Starting Out With $200 and Investing for Profit AND Cash Flow With Marcus Maloney (Part 1, Pre-Coronavirus)

Brandon:
Marcus, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast, man. Good to have you here.

Marcus:
Thanks Brandon. Thanks for having me. And thank you David.

Brandon:
Yeah, so this is going to be a lot of fun today. So I know a little bit about you only because you write for the BiggerPockets blog. I see your name around all the time, but I don’t know your story. So I’m kind of excited to dig into that today. So why don’t we start at the beginning then? Like how did you get into real estate?

Marcus:
Well, I’ll go back a little bit Brandon. First of all, just letting you know I grew up about 60 miles South of Chicago on a farm and my grandfather and my mother, what we had to do in order to get school clothes for the next school year was we had to… We would go to an auction, we’d buy a small little piglet and we would have to feed that piglet over the summer, make them as fat as possible, take them back to the auction for the fall and see what kind of profits we make. And that’s how we got our school clothes. So I learned very early how to be entrepreneurial. And just from that man we kind of spawned and did other things. My mom started a nonprofit in Illinois and that’s really how I got started in real estate is because we were buying these properties and we were transitioning families into them. And I was doing human resources at the time, but I found myself constantly going out with the contractors and hanging out with them and checking up on the work and see how things were going. And then while I knew that this was my actual mission, this is what I was supposed to be doing and that’s kind of how I got started in the real estate.

Marcus:
But I took a back seat because my brother was four years older than me. He went to college and everybody was like, “Well, Mark, you need to be like Mike, you need to go to school. You need to go to college, you need to get a degree. What are you doing? You’re just bumming around.” So I fell to the pure pressure and went and got a college degree, got a master’s degree and not doing anything with it. So I found my own path, moved to Phoenix, and when I moved to Phoenix, I was promised a job but once I got out here, they rescinded the offer. So I had me, my family, we moved 1500 miles away. So I immediately had to get to work and I figured that during this time was the best for me to really do what I wanted to do. Yes, I could go out and just get some menial job because I had a master’s degree, but I really wanted to do what I wanted to do, which was my passion was real estate.

Marcus:
So I started listening to BiggerPockets. Actually, I was listening to BiggerPockets on my drive from Chicago to Arizona and that’s how I found you guys. And I was like, man, you know what? I don’t have any idea what they’re talking about, about direct mail and yellow letters and stamps and envelopes. But during that time, I just knew real estate was my passion and I didn’t have any money so wholesaling was my entry into real estate.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. All right, so you’re listening to us and you kind of… What there very first deal and the first thing you did on your own there, what did that look like?

Marcus:
Okay, so the first deal I did on my own was I did a small… I started with 200 bucks Brandon. I had a small $200 first premier credit card and I said, you know what? Everything that I hear about is just being consistent. So I would mail 10 letters a day, hand-write on, put my own stamps on and mail them every day. And then I got a call from a lady and she had a single family house, but then it had a guest house in the back and I talked with her, negotiate it, got it for $50,000. I couldn’t justify the rehab costs or anything like that. So I’m really just winging it. So got it for 50K and then I immediately posted it on Craigslist. So you know how old this is, I’m talking about Craigslist. And honestly it was about 10 minutes, 15 minutes later I got a message. Somebody gave me a call and they said that they will buy it for $69,000. So I’m thinking, “Wow, this is 19 grand right off the bat.” You know, my first deal and went through…

Marcus:
I didn’t know how to talk to the seller. I didn’t know how to talk to the buyer. I didn’t know if my numbers was right. I didn’t have a title company. So right now I’m just flying by the seat of my pants, but I knew, hey, I got a master’s degree. I could figure it out even though I’m not doing anything with the degree, I could figure it out. And lo and behold, we closed that and it was $19,000 and my wife she really understood what I was doing and then I just spawned from there.

David:
So are you saying that the key to getting your spouse on board with real estate is to bring home a check for $19,000 to start the conversation?

Marcus:
That’s right, man. You got to have some money when you got a wife like mine’s man, money talks, everything else is nothing.

David:
I like that but it actually… I mean it’s a joke, but if you think about it, somebody was asking me, how do you get people to believe in the power of real estate when they’re naysayers like, “Hey David, how did you get people to believe in you?” And I thought about, and I said, I really didn’t even talk about it till I’d already done it successfully. They really couldn’t deny what I was… the power of real estate because I had already owned a bunch of rental properties and made a bunch of money and had a bunch of equity and it had like, it’d changed my life. I didn’t have to work as much as other people did. And I think there’s something to be said for before you try to win people over. Go do it, be successful and have a little bit of firepower behind you. Because I can see how, “Honey I want us to invest in real estate.” And all like the what ifs start in her mind and then you put a check down that probably quiets a lot of those questions.

Marcus:
Yeah. And not only that, David, remember we moved out here. I didn’t have a job. She was really the primary breadwinner at the time and it always was like, “Okay, you got a master’s degree go and get a job.” And I was like, “Well no, that’s not what I want to do. If I wanted to just work, I could have stayed in Illinois.” So it was really that paradigm shift and then that’s when I started reading Robert Kiyosaki’s stuff and I was like, “Okay, I’m just going to jump out here and do it.” And at the time I wasn’t a young buck either.

Brandon:
Yeah. Hey, how old were you when you started that?

Marcus:
I was 36.

Brandon:
All right. That’s good to hear because a lot of times I think on our show because we have a lot of like the 20 year old, the 25 year old, it’s like, well look at this. And so it’s good to know you can get start it later. I mean not like 36 is late in life, but you can start at a later in life, and it works. I mean I’ve had people talk to me that are 50 years old, 60 years old saying, “Can I still do this?” And my answer is usually, “Well I started when I was 20 with no experience, no knowledge, no idea what I was doing at all.” We didn’t even have BiggerPockets like we did today. Didn’t have podcasts, didn’t have the webinars and by 27 I was able to quit my job. So if I can do it in seven years with none of that, somebody who is 60 with all that life experience and all of that, everything they’ve got to bring to table, yeah, it doesn’t really matter what age you get in. It’s doable and probably a lot faster than I did it.

Brandon:
Now before we jump into more of your story, that first deal was a wholesale deal.

Marcus:
Yes.

Brandon:
Can you explain what that is? For those who don’t know, maybe they are brand new to the podcast today. They’re not sure what this is. What is wholesaling and how does that work?

Marcus:
So basically wholesaling is, you’re leveraging the seller actually. So what you’re doing is you’re marketing to a seller that’s in some kind of distress situation. So they may be going through pre-foreclosure, it may be an absentee owner, which is the landlord who’s currently doing an eviction or somebody that’s behind on tax liens. Actually this property, this deal was a tax default deal. So I talked to the seller, told the seller, “Hey, we can pay $50,000 for it.” Put up the earnest money. So now we have control of that deal. And during that time I had a 14 business day inspection period. So I had almost a month to try and find my back end buyer. So with that being said, that’s when I posted the property on Craigslist, had someone to give me a call and now I just match the buyer and the seller together. I had the spread in the middle, which was the assignment agreement. And then we went to the closing table and I got the $19,000. The seller was able to sell the property and the buyer was able to get a good deal.

