All Forum Posts by: Cliff Benner

Yes! I love the WHY talk!

I grew up watching my mom work a low pay job for 25 years and my dad get bounced from job to job because of lay offs even though the man puts his all into everything he does. This was a life where they felt like OT was a gift from God. I hated seeing this and was raised to be independent at an early age and when I started working I was the employee who felt OT was the best thing until I put myself first and started saying no to extra shifts then my boss gave me one shift a week "because there are no hours needed for your position" so I learned I need to rely on myself. Real Estate is my Long Term financial retirement plan. I cant control stocks and I don't trust elected officials to make the right calls so relying on Mutual funds doesn't sound like a great way to live. 

This leads to more of my WHY, if I am going to work for 80 years I am going to work a W2 as little as I need to and put the rest of what would be my OT hours into my own businesses to grow them and reap the rewards in the future. Then once they are going I can live on low amounts of income IF I WANT TO, to have more freedom with kids and things I actually want to do.

My view on information like this is similar to my Income thoughts. 

All Experts have great information they believe in, this is their Stream of knowledge to Me. To them this is their Knowledge River they have built over their life. 

So I take their knowledge Stream and connect it to my Knowledge River to build up My Knowledge River over my life time and I take my Knowledge and Experience to give advice to others that will be a stream to their knowledge River. So some of his principles make sense; debt snowball, emergency savings, and it's logical that the more cash you have the more you can purchase. But i think debt leverage is good; so I take the bits that make sense to me and leave the rest to build my own logic. 

I use this river analogy to make sense of how it works in my brain for this and Income too. The more streams of income that flow into my total Income River, the bigger the river the stronger position I am in. Debt and bills are just Dams that regulate that river.  

@Jason Velie did you find that flipping trailers/singlewides/doublewides that were on land already, was relatively easy to do? What were some issues with those that you found?

Congrats on the success! Your story makes me more hopeful!

Hello!

Been on here for a couple years but never Posted about myself and wanted to introduce myself to connect with others!

I live in Denver, CO, I absolutely love business in general and talk about it all the time! I have been in Public Accounting for 6 Years and Private for 2 years now, I still work a W2 as a Property Accountant. My wife and I own a Business Coaching & Bookkeeping Business and a Candle Business that focuses on more natural scents using products that offer a clean burn. 

For Real Estate, we have a LTR in Ohio that has been everyone's nightmare, I was on episode #610 of the BP Podcast if you are wondering what I mean. From this my wife and I adjusted how we do business and our personal lives, which has been for the better even though we didn't know it at the time.

We are starting to look to do a Land Hack, like Rob, but here in CO. We are either looking for a property we can start building on or one that has a couple cabins on that we can expand. At the same time, we have eyes still on Ohio for LTRs and have been looking at my previous home of Montana to have LTRs or MTRs in.

Love to connect with others and any advice on Land Hacking here in CO!

Thank you and look forward to connecting with others!

I used seller financing to purchase a candle business. We had a low down payment and have a flat payment monthly going to the prior owner and we did a Step Up Payment method where every 12 months we increase the payments $100/month then have a balloon payment after 8 and 1/2 years. This really was the only way we were going to get the business, but we have many plans to increase revenue after the stabilization period. 

@Adam Beck what have you done with the farm since you purchased it?

I use Bridgestream and They have been awesome! Mike is very straightforward and upfront. They dont sugar coat anything for me.

@Bern Hiebert This is amazing! This is what my wife and I are looking to do as well!! We have looked here in CO and since we want to live on it we focused on the financials since our long term goal would be to live there for 50 Years. How did you find this?

I would suggest reading Buy Then Build with help on the process for purchasing a business.

For a Resort like this, I would think about the following items:

Is it seasonal?

Would you be a Destination or a Parasite to the area, Why would someone come stay there?

Are the owners retiring? That might help you not just with purchasing but understanding why it is in its current state, whether it's good or not. 

Is the area steady for tourism or expecting to lose tourist going forward?

What is the competition around it? 

All this paired with the financials will help you make a good decision.

If you would like to connect; my wife and I would be more then happy to talk with you and your husband more about this!

Good luck!

@Brett Deas My Wife and I both got degrees in Small Business Management, she did Equine Business Management as well and I went and got a Masters in Accounting. Both of us think that our classes didn't teach us much compared to experience, except my accounting classes. 

I would suggest that if you have a specific area maybe take a class from  a college online or local one just for that one subject. you make as much as degree people and don't have the debt. Unless you plan a career change that requires a degree just take a course you need and pay out of pocket. 

The better solution might be to find someone in your network that knows that subject and work with them. Take questions to them , ask them what concepts are needed to know for that subject, i.e. debt fees being amortized in accounting, not a huge item you see investors know but it is taught in accounting in advanced courses, so maybe someone walks you through it, you go home and study it then go back to them to see if what you learned in correct. Then you could help them on what they need and maybe you save money and/or grow your network.

Good place to be!

My wife and I own a Business Coaching/Bookkeeping business and we just Bought a Candle Business here in Denver, Colorado in April with Seller Financing. One of our Coaching clients also just bought his business recently but used an SBA Loan. 
We have been working about 80 hours a week and should be reducing that just a little while my wife takes on the candle business full time.