you add value to people, you will have influence with them. And so for somebody like this guy who's hosting this meetup

and all these deals are getting done and this person's doing a deal with that person, he didn't have anything to do with it, but he helped those two people connect. He just added a ton of value to both of those people and now are they going to come out to the next meetup? Yeah, probably. Are they going to buy his book? Yeah, probably. If they find a deal again and have the opportunity to work with him, are they going to bring it to him? Yeah, probably. You know what I mean? Like, it's just good for everybody. Yeah, that's so good. To take this even more tangible for all of our listeners out there, you know, bigger pockets, we actually have a place on the site where we, like, people can host meetups. And so if you go to biggerpockets.com slash events or just click the word networking in our

toolbar. We even have networking in our toolbar at the top, right, at the top of the, anywhere you go on bigger pockets. Anyway, go there and there's a map, or you can just look down below at the actual individual cities. There's probably 100, at least 100 meetups going on every single month, somewhere in the country. Now, there are a lot more than 100 cities, which means that there, I would say, 99% of the cities out there do not currently have a bigger pockets meetup right now happening on

regular basis. Now, there are, I mean, all the big cities, yeah, you're going to find a bunch in Seattle and a bunch of New York and Las Vegas probably. But even if there are there, I mean, go to them. And if you don't love it, go start your own. and make it find a unique way to build something, you know, different. Now, one guy who does this really well is David, my buddy, David Perrae. He's a, he's been on the podcast actually before and he's been on some bigger pockets

live videos. But this guy's like he's in the Marines. He lives over in Oahu in a very expensive market. Yet he started a local meetup there just in Oahu for people. And the first time had a couple three, four, five people showing up. Now he consistently has 20 or 30 or 40 people showing up. Me and him become friends because I see him as kind of a leader in that space and that market. And then now he's doing a bunch of real estate deals. And he's gaining confidence,

getting all this stuff. And so anyway, if people want to go and host their own meetup, just go to BiggerPockets.com slash events, EVE-N-T-S. And, yeah, host something. I think you have to be a pro member to actually host an event, but you don't have to be a pro member to go to go to an event just to actually post in that forum to host something. So anyway, I love that you said that because, like, I've seen that work over and over and over and over and over again, the meetup thing. So people don't have to go be the next Grant Cardone and start a massive podcast and live tweet their entire day, right? Or live Instagram their whole day.

Right. Yeah. But just by doing that event, easy. And that's one reason that I love podcasting too. Yeah. By the way, Brandon, because like you don't have to invest in this expensive studio. Like all three of us right now are sitting in our home offices at a desk with a boom arm and a mic plugged into our computer. And like, we're all podcasting now.

You know what I mean? Like there is almost zero. Like there's no production costs. Like it does not cost you a ton of money to have a quality show. If you're going to do like a YouTube channel or something like that, it might cost you some money. That's why I always recommend to start with a podcast or something like that or a meetup group, something that doesn't cost you a lot of money, but still gives you the platform that you need to like voice your opinion and learn. Like learn while you go.

You don't have to learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and then implement like a year later. You can learn while you're doing all of this stuff. And that's the coolest thing about this. Yeah, that's so, so true. Very, very cool. All right. So let's shift back again. I want to wrap up a couple of things more about your real estate.

Then we'll move into the deal deep dive and the fire round famous for all that. I'm curious about like the flipping that you're doing there with your partner or your dad on that. A couple questions. First of all, what's that like partnering with a family member? I know a lot of people have problems with it. Now I've done it. But what's that like? What are some things to be aware of?

What are some things that have worked really well? And what are things that people should consider? Yeah, good question. I think that people should consider if they should do it. because there's tension, you know what I mean? Like there's tension in any partnership, but especially with when it's family. So I think that there's a lot of sitting down beforehand and managing expectations that needs to happen before you go into any deals.

Don't make anything just a handshake deal and stuff like that. Now, we don't have any drawn-up contracts or anything, but we did sit down and hash it out and say, okay, if we do a deal here where you guys live, like, you're probably going to be the managing partner. So if you're not going to be the one, like, if you're going to be managing it, then we need to bring more money to the table. So if you're managing it, we'll secure all the financing and we'll pay the debt on the loan and all that kind of stuff.

So I think it's just important to hash those kinds of things out beforehand. And then if you feel that in the future, there's going to be too much contention, just don't do it. I that's just my opinion like I don't think that it's like it's not worth causing a lot of tension at the Thanksgiving dinner table you know what I mean like I like if you think that's going to be a lot then then come up with a different come up with a different partnership structure maybe you don't split things 50 50 and maybe it's more like a hey if you find a deal out there but you you know want some outside financing like I'll do all of that but we'll make it a different split we won't be equal partners like it'll just be like a different type of a commission or a different type of profit split on that profit share on that so I think that you just have to like be really upfront with everything. And then if you do a couple deals and it starts to go south, then you can sense that there's going to be future contention about it. And it's going to put a lot of stress in your relationship.

Then I would just say, you know, it's time to probably just back out and, uh, and reevaluate. I think the number one source of hurt feelings or damage relationships is unmet expectations that usually stem from uncommunicated expectations. And it's usually not like a bad motive. People just don't even know that they need to do this, right? they just haven't thought this could ever come up. And when you sit down and you say, okay, here's what we both want. Let's make sure we're on the same page.

A lot of things pop up that you weren't even thinking you needed to worry about. It actually becomes like a business plan. It could really benefit you in a lot of ways when you do that. And you know that you didn't do that when someone does something that hurt someone else's feelings and they didn't even realize that that could hurt their feelings or somebody feels like they got screwed over when they really didn't, but they feel that way because it was never communicated up front. This was the way it was going to work.

