Charles Dobens on Offers, Sales & Apartment Investing

Charles Dobens (00:00)
Just go do it. Just don’t think for a second that you can’t do it. Don’t think like, I’m not good enough, I don’t know enough. You wouldn’t believe how many unknowledgeable or ignorant people have gone ahead of you and have become successful. I mean, get out there and just do it. I think in my life, ⁓ my biggest regrets are not doing something because I didn’t think I was good enough to do it. Just do it.

Cody Crabb (00:16)
Just cause they tried, yeah.

Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Cody Crabb with Investor Fuel, and today I’m joined by Charles Dobens multifamily investor, attorney, and co-founder of Multifamily OS. And a couple of different branches on that. We’ll talk about that. Charles has been involved in thousands of apartment units over his career, and now he focuses on helping investors

get their first deals done by building some systems and education around deal flow and execution. So this is gonna be really awesome for our new investors here. Charles, thanks so much for joining us.

Charles Dobens (02:30)
Cool.

Cool. Thanks, Cody. Thanks for having me. I love your show. This is cool.

Cody Crabb (02:34)
Yeah, thanks so much. We love having you here. ⁓ So ⁓ I’d love to get kind of the path. I love the origin story. I love a good origin story. So I’d love to kind of trace the path from when did you first start noticing real estate was a thing and then kind of when did you start getting into it and why.

Charles Dobens (02:54)
⁓ Well, Cody, I don’t have an origin story. This is my first day on the job. I’ve never done this before. Thanks for having me, ⁓ Now, I’ll tell you, my, know, I started off early on realizing that all the wealthy people in my community were the ones that were real estate people. Yeah. And, you know, it was apartments and, you know, even look at the way Monopoly is structured. You start with single family homes and then you get to the hotels, the cash flowing, bigger buildings.

Cody Crabb (03:00)
You

that we hear that one a lot.

Yeah

Charles Dobens (03:23)
And, you know, there was one person in my world back in Nashua, New Hampshire, and his name was John Dobens. And same last name, know, distantly related to my father. He owned, his family owned an egg farm. And he said, I don’t want to be an egg farmer. And so he got a book called How to Turn $1,000 into $3,000,000 in Your Spare Time. Now that was obviously a dated book.

but he had that book and he went out there, started with a two family and then a four family. And by the time he passed away a few years back, he was a multi-multi-millionaire. And I one time when I was working with my dad before I went to law school, ⁓ my dad had me go to his office for some insurance. My dad was in the insurance business and ⁓ he needed John to sign something. So I went to see him and I walked into John’s office and I sat down and I looked around and I said, John, this is exactly what I

to do and he says, well, why don’t you do it? He goes, I just got married, I got a mortgage, trying to, know, gotta go to law school. He goes, Charlie, and he reaches behind him and he takes out the book and he hands it to me and it said $1,000 five years. I said, I said, this looks kind of old. goes, Charlie, it’s old, but the concepts are absolutely the same. Do what this book tells you and you will have everything you see around here. And I thought,

man, the guy just gave me the keys to the kingdom. So Cody, I did what most people do is I went home and I put that book on my bookshelf for the next 20 years, however long it took. And I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it. you know, that’s, I should have started way back when, but I just didn’t, I lacked the confidence, which I think is a lot of things that people, ⁓ hold people back in their lives and their careers is lacking the confidence.

And so that was my origin story.

Cody Crabb (05:17)
Yeah.

Wow, yeah, it’s a good one. And usually the book we hear is Rich Dad Poor Dad. That’s the common one. But that’s that.

Charles Dobens (06:10)
Yeah, I know. Okay, fine.

Rich dad was ⁓ already rich, filthy rich by the time I came along. So he came well after I did. But I gotta tell you, perfect example is my dad, greatest man in the world, nicest man, sweetheart, worked hard right up until the day he died. And ⁓ I will do the same, which,

Cody Crabb (06:21)
There you go.

