Epic Real Estate Investing - 5 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Became a Real Estate Investor | 797

Episode Date: October 6, 2019

Learn from other people's mistakes because you will not be here long enough to make them all on your own.” Mark Twain This Sunday, Matt decided to share 5 mistakes he wishes he knew before he became a real estate investor. Also, you will learn about the upcoming new lead generation pilot program that Josh Miller, Epic’s rock star client, has created for the selected investors. Tune in and find out more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is Terrio Media. Success in real estate has nothing to do with shiny objects. It has everything to do with mastering the basics. The three pillars of real estate investing. Attract, convert, exit. Matt Terrio has been helping real estate investors do just that for more than a decade now. If you want to make money in real estate, keep listening. If you want it faster,

Visit R-E-I-A-Ase.com. Here's Matt. Hey there, Rockstar. I think it was Mark Twain that said, learn from other people's mistakes because you won't be here long enough to make them all on your own. So today, I'm going to share with you some of my mistakes.

I'm going to share with you five things that I wish I knew before I became a real estate investor. And let's just jump into it. Let's just get started. Number one, get a bookkeeper. Don't wait for this. Get a bookkeeper right away. I mean, even if you're not doing real estate,

it's probably pretty smart to have a bookkeeper for your personal life as well. At least some sort of system or plan in place to manage your finances because it's just one key thing I wish somebody would have told me about. And it's such a boring thing to even mention that it's so easy to skip over.

It's the importance of getting a bookkeeper just from day one. I spent so much money going back to untangle everything, trying to figure out what was what. I'm so glad it's over, but it was a painful experience, not to mention an expensive one.

I mean, even if you have just one property, you need a bookkeeper. And it's not hard to find one either. They're like $8, $9 an hour for that size of work. And give them your, like I said, give them your personal stuff too. Just let them handle it.

And go ahead and have them open up your mail twice a month, have them write out the checks for you, and then you just come in and sign them and just get it done. It alleviates so much anguish and stress. It's like that massive pile of laundry you have every month. You know, you got a few kids. All of a sudden, it's a massive pile of laundry every week.

And you got to do the laundry and you got to do the bills. One thing that we've done that's really created some efficiency is we do everything just via, I think it's wire transfer or ACH. Excuse me. It's wire transfer or ACH. But we don't even know if we have a checkbook. I think we do. But yeah, you've got to do.

the bills and it's it's so easy to do and you would just be so surprised on how much weight this takes off your shoulders and when you start building up your real estate portfolio you want to keep a record of everything i mean there's so many benefits from a tax perspective that you can carry forward into other areas of your life that you're going to flat out miss out on if you don't have records you don't have good records and then you're going to end up paying uncle sam a whole lot more than you have to and i'm not down for that i'll certainly pay my share but i'm not going to pay more than I have to. I'm not going to donate to the government. A bookkeeper can help make sure that you don't either. All right? Number two, don't try to do it all yourself. And this one's a little bit related

to number one. But identify what you do best and then hire out the rest. And that was really great advice for me. Even after I got that advice, though, it took me a long time to implement. Couldn't get the ego out of the way. Couldn't get the, I don't know, insecurity is the right word but I just couldn't let go. I couldn't let go of the control. I had this thought that nobody can do something as well as I can. And you know what? You're not the best at what you do.

Even if you're good at it, you're not the best at it. And if someone else can do it even just half as good as you and it still gets done, it's probably a good idea of something for you to consider. I mean, sure, you can sit there and you can write the checks and you can keep the books, you can do all that stuff. But maybe you have that. and maybe you have that ability, and maybe you don't, I don't know. But even if you do, it may not be the best idea to spend your time doing that,

especially when you can hire someone for not that much money to do it for you and do it professionally and just get it done and have it off your mind. I mean, think of what you'd be able to do with that extra energy and that extra bandwidth. I mean, you're able to go out and find more properties and do more deals that you can buy and hold, that you can flip and that you can cash flow, you can do all that stuff. it's a much higher, better use of your time. You're worth more than that than that $8, $9 an hour work. All right.

So number two, don't try to do it all yourself. Number three, go deep before going wide. And, you know, I was so eager to build my portfolio quickly. Especially, I mean, after I read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I was on fire. I wanted to get out of the rat race and I wanted to get out fast. I was fixated on just getting more and more cash flow. So I wanted to get more and more properties. And I just wanted to get that cash flow to a point where it exceeded my monthly expenses.

