No Broke Months For Salespeople - Motivation in Motion: A Story of Overcoming Obstacles and Inspiring Others

Episode Date: February 8, 2024

Nick Prefontaine is a 3x best-selling author and a top motivational speaker of 2022 in Yahoo Finance. He's the Founder and CEO of Common Goal and a Partner and Buyer's coach at Smart Real Estate Coach. In 2003, Nick had a snowboarding accident and fell into a coma for over three weeks. Doctors predicted he might never walk, talk, or eat independently. Yet, in less than three months, he was running out of a rehab hospital in Boston.Nick now speaks and works with people during their trauma to help them get through to the other side where their infinite potential lies.In this episode, Nick will share his journey in Motivation in Motion: A Story of Overcoming Obstacles and Inspiring Others. To find out more about Dan Rochon and the CPI Community, you can check these links:Website: No Broke MonthsPodcast: No Broke Months for Salespeople PodcastInstagram: @donrochonxFacebook: Dan RochonLinkedIn: Dan Rochon

Once you've taken your first step, keep getting up every day and taking your next step, no matter how small. And by continuing to take your next step, move forward every day, no matter how small, you're building an unstoppable momentum. Welcome to the No Broke Months for Real Estate Agents podcast. Working as a real estate agent

can be incredibly rewarding and fulfilling, but it can also be frustrating if you aren't making the money you deserve. So if you're ready to end the stressful cycle of working hard for no results, then get started with a proven step-by-step system so that every month is no broke months. Nick Prefontaine is a three times bestselling author and a top motivational speaker of 2022 in Yahoo Finance. He's the founder and CEO of Common Goal and a partner and buyers coach at Smart Real Estate Coach. In 2003, Nick had a snowboarding accident and fell into a coma for over three weeks. Doctors predicted he might never walk, talk, or eat independently. Yet, in less than three months,

he was running out of a rehab hospital in Boston. Nick now speaks and works with people during their trauma to help them get through to the other side where their infinite potential lies. In this episode, Nick will share his journey and motivation in motion, a story of overcoming obstacles and inspiring others. My name is Dan Roshan. I'm the host of the No Broke Months podcast, which is a show for real estate agents to help you have no broke months. Thanks for joining me. Enjoy the show. Nick, welcome. How are you, sir? I'm outstanding, Dan. Thank you for having me. I thought you were going to give away all my secrets. You know, I'm aware of a few of your secrets, but I bet you have some that you've withheld from me.

But I want to start off. I'm just going to kick right into it. 2003, you were snowboarding. What happened? Sure. So I was at ski club with my friends and going to the mountain, we had all brought our snowboard gear on the bus to get ready so we wouldn't miss any time once we got to the mountain. And we got to the mountain and when the rest of the class migrated inside the lodge to get ready, we were ready to go. So we headed right for the chairlift. On the ride up, we noticed that it was very icy because it had been raining.

So people were wiping out everywhere. The chairlift also went right over the terrain park where all of the jumps were. And it went right over the biggest jump in the train park. And as soon as I saw it, I was like, that's what I'm hitting. That's it. That has my name all over it. So I got to the top, buckled into my snowboard, took a breath of that crisp winter air,

and confidently charged towards that jump with all my speed. Going out to the jump, I caught the edge of my snowboard, which threw me off balance. That's the last thing that I remember. I was told that I landed on my head. I wasn't wearing a helmet. Something else that I learned after the fact, this is all kind of came back to me piecemeal based on people that were observing it and people that were there that day. So I didn't have a helmet on. The only protection that my head had was a pair of goggles. And the goggles that I wore had a lot of padding on them. So in essence, they saved my life. I learned that with each subsequent hit after the initial impact, which they braced,

that my goggles mysteriously moved to cushion each blow as I continued to hit my head and continued to roll down the mountain. Second thing that happened that day, which is pretty amazing, the hospital wanted to, the paramedics rather, wanted to bring a helicopter to the mountain because of the severity of my injuries. They couldn't because it was too windy. So they had to send in an ambulance. And out of all the paramedics in the area, there was only one who could intubate right on the spot. And I needed that to be able to breathe. He was one of the paramedics that showed up to the mountain that day.

