Epic Real Estate Investing - EPREI 034 : How to Invest Out of State on Steroids

Episode Date: May 19, 2012

Your income in real estate investing is limited to your own creativity, and today on the show Matt is joined by one of the more creative real estate investing entrepreneurs in the country, Mr. Ryan Burk of GreenHabbing101.com Ryan shares his secrets and strategies of how to invest in multiple states of which none are the state in which he lives. An awesome guy with an awesome business... enjoy! Get your free real estate investing course at FreeRealEstateInvestingCourse.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Epic Real Estate Investing Podcast, episode 34. Without further delay. Your guru. Sorry. Your guide to a better life through real estate investing. Matt Terrio. Hello and greetings from the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast, the podcast that will show you how to build wealth through creative real estate investing.

So you'll have the option to realistically retire. in the next 10 years or less. And I want you to enjoy the good life while you're still young enough to do so. That's why we're all here. My name is Matt Terrio, author, full-time real estate investor, and proud family man. If this is your first time listening to this show, welcome. Glad that you're here. Now, you're going to want to do two things.

First, go back and listen to episode one for the ground rules of the show. And two, download the free real estate investing course, how to do deals, no money required. And you can get that at free real estate investing course. Just like it sounds. No dashes, no funny spellings, nothing. Free real estate investing course.com. It's a step-by-step course of where I unveil the mystery around doing deals with no money or credit.

And that's yours for free at free real estate investing course.com. Okay, on today's show, I'm joined by a very creative real estate investor. And when I say creative, I'm speaking of how he got started investing in real estate. It was a very different way. I mean, it's a very different way to break into the business than what we commonly discuss here and what you've probably heard of before. And it just goes to show you how many different ways you can make your money in real estate. I love this business.

There's so many different ways. And really, your income is only limited by your own creativity. And today's guest has raised the bar a bit when it comes to creativity. He's raised the bar a bit as he runs his entire business in multiple states but lives in another where he doesn't conduct his business. and he's got one simple answer as to how he does it. But, you know, I'm going to let him explain how that all works, okay? So get your white paper and your blue ink ready to take some notes.

And on the phone today, I'm joined by Mr. Ryan Burke. Ryan, thanks for taking time away from your very busy schedule to join us here on the Epic Real Estate Investing podcast. No problem, my friend. Thanks for having me. You bet. You know, I invited you on today because you have a very, unique or different approach than what we've usually discussed on the show. I mean, most people that come on the show, they're just getting started, they want to learn how to wholesale,

they're thinking about quitting their job, they want to take on real estate investing as a new, as a new profession or a new career. And so that's what we're always talking about is going from the wholesaling to the fix and flipping, then to the buy and holding, and just very traditional avenues. And you've chosen to take a very untraditional avenue right from the beginning, which it was actually very impressive, and I know you've been very successful, and I want to talk all about that. But can you just kind of start with how you got started investing in real estate? Yeah, definitely. So I was originally working in corporate America prior to real estate investing and was really just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I was in the top position overseen about 300 people. and I was working about 70 hours a week building someone else's dream, making someone else wealthy feeling super unappreciated, and I really wanted to get out. And so about seven years prior to that, I was caught in a real estate market where the market was going straight up, and I ended up buying a house that I was going to buy and hold when I was 20 years old. And because the real estate market was going straight up,

before I even closed escrow, I had an offer on that house. house to sell it for $20,000 more than I bought it for in less than 30 days. And at 20 years old, because that was $20,000, it was a lot of money. I decided to do it. And so I sold it. And never really thought more about real estate. And then as I started getting the corporate world and moving up the ladder and started getting sick and tired or sick and tired, I started thinking back to, you know, how could I actually

replace my income and get my time back? And so then I started, you know, looking back on that deal that I did. And I didn't know what I was doing at the time. I had made 20 grants. So I thought, God, I'm great at real estate. I should just go back to real estate. Unfortunately, that wasn't a market that was going straight up. So I got the dough back in real estate, made a ton of mistakes.

