Mindset to Be Blessed

Mike:What’s up everybody? Hey, welcome back to the Investor Fuel Show. If you listened to last week’s show, you heard Mr. Sean Whalen, who gave a keynote presentation at a recent Investor Fuel meeting that really shook the room up. By the way, I didn’t kind of preface that in the last week by telling you that there’s a lot of f-bombs and some heavy language in there, and hopefully you didn’t get offended by that.
But this week I’m going bring to you another awesome member of our Investor Fuel family, Mr. RJ Bates. And if you’re not familiar with RJ, he’s a great guy. He and his partner, Cassi, have built something pretty amazing. They’re operating in lots of different states and have kind of a mission to effectively dominate the world and be investing all over the country, and really kind of changed a bunch of lives in the process because he does these unique partnerships with people.
He shared a keynote presentation with us last year at Investor Fuel. It was a moving kind of presentation on how he got to where he is. Very much a kind of rags to riches story, like coasting on fumes to going to absolutely crushing it in real estate investing and just real down-to earth. And they pretty much shared everything that is laid out on the table. So it was a powerful presentation. There were definitely some watery eyes in the crowd when he was sharing some of his stories. And I think you’re going to get a lot of value out of it. So I hope you enjoy it. Let’s go ahead and jump in.
Professional real estate investors know that it’s not really about the real estate. In fact, real estate is just a vehicle for freedom. A group of over 100 of the nation’s leading real estate investors from across the country meet several times a year at the Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind to share ideas on how to strengthen each other’s businesses, but also to come together as friends and build more fulfilling lives for all of those around us. On today’s show, we’re going to continue our conversation of fueling our businesses and fueling our lives. I’m glad you’re here.
A couple of years have gone from wanting to be a real estate investor to launching out into lots of markets and how many rehabs you got going on right now?
RJ:Like 50-plus.
Mike:Fifty rehabs going on right now in markets, including in Alaska and Hawaii. These guys, like they’re all over the place. So he said . . . his name tag says nationwide, which doesn’t say. Next year it’s going to say worldwide, but . . .
Cassi:Domination.
Mike:. . . he has a lot of great information to share with you on how to truly scale your business. So please help me welcome RJ Bates.
RJ:Thank you. All right, guys. So this is going to go a little bit differently than I think Mike and Stinson originally had planned, just based off a couple of things that have happened to me in the past couple of weeks. So the first thing I want to do is I want to ask you guys, do you all have the mindset to be blessed?
Participants:Yes.
RJ:Well, man, that was much better than I anticipated. So this past week I spent in Hawaii, at our branch on Oahu, with my childhood best friend Elijah, who’s also my partner at Titanium Investments of Hawaii. And we sat down to make my speech. And he started writing out the table of contents, and I said, “Dude, nobody makes a table of contents for a speech. What are you doing?” And he was like, “No, no, no, just listen to me. We’re going to put down all of our thoughts, and then we’re going to create this.”
And when we got done, I had these seven things that really are what I attribute to enabling us to grow and create Titanium Investments and expand to other different markets. And so these are the seven things that I’m going to try to open you guys up to and teach you all exactly how these seven things have made a difference for us in our lives. Okay?
So the first one is fixing your mindset. Okay? So what does that mean, and why is that important? For me, this is probably going to be the number that we spend the most time on, because when I found out about real estate investing, the thing that stood out to me the most, aside from running numbers and marketing and how it could change up my life and Cassi’s life, was a gentleman was standing up on a stage just like this and he was teaching us about ARVs and all this. But then he got to mindset, and he started talking about the difference between being broke and being poor and what that meant.
And at the time, guys, I mean, I was poor. Okay? I had no money, and I had a terrible mindset, and I did not understand that I was the person holding me back at that time. And he talked about being wealthy and what that meant. And I just want to ask you guys if, right now, who do you all think is the wealthiest person in this room?
Participants:I am. I am.
RJ:There you go. You’re right. Well, no, not Mike, that person. You are. I am. To me, I’m the wealthiest person in every room that I walk in. Okay? And that’s what I felt like when I walked out of that room. That gentleman looked at me that day and he taught me some things about wholesaling and rehabbing properties, but the thing that changed my life was when he told me, “No matter what room you walk into, you’re going to be the wealthiest person.” And what that meant was finding freedom for myself, creating and controlling my future, and controlling my mindset to think about that. And ever since that day, guys, I really can’t explain it to you, but things just come our way, and it has changed our lives based around having that mindset of being wealthy. Okay? So go into today’s speech and kind of change your mindset and think that you are the wealthiest person sitting in this room. Okay? Tracy Bennett. Tracy, are you here?
Man:She’s back there.
RJ:Okay. Tracy posted something yesterday, and I wanted to commend . . . Is Ashley Black sitting next to you? Ashley.
Woman:[There’s that heart. 00:06:20] RJ:Ashley. Ashley’s got a wealthy mindset right there. Okay? Tracy posted yesterday a picture of Ashley, and she said Ashley is already talking about how she’s going to move up from the Investor Fuel Gold to Investor Fuel Platinum. Okay? That right there is a mindset thing. You’re not worried about deals. You’re not worried about private money, wholesales. You’re going to find a way to increase your network and move up to the next level. So, Ashley, I want to commend you for that. And I’ve never met Ashley before. I don’t know who she is. We’re friends on Facebook. But that was awesome. I saw that yesterday on Facebook. Okay?
So the Bible talks about spiritual warfare. Today, we’re going to talk about mental warfare as real estate investors. Okay?
When I was in Hawaii, we were staying in our local office, sleeping on air mattresses. We wanted zero distractions. We had a plan of what we were going to do for five days. We wanted zero distractions.
So we get back to the office. Elijah jumps in the shower, and he turns on music, blaring loud. It’s like 9:00 at night. He turns on this song called “Rejoice” by Steve Angello, and it’s featuring T.D. Jakes. And the song opens with this line that says you have to fix the mind before you can bestow the blessing, because until you get your mind right, everything you invest into it will leak out at the crevices of a mind that refuses to change.
Just want you all to think about that for a second, because I’m going to tell you right now, I thought I had a pretty good mindset. I’m in Hawaii, away from my family, knowing that I’ve got to give this speech today and spend the rest of the week here at Investor Fuel. I’ve got all of these things going on across the country, but I know that I’m in Hawaii because it’s the best thing for our business and for the systems that we need to work on. Okay?
So I’m already thinking I’ve got a pretty good mindset, and this song comes on and that line comes out. And I’m telling you what, it hit me like a 10-ton brick. And I realized that sometimes I still refuse to change my mindset on things. Okay? And I want you guys to understand that how important your mindset is on being successful in this industry. Okay?
So I know I’m going to hit you all over the head about mindset about for the next 88 minutes. Okay? But this is how important it is to me and what we do at Titanium Investments.
Okay. So now I’ve got a following on Facebook. I’ve got my own podcast. I get up and I get to do speeches like this, not very often. This is probably going to be the longest one I’ve ever done, but I get people all the time that send me Facebook Messenger messages, text messages, phone calls. And the number one question I get is, how do you do what you’re doing? And then they sit there and they tell me how they understand everything that I understand. But what’s holding them back is analysis paralysis. Literally, guys, I’m talking about multiple messages a day.
And about two months ago, I got to do “The CarrotCast” with Trevor Mauch. Okay? And we had a great interview. It was just a little bit over an hour long. I love Trevor. He is one of the most positive people in the world.
And I have kind of a little quirk that I always do, because the first podcast interview I ever did was with Joe Fairless. And he asked me, “What’s the best way people can contact you?” And I gave him my cell phone number, which is definitely not something I recommend you do on a podcast, give your cell phone number. But I did, and I got multiple phone calls, and I bought two properties from that podcast. So ever since then, I’m like, “You know what? That’s going to be kind of like one of my weird quirks. I’m going to give my cell phone number out when I do podcast interviews.”