Now, there are still several things that I can't remember because of the accident. And now I know it's one of the reasons that I'm here with you today. So once I got to the hospital, this is all things I learned out to the fact. The third thing that happened that was very instrumental in my recovery and instrumental to why I'm able to stand up. I am standing. I'm not sitting. I'm able to stand up. I am standing. I'm not sitting. I'm sharing this story with you. So I was in the ICU, in the intensive care unit at the hospital, unable to communicate with anyone.

I was out for the count. The doctors would, no fault of their own, it's just what they do. They would come into my room to share progress updates with my parents. And as you can imagine, at the onset, it wasn't very positive. If anything, it was more negative and more negative and more negative progressively. They're sharing this to your parents when you're in the room they were going to they they started to share with my parents what the prognosis was with me my parents stopped them they said no no not in front of him so you were in a coma at this point

yeah exactly they they understood that even though i was out for the count, not able to communicate with anyone, I was still taking in information because they understood the power of the mind. So they made the doctors step outside the room. And once outside the room, Dan, that's where they shared with my parents that, look, he's in a coma from his injury, based on the fact that just from the impact alone, he would have been out for seven to 10 days at a minimum. We can, however, risk that he'll wake up and start panicking and worry about what happened and who are you people and what am I doing here? So they induced me. So it was a partially induced coma. So they weren't even sure. They shared with my parents that, Hey, we're not sure, um, how long he's going to be out. If he is even going to come out of his coma.

However, even if he does, he's probably not going to be prepared. He's probably not going to be able to walk, talk, or eat on his own. So my parents took this information. They thanked the doctors. Then though, Dan, this allowed me to treat it like any other situation. I didn't know any of this. This was all like noise going on outside the room. I had no idea about any of this. So what this allowed me to do once I was aware of my surroundings and the work that was left in front of me, I was able to get up, do the best I could every day. And I kept getting better every day. And now- How old were you then? I'm sorry? How old were you then?

I was 14. Oh my goodness. Okay. Yeah, I was 14. So I remember this, this all comes back to me that I remember a month after my accident. So it was the beginning of March of 2003 when I really started to, because I wasn't transported to the rehab hospital until close to four weeks, like about three or four weeks, not quite a month. You were in a coma that whole time? I was in a coma for three weeks and that was partially induced. However, there are clips, there are video of me in the hospital, in the ICU, where I had my eyes open. I was looking around at everyone and I have no memory of that. So it was like the lights were on, but no one was home. I have that almost every day, but that's a whole different conversation. So, um, like a month, a month after my accident,

I, I started to get my wits about me and I overheard, I couldn't talk. I had to learn everything all over again. So I heard them, my parents talking to the doctors and my therapist saying, all right, what are we going to do to make sure Nick makes a full recovery? And I heard in the back of my head, no, you're going to run out of the hospital. So then running out of the hospital became our common goal and where my whole company common goal, where the name comes from. So everything we were doing every day was to strive towards that common goal of running out of the hospital. Now, unknowingly, I utilize a system. That's where the STEP system came from to not only make a full recovery, but run out of the hospital. STEP is an acronym. It stands for support.

And I'll give you a 10,000 foot view right now. Support. Make sure you have the support of your family and friends around you. And this is going to have you falling back on relationships that you built prior to your setback. T is trust. Trust that the next step is always going to be available to you as long as you take your first step, follow it, and also trust that voice that you have inside of you. That voice that said to me, no, you're going to run out. I, then I, um, pardon the pun, but I ran with that. So I, I, I was like, all right, that's, that's what we're going to do. So I shared that with everyone and was able to, was able to run out of the hospital. E is energy, energy, maintaining your energy allows your body's natural ability to be able to heal itself. And if you don't have your energy, think about it, Dan,

you can probably relate to this. You don't have your energy. How can you expect to influence and support other people that are going through anything? It's hard. It's hard to do for sure. Yeah. And then finally, P is persistence. Persistence. Once you've taken your first step, keep getting up every day and taking your next step, no matter how small. And by continuing to take your next step, move forward every day, no matter how small, you're building an unstoppable momentum. This is anything. So literally, it's anything. So for me, it was in the recovery. However, I've applied it to different areas of my life. And it works that whenever you're first faced with something and it seems insurmountable by moving forward and doing something every day,

it doesn't matter how small it is. As long as you're doing something every day, you're building an unstoppable momentum that once you're getting going, you can have almost scheduled days off. However, those first 90, 90 to a hundred days that you're working at something new, you gotta be generating that momentum that with persistence. So if you fast forward a little bit during my recovery, I remember this. I was, I was in a wheelchair and. How long were you, how long after your accident were we talking about now? Uh, so first, when I first came, this is interesting. When I first came out of the coma and I was first at the rehab hospital, I was transported to the third floor, which was for the most severe cases.

