The One Move That Helped Me 2x My Rental Property Portfolio

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie, Episode 218.

Henry:
Also, when you sit in these seats, the people who are in the room, they’re going to make assumptions, people naturally make assumptions about people, and they assume that the people who are in these power seats are the people who are doing deals, movers and shakers, people they need to meet. And so more people will naturally come and talk to you, and help you build relationships. And so you kind of take the hard part out of networking, which is for a lot of people just going up and having conversations with people, and now you’ve put yourself in a position where people are going to want to come up and have conversations with you.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr, and I’m here with my co-host Tony Robinson.

Tony:
And welcome to the Real Estate Rookie Podcast, where every week, twice a week, we’ll bring you the inspiration, information, and motivation you need to kick out your investing journey. And I want to kick off today’s episode by reading one of our recent reviews. This one says, “If I could give this show 10 stars, I would. This podcast has helped me so much about investing in real estate, I recommended as it listen for both experienced and new investors.” So we appreciate that feedback. And if you’re listening to this podcast, and you haven’t left us a review yet, ask yourself, “What are you doing?” The more reviews we get, the more folks we can help, and that is our goal here at the show. So Ashley Kehr, what’s up? What’s going on in your world today?

Ashley:
Well, as most of you listening know, the best conference of the year is coming up, and it is BPCON in sunny San Diego. So we thought we would use this Rookie Reply to kind of prep you guys if you are headed to BPCON, how to make the best of it, or if you’re going to any kind of meetup, or networking event. So we brought in Henry Washington to kind of help us discuss, what’s the best way to network and take advantage of the opportunity you will have going to BPCON, and meeting all of these real estate investors and like-minded individuals? Henry, welcome to the show.

Henry:
Thanks for having me, this is super cool. I was saying, I feel like I know you guys, like we’ve all met and been friends before. You guys put out phenomenal content, so thank you so much for what you do.

Tony:
Thank you, brother. Appreciate that, man. Excited to have you on.

Henry:
Thank you.

Ashley:
Okay, so real quick, why don’t you just tell everyone a little bit about yourself, and who you are?

Henry:
Yeah, Henry Washington. Let’s see, I started doing this real estate thing back in 2017, I bought my first rental property. The goal was to buy one house a year for the next five years, and I didn’t know what I didn’t know. After I bought that first one I was like, “Wait a minute, this is way more powerful than I thought, and we need to revisit those goals.” So we ended up doing about five deals in our first year, and now we’re sitting at about 80 doors, and we flip about 10 houses a year, so that’s me from a real estate investment perspective.
Part of that journey was I started a social media, because I felt after I did that first deal, and I actually saw how powerful it was, that first deal changed my life. And I felt like this overwhelming responsibility, that I needed to share this information with as many people as possible, I couldn’t be the only person that was struggling financially before making this kind of a decision to start investing in real estate. And that has led me to all this craziness, of now I get an opportunity to work with BiggerPockets, and produce content for BiggerPockets, and it’s just been this amazing journey. But all of that really came to be because I went to the BP Conference in 2019 in Nashville, that’s really where all of this started. So I’m excited to be here on your show talking about it, it’s a full circle thing for me.

Ashley:
Well Henry, first of all I have to say you’re a way better person than me, because the reason I started my Instagram account was because I wanted to be a guest on David and Brandon’s real estate podcast.

Henry:
Well, it worked out.

Ashley:
So Henry, BPCON 2019, that was definitely an awesome event. I was there, Tony was not cool enough to be there, but he was there last year, will be there this year. So let’s talk about, what are some of the things you should be doing to prepare yourself for going to a conference or a meetup?