Gotcha, yeah, so he’s just, I was just rich. Yeah, so that’s.

Charles Dobens (06:39)
But John, John was the one that left a legacy for his kids. know, rich dad, poor dad. So, you know, that’s, what I always tell the difference is that when my dad died, my siblings and I received a check every month for the next five years from New York Life Insurance Company for all the business that my dad created during that 52 years with New York Life.

And after five years, it stopped. And let me tell you, it was probably enough to buy a nice dinner every month, and that was it. And John Dobens’ kids have the big, beautiful homes on the beach up in Rye, New Hampshire. And they’re set for life. So there’s that rich dad, poor dad version right there. Not meant to be disparaging of my father whatsoever, but that’s a perfect example of how true that is.

Cody Crabb (07:32)
Yeah.

Charles Dobens (07:33)
Kiyosaki’s book.

Cody Crabb (07:34)
And also how it has nothing to do with how hard you are. Like so much of it is the choices you make, but not necessarily how hard you’re working to make them. yeah, no, go ahead.

Charles Dobens (07:39)
Yes. Exactly. Yeah.

No, no, I’m fine. I’m done talking. I’m done talking, Cody. It’s all on you from now on.

Cody Crabb (07:46)
yeah.

Okay, yeah, well, you’re gonna miss out on some good stuff then, because I got nothing. ⁓ So you told me, we were talking, ⁓ I can’t remember if you said this before or after the podcast started, but ⁓ you said this is really like a sales and marketing business above all else. And I’d be curious, when did that click for you? When did you realize that?

Charles Dobens (07:54)
Okay.

Yeah. Yep.

⁓

great question, great question. There you go, you got it.

Cody Crabb (08:16)
We were just saying,

if you’re a podcast host, that’s what you want to hear. So, hey, thank you.

Charles Dobens (08:18)
Exactly. Yes, that’s a very

good question. And let me tell you what happened. I met one of my students probably about 15 years ago. And I’ve been doing this for about 20 years. And he was in sales and marketing. He was a manufacturer’s rep for a sporting goods clothing line. And he had the whole East Coast and he hustled. And if he didn’t get an order, that day his kids didn’t eat.

And so he hustled for years and he finally said, I don’t want to get into real estate. I want to own apartments. And so he signed on up with me. I helped him buy his first property, which was a 36 unit apartment complex. And over the next 10 years, I helped him grow to over 8,000 apartment units. And I knew when he first got started with me that this guy was going to be a success because he came to the business with a sales and marketing mindset.

and he understood that all business is sales and marketing. I I know one of the greatest real estate investors, developers here in Nashville, New Hampshire. I remember meeting him and ⁓ probably early sixties. The guy had a smile that would just light up the room and he was constantly selling. The guy was a part owner of the Boston Red Sox. So this guy had made a fig.

Cody Crabb (09:40)
Wow.

Charles Dobens (09:41)
but he was always smiling, selling, greeting people, and that’s because that’s what this business is. It’s all about selling and marketing. when I teach people for the first time, I said, who are your customers in this business? And they don’t know who the customers are. They think, the tenants? No, no, no, the tenants are, that’s so far down the road. You have to figure out who your customers are right now, and then you’ve got to market to those people.

And the people who are the customers are the multifamily owners because that’s your first sale in this business. You have to sell your offer to that person. You have to create that offer so that it stands out among all the other investors who are making an offer on that property. Why is yours the best offer? And so the owner sees it and says, I want to buy this guy’s offer. That’s your first sale. If you don’t make that sale,

You go home and start the process all over again. And out of that whole group of people making the offers, one guy made the sale and he gets to own that property. So you have to understand that that’s your first sale. And the next sale is gonna be to your investors. You’ve gotta sell and explain to your investors why they should invest with you and why they should invest in this deal. And that’s the next part of the sales. And it all starts long before you even have a deal.

Cody Crabb (10:59)
Yeah, true.

