Building a Business For Financial Freedom

John Harcar (00:00.91)
Hey guys, welcome back to the show. Once again, I’m John, your host. Today we’re here with Scott Poor. And what we’re going to talk about today is building a business that’s going to give you the financial freedom you want, as well as helping create some passive income. You know, guys at Investor Fuel, you know, we help real estate investors, service providers, and really all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their business. And it’s helping them build those businesses they’ve always wanted to build and live those lives that they always wanted to live.

So without further ado, Scott, welcome to the show. Yeah, no, not a problem. I’m super excited to talk about this. I mean, I think that a lot of folks when they get into this business are really looking for that financial freedom and and have some of that maybe passive, which we both know isn’t as passive income. But before we talk about all that, why don’t you just kind of give our audience a little bit about who you are and what got you here?

Scot Poore (00:33.597)
Thanks for having me, John.

Scot Poore (00:58.419)
Yeah, so I’m a real estate investor. I’ve been doing it for about five years, seriously. But before that, I…

I was a sales engineer for about 15 years. So electrical engineer by trade, then gradually got into entrepreneurship and into real estate. Before I was an engineer, I also served in the military, so I served in the Marine Corps for seven years in the reserves. And about half that time, I was an active duty servant overseas.

John Harcar (01:30.798)
Thank you again for your service.

Scot Poore (01:32.435)
Thanks. But yeah, so four years old, got a family of four, a boy and a girl, eight year old and five year old. I’ve been married to a beautiful wife for 12 years now. So really blessed there. But yeah, that’s kind of my background.

John Harcar (01:49.184)
Okay, cool. Now, obviously, electrical engineer maybe doesn’t translate to the real estate right away. What got you? I mean, what was the thing that sparked your head said, hey, real estate might be the vehicle to get me to where I want to go.

Scot Poore (02:04.859)
Yeah, so I first kind of stumbled upon like, you know, the financial freedom and the kind of the, you know, fire movement, listened to different podcasts and, you know, really getting into index fund investing and things like that. Then I kind of gradually, you know, kind of learned more about real estate and you can probably get there faster, you doing real estate deals. Then, you know, I think it was probably…

When I was 20 years old, read Wrist-Jet for the first time. So that kind of gave me a good introduction of investing and kind of where you want to go eventually. then I eventually stumbled upon real estate and kind of been going full force ever since then.

John Harcar (02:47.616)
Nice. Now, when you when you started your real estate journey, I mean, did you start it part time? Did you just kind of, hey, make the leap and go full time? How did you how did you make that transition?

Scot Poore (02:58.899)
Yeah, I started part-time, you know, know, nights and weekends. And just kind of gradually, you know, went to full-time. So after, you know, about four years.

John Harcar (03:14.37)
The night and week in grind. We all know that all too well, especially when you’re getting started in this business. So at what point did you kind of realize that, know, investing is going to be, is working out, right? I’m going to move from my full-time gig and make this a full-time gig.

Scot Poore (03:34.263)
Yeah, I guess when I was getting to a point where I was maybe missing out on some deals and missing some phone calls, then I also had enough deals in the pipeline, also some cash flow coming in for some of the rentals and other things I was doing to kind of make that transition.

John Harcar (03:53.878)
Okay, and I remember my experience right when I told my wife, hey, I’m leaving this full time job and I’m going to start this business. Family was all behind you.

Scot Poore (04:06.515)
Yeah, mean, know, a little bit nervous, you know, things my wife would be concerned about, but she had faith in me and kind of just trusted me. So I could always go back and get another job. you know, it’s not, you know, the end of the world.

John Harcar (04:19.224)
Awesome. That’s true.

John Harcar (04:26.348)
Got it. When you were getting started, like what were some of the bigger hurdles or the bigger challenges you were facing in starting this business and getting it rolling to where you wanted it to be?

Scot Poore (04:38.899)
Yeah, I mean, think it’s scaling up to doing multiple deals at a time is a challenge. I think probably one of the biggest challenges in this business is kind of the cash flow game.

you know, enough cash flow to either buy rentals or to scale your marketing up. Then also just the up and down cycles of getting a lot of money in from flips and even money coming out from rentals, repairs, stuff like that. So it’s just managing, managing your cash flow really. Having enough to kind of scale up your business.

