The Secrets of Financial Literacy: Expert Reveals All

Stephen Schmidt (00:03.598)
Welcome back to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host, Stephen Schmidt, and I’ve got a real treat for you today. I got Tone Robinson in the house and we are going to go over all things real estate. Tone has been in the investing space for over 27 years now, has a property management company and does a little bit of everything when it comes into the investing space and is passionate about helping other people create financial freedom through the platform.

If you’re joining us for a second, third or hundredth time, go ahead and keep listening. And if it’s your first time, obviously you’re going to be in for a treat. This is going to be a new regular on your listening list. So just remember before we get into it at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses to allow them to live, build the businesses they’ve always wanted to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. being said, Tone, welcome to the show today.

Tone Robinson (00:34.433)
Thank

Tone Robinson (00:59.234)
Man, thank you for having me, Steven. I’m looking forward to it. It’s a pleasure.

Stephen Schmidt (01:04.555)
Me too, I know we’re gonna go all over the place today, but before we do that, can you just share a little bit about yourself and how you got here for our listeners?

Tone Robinson (01:12.011)
Absolutely, man. Thank you for having me once again. Like I mentioned, you know, I really got started in the real estate space in college, trying to find really a way to pay back Sally Mae. I think we all can understand what that looks like if you if you went to college. And I started reading up a lot of books and got a hold of some independent study classes with a professor who owns some real estate himself. And

I took about six or seven independent study classes on real estate to kind of get familiar with the background. Read about read a bunch of books and you know, I saw that a lot of the guys who were doing it well were really investing in multifamily. And so my first time at the gate, I figured I wanted a house hat and I bought them. I bought a three family. So my first property was a three family. I bought it the week I graduated from undergrad and I’ve been buying and selling property ever since.

Stephen Schmidt (02:08.558)
No kidding. And one of the things I forgot to mention in the intro is that you’re not just a real estate investor. You’re also a speaker. You’re a consultant. You’ve got the whole gamut, the whole package. Now, a lot of people, I think, are scared of multifamily, but not you. When you got started in it, what made you decide to go that route? Was it just the ability to live in one unit, rent the others out, and you saw that as a long-term wealth thing? Or did you realize what it was going to become, you know, 27 years post now?

Tone Robinson (02:36.618)
I had no idea foreshadowing, right? I was really just following with the guys who made a lot of money in the 70s and in the 80s and they wrote books about it. Right. The Robert G. Allen and some of the older guys, some of the guys who are doing it well back in the 70s and 80s. And they were talking about multifamily at that time. So after reading several books, maybe about 20 books on real estate, trying to just get familiar with the industry.

I really wanted to hone in on multifamily since that was very prevalent here in Northeast Ohio.

Stephen Schmidt (03:12.654)
Now did you actually use your degree? Were you working a full-time job when you first got into it? What was your situation like?

Tone Robinson (03:20.103)
Yes, I was a. Makes sense. Yeah, I was a I was a banker, so I was working in banking at that time, you really entry level customer service, telemarketing, things like that call center type work. And then once I graduated, I started getting into management and things like that. So I already had a background in banking and credit and sales and then management as well.

just really having that kind of that background gave me a leg up to kind of understand credit very early from age of like 19, 20. So I wasn’t doing anything specific or having any at home training. was really on the job training.

Stephen Schmidt (04:02.254)
Sure. Now with that, you know, a lot of people, a lot of big buzzwords that you hear for people getting started in real estate is you can do it with no money, no credit, all of those things. How did how did having an understanding of that benefit you or did you go that route where you didn’t need it at all?

Tone Robinson (04:11.369)
Thank

Tone Robinson (04:18.058)
No, that’s a great question. No, I absolutely needed credit. Probably when I graduated, I probably had a 750 credit score just from living on my own as a undergrad student. had an apartment on my own with no roommate, and I was working probably 30 hours a week at that time. So just being able to manage my bills and kind of manage a budget at that time, having some of the core principal foundations of homeownership, right.

And so for me, at that time, I was really looking at using credit in the FHA program to be able to get a jumpstart into real estate. So I absolutely use credit like most people. And it wasn’t until way down the line that I became, you know, immersed in other ways to buy property outside of the traditional.