So I gave my cell phone number out on “The CarrotCast,” and a gentleman called me one morning about two weeks after the interview went live. And it was 8:00 in the morning, and it was a 972 number. And I’m like, “I don’t know who this is, but I don’t have any reason not to answer.” So I answered it. And it was gentleman that said, “Is this the RJ Bates?” And I said, “Yes.” And he goes, “Man, I just listened to your interview on ‘The CarrotCast.’ Can I ask you some questions?” I laughed, and I said, “That’s right. I gave out my cell phone number.”
And I said, “Sure man, what do you got?” He goes, “I’ve got my website ready. I’ve got boots on the ground. I’ve got lists. I’ve got marketing ready to go out. I just need to know RJ, how can I do what you do?” And I said, “Well, why don’t you send that marketing out, and when the leads come in, let your boots on the ground handle it and start making offers?” And literally, the conversation was this simple, guys.
And afterwards, we talked a little bit longer. He goes, “You just changed my life, bro.” And I’m like, “I didn’t tell you anything. I just told you to just do what you’ve already learned. Like, you’re listening to ‘The CarrotCast.’ You listened to me for well over an hour explaining everything that I do. And what’s holding you back?” And he literally said, he goes, “I can’t believe it could be this easy. It can’t possibly be as easy as you’re making it out to be.” He said, “So I’m just going to send this marketing out and people are going call me and tell me they need to sell their house. And I’m going to run numbers, and then I’m going to make an offer, and I’m going to make money.” “Yes, sir. That’s how easy it is.”
So, later on, he went and left them a message on the Investor Carrot’s Facebook page. Shout out to Trevor Mauch and me. And it was just so amazing to me, and I wanted to share that, because if you’re struggling with analysis paralysis, my partner, I love her to death, but she struggles with it. This is something I’ve never struggled with. So you have to get that out of your mind and take action. Okay? Fail forward. All right.
So inevitably, when I’m asked how I do what I do, I always answer with a simple question of, “Are you willing to do what it takes to get what you want?” So this is where I’m going to kind of take some time to explain who I am, who we are at Titanium Investments, and kind of how we got here today.
When I was 18 years old, I finished up my senior year of football, and the next morning, Saturday morning, my mom comes in, she wakes me up, and she says, “Football season’s over. You’ve got to go get a job. Don’t come home, or no, you can’t come home until you have a job.”
So I wake up. I’m sore. I can barely move, shower. Never had a job before in my life. And I drove around all the neighborhoods applying for every job, and everybody’s like, “Fill out an application. Come back.” I’m like, “No, you all don’t understand. My mom’s crazy. She’s not going to let me come home unless I have a job. So I need to like have an interview right now.” And that didn’t work until finally I got to Pizza Hut and I met Clyde Wallace. And I said, “No, Clyde, I’m really not going to be able to go home. I need to have an interview right now.” And so he asked me a couple of questions, and he said, “Okay, you can be a delivery driver.”
So that’s when I’m 18 years old, and I didn’t leave Pizza Hut for eight years. Stayed there until I was 26. Worked myself all the way up to general manager and gave my blood, sweat, and tears to that company. I didn’t know any better. I went to North Texas, stayed at Pizza Hut. And for whatever reason, I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. And I just worked all the way up to general manager.
There was one point in time I worked 48 straight days at Pizza Hut as an assistant manager at multiple locations. I had the honor of being an assistant manager for two different managers that won restaurant general manager of the year for Pizza Hut and got to attend the Kentucky Derby. I did not get to attend the Kentucky Derby. I got to work double shifts while they went.
But I took a lot of pride in my time at Pizza Hut. It taught me different things on how to read P&Ls and structure of business. And I learned how a major corporation had their business structured.
And one day I’m running the Pizza Hut right over here by TCU, and a gentleman from Jacksonville, Florida comes in from corporate. And he walks my restaurant, never met him before in my life, and walked it for about five minutes and said, “Can you come with me?” We walked out in the lobby. He sat me right down to some of my regular customers, and he said, “We should have never promoted you. You’re nothing more than a glorified shift manager. I’m disappointed in us for promoting you.” And left.
And I went home that night and I couldn’t believe that after eight years of everything that I had given that company, that that was someone from high up in corporate and that’s how they felt about me. And so without second thoughts, I quit that job. And I went back to . . . well, not go back. I guess I took a step back career-wise.
I willingly chose to go work a minimum wage job at Tour 18 Golf Course in Flower Mound. At the age of 26, I decided to be a cart boy. So when you come off the cart, I was the guy spraying the wheels and cleaning the cart, throwing away the bear cans. And I worked with a bunch of 16 and 17-year-old kids. And they were like, “What are you doing here, man? You used to run restaurants, and you’re telling us all these crazy stories about all these millions of dollars that you used to be in charge of.” And I said, “I just need to clear my head. I need to fix . . .” And I didn’t know what I was saying at the time. I was like, “I just need to fix my head. I don’t know what I want to do with my life. And so, no offense to you guys, but I’m just doing this because this takes no brainpower.”
And at that time, Elijah De La Garza, who is our partner in Hawaii, my best friend, we had not talked for several years, he calls me. And at the time, Cassi and I had been best friends or friends for 13-plus years at this point. So Cassi and I are friends. She’s working a deadbeat job. And Elijah calls me and he says, “Hey man, I’ve got this great idea. There’s a company called Exact Claims and we’ve got multiple clients, but we need someone who knows how to run a business, and I want you to work it.” And I said, “Okay, how much does the job pay?” “Five hundred dollars a week plus an opportunity of commission.”
I will tell you not, guys, me and Cassi literally were in tears, $500 a week and plus commission. We were crying. We were like, “This just changed our lives right here.” So I didn’t even know what I was doing. I didn’t know anything about the business, but, essentially, the business was we were a consulting firm for general contractors.
We took that opportunity, and we ran with it. We created an actual business that marched its way up to doing seven figures in revenue. And Elijah had the opportunity to sell that company to investors.
And at the time, I had a lot of anger in my heart because he did it and he sold the company. And I then, at that point in time, became an expendable employee. Cassi became an expendable employee, because I hired Cassi to work with us. I mean, I wasn’t going to do it without her.
And we left Exact Claims. I left my childhood best friend, the guy that I’ve always wanted to be in business with together. We left it, and Cassi and I went and started our own business, Fairway Solutions, doing the exact same things. So we basically became Elijah’s competition. And I said, “I’m not doing this to be your competition, but I’m doing this because I know I cannot go back to being an employee, dedicating my life to working for someone that I know doesn’t care about me.”
So when I talk about, are you willing to do when it takes to get what you want, now I’m going to explain to you what I really mean by that, because Cassi and I literally have done whatever it takes to get what we want. We had no money to start a business. She used every credit card that she had to pay for the LLC, a website, employees, computers. We had no computers that could actually legitimately run. I mean, we had to use every resource that we possibly had to create our business. So much so that we realized we weren’t going to make enough money with Fairway Solutions to immediately begin.
So we decided we need to go sell some roofs because that’s who we were helping was roofers. So we knew how to supplement the claim. So she drove a Kia Soul. We went and door knocked over by SMU in Dallas, which is some of the nicest neighborhoods in DFW, in a Kia Soul. I forced her out, dragged her, told her to go knock on a door. She knocked on a door. Gentleman said, “Sure, you can inspect my roof.” She comes back and she’s like, “All right, boss, now he said we can inspect the roof, but we have no ladder.” “Tell him we’ll be back in 25 minutes.”