John Harcar (05:13.334)
Right. Did you start off doing flips or how did you, what did you start off doing? Like what was your exit strategy?

Scot Poore (05:19.923)
Started off doing rentals, kind of burs where I’d fix it up, refinance and rent it out. I did several of those, but then quickly kind of realized, and it was also about the same time that interest rates kind of jacked up, traditional rentals didn’t make a whole lot of sense, unless you were paying cash or something. And that’s where I kind of turned to focus on flipping and just to get the cash flow.

up and have a healthier business, just make more sense. Then after you have a healthier business, you can kind of transition on to some long-term investments.

John Harcar (05:51.586)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

John Harcar (05:59.276)
Yeah, that’s true. And a lot of people, when they’re getting into the business, don’t focus on how can we make that business as healthy as we can faster. Because that’s going to bring in more revenue in the long run, right? Having a good, flowing business.

Tell me about your first deal.

Scot Poore (06:17.315)
Yeah, my first deal was a single family in Athens, Georgia that I got off a wholesaler. I kind of lucked out where I was able to get it financed through some buddies of mine. It was kind of like a lease option type deal where they financed it. It was my buddy’s dad’s money that kind of funded the deal. So, you I paid them.

John Harcar (06:42.71)
interesting.

Scot Poore (06:47.067)
a fee, an option fee, down payment. Then I was responsible for the rehab construction financing. So I of did that, got it rehabbed, and then refinanced into a traditional conventional bank. I rented it out and actually sold it earlier, or later last year, late last year, with a pretty good cash pop.

John Harcar (06:57.87)
Got it.

Scot Poore (07:15.559)
Yeah, that was my first deal.

John Harcar (07:15.694)
Good. Nice. For all of your deals, have you been mainly using private money? Are you going out and finding hard money? mean, how are you funding these, deals you’re doing?

Scot Poore (07:26.483)
Most of the deals have been through private money. I’ve been pretty fortunate to kind of grow my network and network with folks that have private money that they want to land and do better than the stock market most of the time. I would say probably 75 % of the deals have been private money, others, hard money. Yeah.

John Harcar (07:41.293)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (07:48.28)
Hard money. OK. Yeah. And that’s and I like to get an idea of what folks are doing, because I mean, a lot of people use that hard money and because they don’t have the ability to go out and find that private stuff. Right. And the private private money is going to give you a lot of time, a lot better rates. What does your team look like now? So you built this business. What does your team look like now? What is your business look like present day today?

Scot Poore (08:14.675)
So I’ve got an acquisition manager, also have a disposition guy, then also have a handful of contractors that I work with. So pretty small team, nothing crazy, but then I also have a project manager that I just hired. So he really helps out, he’s helping scale the business and helps things move along.

Previously he’s been a challenge kind of getting flips turned fast as I want to. So he’s helping with pricing and managing contractors and just speeding things up because holding costs will eat you up.

John Harcar (08:53.89)
Yeah, definitely. Is this someone that you knew or is this someone that you went out and hired and like found on a job board? Something like that.

Scot Poore (09:02.161)
He actually went to high school with them, but didn’t realize he was in real estate until a little while ago. And he was actually kind of doing the same thing with a bigger company. Then just kind of called him and kept in touch. Then eventually I was like, man, do some stuff for me. And it’s been working out pretty well so far.

John Harcar (09:23.106)
Yeah, it’s funny. mean, I found a couple of gentlemen I went to high school with that. Yeah, they’re in the real estate game, too. And, you know, once you know, like, hey, man, I wish we would have been talking for a long time. And that’s good that it’s someone that you know, right, that, you know, maybe you don’t have that you guys haven’t hung out a lot lately, but it’s someone that you can maybe trust a little bit more than maybe somebody just hired. You know what I mean?

Scot Poore (09:33.138)
Right.

Scot Poore (09:44.531)
Exactly.

John Harcar (09:46.87)
What are some common mistakes you think that people make when they’re trying to get into the business? Like, you you obviously got in, you transitioned from a good job, you made it successful. What are some mistakes that maybe you ran across or people are running across or might run across when they’re trying to start this?

Scot Poore (10:05.949)
think, especially nowadays, I think if you’re…

Like maybe 10 years ago, know, cash flow was a pretty big play in real estate, you know, the passive income kind of idea theme. But I think today, you know, people need to be focused on running a business and, you know, having consistent cash flow from flips or private money lending or running a small business. So you kind of want to…

fund your business with active income, then you roll into more cash flow plays like rentals and things like that.

