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In this episode, Peter J Burns III shares his innovative approach to entrepreneurship financing, the importance of networking, and how to leverage creative funding techniques to grow your business without traditional bank loans.
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Peter J Burns III (00:00)
So there’s never any supply of ideas.out there, they just are missing one thing, access to capital. Because banks are not our friends, they never have been. And if you get an angel investor or all that kind of crap, these guys just steal your stuff. You’re the entrepreneur, you bleed entrepreneurship. And it’s like, are you going to give away your great business because someone throws you a bone? You don’t need them. We eliminate the need to have… ⁓
equity partners in this. And also it’s impossible to get it anyway. Scott, you’ve been in the real estate business. How easy is it to raise money for your endeavors?
Scott Bursey (02:15)
Hi everybody and welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I’m your host Scott Bursey. And today I’m joined by someone I’ve really been looking forward to chatting with Peter J. Burns, the third Peter is classified as a serial startup entrepreneur, specializing in the establishment and operation of niche markets, multi-location business ownership. Starting at age 19, he started, he ran and sold and expanded 150 inbusinesses spanning across multiple fields. From bringing mopeds to the United States to co-founding the nation’s first college of entrepreneurship at Grand Canyon University. He has the ability to recognize opportunities early and to fund enterprises with creative funding techniques, including, but not limited to, the Burns Funding Method. Peter, welcome to the show.
Peter J Burns III (03:13)
Hey Scott, thanks for the intro.Scott Bursey (03:15)
Absolutely, it’s my pleasure and I know our audience is really going to take something away from your philosophy on mentorship and why you believe building a network is just as critical as building a portfolio. Let’s dive in, shall we, Peter?Peter J Burns III (03:32)
was that?Lead the way, my friend.
Scott Bursey (03:35)
So first off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days?Peter J Burns III (03:46)
I am an entrepreneurship financier. I raise money for people. It’s a full-time job that entrepreneurs just simply can’t do that and run their business. So my niche is all the creative funding techniques that I’ve developed over the years. And I have a number of them right now that I’ve just instituted fairly recently that they proved to be a very large ⁓⁓ and powerful methodology. I don’t market Scott. ⁓ I don’t know how we found each other, but LinkedIn, I post three times a week and I get a hundred thousand viewers. The ones that something resonated on my post, I simply guide them to my website, which is burnsfunding.com to learn all about it. Then I direct them to get pre-approved, which takes 15 seconds. ⁓
It doesn’t have any impact on your credit and instantly I’ve got all three of your credit reports. They’re usually 60 pages detailed. I have an AI analysis of that. And then I ask them to book a call with me like we’re having now. These are my discovery calls. I have no less than five and as many as 12 a day. But the most incredible thing is they’re all so interesting. They come to me from different backgrounds, different businesses. They all have one universal need.
need capital and that’s what I bring to the table.
Scott Bursey (05:17)
Awesome, Peter. And what markets are you operating in currently?Peter J Burns III (06:09)
Well, I am agnostic to any type of business.I just want to provide the funding for them. The funding is based on the qualifications of the individual. It doesn’t have to impinge their personal credit, but you need it to be accepted into our age shelf corporation, for instance, which is new to me. And I’ve heard of shelf corporations. I didn’t realize the process. It’s very intricate, but shelf corporations have been around for a long time.
Usually two to ten years old they’ve been filing all of their compliance requirements over the years then when they’re taken out of the shelf basically and sold to one of our clients Which we lend you the money to do by the way you don’t have to have any money out of pocket with us They can raise up to five hundred thousand seven hundred fifty thousand a million three Through the process that a very talented ⁓ Financier has been in business
five years works with me. She’s my director of shell funding. So in the last five months, I’ve sold 51 of them representing 25 million of eventual funding, all unsecured, all given in the form of business credit cards and business lines of credit to the Shelf Corporation. So it does not pay your credit. It’s the full responsibility is to the Shelf Corporation. And that’s where I bring in the Burns Funding Method, which is very unique.