Stephen Schmidt (05:08.302)
So now when did you decide to actually leave your job in the banking sector and go full time into real estate?

Tone Robinson (05:18.026)
So started my business in 2010. And so I spent 14, almost 15 years in banking. And I really, was in grad school at the time as well. And so I really wanted to, you know, use my degree for something other than a job. And so like most MBA students, one of your classes is entrepreneurship. And I did my business plan on my own business. So.

I didn’t see a reason to do a lot of work into Walmart or Amazon. I might as well do it on my own business. And so I had the opportunity to do that. then so since 2010, I’ve been full time as an entrepreneur working in management and doing real estate services.

Stephen Schmidt (06:05.966)
No kidding. So you worked for 14 years before making that jump. What was the final kicker for you when you made that decision for yourself and you were like, I got to go all in on this.

Tone Robinson (06:17.068)
You know, getting laid off, you know, when banks merge, lot of times positions kind of get let go or merged together. And so banks are always merging and this happened back in eight. And I think everybody remembers what happened back in a wait. So a lot of banks were getting taken under as the term is. And so it was just a good time for me to kind of make a transition. And I was in grad school, like I mentioned at the time. And so.

just really making the transition to start my own thing and seeing if I had the chops to make it work.

Stephen Schmidt (06:54.606)
Yeah, 100%. Now, when you did that, one of the things that I find is I interviewed quite a bit of people that got their start between 2007 and 2010, right? Like right in the thick of it all. Do you think that getting started in a down market, because 2010, we were still kind of in that phase, know, people were losing everything, all of that. Do you think that…

Tone Robinson (07:05.94)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Tone Robinson (07:14.109)
Yes, yes we were. Yep. Absolutely.

Stephen Schmidt (07:19.126)
Were you personally affected by that yourself and what made you keep going if so or did you look at that as more opportunity for you?

Tone Robinson (07:27.562)
man, that’s a really phenomenal question. And I think it’s important for the times that we’re in right now. Right. I think right now for the last year, for example, we’ve been hearing interest rates are high. Interest rates are high. When I was doing mortgage loans back in 2005, the rates were six point seven five the way they are today. So the rates aren’t high. They’re they’re high compared to the historically lows of two and three percent. But they’re

Stephen Schmidt (07:35.745)
Mm-hmm, sure.

Stephen Schmidt (07:50.327)
Right.

Tone Robinson (07:56.392)
these are still very lendable rates. And so to answer your question, if you listen to the news and you know, that’s the only thing you’re listening to and following without kind of doing more homework, you don’t have the proper basis for understanding. At the same time, I think a down market creates a great opportunity to invest in any product or service, but especially in real estate. We’ve been in a high for about the last five to eight years.

And I think there is probably some contraction coming as cyclical economies go. But I think investing in a down market like in 08, 2010 is a great opportunity because prices were low. So if you’re buying low and selling high, it created a great environment.

Stephen Schmidt (08:49.358)
Yeah, you mentioned in that in that last piece that in a down market almost everything Not everything of course, but between businesses product services, etc. Real estate. It’s always a great time to invest Why do you think that is?

Tone Robinson (09:07.273)
Well, history, history. So if you look at the 100 year history of the stock market and the 100 year history of real estate, really, they kind of have a parallel, but real estate does beat it out in the long run. it’s real estate is a double asset because it’s tangible. It’s not just paper. It’s also tangible. So, you know, looking at things that have been stable over 100 years in our country.

Stephen Schmidt (09:10.958)
Mmm.

Tone Robinson (09:36.423)
Real estate has always been very stable. Most of the millionaires made their money in real estate to some capacity. And so having a foundation in some type of real estate capacity in your portfolio just makes sense.

Stephen Schmidt (09:51.362)
Yeah, it’s like Warren says, right? Old Daddy Warren, know, when people get scared, I get greedy, and when people get greedy, I get scared, right?

Tone Robinson (09:54.118)
Awesome.

Tone Robinson (10:00.969)
Man, you know, I just it’s so ironic you mentioned him. I just reposted something from him this morning on my social platform, him talking about the 15 determinants of wealth. Right. And so if you don’t have the first thing he mentioned was financial literacy. Right. And so having some basics with financial literacy, as as Mr. Buffett says, is really the way to go.