I hardly have any memory of being on the third floor. However, I remember I'm able to piecemeal together by memories here and there that I would say 30 to 45 days after I'm talking about after my accident. So I was able to, the thing that I was able to do first was sit up in bed for eight minutes at a time. first was sit up in bed for eight minutes at a time. And just sitting up in bed for eight minutes at a time, I was sweating thoroughly like I had just run a marathon. I had just competed in the environment. That took everything out of you.

Exactly, yeah. And then it was, then I graduated to a fully supported wheelchair and then a regular wheelchair. I can remember though, one day in a regular wheelchair in my room and I would, I have long days at the hospital. So I would start wake up. I would need help from my occupational therapist teaching me how to shower again. I mean, picture that I had to learn literally everything all over. So writing, showering, I had to learn everything. Swallowing, everything all over again. So I remember in my room at lunch, looking over my situation, I just couldn't figure it out. I remember turning to my mom and asking, am I ever going to be able to walk again?

And she didn't hesitate. She said, of course, of course you are. That's what we're doing here. So you can get everything back and we can go home. So I point to this, Dan, because we all have moments of doubt. So people hear, people hear my story of the snowboarding accident and running out of the hospital and they think, oh, great. Yeah. Good for you. It must've been easy for you. No, I had, I had doubt. Like we all, I share this story because I had doubt. I'm human. Just, just like every one of us has doubts. And I think it's, I think that that's important to mention. And then you go ahead. I'm sorry. Well, I was going to say, how did you apply this? I mean, this is a tremendous lesson that you learn about life at a very young age. And when we get these setbacks,

and not everyone has a setback as significant as what you're describing. In fact, most don't. Yet, we all have setbacks. And so you're describing something that's an extreme. And God bless you. And I'm grateful that you got through that. I want to learn more about that here in a few moments. But how did you take those lessons and then apply those to, to your life professionally, personally, spiritually, energetically. Tell us more about that if you could, please. Sure. And I think it's, it's going to come out naturally, but I just, I, um, that's how the step system and what I'm sharing with you is how I've dealt, how I was brought up to, that's just how you deal with things. Like you get up and do the best you can every day

until you make it, until you finish. So I think that's just something that I've naturally done and was kind of drilled into me as a kid as a child that that's that's kind of how you deal with with things and it took it took me going through not only this there's um I actually if we have time I don't know if we're gonna have enough time but I actually um I suffered I had a voice challenge in 2012 that I developed. They couldn't say for sure what it was from. However, I know it was because of my accent, like certain factors. Some of these vocal cords or something.

Yeah, exactly. Where it almost sounded like it was hard to get the words out. And I was just talking normal. So I had to have a combination of Botox injections in my throat, along with voice therapy from, um, highly trained voice specialists to get my voice back. And I think I'm more proud of that just because that took, that's like eight or nine years from start to finish to be able to say, all right, I'm done. That's the persistence. Yeah. I mean, that's the persistence that you talked about. I mean, eight or nine years is a significant period of time to, to devote to something to, you know, whether it's physical like that or mental or intellectual or, you know, professionally. Well, Dan, you're, you're touching, you're touching on something of why I, why I might have recency bias, but I'm more proud of that than