Ended up actually buying about six properties all over the country, foreclosing on all of them because I didn't have the knowledge. And then I ended up finding a mentor. and learned how to do real estate the right way. And it's been kind of, it's just been an amazing journey ever since. Right. Awesome. So that's how you got started.

And you've got like a unique business model. Can you tell me about what you're doing today and how that came about? Yeah, definitely, definitely. I have a pretty unique business model for the fact of, I have a virtual business. So I do deals virtually all over the country, usually about three. thousand miles away from where I live, just basically for the simple fact that I figured out that if I could put the right systems in place and make money 3,000 miles away from the market that I'm actually doing deals in, and it didn't really matter where I was.

I could be out of the country, on surf trips, you know, doing whatever it was I wanted to do and I could still make money. So I have a virtual model, and about two and a half, three years ago, I got into something called Greenhapping, which is a very unique business model. We're literally forcing appreciation on our residential fixed influx on our appraisals by minimum of 10%. So our appraisals are coming in 10% higher than any other comparable on the property or than it would have come in with these specific green rentals that we're doing. we're getting 10% higher rents on our buying holds from our tenants by saving 20 to 30% a month in utility cost. And we're leveraging the government for up to 30% back of our rehab costs on stuff we'd have to be doing anyway. It's through tax credits and cash rebates.

So it's a pretty unique business model. It's really cutting end right now. There's not very many people doing it. And that was one of the main reasons that we got into it. Obviously, we love green, but there's hundreds of thousands of wholesalers out there. There's hundreds of thousands of rehabbers out there. But in this market, you have to have a competitive edge. You have to have a competitive advantage.

And this is really something that allows us to make more profit, save the planet, and really have virtually more competition in our deals. Right, right. No, the competitive advantages is certainly an advantage today, I would say, probably more times than ever. So when you are, are you specifically buying and holding for yourself? Yeah, I do. I buy and hold for myself.

I have a pretty large portfolio that I have. And then I'm also purchasing properties, green having them, putting tenants in them. And then I sell those properties to investors looking for cash flow. And really over the last year and a half, all of my, customers have come internationally from Australia, China, British Columbia, and the UK. Got it. What markets are you in right now? I'm in Memphis.

I'm in Florida and I'm in Detroit. I do a lot of stuff in Detroit. I've actually gained over 400 transactions in Detroit. Sweet. How did you stumble across the whole green angle? my wife and I are firm advocates of education personal development self-mastery we spent over six figures in mentorship and coaching and one of the mentorships that we got involved with was like an entrepreneur type school where we were going and coaching with different entrepreneurs in different

fields and one of the teachers was teaching a class called conscious capitalism. And originally I didn't even want to take the class because even though, you know, being green in my personal life is important to me, I'd always thought that if I got into my business life, I would lose money. It would be way too expensive. And I quickly realized that was one of the biggest misconceptions to green. If you know how to do it properly and you don't overgreen, you actually increase the profit.

So it's just like rehabbing where you talk to a lot of. people that they don't have a pulse on the market or the neighborhood to go in and they over rehab so they actually end up losing money on the deal because they're not good at looking at the comps looking at the competition really seeing what that neighborhood calls for as far as as a rehab's concern it's the same thing with green and so we quickly uh we linked up with this with our with the teacher and we we actually hired him as our chief green officer to come in our and our company can really just show us how to start operating our business from a green fashion and then how to operate as we like to call tree housing capitalists where we started implementing

the strategy called green having or green rehabbing awesome awesome you know there's a saying in real estate and you hear it frequently that you know don't buy anything if you can't drive to it and obviously you've ignored that and you've been very successful by ignoring it. How have you been able to set up your systems and your teams and stuff from so far away? Well, I don't want to paint you blue skies and lead you to the fact that I was very successful

up front doing it. The reason, see, the whole idea is you don't want to purchase real estate unless you can drive to it initially if you don't have systems in place. If you don't have systems in place, then that's really the concept to any business.