John Harcar (10:47.182)
How are you finding your deals right now? Are you buying strictly from wholesalers or what are doing?

Scot Poore (10:52.051)
It’s a little bit of both. Lately I’ve been doing lot of pay-per-clicks and PPC. It’s been pretty successful. I like that model because inbound leads, the ones you get are most of the time pretty good quality. I would say that’s probably 70 % of my deals and the other 30 are wholesalers or networking with agents.

John Harcar (11:04.791)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (11:17.678)
Okay. And just in case some folks that are listening to this don’t know PPC, paper click, PPL, paper lead. And you know, we’ve been seeing, especially in the mastermind, a lot of people that are moving that way because they’re, you you can sit inbound. They’re more interested to sell versus a cold call or a cold text or stuff like that. Have you done any of those type of lead gen strategies, cold calling or texting or anything like that?

Scot Poore (11:43.891)
Yeah, I’ve done a little bit of texting, little bit of cold call in, some mail. I’ve done kind of, I think almost all of them. Probably not all of them as long as I probably should have, but yeah, I mean, I think they’re all successful. Whichever one you’re most consistent at is probably where you can be successful with. And also how much time you have and what kind of team you want to build. So it just kind of depends.

John Harcar (12:13.854)
Yeah. And you said the key word consistency, right? And I think that no matter what you’re doing, whatever strategy you’re using, consistency is really, really the biggest key. As far as the real estate industry now, I mean, what kind of trends are you seeing starting to develop? Because I’m seeing a lot more people into the inbound stuff versus the outbound. So what kind of trends are you think you’re seeing in your market currently right now?

Scot Poore (12:40.915)
I think affordability is real big. Obviously these days in most markets it’s becoming unaffordable for most single family houses. think stuff on the lower end, like below the median price points are really important. think bubble home

Development is starting to rise on different areas as long as you’re in an area that allows mobile home development Just because it’s just you know, lots of not affordable. So

John Harcar (13:17.774)
Interesting.

Scot Poore (13:23.475)
And think that what was before maybe project housing or like low income, it’s kind of like, you you’re getting better tenants because it’s a better price point for those folks. they’re just, they might have regular jobs, not really like quote unquote low income. just, you know, it’s just not affordable anymore.

John Harcar (13:41.166)
They’re not section eight. It’s just their income is not allowing them to pay what the prices are today. And I’ve and that’s something, too, that I’ve heard as well as a lot, you know, focus on maybe some of the low income housing just because of the affordability is just incredible. mean, people can’t that American dream is gone. I guess you could try to say of that homeownership, right? At least the traditional way of what we think.

Scot Poore (13:45.116)
Right.

John Harcar (14:05.926)
so what is your business? I know we talked about what it looks like now. I know you mentioned you do about 15 to 20 flips a year. Okay. and you’re are you are you doing some of the work? Are you just subcontracting at all? What are you? How does that look?

Scot Poore (14:12.979)
Correct.

Scot Poore (14:20.307)
I might do a little bit of landscaping here and there, but for the most part, I’m outsourcing all the work.

John Harcar (14:26.262)
outsourcing subcontractor. Okay. And then you also do have rentals. How many, what’s your portfolio look like?

Scot Poore (14:35.613)
So I got about 10 traditional long-term rentals, then 10 more of like creative finance type deals where I do owner financing with the wraps. So some of those I bought subject to and some of them I’ve bought and fixed up, then refinanced and also then sell it on the back end.

John Harcar (14:44.93)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (14:48.961)
Okay.

John Harcar (14:58.774)
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s interesting because a lot of folks, you know, obviously want to get in with as little or no money as possible. And those strategies sub to rap, all the creative stuff has really, you know, it’s been picking up steam over the last few years, obviously, pace Morby and, you know, a lot of the people really pushing it. How did you learn how to do those type of deals?

Scot Poore (15:19.443)
I joined a small mastermind that focused on creative financing. It’s one of my buddies that I kind of got started with. After I got started, a couple years later, he started a group. It kind of takes a while to kind of wrap your head around a lot of that stuff. But got into it and figured out it wasn’t too hard to figure out. It’s pretty difficult to find really good subject to deals, but other than that.