Brandon:
Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. That’s good. Wholesaling is a fascinating concept because you’re… I mean there’s wholesale in any industry, right? You can go to China and buy toilets for $12 and then sell them to Home Depot for $40 and home Depot sells them to you for 100. And so like there’s a wholesaler in the middle of a lot of different businesses. This is just real estate. Now there are, and we are not lawyers, we’re not going to go into depth and what the right and wrong way, but just understand if you’re listening to this and you’re like, that sounds amazing. There are legal ways to do this and there are illegal ways to do it and depending on what state you’re in, it’s different states have different rules. So just make sure you guys do your homework and make sure you’re not doing anything wrong.

Brandon:
The illegal part usually comes from practicing real estate without a license and some states define wholesaling as… And yes that is only a couple of do that that I know of that are really strict on it but even people, that people are still wholesaling there. So again, there’s ways to do it, there’s ways around the rules. You just got to make sure you’re doing it right.

Marcus:
And to make sure that I was doing it right, Brandon, I went out and I invested my time, energy and money and I got my real estate license that way I wouldn’t run into any roadblocks because I always… Again, I had a family, so I didn’t want to go to jail, that wouldn’t be the right way to start off my life here in Arizona. But there was one chief thing that you said earlier in the conversation and you were talking about some self limiting beliefs, right? That was me. I was like, I’m 33, the people that I hear on BiggerPockets they are in their 20s, am I too old. And then you have the young people that say, “Am I too young?”

Brandon:
Yeah.

Marcus:
So there’s letting people know, “Hey, you just got to quiet that noise that’s in your head and get out there and just start it.”

David:
Well, a lot of the other noise that you hear is, I’m not ready yet. People think they got to build up a buyer’s list and they got to have like a lot of pieces in place so when they get the deal it’s all lined up, but that’s really not how most success works in business or being entrepreneur. What you did was you went and found the deal and then you scramble to put all the other pieces together. If you had waited til you had a list of buyers from Craigslist before you went looking for the deal, you never would have ever got anywhere and I really like to highlight that part because so many things in life work that way. You don’t know what step three is going to be until you get to step two. You have a very hazy idea what step two is going to be when you’re on step one, if anything.

David:
But you feel the motivation to move along once you start the process. Like once you had that deal, you felt, “Man, I got to go find a buyer. Where am I going to look? Okay. I know people look on Craigslist.” I start talking to my friends. Maybe you went to a real estate meet up and you told people, “Hey, I got a deal for whatever it was, $65,000 who wants to buy this thing?” And then you realize, “Oh, that worked. I could do that again. Where else could I do something that’s just like that?” And that’s really like how you build up a business and a system.

Marcus:
It is, and I always tell people it’s not just the perseverance and tenacity, but you got to have faith. I had to believe that I was able to do this, that was one of the things. It was like… I had these self limiting beliefs, but I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to throw caution to the wind and I’m just going to get out here and do it.” And if I fail, you know what, so well, so what? I can fall back on this master’s degree, I’m not doing anything with. So I really had to jump out there and take that leap of faith. Because again, I had a five-year-old, or six-year-old, and the 13-year-old, plus my wife. So everyone was looking to me like, “Hey, you better make this work.”

David:
That’s awesome. Okay. So what came next?

Marcus:
So after that, so I had the $19,000 and I had to set some to the side because again, I didn’t have any other income coming in. So I paid up rent for some months in advance and paid my tithes, paid 10% to a charitable contribution. And then I used that money, and I kept marketing. So I went back and I said, okay, well if I did this one, let me try and do it again and honestly just do what I did before. And now I just started marketing and doing more. So I started putting a lot of that money into marketing. And-

Brandon:
Can I make a quick point before we get to the marketing because I really want to get that, but I want to make sure we touch this beforehand. I love the fact that you said I took part of the profit and I paid it forward basically. A tithe that I give to a charitable organization. So many people out there are saying… They have this concept of, I’m going to start giving money away when I’m rich. But I’ve always believed that if you have $1,000 and you can’t give $100, you’re not going to give 10,000, when you have 100,000, you’re not going to give 100,000 when you have a million. Like giving is kind of a heart issue more than it is a dollar issue. And so I love the fact that you just said, I’m going to set this aside right now and give that. And there’s also something that just frees us in our mind when we do that, that says, releases our grip on money in the scarcity mindset we have.

Marcus:
And that was actually one of the reasons why I did it, Brandon, is because, part of my backstory, which I didn’t tell was, I sold drugs for… But I was very unsuccessful. I was the worst drug dealer there was. And that was because of my conscience.

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:16:39].

Marcus:
You know I knew the terrible effects that it was having, but I was making this money and I wasn’t really doing anything with it. And then I went through a period of being completely dead broke, and I’m a firm believer in Jesus Christ, and it always talks about tithe and paying it forward. So I said, you know what, let me just try this and see what happens. And then when I started tithing faithfully, it’s like those seeds just start materializing, and I started finding other deals coming from everywhere and started networking with the right people and then my business just started blooming.

Brandon:
Yeah. This is great study, and I’m going to kind of butcher it now, but basically there’s this guy who did this study showing like two identical families. One just gives an extra like $100 a year versus the other one. And everything was the same about them. I mean, apparently everything was the same about the two families in the study, yet the family who gave the extra $100 made an extra 300 and some dollars a year, like actually earn more. So there’s something about the act of giving that actually makes people earn more, which is crazy. But pretty much every religion, every faith out there has some kind of thing about that. Like when you give you, you get back.

Brandon:
And I’m not saying like you got $100 today and you’re automatically get $300 tomorrow, but there’s something in here that we’re programmed to release our hold on money and to be less greedy and it comes back to us, so that’s [crosstalk 00:17:59].

Marcus:
And you’re absolutely right, Brandon. Absolutely right. And money is currency, so it has to continuously flow. And if it don’t flow, then you’ll lose it, you know? So that’s one of the things that I learned about it. So that was my entry into real estate, was really doing these wholesale deals and still doing it right now. And one thing that I also wanted to share was the person that really became my mentor and showed me how to do everything, and the reason why I became a mentor, is because one of the first failed deals that I did, I sent it out. I had this small little buyer’s list and he looked at it, he said, “Dude, what are you doing?” He said, “You’re sending out a property that’s at retail price trying to get a wholesale deal on it.” And at the time he called me in and he was like, “Look, sit down. Let’s talk. Let me show you how to do this.” And I started working with him. So I started getting that education. And that education really helped me build that confidence.

Marcus:
And now that person that I was working with, that was my understudy, now we’re virtually wholesaling and he’s a partner of mine.

Brandon:
That’s cool. That’s awesome man. All right, so you took that money, you paid your tithe, you probably pay some taxes on that, you dumped it into marketing to generate more deals. And so now you’ve got a marketing machine happening. What kind of marketing, were you sticking with, and what do you do to… I mean, let’s go. What were you doing and what are you doing today to generate leads?