And in my opinion, systems stand for save yourself, time, energy, money, stress, and sanity. So you've got to have systems in place. But on that same note, if these properties are close enough for you to drive, then that generally means that you're a technician inside of your business, which means you're going to be at these projects quite often. In fact, a lot of people end up managing their own project. And then what happens is instead of being able to elevate them, elevate yourself into entrepreneur, your technician stuck inside your business as opposed to being

able to work on your business and work on multiple projects and work on multiple businesses by having the right systems in place and then just plugging the right people in. So what I've had to do over the years is build a team in the specific markets that I'm working in, build a specific team, put the systems in place. I had to spend, you know, some time. I'm out there flying back and forth to do that. But once I was able to put the right systems in place and the right people in place, you know, last year in 2011 I did 104 transactions in the Michigan market and I didn't fly out there once.

So definitely paid off, but I definitely had to put a lot of hard work in front, made a lot of mistakes, paid some tuition with schools, hard and off, etc. Haven't we all? Definitely. you know working virtually it certainly has its perks and it's a dream of so many people these days when they hear about people working virtually and having the time freedom and I know you just had a daughter and you're able to spend more time there and you're able to travel and work from anywhere what are some of the other things that you've noticed that you like about working virtually I mean one thing that I've noticed is that most of us have a little bit or a lot of control freak in us. And, you know, again, when we have things that are going on in our backyard, it's very easy to grasp on to control and everything

and not just kind of sitting back and allowing things to happen as opposed to forcing things to happen. One thing by creating virtual businesses, you know, that it's done for myself and my family that's allowed me to release, and relinquish control and have to kind of sometimes just put trust in other people, which has allowed me to grow my business and, you know, learn a lot about myself as well as far as, you know, being able to not always having to control and force things to happen a certain way and learning how to, you know, sometimes even just really detach myself from the outcome of how things are going to end up.

I mean, obviously, I'm clear and I have intention of how I want things to happen, but if they don't happen that way, it's allowed me to learn that I have to be detached from that and always being an even-keeled state where I can then respond to the situation by hand versus reacting to the situation. Right. So that's some personal development benefits from working virtually as well. Big time. Big time. I mean,

I feel like for me, it's allowed me to find hidden potential within myself that I didn't really know I had and really start becoming a better version of myself as well. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. You know, I'm a big believer in if you've got a good management team and you've got a good rehab team, you know, real estate investing, it's pretty difficult to lose money in.

And those seem to be the two places where people, you know, lose their shirt, so to speak. When you're out building your team and when you've put your systems in place, and I'm specifically speaking of the people that you've put in place inside of your system, how did you go out, how did you go about finding them? And how did you, what were some of the things you looked for in the people that ultimately led you to believe, yeah, this is the guy or this is the girl? Well, ultimately, you know, I believe as a real estate investment company, you have two key, you have basically have three key roles that are the lifeblood of your business. The first key role is finding good agents and brokers to work with that are either investor friendly or are open to learning the investing game.

So obviously creating relationships with ARIO agents have been very crucial with me and really understanding the ARIO process and what they actually go through on a daily basis and how much money they have to come out of pocket on a daily basis before this listing even comes to the MLS if it makes it to the MLS from the second key role is obviously having the right contractors in place and then the third key role is having a good project manager. So I have systems and checklists in place for what I'm looking for in each and every one of those roles. Obviously, you know, right off the bat when I'm interviewing someone, one of the very first things I do is, you know, I let them know who I am as a company, my company goals, and then from there I lead into the benefits of their company if we decide. to work together.

Obviously, the first benefit is I'm going to be able to provide them a lot of business that they operate the right way, at no marketing cost to them. And I'm also going to be able to offer what I call business building assistance because I grow things pretty quick. If they want to keep up with me, they're going to have to grow their businesses as well. So I help them implement assistance into their business as well. But one of the very first things that I, when I'm interviewing someone and I talk to them about But I ask them what type of systems do they currently have in place right now in their business that allows them to be more organized than their competition?

What kind of systems do they currently have in their business right now that allows them to operate on a more efficient basis than their competition? Of course, I'm looking for people that are coachable. They can take good direction. I'm looking for, you know, integral people that have creditors. ability and have some, obviously, some, quite a few referrals that they can refer me to as well so that I can contact them and see what they're experiencing as well. So you're a big believer in systems, Ryan? Systems, man.