That was a race for me. It was like this race inside of the rat race. And I did. I got there quickly. But here's the thing. Looking back, I had to do a lot of retracing my steps. I had to do a lot of backwards steps to go back for maintenance and go back and fix things. You know, it's kind of like the spinning of plates, right? One plate is dying and you have to go back to that before you can add another plate. You got to get that other plate spinning before you can add the new one. And properties can be like that. But I find that the more time and the more cautious I am on that one property in the beginning, the longer that plate is going to spin without my attention. And it's tough, though, too, because it'll feel like you're breaking your momentum sometimes. It'll feel like you might be

spending too much time on it. It'll feel like you, you know, you just want to keep moving forward. You've got to get more property. But if your process is wrong, if you don't have those systems in the process down. It's going to cost you more in time in the long run anyway. So just make sure you get it done right the first time and then double check it to make sure that you got it done right. That's a lesson that I lost a lot of money learning. And that's yours, absolutely free. Now the next level of this, the same idea is to also go deep in the markets before going wide and going deep in with your teams before going wide. You know, as I was expanding and diversifying and trying to eliminate all the

single points of failure in my real estate business. I even did that a little too quickly because I wanted to move quickly. I got better things to do. I got people to meet. I got the hands to shake and babies to kiss and all that kind of stuff. So I made some hasty decisions that in hindsight weren't the best decisions. In fact, some of them were terrible decisions. In hindsight, they certainly were.

At the time, they didn't think that they didn't look like that. And they ended up being very expensive decisions. You know, hiring bad property managers, that was one of them. I'd be like, well, this guy's cool. He drinks the same beer I do. We laugh at the same jokes. And turns out that might make a good friend, but not necessarily a good property manager. Then with my cash flow business, my turnkey business, when I'm giving that property manager new projects,

I now know that I need to let him finish one or two of those before giving him another one or two more. And, you know, in hindsight, as, you know, hindsight is 20-20, crystal clear. We unfairly, though, not purposefully, kind of overloaded some of our managers and our contractors, and we put them through some really tough times as well, just because we were trying to go fast. And, you know, it's human nature. They wanted to go fast too. They didn't want to disappoint. And they wanted our business and they wanted to prove themselves to us and prove themselves to themselves. And they just wanted their business to be bigger too. And it just frequently ended up as a disappointing experience. Very rarely did it meet expectations until there's a lot of U-turns to go back and fix things. All right. So that's number three. Go deep before going wide. Number four, understand that not everyone thinks like you do.

And particularly when you venture out to other parts of the country that you're not familiar with, where you don't know the culture, you need to realize that people may have a different way of doing things, a different way of thinking about things. And, you know, at the time when I was getting started up until just a few months ago, I was living in this little bubble in Los Angeles, and I've lived there my entire life, knew no different with regard to cultures and heritage and different thought processes other than what I'd been exposed to in Los Angeles. And when I started doing business in the South, I discovered things just don't move as fast down there as they do here in Los Angeles.

And so I would send something to a property manager down there, and I'd be like, hey, I sent you an email this morning, did you get it? Did you get it done yet? And they'd say, well, you just sent it to me this morning. And I'm like, I know, but it's like, that was like six hours ago. And he'd say, hey, I'll probably get to it in a day or so. So that caught me off guard when the very first time I heard something like that. So obviously he was used to working at a very different pace. And he thought two or three days was a very timely fashion where my expectations were to have it done before the day ended. Another thing I realize is that not everybody is as entrepreneurial as I am. It's a normal way of living, a normal way of thinking, a normal way of just acting and

operating through life. Not everybody is as forward thinking about the future business. There are a lot of people out there that are hard on their times and down on their luck and they're very transactionally focused. You know, let me get the most out of this deal that I can and I'll worry about the next one later. I mean, they're thinking about today only and almost completely disregard what's going to happen tomorrow. And sometimes the stuff that you do today have consequences for what happens tomorrow. You know, a lot of the professional partners that we've teamed up were, they were just very

transactionally related. They were not business related. They were not future related. And I saw more times just, shoot, I still see it somewhat today. I see people. I see people. I see people, routinely kill the golden goose. And that golden goose is laying those golden eggs and they go kill the goose and that goose can't lay the eggs no more. And I could just never understand that. Like it's like what's wrong with you and nothing's wrong with them. They just don't think like I do.

And so just not everybody has that entrepreneurial mindset. In fact, it's really only a minority of people who do. People aren't inspired by the same things. They don't respond to the same incentives. Believe it or not, people aren't solely money motivated. Us as entrepreneurs, like we're motivated by making an impact and getting compensated handsomely for that impact that we make. Everybody would be a business owner if that were the case, if they all thought that way.

And that's not the norm. Right. So that's number four. Number five, be intentional about creating your network. You know, we've all heard the expression. You are the result of the five. people you spend the most time with. That's been said many times, countless times, countless times here even. And once I really started taking that expression to heart and stopped

treating it as the cliche that it's become, you know, I didn't necessarily start getting rid of my old friends, but I started being intentional about adding new ones and very specific about who those new friends were going to be. And I really just looked for the doers. I looked for the movers and shakers. I looked for the people who are actually walking their talk, who are doing it. And I was looking for people that were doing it better than I was, that looking for people that had something that I didn't have it, but I wanted it. And just always being on also always being on the lookout for mentors. That's really important too. And, you know, that right there, your environment and your mentor and your leadership, that can really propel you forward faster than anything else can. So I've made

this shift to become intentional about it, and I'm probably even more intentional about it today than I was then because I keep seeing the results over and over and over of being intentional of what comes from my network. It's different conversations, it's different thoughts, it's different resources, it's different contacts, just all the things that are needed to make big stuff happen. I mean, there's really no better way to cut the learning curve down than getting with people who are where you want to be. All righty. So those are the five things that I wish I knew before.