Marcus:
I was doing direct mail then.

Brandon:
Okay.

Marcus:
Strictly direct mail. And now I’m doing direct mail, plus I’m doing some cold calling, and some text messaging. But still the majority of my leads come from direct mail.

Brandon:
Nice. And what have you found has been… What’s worked well? Because I know different things work in different areas for different people for different reasons. What has worked well for you in direct mail?

Marcus:
Well, with direct mail, it’s a professional letter, full color, with a professional envelope, full color. I don’t subscribe to the postcards. I know there’s people who have the impression that they’re cheaper, but if you’re with a local mail house, they’ll teach you how to send out that professional letter, what a professional envelope is saying, plus there’re people who are sending postcards. So when they get that professional letter, they are looking at this as, this is a legit business versus someone sending a handwritten letter or something like that. Not to say that those don’t work, but we’ve just been having a higher open rate and response rate with it, with the professional level.

Brandon:
That’s awesome to hear. Yeah. Because you’ll find people who swear the opposite works for them, and something different. It ends up by, you don’t know until you start doing it and start trying it. But I love the fact that you just did it, you took the money, you dumped it back into it, it started producing leads, and is still working today. So that’s awesome. So let’s get to kind of a… This is the question David usually asked, but overall overarching view of your investments today. Like what all do you do? Are you doing any rentals? Are you doing any flips? Or you’re just wholesaling?

Marcus:
Yes. Okay, so wholesaling was my entry. Got into that and then I started taking some of the money that I was making from the wholesale, and I knew that I needed passive income, because if I don’t close a deal, or don’t close two deals, then what am I going to do? I’m back to zero. So I took that money and I started… I paid off some debts, got my credit together, and then I started buying some rentals. I was buying some rentals back in the Midwest, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 rentals, and they were turning, bringing me $750 gross, which was about, $500, $400, $500 net.

Marcus:
And I just started building on that and building those. That way, if I come to a point where I don’t close a wholesale transaction, I still have $4,000, $5,000 coming in a month. So that’s where I’m at right now. And then I started listening to you, Brandon, about the bird method.

Brandon:
[inaudible 00:21:43].

Marcus:
So I said, okay well, I’m going to try that, so I would buy these properties, undervalue, put $10,000, $15,000 into them, get them leased up, and that way I would then pull that equity out and go and buy another one. So I’ve been really focusing on doing that more. So now we’re still doing the wholesale, but we know that that passive income, is really the meat and potatoes. And in the midst of doing that, we found, and I noticed maybe a little bit off topic, but we found a turn of the century school that was built in 1897 and we converted that. When I say we, my family and my partner, we converted that into a daycare.

Marcus:
So we purchased that property for $70,000 and put another $30,000 into it. So we were all in there like a hundred and now that property, every month we get $2,250 on them.

David:
Are you running the daycare or are you leasing it to somebody who runs it?

Marcus:
Leasing it. We’re leasing it out to someone.

David:
Oh that’s awesome. So you basically like, I don’t know, investing in real estate, that investor, like commercial. Basically invest in commercial real estate at that point.

Marcus:
Commercial.

David:
Yeah. So you’re not dealing with a… Yeah, that’s cool. My mom did daycare all growing up. My mom’s job was, she did in our house daycare. And I’m actually a fairly… I’m a very big believer in that business model. Not that I’m going to jump into a daycare center, but I’m actually a big believer, because it’s like reoccurring subscription revenue that will never end no matter what. We are always having kids and people are always doing it, and parents aren’t working less these days. They’re only working more, which means there’s more need all the time. And so that’s a cool recession resistant business right there.

Marcus:
Yeah. And the good part about it, guys is that, I said we have the nonprofit back in Illinois. So the daycare is affiliated with our nonprofits. So the lease is a triple net lease. I don’t have to worry about paying anything. They pay everything. Actually my sister in law is the one that runs the daycare, so I’m pretty much hands off and I know that that money is coming in every month.

David:
Yeah.

Marcus:
Like clockwork.

David:
That’s awesome. So how many rentals did you end up with in the Midwest?

Marcus:
So in the Midwest I have nine doors currently.

David:
Okay. And then I know one thing that really appeals to people about wholesaling is that you can kind of cherry pick the deals you want to keep and then sell the rest. Are you keeping anything you generate in Phoenix or are you just taking the money and putting it into rental properties in the Midwest?

Marcus:
I’m just taking the money and putting it into rental properties in the Midwest and that’s because I’m just getting the returns, better returns out there. Now properties appreciate it so much here in Phoenix to where you know you’re really not making any money.

David:
Tough to cashflow.

Marcus:
Yep. Tough to cashflow.

David:
So then who are typically your end buyers, that you’re wholesaling it to?

Marcus:
Fix and flippers? Fix and flippers, and we just did one that was going to a landlord. So it was a small bill and he said he wanted it, and we just flipped it on over to him. We were going to keep it and just use it as a rental, but it was a little bit too small for us. So we just put it out there to our buyers list just to see what happens. And someone raised their hand and we made seven, eight grand on that.

David:
So tell me a little bit about what your business looks like. How many people do you have answering the phone? How many phone calls are coming in? How do you filter from a lead that calls and says, “I got your mail too, I’m closing on this deal”?

Marcus:
Okay. So basically we have three acquisitions managers and then, we have one field guy that’s running out going to the properties. So the acquisition managers, they do everything from the intake all the way to closing. So they’re scheduling everything, negotiating everything, and they’re making sure we get to the goal line with it. So what we do is we… How we decide on which ones we’re going to keep, because we do fix and flip also, so we just look at the margins. If the margins are real thin and we’re like, okay, well, it’s not in the area that we want to be in, or it doesn’t fit our model, then that’s one that we’ll wholesale out.

Marcus:
If it’s one that we look at, and we say like, I just did one, well, I’ll say that for the big deal. The-

David:
Big deal deep dive. Yeah.

Marcus:
Yeah. DDD. So that’s how we make our decision. We look at them and we have some core areas in the Midwest that we invest in. And if it’s within that core areas, and the numbers work for us, then we’ll either fix and flip it, or we’ll hold on to it. If not, then we’ll just wholesale it out.

Brandon:
Hey, I have a question on that. I love the idea of having an acquisition manager or acquisition managers. Can you explain how do you find a good acquisitions manager? How are you paying them the salary, the commission-based? Anything you can go on that would help me. I know.

Marcus:
Sure. So actually I found the majority of my acquisitions managers through BiggerPockets.

Brandon:
Nice.

Marcus:
And the reason being is because I blog… And I blog on the site and then people started contacting me, “Hey man, I’m trying to get started, I’m trying to learn.” And then I knew this particular area that we wanted to be in. So the people that were in that area, I would vet them, I will fly out some time, I will do a zoom call and conference and vet them, and then we will just let them start doing some call intakes, and see, and we will record the calls and see how good they are. And then we just started hiring them, and then we give them 15% on each deal that close.