It's all about systems. I don't know. One book I would recommend reading is the E-Mit. If any of these listeners, I haven't read it by Michael Gerber, it basically just talks about you're either a technician. in your business, you're a manager in your business, or you're an entrepreneur in your business. And for most business owners that are self-employed, we're technicians inside of our business. Think about how many times you've gone to a deli, and the person that took your order, made the sandwich, and rang you up, and then served it to you, you could tell owned that deli.

And you could tell they opened the deli, you could tell they closed the tell you, and you could tell that they're pretty much not very happy about it as well. Right. And that's kind of their life, you know. And so I'm a firm believer in not being a technician inside my business. Obviously, you need to be a technician at first and learn the systems, but you can find plenty of people to make sandwiches at your deli for an hourly rate. And even though you might be making less money at front because you're giving them some

of the income that's coming in. Eventually, you're going to be able to bring someone in and manage those systems. And then from there, become a manager, master becoming a manager. And then from there, you're going to create management systems in place where you can hire someone to come in and actually manage the person that's making those sandwiches at minimum wage. And even though you're giving up more money and you're not making as much money, now you have a technician in your business and you have a manager in the business, now you're an entrepreneur with systems, you have your time back,

and you can go out and start another deli and do the same exact thing with the same system, and then you can do it again and do it again. So you have one technician that's stuck inside of his deli making $50,000 a year, and then you have an entrepreneur that owns $10,000, even though each deli is only bringing in $20,000, he has $10,000, so he's making $200,000, and that's complete control at this time. Right, right. Awesome. Let's take me through like kind of your thought process and your procedures.

Like how did you, you named three markets, Memphis, Florida, and Detroit. How did you decide on those three markets? What were you looking at for those three? Well, the way I ended up in Detroit, actually, it was about five years ago. Someone had come to me asking me to be a private lender on a deal they were doing. And I took a look at the deal. And it looked like a good deal. and I decided that, hey, let's partner up on this deal and I'll go raise the money from

someone else. I'm a firm believer in using other people's money on my deals, even if I have it available. And so then I ended up starting doing some deals, and before you know it, made a lot of mistakes, but was able to learn from my mistakes and create a very turnkey system where Detroit, I stuck there because it had some of the lowest price points in the country with some of the highest market rents. And because there's so many international investors coming into the U.S. right now and buying with the U.S. real estate, that's one of the hottest markets that they looked at.

Another one is Memphis. They're buying a ton of property in Memphis. Memphis is a great market. I know you deal there as well, Matt. That's a great market for a couple of reasons. Obviously, you know, FedEx is there from the AutoZone. I mean, these big corporations headquarters are there. And it's also, you know, there's some statistics that just came out that show over 50% of the population are renters right in Memphis.

And because it's just another great area where you can pick up properties below market value and the rents are high enough to where we can get some great cash and cash returns, it made sense for me to start doing business there. And then, of course, Florida, same exact thing as Memphis. It's just an opportunity. What I did is I started researching and testing and measuring what all of the international buyers were coming in from because not only did I want a virtual business, but I wanted to build a business with customers that I really didn't have to talk to. And with them being international, different times, zones, et cetera, it's usually via email, how we communicate. And so I tested and measured and found out which markets that they were coming into. and then from there I started building my businesses in those markets and then doing a ton of online marketing to start capturing those leads online, cultivating the lead, building the credibility and the trust so that they would want to start doing business with me.

Right, right. Okay, so you've got those three markets. You did over 100 deals last year. So you've got to have a really good source of deals. How do you find most of your deals? I have five marketing campaigns that I implement. I have my MLS offer system where I target two to three REO agents in the markets and create a relationship with them.

I run them through. I have a whole system that I run through. So consistently working with them, they're putting in 20 offers a week on REOs. I also have a bandit sign system when utilizing bandit signs to capture good leads. In fact, you're going to find out that because I test and measure everything and no one really does this and it's a little ninja tip that'll

give out there for a lot of you listening. I've actually done bandit signs where you have someone standing in an animal suit on the side corner on a busy intersection holding the bandline sign talking about freeze foreclosure. You see that in other industries but you don't see in our industry and that's one of my biggest lead captures, it's just very unique. So that's my second marketing system.