I just, I don't think I can stress. enough that when you're in the beginning and it's all just new and shiny and cool and you just want to jump into it, you've got to sit down and talk about all the things that could happen and get a feel for what the other person's going to do and how they're going to respond and how you're going to split that up to make sure that you actually do want to be in business with that person. Yeah, totally. 100% I agree with that. Yeah, really, really good there. All right, so let's move to your financing. I mean, to finance these flips. And we'll dive into one of them, assuming in the deal deep dive, but how are you typically financing these deals?

A combination of hard money, private money, and credit cards, strategic credit cards. How so? So now we've worked to obviously got to have good credit. And typically you're going to build really good relationship with the bank that you currently bank at, and they'll probably give you larger credit lines. But we put one of our last rehabs entirely on credit cards and pay zero interest on it because we've basically opened up a couple of credit card lines at the beginning of the of the project. And every time that we paid for anything on that, we threw them on those credit cards. But there's zero percent interest for a 12 month period at an intro APR. So we have access to zero percent financing instead of having our hard money finance the the rehab and then paying interest on that. We just throw them on these credit cards. I don't know why more people don't take advantage of that, to be honest. We have now like a hundred, I'm estimating right now, but $150, $160,000 in like in credit card lines, just unsecured debt.

And some people might disagree with me on that because they're like, oh, they're credit cards and those are bad, you know, but it's another one of those blanket statements, right? Another one of those overarching statements that it's like, well, yeah, if I go put a freaking Lamborghini on, it's probably not a great idea. Like, if I go buy 12 flat screen TVs, like probably not a great idea. But to use it as zero percent in like interest debt to help me like, make money, yeah, 100%. Why would I not take advantage of that? I think that's one of like the different tactics that we've used. My buddy, my buddy Bill Jennings is a master at all this kind of stuff.

He's the one who kind of helped us like figure out which cards are good, are good ones to get, which ones are good to use and, you know, how to structure them, where to put them and all that kind of stuff. So I would definitely look into that if you're not already using those. Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah. I've used them for similar purposes. The other benefit is you can sometimes if you get the right card, you'd sometimes get reward miles and get free flights and, yeah, get a vacation out of every flip. Yeah, like I've been flying for free for the last year because we put a bunch of rehab stuff on all of our credit cards, man.

Like it's like it just totally makes sense. I love hearing that. This just came up with last night when I was talking with a client who wants to buy a new house. And he doesn't want to have to sell his house and buy one at the same time because that's, I'll save the time. But it's very complicated to try to do both. So we kind of dug in and we looked at his options and I realized he has a ton of equity in his

home. The only reason he's selling it is to get that equity to put it in the new house, right? And I said, well, what if we just took out a helock? We use that money as a down payment for the house you want to buy. Once you've bought it, then we can sell your house and you don't have to worry about trying to do both. And it was like, that's incredible, but I always thought helocks were bad. That's what they said, right? Like, helocks are bad.

That's how you lose stuff. And they can be bad if you go buy a boat or an RV or a Lamborghini or some liability that doesn't make money. But to go buy a house you were going to buy anyways, you're just accessing your equity earlier. and very cheap. And I just love that point you're making, Travis, is when we get into that fixed kind of mindset that just thinks good and bad, and that's all there is to it, credit cards are bad, debt is bad, helix are bad, real estate is bad. We close down to all the opportunities that's out there. I mean, there's even people that think networking is bad because when they hear the word networking, what they think is like, oh, multi-level marketing scammers who are out there trying

to get me to give them something for free, right? As opposed to bringing value to as many human beings as you possibly can and trying to live a good life and knowing that's going to get you back. That's a whole different way of looking at it. But when they hear networking, they just have a closed mindset way of thinking about it. 100% man. Yeah, debt, like not all debt is bad. If you're going to err on one side, maybe err on the safer side of that. But again, do the research for your particular situation and find out if it's going to be a good or bad deal or opportunity for you.

Figure out like, say, ask yourself, is this a project that I'm going to be in for a really long time? Do we have a renter in here? Is this a long-term project? Is this maybe a short sale? And the bank is going to take way longer to approve the deal. And what happens if I'm coming up on the end of my introductory APR period? You know what I mean? Like what if I already use six months of it?

And now I only have six months left. And I'm putting this offer in on the short sale. And like the last time we did that, this honestly happened actually, the last time we did it a short sale flip, it took almost 10 months to get the bank approval on it. So we were just sitting there, had the tenant in there. Like you can't, you can't just throw stuff on a card willy-nilly because as soon as the interest kicks in. I mean, those cards are, even if you have good credits, 16, 17% interest. So you don't want to be paying that kind of interest. So as long as you have a way to get out of that debt, if worse came to worse, if push came to shove, then I don't see why you shouldn't

be trying to utilize it. Yeah, that's really good, really good. All right, so I want to move on in a minute to the DLD deep that before I do. I want to, I mean, you've been interviewing people about networking and building your relationships for a long time. Now you've interviewed over 200 people. Is there any other things that you're like, yeah, this is just gold. I want to share this. There's something I've learned. Here's something. A mistake people made. Anything else you want to add.

I just don't want to leave anything off, you know, off this episode that would help people if you got something on your mind. Yeah. I think that there's 10 episodes on just the networking topic. So it's, it is a good question. It's just trying to think of just like a couple of them off the top of my head is sometimes difficult. I will keep going back to the platform thing.