I am from my overcoming my traumatic brain injury because it was really a true test of persistence. There were some dark moments there, but it just kept going. Excuse me for interrupting my own show. You are freaking amazing. And because you're amazing, I'm going to ask for a quick favor. It'll just take you 30 seconds for you to leave a favorable five-star rating or review

on your favorite platform. Then what I'll do is I'll enter you into a raffle where we can meet 45 minutes for a free coaching session. And I'll also give you a copy of the book, Real Estate Evolution, which is the 10-step guide to CPI, consistent and predictable income. Oh, by the way, I'm the author of that book. So if you'd like for me to coach you,

give you some nuggets and help you in your business, go ahead and leave a review and you can enter into the monthly raffle to win. I want to tie this into business here in a second. Okay. But before I do, so you said something about momentum and I want to make sure, you know, cause I didn't want to interrupt, but I want to make sure that the viewers and listeners got what you said about momentum. And the way that I describe momentum is if you can envision like this steel

ball on the bottom of a metal chain and your job, you know, it's thousands of pounds is to take that steel ball and to get it to go round and round into circles. And you go up to that steel ball and you dig your feet in and you get against it and you push with all your might and you get nothing. And then you push a little bit more and you get nothing. And then you get an inch and then maybe two inches and then at some point you get momentum but what i think so few people understand is how long you have to continue to push before you can step back and then just sort of you know give it small pushes so that it maintains the momentum because if you push and you push and you push and let's say that ball is swinging back and

forth at you know 45 degrees to the right 45 degrees to the left or whatever the case may be i guess it would be 90 and 90 and um it's pushing you know you're pushing that and if you stop it's not going to keep the momentum so what you said was yeah you got to do this for at least 90 days before you can take a day off if you've got an intention and so do I understand what you're talking about with momentum correctly, that you've got to almost do it daily before you can sort of let yourself off, but you still have to keep pushing it. Does that, does that resonate with you? Absolutely. You're, you're, um, I can go in so many different directions of what you're saying. I agree wholeheartedly with you. And the reason I'll bring this back to some of my work with Common Goal and my speaking now, I'm able to speak to associations like brain injury associations, for instance, and other organizations like Dysphonia International and deliver my keynote, which is also I get

to go a little bit more in depth than what we're doing. But doing that, I didn't. So when I endeavored to do, all right, I want to take speaking, motivational speaking seriously and go down this avenue. Someone saw me speak at one of our real estate events, our QLS Live in 2019. And she approached me, gave me her card and said, I'm not trying to steal you from your dad. However, if you ever want to bring your story to a new level so you're able to impact the maximum amount of people, let me know and I can introduce you to a few people. So I held onto her card. I was still

going through my voice issue, my dysphonia, that's what you call it. And I held onto it until May of 2021 and had a call with her. She introduced me to her mentor, Tricia Brooke, who's become my mentor. And I've just been saying yes to her since we spoke in May of 2021. First for her speaker salon, where I had the opportunity to be on stage for six weeks in a row at the Triad Theater in New York City. And then during it, she pitched me the idea of working one-on-one with her. And that's what I really credit. That's where the step system came from. And that's where Common Goal came from. And that's where my keynote came from, that I'm able to impact and affect

people's lives that are going through trauma right now and help them get through to the other side and thrive with the rest of their life. That didn't, when I was first starting that, I was like, I was like a mad person that would, that was in, um, I was working with her intensely one-on-one. Every two or three weeks, we'd have an hour call. So we had an hour call. And literally during that time, for the first 90 days, I was working every day. I did something every day. Because I did something every day, I was able to generate that momentum. And that's why I was able to last year speak at Disponia

International Symposium, last year speak at the Brain Injury Association Maryland Symposium in March, speak to 350 people, deliver my keynote. All of that wouldn't exist if I didn't set that momentum and do something, a little something every day to really ensure my success? I'm curious, and I generally, I'm not going to predict what your answer is going to be on this. My experience in achieving goals, and I don't know, you know, I've got some guesses on why this may be my experience, but my my experience has been that any goal that I want to achieve takes far greater work, effort, time, money and resources to be able to achieve than what I could ever imagine. And I don't, I know that there's people in this world that don't have that experience, but I think there's probably more that do have that experience. I'm curious, what are your thoughts on that? I agree. I do agree. I do agree with that. And this, this was, this is interesting. I don't get the opportunity to share this, but often, but I will with you today that after I graduated high school, I graduated high school in 2007.