My third marketing system is my direct mail marketing system, where I have multiple campaigns. I really like fire damaged properties because they're easily targeted. There's no competition. Most people have systems in place to turn those into beautiful breeding properties again. Most of the sellers, they've already collected on insurance. You can get deep discounts. And then I have my social media and blogging system. And then I also have my online lead capture system.

So through those five systems and five marketing campaigns, implementing those, I'm consistently generating leads and finding my deals. Awesome. Awesome. So are you running all of those on your own, or have you outsourced all those activities out? It's a combination of outsourcing, and then I have software with track it all. Got it. So I'm able to outsource it while at the same time doing it.

For example, you know, going around and posting damage signs isn't my highest and best use of time. Right. My highest invests of time is being an investor and operating the system and overdoing the system, although I recommend starting out doing it yourself so that you can be in your business, learn those systems, create the routes on a map, efficiently, the routes that you're going to follow. you're going to have some in the follow, then basically put them in place overseeing and then obviously have them go up and put the band of signs up. And then, of course, you know, a lot of people would say, well, you know, I'm going to drive behind them and make sure that this is the right person. They're actually putting the signs up.

But then you might as well do it yourself. So one thing I implemented is I make them take a picture every single time they put a band sign off everywhere I told them to put it up on my route. can take a picture showing that it's proving that it's actually gone up. And then while those people are out there putting ban of signs up and they have cameras, any house that looks like it needs work, roof, or overgrown shrubs, anything I haven't stopped, take a picture. And then what I'll do is I'll actually send a direct mail campaign to that specific house, that specific homeowner with a picture of their house on it,

which always gets them to turn it over and read because they're like, buy someone taking a picture in my house and that's the key of direct mail getting to open or read it. And I generate a lot of deals that aren't on the market that way as well. Sweet. Sweet. So I was actually under the impression that you had a really good just like a one or two strong sources of deals, whether that was through a giant organization type relationship or a government relationship, something like that. But you're really fine.

Your deal is just the good old-fashioned way, right? Good old fashion way. with systems in place. I mean, I could talk hours about each one of these systems because I could break them down and show you the intricacies of them,

but even just through social media and blogging, that's some of my best leads. I can tell you that just, just tossing out some more ninja tips for you. LinkedIn is, we've done so much business on LinkedIn. It's unbelievable.

A lot of people think social media is there to play Farmville and stock your, ex-boyfriend or girlfriend or maybe try to find a few boys or girlfriend or girlfriend. But if you learn how to make money and use these social media sites for business, you can generate a lot of issues. Right. I've heard that LinkedIn is one that's, you know, grossly overlooked and underestimated for business. 100%.

It's, you know, the average household income is over $100,000 on LinkedIn. You're generally dealing with the CEO or president, so the decision makers that you want to be in touch with. It's a very good social networking site to actually do business on. Right. Right. Cool. So you've got these amazing systems in place and they're working around the clock and the leads are coming in. Do you actually speak to the leads personally or how do you filter your leads separating the prospects from the suspects, so to speak? I actually started out doing that and then of course I created a system on how to take the leads through seller lead, interview sheets, etc.

So now I have the system in place. I have other people in my business that are taking the leads. And, you know, there's specific things that we do prior to making an appointment to go see the property to make sure that it's not a waste of our time. And if it looks like, you know, we do our 10 minutes of due diligence and it looks like there might potentially be there, then we'll actually set the appointment. And then usually when the appointment sent them, Usually I'll take over and go meet with the actual seller and go look at the house.

Got it. Or if it's in a market that I'm not in, then all of my project manager do it. They've been trained very well. Sweet. Sweet. So you've got a lot of people working for you, a lot of people in the system. How many people would you say you're employing right now? Probably close to about 10, but I don't actually have any employees.

They're all independent contractors. and they all have skin in the game, meaning that they all get a percentage of the completed deals. So we're able to work together as a team and make sure that we can finish the end product so that we can all get paid. Right, right. So it's all a performance-based type compensation?