Sure. Because I don't like the number one thing. So if you look at, and I'm not saying this to like, you know, be arrogant or whatever. I'm just like just to throw out a couple of people that I've brought on my show. And keep in mind, too, I launched this in August of 2017. So it's been like a year and a half. And since then, being able to interview like literally my heroes, like Grant Cardone and John Lee Dumas and Jay Papazan and, you know, Chris and Lori Harder and Jeff Hoffman,

this co-founder ofpricelyne.com and, you know, like multiple billionaires, multiple multi-millionaires and up to the point like before I started my show the like the richest person I knew was like making less than a quarter million dollars a year like the richest per like the one that was doing the best of everybody that I knew so as soon as I started my show like my network has literally exploded in the last year and a half and that's just just from the podcast man like the platform like building a building a platform is like so important because the number one thing to become a better networker, the number one thing is to add value, to learn how to give without the expectation of receiving anything in return. If there's a great book on this by Adam Grant

called Give and Take, I don't know if you guys have read it or have read it or heard of it. I haven't read it, but I've heard of it. Okay, so he goes into this very, into this concept on a really deep level. So just to kind of give you like a quick synopsis of what he's saying. Basically, he's a, he's a professor at a really prestigious school. So everything, he says is backed by loads and loads and loads of research. So he basically goes, okay, so the research says that on the success ladder, there's three different types of people. There's givers, there's takers, there's takers, like you can figure out what they mean. You know, givers are people that give without expecting any return. Takers are always looking to take things more than they give. And matchers are only

willing to give if there's something in it for them. So on the success ladder, like, where would you put the givers on the success ladder? Like off the top of your head, where would you put the givers? probably most people would be like, oh, I mean, probably at the bottom. Like, like, like the givers, people who give. Yeah, people who give without ever like making anybody give to them. Right. You would think they would have anything. Because they're door mats, right?

Like, that's how people look at them. Is this just this person's a doormat? Takers, you would think are like, oh, they've got to be at the top because they're always looking to get, get, get, get, get. You know, maybe, maybe you might think mattress might be at the top because, like, they help people, but only in a transactional manner. But what was interesting is that they found that givers are at the bottom, but they're also at the top. So givers fill out the top and the bottom of the quote unquote success ladder.

And takers and matchers are right in the middle. So based on all this empirical data that they're going through, they found that giving and giving and giving without the expectation of receiving anything in return, with a caveat, like with a couple caveats to make sure that you don't become a doormat, you will always like rise to the top level in your field. So that was something that was like a mind-blowing thing for me. I probably more of like a matcher. My reciprocity style naturally is more of a matcher. Like I'm more of like a, you know, tip-for-tack kind of a guy. But ever since like really learning that and implementing it with just the expectation that things are going to go well and hopefully they do, it has been literally life-changing.

My buddy Jordan Harbinger who hosts the Jordan Harbinger show in iTunes, which is a fantastic podcast. He always hits this point home. And he's one of the best, like, living, you know, proofs of this particular concept is he adds value to so many people and he gives without asking for anything. So that whenever you have an ask, like, you're going to have a bunch of people that are willing to come help you out and support you. And they're rooting for you the whole time because you've helped so many people along the way. And one of the easiest ways, going back to my first point, one of the easiest ways for me to add value to somebody who I have never met before is by bringing them on to the platform that I've, built and created for myself. So bringing them on to my podcast, like when I reach out, well, perfect example, bro, like when I reached out to you, like if I didn't have a platform, a show,

like a way for you to get in touch with people who you may not have ever had the possibility of getting in touch with, like the reason that you were willing to come on my show was because I had spent the last year, year and a half, whatever it was at that point, building up this credibility, building up this platform and building up this value-adding excuse just to reach out connect to the people that I want to talk to. Because I'm a pretty simple guy. Like, I just like having relationships with cool people. Like, I just really like to spend time with people that are super cool and just get to

know people. There's no better way to do that. Like, if you're going to, if you're going to try to do that anyway, you may as well just record it and throw it onto iTunes and call it a podcast. Like, it's just, it's such a simple, simple thing. And it doesn't have to be bigger pockets. It doesn't have to be at three, four, five million downloads a month. Like, it doesn't have to be to those numbers in order for it to be a quote unquote

success. all it is is an excuse for you to reach out to people that you really, really want to connect with. And it's the perfect way to add value to those people. And you're not asking them for something. You're not saying like, hey, come on my show because I want to do well. It's like, come on my show because, hey, I really believe in your message. I really believe in helping you get this out to more people. And I have this audience here that I've put together.

They would love to hear from you. And I'd be happy to feature you on the show. Like, it's a value-adding excuse. So I know those are long-winded answer. but to me it always goes back to it always goes back to how can I add value in this situation. How can I bring something to the table and help other people without, you know, marking it in my head and being like, well, Brandon knows me because I put them in front of my audience. So like you better do this, this, this and this for me.

You know what I mean? Like it's not that at all. It's just a genuine desire to help people. And like I said at the beginning of the show, when you put out good stuff, you're going to get good stuff back. Like when you focus on, you get more of. So you put out that good stuff and put out, helpful things for people.

And it's just, it's just always going to come back to you. You just got to trust that. That's cool. You know, another guy that does a really good job of this stuff, just giving, giving, giving, and like it's paid him back a ton. Noah Kagan, I don't know if you know Noah at all from the sumo. Like, Noah Kagan just always like, I mean, he's the one that introduced me to Tim Ferriss, which is how we got Tim Ferriss on our show.

He's just like, yeah, here, here's Tim. He's my buddy Tim. Let me introduce you. Like, there was no like tit for tat. There was no, like, expected anything. It was just like, let me provide value to you because you're you and because I like providing value. That's so good.

I'm sure you get that all the time of people reaching out to you like, hey, man, let me introduce you to this person for your podcast. And then maybe, you know, if it works out, you can introduce me to this person or I can come on your show. Maybe, I don't know, a question mark. You know what I mean? It's like, actually, you're probably going to be in the bottom of my inbox now because, like, I don't want to do it. Like, I don't want to accept your help if it comes with, if it's conditional. Like, if you're, if it's already something that you're expecting me to, like, have this virtual contract in my brain to, like, deliver something for you whenever you ask. for it. Like, no, man, no, just keep it to yourself. Like, I'm not interested.