Marcus:
So from lead intake to closing table, they close out the deal. They get 15% and then if we do a flip, then they’ll whole… They have to be patient until the property closes, then they get 15% of the profits.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. So here’s what I want to say. And everybody out there listening to this, like from two sides, right? There are people out there that have a good business going right now, but you need a scale larger, or needs to reduce their hours they’re spending in their business and they work on their business, not in it. So that you can find these people all around, like start networking. You don’t happen to even necessarily have a blog that definitely helps us writing and putting content out there, but even just attending local BiggerPockets meetups, chatting with people, having those conversations, you can find young, eager, excited, not always young but younger excited people.

Brandon:
And if you’re that eager, excited real estate, like up and coming, like what a great opportunity to learn from somebody who’s been there, who’s doing it, and to make some money on the side. I mean, I know like, yeah, it’s such a phenomenal win-win.

Marcus:
And that’s how I got started, Brandon. I mean, I started bird-dogging. So I would just go out and try and find these deals, and in the midst of doing that, I was finding contractors. I was finding other wholesalers, I was finding buyers. So I was just creating this pool of people that I knew eventually in the future that I would end up doing some business with. And that’s why I want to tell people, you have to be patient, it don’t happen overnight, you got to start building these processes and building report with these people and you’ll find yourself in amazing positions in finding amazing deals. That’s all.

David:
Marcus, I want to ask you for the people who come to you and say, “Hey, I really want to learn wholesaling. Can I come work in your company? I’ll do whatever it takes.” Because there’s a lot of that, that goes around people that say they do whatever it takes. What do you find are the key traits that lead to someone being successful in the role of an acquisition manager frequently?

Brandon:
Good question.

Marcus:
One of the things that they have to, they have to be tenacious. They can’t give up easily. And I know that sounds so simplistic, but you just don’t know how many people that we talked to, and they say, “Hey, I want to do this.” And I say, “Okay. Well go and do these three things. Very simple things. Go and do these three things. I’ll call you back in a week or two, or the next month and see what you did.” Lot of times they don’t even do it, but they want to be Instagram millionaires and they want to be Facebook stars, but they’re not going out there and putting in the work. So guys, you’re listening, you just have to put in the work, you have to sacrifice, turn the TV off, get off Instagram, stop chatting and get out there and hit the streets and start trying to find some deals. And those people will take you seriously.

Marcus:
And that’s the reason why I was able to find great mentors, is because I was out there making the mistakes. I was beating the streets. I was at the meetups saying, “Hey, I don’t understand this. I got this deal that’s at retail.” And everybody was like, “This guy, I don’t know what he’s doing.” But I was willing to look foolish, at a later age, I wasn’t too older, but I was able to get out there and be vulnerable.

David:
Now what about… How much has your personality changed from the guy who was on the phone trying to talk to a seller directly, to the person who actually went in there, has the conversation, closes it, gets a contract sign and puts it down the pipeline?

Marcus:
Same person. I mean, I-

David:
Did you learn skills? Like verbal skills, with how to talk to people, or like…

Marcus:
Yeah. You just got to kind of have that voice inflection. You have to mimic the seller, you have to be patient. I’ll give you an example. Had a seller in Chicago, I’m here in Arizona and I had to vet them. I did actually handheld this one myself, because every now and then I like to get on the phone and I like to show my acquisition managers, “Hey, I still got this.”

David:
Yeah.

Marcus:
So got on the phone with him. I never met him. We only spoke over the phone. I was able to walk him all the way through and at the end of the day he put the contract, return the contract back to me in the mail. So I’ll take some time to tell you this. This is what I did. So I vetted them over the phone, ran my comps over the phone, called him back and I said, “Hey Mr seller this is what we can offer you for the property.” He agreed, however, he was not tech savvy. He was older, so I had to put that contract in the mail overnight to them, and then I stayed on the phone for like an hour and a half going through the contract, line by line for him so he can understand the contract.

Marcus:
We put the contract back in the mail. I received that. I didn’t have to call him back confirm, “Hey Mr Seller, I received the contract. Thank you.” Next step of the way is I’m going to sign everything, send it off to our attorney, attorney will send it off to our escrow company, we’ll open escrow, you will be in contact with our attorney. So it’s basically, you have to know the different personalities, David, that you’re talking to on the phone. Some people you have to hold their hand and walk them all the way through. Others, they just want to know what’s the top dollar you can give me.

Marcus:
If you don’t work for them, okay, fine, so be it. We’ll put you in our followup system and give you a call down the road, but again, it takes patience. You have to know who you’re talking with. You can’t be afraid to get on the phone. But to answer your question, David, when I first started this, I hated talking on the phone. You can ask my wife, she’s like, “You never talk on the phone, but when someone calls about a lead, oh, you’re ready to jump on the phone.” I said, “Well, you better be glad I’m ready to jump on the phone because those $19,000 checks it’ll make you very happy.”

David:
That’s so funny. I say that to the agents on my team when a lead comes in and they don’t want to take the call. And I’ll say, why? Like well I was eating lunch. And I’ll say, okay, what were you eating? I was eating a sandwich. And I’ll say, that was a $900,000 buyer. You just walked away from $23,500 commission. Like was that a $23,000 sandwich that you were eating? Right. But my mind has tweaked to learn to look at things that way. And it kind of ties into what I was hoping you’d say and you absolutely did. A lot of the newbies who get into real estate investing and there’s all kinds of ways, there’s wholesaling, there’s flipping, there’s buying rentals and multifamily. There’s even being a real estate agent in a sense you’re still working in the real estate world.

Marcus:
Yup.

David:
They want to take the version of themselves they are right now and make it work in a new world and a lot of us, the way that we learn how to work is we start in a very big company and the bigger company that you’re in, the less you can get away with doing. You could have a very specific skillset when your company has 500 people and all you have to do is like a financials or all you have to do is answer a phone or maybe support somebody else who’s in sales. But when you get into our world, it’s like entrepreneurial world where you get a really big piece of that pie. You’ve got to do a lot of the different jobs and people that don’t do well walk in with this expectation that they’re going to be themselves in the new world and get the same results they’ve always got. And as an entrepreneur, you cannot think that way. You’ve got to think, “I will become whatever I need to be in this world. I don’t like talking on the phone, well, I’m going to have to learn how to talk on the phone.” Right. I don’t like to be interrupted when I’m eating. I like my downtime.”

David:
Well then you’re going to lose $23,000 because that lead doesn’t care that you’re eating a sandwich. They don’t really care how you feel at all. And that’s one of the things I think that when when I look at somebody and they say, hey, I want to do this, I’ll usually test them. Like, do you understand that you’re not going to just be able to look at an Excel spreadsheet all day long, that you actually in this role have to be somewhat engaging with people and are you willing to make that change? Are you willing, like you said, to be rejected and look like a fool at the meetups? I bet you nine other people start the same time as you. You’re the only one willing to look like a fool. You’re the one who learns at a rate 50 times faster than them. They’ll eventually get to where you are 15 years later because they don’t want to go out there. They don’t want to put themselves out there. No one’s giving them advice.

