How a College Dropout Got a Seat at the Millionaire Investor Table

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie Episode 193.

Jeffrey:
Relationships have an infinite return. So if you think of it like that, if you’re going to be here longterm, then having access to these people, this is a longterm play. So for the next 40, 50 years, hopefully for the rest of my life, I’ll be able to build on these and make money and help bring value and learn about new things and just gain new experiences. And the money, I mean, for me, at the end of the day it’s paper. So what can I get with it is the main thing? How can I get value out of the access to those people. So that’s really why I think it’s investing in your relationships and stuff like that, by going to conferences and joining mastermind groups is so important.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr, and I am here with my cohost, Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where every week, twice a week, we bring you the stories, the inspiration, the information you need to kickstart your investing journey. And before I bring on my cohost, I just want to say thank you to all of you that have left an honest rating and review for the podcast on iTunes. We’ve seen so many of them come in over the last couple of weeks and really, really appreciate you guys taking the time to do that. And if you haven’t yet, we would really, really be appreciative if you could. Every new review we get helps us reach another potential investor. And obviously that’s our goal here at the Real Estate Rookie Podcast. So if you haven’t yet, we definitely appreciate it, but Ashley Kehr, my wonderful cohost, what’s up? What’s going on?

Ashley:
Well, to add on to that, Tony, this whole episode today, half of it at least is about networking, going to meetups and going to conferences. So Tony and I were just talking before we came back on to do the intro about maybe doing an in-person meetup with everyone, an in informal meetup. So let us know, send us a DM on Instagram @wealthfromrentals or @tonyjrobinson, and let us know if that’s something you think would be really valuable to you is having an in-person meetup with other investors. And hopefully, a bunch of guests that had been on the podcast.

Tony:
So today’s guest is actually a repeat. So he was initially on episode 175, his name is Jeffrey Donis. He was on with his two brothers, but we brought him back today because Jeffrey within their business is the one that focuses on… He’s the capital razor networker, extraordinaire. And he gave a really, really amazing breakdown and a lot of step by step instructions on how at, I think he’s what? 23, at 23, he’s been able to raise enough funds to be a co-sponsor in over 600 doors in just two years.

Ashley:
And if you are even wondering what syndication is or what it’s like to raise money, Jeffrey goes into this little part where he breaks down and explains what a syndication is. What the SEC does all these terms that you might hear thrown around an accredited investor. So definitely listen to that part and he really will help you understand what some of this terminology means too.

Tony:
And last thing, one of my favorite parts is when we got into the money that he’s invested into his real estate education, versus what people typically spent on a four year college degree, and there’s actually some cool money episodes. So if you check out money episode 267 or money episode 297, we’ve got Robert Farrington who came on and he talks about the ROI on college degrees. So again, that’s bigger pockets, money episodes 267 and 297.

Ashley:
Jeffrey, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. For those of you that are avid listeners, you would’ve heard Jeffrey and his brothers on episode 175. We loved their episode, the content they gave, that we are having Jeffrey come back on with us. Jeffrey, just if somebody’s new here listening, can you just give a quick backstory about yourself please?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. First off, thank you, Tony and Ashley for having me back on. My name’s Jeffrey Donis, I live in Durham, North Carolina. As many of you, if you’d listened to the previous episode, my brothers and I got into real estate a little over two years ago, we got into it through the single family space, through wholesaling, creative financing, some other different projects that we took on, and then eventually ended up getting into the multi-family space as of last year where we’re cosponsored on a little over 600 units. So that’s a quick general, I guess, description as to what we’ve done so far.

Ashley:
A quick but mighty description. So you guys are doing awesome. And we were talking, before we even started recording that, part of the reason you were here is because we have a mutual friend. Our friend, Leica out of Seattle, an investor there, amazing woman. She connected us to have you on the podcast. So we have heard you are an expert networker. So would you go through that? How have you built such a incredible network of people?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Yeah. So simply put, what we quickly learned was the first way we actually got into whole ceiling was through YouTube. But soon after that, we went to our first meet up in one of the local cities that we live by. We live in Durham, North Carolina, and the city was in Greensboro. So we drove there. It was a 45 minute drive where we met another pretty well-known, a single family investor named Dedric Polite. And not to go into a tangent, but that’s where we followed him on Instagram, and we started to see, okay, wow, this guy’s doing a lot of deals. He’s making a lot of money. So it just starts to spark that. But after we got to that first event, we realized the power of networking and it’s simply just by going out and putting yourself out there. At another networking event I went to, someone told me, “You aren’t going to be able to do a lot if you always stay inside.”

Jeffrey:
So I always keep that in mind, put myself out there. On my team, my brothers and I, I’m in charge of going out to these events. And that’s really, a lot of people think they need money to do it. And I do think the events that have that higher barrier of entry tends to be the ones that you might want to be at, but you can obviously start with the free ones, like the local meetups and the eventbright.com. They have different events like that. And I can go into that later, but yeah.

Tony:
Jeffrey, one follow up question. You mentioned this, but if you can, just share with us what role you play within the business that you and your brother have built?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So on the front end, I do the capital raising side of things. Pretty much I’m building an investor or nurturing the investor relationships that we have. I’m on the backend, that’s obviously investor relations where we’re keeping in touch with our investors, making sure that we’re answering any and all questions and keeping them updated on the projects that they’ve invested in. But also, I do like the networking side of things. So if we have to pick someone to go to a conference, for example, I’m flying out by myself to Dallas next week. So that’s stuff that they have me do. They throw me out.

Tony:
And it’s such an important skill, I think, to, not necessarily to network, but you have to, how can I say this? Because the power of your real estate business or the success you have is directly related to the size of your network and the quality of your network. And I think the better job you can do of surrounding yourself with people that have similar goals and ambitions, but there’s a balancing of maybe strengths or resources. That’s how you can really scale your business because anyone, at any point in your business, if you want to scale big enough, you’re going to need to be able to raise money from other individuals. Right now, Elon Musk is trying to buy Twitter, for $44 billion. He’s the richest man on earth, but he’s still raising money from other people to make that deal happen. I just read this morning. I think he raised money, I don’t know from some other billionaires, like Larry Ellison or some other guys.

Tony:
But even the guy who’s the richest person on earth, is still using his network to take down these bigger deals. So if Elon Musk is doing this, shouldn’t Jeffrey and Ashley and Tony be learning how to do this as well? So I’m excited to have you on man, because I think the ability to build your network and raise capital is a critical skill for rookies.