It allows us to take a portion of the money that I have lent you and put it into my own passive assets that make more than enough money to pay back the entire indebtedness. So I end up taking roughly half of the same money that you get. You get it, do whatever you want with it. I then take that half, put it into my passive assets. I’ve got six different forms of cash flow that generate 10 to 15 % a month.
paying 3 % a month back on principal and interest. So I have a spread. Now I can take that spread and pay off the loan quicker or not. It’s up to me. I usually takes between 21 and 30 months to pay it all off. Then when I’ve repatriated those lines of credit and the credit cards are repaid, you get all of that back again. And I encourage the person if it worked the first time where they didn’t make any payments, why not do it again? So
It could be a revolving source of credit. You can get up to two shelves per person. I have a family of six that are each getting two. That’s 12. They’re going for the $750,000 funding. How much is that? That’s $10 million. You don’t see something like that that’s unsecured out of your name, which you don’t ever have to pay it back because it’s with me.
So there’s never any supply of ideas.
out there, they just are missing one thing, access to capital. Because banks are not our friends, they never have been. And if you get an angel investor or all that kind of crap, these guys just steal your stuff. You’re the entrepreneur, you bleed entrepreneurship. And it’s like, are you going to give away your great business because someone throws you a bone? You don’t need them. We eliminate the need to have… ⁓
equity partners in this. And also it’s impossible to get it anyway. Scott, you’ve been in the real estate business. How easy is it to raise money for your endeavors?
Scott Bursey (09:52)
Exactly exactly and you’re fullPeter J Burns III (09:54)
It’s never been easier. It’s never been easy,but it’s getting even worse now. know, have, the banks are puckering up because of wars and all this other kind of stuff. They don’t like things that are.
not set in stone. They’re really a bunch of babies. So I don’t even deal with them. The only thing I deal with are the issuers of our business credit cards to the corporation. There’s 91 banks we work with in credit unions. There’s a ton of those. And Visa, MasterCard, Discovered, and American Express aren’t going anywhere. The banks can come and go, but they are giants. And they’re going to be around a long time. I take advantage of that association.
and it works really well for me.
Scott Bursey (11:14)
Yes it does. can tell and I’m certainly not going to argue with your philosophy. Peter, what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to integrate the club entrepreneur model into your investments. know, proving that real estate is just as much about the community and networking as it is about the physical property. That’s not easy, especially in today’s climate.Peter J Burns III (11:37)
No, and I-I
actually established the combination of real estate with business operations over 50 years ago when I started the first moped rental business in the United States. That was my college project at the University of Virginia. And I would import mopeds from Europe to the United States and I’d rent them at American resorts. Nantucket’s been our family home for over 60 years. It was a natural. And in 10 weeks, I made 55.
rent renting mopeds for God’s sake, so as a teenager. Now when I had apothecated how much that really was 50-some odd years ago, I made more than the president of the University of Virginia, which is one of the finest institutions in the United States. So I said, why am I going back to school to learn how to earn money when I make more money than anybody else does anyway?
I was courtesy of the Army, Scott. I had been an infantry soldier at 17. I had gone through all the training and I got was fortunate enough to be appointed to West Point, NYCIS Military Academy. They plucked me out. Secretary of the Army put me in their prep school because the class had started. And then while I was there, I met the Colonel.
Colonel’s son in charge of ROTC and all of a sudden that really appealed to me. So I kept at it until they let me apply. I was not technically eligible because I was regular Army and it’s a civilian scholarship. But Scott, I don’t take no very easily. I’ll figure out a workaround. I’ll get it. It’s just like the entrepreneurship class at McIntyre School of Commerce. I wasn’t eligible for taking that class. It was only for seniors in the McIntyre School of Commerce.
which you couldn’t get into until you were a junior. I was a freshman. But guess who took the class and aced it? I did because I never quit.
Scott Bursey (13:33)
What a mindset. What a winning mindset. What’s been the key, Peter, to keeping that machine running smoothly over the years?Peter J Burns III (13:41)
Well, now as I get older, I see how many people have never had a chance to get to bat.They talk themselves out of it, Scott. They, I can’t get that. Or they get two turn downs from a bank. Banks are useless. Those people never amounted to anything anyway. And they’ve never actually accomplished anything. They’re pencil pushers. I mean, I was literally in my private banker at Chase office three or four months ago. And he said, I’m going to show you a confidential memorandum. I probably shouldn’t be saying this on tape, but I don’t give a shit. I don’t like banks anyway. And he said,
we got word on high that we’re no longer giving any business loans to anyone unless they’re a private banking client, which means they got 10 million bucks on account. So it’s like, wait a minute, the largest commercial bank in the world who’s chartered to help American entrepreneurs and businessmen has no interest in loaning money to us. I go, that is just wrong on so many levels.