David:
And I just want all the listeners to understand you could do anything in the world that you want to do if you’re willing to adapt to whatever you have to adapt to to do it, you know? And this world is… You’re able to, when it’s just your personality, right? I couldn’t change my body to be like a horse jockey. That’s not going to happen. I don’t have the ability to go be a horse jockey, right.

Marcus:
No, I don’t think so.

David:
Right. But maybe I could have the body of an NFL football player if I really, really worked super hard, but I’m never going to be like an NBA center. There’s physical limitations on what you can do in that world, but in this world, there’s nothing but your own attitude that determines how well you’ll do. And if people understand, if I go work for Marcus, I’m going to have to do these things and they’re willing to do it and they just do it until they become callous, then it doesn’t work… but it doesn’t bother them anymore. They will be successful. You’ve created an environment where the phone is ringing and people have houses they want to sell. You’ve got leads. That’s what a business needs, right?

Marcus:
Yeah.

David:
You need people that can convert those needs and every business has something like that. They all have a position that if you’re willing to adapt and change yourself and become tenacious, not worried about rejection, get comfortable using a spreadsheet, whatever it is that’s holding you back, you can do well in that industry.

Marcus:
You’re absolutely right, David. And one of the things that I had to do to make sure I had that was, I had these daily confessions everyday because again, I wasn’t the people person. I didn’t go out. I didn’t talk to people. I was always just a thinker, strategize and everything like that and I have someone else to execute. So every morning I had to get up and I had to speak these confessions over myself, “I am a people person.” And things like that. And then I started to adapt and I started to become that person. I know a lot of people think, all of this mindset stuff is just a bunch of rah rah rah. But I mean, I’m proof that it absolutely works because there was some key things that I had to deal with personally in order for me to get to where I am now and I know that if I didn’t deal with those things, I wouldn’t be where I am.

David:
Yeah. Would you agree that that’s everyone we’ve ever seen that turned the corner being successful was exactly what Mark has said? Is there was a part of their personality that had to change, some wound they experienced early in life that caused them to be a certain way, they had to let go of it.

Brandon:
That’s the thing. This is why I’m not a huge fan of like the guru who’s like pay $40,000 for my coaching program, whatever. Because that’s not what they need. Like most people probably would be way better off with a therapist or-

Marcus:
Therapist.

Brandon:
… a performance coach. I have a performance coach. His name’s Jason Drees. We’ve been working here for like three years. Every week he finds something that we talk about or I find something in my personality that is stopping me from the next level and it has nothing to do with real estate, but it has everything to do with my real estate success. And so yeah, it’s been I guess a huge thing for me is to figure out the mindset stuff first or while I’m going through it and change who I am, not just what I want, but who I am which is going to get me what I want and nobody wants to do that. But that’s what it takes. My performance coach, his name is Phil Towle, he worked with Metallica. He works with NFL players, NFL coaches, movie stars, like musicians. He’s super good. You can actually see he was on a documentary that Metallica made called Some Kind of Monster.

Marcus:
All right.

David:
It’s that guy. Yeah. And it is expensive, man. I have to pay thousands of dollars every month just for coaching. Right. But when you go pay for that $50,000 program, it’s equivalent of saying I’m to pay $50,000 to access to this gym that has any machine I would ever want to use. It has the best stuff in the world. Here’s all of it. I’m going to give you everything that I’ve got here it is. And then you never use it.

Marcus:
Yeah.

David:
Because it’s hard and no one shows you how to use the machines and no one even tells you what to expect and you don’t know where to start and how to build up a skill here and then apply it there. You know what actually works? Is when you get a personal trainer.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Marcus:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

David:
And then you get accountability and you get a person that, “Hey, I know you don’t know how to use this machine. Let me walk you through it.” Right. That’s what the coaches for your mindset, they’re going to actually help you change to become the version of you that you need to be to be successful. And I would pause it to say 99% of people like that high of a percentage, that’s what’s missing in their success is they do not walk into it understanding, “I have to change me to get here.”

Marcus:
Yup. And that’s the key thing and you have to look like where you’re going. So if you want to have 50 units, you can’t do the things to get one wholesale deal and think you’re going to get 50 units. You have to start working on, “Okay, what do I need to do in order to get to 50 units? Who do I need to talk to? Who do I need to be around? I can’t just stay in this little box of being a wholesaler. I have to adapt and I have to put myself in uncomfortable positions in order to get to where I want to be.” So like you said, guys, performance coach is excellent. You got to have that.

Brandon:
Yeah, it’s huge. I’m curious before we move on to like the deal deep dive and stuff, where do you see your business headed in the future? I mean, especially with the market and being so toppy, like are you changing your strategy or where are the next few years for you?

Marcus:
So with Phoenix since it has become so top heavy, we started virtual wholesaling and that’s why I was talking about being on the phone. And I’m teaching our acquisitions people how to close people over the phone. I didn’t believe that it was possible until I actually started doing it and I’m like, “Wow, why do I need to go out there when I can actually do this right over the phone?” So now I’m training our people to do that so we can not only wholesale here in Phoenix, but we’re doing it in Chicago and then we’re going to be doing it other places in the Midwest but, I mean my ultimate goal is to own 50 units by the time I’m 50 and then spawn from there. So we’re just using wholesaling as one step in order to get to where we’re going but we do have a strategic plan and those who are with us right now that’s wholesaling, we’re encouraging them to start looking at deals and go out and buy some things that way, not only are they working, but they can start investing as well.

David:
There’s a lot of people that think you can’t do things over the phone. You can’t do it virtually. I would say you can’t do it as easily. You can’t do it if you’re not good. But if you’re good enough, man every time I come to Hawaii with Brandon, I do listing appointments… Or sorry, listing presentations for real estate clients via Skype and I come back with two or three listings every single time that I’m here. I actually make more because I post all the stuff we’re doing in Hawaii. I get people that now remember that I’m here and they want to talk about Hawaii. It turns into talking about selling their house. I’d give them a listing presentation over the thing and I come back with a sign this agreement and a listing ready for sale.

Marcus:
That’s-

David:
Then I do all of it virtually. Now, that doesn’t mean like it’s the same… It’s easier when you’re in person. It totally is, like riding a bike it’s easier with training wheels, but when you’re good at riding a bike, you don’t have to do it that way. And now you’ve done a really smart thing. We are like, all right, this is a super competitive market. I don’t want to be investing here. Very similar to me saying, I don’t want to buy in California. It’s just too expensive to buy rentals, so where are all the deals? Okay, I’ll go there and then you ask the question, how do I do it? What would it take to do this? And the answer was boom, well I’ll just get really good over the phone and now you’ve got another business.

Marcus:
Yup. And that’s basically what we’re doing. Most of our deals are coming from the Midwest. We just received three contracts last week, all of them were basically over the phone, vetted over the phone, closed over the phone and send us the contract.