So we go to Home Depot. We buy the tri-fold ladder that can fit in a Kia Soul. We got a ladder flapping around by her face. She climbs up on the roof. We don’t even know how to climb this steep of a roof. She can barely get on it. But she gets up there and she’s like, “It’s got hail damage.” So we tell him to file a claim. He files a claim. We get the contract, and we made more money than we’ve ever made in our lives just on that one job.
These are the things that we had to do repeatedly as we were creating Fairway Solutions. The thing about it is, Fairly Solutions is not what we were put on this Earth to do or where our hearts were. That’s not what we wanted to do, but we taught ourselves how to do whatever it takes to be an entrepreneur. Okay?
So, at that point in time, we realize we could make more money as a contractor than we could doing Fairway Solutions. So we started Rutger Contracting. And when we started Rutger Contracting, that’s when everything changed, because we started getting hired by investors. So the gentleman that she sold the roof to by SMU, when I collected the last check, I’ll never forget it, he goes, “Do you do remodels?” I said, “Yes, sir.” I didn’t how to do a remodel. And he goes, “Cool, I’m flipping a house right over here. The keys are in the mailbox. The job is yours. Just write up a bid and tell me how much it’s going to cost.”
So Cassi and I go over. We walk in the door, and still, to this day, it’s one of the worst houses I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean . . .
Cassi:It was so bad, you all.
RJ:I mean, plumbing was not functional anymore, but yet people that were living there had still been using it.
Cassi:There was sewage under the floorboards.
RJ:This gentleman wanted to add it. This guy thought he would full on HDTV. Okay? I mean, he wanted to add a bathroom. He wanted to knock down three load-bearing walls. And at the time, I’d never been a contractor doing this stuff, and I’d never flipped a house.
So I’m like, “Absolutely, that’s a great idea. Yeah, we can do that.” And I’m going and I’m going into the Xactimate, which is a software estimating service for contractors. And I’m like, “Why is there not a line item for knocked down load-bearing wall?” There’s a good reason.
So we eventually quoted the job. We made money. He sold the house, he made money. And still to this day I’m amazed because those were two people in two roles that should not have been doing that.
But, after that, we got hired by other investors, and I started asking questions. “How did you find this house?” “Bought it from a wholesaler.” Go home that night. What’s a wholesaler? And then eventually I started realizing as a general contractor, you have to find your client, and then you have to find the subcontractors, and you’re the middleman. Whereas as a wholesaler, you have to find the house to buy, and then you have to find the guy that’s going to buy the house from you, and you’re the middle man. And I’m like, “There’s no go to Home Depot and buy 20 sheets of sheetrock. And then when you get there, they realized they needed 22 sheets of sheetrock. There’s no going under on a job. This is a way better middleman.”
And so that’s when we started going to different education, the weekend seminars, and learning about wholesaling and rehabbing properties and all of these different things. And that’s when I realized everything that was said to me, immediately when somebody started talking about wholesaling, they were halfway through their pitch, and I understood the back half. And I’m like, “This is what I’m supposed to do with my life.”
That’s what I told Cassi is January 1 of 2015 . . .actually no, I don’t want to go that far. Getting back to, how do you do whatever it takes to get what you want? We got a property under contract. This is probably the second or third property we ever wholesaled. This is late 2014. We get a property under contract and $1,000 earnest money, $100 option fee. So here in the state of Texas, we have options. That’s like everybody else’s inspection period. Most of the time you all get those for free. We have to pay for them here. So $1,100 we had to deposit.
And I remember when we got our contract, I told Cassi, “We got a property under contract.” She was like, “That’s amazing.” And I’m like, “The bad news is when we deposit earnest money and option money, that leaves us with $11 in all of our bank accounts.”
Cassi:[Legit. 00:24:43].
RJ:And she’s like . . .
Cassi:And I’m like, “You’re a mad, man.”
RJ:And she’s like, “Well, how far away is closing?” I think it was either 14 or 21 days. And by the way, we didn’t have a buyer. So it was like, “So I just need you to trust me. We’re going to deposit this $1,100. I will find someone to buy this house. And I think I can sell it for $11,000 profit. So we’ll go from $11 to $11,000. This is a big job. We need to do this.”
And so we did it. And for the life of me, I still don’t know how we actually survived, because it was me, my family, her. We all lived off of those $11. And we had no credit, because we had maxed out all the credit cards. That’s how we got started. We weren’t paying them down, because we weren’t making any money.
So we literally went all in on that moment, and we made $11,000. January 1 of 2015 is when I told her, “We’re cutting off Rutger Contracting, and we’re not doing it anymore. We’re going all in on real estate investing.”
And that’s when it all took off. That year, we did $750,000 in wholesale fees. And every year we’ve had year-over-year growth. At this point in time, we own a little bit over 100 rental properties across the country. I keep saying we’re probably going to do over $2 million this year, but based off of our new system, if we do everything right, we’ll eclipse $3.5 million this year in revenue.
And so that’s what I’m talking about, are you willing to do what it takes to get what you want, guys? And I don’t want to beat it in a dead horse. I know I’m up here to talk about systems and processes, but I’m going to tell you right now the one thing that I can attribute everything that we’ve been able to do at Titanium Investments has been directly around my mindset and Cassi’s mindset on doing whatever it takes to get what you want. Okay?
So, moving forward, the next thing I want to talk about is logic over emotion. How am I doing on time?
Cassi:You’re only 27 minutes.
RJ:Twenty-seven minutes?
Mike:You got an hour, brother.
RJ:I got an hour?
Mike:Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of questions today.
RJ:All right. Logic over emotion. Emotional decisions in business equal losses without learning. Okay. So what I want to explain here is my biggest failure. Okay? So we had this what I thought was a great employee that was working for us. Her name was Faith Goodall. And she was a. . .
Cassi:[inaudible 00:27:16] last name.
RJ:Faith Goodall. That’s her name. Okay? In case you think you have a great employee named Faith Goodall, no, not at this point.
Cassi:You don’t.
RJ:So her job was property analyst. She was finding properties for us. She found us a property in San Antonio, and we were going to wholesale it. And I couldn’t wholesale it. I couldn’t find a buyer because apparently I didn’t know the right people in San Antonio at the time. We’ll get to that later. But . . .
Cassi:Work both sides.
RJ:Work both sides. Sorry, guys. Apparently, I don’t like you all over here. But . . .
Man:Totally [inaudible 00:27:56].
RJ:Who’s the boss? Who is the boss all over here?
Cassi:They’re not going to be able to hear you as well.
RJ:So Faith Goodall finds this property. We can’t find a buyer for it. And I come up with an emotional decision, which is we’re just going to take this property down ourselves and rehab it. Now mind you, we had only flipped one house ever in our entire career, and we’re going to now flip a house in San Antonio, Texas without any contacts. So few contacts we can’t even wholesale a property down there. We’re going to take it down, and we’re going to virtually rehab this property.
The reason why I want to do this is because I wanted to make sure that Faith got her commission and we kept the very good employee, that I thought we had, happy. This was not a very logical decision. This was a very emotional decision. We lost over six figures on this deal, and it took us well up till about a month ago to sell it. We did turn it into an Airbnb for a while to kind of soften the blow a little bit.
But the reason why I bring up this story is because I directly correlate our ability to expand to places like Hawaii and Alaska and all of the other different states to this experience. I made an emotional decision, and that’s why we lost because there was no logic behind it.
