Building a Real Estate Business that Lasts

Mike:This is the flipnerd.com “Expert Real Estate Investing Show,” the show for real estate investors, whether you’re a veteran or brand new. I’m your host, Mike Hambright, and each week I bring you a new expert guest that will share their knowledge and lessons with you. If you’re excited about real estate investing, believe in personal responsibility and taking control of your life and financial destiny, you’re in the right place.
This is episode number 430, and my guest today is Greg Yuter, a Philadelphia-based real estate investor. Like myself, Greg is a corporate refugee. In fact, many real estate investors, maybe you included, left corporate America to get into real estate investing or are in the process of doing just that. Today, we talk about leaving corporate America or a job that you aren’t in love with to build a successful real estate investing business.
Now, truthfully, there are a lot of skills and experiences you may have learned along the way that you can apply to your business just like Greg has, including the ability to structure your business so that you can prosper in both up and down markets. Greg has a lot of great information to share with us today. Let’s go ahead and get started. Please help me welcome, Greg Yuter, to the show. Hey, Greg, welcome to the show.
Greg:Hey, thanks, Mike. Thanks for having me on.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. Awesome to see you. So, you know, we decided to talk about a topic here today that is kind of near and dear to my heart. I talk all the time about building your business like a business. And I know you’re going to share a lot of your experiences and things like that. This is a great show for these either people looking to get started or people that have built a business, doing okay, but struggling to take it to the next level. So it’s going to be good stuff. But before we get started, why don’t you tell folks your background. Tell us a little bit about your story.
Greg:Yeah, interesting one. So for about 10 years, Mike, I was a corporate lackey, if you will, within the corporate world and just hating every minute of it. That’s all I knew. Went to college, got a four-year degree actually in communications where I worked briefly for about a year. But then kind of fell backwards into IT, information technology, and managed a group that supported executives and go back and forth for an hour and a half each way for the last five years of that career. And I said, “Look, there’s just got to be a better way than this.” And I don’t know how I got hold of it, but I got hold of “Rich Dad Poor Dad,” popped it into the CD player if everyone remembers those, and listened to it. And it just shifted my mindset. And from there, it just took off. And at the time, I think I was looking into purchasing a property, purchased one shortly thereafter, and started to raise a little bit of capital, had some money under my belt and finally said, “I’m out. That’s it.”
And from there, it was tough. So much to my accountant’s, at the time, disapproval, I actually purchased HomeVestors [sic], which was actually great. I had a great time, met a lot of great people, yourself included, learned a lot. And then the crash happened. Unfortunately, I had to break everything down and rebuild it from scratch. But from there, I just put my nose to the grindstone and built everything back up to where it is today. I have a team of six people now and last year, for the first time, we hit the just about the million-dollar mark. And this year, we’re headed for about $1.4, $1.5 million.
Mike:That’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Greg:[inaudible 00:03:38] wholesale.
Mike:The wholesale fees. Yeah. And just to clarify, you’re in the Philly market, primarily a wholesaler, right?
Greg:Yeah, we’re in the Philly market. We service about eight to nine counties and the surrounding areas over there and 99% of it is all virtual wholesaling, even though some of them are in our backyard, we don’t go out to see any of these properties unless there’s a special request or we absolutely [inaudible 00:03:58].
Mike:Okay. I didn’t realize that. So you’re doing everything over the phone.
Greg:Everything over the phone. I actually learned that from somebody in one of the masterminds I was involved with years ago too. And they were doing it though in, like, other states. And I’m like, “Why don’t I just apply this here?” I was spending so much time just traveling back and forth. I’m like, “Let me try this over the phone.” And, you know, learned a lot and was able to easily build rapport with people over the phone and I was starting to realize, “Look, I’m contracting these properties. We know what they look like inside. Most of them are a mess. We know what the comparables are by looking at the MLS and we know what the average price is per square foot to rehab.” So we’re like, “Let’s just try it this way.” And we did and it just kind of took off from there.
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Greg:So we’re like, let’s just try it this way. And we did, and it just kind of took off from there.
Mike:Yeah, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So let’s talk a little about leaving corporate America. I too, a lot of folks that have listened to the show, they know I’m a corporate refugee as well. I think there’s a lot of us out there that just weren’t satisfied working for somebody else. It’s funny that you talked about your commute. So you’re in Philly. So where you commuting to? Were you commuting in the New York or . . .