David:
You don’t have to have another brick and mortar place, you don’t have to pay rent in another spot. You don’t have to pay for all the typical like costs that you would have to do to start a business. You’ve already got all these fixed costs in place with what you’re doing and you’re just bolting this on, so your expenses don’t go up at all other than maybe like whatever, you have to pay people to do due diligence work out there, but your income rises exponentially and your profit margin just go up really high.

Marcus:
Yeah. And then even with our team that’s out there in Chicago, we even meet with them on Skype. Here’s our weekly meeting. We go over our KPIs. This is what we’re doing. This is where we want to go. Here are the leaders, here are the laggers. Let’s pick it up and let’s see what we can get done in the next one.

Brandon:
You’re speaking my language. I love that. KPI, lead, lagging. I love that sound. All right. That awesome. Awesome dude. Well, let’s move onto the next on the show, I want to get to know one of your deals better. So it’s time for the deal deep dive.

David:
Deal deep dive.

Brandon:
That is going to get you on a water drink there. Oh, they even knows to say how can I screw David up here? Well, you did it.

David:
So what you were telling me last night with Heather when you wait till she’s taken the bite-

Brandon:
Exactly.

David:
… French fries.

Brandon:
Yeah.

David:
As it’s going in her mouth.

Brandon:
Yeah, well, can I have a bite? Well, it’s like… Yeah, me and Heather are sitting together. That’s what I do. Anytime she’s eating anything or that we’re sharing of some kind, I’ll just kind of keep an eye on where it’s at. Like the last sip of a drink or last French fry and then just very casual I just be like, “Hey, can I have a bite?” Right when she’s eating that last bite. And every time her heart just stops. Like, “Oh no, I feel so bad.” Even though… She knows I do this to her a hundred times a day. Doesn’t matter, every time there’s like this moment of like, “Oh no. Oh wait. He’s just being a jerk.”

Marcus:
Because that’s the best part.

Brandon:
That’s the best part.

Marcus:
Yeah.

Brandon:
All right, well speaking of the best part, let’s get to the deal deep dive. We’re going to get to know one particular deal you’ve done. So you got something in mind?

Marcus:
Yeah, absolutely. So this was a hotel deal that we did. And again, this was all vetted over the phone.

Brandon:
All right. Yeah. Where was that?

Marcus:
This is in Chicago.

Brandon:
Okay. Single family house?

Marcus:
Single family house in Chicago hotel. If you guys know what a hotel deal is-

Brandon:
Explain that.

Marcus:
Sure. So similar to a wholesale deal, contacted the seller. We got the property under contract. So instead of turning around and then just assigning it to an end buyer, we actually took it down. And the funny thing about it, Brandon, is the person that took it down for me was my attorney. He saw the deals that we were doing because he was closing all of our deals in the Midwest and he was like, “Hey, how can I get a part of this?” I said, “Here’s the deal. Here is limited risk. You can be a part of this.” And he put up all of the money, all of the cash, no dime out of my pocket.

Brandon:
That’s cool man.

David:
So what you’re saying is a wholesale deal is where you put a contract or a property in a contract and sell the contract to someone. A hotel deal is where you’re actually closing on it and then you’re selling the property to somebody else but you got title. Is that correct?

Marcus:
Exactly. Exactly. So I’m holding title and then we go out and find, normally it’s just the traditional end buyer.

David:
Now this wouldn’t be part of our deal deep dive, but I’m curious, how do you determine when you should wholesale and when you should hotel?

Marcus:
Actually that one was very, very specific. That was the first one that I’ve actually done and really I did that because I wanted to build this relationship with the attorney. But I’ll get into that David when we talk about the DOD.

David:
Okay. Awesome. So on this deal, how’d you find it?

Marcus:
Marketing direct mail.

David:
Okay.

Marcus:
Direct mail. Sent letters from here in Phoenix, we got a local mail house in Phoenix that coordinates the work sequence. So again, we can get these full color letters out for 49 cent, the same as people will pay for postcards.

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:46:13]. All right. How much was the property? First of all, how much were they asking for it? And then what did you end up getting it for?

Marcus:
So she was asking for a hundred. She was asking for a hundred. The property was in meticulous condition. At the end of the day I tried to talk her out of selling it to me because I want it to be a win-win for both parties. And I was looking at the best interest for her. She was a older lady, her husband passed away so it was a deceased mailing and she just said she couldn’t do it anymore. So I talked to her for about four to five months. So I told her the initial call, she said she wanted $100,000. She sent me pictures, texts me pictures, and I looked at it, I said, “Well, you know what? Maybe you need to list this property on the MLS.” She’ll get way more than what we’re offering but by the way, this is what I’m willing to offer you. I’m willing to offer you $51,000. ARV was 180.

Marcus:
So I thought it was over with. Thought it was dead. Thought it was over with. We were 50 grand away and she just called me and she was like, “You know what? I don’t want to go through it with a realtor. I’m keeping up with the electricity, the bills and everything like that. $51,000 send me the contract. We’ll do it.”

Brandon:
Wow. Awesome. Well, that kind of explains how you negotiated the thing.

David:
Yeah. You actually tried to negotiate for her instead of you, but were that good for you?

Marcus:
I did but you know what guys? My whole approach is service. I want to make sure we provide service to our sellers, to our buyers. So if the deal don’t make sense for them, don’t do it.

Brandon:
Yeah.

Marcus:
Don’t do it.

David:
I 100% agree with you because what happens is you unlock your own subconscious to be on board with supporting what you’re trying to do. It’s the same way giving works. When you know that if I make this money, I’m giving this much of it away. Your subconscious knows how good that feels and it’s like I want you to work harder and it gets behind you, empowers you. I feel that same thing as a real estate agent when I’m representing a seller and let’s say I’ve listed your house for 700,000 and I got some buyer who just needs it so bad and I’ve negotiated up to like 805 okay, and we’re going over who’s going to pay the title and escrow fees? It’s so easy to just be like, “I don’t care. We’re making $105,000.” Right. But all I think about it in my head is they hired me to get them every single dollar that they could.

David:
So I’m going to drag out this title and escrow thing for another 48 hours and make them think that another buyer is going to come pay more, even though that’ll never happen because my conscious needs to know that I did the best job I could because the next time I go on a listing appointment, if I didn’t do that, there’s a little voice that’s like, no, you’re not. You’re not going to give it your best. You’re just going to get it better than other people. And so you have to be true to yourself. You have to satisfy who you know you are as a person. And when your subconscious lines up with your goals, that’s where you actually make really big progress. And so I 100% agree that the way that you do it is the way that it should be done. You’ve got to follow what feels right inside.

Marcus:
Yeah. And a lot of people, especially wholesalers, I understand you’re just now getting into real estate and you’re trying to make as much money as you can so you can pivot and do something else. But at the same time it’s just about service. And again, that’s the reason why I was a horrible drug dealer because of my conscience, I want to do…

David:
I was thinking that as I was talking actually. Thank God that you were a really bad drug dealer because now we get to talk to you about house dealing.