Henry:
Yeah, I think this is a great question. It’s one that’s come up a lot recently, so I feel that’s for good reason. Networking events are fun, they’re super fun, and a lot of the value that you’re going to get out of a networking event actually doesn’t come from the content that’s being taught or shared, it comes from what you’re able to build with your like-minded entrepreneurs there that are at the conference. And so for people like me, who I’m a natural extrovert, it’s exciting, I look forward to it. But not everybody’s like me, you’ve got people that are introverts, and the thought of just being in a room full of people who want to talk to them is extremely terrifying. And so what I’ve found with networking events in general, not just with conferences, is you’ve got to be prepared to get out of it what you want to get out of it.
So don’t have an expectation that BiggerPockets is going to teach you all of these things, and that’s what you’re going to get out of it, have an expectation that you’re going to go take from that conference the things that you want to take from that conference. And sometimes that involves you being strategic. And I would say introvert or not introvert, when you’re at a networking event social norms are kind of in place, and there are things like power seats. Power seats exist. And so when I went to that first conference in 2019 I hadn’t done it before, it was actually my first legit conference I had ever been to on any topic. And I didn’t know what to expect, and so I told myself, “Well I’ve got to get out of it the most that I can. And the best way I can do that is to go make sure that when I walk into a room, I walk into a room with confidence, and I go and I sit in the power seats, and I sit front and center, so that I can get the most out of whatever the speaker is saying.”
And what I learned by doing that, is when you sit in these power seats, the people that are around you typically also have that same mindset. So they’re either movers and shakers within the industry, or they’re people that want to get the most out of their experience. And if you position yourself in these seats whenever you walk into the main sessions, the breakout sessions, the people you’re naturally going to have conversations with are people in that same mindset. And how can you find a better accountability partner than one who’s already taken the accountability on themselves, to sit where they can get the most value out of whatever topic is being taught?
So if you’re intentional about just saying, “Look, I know peopling isn’t something I’m great at, so let me make it easier on myself and go sit by the people who I feel I could benefit the most from.” You’re kind of giving yourself a leg-up from that perspective. Also, when you sit in these seats, the people who are in the room, they’re going to make assumptions, people naturally make assumptions about people, and they assume that the people who are in these power seats are the people who are doing deals, movers and shakers, people they need to meet. And so more people will naturally come and talk to you, and help you build relationships. And so you kind of take the hard part out of networking, which is for a lot of people just going up and having conversations with people, and now you’ve put yourself in a position where people are going to want to come up and have conversations with you.

Ashley:
Henry, I am very much an extrovert. I sit here and I blab to Tony all day long, but I’m behind a screen, it’s not in person. But for me, going to a conference, or even worse being one-on-one with someone I don’t really know in that awkward silence, and not knowing what to say. If somebody else is also an extrovert, or they’re not very conversational, and just can’t keep the conversation going, it will be awkward silence, because I will just be racking my brain, what can I talk about? And nothing will ever come out. So one thing that helped me when I started going to meetups, is I would find somebody online that was going, and I would follow them, I would send them a message, and say, “Hey, I saw your attending.” Because even on the BiggerPockets forums for meetups, you can see people who say they’re going to attend the event, you can message them, and I would make that one connection.
And they’d have a profile picture, whatever, and visually, when I went to that meetup, I would look for that one person, and I would find them first. And it’s like, “Okay, at least I know I’m in the right place because that person is here too.” Because that’s happened to me before, where I went to the wrong location. But I think having that one person that you’ve already kind of built the tiniest connection with can really help you ease into, what’s going on? And if it’s someone else that it’s their first time too, it’s like, “Okay, we’re both new here, we both don’t know anyone, let’s go and make friends and network together.” And I think that has really helped me a lot. But you mentioned here accountability partners, can you kind of expand on that a little bit more, and maybe tell everyone what they are if someone doesn’t know?

Henry:
Yeah, absolutely. An accountability partner is exactly what it sounds like, it’s someone who you establish a friendship, relationship, working relationship with, who has agreed to help hold you accountable and vice versa. So when you have an accountability partner, it’s being able to have someone who you can share your goals with, and then have that person and you be the same for them, hold them accountable to taking the actions that are going to help you get to those goals. Conferences are great, and they’re going to give you the conference high, it’s awesome. You’re going to feel like you can conquer the world after day one at a conference, day two at a conference, and then you have the conference low, because you got to get back and apply those things. And having and establishing an accountability partner to be that person who you can connect with on a weekly, biweekly, monthly, whatever you feel like is comfortable basis in order to help hold you accountable is huge.
I don’t know how many times I’ve gone to a conference and got a million great nuggets and wrote them down, and then didn’t execute on them when I got back. And having that accountability partner, where you can meet up virtually, in person’s great, but virtually works too. Where you can meet up virtually, and say, “Hey, this is what I got out of the conference, and these are the things that I want to focus on coming out of that conference.” And then setting some time based guidelines around those little things that you want to accomplish in your business, and then having that accountability partner just hold you accountable to them, following up with you on a reoccurring basis to see where you are with them is super helpful to helping you get the most value you can out of an event like this.