But over the course of time, I took that loss and I learned from it. And I figured out this is the mistake that we made. When we took down this property, we didn’t have these systems lined up. We didn’t have the proper . . . And for every business, it’s going to be different. For us, it was we didn’t have the trusted boots on the ground. We didn’t have the right systems in place to hold contractors accountable. And these are the things, these are the reasons why we lost on that deal because I made a very emotional decision. But in the end, I look back and I give that property, 221 Carolina Street — I’ll never forget that stupid address — but I give that all of the credit for our ability now to do things in some of the most remote locations on the planet.
So while I was in Hawaii last week, I got to meet a gentleman by the name of Jeffrey Joseph. And Jeffery is Elijah’s partner in his roofing company. And, Jeffery is like the OG gangster of Hawaii. Okay? I mean, he’s straight up gangster. And he comes up to me and he says, “Come here, come here, son. I want to talk to you.” He pulls me out. And we’re standing on the balcony, and he talked for a long time.
And a lot of it was very impactful. But one thing he said is, “You have to lose before you learn to win. If you’re afraid to lose, you will never win.” And I started thinking about I have my podcasts and I interview . . . I mean, I’ve interviewed several people in this room. And a lot of people that are extremely successful, they always start their story with this is where I lost everything. And that’s where I learned so much. And that’s where my life really changed.
And I mean if you listen to what I’m talking about today, I mean our story, I mean we were down to $11. There’s things that I didn’t go into. But at the end of 2012, I lost my dad a month after I started my company and a month before my son was born. I had a niece that was diagnosed with leukemia. These are the moments going down to $11 in your bank account. All of these moments were what most people would consider a traumatic loss in their life. But I look at those that emotionally changed me and changed my mindset on what’s important in my life. And that’s what enabled us to now to achieve some of the victories that we have. Okay?
We’re going to skip past that. I have one more thing for you, but I want to skip that because I want to go and let go of the past. So the first is that experience that I had at Pizza Hut and the failed experiences that I had at Exact Claims and Fairway Solutions. So these are all the companies that I worked for. Even Fairway Solutions, I look at as, even though we learned a lot, this was also a failure for me and Cassi.
And it really, it, it was hard for us for a while to let go of because we were not people that lose very easily. Like it doesn’t come naturally to us. We give so much. We work so hard. And some of these comments that we used to say to each other, I remember there would be times where things weren’t going right in the business, and I would look at Cassi, and I would say, “Well, it’s because you didn’t do this or you didn’t do that.” And she was like . . . her answer would always be, “But I’m doing everything that I possibly can. I’m working so hard.” And maybe some of you all are in this room kind of feeling that, where it’s like, “I’m doing everything I possibly can.”
What you have to understand is you have to kind of forgive yourself, learn from those mistakes, and don’t harbor the hard feelings that you either have for yourself or for your partner. How many people in here have partners? So majority of the room, right? How often, when things aren’t going right, do you take things out on your partner?
Participants:Every time. Every time.
RJ:Come on. Now you all need to be like . . .
Man:One honest person in the room.
RJ:Even if you don’t mean to. You know, sometimes it just kind of slips out of you. You know? And it’s an emotional thing, right? But if you logically look back at it, like what was the last thing we just talked about? Logic over emotion. When I look at it logically, I’m like, “There’s no way in the world I should ever blame Cassi for anything.” Like she literally will do whatever it takes for us to succeed. I mean, we just recently had a property that she worked 48 hours straight on to get it ready for an open house. That’s no joke, guys, 48 straight hours.
Cassi:Not a good example of things you should be doing.
RJ:But it’s doing whatever it takes. Right? And so, for me, to emotionally like blast her for something because we’re not being successful, we have to let go of the past and make logical decisions over emotional decisions. Okay?
Creating company culture. Who here feels like they have a unique company culture? Like something that you can say . . . All right. What’s unique about your company culture?
Man:I feel like we’re easy going, but we’re tough on the people that they need to have the shit beat out of them sometimes.
RJ:Okay. What about you?
Man:I’d say, you know, we’re small, it’s me and my daughter, but it’s very family culture, and we’re able to relate to people really long personally.
RJ:So let me ask you this. If we brought employees in here from your company, would they feel the same way about your company culture as you do?
Man:I believe so.
Man:I think so, yeah.
RJ:Cool. That’s very important, guys. This is our company culture. And when we first came up with it, it was . . . I guess the best way to put it is I was almost embarrassed about it. Like I was like, “Man, we’re so cheesy. Like we’re warriors.” Like I was like I think some of our employees are going to look at us like we’re crazy. You know? Like, “Really, boss, you want me to be a warrior?”
And these are the hashtags that we used, #RehabWarriors. And I didn’t realize how impactful this was going to be, but we literally have employees. The other day, CT, who’s one of our acquisitions guys, he also goes out and raises private money for us. He walked in the door, walked in and he goes, “Boss, man, I was worried for you today.” I was like, “All right. What’d you do?” And he goes, “Don’t worry about it boss. You’ll see. I was a warrior for you because you were a warrior for me.” I mean, dude, I’m telling you right now, he gave me chills. I was like, “Man, that guy can come and give me a motivational speech every morning.”
But the reason why we use that warrior hashtag and we kind of build that company culture is because warriors act not for profit, but for the spirit. We work for each other as a team. We don’t care about how much money we’re making.
I think one of the things we learned very early on with real estate investing was is we can make money, right? We can create freedom for ourselves. But we, at Titanium, we have a bigger picture. We want to change the direction of all of our generational trees essentially. We feel like we have the opportunity in front of us to do that. We feel like we have the opportunity to create generational wealth, not only for ourselves, but also for everybody that works for us. And we open up those opportunities.
And we teach them literally that there’s layers to becoming a warrior. You don’t just come in and you’re a warrior. Okay? Warrior is like the top dog. And there’s things that you have to do. You have to show us that you’re honest. You have to build trust. You have to do things for the integrity of the team, not for yourself. And over time, that’s when we eventually make them warriors.
So that’s like our company culture. It might not resonate with you. I’m not saying it is, it’s not for everybody. It’s definitely unique. Some people think it’s a little bit too intense. But if you’ve ever met me, or Cassi, or Elijah, or any of our other partners, we’re pretty intense people. So that’s why it resonated with us.
The culture of a company is a direct reflection of its leadership. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s who we are. So you need to find who you are. Everybody in this room, you’re the leaders for your company, right? You need to correlate that company culture, the leadership that you’re going to pass down to the people that work for you. And even if it’s only you and your daughter, you need to have a company culture.
Cassi and I had a company culture when it was just the two of us. I mean, we have a team of 70-plus people now. We didn’t start off that way though. We started off with just the two of us. But as long as the time, we literally worked out of what was called the sugar shack. The sugar shack was literally an apartment next to her grandfather’s . . . I don’t know. What’s the best? It was in a metal building, and it was an efficiency apartment next to where her grandfather was living in the backyard of her aunt and uncle’s house. Barely had Wi-Fi. I mean . . .
Cassi:It’s about five acres. It’s about like . . . it’s like a big shop.
RJ:Whatever.
Cassi:The sugar shack. That’s what it is.
RJ:Don’t bring the good stuff, only the bad stuff. Okay?
Cassi:It was ugly.
RJ:Yeah. It was ugly. It was terrible. Anyways. But, “Leaders know the way, and leaders go the way, and leaders show the way.” That’s a John Maxwell quote. Elijah always tells it to me. He always tells it to me when I’m doing something wrong.
I’m a leader in the company. Cassi’s a leader in the company. We have multiple leaders in our company. And Elijah always kindly reminds me of that. When things start going sideways, sometimes us as the leaders have to show the way and go the way. Right?
So a good company culture focuses on more than money. Spend time investing in people spiritually, emotionally, physically, and financially.