Charles Dobens (11:05)
And that’s why we call it the multifamilyos.com, multifamily operating system. It’s based upon Geno Wickman’s book, Entrepreneurial Operating System. And we’re building a system for your multifamily business.

Cody Crabb (11:18)
Yeah, so tell us more about it. ⁓ I would love to hear more about what you’ve built and why you built it.

Charles Dobens (11:59)
Okay, so if you take ⁓ into your frame of mind that this is a sales and marketing business, the first thing we need to do is build that sales and marketing system. So using AI, and we have created the multifamilyos.ai tool, which is we have every multifamily property in the country is in our system. It’s not like LoopNet or Crexie where they’re just showing you properties for sale.

Cody Crabb (12:22)
Wow.

Charles Dobens (12:26)
Every multifamily property in the country is in our system and people will say, but Charlie, they’re not for sale. I mean, why do you have all of those extra properties? Let me tell you something. If you own real estate or you’re in the real estate business, every property is for sale. It all depends upon the price. So we have, and the whole idea is we can take that and using AI, we can narrow that search feature down to

Cody Crabb (12:43)
That’s true. Yeah.

Charles Dobens (12:53)
what we call your buy box, what’s your market, what types of properties in your market, and then who are the owners. The beautiful thing about multifamily investing is that once you think, want to get into this business and I like this market over here, and I think based upon the amount of capital I can raise, I should look for properties of this size, well, right away.

You have just created a closed market for your business. You know that in that market, based upon that criteria, there are 247 properties that meet your criteria. Let’s go get them. Let’s focus on those 247. And in our system, you can click a button and the ownership information pops up. If we can skip trace the owner’s name, we’ll have his email address and his phone number.

Cody Crabb (13:46)
Wow.

Charles Dobens (13:47)
Right from our AI, you can just click on the button and it can send out a marketing email to that owner saying, hey, I like your property. We have templates for those properties. I like your property. I’m a real estate investor. Can I call you and talk to you about buying it? Forget the broker. The broker is trying to make a sale himself. He’s a competitor of yours. Go direct to the owner using AI.

And what the system also does is it generates marketing letters, but you can also analyze the property right there in the system. And when you’re ready to make an offer, you just push a button and a letter of intent all filled out with your company’s letterhead on it gets generated and sent right over to the owner. That’s how slick it is. it really is. I mean, I work with my AI team to develop this thing and

Cody Crabb (14:12)
Hmm.

Wow.

Charles Dobens (14:37)
I never knew that we could have this type of tool. When they showed me what we could do, when they understood what my business was and what my students needed, we’ve created the coolest AI tool for multifamily investing. And it’s all part of my coaching and mastermind program.

Cody Crabb (14:54)
So what

do you say, like, sounds like an amazing resource.

What do you think would be the best attitude to approach this as you’re going, let’s say I’m gonna make it my full-time deal, I’m just gonna work on this on your platform.

What would you say would be an effective way to do that now that you’ve got kind of this, a lot of the minutia out of.

Charles Dobens (15:17)
⁓ okay, it’s just a numbers game. mean, sales and marketing is just a numbers game. And you’ve got to be out there every single day sending out offers. I mean, think about it. If you consider the offer as your company’s product that you need to sell every day, think about it. If you’re an insurance agent, if you’re a group insurance agent and you have to get out there and…

sell group insurance policies to companies, you’ve got to make proposals and get them out the door to those companies and you’ve got to hit them at the right time. And if you don’t sell it, you go home with nothing, but you’ve got to make the offers. Same is true with multifamily investing. You’ve got to always be looking for those owners. Hey, I want to buy your property. Hey, let’s talk about the numbers. It’s a numbers game. If you’re not making one to two offers a week using our system.

Cody Crabb (16:11)
Mmm.

Charles Dobens (16:12)
You’re never gonna find that one property that’s gonna make you a millionaire. You’re never gonna get into the business.