Tony:
Yeah. Henry, I want to ask you a question, Ashley, I want to ask you this as well. When you first made the decision to invest in real estate, how many people in your closed circle were already investing in real estate?

Henry:
Zero.

Tony:
Zero. Ashley, what about you? When you first made that decision, how many people?

Ashley:
I was a property manager, but I only knew the investor that I worked for. But it was more his brother that had got him into it, and he was just kind of coasting along with what he had. So he really didn’t even have that much knowledge, it was a second income, he had another main business he focused on. But it was two and a half years until I found BiggerPockets, and after I found BiggerPockets I tripled my portfolio in a year, just from finding people in the forums.

Tony:
And that’s the value. And I’m asking the question because I assumed I knew the answer for both of you guys, and it was the same for me, when I made that decision to invest in real estate there were zero people in my closed circle that were also investing in real estate. And I want to tie this back to the accountability partner piece, because it’s so easy when you’re first starting to get discouraged, to get off track, to lose discipline, to lose focus, especially if everyone else in your circle is telling you, “Don’t worry about reading that book, let’s go grab a beer. Let’s not do this, let’s go do this other thing.”
And it’s easy to get caught up in what’s normal, so you have to find other people that are mentally in sync with the goals that you have, because when push comes to shove you want someone that’s going to pull you back towards your goals, and not someone that’s going to pull you further away. So when we talk about the accountability partner, what are some things that maybe people should be looking for in this person to help make sure that there’s a good fit? And then I guess as a secondary question, once you find the person that kind of meets that criteria that you’re looking for, how do you start that relationship? Are you sending a text like, “Hey, you want to be my accountability partner?”

Ashley:
You slide into their DMs.

Henry:
“Do you like me?” Absolutely, no, that’s a phenomenal question. So what to look for, I’d be lying to you if I told you I knew exactly what I wanted to look for in an accountability partner, or even that I was going to find an accountability partner at the 2019 BiggerPockets Conference. But now that I have worked with accountability partners, I can tell you what’s worked well, and what hasn’t worked well. I’m a gut feel kind of person, and so when I’m at these conferences and you’re networking with somebody, you can tell through conversation if somebody feels genuine in how they speak to you, if somebody feels genuine in their eagerness or their willingness to be supportive and helpful of you, and you’re going to tell when someone can’t.
And so as you’re networking with people, one of the things that I like to do when I’m networking with people, is I want to listen, or hear for, or even just go so far as to ask for, “What is the thing that you need most in your business right now? What is the thing that’s holding you back from getting to where you want to go?”
Trying to understand people’s pain points, not because I want to know what’s failing for them so I can do better, but I want to know how I can be of service to people. And if they say something, where I feel like I might know someone who can help them, or I might have a tool that can help them, or I might have a recommendation for a tool that can help them, or in any way I can be of service to that need, I want to be able to do that, and do it quickly, and provide value to people. And if you can provide value to people, especially without them having to ask you, and your focus is on, what can I do for the person across from me? More than it is on, what can I get out of this experience? You’re going to naturally be pulled in the direction of people who are similar, and those are the people that you should build a relationship with, because that relationship is built based on you guys being of service to each other.
And so I say, the best way to get a thing that you want is to give it freely. And so if you want help in a certain area, be of service to people. And if you can be of service to people, you’re naturally going to be drawn… And the people are going to want to help you. And so if you can just keep that in mind as you’re having conversations with people, just trust that gut feeling, that this person seems genuine, this person has a portfolio that’s similar to mine. Maybe they’re investing in a market that’s similar to yours, you want to look for some similarities, because you want to be able to relate on some level on what you’re doing.
If somebody is investing in trailer parks, and you’re investing in single-family rentals, they can probably hold you accountable, but being able to provide advice that translates may not be as easy. So look for some similarities, look for people that you feel are genuinely interested in helping you, and the best way to do that is to be genuinely interested in helping them. And then the other thing to think about, is it’s almost a business partnership or a marriage, you want to be able to work with people who aren’t afraid to tell you what you need to hear, who aren’t afraid to tell you, “No.” Who will give you honest feedback. And we all have to be self-aware enough to be able to create an environment where someone feels safe enough to be open and honest with you.
And I think that that was one of the really cool beneficial parts of the accountability group that we formed, is none of us had a problem saying, “Hey bud, you said you wanted to do X, Y, and Z, but your actions over the past two weeks haven’t seemed like they’re in line with that. Do we need to reevaluate your goals? Is there something else going on in your life that we can help you with or talk about?” But being able to have an honest and open communication with you, because if you just find an accountability partner who’s going to be a yes man, and say, “Well, I mean, I know you wanted to buy 20 doors this year, and you didn’t make any offers this week. And I know life gets tough, and you just got busy, so we’ll try again next week.” That’s probably not the accountability partner for you, so those are some qualities I’d look for in people.