So I directly correlate what happened with CT the other day to the fact that we’ve invested time in him more than just training him to be an employee of ours and teaching him what to do in our company. We have spent time working with him emotionally and how to grow as a man, how to be a better husband to his wife, how to be a better father. We’re not saying we’re perfect. I mean, I’m definitely not the most perfect dad in the world or the most perfect business person. But sometimes just having conversations with one of your employees about these things, that’s a part of building a company culture.
And to see we have multiple . . . I mean, I had Bill do it to me the other day, another acquisitions guy. I mean, he came up to me, and he was so excited for what he had done that day for the company. Yes, he’s going to make money off of it, but you really see the difference, and it’s someone that really truly is going out there and bleeding for your company because they know it’s more than just about making money. Okay?
Build the brand. So this is probably going to be the one that I spend the most time on. We’re going to do some fun games. Elijah told me I had to keep this in there. I’m pretty sure this is a quote he came up with himself, but I’m not even sure I even want to read it off. So I’ll just let you guys read it. I don’t even know if it makes sense or not.
Cassi:It was late.
RJ:Yeah, this is when we were hitting the 2:00 a.m. mark, right? Anyway, I’ll let all of you all know he got a very halfhearted laugh. So, all right, know the brand. What is your story? Identify your story and what makes your company special in combination with your company culture. You will brand yourself with abundance.
All right. How did I know Ashley Blank? How do I know you? You Ashley.
Ashley:Tracy’s Facebook.
RJ:Through Tracy. Right?
Ashley:Yeah.
RJ:So what was Tracy doing yesterday that introduced me to Ashley?
Ashley:She posted.
RJ:She posted on Facebook about being where?
Ashley:At the Investor Fuel.
RJ:At Investor Fuel. What is that doing for Tracy? That’s branding herself. That’s networking. She connected to you by tagging you. She connected herself with Stinson and Hannah and Mike and Investor Fuel. Everybody knew what Tracy was doing yesterday. Okay?
Building a brand is so important, guys. And it’s literally free to do nowadays. I didn’t realize this for the longest time. Back in the day, if any of you all follow me on Facebook, you all are going to laugh about this, but there was a point in time where I told Cassi, “Facebook is stupid. Why do you waste your time on that?”
Cassi:[inaudible 00:42:30] make fun of me.
RJ:”That is so dumb. I cannot believe you’re wasting your time on that.” Now, 5,000 Facebook friends. How many people in here have 5,000 Facebook friends?
Man:[inaudible 00:42:44] RJ:I think so. What? Like three people. Guys, it’s free to have 5,000 Facebook friends. Absolutely free. It doesn’t even take that long. So the reason why it’s important to get to that number is because you’re expanding your network of people, your reach to people.
Why is that important? Well, I would beg to say we have the smallest marketing budget in this entire room out of everybody, but I’m probably doing more deals than 95% of you, and I could directly correlate that to our reach on Facebook. Okay? So let that sink in.
I do a podcast for free. I have Facebook friends. I get deals brought to me daily through Facebook Messenger, Facebook comments, text messages. I do crazy things, like put my cell phone number on podcasts and people call me.
Man:That’s insane.
RJ:Last month, are you all ready? How many deals did we close on? Forty eight?
Cassi:Yes.
RJ:Forty-eight deals and we spent zero dollars on marketing. Sorry, Todd. The previous month I spent some money. And I’m not saying you don’t need to do it. Directly, do not follow that path because it’s taken us some time to get there. And I use Todd, and I do Facebook ads, and we do pay-per-click, and we do cold calling. But last month . . .
Cassi:We didn’t.
RJ:. . . we didn’t need to. Literally, I don’t think we could have handled any more.
Cassi:We could pull back the reins a little.
RJ:So that goes back to utilizing the free resources that are out there for you. Okay? So my challenge to you is everybody in this room, you need to get 5,000 Facebook friends. Okay? Can we do that?
Participants:Yeah.
RJ:Okay. So the next thing that we’re going to do is we’re going to make #investorfuel go viral here. If we can do it with this amount of people. Okay? How many people have posted on Facebook today that they’re at Investor Fuel and used the #investorfuel? One, two, three, four. Okay. You’re all going to do it right now. I got time. Take a picture of somebody, post it right now, #investorfuel.
Woman:Can we get a selfie with you real quick?
RJ:Sure. You can do whatever you want. How much time do we got?
Mike:You’ve got 45 minutes, brother.
RJ:We got plenty of time. Make it go viral.
Cassi:Everybody line up and get a selfie.
Woman:I want a selfie, and I’m not even a selfie person.
RJ:There you go. Me neither.
Man:Get in front of the sign.
Woman:Wait. Actually, let somebody else to take it. I don’t even like [inaudible 00:45:34], Cassi.
RJ:So you might be like, “What is this guy doing? Why is this important?” Because you need to tag.
Cassi:Uno, dos, tres.
Woman:Cuarto. Thank you.
RJ:All right, guys. Here’s what you’re going to do. Mike has 5,000 friends, right? So you’re going to say thank you, and then you’re going to tag Mike Hambright. “Thank you, Mike Hambright for putting on a great #investorfuel Mastermind.” So now when Mike accepts that tag, now your post is going to show up to all of Mike’s friends. You’ve now just broaden yourself to Mike’s . . .
Cassi:Network.
RJ:Network. Okay?
Mike:You’ll get at least one like because my mom likes everything.
RJ:Everything, Sandy. But here’s what’s going to happen.
Mike:She doesn’t even know she’s liking, but she’ll like it.
Woman:Is that business or personal?
RJ:Personal, do it on personal. Yes, absolutely.
Cassi:We use our personal [inaudible 00:46:23] way more than we use [inaudible 00:46:26].
RJ:You can do your business as well, but this needs to be personal. This is coming from you. You’re with Mike Hambright. You’re with Stinson. You’re with Adrian. Tap into other people’s networks and what ends up. Yes, Gary.
Cassi:Tag Gary too.
RJ:I don’t see Gary. That’s why I’m not talking about him.
Cassi:Gary is here.
Man:I think he’s working [inaudible 00:46:42].
Cassi:Already talked to me.
Man:I think he’s working something.
RJ:Gary didn’t want to intimidate me. Remind me that he’s following Ahmed’s opening act.
Mike:Hey, talk about how quick it starts to catch on when you start adding those brands like crazy.
RJ:Yeah. What happens is, guys, what you’ll notice is today you’re probably going to get just an absolute shit ton of friend requests, and you need to accept those. Because what’s going to happen is someone is going to see on Mike’s friend that, “Hey, Tracy Bennett was with Mike Hambright today. I don’t know who Tracy Bennett is, but she’s with Mike. Why am I not with Mike?” Friend request.
Cassi:That’s a perfect example because I friended those two people today, because he said, “Boom, boom.” And I’m like, “I’m not friends with them. Boom, boom.”
RJ:Okay. So if this doesn’t motivate you enough, before this, I just closed on a $700,000 house in Hawaii that I funded with a private money lender that I met on Facebook.
Man:Yes. What’s that going to be worth?
RJ:This one is going to be worth 1.3. So $700,000 and it’s going to be worth 1.3. We’re going to put about 120 into it. Okay? So don’t think that this is just a gimmick to do the hashtags and all that. This is real life stuff that can change your business. Okay? Take it very seriously. I get it all the time.
There was a point in time where I was actually embarrassed to be on Facebook while I was working. Cassi would walk around the corner and I’d be on Facebook. I’d be like, “Oh, I’m busted. I’m sending an email.” You know? And now there’s times where she comes around and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m working.” By liking Jason McDougal’s live video of him talking about his employee sniffing [inaudible 00:48:35] whatever. I don’t even know how he did that. Yeah.
Cassi:Yeah. You should have brought that part up when you were talking about being grateful. This is what I do for work.