Stephen Schmidt (10:26.488)
When you mentioned financial literacy there and you mentioned like the basics and whatnot, what are some of the basics that most people miss because it’s not something we’re taught in school?

Tone Robinson (10:31.09)
Mm-hmm.

Tone Robinson (10:36.519)
there’s a lot. So, you know, it’s interesting, right? Having matriculated through undergrad and grad school and all that, it kind of gives you some basics, but it really doesn’t teach you the world of finance and the world of investing at all. You either learn that on the job or you learn it with the skin off your own back, right? And so, you know, just considering

Stephen Schmidt (10:58.883)
Right.

Tone Robinson (11:04.829)
The basics, there’s so much we’re not taught in school. For example, know, savings, buying a single family home. That should almost never be your first purchase. I tell that to a lot of my students in my mentoring program that if you don’t, and it’s kind of going back to Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad, poor dad, right? If the house or asset doesn’t pay you, it’s not an asset.

And so most most of us who are renting and trying to start a family, we buy a house, we think of buying a home, which logically makes sense. At the same time, you’re trading your rent bill for a mortgage bill. And it’s really not an asset that doesn’t pay you in return. And so for me, that’s the exact reason I wanted to buy a multifamily first. I still own single family today, but.

I’m very much a multifamily buyer because of the additional cash flow that the other units bring in.

Stephen Schmidt (12:05.934)
And I think a lot of people misconstrue multifamily with apartments. Multifamily means more than just that. out of like in that asset class of multifamily, do you recommend for people getting started that they focus on like a triplex or a quadplex or something along those lines or like what’s your favorite strategy there?

Tone Robinson (12:26.216)
Sure. My favorite strategy is 4321, right? Buy the four unit first, maximize. As most people know, the lending programs that are available in FHA is being very friendly to first time home buyers. It gives you an opportunity for a very low down payment of three, I guess it’s three and a half percent. so taking advantage of the guidelines, if you understand the banking criteria,

of what you can purchase in its maximum capacity at your first time with that low down payment. So we absolutely teach the four, three, two, one strategy. I’m employing my kids to do the same thing. So I’ve got one coming through college right now. She told me just the other day that she wants her graduation gift instead of a trip or a car, she wants her first property. So she’s finally listening. She’s finally listening. So.

Stephen Schmidt (13:10.85)
Nice

Stephen Schmidt (13:21.361)
Hahaha

Tone Robinson (13:25.263)
I’m happy to hear that. Absolutely. Yes, sir.

Stephen Schmidt (13:25.55)
That’s how you know you raised them right, right?

Stephen Schmidt (13:30.926)
I love that. I always tell people, and I’m not even close to this, but from my observation, you don’t know how good of a job you did as a parent until they’re about 30.

Tone Robinson (13:42.171)
That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. It takes a little time. It takes a little time for sure.

Stephen Schmidt (13:45.454)
of that. Now, when are you still I mean after 27 years of investing obviously a really great professional career that you had for the time being until 2010. Are you still in an accumulation phase would you say or are you more in a legacy building phase now?

Tone Robinson (14:06.087)
No, no, no, no. I’m still in the accumulation phase for sure. So as an example, right now I’m moving on from an investment property I used as an Airbnb. I bought it about two years ago and it was always going to be a short term investment. So now I’m moving that that property and not going to 1031, but looking to use that in those proceeds for a lot bigger purchase, probably something in the 12, 10, 10 to 15 unit.

capacity. And so I’m still very much in acquisition mode, absolutely.

Stephen Schmidt (14:41.166)
What will be that point when you feel like you’ve made it?

Tone Robinson (14:47.065)
You know, it’s difficult when you have kids, right? You know, all my kids are school age, right? So you’ve got to kind of get them through the schooling and college and all that because you’re going to have expenses, right? And so if I do it right, we’ll get a multifamily for each kid and let that pay for their expenses.

Stephen Schmidt (14:47.724)
Or will you ever hit that?

For sure.