Tony:
Henry, you brought up a lot of really good points, and one that I just want to echo, is you said, “Look for people with some similarities.” And when I think of that, I think of the word parity, you want your business or your position in life to be somewhat similar to this person, and their business, and where they’re at in their investing journey.
Ash and I had a mastermind that lasted for maybe six months last year, and as we put that mastermind together, one of the things we said is that the sides of the business of each person has to be in a decent range of one another. Because obviously I would love if Grant Cardone was my accountability partner, but it’s like you said, how much value can I give to Grant Cardone? That would just be almost a one-sided relationship, where I’m just asking him all of these questions. So it’s super beneficial for me, probably not super beneficial for him. And same for Ashley, and I, and you Henry as well, if someone who has zero deals, it might be super beneficial if we were their accountability partner, but then it just becomes a one one-sided relationship for us. So I think looking for parity when you’re trying to find that person is super important.

Ashley:
Yeah. Tony, I think you should mention the criteria we actually set, because it was super specific.

Tony:
I honestly don’t even remember.

Ashley:
I remember, I’ll do it. So first we did a range of how much money you had made the previous year just from your investment property. So we wanted someone who was in the same range of what they had profited off of their investments, so it wasn’t somebody just starting out, or it wasn’t somebody who was already making mega millions off of their investments. We wanted someone kind of in the same place that we were.
And then also they had to be content creators too, so they had to do real estate investing and be content creators in some way or form. So we had a couple people who were really big on YouTube, had a podcast, things like that. So those were the two strict criteria that we set. And then also they were selling a content piece in some way, so a couple of us were writing books, a couple had online courses, or things like that. We have the BiggerPockets Bootcamps, and things like that. So there was criteria that we set, and then we made a list of, who are people we know? And all of them were actually guests that had been on the podcast, let’s reach out to them. Then we reached out individually to them to see if they were interested, and all of them said, “Yes.”

Henry:
Those are phenomenal points. And I want to just point out for people that it’s not like you’re setting this criteria, or you’re looking for somebody similar so that you can have this exclusive club, it’s not that kind of a thing. When you have multiple people in a room, or virtually in a room, who have similar businesses, you’ve probably all approached it differently, and you probably all have different best practices. But when you’re all in that same world, that same environment, if Tony says something that he’s doing in his business, or he hears a problem that I’m having in my business, and he can say, “Hey, we’re doing A, B, and C.” The ease of implementation for me is a whole lot easier, because I have a very similar business. And so the trajectory of growth can be a lot higher, because I can implement faster, because I’m in a group of people with similar size businesses.
If Grant Cardone comes in and tells me I should do A, B, and C instead of X, Y, and Z, and it requires me to hire a staff of 50 people, I’m not there yet. But if Tony and I have similar portfolios, and he’s like, “Hey bud, I heard you’re approaching A, B, and C with X, Y, and Z, why don’t you try one, two, and three instead?” I go, “Oh, I got a one, two, and three right here. Yeah, I’ll put that in place.” It makes your growth path so much easier, because you probably already have all the pieces somewhere close to you, and just having that like-minded person with a similar business can really help you grow a whole lot faster.