I got started, but I've got a bonus one for you. And this bonus one, and I'm throwing this in here because I kind of came up with this nice round number of five, and that sounded good. And as I was getting ready to start recording, it's like, you know what, there's a sixth one, but let's just call it five and five plus one. This is the bonus. And this one really hits home, perhaps even harder than others. And it kind of surprises me that I thought of it last.

But it has to do with don't resist progress. And what I'm referring to specifically is, Like, don't resist the internet, which I did in the music business. I totally resisted it. I was one of those people who thought the internet was a fad. I can't even imagine my life right now without it. You know, we moved into a new house and we were without internet for about a week. We were lost.

I was like, what did we do before we had this? Like, how did we operate? So don't resist progress. Like the internet technology. And another one is human behavior. You know, Gary V puts it this way. Gary Vaynerchuk got a great podcast and I haven't listened to it recently, but I used to listen to it an awful lot. And I tune in every once in a while when I got a moment.

But he always say and probably still says, don't be romantic about the past. Don't get so attached to the way that things used to be done that you won't adopt to the way things are being done now. I mean, people aren't the way that they used to be. They don't act the way they used to be. They don't think the way they used to think. they, you know, they just operate. They're motivated by different things. They're inspired by different things.

And with that being the case of how society changes, business and commerce has to change with the way the people are changing. Because if you don't, you're going to be left behind. And speaking about progress, I have this opportunity right now to really practice what I preach with this bonus. And it's when I think of what Josh Miller is doing. I've been talking about him for the last few days. And he's an epic client, one of the rock star epic clients.

And he recently put together what I think is probably the biggest advancement in real estate marketing that I've seen in a while. Maybe ever, at least for me up to this point, I don't know, not privy to everything that's ever been created and when it was created and how it was created. But this is pretty darn special. And he created it originally for himself. And he totally crushed his business using it. And he amassed a cash flowing portfolio of 85 properties in 18 months. And now he's making his system available to the entire market. So at the top of the new year, everyone is going to have access to this.

But there's a small window of opportunity to where you can get in on this early. It's under some specific conditions, though. But there is a small window where you can get in on it early, a few months ahead of everybody else. You can be running while everyone's still trying to figure it out. And I'm not making the same mistake again. I've already adopted it and incorporated it into my business. I'm not resisting this new way of marketing because it's really just, it's really the center of it is how people communicate these days. When I talk about human behavior changing, for example, most people don't even answer their phones

anymore. I know I don't. I mean, if my phone rings and it's not a name that I recognize in my database or if it's not her name at all, if I just see a number, I don't answer it. And you're going straight to voicemail. I'll check it out later. You know, I'm so plagued by robocalls and solicitations that, you know, anybody that I want to hear from, if I don't have their name in my phone number, they suffer from.

it or they're a a victim to all of the the robo calls and all that kind of stuff that's going on these days. So I don't answer my phone anymore. That's the point I'm trying to make. And people don't answer their phone anymore, but they do respond to what Josh put together. That's what makes it so special. So if you want to incorporate this into your business as well and increase your opportunities while decreasing your ad spend, you can join us if, under these five conditions, if you

already are taking action in real estate and getting some resources. results. And number two, if you've closed at least one deal that wasn't your primary residence. Number three, you've got time to work two to three new deals in the month of October and November. And four, you're friendly and coachable and willing to provide feedback. And number five, if you can keep a secret. Text the word epic to 562-526-7828. Really simple. You'll get all the details by doing that. Text the word epic to 562, 526, 7-8-2828, you know, receive all the details, and then you can decide whether or not it's something you want to move forward on. We'll be spending a lot of one-on-one time with the participants to see to it that they get the

results that they are looking for, the results, the same results that Josh got by using it. And what that really translates to is you're going to close a few extra deals in the next 30 to 45 days. And so we're getting started extremely soon as you're listening to this just a couple days from now if you're listening to this on release date. We're getting started October 8th. So hopefully you're listening to it before October 8th. If you're not, not all is lost. Go ahead and text Epic to that number again anyway. And what Josh will do is he'll put you on the wait list for early bird notification of its official launch because he's going to make it available to hear the Epic community first before he goes public with it. So text Epic to 5662-8-28-28-58-58. 5-6-2-6-7-8-28.

All righty, that's it for today. God bless to your success. I'm Matt Terry O. Living the Dream. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. Yeah, yeah, we got the cash flow. You didn't know home for us, we got the cash flow.

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