Correct. Sweet. So, okay, so the lead comes in, you acquire the property, and then what's next after that? once we acquire the property and the lead comes in, then it's important for us to really look at what our exit strategy is going to be. So that's going to be either green-having the property or green-having and buying it or wholesaling the property where we basically just purchased it below market value, do absolutely no work to it, and then sell it below market value.

rent to own or something called pre-having where a lot of times, just another ninja tip for the audience out there, there's a lot of times you can pick up a home, for example, as an REO that, you know, hasn't been able to sell because of the house is not in mortgageable condition,

so it has to have a cash buyer. And because we're such experts and we have so many sits in this place, we can go in and realize that this house is only $2,500 away from being mortgageable, so we'll put the $2,500 into it. And now all of a sudden, even though the house bill needs to be rehabbed, we can actually open up a buyer base to retail buyers that can actually obtain financing to purchase this home.

So we call that pre-habing. It's kind of like a, it's in between, like, a wholesale and an actual rehab. Got it. Got it. with the green having thing, where do you see that, I guess what's your long-term plans with that? What do you see for the future with that? Is that something that the government is going to continue to support? Or do you see that, are you concerned about the election?

I mean, what types of things are you thinking about long-term for your strategy? I mean, as we've all noticed, people are going further and further towards green, the government, companies, etc. What they're talking about in the next three or four years is that there's something called the, building performance energy labeling program, which is actually going to make it mandatory prior to selling our house that we have to have thermal image audits performed on our house to show how efficient or inefficient they are. And then basically have a label in our house, just like at a car dealership. You have labels and car windows that talk about how efficient the car is,

talk about the estimated fuel costs for the year. Same thing with homes. and what they're talking about is that if your home doesn't measure to a certain efficiency, you won't be able to sell it over a certain price, even if market value calls for it. So this is something that they're talking

about. The EPA is going to be enforcing the government's involved. And it's definitely the way of the future. It's cutting edge right now. There's not very many people doing it. So I highly recommend getting involved with it and adapting to it now so that as this becomes the trend, you're already on top

of it. You already are established as your local real estate rocks are in your local market, and you're the go-to person for these things, because once you learn these things, then you can start consulting with other investors in your area that are currently doing project can show them how to add a minimum of 10% profits to their deals by implementing and green strategies,

and you can demand a premium for that knowledge. Right, right. Well, you've got a great grasp on this, and I know you mentioned in the beginning, that, you know, you made a lot of mistakes. What are your three biggest mistakes that you would warn someone about coming into this business? Three biggest mistakes, I would say it was A, not utilizing enough leverage and thinking that if I did a lot of things myself, it would actually save me money, which it's true.

You could save money on one specific deal if you're doing a lot of things yourself, but then again, you're a technician inside your business. So with all these marketing campaigns in place, has two or three or four more deals fall into your lap. If you're stuck in the middle of one of the projects doing the work yourself to save money, you're going to miss out on these other three or four deals because you can only work on so many projects yourself at a time.

And so even though you think you're saving money, you're actually losing money versus having systems in place, becoming an entrepreneur and just overseeing systems and never being a technician and having technicians in your business and you can oversee so you can do as many deals as possible. Second mistake would be, again, not using enough leverage.

So the first mistake would be not leveraging other people's time. The second mistake would be not leveraging other people's money using my money because, again, even if I have a million dollars of my own money, there's only so many deals I can do and only so far my million dollars is going to take me where my million dollars is tied up in five, six, seven project, and five, six, seven more come.

My way, I can't do them. Because my money is now the technician in my project where I learned how to leverage private money, use other people's money on my deal. And then my money that's available, I can use that to lend other people money on their deal. So now I've just traded another income stream for myself and I can use an unlimited deal.

So leveraging other people's money, And then, and then thirdly, not leveraging the power of the Internet quick enough. You know, ever since I've mastered online marketing, I've opened my, I've opened my business globally. And it's done miracles for my business. Right. Awesome. Awesome. So someone that's just getting started, I'm always curious to, I really like interviewing real real estate investors on this show.

to get real world experience and advice and examples. You know, what do you would say is the most important, or maybe there's two that you can think of or maybe even three, skills that someone getting brand new into this business should really focus on developing? Well, right off the bat, I would say the biggest skill that you need to develop is you've got to be coachable. You've got to be coachable, especially in this business.