All right. So one more note or a question on that, on that topic, and then we'll move on. When people want to reach out to somebody who's an influencer in their area, and I don't mean like, you know, they're Instagram famous, but I mean, like, they're a real estate investor in their market who's just crushing it. They're the guy doing 300, you know, flips a year, right? How do they approach that person? I mean, if they don't have a platform, if they don't have a podcast or a meetup yet, what are some, like, what kind of email is going to get responded to and what one is just going to be deleted to the bottom of the inbox or or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, something that's something that people struggle. I mean, honestly,

like, let's be really like, I delete and can't answer 80% of the emails that I get from people. It's a very, even podcast that I'm asked to go on. I don't do 90% of them. So how did you get me on your show? I don't even know. I mean, like for whatever, something you did made me go, oh yeah, I like that guy. That sounds like a fun show. Or yeah, yeah, I would love to talk with him. Yeah. That's a fantastic question, man. There's five things that should be in any, of your email reach out. Any reach out in general. There should be five pieces to that.

Let me actually just pull this up so I can like just go over really quick. If we got some time. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, go ahead. That way I can just kind of show you exactly what I'm, what I'm meaning by this. Well, while you're looking at that up, let me ask, let me ask David Green here, the same exact question because David, you get hit up all the time as well. Like what makes you respond to somebody and actually want to go to lunch with them or actually

want to go get coffee or whatever? Or what, you know, what makes them rise? When you asked it to him, I immediately started thinking the same thing. Like, yeah, just logistically speaking, there's no way we can get to everyone. And I started thinking of the obvious things that will make me not get back to you, right? A really, really long, detailed message that you're asking me to read when I don't know you. First off, just like negative. We're done right there, right?

Another one would be a very vague proposal. Hey, I kind of want to mentor by you, but like, just let me know how I can help you and I'll help you back. Like, okay, you tried. You started on the same path, but you put zero effort into thinking about how you could even help me. So you didn't paint a picture I could get into, right? I think the people that get a good response from me are the ones who have said, I know what you're doing. I've researched what it takes to be good at what you're doing. I've matched that up with the skills I have.

I am willing to do this and I'm only asking for this in return. Like, you want something. You want mentorship. You want a relationship. You just think I'm cool, so you want to be around me. Whatever the case may be, that's okay. If you don't tell me what you want at all, I'm probably not going to trust that you just want to bring value

and don't want anything back in return, right? Like maybe that is who you are, but it's very difficult. So just say, I'm hoping that being around you will help me improve my own game. That's fine. Like, at least I can understand that. And then I can make the decision on if I think you'd fit in.

But most people don't put the work in ahead of time to even give me a proposal to know if this is a good idea or not. They're making me figure out, like now I got to interview you and figure out if I want your help. I feel like we say this all the time, but when people reach out, they still just don't do it. They just want to throw something out there and just shoot their shot. Like, hey, let's just see you. I'll just email this guy.

But when you're reading it, like, it's very obvious. You didn't even, it's like submitting a job resume when you don't know anything about the company you're going to work for. Right. They're not going to hire you. Right. Yeah. So I totally agree with that. Let me, these are just, if we have, if we got time, Brandon, five quick things here that I put.

These are just like the five key elements of an effective reach out message. especially if it's cold. Number one, lead with value. If you can't tell, I like to add value to people. So number one, lead with value. So this doesn't have to be like offering to do something insane for them. Like if you're like a, you know, a ghost writer, you know what I mean? Like you don't have to reach out and be like, hey, we'd love to write a book for you. Like you don't have to do stuff like that. I just mean, start with like a compliment. Start with something about them. Start with thanking them. complimenting something that has had an impact on you. So I don't remember exactly what I said to you, Brandon,

but when I did reach out, it probably sounded something like, hey, Brandon, really appreciate what you're up to. I've been following your stuff for a long time. And then I gave probably a specific example of something that bigger pockets has done for me that has directly impacted my life. But I keep it really quick, succinct. So lead with value, but be specific. Don't just say like, hey, love your stuff.

anyway, like, you know, that's so generic. And, uh, and then also I've had people like literally copy and paste the title of an episode of one of my shows from my website and put it in their email. Like the formatting is literally different. Like it's my website formatting and they just copied and paste it and put it in their email without even like worrying about like, hey, paste and match style. You know what I mean? So it was just like, okay, you obviously have never consumed a single piece of my content. Or like people will reach out. friends of mine that don't have interview shows and ask them to come on their show. And it's like, you don't know anything about my show because I don't interview people. Like, it's a solo show.

So, like, clearly you have zero idea what I'm doing. So be specific and do a little bit of research and help yourself lead with value. So start the message out by leading with some value. Number two, give some information, but do it in a limited amount of words. So whatever information that you can give, keep it short, sweet and to the point, but give them the opportunity to like go somewhere else if they do want to read more about it. So like I'll just put a hyperlink on my show. So for me specifically, it's just like, hey, I have this show. It's called Build Your Network. And then I will hyperlink build your network to my website. So if they want to go look at more information and figure out everything about me and my whole life story, they can. But I'm not going to throw that in the email.

Because like David just said, you got to keep it short or else it's just going to be filtered down straight to the bottom of the inbox, to the deep abyss of the dark inbox. So give information. Number three, build a meaningful request. I have an entire separate training on this because this is like really where the rubber meets the road and it's difficult to say one blanket statement because it's going to be different for every single person. You have to have a meaningful request. And I'll say two, like I'll say one hard no on this.

Stop asking people if you can pick their brain. I don't know a single person that has like limits on their time that responds well to that question, not one single person. So, like, if you're asking people to, like, pick their brain or asking them to a virtual cup of coffee, you know, like, stop that, knock that off. It's, we're not a pick and pull. Yeah. Like, like, I really want a carburetor.