John Harcar (15:36.781)
Mm-hmm.

Scot Poore (15:47.923)
It’s not rocket science.

John Harcar (15:50.638)
Yeah, I think with subject to deals or deals like that, I think it’s more of how you’re presenting it to your seller, right? Because sellers don’t know anything other than listed with a realtor and sell, you know what I mean? So to be able to show the benefits and how you can, get them more money, do stuff like that is huge, right?

Scot Poore (16:11.827)
direct.

John Harcar (16:13.826)
What’s what’s your best your favorite strategy a sub to seller finance? Is that kind of where you’re where you’re trying to do a lot of your deals?

Scot Poore (16:22.926)
Yeah, I mean if I could find a subject too that’s not a lot of walk away to the seller or if they’re not behind on the mortgage a lot then those are the best ones that have low interest rates and maybe a little bit of equity.

John Harcar (16:37.09)
Yeah. And are you currently doing all your marketing in Georgia? Are you going outside of the state or where’s your main market you focus on?

Scot Poore (16:46.353)
Yeah, main markets, Georgia. I think it’s big enough for what I’m doing at this point. So, yeah, just kind of focused on, you know, one area and yeah, obviously I could probably go to outside of Georgia, but you know, I just might be, you know, spinning my wheels.

John Harcar (17:07.072)
Well, and like you said, it’s big enough. There’s enough property there. And for the volume that you’re doing right now, do you have any future plans of scaling up? mean, what is your one in five year goals look like for your business?

Scot Poore (17:21.841)
Yeah, I’m currently working on some land marketing. So I want to do some land flipping, land development, and also get into some mobile home parks as well. So at that point, I’ll probably move outside of Georgia. I’ll probably try to in the southeast, but that’s kind of where I’m thinking of heading.

John Harcar (17:32.619)
Okay.

John Harcar (17:44.352)
Okay. So for the land, you’re looking to do mobile home parks.

Scot Poore (17:49.905)
Yeah, mobile home parks or also just kind of single parcel like mobile home development where you buy a piece of land and put a new mobile home on there.

John Harcar (18:01.184)
Mm OK. What got you what got you interested in that? That’s something different.

Scot Poore (18:06.961)
Yeah, I think it’s a cleaner way to do things. If you can get a good deal on a piece of land, you can get pretty good deals on wholesale trailers. And it’s just a different way of flipping. I think it could be a lot cleaner. Managing a big rehab and all the things that come with that.

John Harcar (18:18.094)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (18:28.8)
Yeah, and I’ve heard a lot of folks getting, know, expressing interest in doing stuff like that mobile homes, maybe even storage, self-storage stuff. You know what I mean? So well, that’s awesome. What resources do you think are important to have or important to use for someone trying to get into the business and maybe do flips or have rentals or stuff like that?

Scot Poore (18:37.073)
Right.

Scot Poore (18:55.037)
Yeah, mean, obviously when you first get started or when you’re thinking about getting started, you want to listen to different podcasts. It could be bigger podcasts, be the investor fuel podcast. And there’s hundreds of real estate podcasts out there these days, but podcasts, videos, read a couple of books. But I think the biggest thing is getting involved with the groups. You could pick a mastermind to get involved with.

Maybe do one deal or two by yourself and kind of join a group. Because you just don’t know what you don’t know and you get help from other people. grow your network. Also go to local meetups and meet other investors. So that really helps.

John Harcar (19:41.26)
Yeah, that’s a great tip, especially with, when you don’t know what you don’t know, you want to get in front of as many people to find that stuff out right in. And until you get that level to get into maybe a mastermind or stuff like that. Yeah, the RIAs, the local stuff is extremely, extremely valuable. What kind of advice, you know, if I’m brand new?

And I’m just looking around. see podcasts on. listen to this podcast and, you know, and I listen to what Scott says. What’s some advice that you would give me as a newbie getting into this? Maybe pitfalls to look out for.

Scot Poore (20:16.124)
pitfalls I would say you know one is you know make sure you do your due diligence both on like the underwriting of a deal then also you know repairs for a flip or a rental that you’re getting yourself into ask realtors for their opinion contractors for their opinion but also you know don’t you know give yourself analysis paralysis and

I think if you’re 70 % think it’s going to be successful, you should go ahead and do it. Don’t hold yourself up. If you’re somebody that’s perfectionist and over-analyzes stuff, real estate might not be the game for you. But yeah, that’s kind of my opinion.