It's very easy to make a lot of money. It's even easier to lose a lot of money. money and if you're not open to being mentor and being coached in all aspects of the business, whether it's becoming a better version of yourself, through self-mastery, or whether it's rehabbing, or whether it's, you know, whatever it is, you got to stay open, you've got to stay coachable, et cetera. Another, another skill set that obviously you would want to have coming into this business is you would want to understand that, you know, as real estate investors, you know, as real estate investors, we are solution providers.

So basically what that means is you have to understand that you, in a lot of time, you are going to insert yourself into other people's problems. And sometimes you can get caught up in other people's problems. So you have to be willing to grow your mind as well and be putting the right content in your mind, utilizing self-masters so that you can consider your up on other people's problems, provide the solution and not get stuck and not get caught up in it to where it controls you and controls your state. So you definitely got to stay open to that.

And then the third skill set, and I kind of mentioned this before, but even if you're not technology savvy, you've got to embrace technology, you've got to embrace the power of the internet and start learning the skill sets of the internet because that's where majority of my buyers come from. That's where the majority of my sellers come from. It's through my online lead capture systems, my social media, and my blogging. Right. Right. Awesome. Yeah, it's, every time I ask that question, I get very much the similar answers. It's not, the skill is not to go and learn how to perfect direct mail or how to put a bandit sign up or how to fill out the contract. It's so much personal development in this business.

and having the right mindset and being able to get up every single day and deal with the challenges. And when you talked about your state, one thing about this business is you will experience every possible emotion that a human being is capable of experiencing it sometime or another and probably multiple times. So definitely. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm a firm believer, Matt. You know, a lot of us, we get into this business looking for that most prime piece of real estate.

but it's really, it's in between our ears, it's our brain. And as investors, we look at everything as an asset or a liability. Asset's something that's going to put money in your pocket. Liability is something that's going to take money out of your pocket. And I'm a firm believer that our brain is either our biggest asset or a biggest liability. It's either making us money on a daily basis or for a lot of us, it's continuously costing money. It's pulling money out of our pocket every single day, subconsciously.

we don't even realize it. Right. Well put. Well put. So here's the famous question, Ryan. If you were to lose everything today and had to start from scratch tomorrow morning, what would you do? How would you get started? Well, luckily, because I've created systems and checklist behind every single aspect to my business,

I would just start from square one. Obviously, I would start if I was continuing, if I wanted to build a business. business again, the very first thing I would do would implement my five marketing campaigns. Obviously, education is the foundation to success, but marketing is the foundation to any business. Without marketing and the right marketing systems in place, you have absolutely nothing. So I would dive directly back into my five marketing campaigns so that I could start generating more leads than time. And then, of course, with the lead and acquiring the properties comes the exit strategy.

So for me, you'd be blam right back into their marketing strategy. Another huge advantage of having systems, because if you do lose it all, you still have your system, you can still implement them. That's the thing. People can, you know, money can come and go. You know, it's funny because I'm a speaker trainer. I go all over the country and I coach people on real estate and three-day events. And, you know, I ask people, I say, I say, time is what? And everyone always says, money, they always yell out money.

And it's funny. everyone always says that because that's what we're trained to trade time for dollars so we feel like time is money but in my opinion time is everything because you can't get it back money comes and goes you can lose money you can lose it you can make money you can lose it you can make it but you can't get your time back and so really if you lose everything if you lose money people can take your money from you, but they can't take your knowledge and they can't take your systems. Right. Sweet.