Cody Crabb (16:59)
Gotcha, yeah, I I agree. If it is a numbers game, then you’ve gotta just do numbers. mean, it’s kind of like how they say the job market is now. Like, you put out 1,200 resumes before you get like one interview or something, yeah.

Charles Dobens (17:09)
⁓ Unfortunately,

yeah, that’s it. But the thing is, in the old days, I would have to be talking to a broker all the day, looking at offering memorandums, waiting for good deals to come up. Now, I go directly to the owner. I hit buttons. I push to my follow up. Hey, did you get my email? Or you can send letters, all automated by AI. And it’s like,

There’s no excuse now for not being able to make one to two offers a week if you’re really truly out there finding those deals.

Cody Crabb (17:45)
Yeah, and it sounds like you’re really helping enable people to do that. So who is the ideal person that should be using your platform? This is one of those questions where it’s like, if you’re hearing this and you are blank, then you should absolutely go check us out.

Charles Dobens (17:58)
If you’re hearing this and you’ve been in the single family business for a while and you’re looking to move on up, if you’re hearing this and you lack confidence and you’d much feel more comfortable with having a coach mentor that also works with other mentees in the same group and you want to be part of like a mastermind group with other cohort members. ⁓

This is what you’re looking for. I mean, there’s no excuse. We meet every morning from 8.30 to 9. It’s kind of like a sales meeting. Every 8.30 to 9, you’re talking to me, and we talk about what you’re going to do that day to get out there and find deals. I mean, what more can I do? I warn you to be successful. I mean, my best client, the one that I just told you about,

Cody Crabb (18:44)
know, other than making the call yourself.

Charles Dobens (18:50)
I just talked to him. He and I haven’t done a deal in years, but I talked to him last week because he’s a friend and my clients become friends because, we’re all in this together and you’ll see me as your manager essentially in this process.

Cody Crabb (19:07)
Gotcha, well okay, thank you so much for everything you’ve shared with us. We’re kinda wrapping up here. ⁓ But I did wanna ask you,

let’s say you’re at a real estate event, it’s for real estate investors, you’re in front of 1,000 people, let’s say 10,000, why not? Let’s make it 10,000. And they’re all kind of newish real estate investors. You have like 10 seconds to say something to them that you think will move the needle the most. What would you say to them?

Charles Dobens (19:32)
Just go do it. Just don’t think for a second that you can’t do it. Don’t think like, I’m not good enough, I don’t know enough. You wouldn’t believe how many unknowledgeable or ignorant people have gone ahead of you and have become successful. I mean, get out there and just do it. I think in my life, ⁓ my biggest regrets are not doing something because I didn’t think I was good enough to do it. Just do it.

Cody Crabb (19:48)
Just cause they tried, yeah.

Wow, that’s fantastic. We’re going to cut that and repeat that everywhere. That’s that everybody needs to hear that because there’s there’s always some there’s always something in your life, whatever level you’re at, where it’s like, I just wish I could do this. Like there’s very few people I think that could actually genuinely say they don’t have anything like that. So if you’ve got that in your head now, I mean, this is this sounds like a great place to get started. So thank you so much, Charles, for for coming on and hanging out with us. Well, can you give us that website one more time so people can go check check you out?

Charles Dobens (20:03)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah!

Sure, you can check me out at multifamilyos.com and then also multifamilyos.ai and you can see both of

Cody Crabb (20:36)
And what’s the, just remind us of the difference real quick. more time.

Charles Dobens (20:39)
Okay, so multifamilyos.com is my entire coaching mentoring program. multifamilyos.ai is the AI tool that is within the coaching program. So, you know, that’s how we distinguish it. like, you know, we’re showing you both features in two different websites. Yeah.

Cody Crabb (20:53)
Gotcha.

Perfect. Charles,

thanks again. Thanks so much. We appreciate all these insights. And if you, the listener, got something out of this episode, please go ahead and subscribe to this channel so you can get notifications about all of our podcasts. Until then, we’ll see you later and have a good one.

Charles Dobens (21:13)
Thanks Cody.