Scott Bursey (14:45)
And I must add, Peter, it’s really been impressive that you’ve been able to reach this level of autonomy. Was there one specific moment or a particular deal where you realized, okay, hey, this is actually working?Peter J Burns III (15:02)
It’s fairly recently when I put the pieces together with great help by the way. It’s not like I just invent everything myself. When I put the pieces together utilizing an aid shelf corporation that raises money.in the form of business credit cards because the bankers have enhanced the value of it with trade lines and all that good stuff and it already has the age working with it.
Until I received the Burns funding portion, which is the half of the the net with the person until it hit my bank It was conjecture. It was looks good. Can it do that? Son of a bitch. It really works Scott and I’ve got millions and millions of dollars coming in and I don’t advertise that’s why these Podcasts are great because how many people have never even heard of this before and unless you’re connected
it on LinkedIn and read my blogs. I don’t advertise so you don’t know about it. And I have a very lucrative ⁓ affiliate program. I’ll give two points out of the BIRD’s funding proceeds on anybody you bring that connects the dots and makes it. I have people that are scheduled to make over million dollars already from the business that they’ve generated. And they don’t have to do anything but help their fellow entrepreneurs.
Scott Bursey (17:12)
Talkabout running efficiently. Wow, I tip my hat. Now, Peter, every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments with us?
Peter J Burns III (17:30)
I’ve hadso many in 50 years. my god, Scott. I mean, I’m a testament to…
sticking to something and never quitting because that’s the only way you actually lose. You get an awful lot of people that get jealous of what you do and if they’re in the traditional businesses, their suits, their this, they have a real business. You know, like I point out to these people, these big companies, I go, where do you think it started? All these major corporations are from an entrepreneur with blood and guts. That’s it. So I’ve had people, ⁓ god,
Here’s a good example. So I had my little business plan. I’m 19 years old. I was so proud. I got my 1A+. I’m seriously, I’m not a student. And I go to Nantucket. I had all the money in the world I had because I had saved $5,000 from hazardous duty pay that military pays you if you do things that could kill you. In my case, jumping out of planes. So I had five grand. bought 15 mopeds.
I rented a dirt lot with a popcorn stand, a little table I bought for 50 cents. I’m making more money than you could shake a stick at. I mean, I had to literally get grocery bags and cash to go to the bank to put it in the bank. You gotta remember, this is over 50 years ago. So when you’re making thousands of dollars a day,
That’s a lot of money. So what happened was this official looking bombastic asshole was the, was attached to Nantucket and he comes over and he goes, this is a cease and desist order. Mopeds can’t be rented on Nantucket. I go, since when? And he says, since last night. And I looked at the order and the one who signed it was the mayor of Nantucket who had the biggest bicycle rental
that he inherited from his grandfather, I was stepping on toes. Well, they got my Irish up, Scott. I don’t quit easily. And I put all my money and I did my research. I was completely legit. They were trying to take advantage to beat up a 19-year-old. I went to my landlord, who by the way is Walter Beinecke Jr., the Beinecke Rare Books Library of Yale. His family started ⁓ Greenstamps way back when. You’re too young.
But anyway, he was a very dynamic family member who had taken it as his personal mission to keep Nantucket the way it is. So he owned most of it. He owned all the commercial property, he controlled everything. Well, I had been friends with his major domo.
who got me the lease in the first place. You know, I only paid $500 for that lease. And you know, no one could see what I was gonna do with it. They thought, we’ll just take the kids 500 bucks. makes it, makes it, he doesn’t, doesn’t. Well, I made it. I ended up, just to let you know, in the real estate business, I bought that entire city block in two years. I paid $1.1 million. I sold just the front lot with the popcorn stand for $2.5 million two
years later. So I use real estate to enhance the value of my business that supports the debt on it. A little moped stand nets 60 cents on the dollar. So if I was doing 500,000 in rentals, I’m netting 300,000, which is what I was doing on Sanibel Island. I bought an entire city block. Anyway, I digress. My major domo of Walter Beinecke Jr.
introduced me to an attorney and she said, we use this attorney whenever there’s a problem with the town of Nantucket. He beats them every single time. So I went up, she set up the meeting, this guy liked me.
I gave him a retainer check. I don’t know how much it was for, He never cashed it. He just liked me. And he decided to go to bat for me. Because I was a Connecticut resident, he immediately took the action at the federal court. We didn’t like Nantucket anyway, because they’re always whining like little bitches. And so he came in and we won on a temporary injunction, permanent injunction.