Awesome. Great interview today, Ryan. Thanks for joining us. I know you're extremely busy, but thanks for blocking out this time. I know we're both playing Mr. Mom today, so we're trying to coordinate the kids' naps, and it looks like we've successfully done that. You know, if someone wanted to learn a little bit more about what you do or wanted to look into purchasing one of your turnkey green-having property, something like that, where would you direct

them to? There's two places that I would direct him to, Matt. The first place would be greenhaving 101.com. That's my blog. That's where we're consistently blogging three days a week, educating people on these green having strategies. You can go directly to greenhaving.101.com, and you can request your free copy of our e-book that outlines our system on greenhaving,

and then you'll consistently get education. And then on top of that, if you wanted to learn more about mastering yourself and mastering real estate and mastering systems, you can check out www. In the Now Mastery Coaching.com. And there's a 30-minute video that basically you can watch that's going to explain how to build a real estate business how to put systems in place and why systems are so important for your business.

Sweet. Sweet. Well, awesome. I'm all out of questions. Is there anything I should have asked that I didn't, Ryan? I feel like you covered it pretty good. You know, I just want to thank you for the opportunity. I think what you're doing is awesome.

I know that you're big into systems as well and you're big into education and creating value for your audience. And, you know, obviously I just want to commend you for that. for taking time and staying committed and focused to seeking out the most successful entrepreneurs out there and getting inside their brain and giving your audience an opportunity to get inside their brain as well. I think that's really commendable. And I know that that's a huge part of you and your life's success. And I know that's why you guys are keeping successful. So I do appreciate the opportunity and I look forward to doing it again at some point with you.

Awesome. Absolutely. Definitely will have you back. Yeah, so I guess that's it. You have an awesome day and we'll chat soon, Ryan. All right, my friend. So we're here. Take care.

You too. Bye-bye. Awesome interview. Word of the day, I'd have to say, would be systems. You know, in the spirit of Robert Kiyosaki, a properly structured system will empower your business to run with you or without you. And that's really what defines a true business owner and ultimately what creates your financial freedom. So today, I want you to look around your business.

What's there that can be turned into a system? What do you do consistently? What is it inside your business that consistently requires your presence? What can you do to, or where can you delegate that? What's there that you can delegate or outsource? Perhaps your lead generation. I mean, if you're not outsourcing your direct mail or don't have plans to do it very soon, that would be a great place to start with the system.

I mean, writing letters and stuffing envelopes and stamping postage on the envelope is not the highest and best use of your time. Let's see. Another place to look is to create a system would be in your admin department. I mean, are you handling all of your paperwork? I hate paperwork. I don't handle that. Or do you have a transaction coordinator like me do it for you? Again, paperwork is not the highest and best use of your time.

You are more valuable elsewhere. like talking to motivated sellers and putting the deals together. That's where you are directly compensated. And if you can systematically or continually progress towards the place where you can put yourself in a position to focus your energy on just those tasks, you will not just be directly compensated. You will be greatly compensated. Just, I don't know, just food for thought, okay?

Probably a good topic for a future show, and maybe I'll put that together soon. Probably will. All right, that's it for today. So until next time, as a very wise person once said, surround yourself with the best people you can find. Delegate authority and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out. To your success, I'm Matt Terrio, living the dream.

Hey, how's it going, Matt? So I just want to send you this quick little message. I don't know if I had told you this, but I had spent so many thousands of dollars on different real estate training programs and seminars and really just didn't teach me a whole lot. But I gotta say, your academy has been real breath of fresh air. I had just been, I mean, I actually take your things pretty quickly, but I just been failing so long in the real estate business after months in the game. How do you sell my first property, which kind of hurt my confidence a little bit.

But after applying all the techniques that you taught me, I was able to adjust that to get my first property going. So I got it. And I use your three offer option technique. And I got my second property actually in ESCO right now. So it just feels really good to be amongst the successors versus the unsuccessful. And it just was really good that I'm actually making the steps and kind of at least starting to live out my dreams, at least in terms of my financial future. So I've got to say thanks again.

Your academy is great. and I highly recommend it to anybody who's interested in making money in real estate. All right, Matt, so thank you again and have a good one. Bye. Thank you for spending this time with Matt Terrio and the Epic Real Estate Investing Podcast. When you have a moment, stop by iTunes to leave your comments and let us know what you think of the show. And if you haven't done so already, get started investing today by visiting free real estate investing course.com. To access Matt's free course, how to do you.

deals, no money required. Until next time. To your success. To your success. This podcast is a part of the C-suite radio network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-sweetradio.com.