And just because of my story and having run out of the hospital in 2003, a few years before that, I was like, yeah, all right. Everyone told me I should be doing speaking., everyone told me I should be doing, uh, speaking and everyone told me I should be doing that. And then, so I started to go to Toastmasters and I, I just started to get my feet wet with that. I worked with someone that, uh, my dad knew growing, uh, growing up and he was paying for the coaching. So it really wasn't, it really wasn't something that I, I was committed to and I was ready for. Um, so I figured I would go back to it at some point. I just figured I'd have to get some real life experience. So I I've been involved in real estate and my family has been involved in real estate all my life. So the natural next step for me was to get my real and I'll tie this back to real estate and what we're

talking about. But I've always had this voice in the back of my head, no matter how successful I am, how much success I'm having, that I have to be sharing my story from stage and helping individuals that are going through trauma or a life challenge get through to the other side and to be able to thrive with the rest of their lives. It's always been there. And I haven't been able to get rid of it no matter what I do or what I achieve. Then after that person who saw me speak, Sharon Spano, in 2019 gave me her card from the moment I called her in May of 2021 to now, almost three years later, there has been no voice. And to me, that's evidence that I'm doing exactly what I've been put on this earth to do. And, um, so do my initial call with her, Tricia, that as she said to me, uh, I share my goals with her of what I wanted to accomplish

eventually. And she said that, um, that's definitely attainable. Um, I'll help you get here. And I said, what do you, what do you recommend? And she said, my speaker salon. And she said, that's twenty five thousand. I said, yeah. OK, yes, I'll do that. And then working with her, being going on on stage at the Triad Theater for six weeks in a row in New York City. She said to me that halfway through, she said, well, all right, I see us working one-on-one together. And I specialize in working with speakers to help them build out their speaker platform and kind of bring them to a new level. And she said, that's 75,000. I said, yes. I don't know where I'm going to get the money, but yes, give me a week and I'll figure it out. And a week later, I got financing and figured it out. And if I didn't do that,

and if I didn't continue to say yes, I wouldn't be where I am today. Well, that's taking a risk on yourself and believing in, you know, the resources and the coaching that you had available to you and understanding that it was an investment, you know, that you would make and with the expectation that you're going to have a return, you know, and that's like any other investment, whether it's a dollar, two dollars or seventy five thousand, you know, it's it's you're not going to invest that money into something if you don't have faith that you're going to get multiples in return. Would that be accurate? That's accurate. And to answer your question.

But it's not just about money, by the way. Yeah. But it's also about impact as well. But money's a part of it. Money's the whole reason. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big part of it. Yeah. And I think initially, back to your question of is it going to take you more time and more money and more resources than you originally think? Yes. I could have just answered you and not done that whole story, but we wouldn't have been

able to go through that whole story. So I think when I first got out of school, first got out of high school, when I was kind of dipping my toe in the water of this motivational speaking thing, I was trying to get to my goal of being on stage, being a motivational speaker, getting paid to speak without going through the investment of time, resources, and energy of what I've done for the past two and a half, almost three years. You already know 87% of all real estate agents fail in this business. And you also know it doesn't have to be that way. you're a real estate agent you're looking for consistent and predictable income I invite for you to get your free copy of real estate evolution the 10-step guide to CPI consistent and predictable income for real estate agents and you can do so when you visit www.therealestateevolution.com. I'll share with you your book that I authored to show you the way.

Thanks. How do you tie all this in with, I know that your, you know, your family's, you know, big into real estate investing. And I know that you guys have helped out many, many, many people to, you know, create a financing and commercial investment. And how does this all tie back together into real estate? Good question. And I'm glad we, I'm glad we got there. I'm glad we got back on track. The, all right. So interesting. I wasn't, after running out of the hospital, I still had to go to outpatient therapy for another six months along with being tutored allordinating accident and being in a coma, you were knocking on pre-foreclosure doors in some not so nice areas of cities? Time out. Time out. Time out. If you're a real estate agent, if you're a real estate investor,

if you are a business owner or an entrepreneur and you are not taking action because you're afraid, listen to what this man is saying right now. 18 months after, and he's out knocking on doors. So sorry to interrupt you, but I want to put a big freaking spotlight on what you're saying right now. Go ahead. Excuse me. Thank you. So I was after, and it was less than that, probably a year after finishing my rehab, I started getting the itch and I started just reading and looking at different things. I was always around it, but I just picked up a book off my dad's library, which was The Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kawasaki. And that really started my wheels turning. And so I came to my dad and I said, how do I help? And how do I start getting, he was an investor at the time, how do I help and start getting involved in real