Tone Robinson (15:15.15)
You know, I don’t know that somebody just asked me this the other day. When, when you stop the hustle and bustle and it’s really a mental hustle and bustle when you’re trying to put deals together and you’re trying to make things happen, it’s really more mental than it is physical as much when you’ve got the experience. And so just making sure the numbers work, making sure that you did your calculations and your estimations and your repairs and all those kinds of things. Looking at the, the valuations in the area.

you’ve done all those things correctly, you know, there’s still obviously always opportunities to lose your shirt, but managing that process. And so I think there’s still a little bit of juice or a lot of juice in me to manage those deals. I manage them for my clients all the time. And then, you know, obviously doing my own deals.

Stephen Schmidt (16:04.91)
Now, when was that point in your realistic career of buying, flipping, wholesaling, all the above that then you realized I should probably also start a property management company? When did that come into play?

Tone Robinson (16:19.169)
So really it’s a great question, but it was actually had some of it happen in reverse. So I recognized my skillset as a banker and as a long time property owner, which is the reason I started property management. I knew that there were a lot of people like me as investors who have property, but didn’t want to do the work of maintaining the property. And so.

Stephen Schmidt (16:26.093)
Really.

Tone Robinson (16:44.691)
I knew that there was a niche market within that of other investors who didn’t want to do the work. And so as I started my own company and focused on servicing those properties, it gave me an entrance into the marketplace to say, hey, where’s the sweet spot? so managing property and investing in property, you know, I probably will put down the management at some point and focus on just my own.

my own properties and my own portfolio, but also doing speaking. I probably won’t stop that either. So that’s a very much a passion for me to help others. And so I’ll always continue to do something along those lines.

Stephen Schmidt (17:26.862)
Sure. With the speaking, I was going to transition to that at some point, and I guess that’s a perfect segue for us here. When did you start getting invited to speak? Did you build your own stage first? Did you get invited? What did that look like, and how long have you been doing that now as a consultant and a speaker?

Tone Robinson (17:42.848)
So I started doing speaking in 2017. I really toyed with it for a couple of years. You know, when you’ve got a background in facilitation and continuing education and doing those things in corporate, you think you’ve got the skill set to be able to do it on your own. And it’s very, very different. It’s very different. But so I needed to hone my skills and be able to do that. So I started.

Stephen Schmidt (18:05.646)
Sure.

Tone Robinson (18:11.966)
getting involved in some speaker academies and things of that nature to kind of understand what the experienced speakers were doing. That led me to publish my first, well, this is the second edition, but this is my real estate book, The Nine Rules for Guaranteed Real Estate Success. So the offensive playbook is the title. And we really kind of honed in on the principal things that we’ve always done as our nine rules to make sure we buy appropriately and things of that nature.

So 2017, I started, I got invited to speak first, and then I kind of built the stage after that.

Stephen Schmidt (18:50.446)
And so tell us a little bit more about that.

Tone Robinson (18:51.165)
And now we so about so I really started doing events locally, like I guess, like most of us are doing events locally, podcasts, things of that nature. I got invited to be part of Black CEO, which is a national network of black entrepreneurs. And being involved there, I made some great relationships and found a TV partner who was helping me do.

work on my documentary. So we’re working on several things within the speaker space. And about four years ago, I started doing the bus tours and the bus tours are really what we do twice a year to be able to get entrepreneurs or beginning investors or even some experienced investors involved in what’s going on here in Northeast Ohio and give them an idea that we are the boots on the ground. We are the experts in the area and we can help you kind of grow.

your portfolio if you’re looking for new markets.

Stephen Schmidt (19:51.65)
Now what is a bus tour for those of us that maybe haven’t heard that before?

Tone Robinson (19:55.655)
Sure. So we really bring all of our community resources into play. And what I mean by that is we’ve got our realtors, our contractors, our property managers, our insurance people, our title companies, our lenders, and we bring them as resources on the bus. we bring in that we sell tickets, of course, and we bring investors from all over the city, all over the country into Northeast Ohio. And we do tours.

on the east side and west side of the city. Ohio and Cleveland is split by Lake Erie. And so we do tours on both sides of the city and we look at properties in all different stages, properties in renovation stage, properties that are market ready, property that are, you know, being first acquired. So we look at all different stages and then we talk about the main four strategies that really work well here in Cleveland, which is Airbnb or short term rental.

obviously buy and hold, fix and flip, and then wholesaling. And so we’re getting investors involved in one of those four ways. And then we offer training, of course, as well after the bus tour to get folks who are really ready to kind of get those deals going. We’ll either get them set up on a deal or get them in a training class to be ready to start doing their own deals.