Jeffrey:
No, yeah. 100%. And I think a lot of people… I was talking to someone earlier today and she’s a newer investor. And one thing that comes to mind for a lot of these people that are getting into real estate is, it can be intimidating because there are so many different facets to it. But I always like to think you don’t need to know the answer to everything, but you can just know someone that knows the answer. So I have a lot of people on my phone that I can just reach out to if I have any question. And literally with my mentor, who I networked with, that’s why I met him, and I met him through someone else. So all of this comes back down to who you know. I reach out to him if I have a question about real estate, but also just about life advice. So I do think just knowing people that you can reach out to, it starts with networking, but it can help you become more successful in all aspects.

Ashley:
Jeffrey, how are you… So you’re reaching out to these investors, whether it’s face to face or through Instagram messages or through connections. How are you building credibility with them?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So I would say first thing, there’s a lot of different ways I do it. But first step that we started, as soon as we got into the real estate space was documenting our journey via social media. So people, they’ll meet me in person, and they obviously, I can’t hide my face. I look like a kid. Because I am a kid. So you can’t really avoid that. But they’re like, “Okay, well, this guy, he sounds like he knows what he is talking about, but let’s just look him up.” That’s what people typically do before they work with anyone nowadays, they’re going to look you up online. So they look us up and they can look our name up, Donis brother or Donis Investment Group. And we have a website. It looks pretty legit, in my opinion. That’s one step, is just building a ton type of online presence and brand.

Jeffrey:
And another thing that we’ve been able to do is build a thought leadership platform. And the way that we did that was by creating a podcast. Now you can pick Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever you want to put content out. Fortunately, we have the bandwidth to do all of them. So we’re out here publishing content and speaking on the business that we’re doing, which positions us as the experts in the space compared to most of the people that we’re speaking with.

Ashley:
Jeffrey, how important do you think it is to have a social media following? Whether it’s Instagram, TikTok, Twitter. Do you think that actually makes a difference whether someone believes you’re credible or not?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I think especially as a younger person or just newer in general, I think it can only help you. You don’t need it necessarily. Because I talk to one guy, he’s flying under the radar, but he’s got over a billion assets under management and he’s never had a social media presence and his website’s not even like… It’s pretty bad to be honest, not to shame on him, but he’s making obviously a lot of money and is very successful and he doesn’t need all that. But as someone who’s new, having that there is only going to help attract more attention. And a lot of gurus, like to say money goes where attention flows and I would have to agree with it, that’s how I’ve met so many people. And also just being able to show people when I meet at an event, I’m like, “Yeah, follow me on Instagram.” And I’ll follow them back. And they actually stay connected with me. And if you’re posting content consistently, they see that you’re not going anywhere. So you’re not a stranger anymore because you’re building that relationship.

Jeffrey:
And people also like to see that if I were to invest with you, if you’re posting content consistently, I at least know where to find you. You’re not going to ghost on me.

Tony:
And I know we’ll have your brother, Kerwin on, hopefully in the near future here to talk more about social and how you guys built out that platform for yourselves. But I mean, I love that you guys are taking that approach because I say this all the time, if you want to grow your business to a big level and you want to do it quickly, you’re going to have to work with other people. And people do business with other people that they know, that they like and they trust. And if you’re just in your room, in your office, by yourself, granted out or no one knows what you’re doing, it’s harder to build that, know that, like and that trust.

Tony:
And I’ve shared multiple times, the only reason I’m sitting on this seat talking to you right now is because I took the initiative to start my own podcast before I got found by bigger pockets. And I started a podcast, Your First Real Estate Investment, it’s still out there. You guys can go find it. I started that podcast before I even had my first deal. I wasn’t even a real estate investor, but I had this platform because I knew that in order for me to reach my goals, I was going to need to be able to connect with more people. So whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s a podcast, whether it’s YouTube, whether it’s a blog, I think everyone listening should find that outlet that they most resonate with to keep going.

Tony:
So anyway, I want to touch on something else you said or something that you mentioned in the last episode that I’m hoping we can dive a little bit more into, but you mentioned before about the 80-20 rule when it comes to networking. Walk us through what that is and why it’s been beneficial for you.

Jeffrey:
So what I do at a networking event, when I meet someone, what I just did actually, so I was telling you guys, before we got on the call, I was in Atlanta for a conference and we got 60, or it was like 35 business cards. And what I do and people may think, whatever, I’ve found it effective. So it’s not the most fun thing to do, but you get the business cards and I have a CRM and it’s a free one called Podio. And I’ll sit down, I’ll look at each card. I look them up on LinkedIn to see… I’m pretty good with my memory. So I recognize their face. And if I’m like, “Okay, I remember what this guy talked about,” I’ll add it to my notes. And I’ll only put them in if I think there’s some type of way that there’s going to be some synergy moving forward. Some vendors that I may just not be able to work with right now that I put them in. But my goal is to put a follow up date.

Jeffrey:
And one thing I did in the past, and I can go into the sales process, but you just treat it like a pipeline. You’re just following up with these people, keeping track. And when you call them, you’re taking notes of what you talked about. And as you grow in your business, there’s going to be different ways that you can add value to these people. And hopefully, at least let’s say a small percentage of them are going to be building their own business and they’re going to be growing as well. So you’re going to maintain them in your network by not forgetting about them. You can’t expect other people to do this because most people aren’t going to. So if you do it, they’re going to really respect you for it. And it’s going to be a great thing.

Jeffrey:
One thing I’ve done in the past was I met someone at an event, this was a Belize event with the real estate guys. I met him, we had a really good conversation. I came back and I remember this guy, he’s actually Paul Moore, I’ll name drop. He’s Paul Moore. He’s with BiggerPockets. And he does mobile homes. So I met some other guy. He heard me on a podcast, he reached out and he said he does mobile home parks. And he was looking for… He didn’t really say he was looking for anything, but I was like, “Huh, I know a guy named Paul Moore who has a fund. He might be able to make that connection and see if there’s any synergy there.”

Jeffrey:
So I made the connection, they ended up working together and these are both very valuable people that are a lot more successful than me. And people think like as a newer investor, you have to have money or something like that. All I did was literally took the time out of the day to call these two people, have conversations and then make a connection. And now I’ve brought value to valuable people. And I’ve been able to do that in so many different ways where it didn’t cost me money, but it cost me some time and some type of resourcefulness. But I think anyone’s capable of that.

Tony:
So Jeffrey man, what an amazing point. And Ashley and I just got back from the rookie bootcamp weekend and our friend Tyler Madden gave a presentation on the power of networking and what you described as one of the exact same things that he said, as a new investor, a lot of times you feel like what value can I provide to Jeffrey or to Ashley? I’m new. I don’t have anything. But if you have a large enough network and you know that Ashley’s looking for campgrounds and you know someone that’s a wholesaler that just found this off market, whether it’s not a deal or whatever. But it’s like, if you have someone in your network that you can connect one person to another person, there’s a lot of value in that. So I love that you pointed that out.