estate and helping with the company and everything? And right around that time, I was starting to get my license, my driver's license. And they were playing with the idea of having bird dogs go out to properties and knock on the doors of homeowners that have received a notice of default letter from the bank. And I was like, this is perfect. I can't drive with anyone in my car, but I can go and knock on doors because I'm just getting my license. So that's what I would do. I would do, I had to go to school during the week. Um, however, on the weekends I would do 50 to 70 doors, um, in a day. And, um, at the beginning, I got a lot of doors slammed in my face because they just gave me a script, a leave behind and the place to go to find where these notice of default homeowners were. So, and they said, knock yourself out. I got up. I basically just ran up to the door and spit out

the script and got a lot of doors slammed in my face. So I had no technique. Yeah, exactly. No technique. And shortly after starting my cousin, Mike and I, we, uh, my dad flew us out to California to shadow the number one person in the country that was having success with these pre-foreclosure doors, notice the default doors. And once I saw his technique and how much success he was having and how nuanced everything was, I really incorporated that into my own teachings. Do you remember what you incorporated? Do you remember any specifics? Absolutely. What were they? Absolutely. So instead of just rushing up to the door and knocking, being right there when they answered, he would not. And then by default, I would walk up, do a light knock, like just a friend knocking, walking, coming by, wanted to say, hi, what's up? What's going on? Just a light knock, like just a friend knocking, walking, coming by, wanting to say, hi, what's up, what's going on?

Just a light knock, like a friend walking by, then take a few steps down off the step. Yeah, so I would knock on the door and take it, like a friend coming by, and then I would take a few steps back. And then when they'd answer, I would show them my clipboard and their name and information on there and just look at either side of the door and say, hey, I'm looking for this person, this address. I'm not sure I have the right place. Could you help me out? And once they saw their name on the list, they would light up.

They would open up and share with him and by default me. Then it became me. That's brilliant. What was going on, what they were doing to fix this situation. Or really, let's be serious. This was 2006. What they weren't doing to fix the situation, those rotten banks. So I saw that and we actually had several houses i don't want to name

cities just because um yeah just i don't want to alienate people but i would let's just say i went to some not so nice areas of cities where they were right next to each other and i could hit the most amount of doors in a day so So I would do like a lot of, they were basically just describe it generically a lot of row houses that you can get from one to the next to the next. Yeah. The city. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I continue to do that throughout the rest of my high school career. And this was really my first.

And I, to this day, I think it's the best sales training. If you can, if you can go up to someone who is in a clearly in a distressed situation and get them to take the next step, which would be meeting with the investor, scheduling a meeting for the following week with the investor. I think that's the best, that's some of the best sales training in the world. Because you have to use empathy to connect with them in their situation, but simultaneously also some firmness of allowing for them to understand that they need help and that for them to avoid having a conversation with you or finding a different solution isn't going to be in their benefit, right? So it's a little bit of a yin and a yang when they're already sort of at this place where, you know, and again, I'm describing, it may or may not be accurate, but they may be in a place where they're a victim or they're experiencing, you know, like, Hey, not my fault. The bank screwed me over that type of thing. I know,

I know I've met a lot of people at that time, you know, and that was the experience that I had. So, um, so that, yeah, it takes a great deal of sales skill for sure. And there's a no better, no better training, I think. And, uh, then after, after getting out of high school, I started starting to get my real estate license. And then I was a realtor, as I mentioned, from 2008, full time 2008 to 2014. And then at the end of my realtor career, I was a realtor until January of 2016. I started helping my dad who was getting all these properties under contract and he needed help with marketing them.

And he came to me and he said, hey, would you be able to help me market these? You could do it right alongside being a realtor and just post us on a couple of different websites. And I was like, no, no, no. I got my own thing going on here. I'm good. I don't need your help. Luckily, he asked me a few got my own thing going on here. I'm, I'm good. I don't need your help. Um,

luckily he asked me a few times. So I finally said yes. And then over the course of a year, it really just so you know, next time your dad's looking for a great listing agent and you're too humble, send him my way. I'll, I'll take that on. So he, um, I'll take it. Go on. Sorry. So he, um, yeah, so that, that morphed into just doing the marketing morphed into working with all the buyers that were calling off the marketing. And over the course of a year, my income shifted from being 80% as, um, from being a realtor sales to being in 20 percent with him, my income shifted. It just didn't make sense for me to keep my real estate license. So I joined them full time in 2016. And then I developed the process that we're able to put our rental buyers through to make sure that they're successful.