Marcus:
Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, and that’s what I preach to all of our people is just provide excellent service and the money will come on the back end. So to answer your question, Brandon, I didn’t have to do much negotiating because I told her what we was willing to pay, it was way lower than she was willing to accept, but due to life circumstances, she came back around and she was like, “Look, let’s just get it done.” So with this one, I did fly out to Chicago to meet her. I mean I was talking to her on the phone for four to five months. We had built up this report. So I said, you know what, I’ll fly back, I’ll see you out and get a chance to see my family also. And when I walked in the property it was in such great shape I could have licked the floors, the floors were just refinished, new windows, new roof, everything in there was new.

Marcus:
And then again, I told her, I said, “Are you sure you want to do this for $50,000 because you could definitely get more listing it on the MLS.” And she said, she just don’t want to deal with it. And signed the contract right there. Got it for 51, sent it to our attorney and that’s when he said wanted to be a part of the deal. We took it down. He gave us 90 grand. We was assuming that we was going to do a light flip on it. So put 40 into it. That’s what we was assuming we was going to put 40 into it. But my partner said, “Hey, you know what? Let’s just put it on the MLS and see what happens.” So that’s what we did. Put it on the MLS and literally within 72 hours we had an offer for $150,000.

Brandon:
Wow. 150?

Marcus:
150. We got it for 51.

David:
That’s-

Marcus:
Our buyer had some contingency. So we had to pay some contingencies. We redid the garage roof, we updated some electrical. So we put about 15 into it. So we were all in at like 65, 66 and turned around and sold it for 151.

Brandon:
That’s awesome. All right, so what was the outcome at the end? So profit wise, what’s that look like? 75K or something like that?

Marcus:
Yup. So it was actually 60 and the reason why is because the attorney took care of us. So I turned around, I took care of him and we gave him 30% of the upside, which we didn’t have to do, but again, I’m a relationship person and he has more money so he has more money to filter. So I was like, well, we’ll take the bite on this end and make it up on the back end. So we made 60 grand on that.

Brandon:
That’s awesome.

David:
Isn’t there a saying like if you shear a sheep, you can always share it, but if you kill it, you can only kill it once.

Marcus:
Yup.

Brandon:
I don’t know if that’s a phrase. Did you just made that up?

David:
No, I said it, but I’ll give you the opportunity to make it up and take credit for it later. I did, he’s right. You made that attorney happy. You shared the sheep. He’s going to come back for [crosstalk 00:52:42]-

Brandon:
I think you know think of the golden goose. You don’t want to kill the golden goose, the goose that lays the golden eggs. Because-

Marcus:
Yeah. That too.

Brandon:
[crosstalk 00:52:48] parables with the same…

David:
There’s something about sharing a sheep. Listeners, when you guys are hearing this, can you please go on our Instagrams or something and set me straight on this parable that I’m really messing up. I’ve been too focused on analogies lately and my parables have fallen out.

Brandon:
Yeah. We’re working on a new book, that happens.

Marcus:
I got another analogy that’s similar to that.

Brandon:
Please.

Marcus:
That’s with a male cow, a bull and is in his son but-

Brandon:
Okay. Yeah. You can’t talk about that on the podcast.

Marcus:
Yeah.

Brandon:
You’ll have to say that one later maybe. All right. So what lesson did you learn from this deal?

Marcus:
I learned to be patient. That’s one thing. And I learned to listen because at first I was just going to do the flip regardless because we could’ve made another 25, 30 grand. We could have sold it for 185 if we would’ve went in and put another 40 into it. But I was like, “Well, why put 40 into it to make 30? It makes no sense and why go through the headache.” So it was really… One of the things that I learned was really listening to others, listening to my partner and some of the other people that I sent the deal to just to kind of vet it because again, I thought it was too good to be true and instead of us doing the flip, it was like just hotel it and get rid of it and move it.

Brandon:
Yeah. Awesome man. Very, very cool story. Well that was a good deal deep dive. But now it’s time to head over to the fire round. Time for the world famous fire round these questions come direct out of the BiggerPockets forums, which of course our listeners should go and access by going to biggerpockets.com/forums and jump in. There’s people like Marcus hanging out in there all the time. Marcus number one from the fire round. Corey from Raleigh, Raleigh, Raleigh?

David:
Raleigh.

Brandon:
Raleigh North Carolina. It’s like the French West [crosstalk 00:54:36]-

David:
You should know because we were just talking about that Darius Rucker song Wagon Wheel.

Brandon:
Yeah.

David:
When he talks about Raleigh. He doesn’t say Raleigh.

Brandon:
Well, whatever he does say Raleigh. Let’s say you’ve got 100K saved up to invest in real estate, what would you do to generate the highest possible return with average market risk?

Marcus:
With 100K you know what, I would look to probably partner with somebody so I can buy some multi-families, some larger Multi-families. Somebody that’s syndicating or something like that because that way that money can continuously turn and turn and turn it in. You have the tax incentives versus trying to go out doing a flip or something like that and getting hit over the head 30% on taxes.

David:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Nice. Okay. Next question is from Aaron [Withona 00:55:22], it’s tax season. What do you do for your taxes? Do you use a professional CPA and if so, do you have any tips on finding one?

Marcus:
I use a professional CPA, tips on finding one is really ask around. Go to BiggerPockets forums, wherever you live at your area. Ask some of the other investors that’s in there. One thing I do want to say is don’t just grab any accountant because some accountants are not really specialized in investing. So make sure you find someone that has a background dealing with real estate.

David:
Yeah, we were just… Brandon and I were just talking about this yesterday that finding a good accountant’s one of the hardest things to do because their answer is almost always-

Brandon:
Depends.

David:
Yeah, it depends.

Marcus:
Yup.

David:
It was the same thing. I hated that when I was a police officer. I’d ask guys like, “Okay, so let’s say the suspect does this, can I do that?” And the answer was always, well, it depends, right? He’s beating somebody with a hammer you can, but if he’s tickling them with a feather, then you can’t. And I was like, if he’s tickling him with a feather, I’m not asking this question right.

Brandon:
Why? Why?

David:
Can’t you just give me a straight answer. It’s tough when you’re in any kind of a position where there’s liability on the advice that you give somebody or may hurt somebody so you have to really, really look hard to find that CPA that’s confident enough in what they’re doing and experienced so that they can give you good advice.

Marcus:
Absolutely.

Brandon:
And number three Jose from Joliet, Jolay-

David:
Joliet. I can’t help you on this one.

Brandon:
Joliet.

Marcus:
Joliet Illinois.

David:
Joliet Illinois.

Brandon:
All right you know this. I recently started wholesaling. I don’t have a ton of money to spend on marketing. Sort of all the deal finders out there, what marketing strategies are working best for for somebody who doesn’t have any cash?

Marcus:
Wow. Networking. That’s one of the best things to do. Go to all of the different… go to all of the different meetups, things like that. Start networking. If you don’t have a lot of money, then start bird dogging. Get with an experienced wholesaler and go out there and try and find deals for them. That way you can make some money and still try and learn how to wholesale. So I would say go out, make sure you go to all of the meetups, have your face everywhere and try and find your mentor. But you got to when you’re looking for mentor, you have to be willing to work. You can’t just say, I’m looking for a mentor and then don’t do anything.