RJ:So 5,000 Facebook friends, make sure your #investorfuel. The other thing guys, create hashtags for your own business. Okay?
Cassi:#RehabWarriors.
RJ:For us, we have #RehabWarriors. We have #TitaniumInvestments. We have depending on what market it’s in, #TIOH for Hawaii, #TIOA for Arizona, #FlippingAlaska for Alaska. Make sure you’re creating those hashtags. The reason why is they’re searchable. So if you ever need to go back, you can search those comments or search those posts through the hashtag.
The other thing is when people comment on your posts, comment back. It’s an algorithm, guys. That’s all it is. You’re playing the game. Okay? So when Greg says, “Great post, RJ.” I’m like, “Thanks Greg.” And I tag him because I’m playing the algorithm game. Sorry, Greg.
Cassi:He knows he’s kidding you.
RJ:All right. Create value for others. I’m not allowed to say that quote because Stinson will get mad at me.
Cassi:You already said that word.
RJ:But I did. But create value for others. Okay. So what do we mean by this? Don’t become sales pitchy on your posts. I have things that I sell, but very rarely do I ever talk about them in a post. Okay? I try to create value for other people and let them come to me and ask me for things in return.
So what do I mean by this? Who here has made profit on a deal in the last 90 days? Okay, almost everybody in the room, right? Who here posted about that deal in the past 90 days? Okay, good. You need to be doing that constantly.
One of the best people that I see do this . . . well, actually I’ll talk about two gentlemen that I’ve seen literally go from barely having a following to now they are, I mean, massive amounts of following. Jason’s one of them. But the two I’m specifically talking about are Austin Good and Tim Bratz. Most of you all might have not have heard of them, but I’ve seen both of them.
Tim Bratz yesterday I was talking about an apartment complex that he bought in Atlanta, Georgia. This thing had like 2,000 views within like 20 minutes, people liking it, commenting. All he was talking about was is I built . . . I bought this apartment, and I put a roof on it. I literally watched the video, and I’m like people are talking about this is gold. I’m like he said he bought an apartment, put a roof on. Yeah, I mean, it’s cool. He’s going to make a ton of money, but it’s not really like gold.
But people find that, and it creates a following and it generates more excitement for your business. People will come to you. People will bring you deals. How many times do people bring you deals based off of Facebook posts that you’ve done? Have you ever gotten that?
Man:All the time.
RJ:All the time?
Man:Yeah.
RJ:I see like you two, you all went and looked at a property yesterday.
Man:That’s a . . . yeah, we’re doing a deal.
RJ:Yeah.
Man:Yeah.
RJ:And I’m sitting there and I’m looking at it, and I’m like, “That’s genius. They’re doing exactly what I’m talking about.”
Man:That’s why you all left.
RJ:Jason went Facebook Live, tags Greg in the post. He’s got #NextEra and #Velocity . . .
Man:HouseBuyers.
RJ:. . . HouseBuyers. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Boom. Lay down. Everybody looks at that. I look at it and I’m like, “What is happening here? I met Greg at the same Mastermind Jason met him. Why is he doing deals with Jason?”
Man:I was mad. [inaudible 00:52:20]. Yeah, we put them together man.
Man:[inaudible 00:52:23].
RJ:Yeah, but that’s what I’m talking about right there. It creates value for other people. Other people that aren’t in real estate investing sometimes will look at this and they’re so inspired that they want to learn about it. I get it all the time. I have a childhood . . . she wasn’t even a friend. We just happened to go to the same school.
Cassi:He couldn’t remember what she looked like.
RJ:She called me the other day. I don’t even know how she got my phone number. Maybe she listened to “The CarrotCast.”
Man:Podcast.
Cassi:[inaudible 00:52:53] RJ:Yeah, right. She called me and she said, “Hey, RJ, I’ve got $100,000 to invest with you.” Hi, Becca.
Man:I remember you.
RJ:Yeah. Man, this is awesome. That’s all because of Facebook. Okay?
Ask for business. So remember when I was telling you all back at the beginning when I went to that seminar and he talked about the difference between being poor, broke, and wealthy? The other thing he said was always ask. If you don’t, the answer is always no. And I was like, “Yes, my life has changed.” Because there’s so many times that I’m actually embarrassed to ask, if that makes sense.
And so what I want to explain to you guys is I definitely do not want you to go to someone if you want them to be a private money lender and say, “Hey, will you give me $200,000?” That’s probably not going to work. That’s a little bit abrasive, and it’s going to scare people. But you can subliminally, especially using social media, put it out there. “Hey, guys, check out this house that I just took down, and I bought it for $100,000. I put $50,000 into it, and I sold it for $300,000. I did all of this with none of my own money. Ask me how you can be a part of it.” Something along those lines. It’s not perfect. What’s up?
Man:I raised private money on the social media, like on Instagram. Instagram stories, I always post what I’m doing, and I also do these like book reviews now. I read a ton of books, so I figured I put out like a 10-minute book review. It takes me 10 minutes to type it, do the video, and I got people, “Yeah, those book reviews are crazy man.” Or, “Holy crap. I bought it.” And now I’m like, “Holy shit. Like it’s crazy.” I can attest to that 100%, dude.
RJ:Yes, it’s insane.
Man:It’s insane. It makes no sense. It doesn’t even . . . like I can’t wrap my head around it.
RJ:That takes you 10 minutes and it’s free.
Man:Free.
RJ:Free.
Cassi:Because you’re adding value.
Man:But I’m planting seeds. Yeah, you’re planting seeds.
Cassi:You’re adding value. You’re planting seeds. They . . .
Man:You need some time for that. I don’t remember . . . like a couple of weeks ago, there was some dude posting some BS, and you came in there and you’re like, “Hey man, you’re posting another BS course, and you don’t need to do that.”
RJ:Right.
Man:And you guys kind of bickered back and forth. And I followed it. And then people were buying your product. You never pitched your product.
RJ:Sure, I have. Never once.
Man:Someone is like, “If you had a product, I’d buy it.” And you put a link and it came back, and it’s like boom, he bought it.
RJ:Absolutely.
Man:You didn’t pitch anything.
RJ:This fool had a Photoshop picture of him in front of a helicopter like this.
Man:Yeah, man.
RJ:And he’s selling a how to use Facebook ads to find motivated sellers.
Cassi:Somebody else tagged it [inaudible 00:55:25].
RJ:And so I literally pulled up to my house, and I was like . . . as I saw it, I pulled up to my house and I’m like, “I got this house through a Facebook ad.” So I like park my car, walk up front, and I take a selfie of myself. And I was like, “Here’s how you can actually buy a house or here’s a house I actually bought from Facebook ads, not a picture of me in front of a Photoshopped helicopter.” And what ended up happening was is, yes, I kind of made fun of the guy, but I felt like it was necessary because he was . . .
Man:He was pitching shit.
RJ:. . . going to take advantage of people. He was going to offer . . . he was going to charge them $1,200 for a program that he doesn’t know what he’s doing, and yes, in turn, I got clients for that. So it’s very funny.
Man:Just to back you up and cover your face or save your face. He didn’t pitch anything. He was proving the dude was wrong. And somebody said, “Hey, if you had a product, I’d buy it.” He threw a link up and a couple of people bought it. Like, “Hey, if you’re asking for it . . .”
Man:That’s funny. Yeah. And he gave him the Investor Fuel link. [inaudible 00:56:25] he never pitched it.
RJ:I’ll make sure to do that.
Man:I’m going to do it.