Tony:
Something I want to circle back to before we move on, it sounds like you’re really active going to networking events and conferences and things like that. A lot of people I think are hesitant going into those environments, especially if they’re new, especially if they’re by themselves. So I guess just give us your approach. So when you walk into this conference and whatever, there’s 500, 1000 people, how are you approaching people? How do you break the ice to build these relationships?

Jeffrey:
For sure. I’m happy you asked. So I went to a networking event earlier this week, and then when I got back driving yesterday, I went to one last night. So I’m always like, I think as you go to more of these, you’ll get more comfortable. And I just, eventually I’ve always been someone that was easy to, I can make friends pretty easily, but if you’re not… I talked to someone today on the phone before I got in this call and she was like, “I’m nervous to go because I’m newer. And I feel like everyone’s going to be a lot more experienced than me.” And I don’t really know how I can bring anyone value. And I told her, “You’d be surprised. A lot of these free meetups locally, a lot of the people there are actually new.” And it seems like if you have any experience at all, or if you’ve at least learned or listened to a few hours of podcasting, you can have a really good conversation with people. And at the end of the day, people that go to these events are looking to network. So you always have to keep that in mind.

Jeffrey:
And I get nervous every single time I walk in. But what I do is, one, understand everyone else is looking to network. So I literally just walk around and every single person I want to meet, I’ll just walk up to them, “Hey, how’s it going?” And now going back to the 80-20 rule, I let them talk. As much as my ego wants to come up and talk about all the things that I’ve done or whatever. I just let them talk. And as soon as they ask me a question, I answer it. But I quickly flip it back to them because people like to hear themselves talk. It makes them feel good in my opinion, just based on my experience. So I just have them talk to me as much as they can, and I want to leave the conversation… Once I answer their questions so we have a good conversation.

Jeffrey:
The first thing I’ll ask is, “What have you done in real estate? What’s your background in real estate?” And they’ll answer and I’m like, “Oh, cool.” And like maybe, “What are your goals moving forward?” Try to find a way to bring them value. Maybe you know someone or maybe, I know a lot of wholesalers locally. So if I’m talking to a fix and flipper, I’m like, “Okay, cool. I know actually know what wholesaler right here.” I point him out at the meetup. I can make an introduction. I know him. So I literally walk them over or I’ll just do something small like that. And you just come off as helpful to these people.

Jeffrey:
And the one thing I always do now is I get their phone number and I text them their name. And then I text them my name, so that I remember them. And then after the event, the most important thing that no one does is actually follow up with these people that you’re meeting. I try to do it literally the next day. And it doesn’t have to be a long conversation. I used to get nervous thinking that people are going to think I’m trying to get something from them, but they really, it’s very thoughtful to just reach out and say, “Hey, it was nice to meet you. Just to retouch on what we talked about through the last conversation at the meetup. This is what I do. I know this is what you do. Moving forward, if there’s any way I can bring you value, let me know. I’m more than happy to help and hope you don’t mind if I just stay in touch.” And that’s what I do every single time. And it’s actually paid off a lot of ways. So I highly recommend it.

Tony:
Jeffrey, what an amazing breakdown of how to network at an event. I think so many rookies struggle with that piece, but you just literally gave a step by step of how anyone with any level of experience can replicate what you’re doing. I’m glad you brought up the follow up piece because I wanted to go there next.

Jeffrey:
Yeah.

Tony:
So you meet them, you send the follow up message the next day, but what about the future follow up, are you just sending a message saying, “Hey, remember me? It’s Jeffrey, hope you’re doing well.” Or are you presenting them with some opportunity? What does that follow up look like in the future, and how are you still making it a valuable conversation?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So the main thing is just to not forget about people. You may not have something to bring them today or next month or in three months or even three years. But the whole point is just not to forget about people. And maybe eventually your time becomes a lot more valuable and you can get someone else to do this, but for now, this is what I do. And eventually, maybe I won’t be doing it. But what I have is a simple CRM where I keep a note and I may give them a phone call every three months or I shoot them a text, just so they don’t forget. And a lot of these people, it’s a small space. Depending on what niche you’re in, a lot of multifamily, syndicators or operators or whatever, it’s not that big of a space. So we go to the same conferences. So I can send one email a year or just touch base with them one time a year, and the next time they see you at the event, they recognize you. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, we spoke.” And you’re almost like friends with just one conversation. It’s crazy.

Jeffrey:
And it just makes the events more fun too. And you start to… It’s a relationship business at the end of the day. So it’s about who you know, like I said. And as you just build that trust with them, they start to become more familiar with you. Then when you actually may need something or you think you can bring them value, that’s when it actually matters, you reach out and they’re there for you because they have that relationship existing. So that’s how I keep track of it, is I just put follow up dates and you don’t always have to touch them every month. It could be a three month thing just depending on who they are. Because these people are busy, so you don’t want to bug them. But I would say every three months, just shoot them a text, email, maybe a phone call that I would’ve to get.

Ashley:
I think the whole CRM thing is awesome. And this is a great way to track because when you do leave conferences, you forget who you talk to, who you met because there are so many people. And this is something that can easily be done in Google Sheets or Excel, you don’t need to actually purchase a software or even use a project management software or monday.com or Asana, just the free version to track all of this too. So Jeffrey, I was wondering if you could give us some examples of people you met at a meetup and you touched base with, how did you provide them value? Because I think that’s one thing I struggle with, other people probably struggle with too, is okay, I want to help this person. I want to do whatever I can for them, but how do I figure out how I can provide them value without them having to ask me how to provide value?

Jeffrey:
Great, great question. I have a few examples. The first thing that comes to mind is there was a girl that met me on BiggerPockets. We had a call and she asked me the same question, “How can I bring these people value?” And I always say, “Well, do you know how to use social media?” She said, “Yeah.” I said, “Okay, cool. Ask them if you could help them with that. A lot of these people that are typically in real estate, sometimes they’re older. They’re not as tech savvy as you are. So if you can add value that way, then ask them.” She ended up doing that and they actually ended up paying her for it. Now she’s helping with a real estate meetup locally and she gets in free. So now she doesn’t have to pay, she’s getting paid for it. And she gets mentored by this individual who’s a successful fix and flipper in that area. So that’s one way that she brought them value.