John Harcar (21:03.373)
Right.

John Harcar (21:07.83)
Well, and there’s a couple of schools of thought and I kind of just curious to get yours right when people are starting out, some people say, hey, you need to join or you need to join a training program. You need to find a coach or hey, there’s plenty of stuff online. Just do you do it. And then as you get a deal, help folks. mean, what do you think is the best way for someone who really wants to make it successful to to to get that action moving?

Scot Poore (21:35.601)
Yeah, I I think just making a goal of whatever they want to do. If they want to get one rental or do one flip, just write down what they need to do and figure out the steps they need to do it and also get themselves a timeline of beating that goal. One thing a lot of people get hung up on is finding a deal. But most of the time I find out that they’re just not doing enough.

to get it. I’ll ask them how many offers they’re Like one? I’m like, well, make 100 offers and you’ll probably get one. So I think most of the time people just, when they’re getting, when they’re new and they’re starting up, they’re just not doing enough. So.

John Harcar (22:13.078)
Yeah, right.

John Harcar (22:23.202)
Well, and I maybe want to put the blame on, obviously, our wonderful world, you know, internet that someone can go on and see all these flashy things of people making all this money and think it’s that easy when they don’t see the behind the scenes things. And I think one of my favorite pictures is, know, with that iceberg, you have to really tip on the top is all you can see. And then on the bottom is just all the stuff that people don’t see behind the background.

Is there anything else you want to share with us about about your business? How you know, I mean, I know we talked a little about real fast about, you know, helping people and helping people get to, you know, and do it, get into the level. mean, tell me a little bit about your passion as far as wanting to help people out.

Scot Poore (23:03.635)
Yeah, I’m always willing to help people. So I love helping new investors or some that are kind of getting going, trying to scale up to the next level. know a lot of new folks, they’re hesitant to reach out because they think I’m super busy. I mean, I am busy, but I love to take time and kind of help people out. There might be some investors out there or business folks that

Don’t want to spend the time of helping people, but I’m willing to take time out of my day and kind of help people on their journeys and put them in the right direction if I don’t have the answers.

John Harcar (23:45.634)
That’s awesome. know, rising tide lifts all boats. And also too, there’s, you know, there’s some personalities and people that we jello with, right? And someone might be listening to this and say, Hey, you know, I mean, Scott’s someone I’d think I’d get it, you know, get a, get along with real well. How do they get a hold of you? Like if someone wants to reach out to you and maybe ask some more questions, maybe partner up with it on a deal, how do they reach out to you or how can they get in touch with you?

Scot Poore (24:11.655)
They can send me a message on social media. They can look me up. think I’m Scott Poor on S-E-O-T-P-O-O-R-E on Instagram. They can call me too. I’ll give out my phone number on care. So, that’s it.

John Harcar (24:27.242)
It’s up to you if you wanna do that. We could do it offline. I can put it on the show notes, but whatever you wanna do. It’s really up to you. Okay, cool. Awesome. Well, guys, I really enjoyed the time that we spent with you today, Scott, especially talking about kinda how you got started. And I hope it resonates with other folks that if you believe that you can do something and you put your mind to it you have consistent positive action, you’re gonna be able to see those results.

Scot Poore (24:32.083)
Yeah, we can do that. Yeah, we can do that.

John Harcar (24:55.582)
So, you know, Scott, want to thank you for joining us. Any last tidbits you want to share with our audience?

Scot Poore (25:03.187)
Yeah, just don’t be afraid to take risks and take action. But really, if you’re going to do it, be professional and go 100%. So don’t make this real estate a hobby. So it’s not really a hobby. So if you make it a hobby, then you might be losing money.

John Harcar (25:23.136)
it could be a great hobby. the problem is is that it takes too much work to really be a hobby because it it starts out as a hobby then it turns into a lot more than just that. guys, thank you again. You know, I hope you had a good time on this episode today. and we look forward to seeing you next time. Guys, have a good day. a good day, Scott. Have a great day.

Scot Poore (25:28.108)
Exactly.

Scot Poore (25:33.18)
Right.

Scot Poore (25:43.879)
Thanks.