RJ:Another thing I want to talk about is on Facebook, when you’re sharing value, okay, make sure you share your victories and your losses. Okay? Nobody wants to hear about, “Hey, I’m taking over the world. I’m making $5 billion,” and all this crap always. Sometimes you need to talk about the struggles within your business. It makes you more human. It makes you more real. Okay. And especially nowadays with how popular social media is, it’s refreshing to see somebody talk about, “Hey, today, at work, not everything went perfectly.” “Today . . .”
Cassi:My [inaudible 00:57:09].
RJ:Right, exactly. It’s that not one of the most popular posts that you’ve ever done about your employee?
Man:By far.
RJ:Yeah. And what’s funny about it is, did you ever have a second thought about sharing it?
Man:No way.
RJ:See, I would have. But now I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve started thinking about it, and I’m like it makes you feel more real. And it makes people realize that not everything is perfect in your business. Right?
All right. Systemization. So we’ve got two more left. All right. Systemization and . . . all right. So if you’ve ever listened to my podcast, there’s times where I should say a word and I don’t, and I make it very long winded. I go, “Would I call Cassi on it?” Because I can’t say the word.
Cassi:What?
RJ:I can’t say . . .
Cassi:Vulnerable.
RJ:Yes. I cannot say a word, but I’m going to try to make myself right now . . .
Cassi:Vulnerable.
RJ:Thank you. Okay. I’m not very good at creating . . .
Cassi:Just say it. It’s so funny.
RJ:Vulnerable.
Cassi:Isn’t it the cutest thing though?
RJ:Anyway.
Man:We got that on camera, bro.
RJ:Yeah, I know. All right. If you fail to plan, then plan to fail. Okay. So I’m not very good at creating systems. I have now definitely realized that my role in Titanium Investments is creating chaos. I go in and I’m like, “Hey, I just interviewed this guy, and he’s got this great strategy on Airbnbs in Mexico and we’re going to do it.” And she’s like, “What? No, no, no, we have too much going on.”
Cassi:Hold on there.
RJ:I’m like, “No, seriously, I’m already working on it. I’m just going to rent this house in Mexico, and then we were going to rent it on Airbnb and we’re going to make 80 grand a year.” And that’s my role. That’s what I do. She controls the chaos. I create chaos.
We needed systemization in our business, because you all heard the story, I mean, we started from nothing. We didn’t have systems. We just went out and we just started blowing and going, and the next thing you know, we look back. I’ll never forget the day. I was like, someone said, “Hey, RJ, you should go on Google Maps and drop a pin on every house that you’ve ever wholesaled or rented or flipped or anything.” I’m like, “That’s a great idea.” So I went and did it. When I got done, I was like, “Cassi, we’ve done 100 houses. It doesn’t feel that way. It feels like we’ve done 10.” If you’ve never done that before and you’re not too far along in your journey, you should definitely do it. It’s really cool to see.
So we knew that we had to create systems in our business, right? We learned this when we made that emotional decision in San Antonio. We needed to fix things.
So what is a system? A set of connected things or parts forming a complex whole. In particular, a set of principles or procedures according to which something’s done. An organized scheme or method.
So a lot of times people think about this, and they’re like, “I don’t need a system. I got Podio, or I use CallRail,” or whatever the different systems are that we use. This is not what I’m talking about.
What I’m talking about is from start to finish, everything in your business needs to have a way that it is done. So every good system, you need accountability, quantification, and qualification. Okay? These are things that we lacked for a very long time. Are there checks and balances to keep people on task and performing well? How many people here have employees that work for them? Okay. Do you have checks and balances in place for those people? Todd, did you hire a COO?
Todd:No. Well, yes, but they quit already.
Cassi:What did you do?
RJ:What did you do?
Todd:I promoted a guy within. He was one of my kind of just a really . . . he had a lot of ambition. And he was kind of my detailed guy, to describe him. And two weeks into it, everything he came back to me was, “How do I do this? How do I do this?” I said, “Look, at some point, you’re going to have to figure it out. We’ll evaluate after you do it. Yeah, do that.” Next two weeks, he didn’t do it. “Hey buddy, I think your role was perfect for where you’re at. We got to put you here.” [inaudible 01:01:35] and then the [inaudible 01:01:38].
RJ:Sorry, let me pick on you for a second, because we struggle with the exact same thing. Right? We had this great idea. We might have had the right person, and then we plug them in and then they’re like, “RJ, I don’t know system.” It was . . . I did it. I didn’t need a system. I tell her all the time, I’m like, “I don’t need to work in the system. I got it all right here.” Seriously, you can ask me about a property we bought like three years ago. It could be a wholesale property. I’d be like, “We bought it for this much. The estimate rehab was this, and the ARV was this.”
Cassi:He has a memory like nobody else can remember.
RJ:I have a real problem. It means that it will dump out. But we didn’t have the right systems in place to be able to scale our organization. Right? We needed to create a turnkey business system, because we’re sitting here and we’re reading name tags that literally say nationwide on them now, because people were like, “You’re in too many states, so you’re just nationwide.” We didn’t have the right systems in place for that.
An executive assistant in Texas might be doing something different than an executive assistant in Hawaii, and that is a problem. That cannot be the case. So we had to build something to fit our organization. We call it the Titanium Business Systems. For you guys, if you only have one person, you need to start. Please start now. Don’t wait until you’re where I got, because you end up sleeping on an air mattress for five days in Hawaii and . . .
Cassi:Well, this has been a long process too. Not just those five days.
RJ:Absolutely.
Cassi:It’s been a long process . . .
RJ:Start building out a manual for employee one. What do you expect of that person? How is that person going to perform their job? So when that person moves on to another role, or you have to fire that person and bring somebody else on, that person that comes in knows how to do their job. Also, build out a manual for what you do.
Cassi:Yes.
RJ:Jason, there was a while you were doing everything, right?
Jason:Everything.
RJ:Don’t you have a bunch of VAs that work for you now?
Jason:Yes, sir.
RJ:So how do you train your VAs on how to do what you were doing?
Jason:Through Asana or video casts.
RJ:Right. That’s what I’m talking about. Building a manual. So when random VA number two stops doing their job and you fire them, how hard is it for you to replace them?
Jason:The same day.
RJ:Boom. Done. Systems, systemization. It has to be done. Don’t wait until you’re way down the path and you’ve got 70 people working for you, because by God it’s not fun. Okay? So learn from what Jason’s done right there. Use Asana, build videos, build manuals. Create your business to be turnkey without you. Okay? Because at some point in time you’re going to look back and you’re going to be like, “I’m in the business, and I need to get out of it.” Start doing that today.
All right, guys. The last thing is be grateful. Okay? In everything give thanks for this is the will of God. Have an attitude of gratitude. Okay?
Man:Amen to that.
Cassi:Amen.
RJ:Absolutely. So, guys, look around. Like be so grateful for the opportunity that we have here today. I mean this room is full of extremely talented individuals. I mean people here that I’m just amazed at the different things they’ve been able to do in a short amount of time. I remember going to lunch with Jason a couple of years ago, and I don’t mean this as any disrespect to Jason, but I mean, he literally, he asked me, he said, “How much do you make on a wholesale deal on average?” I said, “Twenty-two thousand dollars.” And he was literally blown away. He was like, “No, no, you can’t make that much wholesale on a deal.”
Now, I buy deals from Jason. I call Jason for advice all the time. I said, “Jason, hey, I’m doing this thing over here. I don’t know how to do it, but I saw you posted on Facebook the other day on how to do it. How can I do it?” Jason’s teaching me.
Be grateful for the opportunity to be in here today, guys, to be around this network of people. Mike is creating an opportunity to build a family together. You guys can grow together.
There’s some people in here that have employees. There’s other people that don’t. Start talking to each other on a regular basis on how you could grow your businesses together. Look at Jason and Greg. They’re doing deals together. Greg, where are you living now? [inaudible 01:06:23] New York or . . .