Jeffrey:
One way that I did was there’s a local multi-family syndicator in my Raleigh market that has his own meetup. So one way that I bring him value is I help him host the meetup in exchange I don’t have to pay to get in, and also I get to network for free. I get to go every single time. And he attracts a big audience because he’s already built that. I don’t have as big of an influence in this market that he does, so I just leverage my time, just to help him sign people in. That’s all I do. And it’s literally, I think anyone can do this. It’s just, are you going to be someone that’s showing up and gives that good energy to that individual to let them know, “Okay, this person, I might want to work with them in some type of way.”

Jeffrey:
The third way is, like I said, just connecting people. So going back to my initial example, if you can just make introductions, it’s something that most people won’t be able to do because they’re not keeping track of it. And they’re just going to forget. So if they’re not thinking of it, it’s hard to remember, “Okay, I forget that person’s name.” But if you’re keeping track of it over time, just making that simple introduction is a great way to bring value.

Ashley:
I love that. And I think the personal touches too, like in the CRM, even putting in, I’ve seen sales people do this dealership I do some work for, they’ll put the person’s daughter’s name. So three years from now, I’ll be like, “Oh, my gosh, she’s probably graduated high school by now. How is Suzie? Or whatever.” So keeping track and people will think, “Wow, they remember that.” That’s pretty cool.

Jeffrey:
No, 100%.

Ashley:
Jeffrey, yeah. I want to transition this. Okay. So we’ve talked about how to network with people. We’ve talked about keeping track of them, providing them value. Can you now give some examples of how it’s actually provided value to you? What have you gained out of this networking experience?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So becoming resourceful is I think someone that doesn’t come from a lot, initially I come from a low income background. None of my family members or my close friends were in real estate that I knew of. I was starting from nothing. So how do you build a network out of nothing? You just have to put yourself out there. And over time I was just able to start. We made some money, so you start investing into conferences that are paid. You have to pay for the flight and stuff like that. But as you go to these higher, more expensive events, those attract higher, just more successful people. So as you meet them, you can do the same process, where you keep track of them. And over time I started building these relationships.

Jeffrey:
Now I also had a podcast where I would bring on very valuable guests that I’d build relationships with. And then I’d go to networking events and see them in-person. So they’d remember us. So you start building that relationship. Eventually, I was able to introduce a very successful syndicator to one of my partners now, and now we’ve actually partnered on a deal together. That’s the first thing that comes to mind, is I was able to make an introduction that no one on my team knew this guy, but I knew him. So I was able to bring him on, just because I had the thought leadership platform that I brought him onto. I networked with him over a few events. I saw him at two events prior to actually asking him if he wanted to work on this together.

Jeffrey:
So it’s something that I used to think it wasn’t that valuable, but over time I’ve talked to my partners and they’re like, “This guy now has been working on different deals with my partner. And now he’s raised over, I don’t know how much money and he’s done so many deals with him at this point.” And it all started with me making a simple introduction. And I was like a 19 year old, or I was like 20 when I did it, thinking, “Oh, man, what can I bring to these guys?” Nothing to bring of value, but you’d be surprised. It’s very simple. But a lot of these people may not be as good at networking. A lot of these people may just not really think that’s even something to do at a networking event or try to meet as many people as you can, or they may not think it’s worth their time to keep track of it. But if you don’t have any other thing to do, I think it can pay off in a lot of ways.

Ashley:
That is such a valid point. This past weekend night, a couple of people ask me questions about something that I really wasn’t experience in. But I was able to connect with them, be like, “You know what? Hold on, follow me. We’re going to go find this person. They are the expert on this. And they’re going to be able to.” And doing that matchmaking, and that’s happened before in the past. And it’s really cool to see those relationships evolve and those people remember that you’re the one that introduced them too.

Jeffrey:
Yep. That’s so true. Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah. Just them remembering you, just a simple thing like that, making that connection can be very valuable.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I like to say you always want to try to bring value to valuable people and that’s just something that you’ll be remembered for. And it’s a good… This is all a reputation business. So if you can just have a really good reputation and that’s a great way to do it, is just by adding value to a lot of people. And especially if you’re newer and you don’t think you have as many resources, I keep repeating that, but just doing certain things like this is a great way to start that process.

Ashley:
Yeah. Jeffrey, before we transition, I actually have one more question. So when you’re at these high powered events, how do you get some of these fuel to give you their phone number?

Jeffrey:
Yeah, I know it’s funny. So one thing I’ve always been curious, I do have imposter syndrome still, but it’s always weird. As a younger person, they obviously noticed that, but it’s almost like people immediately respect you. Because I’m typically one of the youngest people in the room and it’s almost like they immediately give you respect. So if you’re young or just newer, I think, not always what it is but-

Ashley:
They take interest in you.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Yeah. They’re like, “How did you end up here?” And then we have really good conversations. I also, I like to not only talk about real estate, I feel like that for me, I love talking about other things that I can relate to the person on because at the end of the day, these are people and I mean, yeah, they like talking about real estate, which we can talk about, but I’d also love to learn about like your kids or do you like watching sports? Something like that.

Jeffrey:
You build that kind of relationship, so at the end of it’s actually like, yeah, I’d love to stay in touch, man, anyway or woman. Any way I can bring you value or just build some type of relationship I’d love to learn more. And do you mind if I get your phone number, I just simply ask and they never say no. They’ll always say yes. And the most important thing is to text them their name with the correct spelling and then text them your name so that when you call them, you can add them to your contact list and then call them.

Tony:
I’m so glad you brought up the imposter syndrome piece of it, Jeffrey, because I know for me that was something I struggled with a lot early on. And I’ve shared before. Even when I became the podcast host my very first thought after the initial excitement was fear. It was like, “Oh, my God, am I even qualified to be doing this?” I think at the time we had like, I don’t know, a small handful of properties. And I was like, “How are people going to listen to little old me?” But like you said, there’s always value that you can bring to people. And I think as long as you lean into your strengths and what you’re good at, even if someone has maybe achieved a bigger portfolio than you or financially they’ve had more success, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re still not a way for you to provide value to them. So I’m super happy that you brought that up, man.

Tony:
Cool. So I want to talk a little bit too about some more of the software that you’re using. So you talked about the CRM, but is there any other software that’s important in your business that you guys are leveraging on a regular basis?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. And to tie into the credibility question, one thing that, it is crazy how it all ties back into each other. So the network, a lot of people think, or I used to think, how do I do this? I have no idea how to even start raising money or how to start becoming a lead sponsor or co-sponsor whatever. I just built my network. And then I started hanging out with certain people at certain events. I had their contact information. So when I had questions, I’d reach out to these people. I added myself to their email list to see what they’re sending out when they are raising money, what’s going out? What’s the process of what that looks like. And you start to just pick up different things that you like.