They get to the end of their rental and agreement, they're successful, and they're able to go forward and get their own loans. So real quick, nationally or just historically in the industry, there's probably only 10 or 20% of the rental and buyers who do go forward and get their financing. However, we're seeing the inverse of that. We see up to 90%. So 80 to 90% of our rental home buyers do go forward and get financing on the home. And that's because of the very specific and very particular buyer process that we put them through. So we do heavy pre-qualifying and vetting upfront. Our standards are even stricter than banks are even to this day

for what they require for income and also down payment. So we want to make sure they're down payment. So just to provide make sure there's a down payment. So just to provide some clarity on this, what you guys, one of the strategies that you're employing, you're using a lot of creative financing to acquire properties, and then you're leasing them on a rent-to-own option. And what you're talking about is the purchase rate of the tenant slash option holder of being close to 90%. Do I understand that correctly? Yes. And there are so many nuances even to what you just said.

So you said you're doing what we're doing is selling it on an option, a purchase option. We don't want to use the term option, even though that's the legal instrument that, um, that we're doing to acquire the property and then sell like that. That's one of the tools that we do. However, we don't ever want to use the term option with our rental buyers because then it leads them to believe, all right, well, I'm going to rent this home and then I have the option to purchase it at the end. You're saying rent to own instead. Yeah. Rent to own, lease purchase. We want them to know this is a definitive purchase. We're treating them like buyers. They're taking care of all maintenance, repair, and upkeep. Like they're not calling us if the toilet's leaking, for instance. And they're

capturing equity just like a homeowner, but they're taking all responsibility for maintenance, repair, and upkeep. All right, Nick. So we're going to be running out of time here, but I know there's so much that you have of wisdom to share more about with the investing. I know you've got a book that you could share with people. Tell us about the book first and then tell us about your website of how people can get in touch with you to learn more. us have a free giveaway, free gift for your listeners. So if they go to wicketsmartbooks.com forward slash N as in Nancy, B as in boy, M as in Mary, three, the number three, they'll be able to get the new rules of real estate investing. Excuse me. And I'm a co-author on that along with my dad and my brother-in-law, Zach. That's 24 leading experts. Look, we're not going to, we're biased. It doesn't mean we're wrong, but we think our niche and buying and selling the way we do creatively is the best. However, this book goes into detail from other niches in the real estate industry because there are tons of them and you'll be able to learn about those. So wakedsmartbooks.com forward slash NBM3. Then if the way that we buy and sell homes piqued your interest at all, you can go to

smartrealestatecoach.com. And if you scroll down, you can get registered for the free master's class that's going to teach you all about how we buy and sell on terms. I know we didn't really have time to dive into that today. It's also going to teach you about our Trademark 3 Payday System. Lastly, if anything that I had to say regarding my story and the STEP system, interest any of your listeners, they can download the STEP system for free at nickprefontaine.com forward slash STEP. And that's going to teach them all about support, trust, energy, and persistence.

We only had like a 10,000 foot view today, but that goes into detail. And if they go there, nickprefontaine.com forward slash step, that'll help them take their first step today. Nick, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today and God bless you. And I wish you much continued success. I wish your family much continued success, real estate agents, brokers, entrepreneurs. I wish for you to have the best day of your life. Be grateful. Make good choices. Go help somebody and go find some listings. Thanks so much for listening to the No Broke Months podcast today. Until the next show, I invite for you to be grateful, make good choices,

help someone, have the best day of your life, and you'll find a listing. I'm very excited about the conversation we're about to have. I want to introduce you to Dan Rochon, who is the owner and co-founder of Greetings Virginia. I am so excited to introduce my next guest. Dan Rochon. Reads, he writes, he does improv. A frequent speaker and often quoted about the real estate market.

I'm gonna bring on a guy that is a winner. We had some really cool conversations before going live with this show. We have Dan Rochon. So I'm gonna encourage for you to think big. I'm gonna encourage you to think big and then multiply it by two. And then take huge action.

Because whatever you want, you're only five years away from that.