Ashley:
And I want to mention too, because I think this is an important piece to that mastermind that Tony and I put together, was it was free, so it wasn’t this big planned out paid thing, whatever. So you right now listening, you could do the exact same thing that we did, is look at the people that you think… Instead of waiting for somebody to slide into your DMs, go and start your own, and have it free. And we set the commitment of six months, so six months we were done with the mastermind, it was just you had to make that time commitment. So I think that’s something you guys should take away too, is don’t wait for other people to network with you, make sure you’re going out, and you’re making connections, and you’re providing value. The first ever mastermind I was in was from Instagram, where somebody just sent 10 of us I think a direct message, and said, “Hey, I want to start a mastermind once a month, do a virtual call, who wants to join it?” And that was it, so everybody start your own little accountability groups.

Henry:
It’s amazing.

Tony:
Well, that leads me into my next question, Ashley, you said to start the group. So Henry, what’s your recommendation? So you find someone, you got a good vibe with them, how do you actually get the relationship set up so that you guys are holding each other accountable?

Ashley:
How do you ask them on the first date?

Henry:
Yeah, absolutely. Well you just got to work up the nerve and do it, Tony, you just got to do it.

Ashley:
You don’t have any pick lines.

Henry:
No, I’ve never been that cool or suave. So again, with my group it happened naturally. So the way it kind of formed, was I was there early, which also was a pro tip, because lots of people come in early, and you can get some pretty sweet, cool, personalized networking in early. I was actually able to network with Brandon because I got there early, he got there at day early, and so I was able to have time to chat with him before everybody showed up and he was the ultra celebrity status Brandon, and couldn’t even get around him because there was a crowd. But it was super cool, because I was able to have candid conversations with him because there was nobody else there. And so the way it happened for us, was I met somebody, we were there a day early, so we established this kind of relationship, and we just kind of checked in with each other as the conference was going on.
Who did you meet? What was valuable to you? We had a similar size portfolio in a similar type of market. And so not only was I able to get value out of the sessions that I went to, but because he went to a session, or he’d met somebody, we were able to kind of say, “Hey, maybe we should go talk to this person because of the similarities in our business.” And so at the end what we said was, “Man, it’s been super valuable just networking with each other here, and sharing resources here. I’d like to continue this, would you be open to just having a weekly call, check in one day a week, we’ll talk about our goals, and then we’ll see what we did for the week?” And we were all in for it. And then we added two other people to it, and one of the people we didn’t even meet at the BiggerPockets Conference, it was just an investor friend of mine who I had heard say he wanted to do something similar.
And so that’s how we established it, we just said, “Let’s check in once a week, we’ll talk about our goals, and we’ll see what progress we’re making towards our goals, and we’ll just see how it goes.” We didn’t even have some formal agenda, this doesn’t have to be this well planned out, I’ll send you the agenda before the meeting starts, and then somebody will take minutes, and then they’ll recap the meeting. It doesn’t have to be all that, just share some goals, hop on a call once a week, once every other week, but be consistent about it. And what I liked about our group is it was more than two of us, which meant that if somebody had to miss we still had enough people to have a valuable call. If it’s just two people and someone’s sick, or they got a sick kid, or life happens, then your call doesn’t happen, and it’s easy to fall out of that rhythm. But if there’s more than two of you, then it’s a little easier to stay on track.

Ashley:
Henry, is there anything else that you want to add for anyone going to a networking event, or for when they go to the conference? One last piece of advice.