Jeffrey:
And it’s you don’t have to recreate something. It’s really just finding someone that’s actually doing it successfully, rubbing shoulders with them. And then learning on that diamond. I’m going to go back a little bit. So on the guy that I introduced to my partner, he ended up wanting to bring me value. So he offered to mentor me for free technically, because he didn’t want to charge me because I brought him into this deal. And that’s something that you can get out of these things. You’re getting these highly successful people offering free mentorship. And these guys are doing a really good job at whatever they’re doing, but they’re willing to do that because I brought a little bit of value. So that’s something that I was able to now apply to how I was able to learn about these softwares.

Jeffrey:
So I use SyndicationPro is one of the CR… It’s a CRM as well as an investor portal. And what it does, it really just organizes your investor list, your investor contacts, you can keep track of them there. And also when it comes down to actually working with your team, whoever the lead sponsor is can actually sync all the documents there. All the documents are there and they can electronically sign, meaning your investors can sign up, make an account and then sign all the documents on that portal. And all the information that the investor needs to know is all in one spot. It’s not like you’re sending out these individual emails with like PDF files. And here you have to download this, sign it, send it back. I’ve never done that. I’m sure it works. But I know that I come off a little bit more credible if I have it all really looking nice. It’s very simple and it’s easy and it just looks very professional.

Jeffrey:
So the software’s another thing I’d used in regards to leveraging my team, because I didn’t know about that until I joined certain groups. So I learned that over time. And once I had that software, it made me look a lot more credible because it looks very professional. And at the end of the day, you want to present yourself in the best way, if you’re newer. I think first impressions come off or play a big role in whether or not this person’s going to trust you. So if it looks clean, it looks very professional, then it’s going to help build that trust.

Tony:
I want to comment on the software piece, before I do, you mentioned something like that last little piece there, and you talked about just being in the same room as some of these other successful people. And that’s honestly a really big part of paying for some of these more expensive conferences, is that free meetups, sure, you’re going to get a wide range of people there. You’re going to have some folks that have maybe never done a deal or you’re going to have some people that are super successful, but if you’re going to…

Tony:
For example, there’s a guy, his name is Joe Polish and he’s a marketing business a coach. But only for super high level entrepreneurs and the name of his group, it’s called the 25K Club. Because every year you have to pay $25,000 just to be a part of the club. And obviously you have to be super successful to be able to spend $25,000 a year to even be in that group. So it’s like if you have the ability to pay into it, now your whole world of what’s possible changes, because you’re talking to people that are ultra super, highly successful. And it’s like how many more resources and lessons can you learn by sitting in a room with people that pay $25,000 a year to be in a group?

Tony:
Now, obviously I’m not encouraging everybody to go out and spend $25,000. My point is that when you pay to go to some of these conferences, the level of success steps up as you go from one to the next. But going back to the software piece, we’re doing our first indication right now and we’re using a platform called InvestNext. And Ashley, have you seen InvestNext?

Ashley:
Yeah. I’m actually using it right now to collect investors’ information just to… Almost to use it as just the CRM-

Tony:
Cr-

Ashley:
… right now. Yeah.

Tony:
And it’s such a powerful thing. We just had our first demo last week and yeah, everything you said, it brings all the investors’ information in, you can even calculate the distributions that everybody’s supposed to get once the deal actually goes live. So if you guys haven’t looked into it, I’d definitely encourage you guys to look at SyndicationPro or into InvestNext.

Tony:
So continuing to pull on that thread, so we know that you found out about the software through your network, but you also talked about mentorships and masterminds. So what kind of role have those played for you in your business? And I don’t know, how can someone else get value from those kind of relationships?

Jeffrey:
No, for sure. So I joined… I’ve honestly paid. I always like to make, not fun, but it’s funny that I dropped out of school, I was like, but you guys already know. I would’ve spent, I don’t know how much, but it would’ve been a lot less than what I’ve spent on courses and mentorships, mastermind groups. So it’s funny because I’m still investing in my education, it’s just me choosing what I want to invest in, and whatever. I think it’s paid off. But in regards to how it’s paid off. So the first one I joined was one called SubTo by Pace Morby. And the reason we joined that was everything starts with YouTube, for us. It’s always started with free content. But you can only get so far with the content that you get from YouTube. Unfortunately people tend to shy away from paying for mentorship and stuff like that. And I can understand why because it’s expensive and you do think you can. I mean, I’m sure you can do it by yourself, but honestly,-

Tony:
I mean, and just really quick, there are a lot of people that are pushing bad information too. So I think you’ve really got to vet who you’re giving money to because there are some people, it’s like they’ve done it one time and now they’re going out there and charging a really high premium. So I think you want to just vet the success to that person before you, before you jump into it. Sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off there, but I [inaudible 00:34:17] point.

Jeffrey:
No, no, no. There’s a funny meme I’ll quickly go into, there was a wholesaler at McDonald’s and I saw you sailing a wholesaling course last week. What happened? It’s just funny but…

Jeffrey:
But yeah. So with the SubTo, I joined that group and it taught me, I think if you can take action, then education just by itself is really worthless. But if you’re taking action on that education, then you can make that return very quickly. So when I was cold calling originally for single family, I would be having my computer here and I would be watching my mentor, who I paid a few grand to get into. He would be pitching the sellers with its different strategies. I would be cold calling and then pitching it while I was learning. So I literally was learning and then implementing immediately. So that’s how I was able to get two rentals that way. And if you do the math, we definitely made our money back very quickly. So that’s how that paid off.

Jeffrey:
And then I was able to meet a lot of people there. Eventually I networked into another mastermind group that was free and this guy, named Alvin Hope Johnson, who was a syndicated, he was syndicating his development deals. I learned about syndication through him and that all started through networking. So once that happened, I was like, “Okay, I want to do syndication. I think this is something that I want to do. And I started listening to podcasts about it.” Eventually we learned that we couldn’t do it by ourselves because we’re not going to be able to take down the kinds of deals that we want to take down. So we ended up looking for mentorships and where do we go? BiggerPockets, the best mastermind and networking platform out there. So that’s where we started networking and just trying to figure out what group made the most sense.

Jeffrey:
Eventually we landed on two different ones and chose one because they focus on larger assets. So what we get out of this is the main thing is that the network and the team that they already have in place, also the culture that they have, they’re very welcoming. So on the company, the page, there’s a directory page with everyone’s information. Some people don’t leave their phone number, but they have email addresses. So what I did, I just messaged blast everyone trying to book as many Zoom calls as I could and successfully it was 30 to 40% of the people responded. I was able to build my network, and very quickly after that, I was able to partner with some of the people that I spoke with initially.