Stephen Schmidt (21:14.478)
Now when did you or not when but what what made you decide to start doing that?

Tone Robinson (21:21.168)
You know, really looking at building a community, I really wanted to build my own ecosystem of investors and people that we’ve helped over the years to be able to stay in a community, so to speak, to be a resource for each other. As you know, well know minorities are very far behind when it comes to entrepreneurship, when it comes to homeownership and things of that nature. So that’s very much a sweet spot for me.

to be able to help our people be able to really kind of get a foot up, a leg up in the world of investing and finance. And then for my clients who really don’t look like me, it’s really helping them understand what’s really going on here in Northeast Ohio and how we can be an asset and resource to them as they look at new markets to spend and grow their money.

Stephen Schmidt (22:10.83)
Yeah for sure now let me ask you this if you had to take all of the experience and everything that you’ve gained over the last 27 years But you had to go back to the beginning not start over now But you went back to the beginning and you had to start all over with all of that What would you do different and what would you do the same?

Tone Robinson (22:30.9)
I haven’t, I really have not thought about that, at least in that way. And so I love the journey and I love the journey that I’m on. And so, you know, you always need those ups and downs to kind of keep you grounded and give you some lessons. Really, if I, I didn’t understand what some of the old guys like Robert G. Allen and the guys in the seventies and eighties, I didn’t understand what they meant by

wholesaling. I didn’t understand what they meant by get a house under contract. And so if I were to go back and do things all over again, one of my favorite asset classes were REOs, bank REOs, because we know that banks as a former banker, I know the banks don’t want to be in the business of real estate. They just want the loans. Well, when they became homeowners, de facto homeowners, especially in mass after 08, I knew, wait a minute,

This is still an attractive asset class, but I started getting really more in tune with what other investors were doing and how they were able to make such large profit on deals by getting them under contract at great prices. And then whether they kept them or moved them, really didn’t matter. It was the getting them under contract piece at that low rate that made a difference. And so I probably would wholesale a lot sooner than I really started doing.

At the same time, I love the property management journey because it keeps me with my boots on the ground and able to be pliable in so many different areas.

Stephen Schmidt (24:09.934)
You sound like somebody that’s an avid learner. you still learning new things even today?

Tone Robinson (24:18.068)
Hell, yes. My man, thank you for observing that. But absolutely, I’m a lifelong learner. I’m a, you know, a thirst for knowledge. And so absolutely, as someone who coaches others, you always have to be constantly learning as well. And so it’s important for me to kind of make sure I stay sharp, especially with different technologies as.

Stephen Schmidt (24:23.382)
I… You’ve got…

Tone Robinson (24:42.577)
the world evolves so quickly around us, making sure I’m up on AI, for example, make sure I’m I’m understanding fractional investing in real estate, digital real estate. So all those different things that as technology evolves, as the economy is evolved, I also need to be learning and evolving as well.

Stephen Schmidt (25:03.628)
And that was, and in all fairness, it was kind of a setup to my next question, depending on how you answered that. And I, again, I assumed it because of what I observed, but my next question from that is, you know, one of the things you mentioned in the almost the beginning of our conversation was you had a mentor. And so how important has mentorship been to you throughout the years and what do you look for in a mentor now?

Tone Robinson (25:08.178)
Okay.

Tone Robinson (25:28.818)
So my mentor started very early because I was in college. And you know, that’s really the playing field for mentorship. If I was, if I understood that I would have been super intentional about seeking mentorship earlier. I was really just looking for a leg in a lane, you know, really just trying to find my way as somebody that was.

Stephen Schmidt (25:55.906)
I that.

Tone Robinson (25:57.849)
Yeah, just really kind of find my lane because I knew I was getting ready to graduate soon. I already had this job at the bank, you know, working 30 hours a week or so, had my own apartment. And so I knew that I was I had a steady employment or, you know, a soon to be full time job upon graduation. But I didn’t have a lane, if that makes sense. And so really looking at real estate as a lane to be able to say, OK, I got my career and my job.

Stephen Schmidt (26:20.43)
Yeah.