Can I look for one inside your brain somewhere? You got to, you got to realize that, like, look, people are strapped for time. Like, if, like, Brandon is a nice guy. Trust me. I'm talking to him right now. Like, he's a nice dude. But, like, he doesn't, he doesn't have time to hop on 20-minute pick-your-brain phone calls for every single person that reaches out or he'd never do anything with his time other than that.

And like you said, Travis, time is the most valuable asset there is. When you're asking someone for that a couple minutes to pick your brain, it's probably more valuable to them than asking them for $100. Right. I was just going to say that. If somebody asked for $100, I'd rather, I'd rather give it to me anyway, but I would rather do that than spend 30 minutes generally. Exactly. So build a meaningful request. Don't just say, can I pick your brain or can I get you a virtual cup of coffee over Zoom or whatever. Like, don't say stuff like that. You have to build your meaningful request.

And I have a bunch of ideas and I do that in my training. Anyway, number four, offer credibility. This is, I think, probably the piece that I focus on the most, Brandon, because the more credible that you are, the more likely you are to get a response. Yes. So if you personally don't have any credibility, then you can borrow credibility from people that you've associated with, which is like the magic for me. That's where the magic happens on my show.

because like so literally when I reached out to you, Brandon, I probably did this because I do this for every single person I reach out to. It was most likely on Instagram. And what I most likely did is I probably went to the people that you follow on Instagram. And I listed every single person that you follow that I've had on my show and put them in my reach out message on purpose. So even if there's like 17 people or 23 people, I will list every single freaking person because I think the credibility piece is the biggest piece of the whole puzzle. That is so good. So like I literally will go to like your profile and be like, hey, he follows Jay Pappasant. He follows Grant Cardone.

He follows this person, this person, this person, this person. Everybody that's been on my show, like he follows these, these 11 people. So in my reach out message, after I've led with value, after I've given some information on myself, built a meaningful request, I'll offer a little bit of credibility. Hey, just FYI, here's a few people that have already been on, you know, and I'll list all the people that I know that you know because you follow them. and then I hit that point home, and then at the end I'll say something like, would love to add you to this, you know, awesome lineup or something like that. And if you don't have an incredible list of contacts to impress people with, then start small.

Any sort of social proof here is really the credibility. So maybe use a recognizable brand that you've worked with in the past or maybe use or, if you don't have any of that, just list off a few people who've worked with you. Because even though they may not be recognizable names, just the fact that they've worked with you speaks to the psychological principle of social proof. And it will say like, okay, people in general have a good feeling about working with this person. So even if you don't have an impressive list of people, still list off a few people that you've worked with or, you know, partnered with or whatever, even if they're not recognizable, just because the principle of social proof is such an important and valuable principle. So offer credibility number four.

And number five, always finish it off with a thanks in advance. I always, anytime I'm asking for something in a message, reach out, an email, Instagram, whatever it is, I always finish it with thanks in advance. And here's why. My dog snowball encapsulates this better than, like, anything. So I always use her as an example. She's this 140-pound great Pyrenees, Anatolian Shepherd mix. She looks like a giant white lab.

And she's like the sweetest, dopiest, like, hugable teddy bear of a dog that you've ever seen. So sometimes when I walk by her, she will, like, not move her head at all. She just, like, looks up at me, like, glances up with her eyes and, like, catches my eye and as soon as she catches my eye, she starts wagging her tail before I do anything. And even though I probably wasn't even intending on leaning over and scratching her, I feel like I kind of got to do it now because she's already wagging her tail. And am I really going to be like disappointing her like that? Like it makes me feel bad. So it's the same exact thing when you say something like

thinks in advance. You're thanking someone in advance for already acquiescing to the request that you made earlier. So what it does is it subconsciously creates a desire to like finish that loop and perform task that you've already thanked them for. So I don't know that that's not something that's going to like increase your response rates exponentially. But like for me, I'm all about those incremental like little things. And coming from a door to door sales background, this is what I taught. Anything that can help me get a percentage of like one or two points higher closer to a yes. Like, for sure, I'm going to do it. So every single time I finished off with the thanks in advance, just to let them know like, hey, I'm intending on this happening. And I hope that you are also

intending on this happening. But yeah, those are my five things. So lead with value, give information, credibility, meaningful requests, thanks in advance, and then toy around with it, play around with it. All right. So while you were doing that, I pulled up the original message I got from you. Let me, I'm not to read the whole thing, but I'll sum up, right? Okay. So I'll tell you how you did this so beautifully, right? It's like, hey, Brandon, my name is Travis. My buddy Jared Butterfield said he told me you'd be reaching out, right? So now I got a guy that I, that you basically pulled in somebody I already knew and trusted. I don't even know how I met Jared originally, but we know He's friend from years back.

I think we're Facebook friends, whatever. Anyway, you brought in his name. So now I'm instantly like, oh, okay, it's a recommendation to connect, right? And I think he even, he said, he told you I'd be reaching out. So you got at some point, he connected me to you, right? Probably on Instagram. Then two reasons I wanted to reach out. First of all, I'm a huge fan of your show.

You're one of the first podcast ever listened to. Leave the value. Right. And I have a podcast called Build Your Network where I interview people in the show. Give information. Yep. Some people in the past, Grant Cardone, Kevin Harrington, Ed Milette, Lori Harder, J.P. Sears, John Lee Dumas, Jordan. Yeah, I mean, all the people, like Chris Gillibow. I follow all of them.

As I'm, I currently have Amy Porterfield, Jack Canfield and Jay Papel's on on the schedule. I love to add you to the lineup. All people that I follow that I follow. I follow. I think he'd be great. Let me know when a good time to talk is thank you in advance, Brandon. Right. And you know how I responded to that? I don't even remember this. I said, I can't do it. I said, I'm too busy. I'm moving to Hawaii right now. I can't do it? And I said, can you follow back up in a few months? And I did. Just what? Two months later, you followed back up with an email that you took a screenshot of your show being ranked like number 151 on all iTunes. And it was just like a subtle like, hey, you know, my show is a big deal, right? Like that credibility.