Jeffrey:
Now, as you mentioned, a lot of these people that paid a lot of money to get into these groups are already very successful. And I think at the end of the day, I always tell people, it’s crazy because this is simply a mindset, in my opinion. Because the way that I’ve used to think before I got into real estate, the only thing that’s changed, I’ve learned a lot and stuff, but the way I think, the thoughts that I’m thinking, and I sense a change with whatever I’m like with different people. So when I’m at a multi-family conference, these people are doing 100 plus unit deals and everyone’s doing it. It seems like it’s like the normal thing. So I start to think, “I can do it too, because everyone here is doing it, so why can’t I do it?” But when I’m somewhere else, whether that’s doing something else, it just starts to seem like it’s farther away.

Jeffrey:
So that’s why it’s so important to surround yourself with really good people. And the best way to do that, where you’re going to have these valuable connections and the ability to actually build and create these relationships is by joining high caliber mastermind groups, which some of them are expensive, but I think it’s worth it.

Ashley:
Jeffrey, how much did you guys spend, you think, on mastermind-

Tony:
That was my question.

Ashley:
… courses?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Well, I have never done the math. That’s a great question. It’s honestly, on one it was over 35 grand, on the other one, it was over seven grand. Over one it was 1000 and that’s already close to 50 and I’ve been to, at least 15 events now. Let’s say 15, but I’ve already booked coming up this year. So we’ll be well over close to 100 grand by the end of the year, on all the expenses if you do the math.

Ashley:
Yeah. Let’s compare that to a college. Going to college. And what that costs. And you don’t have to sit in the classroom for four years for five days a week.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. College. It depends what school. I think I was going to pay like five grand a year. So it would’ve been like 25 grand. I mean, I was getting scholarships and stuff, but most people pay like what? 50. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe did you guys go to school?

Ashley:
Yeah, I did.

Tony:
Yeah.

Jeffrey:
How much did you guys pay, if you don’t mind me asking?

Tony:
I think I racked up, I don’t know, like $65,000 worth of student loan debt when I went to school,

Ashley:
I got a lot of financial aid. So I think I only had 20,000 when I graduated.

Tony:
Yeah.

Jeffrey:
Yeah.

Tony:
Yeah. People will do that in the blink of an eye. They’ll go out. They’ll rack up $10,000 of debt for school, which is debatable on the return that you get for that investment. But I do believe if you find the right person and you have the right motivation and you have the right skillset, there is a lot of value in investing in some of these things. I think the most I’ve spent on anything real estate related, me and my partner spent $20,000 on an apartment syndication coaching program. And we’ve never syndicated any apartments. So did we get the value? I don’t know. But I think it was beneficial for us because through that program, I met the guy that introduced me to short-term rentals, which completely changes my life. And now that we’re scaling up into commercial assets, already have this foundation of knowing how apartment syndication works and now we’re just applying it to short-term rentals. So I think you get out what you put in.

Jeffrey:
100%. And I think, sorry, just quickly. I mean, I probably, like I said, I’ve invested a lot of money on events and conferences, but my brother always likes to say, “Relationships have an infinite return.” So if you think of it like that, if you’re going to be here longterm, then having access to these people, this is a longterm play. So for the next 40, 50 years, hopefully for the rest of my life, I’ll be able to build on these and make money and help bring value and learn about new things and just gain new experiences. And the money, I mean, for me, at the end of the day it’s paper. So what can I get with it is the main thing? How can I get value out of the access to those people? So that’s really why I think it’s investing in your relationships and stuff like that, by going to conferences and joining mastermind groups is so important.

Tony:
I’ve never heard it put that way before, relationships have an infinite return. And man, that’s true. It’s almost impossible to measure the value that you get from a good relationship. Not even just financially, but just mindset wise, happiness, yeah. If you invest into the right relationship, that’s amazing, man. So I want to know, so you’ve talked a lot about how your networking and your relationships have helped you. What would you say is maybe some of the advice from mentors that you’ve gotten or lessons that have really stuck with you that you’ve implemented really well into your business?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Okay. So certain things like, specifically the things that comes to mind is failures. One thing that I learned this year was setting expectations with my investors. I learned that through my mentors, I had to ask them after the fact, unfortunately like, yeah, the K1 documents this year would be sent them out a little late and I didn’t do the as good of a job as I could have in regards to letting the investors know, “Hey, this is going to happen.” And I really think the main thing is just setting expectations up, so that they can expect these things. And if it’s not going to be good news, I mean, that sucks. But at the end of the day, just letting them know beforehand, not having them reach out first and asking you, I think that’s the biggest thing that comes to mind. But was your question, in regards to how I found the mentor or some of the biggest-

Tony:
No. Just some of the big lessons. Because obviously, you’ve invested a lot into these relationships, into these mentorship, into these coaching programs and just, what are some of those big pillar pieces of content or lessons that have really shaped how you’ve grown into an investor?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. One thing that also comes to mind is, this is like, I don’t know if this answers your question, but gut instinct in this business, I’m starting to realize and my mentors used to tell me this all the time, “Be careful with who you get into business with.” But it’s starting to like, every single time that I’ve gotten a gut instinct about someone. And I used to be, I don’t know if gullible is the right word, but I want to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume. I like to meet people, I like to build relationships with anyone. It doesn’t matter what your personality is. So I always give you the benefit of the doubt, but it almost always comes back down to, I find out later that something negative was going on with that type of person.

Jeffrey:
So one thing that my mentors always told me is, “Be careful with who you do business with.” And at the beginning, I wasn’t really taking that advice. I just thought I was able to do business with anyone. But over time you start to realize that, well, if you’re typically my gut is right. So I think that’s something that I had to learn on my own, but they did tell me that and I didn’t take it into account until after I had to learn.

Ashley:
Before we get to the rookie exam, I do want to dive into one more thing. For everyone that’s listening that maybe doesn’t even know what a syndication deal is, and there’s also the SEC that oversees syndications, can you break those two things down for us real quick, please?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So syndication really is just when you pull together a group of investors’ money and buy something. So you can really syndicate anything. But when it comes to what we do, we syndicate apartment complexes. So when it comes to the SEC, they’re the advisory board, like the police of syndication. Just to make sure that it’s regulated and that any owner operator, which is us in this case, is following the rules to protect any investors that are actually investing in these deals.