Henry:
Yeah, make the time to do the extracurriculars as well. Go to the networking events before the speaking sessions, go to the networking events after the speaking sessions. Not because you want to go have fun and be around the partiers, but the money is made through the conversations that people are having outside of those events, that’s where the real return on your investment comes. And like I said, for people like me, it’s easy to want to do that, I’m an extrovert, but that’s not everybody. So you’ve got to really hold yourself accountable to go into these events, working up the strength. So find the time to do the things that you need to do during the conference to decompress, if you’re not an extrovert, if you need to get to the gym at a certain time in the morning, or if you need to just find some alone time and meditate. Make time in your schedule to do those things so you can decompress, so you can have the energy to go to the things where people are going to be networking and having conversations.
Sit in the power seat, sit where people are going to be wanting to get the most out of that, because those are great people to start networking with. And don’t be afraid to just go up and have a conversation with anybody. I got to have a conversation with Brandon before the conference, and I went up to him and had a conversation with him, not long after that I was on the BP Podcast. Is that a coincidence? I don’t know, but it worked out well. But if I never go and have that conversation, then I’m not sitting here on this podcast with you guys getting to share my experiences with everybody. And that’s just one of the benefits that came from it, that accountability group that I formed, I doubled my portfolio that year, and is it a direct result of that accountability group?
Maybe. I got a lot of tidbits, and I didn’t want to show up on a call and be like, “Well, I didn’t do anything this week guys.” That accountability means something, and it worked out well for me. So I hope that you guys take that seriously, and networking is something you need to plan for too for some people. So plan to be outside of your comfort zone, wealth is built just outside of your comfort zone, get comfortable in uncomfortable situations. I heard you mention awkward silences, that’s okay guys, it’s okay to have an awkward silence, nobody dies. We’re all real estate investors, we have awkward, uncomfortable conversations all the time with people, with sellers, with contractors. We’re okay doing it in that environment, you should be okay doing it in this environment too.

Ashley:
From now on, Henry, all I’m going to be hearing is your voice inside my head. “Nobody’s dying.”

Henry:
You just look at each other a little longer, it’s fine. Give him a wink awkwardly back at him, and say, “It’s fine.”

Ashley:
Yeah. So the only thing I want to add to that, Henry, and I think that’s wonderful advice, and that happened to me last year at the BiggerPockets Conference. 2:00 AM, pizza parlor, Tyler and [inaudible 00:28:51] cornered me, and just this conversation we had in five minutes was this aha moment for me. And just set off this light bulb, I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do this.”
And I think one thing too, is that when you are at the conference, you’re going to be having so many conversations, you’re going to be learning so many things from the speakers. That each night, or sometime throughout the day, you should sit down and write down what you’ve learned, who you’ve met, and what action you are taking from those things. Because when you leave that conference, you’re going to be so pumped up, hyped up, that you want to… “Okay, I’m going to do all these things.” And then it’s like, “Wow, there was a lot of things, where do I even start? And what do I even remember?” And then taking time each day, or maybe even twice a day to write those things down, so you can go back through your notes and be like, “This is when I want to prioritize. Oh yeah, I forgot about that, I want to do that.” So that’s something that has really helped me too going to conferences. Tony, what about you?

Tony:
Yeah, I think just one thing that that everyone should recognize, is that there’s a common misconception around extroverts versus introverts. I’m a podcast host, I create content on social media, YouTube, and people might look at me and think that I’m extroverted, because I can get on a stage and talk in front of people. But the true definition of introvert versus extrovert, is an extrovert is someone that gets energized by being in a room full of people, whereas an introvert, they get re-energized by being by themselves. And I’m 1000% the latter, I need that alone time by myself to have the energy to keep going. So if you are an introvert, just recognize that maybe you need to take a break during the BPCON, just to go be by yourself for a little bit, that way you have the stamina to keep going. So just use that definition as you’re moving through BPCON, whatever conference you’re going to. And if you do need some time to yourself, take it, that way when you go back into the big sea of people you’ve got the stamina to keep going.

Ashley:
Yeah, and that’s great advice, Tony. Well, Henry, thank you so much for joining us for this week’s Rookie Reply. Can you let everyone know where they can find out some more information about you, and reach out to you?

Henry:
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me, it’s been super fun. The best place people can reach me is Instagram, I’m @thehenrywashington on Instagram. You can also check me out on the Market Podcast.

Ashley:
Thank you so much, and thank you guys for listening to this week’s Rookie Reply. I’m Ashley, @wealthfromrentals, and he’s Tony, @tonyjrobinson on Instagram. And we’ll be backed on Wednesday with another guest.