Right. Just wanted to follow up with you. Got to pack that credibility in there, man. And I have a whole thing on follow up too because the follow up is the bread of bottom. The follow up is huge. Yeah. So huge.

Yeah. I actually had a guy one time real quick. I had a guy one time. Yeah. I forget who it was. It was a prominent influencer and I reached out. And I reached out. The second time that I reached out, he agreed to come on my show and we were talking about it.

And he told me he literally says no to every single request that comes across his desk the first time. It says no to every single one, no matter how good or bad, whatever. It says no, just to weed out people who don't do it. He's like, bro, probably 20% of people actually reach out again. And I was like, what? That's mind blowing. Like 80% of people just are like, oh, no, okay, bye. You know, like, okay, I'll never reach out again.

Sorry to waste your time. You know, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, no, no, no, if you really believe in your message, you're going to want to get it across. Reach out again, do that follow up. But don't do it in like a pushy, annoying way because then that's going to just turn people off. Yeah. All right. Well, that was fantastic.

I really enjoyed that a lot because, yeah, again, I live in that all the time. And there are people I want to reach out to the real estate investors that are just rock stars. And I think this is so important. So again, if you guys got a lot of value out of that, go back and listen again to that last five or ten minutes. It was so good. But before we get out of here, I want to move over to the last couple segments of our show. next, let's get to the deal deep dive. Tax season reminder for all the real estate investors listening.

If you own rental properties, short-term rentals, commercial buildings, basically anything that's not your primary residence, you need to know about cost segregation. It's an IRS compliance strategy that lets you accelerate depreciation on your properties, which means you're paying less in taxes this year and keeping more cash in your pocket for your next deal. Cost Segregation Guys is the go-to firm, having done over 12,000 of these studies with $500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to Costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. If you think property management is expensive, try mismanaging a vacancy or an eviction or a maintenance issue that turns into a five-figure problem because no one caught it early. That's expensive.

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Go to mine.co slash show me to see how mine performs and get your first month free, which is much cheaper than learning the hard way. All right, let's get to the deal deep dive. This is a part of the show where we dive deep and just one particular deal that you've recently done or something that you, you know, whether good, whether bad, whatever, we just kind of get our audience more familiar with a specific deal.

So number one, I got a list of questions to throw at you about a deal. First of all, do you have a deal in mind? Something that we can. Yeah, sure. Think your brain on. Yep. Okay.

Number one. What kind of property was this? Like, what was the plan? What was it? Single family home for the purpose of fix and flip. All righty. Okay. This one was through a network.

This is the one I actually referred to earlier in the show that was through the handyman that was just out fixing somebody's stuff and knew that we were looking for a deal and hit us up as soon as he figured out that she might be interested in selling. Perfect. How much was this property? $246,000 was the actual acquisition price. They wanted, I think, $255 for it. Okay. And how did you negotiate them from $255 to $246? we always go with like whenever I do anything in negotiation I always anchor the conversation

based on something that's not me setting the price so whether it's like a comp or something that I can refer back to the value in the area or even like if the if those two don't support what I'm asking for it might just be the fact that like I only do deals at this certain percentage so like I hey look I only do deals if I can if I can ensure at least a 10% net on the ARV return Like so if if I can't get it for this price, then it's not going to make sense for me. So it's always something that's like out of my control. It's got to be something out of your control. Because if you just name a price, that's when you get in the haggling mode and you don't want to be haggling with people.

You want to talk terms, not price. And so when I throw that out there, it's more like, hey, yeah, this is, this is, you know, this is the price that we have to pick it up for. Like, we just don't have an option here. Like if it's not for this price, it just doesn't make sense. That's great. That's gold. How did you fund this particular deal? This one was, I believe, just hard money.

So we borrowed it like 8% and 2 points. All right. And by the way, I didn't mention this earlier. I could have. For those who don't know what hard money is, just go search bigger pockets for hard money lenders. But also, if you go to biggerpockets.com slash hard money lenders, we have the webs, I mean,

I don't think anybody else has even close to as large as ours. I think we have the web's largest hard money lender directory right there, organized by state and a little bit of description of what they do and what they don't do. So anyway, check it out, y'all. next one what did you do with this deal we put about i think it was forty one forty two thousand dollars or so into the rehab held for about 90 days and then got rid of it uh right what was the outcome then uh we made a little bit less than that 10% that we usually go for we made about $30,000 on it so we ended up selling it for i think like 350 340 so made a little bit less

than what we typically shoot for. But overall is a good deal. Yeah, solid. Last one. What lessons did you learn from this deal? Yeah, probably one of the bigger lessons was making sure. So the guy that brought us the deal, we had a little bit of trouble with because when he found out

what we were going to make on it, he all of a sudden wanted more, which is an interesting thing on negotiation to, by the way. Like, anybody, like, people will agree to a deal that they think is fair. but if some other outside circumstance tells them that it's not fair, like the fairness matters more to people than the actual deal itself. Like countless studies have, you know, proven this to be true where people will look at,

will be okay with the deal, but then find out that somebody else did the same thing for a little bit better of a deal. And then all of a sudden they're up in arms and they're upset, even though they were totally okay with and possibly even happy about the initial deal that they did. So it was a lesson to make sure that we hammered that stuff out before anything happened just to like, hey, you understand that like this is like the finder's fee and you're not getting like you're not a partner in the deal. You're not getting equity on like based on the profit. But also means you don't have any of the risk. Like this is not a bad deal. This is still

a good deal. But because it turned out well, he wanted more. And so it was a lesson to make sure we get that stuff hammered out beforehand. Brandon, you look like you have something to add here. Well, I was just going to say, we talked about the theology thing earlier. Do you remember like there's a story and I don't know, one of Matthew Mark, Mark, Luke or John of the Bible, right? Where they, I think it was Jesus tells the story about like these workers in a field, right? And there's like, yes, the one guy shows up at 8 o'clock and he says, I'll pay you 20 bucks. The other guy shows about 10. And he basically like, he gives him the same amount of money for like less and less work.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. At the end of the day, the guy goes and pays all of them, starting with the guy who showed up and only worked for an hour and he gives him his 20 bucks. So the first guy's like, well, I better be getting way more than 20 bucks, right? And then he gets so many, he gives him his 20 bucks. And he's like, well, you know, I worked way longer.