Jeffrey:
So in regards to the types of investors that you can bring on, it depends on what fund you deal with, but I only speak on what I do. We do 506 (B) funds. Typically these are deals where you can only bring on a nonaccredited investor, who you have an existing relationship with. It has to be a substantial relationship. And then they have to be considered sophisticated, meaning that they understand the risk of the investment.

Jeffrey:
Now, the other side of that is accredited investors and they have to meet a certain requirement, which is $200,000 or more over the last two years, and they have to have a net worth of a million dollars or more with the expectation to make that amount of money this existing year.

Jeffrey:
Now, the other side of that is if you’re applying with your spouse, so say as a couple that wants to invest, they have to make 300 grand or more over the last two years with the expectation to make that this year and they still have to have a million dollar net worth or sorry, or have a million dollar net worth, not including your primary residence. Now with a 506(b), you’re not allowed to actually go to social media and post this on your story and say, “Hey, everyone invests with my deal.” Because this is soliciting, which is illegal. The SEC is the person that would’ve enforced that. So for the 506(c), which we haven’t done personally, but that’s just when you are able to go to social media and post about your deal, because you’re only accepting accredited investors. So they’re just seen under the eyes of the SEC as someone who’s able to make more of an educated decision and protect themselves better than a nonaccredited or sophisticated investor.

Ashley:
Yeah. I just wanted to, I think you misspoke there real quick. For an accredited investor, you can have 200,000 income or the net worth-

Jeffrey:
Okay. Yeah.

Ashley:
… of a million not including your primary residence.

Jeffrey:
Yeah? Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah. I just, I think you said and, and I just wanted clarify for everyone. Yeah. That was a great breakdown, Jeffrey, on that, thank you for explaining what all those different parts are to a syndication. So we talked about your software. How does your software help you follow these SEC rules and regulations?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So when we, I only send the link to sign up to someone that I have a relationship with. So they don’t have access to it. It’s private offering. It’s not a public thing that people have access to. So that’s the first step, is making sure that you’re not just soliciting random people. You’re only allowing access to certain individuals. And one thing that the CRM comes into play is you’re keeping track. So let’s say I meet someone at a networking event and I meet them and I go back to my CRM and I add notes about what we talked about when I met them and I put the date and then I call them the next week, I put the date again. And then two weeks later, I call them again, put the date and then all this time I’m actually documenting all of this.

Jeffrey:
And then eventually I start sending them information because I’ve now vetted them, I’ve learned that they’re not accredited, but they’re sophisticated because they have a finance background that they’ve invested before, et cetera, whatever reason now they’re considered sophisticated. And this is just by your best judgment. But now this is all documented. So if the SEC were to come to my brothers and I, and want to vet us and then do an audit, they could come and look at my CRM and see that I’ve built this relationship, I’ve taken notes, good notes on all the conversations we’ve had. And this is how I can prove to them that I’ve actually done my best due diligence to make sure that I bring them through this process before actually getting them into any of my investments.

Tony:
That’s a great breakdown, Jeffrey, I think one of the best that I’ve heard. You hear a lot of SCT attorneys saying you need to have a substantive relationship with this person in order for them to qualify, but what a subjective phrase that is, for what you laid out as a really great playbook to say, “Hey, I talked to them on this date. Here’s some notes from that conversation. I talked to them on this date. Here are some notes from that conversation.” And you can show that there has been a preexisting substantive relationship beforehand. So thank you for giving us that playbook.

Jeffrey:
Yeah.

Tony:
So Jeffrey, as a new investor, who’s trying to raise funds, I think the natural default response to anyone who’s willing to give you money is to say, yes, right?

Jeffrey:
Yeah.

Tony:
It’s like, “Cool. You want to help me buy this deal? Doesn’t matter who you are, what you did, let’s work together.” But I think you’ve got some criteria you look at to determine whether or not someone’s a good fit for your deal. So would you mind walking us through that?

Jeffrey:
For sure. So initially I was, I would say a little bit more fearful to ask certain questions, but asking them like, “Hey, are you married? Hey, what does your spouse do if you’re married?” You learn more about where they’re coming from in regards to an income standpoint. And eventually you get an understanding as to, you also ask them, how much would you be looking to invest and how often? So as you start to get a feel for where they are financially, you don’t want to take someone, say that your minimum investment is let’s say 50 grand, just to throw that number out there and they only make 75, but they have that in the bank. You may just want to really make sure that this person is really sophisticated because they may not be accredited. And if they’re investing a lot of money, most of their money, they have, this might be someone that may… If things were to go bad, you don’t want to necessarily put them in a bad spot. So that’s something that I definitely keep an eye on.

Jeffrey:
Also making sure that they understand that this is a passive investment. I mean, they won’t have any control if you’re bringing them on as an LP. So you want to make sure that you’re not necessarily bringing someone on that wants to have control because they’re not going to have that. And they have to make sure that they understand that. So that’s something that, for example, a lot of people in the real estate space, like fix and flippers and stuff like that, they like to be active, meaning that they have control over the deal. But if they’re coming on as a LP or a limited partner, they’re in an inactive role, meaning they don’t have control. So that’s something you just want to make sure you keep an eye out on.

Tony:
So if you saw someone that wanted to be super active and maybe this was their very last dime, those are some of the red flags, you’d say like, “Hey, maybe this isn’t the right deal for you.” Are there any other big red flags you look for?

Jeffrey:
I mean, yeah. I would honestly try to bring them value and be like, “You know what? You may not be a right fit for the passive investment route. But I mean, if you find a good deal, how can we partner together?” But in regards to that, there are certain things personality wise at the end of the day, this is an opportunity for people, that you have to approach it that way. A lot of people don’t actually have access to these deals and they’re just in the stock market and paper assets, which it’s subjective, but I’d rather just be in a hard asset especially during these inflationary times. So you have to understand that you’re approaching these people with a really valuable opportunity. So as you do that, you have the right to actually vet these people and determine whether or not you want to partner with these people, because this is a longterm play. It’s like a marriage. You want to make sure that you’re working with people that aren’t going to be bugging you.

Jeffrey:
I mean, if you’re not vibing with them and the energy’s off, I definitely keep that in mind, because at the end of the day, worst case, this person is a pain in the butt and it’s not worth their investment. So even if you’re new to it and you’re not raising that much money, or you’re just not able to have that much investors in your database, I would make sure to highly think about whether or not you really want to be in a longterm relationship with this person before bringing them on.