David:
All right.

Brandon:
Really good.

David:
Good. All right, last question is from Rick in Hackettstown New Jersey. That is a funny name. How did they even end up naming the town Hackettstown? Probably something horrible happened there. Mass murder by hacking or something. All right. The question is, I’ve been told to build my cash buyers list before I get deals, but what do I say to the people that call me looking for the deal? I won’t have a property to offer them and will they get ticked off and not want to work with me?

Marcus:
No, they won’t get ticked off because right now in almost in every market, people are trying to find deals and sellers… I mean, buyers know that the more that they’re on wholesalers buyer’s list, the more opportunities they have to find deals. So again, that’s that limiting belief, maybe the buyers won’t want to work with me. Just get out there and do it. So what? Get their email address and when you do come across a deal, now you can send it to that buyer and see what he’ll do with it.

Brandon:
Yeah. If somebody calls me and is like, “Hey Brandon, so I’m looking for deals on Maui for flips. I don’t have anything yet, but I’m working this strategy. I’m really trying hard for this and when I get something, can I bring it to you? Would you want to buy it?” Like why would I say… like, why would that make me mad? I’d be like, well-

David:
Yeah.

Brandon:
… you already have something?

David:
Yeah, yeah. Why?

Brandon:
You’re wasting my time. Like, no, I’d be like, “Yeah, go get something. Bring it to me now.” Now is that I wouldn’t get on a phone for eight hours with that person because they haven’t proven themselves.

Marcus:
Right.

Brandon:
Can they bring me a deal? Yeah. No one’s going to say no to that.

Marcus:
And that’s how they proved themselves by bringing something to the [crosstalk 00:59:08].

Brandon:
Well, I agree with you. That’s it. That’s it.

David:
Beautiful.

Brandon:
All right. Very, very good answers to the fire round. And now it’s time to move to the last segment of the show.

David:
Famous four.

Brandon:
Famous four. All right. Time for the famous four, these questions are the same four questions that we ask every guest every week here on the BiggerPockets podcast. Now, before we ask Marcus these questions, let’s hear from Mr. J Scott to see what’s going on this week over on the BiggerPockets business podcast. All right, thanks J. As always. And now Marcus, favorite real estate related book.

Marcus:
Man I have to go with the classic and that’s just Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Brandon:
All right.

Marcus:
I got it up behind me. Make sure I filter through it at least once a year.

David:
Very cool. What about your favorite business book?

Marcus:
Power of Broke, man, I like that because starting out with no money, you got to hustle and you’re bringing nothing to the table, but your skills, your education, your knowledge, and you have to turn that into capital. So Power of Broke by Daymond John.

Brandon:
Oh man, I have not read that one. I’ll put it on my list.

David:
When you’re not wholesaling and dropping $19,000 checks on the table to show off to your wife, what are some of the hobbies you enjoy?

Marcus:
Man, I have too, my son, he’s 10 years old. He’s a little league for contact football player. So I go out there and I volunteer with the coaches. They just won a championship yesterday playing seven on seven. That gets me going. And then I’m a habit Harley rider, man. I got Harley so I get out there and spend some time strategizing and thinking while I’m riding.

David:
So let me ask you a question. When you’re out there with the other parents of the football kids or your motorcycle buddies, how often do you talk about real estate?

Marcus:
It always comes up, even though when I try not to talk about it because a lot of them are on my social profiles and things like that. I talk about a deal that I’ve done or something like that, they want to congratulate me. They want to ask, “Hey, how can I do it?” So it always comes up even when I’m trying not to.

David:
The best part about our profession is that riding a Harley with a bunch of guys or watching your kids game is work.

Brandon:
I know, yeah.

Marcus:
Yeah.

David:
If you just talk about real estate and people remember you and say, “Hey, can you help me buy a house?” Or “Hey I got a deal. I think that you need to look at.” You just got paid to go have fun.

Marcus:
Yup.

Brandon:
Yeah. What’s also cool and I said this before is how real estate is a cool profession. Like we’re cool dudes to a lot of people.

Marcus:
Oh yeah.

Brandon:
Like that sounds stupid, but like… Yeah, people are like, yeah, the Harley guy who I think it’s super cool, but he’s looking at you going, “Dude, that guy does real estate.” Like I’ve always wanted to do real estate. Everybody wants to do real estate someday. Everybody has like… I want to do that pole sometime soon. And I was like, the questions to like a random a thousand Americans. Do you someday want to invest in real estate? I bet you it’s over 90%.

Marcus:
I’ll say yeah. I can almost guarantee that.

Brandon:
Yeah, because everyone just knows deep down that real estates it’s where’s at So anyway, yeah, I get people constantly like, “Oh.” People are like, “Yeah, congratulations on the deal you just closed.” I’m like, how would you even know about that? We don’t even… And like, “Oh, I saw it on your Facebook or your Instagram.” So yeah, talk about your successes. That’s a great way to get people to congratulate you. And then people want to be a part of success, then they want to give you private money or they want to invest in your fund or whatever.

Marcus:
Absolutely.

Brandon:
A lot of investors in our fund opener capital, a lot of them came from just my friends on Facebook who saw what we were doing. So yeah.

Marcus:
And then also, they always ask you, well, what do you do? Oh, I’m a real estate investor. And then it just goes from there. I mean, when you say real estate investor, it’s almost like you’re a superhero. Like you’re wearing a cape or something.

David:
Well, they’re hoping that you’d invite them on your yacht to go cruise the Mediterranean. All the stuff that come from real estate investing.

Brandon:
Of course. Yeah.

David:
I’m yet to run into the yacht yet.

Brandon:
Yeah, I’m getting there.

Marcus:
Yeah, working on it.

Brandon:
All right, Marcus, what do you believe sets apart successful real estate investors from all those who give up, fail or never get started?

Marcus:
Man. Tenacity and believing in themselves, that’s basically it. They’ve got to have that tenacity and grit and then they got to believe in themselves and bet on yourself.

Brandon:
Love it.

David:
Very cool. All right. For people that want to learn more about you, maybe want to work with you, mentor from you, how can they find out more about you?

Marcus:
Man, they can find me on BiggerPockets. All of my social media profiles there and my social media handles are MRCS Maloney that’s @ Twitter, @ Instagram, @ Facebook or they can go to a marcusemaloney.com.

Brandon:
All right, very cool. And of course we will link to that, the show on the biggerpockets.com/show386. Again, biggerpockets.com/show386. You can leave a comment there as well. You can get into discussion there, can ask Marcus follow up questions and I’m sure Marcus you’ll see that and be able to jump in and help people there. So definitely engage in the conversation. Yes, thank you for listening and Marcus, thanks for being here.

Marcus:
Thanks guys. And always remember to enjoy the journey.

Brandon:
I love it. It’s awesome.

David:
Says David Green for Brandon putting fun in funds Turner signing off.