Greg:[inaudible 01:06:23] Cassi:[inaudible 01:06:24] Greg:Yeah.
Jason:[inaudible 01:06:24]. Look at that suntan, bro.
Cassi:Yeah, bro.
Greg:Todd’s my neighbor.
RJ:Well, he’s doing deals in DFW in my backyard with my pseudo competitor, Jason, and not me.
Jason:Yeah, we put them together, man. When I found out you guys are doing deals, I was mad.
RJ:But that’s awesome.
Jason:It’s my fault, mad at me.
Greg:We had another one today.
Jason:Yeah, mad at me.
RJ:They looked at the opportunity, and they worked together. You all could do the same things with other people in the room.
Jason:Absolutely.
RJ:Okay. Be grateful of the opportunity we have here today.
One thing that Cassi and I were talking about today, before we came up here, I just want to you all to know I was pretty damn nervous this morning before the speech. This is was probably the longest speech I’ve ever given in front of somebody. And Cassi was helping me out. And she was talking about this post she saw on Facebook about entitlement and how entitlement can be a cancer to your life. Okay?
This goes back to all of the things that we’re talking about, where some of you all can work extremely hard on a daily basis, and you feel like things need to be changing in your career or changing in your business. Do not have a sense of entitlement. Okay? Nobody is entitled to have a portfolio of 10 properties or 100 properties. You have to go out and create that opportunity for yourself. And you have to be grateful for the opportunities that you have in front of you.
So, earlier I talked about that song with T.D. Jakes and how impactful that song was for me. I’m telling you guys, I was sitting there, and I was having like an out-of-body experience. I was like, “Dude, this song is speaking to me right now, I’m so pumped up.” And there’s a line in the song that says, “Do not sit here today and complain about the opportunities that are in front of you when someone’s sitting in a hospital today that would do anything to have the opportunity you have in front of you today.”
Jason:Yes, sir.
Man:That was good.
RJ:You all had an amazing opportunity here the past two days. You’ve got two of the most amazing men in all real estate investing that are following me up, in Gary and Trevor Mauch. Literally, every time I hear them speak, I’m blown away. So you have even more opportunity after I get done rambling up here.
Cassi:With each other too.
RJ:And look around the room to each other, make opportunities and treat this like a family atmosphere. Okay? It’s up to us to make Investor Fuel what it could be, right? Stinson, Hannah, and Mike, they’ve given us the platform and the opportunity. I’m going to tell you right now, I’ve been in this room, and I’ve been in the room the following two days. Okay? And there’s one thing that separates this room from the other room, and it’s the amount of community, family atmosphere, and the mindset. Okay?
So my challenge to you guys is be grateful for the opportunity and create that same atmosphere in this room. Work together, care for each other, open up opportunities for each other, and you’re going to see some very special things happen in this room. Okay.
I came up with this one on my own. I think this is the only one I came up with on my own. The best mentor I’ve had has been failure. So what I mean by that is I mean, guys, you’ve listened to everything I talked about today. We’ve had some tremendous success, great experiences, but I attribute all of those victories back to the losses that we’ve had and overcoming those.
So for you, anybody in this room right now that might be experiencing a loss, don’t look at it emotionally. Go back, logically look at it, and figure out what you could change about it to change your future. What can you learn about it? What systems can you implement, and how can you make your business better from it? Okay.
All right, so be grateful for every experience. How long do I have?
Mike:Twenty.
RJ:Twenty minutes. Okay. Be grateful for every experience that you have. I went to a small private school here in Fort Worth, Temple Christian School. I graduated with a class of 40. I went to Temple Christian from fourth grade all the way until I graduated.
My partner in Hawaii, I met him in fifth grade. I graduated high school with him. My partner in Alaska, I went to school with him at Temple. My partner in Alabama, I went to high school with.
Every experience that you have can be an opportunity. I had no idea that when I was going to Temple Christian and I was running around like a little road rat, picking on people, and those people would turn around, and 15 years later, I’d be running a business across the country with them, trying to create generational wealth, passive income, changing our family dynamic. Today, there could be someone sitting in this room that could be your future partner in another market. Just like Greg and Jason were, what, six months ago?
Jason:Yeah.
RJ:Now they’re doing business together. Okay? So be grateful for every opportunity you have, if it’s good, bad, or what.
Another thing about Temple Christian is I have two private money lenders from Temple Christian that were my coaches. One was my football coach, one was my baseball coach. They now passively invest with us on different deals. And I had the opportunity to go back to Temple to teach a real estate investing course to the seniors. And I had some pretty awesome conversations with both of those coaches. And both of them were football coaches. One was the head coach, and one was the assistant coach. In our sophomore year, my sophomore year and my junior year combined, we had zero wins. Okay? We had 24 losses. And my football coach looked at me and he said, “You know why I have no problem giving you my money?” He said, “Because in baseball we won two state championships, our junior year and our senior year.” He said, “You did not act any different during football season when we didn’t win a game to baseball season when you won a state championship.”
He said, “You were always the same person. You always handled the responsibility the same way, and you attacked it with the same mindset. Even though you were winning over here and you were losing over here, you treated it with the same respect.”
Dude, I was in tears. Man, I was a 17-year-old. I was just mad that we were losing football games. But he saw something in me.
So be grateful for every opportunity that you have. Embrace those experiences. You never know what’s going to come from them. Okay?
The last couple of things. I think we were just brainstorming when we got to numbers five and six here, Cassi.
Cassi:What do we say?
RJ:We’ve got a couple of things here. Stress is a choice, and winning is a state of mind. That’s pretty much all I got about those.
Cassi:You were supposed to throw those in earlier. You just wrote them down [inaudible 01:13:32].
RJ:All right, guys, my gifts to you all. Well, first and foremost, I got to give you all my phone number, right? Since I’m giving public speeches, I’m just going to start adding that in there. So there’s my phone number. Anybody can call me. If you call me for a dumb reason though, I’m just letting you all know, I will let you all know it’s dumb and I got to go.
That’s my email, fremont@titaniumdigitalmarketing, promo code, Investor Fuel. Okay. That’s our program, and we teach you all how to use Facebook ads, pay-per-click, retargeting to find motivated sellers. And you can sign up. You can use that promo code. I’m sorry if that’s not allowed, but I did it.
Man:That’s cool, man.
Cassi:But he did it.
RJ:Use that promo code and you all get a free month. Okay? The other thing is I challenge you all to get 5,000 Facebook friends, and I challenge you all to do the Facebook posts. It’s seven minutes, guys. And even if you just laugh at me, just listen to it once. Listen to that song, “Rejoice” by Steve Angello featuring T.D. Jakes. I literally . . .
Cassi:Do it in the morning, it’s the best time.
RJ:Bro, listen up in the morning. Crank that thing. It’s got to be loud though. Okay? So when he preaches to you, I’m just saying, you all will feel it. Okay? Let’s do it at least once. Hey, why don’t you do this? Why don’t you listen to it and take a picture of you listening to it and then tag me on Facebook? It’s all reciprocal. All right, guys.
Cassi:It’ll make him so happy.
RJ:That’s it. You all have the mindset to be blessed. You all said yes at the beginning. I hope it was true. Does anybody have any questions for me before I finish up?
Mike:Hey, guys, first off, let’s give it up for RJ.
Man:Yeah.
Mike:Are you an active real estate investor? If so, and you want to latch onto the power of surrounding yourself with over 100 of the nation’s leading real estate investors, all committed to building stronger businesses and living richer, fuller lives, you should jump on a call with us to learn more about Investor Fuel. Simply visit investorfuel.com to get started.