We changed the law. I mean, we did everything. And then the guy got me a million dollars in damages. And we’re talking 50 years ago on each of the board of selectmen.
It would bankrupt all of them. So, and I’m only telling you all this as a backup. So I won, it was all over the place. I think we even made the Wall Street Journal. Nantucket was going to secede from the United States because I was beating the piss out of him with my lawyer. Long story short, I’m having a drink at the Jared Coffin Tap House. I’m in the restroom.
These two gnarly looking fishermen came in behind me. It was pretty crowded. And they said, you won, you can operate your business. You set aside all of the damages on, because there are brothers, there are uncles, you’re going to bankrupt all of them. If you don’t do that, we’re going to take you on a fishing trip tonight that’s only one way.
They were serious about it. So I have had many challenges and that’s as a a mere teenager way back when they were going to freaking kill me.
Scott Bursey (23:11)
And all of this before the age of when most people graduate from college. Let me ask you this. What are you? At a curve that most people would just feel unimaginable. Let me ask you this.Peter J Burns III (23:17)
yeah. They definitely grew up fast.There have been many
challenges along the way. It’s got the only thing, the only way you can lose is if you quit.
If you do workarounds and just pound it away and do workarounds and you you figure it out. If you want something bad enough, you’ll get it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have survived the infantry training, which damn near killed me. was in Fort Polk, Louisiana in the summertime. They call that the only hole above ground. Mosquitoes big enough to rape turkeys. It was pretty bad. It was an all volunteer army back then. believe it or not, Scott, I had never met a
a
black person before that experience. Because I grew up in New Canaan, Connecticut. It’s about as lily-white as you’re gonna get. I didn’t know to be worried about black people, but I was worried about them in basic training in the summer in this God-forbidden place, but I survived, you know, and thrived, and thrived.
Scott Bursey (24:28)
Yes you did and thrived.May I ask, what’s the next real goal for you? What do you have on your plate now at this stage of your career, Peter?
Peter J Burns III (24:39)
I have ten grandchildren from two beautiful daughters. I haven’t been married for thirty years. I really suck at being married. But I love them so much. Two daughters each have twins. I’m going to fund the educations from all ten of them. I’m going to take the…onus of how much they can afford to send these kids to college and then grad school. It’s going to cost me 20 million, Scott, because after taxes is 10 million. And my financial planner told me 10 million bucks is what’s going to cost you at these days prices for 10 grandchildren are spread across the thing. I can’t think of a better goal than to help future generations of my progeny to relieve the strain off my children.
and that’s what I’m gonna do.
Scott Bursey (25:31)
That is awesome and I bet you it’s a special Christmas around your household for the grandkids. Now I know a lot of ourPeter J Burns III (25:37)
Well, I’m goingto bring all of them out to La Jolla. I do that in the summertime. I rent a big house and put 15 of them in it and they love each other. It’s great. And I could go there, the decibel of sound from 10 children and it’s pretty loud. So I can drop them off, have a great time, enjoy, and then keep coming back. I get to see all of them. So that’s what I love. I love family.
Scott Bursey (26:03)
And that’s themain thing, having that closeness right there. And I also know, Peter, that our audience, a lot of them are earlier in their journey, and they can learn from somebody of your pedigree. And they’re looking to level up.
Peter J Burns III (26:08)
100%.Scott Bursey (26:21)
And they like to benefit from hearing this and when it comes to building relationships and growth. Let me ask you this. What’s made the biggest difference for you?Peter J Burns III (26:35)
Well, I’m a big advocate of select groups that you could belong to. I was one of the original founders of YEO with Michael Dell.Neil Balter, California closets, Peter Thomas, century 21. We were all under the age of 30, but we were all multimillionaires. And it was sort of like, we were like redheaded stepchildren. This was back in 87. And we just had to have the support between ourselves. So I advocate getting involved in the specialty knowledge that you’d like to learn and be a fly on the wall. Listen to it. I started.
at WIU and then years later, while I was at ⁓ Baren Honors College, I would give the ⁓ classmates that were taking my class a business idea to flesh out if they didn’t have one of their own to come up with a little business plan.