It's not fair. But he's like, but you agreed to it. Like it's like the exact principle, right? Yeah. This is what we agreed on. This is what's happening. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

So he says, like, who cares? The message there, right? It's like, who cares if I want to be generous, right? If I want to give the last guy the same as you, like, why does that affect you? Right. But that same principle applies to people constantly. Exactly. This is not fair.

Yeah. If they wouldn't, because if he wouldn't have seen them give the other guy the 20 bucks, it would have been fine. Everything would have been fine. He would have been happy with the deal. But because somebody else, like, the fairness of it actually, like, prevents them from wanting to be a part of anything in the futures. Oh, yeah. It's super interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. That's super interesting. All right. Well, that was super cool. And that was the end also of the deal deep dive. You know, I really love that segment of the show. And with that, let's move on to the segment that we love to call the fire round.

It's time for the fire round. All right, of course, let's get to the fire round. These questions come direct out of the bigger pockets forums. And we're going to fire them at you right now, nice and quick. And we're only going to do a couple of them now because it's been a longer show. And already there's been a longer show. so much stuff in here. So it'll shorten this. Let me go with the first one, though. I like this one. From Simon in Oakland, California, I'm trying to get started flipping in one of the

hottest markets in the country. I've been looking for almost a year now. I've not found anything. I'm not having any luck with wholesalers. I'm not getting response from direct mail letters. I'm making low offers on the MLS and nothing's working. Any advice on finding a deal to flip in this hot market? Yeah, for me, the first thing that I would do would be to look out for the top investors in that market and then offer to add some sort of value piece to them and get around them to help them with their deals. And this goes for anybody, if you're a beginner in anything, like if you're a beginner, if you're trying to get started and whatever it is, get around the people who are doing it the best and volunteer your time in exchange for rubbing shoulders with that

person. Because I guarantee you, if you get around one of some of the top investors in Oakland, you're going to find some deals. Like you're going to rub some shoulders with the people who were finding all the good deals and doing all the good deals, you're going to find them. It's literally exactly what I did with the podcasting thing was getting around somebody like John Lee Dumas. I volunteered my time to work two events for him, totally for free. Didn't ask him for a diamond return. I sold a bunch of journals for them using my years of sales experience, didn't ask for any

commissions, just did it to add value. But I rub shoulders with somebody who's made millions and millions and millions of dollars podcasting. And it was a huge experience that helped me to be able to find and fund everything that I wanted to do. So if you're in that situation, find the people who are doing the deals, find the people who we're producing like crazy and just offer to add some value, volunteer your time or some connection or something to just get in that same circle of people. Yeah, you know, we talk, we've talked a lot

lately on the show about modeling success. And that's one other benefit of like, not only are you going to maybe get their help by helping them, like maybe they'll give you something back someday, right? But like also, you just have to see what they're doing. Whenever somebody says, I can't find any properties to flip in Oakland or whatever, right? My first question is like, is anybody flipping in Oakland at all? Yep, exactly. Has there been one flip in the past year? Well, yeah, there's lots of people flipping. Okay, so they're doing something that's working. Go figure it out.

And one of the best ways to learn from somebody is to go and provide value to them. Yep, exactly. One hundred percent. If somebody's doing it, you can do it. Just got to figure out how they're doing it. Yep. I love that. There's another Instagram quote right there.

We actually just put one of our clients into contract on a house in Oakland for $70,000 less than the appraised value. And that person was going to live in it, but now they're like, shoot, I'm going to flip this thing. And they're going to use the money to pay their down payment for the house they're going to live in. So they are out there. And you should come to one of the meetups that I'm doing. We're doing how to flip a house meetups every month through bigger pockets. So yeah, that's great advice you guys gave.

Find someone who's doing it well and learn. But don't give up because it can be done. Okay. Next question here. I'm starting to look at investing in real estate. I live in Southern California, but I grew up in Michigan where starter homes are closer to my price range. My question is this.

For those who started investing in real estate, did you stay local? Do you think it's a mistake to think about investing out of state given my lack of experience at this point? I think yes. I don't think that investing out of state is a bad idea. I just think that if you're first getting started, you should probably stick to local. And the first thing that I would do if you're first getting started is like your first deal, I think should be some sort of a house hack like what Brandon talks about a lot because it's going to familiarize, like you're going to get really familiar with the process. It's something that you can touch, feel like with your hands, you can walk through. Plus, you get an FHA loan at three and a half

percent down instead of having to come up and fork out a ton of cash on a deal that you may or may not know if it's like super good or not. So if you can like limit the amount of cash that you're putting down on that deal, that's probably a better idea to begin with. So I would start with the house hack and start in a local market. All right. Now I said I'll do you two, but I'll do a third kind of like this question. Last one, Aubrey from Knoxville. What's the single best piece of advice you got when you were starting out in real estate and do you still follow it? And I know it might be hard to pull up the, yeah, it might be hard to pull up the single best, but what's a good piece of advice that you received early on. Yeah, probably, probably that real estate is,

like, this is going to sound super rudimentary, but when I was first getting started, you know, I kind of had to be convinced that it was the thing to put my money in. You know, there's so many different things that you can put your money into. And so the biggest piece of advice for me was just like, don't give up on real estate. Figure out real estate. Like, if you have a bad deal, if you lose a little bit of money, don't worry about it. Like, like, I, Again, we talked about on the show a couple of times, time is the asset. Money is not the asset. So don't get so worried about losing some money on a deal that you're afraid to pull the trigger.