Tony:
One last question for you, Jeffrey, you said that you guys are co-sponsors on a little over 600 units now. Would you mind sharing, how big is your pool of potential investors? Do you guys have 50 people or 20,000 people? I just want to give the listeners a sense of maybe how many people you need to be able to be co-sponsors on, on a portfolio that big.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I was at a networking event, I don’t remember who… I think I was on a call and one of my mentors said, “You’d be surprised, it’s like the 80-20 rule with a lot of these things. You can have 100 people and only 20 of them are your big time investors, but they’ll invest big time. You know what I mean?” So you don’t need that many people. Ours is anywhere from 20 to 30 people, just depending on the time of the year. I mean, it’s not that big, but you’d be surprised, certain people would actually invest a lot. So you don’t need a lot of people. It’s really just starting with building solid relationships with each one and making sure that you’re treating them well. And it’s all about the experience. So you want to make sure that they’re having a good investor experience.

Tony:
And that’s what I wanted to share with the listeners, that you don’t need to know 50,000 people or have this super massive platform, where you got a million followers on Instagram, you need 20 or 30 people of really solid connections to kickstart this journey, brother. So thank you for sharing that.

Jeffrey:
Of course.

Tony:
Awesome, Jeffrey. Well, man, you dropped a lot of knowledge here. Ash, should we roll to the exam or do you have anything else you want to hit before we go there?

Ashley:
No, I think let’s take it to the rookie exam, Jeffrey. We had to ask you guys these questions on the last episode you were on. So we might maybe change them up a little bit, but last time we would ask you one actual thing rookie should do after listening to this episode, but I want to tailor it to this episode specifically. So what is one thing a rookie should be doing right now to become a better networker?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I would just say start going. So I mean, make a list of five different events and then book them on your calendar. So you don’t forget them. And typically these networking events are repeating. So you can look at about two websites, and I might have said this last time, but it’s meetup.com and eventbright.com. Just start going there. A lot of people think they haven’t done anything yet, so why would I go? You really want to have those relationships there so that when you do find the deal, you don’t have to waste time or you can’t actually do a deal successfully if you don’t have those pieces in place. So you want to have those things there before you actually find the deal.

Tony:
All right. So second rookie exam question. And again, we’re making these up as we go along, because we already asked you the other ones before. But say you had to start all over Jeffrey. You had no contacts. You didn’t have the relationships that you have today and you needed to raise $1 million in 60 days. What do you do first?

Jeffrey:
Do I have any money?

Tony:
You have no money. I’ll give you no money. You have a cell phone. You have the internet, no money, no contact. What are you doing?

Jeffrey:
I would try to get a credit card. This sounds trash, but I’m sorry. This is what I would do, I would get a credit card, because I’m of age now. So I’d get a credit card and I’d try to get into an event. Or you just start reaching out to these people that host these events, email them, ask them, “Do you guys have any vendor tickets?” This is actually another gem that I forgot to drop. A lot of these people that are at the events, hosting the events, or there are going to be speakers at the events, they have free tickets. So maybe sometimes they just don’t have anyone to give it to. So if you reach out and ask for it, maybe they can get you in for free. And then what I would do is just go at the event.

Jeffrey:
Now, if I’m raising money, I’d have to obviously have a deal in mind. So I’d learn the deal like the back of my hand. And then hopefully I have a good team around me. Not sure. I assume I don’t have anyone, but anyways, and it’s a theoretical. So I would just go to the event and network as hard as I could and sell yourself. At the end of the day, they’re investing with you. And I think that’s the biggest thing. So just I would network like that. And one thing I would really want to make sure they take away is people have free tickets. So if you can’t afford them, just try to find a way to get one.

Tony:
Yeah. Ashley, before we keep going, can I ask you that question too? I’m curious what you would do. If you’re in that same boat, no contacts, no money, but yeah, you had like this killer deal and you need to raise a million dollars. What would you do?

Ashley:
God. I don’t know. I mean, I think that use social media.

Tony:
Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley:
I think that’s what I would have to do. I mean, that’s how I’m here sitting on this podcast is because of social media. So I guess that’s what I would do, is I would start posting as much content as I could about real estate investing in general, providing value to the people following me and then start posting about the deal. Yeah.

Tony:
Yeah. I think I’d do the same. I feel like my natural inclination is to go to social. I would also try and go to a lot of in-person events as well, but I know the power of a strong social platform. So yeah, just posting as much content as I can, commenting on other people’s posts that are doing this, sliding in DMs all day. I’d have rug burn from all the DMs I slid into. So I’d just be like all over the place, man. But cool. Awesome. That was my question.

Ashley:
Yeah. Another thing too, Tony is look at how we both started as we took on partners that we knew, somebody that we already had an existing relationship. So maybe, I would actually go back to that where I would approach somebody I knew that had money to partner with me on the deal.

Tony:
Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley:
Okay. Now, Jeffrey, the last question is where do you plan on being in five years?

Jeffrey:
Well, our goal is to… To give you an exact number, I would say to own half a billion dollars worth of real estate in five years. I like to think big. I read 10X by Grant Cardone, and I shoot really high, and if I fall short from it, that’s fine with me, but I would want to just go as high as I can. So half a billion dollars worth of real estate over the next five years by the time I’m 25.

Ashley:
That’s awesome.

Jeffrey:
And that’s in… Yeah.

Ashley:
Yeah.

Tony:
Yeah. I’m sure you guys are going to get there. I know.

Ashley:
Yeah.

Jeffrey:
Thank you. That’s the goal.

Tony:
All right. So we’ll give a quick shout out to this week’s rookie rockstar. Again, a lot of these rock stars come from the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group. If you all are not in the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group, make sure you get there. It is literally the most active, the most engaged Facebook group that is out there. And every time I try and go in there and give some value, it’s hard for me to do that because there’s been 10 other amazing answers on questions that have been posted. So make sure to get in there if you’re not. But today’s rookie rockstar is Kadim. P. And Kadim says we close on a duplex. This makes 10 rental units in the same area and brings us up to 14 rental units in total. So Kadim, major congratulations to you and love seeing the success.

Jeffrey:
Awesome. Congrats, Kadim

Ashley:
Well, Jeffrey, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciated having you back on the show. If you can tell everyone where they can find out some more information about you and possibly reach out to you.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. So feel free to visit our website and get our free playbook at www.donisinvestmentgroup.com/playbook. You can find me on all social media platforms at Jeffrey Donis and then my brothers and I @donisbrothers on every social media platform. And then listen to our podcast, the Real Estate Monopoly Podcast.

Ashley:
Jeffrey, thank you so much. Everyone, I am Ashley, @wealthfromrentals and he’s Tony @tonyjrobinson, and we will be back on Saturday with a rookie reply. Don’t forget to leave us a five star review on your favorite podcast platform. We’ll see you guys next time.