Tone Robinson (26:26.373)
But I also want to have something else going on as well. And that something else for me is it’s always been investment real estate.

Stephen Schmidt (26:34.882)
Yeah, a leg in a lane, I still am stuck on that because it almost another way of saying that.

not really another way of saying that specifically, but something pretty close to that that just sparks in my brain is, you know, you were somebody that already achieved some success, already is doing more than the average person around you, all of those things. So you’re somebody that wasn’t looking for a handout, you were somebody looking for a hand up.

Tone Robinson (27:01.24)
absolutely. And you asked about mentorship that I didn’t fully answer, but at that time I was really just looking for somebody that would help me take some independent study classes to get out of the classroom, but still get those needed credits to graduate. Right. So I had a selfish motivation and I didn’t really understand that I was looking for a mentor, but my professor, who I had all these classes with, he also owned real estate. And so he became a mentor.

Stephen Schmidt (27:18.062)
You bet.

Tone Robinson (27:30.144)
a de facto mentor without me really understanding what I was looking for. And then the books that he assigned and the assignments and the tests and all that really kind of gave me some entry level knowledge into the world of real estate and what I needed to look for and things of that nature. Now I need a mentor, right? I’ve done so many things and helped so many other people. There’s always levels to this, right? You mentioned, you know,

For example, Daddy Buffett, right, Warren Buffett. And so if you ain’t at his level, you got a way to go. Right. So. There’s always a level. There’s always a level, right. And so I’m not actively looking, but I actually probably should be looking for a mentor to help me kind of make that next level journey. We’ve scaled the business up.

Stephen Schmidt (28:09.486)
For sure. Because there’s always a next level, right? There’s always a gap that you need to close. 100%.

Tone Robinson (28:28.151)
and now we’re ready to scale again.

Stephen Schmidt (28:31.534)
Yeah, 100%. Love that. What’s the next step for you then? What does that look like?

Tone Robinson (28:37.154)
You know, so I’m really putting together syndications at this time and looking to acquire some larger scale properties. I’m also looking to invest in Puerto Rico quite heavily for my for the investors who are looking for opportunities, especially some tax havens. Puerto Rico offers some phenomenal tax advantages. If you have property there or investments in Puerto Rico.

And so some of our partners are looking at gaining and really I’ve been an Airbnb host in Puerto Rico for about a year now. And so we’re really looking to gain and get a foothold in what we’re doing in the short term rental space in Puerto Rico. So that’s something that’s new and exciting that we’re going to be doing here. And my syndication partners were just looking for great value properties and we’re looking for some great deals. So if there are some.

Stephen Schmidt (29:21.176)
Love that.

Tone Robinson (29:34.259)
some folks on your platform who have some investment opportunities and deals that make sense and have some equity. We’re certainly looking at all those opportunities to add new things to our portfolio.

Stephen Schmidt (29:49.71)
Well Tone, thanks for joining us today. If anybody wants to learn more about you or what you’re working on, think this is kind of a perfect place to do a little plug of yourself. Where should they go for that?

Tone Robinson (29:59.117)
Man, all of my content is on my website at Tone Robinson dot com is T.O.N.E. Tone with an E Robinson dot com. So Tone Robinson dot com. Check us out for our event coming up May 31st. You can check us on Eventbrite. We’re hosting on that platform. But our real estate bus tours really give investors, new and experienced investors, an opportunity to collaborate.

and our ecosystem here in northeast Ohio with real estate professionals that have been doing it for a very long time and and really looking to to help grow portfolios here. What’s going on in northeast Ohio? We’re a major city that’s trying to be a major city again. But but northeast Ohio is on the come up and it’s always been a great real estate market. Investors are really starting to just kind of understand that in the last five or 10 years. But we really have a one stop shop where we can help investors.

You know park that money here in Northeast, Ohio gain some property here and grow Exponentially what you can do in other places

Stephen Schmidt (31:06.958)
Boom, you heard it here first folks, go drop him a follow, check out the website and go show him some love from the investor fuel family. And I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Tone, thanks for being here. We’ll see y’all in the next episode.

Tone Robinson (31:15.531)
appreciate it.

Tone Robinson (31:20.309)
Man, thank you for having me. look forward to it. Take care.