And so I started the next generation of YEO in the form of club entrepreneur. So I may or may not be the founder of the first we work type office, but I’m right there in the beginning because I housed 30 businesses that were members of club entrepreneur had a, uh, 200 person, uh, presentation where I bring my friends who people love to hear their experiences.
kind of ran it. was great. It was like the seventh floor of a high-rise in Phoenix. And it was freaking great. I just walk around. I was just amazed at the talent. The only thing America has left is our innovativeness, which is another word for entrepreneurship. That’s it. We can’t make stuff as cheaply as other countries, but we can sure put it together, connect the dots, and create a business out of it.
unlike anyone else in the world.
Scott Bursey (28:40)
There’s a lot of credits to what you just said. Peter, everyone says provide value, but when you were starting out and didn’t have a huge bank account or a massive portfolio, what would ⁓ you say your currency was? How did you actually get the attention of the heavy hitters?Peter J Burns III (28:59)
Well, I’ve never been shy. I’ll talk to anyone. And it has to do a lot with my upbringing, Scott. We may not have been handed a blank check, but my family had a lot of money. My grandfather, ⁓ he became the money behind the largest independent oil company in the world. And he did it basically…Scott Bursey (29:23)
ThankPeter J Burns III (29:25)
screwing the IRS legally. What happened was he was the head of sterling drug, know, bare aspirin. They had a required… ⁓At 65 years old, they required him to retire. Well, he was going to have to sell so much stock to pay the taxes. It just drove him crazy. He was never a fan of the IRS or a government. Well, what happened was at this time that Grandad was going through his retirement, figuring out what to do, OPEC decided to turn the screws on us.
And you’re too young, but I was in line every other day to get gas, along with millions of other Americans.
Our government got so angry at the Arabs that they enacted the oil depletion allowance. The oil depletion allowance took anyone that was on the list that the government approved of that were gas and oil, ⁓ wildcatters and people in that business, they were approved. And if you selected one, you gave them the money and…
For instance, my granddad was gonna give them all the money that he would have had to pay taxes and thinking, if I lose it, I make 700 % because the government offered a 700 % return forward or backward for whatever money went to these people. Well, granddad trying to lose the money and not pay the IRS ended up hitting seven straight wells and my family, my grandfather was worth $50 million.
60 years ago. There was no Forbes 400 back then.
And we always lived very nicely. And, but I didn’t even really get it, but we were one of America’s wealthiest families at that time. And all of us knew we were entitled to great wealth, but it wasn’t being the money. was being in the association, being able to play golf at Woodway country club, going to the university of Virginia. went to Harvard business school. It was.
It was laid out there, but we had to pick it up. My father never said, hey, Peter, great idea. Here’s a million bucks. All of us earned it ourselves, but we had the benefit of great, familiar support. And I knew everyone. I went to school with Kit Watson. He’s the heir to the IBM fortune. These are not insignificant companies. His dad was Arthur K. Watson, he was the US ambassador to France.
George
Soros’ nephew, Peter Soros, and we’ve been since we were 10 years old. Now his dad was way nicer than George. George is a total asshole. But let’s face it, he’s worth $45 billion. He’s a very powerful man. But his nephew was my best friend since I was 10 years old. those are the people I met. And then you throw me into Fort Paul, Calisiana, and I basically live or die. It was tough,
It was tough.
Scott Bursey (32:39)
great building block of relationships. And relationships are everything in your space for certain. All right, Peter. Absolutely. So before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to contact you?Peter J Burns III (32:48)
Let’s go into the realm as your relationships.100
% they go to my website burnsfunding.com on that website they’ll learn everything about my financial business and all the other stuff
Everything about what I do then what they do if they have any interest now in the future of getting money get pre-qualified There’s a button that you press doesn’t impact your credit It produces all three of your credit reports that are all 60 pages long then my bankers analyze and all the good stuff Then you just go on to my calendar link. That’s also on my website book a call We can talk about anything I book like I said five six ten twelve of these every day
in half hour increments. I’m in La Jolla so I’m in Pacific ⁓ time but I’ll talk to anyone because you never know the opportunities that you can open the door with.
Scott Bursey (33:56)
I totallyagree. couldn’t agree more, Peter. Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story, and definitely your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. Thanks again for being here. And for those of you who… it has been…
Peter J Burns III (34:13)
Thank you for the opportunity, Scott, and all of your audience outthere, I’ll help as many of you as I can just reach out. And thank you for this opportunity, Scott.
Scott Bursey (34:22)
It has been our distinct pleasure. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming up with operators just like Peter, who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you in the next episode, everybody.Peter J Burns III (34:26)
Thank you.Thank you
my friend. Bye bye now.