Like pull the trigger on a deal, get started, and don't give up on real estate. Like, just learn. If you mess something up, learn why and do it better next time. But I think the best advice would be don't give up on real estate because it's going to be the thing that really sets you apart and allows you to build the life that you really want. Perfect. All right. Well, let's get on to the last segment of the show. This is our Famous Four. Let's get to the Famous Four. Number one, do you have a favorite real estate-specific, real estate-related book? Yeah, I'm going to give a shout out to Jay Papazance. We talked about him a couple times on the show,

Millionaire Real Estate Investor. All right, fantastic book. What is your favorite business book? There's so many. But because we talked a little bit about negotiation today, and because it's fresh in my mind because I finished it pretty recently. I'm going to talk about, I'm going to say Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Fantastic book. Yeah, that is a great book. Great book.

Very nice. What are some of your hobbies? Hobbies. I like comedy. So my hobbies include consuming any form of comedy, stand-up comedy and sitcoms. I basically just like consuming things that put me in a good mood. But in terms of activities,

I like doing pretty much anything. I like golfing. I like snowboarding. I like playing basketball. I play pickup basketball a lot because that's basically all I did growing up. And honestly, I'm kind of blessed to do a hobby of mine for a living now. So now that I'm a full-time podcaster, it's something that was a hobby that turned into something full-time. And so I love spending a lot of my time doing those kinds of things.

And then I always just enjoy sitting and having a good cigar, a little bit of whiskey, and enjoying a nice view wherever that may be. nice nice well we'll have to do that someday on my line out here in Maui for sure man all right um I'm curious favorite comedian do you have a do you have a favorite um I'm gonna say this guy because he's like was like in my blood growing up and especially growing up as super Christian as I did like we we had to find super clean comics and it's hard sometimes to find clean comics that are like actually funny so Brian Regan is like my go-toe same thing Yep. Yeah. That is my gut. Did you see his new Netflix special they did?

I did not yet. I just thought it was out there. I don't know how I missed it. Well, he did, he did a special, but then he did another like, like, Key and Peel type comedy series where, like, he does a little bit of standup. And then they show, like, a video clip of, like, whatever he was talking about in the standup routine. And it's actually pretty funny. It's, I think it's called stand up in a way. But there's like six episodes on there. It's, it's pretty funny. All right. I know what I'm doing tonight. All right. Last question. What do you think separates successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail, or never get started? Access to the right knowledge, which comes with access to the right people.

You'll hear me say this a lot just because I'm a networking guy, but I truly believe it because I've seen it flesh itself out. I think the biggest, like, it just makes sense, right? If you think about it, if you knew everything to do, why would you not be doing it? The reason that you're not doing it confidently is that you don't have the knowledge that you need to do it confidently. And how do you get that knowledge in a much faster way than just like reading a book about it that's not specific to your situation? Go get around people who are doing it, get around people who are doing it well and learn from them and then implement what they do because

it's not enough just to learn. A lot of people stop at the learning piece and they can riff about real estate all day, but they never even bought a deal because they're so afraid of taking action and pulling the trigger. So you got to learn from people who are doing it the best and then implement what they're actually saying to do. Brandon has a quote when he does his webinars. That's really good that says if more information was the answer, we would all have six pack abs and be billionaires. It's not just the information.

Derek Sivers quote, but Brandon says it. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that thing where you quote someone else and it's your quote. Like I was saying, yeah, you do like Michael Scott quoting Wayne Gretzky. Yeah, that's exactly. You missed 100% of shots you don't take, Wayne Gretzky. Michael Scott.

Michael Scott. Yeah, it should say Brandon Turner. He could have like three levels of that. When I was on the podcast for the first time, Brandon quoted himself on the podcast. He like said a quote that he thought was very inspirational, but he didn't tell you what it was his. Josh caught it.

I did not say it that way. I said a line and you made fun of me because it was like, anyway, we're not going to revisit that. Go listen to episode 169 and listen to Josh. Just jump in and rip you apart like an eagle on a salmon. Man, it was, it was bad. But it was actually really funny.

That was when Brandon did that. Brandon's great. quotes. He just isn't so great at being humble about them. Okay. Last question. Tell us, where can people find out more about you? Yeah, man. On my website, Travischapel.com, I have links to all my social stuff. If you are interested in that training, yeah, it's totally free. You can just go to, it's at Travischapel.com slash hero. It's basically everything I know about how to get in touch with your heroes. So those five elements of an effective message is one of the lessons that I teach in there. Also, like, follow up, what platforms are the most effective ones to reach out to people on?

how to build out your platform, like all those types of things. Totally free training. Don't ask for anything. It's just Travischapel.com slash hero. Or to make it easier, you can just go to meet your hero course. com. But either way, you can find it. I love it.

Well, Travis has been fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us today. You know, we'll have to see you around and, you know, good luck on your real estate in the future and your podcasting business. That's very cool. Yeah, appreciate it, bro. Thanks a lot for having me on. Had a blast.

All right. Thank you. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to head out of here and, you know, go listen to another episode of show or go over to Travis's show and listen to that one. It is called the Build Your Network podcast. All right. Thank you, everybody. David Green, you want to take us out? Great job, Travis. Thanks for being here. This is David Green for Brandon, the Colgate of Real Estate

Turner. Signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others. who have benefited from biggerpockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. Thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform.

Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico content. And editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investment, or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.w.w.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant

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