Greg:No, to Parsippany, New Jersey, which is actually close to New York. So from where I am in Bucks County, which for those who don’t know, I’m close to the Delaware and New Jersey. So it was still about an hour and a half on a good day each way.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So I grew up in Illinois and when I got to college, I worked in a bank in Chicago and I lived it for a little while, I lived in the suburbs. Actually for . . . even after that, I lived in the city, like, as the crow flies probably eight miles from where I worked, but it’s still took me something like 45 minutes to 50 minutes to get there. Because you’re walking to a train, then you’re taking a train, there’s a train to the shuttle, shuttle to the . . . you know, all those things. Sometimes, when you’re a commuting like that, you start to calculate like how many hours or how many days a year am I spending, right? And you start to calculate how many years of my life is that, right? And you probably did that a few times, I bet.
Greg:I did that and that was one of the driving forces that got me out of there. And also at the time, my son was born, my youngest. So he will be 13 soon. So it’s almost been 13 years that I’ve been out of the corporate environment and as tough as it is out there some days, I never look back.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. I’m probably like you, completely unemployable at this point and I’m happy to be, you know.
Greg:Oh yeah. You know there’s no way we’re reentering into the [inaudible 00:07:18].
Mike:Absolutely. So let’s talk a little bit about . . . you know, I’ve talked to other people, had other people on the show where we talked about leaving corporate America. What I want to spend a little time on now is, because I think there’s people that are listening to us right now that are in corporate America maybe doing some deals on the side and they want to move into real estate investing or a want to get started. And let’s talk about, like, lessons you could learn and take with you from corporate Americas, because you and I both know that a lot of people end up getting out and treating a real estate investing business like a hobby. You know, they don’t really structure it like corporate America. There’s a lot to be learned from corporate America. Let’s talk a little bit about that.
Greg:Yeah. So for me, managing some people, I had the managerial experience and then also working with the executives. I was actually, at the time when I left, I was involved in that little niche in a sense. So I kind of saw the way that things were structured. And I applied that into my business with the organizational chart, filling the proper seats, doing a lot of homework and reading and, you know, how businesses should be run. Actually, one of the things that really helped me significantly was reading and then attending a seminar with Michael Gerber for the E-Myth.
Mike:Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Greg:So that, you know, teaching everyone that, you know, even if your business is small, you don’t intend to franchise it. It should be structured as such. And then also getting involved with other people and mastermind groups realizing like either, (a) I’m going to have a job here and do it all myself and pull my hair out of my head, or I’m going to grow a business and hire people to do that. Because ultimately, we all want the most important thing as you know is time. And at the beginning, there just isn’t enough.
Mike:Right, right, right. Yeah. I think a lot of people, you know if you’re new or you’re newer in this business and you’re trying to do a whole bunch of stuff, I mean that’s normal, right? You’re trying to figure it out, trying to get to the next level. But you really should still have an org chart, right? Now, your name might be on all of them, but in all of our businesses, there’s like marketing and sales, right? There’s operations. There’s the financial and accounting side. And there might be, inside of marketing and sales, you might break apart, you know, marketing could be lead generation in our house buying business. And then there’s the sales piece, which is acquisitions, right? And so if you think about those as seats, now when you first get started, your name might be on all of them, right?
Greg:Right, and it was.
Mike:But eventually, your goal is to replace yourself from those seats, right?
Greg:Yeah. So it’s a, you know, delegate and elevate as they say, right? So, you know, it got to a point where I needed someone to just answer the phones. If I was going to increase the leads, I couldn’t do it all. So I hired my assistant at the time who’s no longer with us, but we’re still, you know, great friends. And, actually, while he was here, we hired then started to learn about VAs and we started to hire VAs and we went through a lot, and then we understood a little bit better how to hire properly using certain tests, DiSC, and Kolbe. And from there, everyone’s been actually training one another and we’ve built up. So every department, for the most part, except for, you know, the day-to-day finances are handled by somebody. And then I handle that stuff and level 10 stuff, I get involved with.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah, and level 10 there, guys, what he’s referring to is another book called “Traction,” right? Which is kind of the entrepreneur operating system. I want to add a link. I’m making a list here of some of the books we talked about, but yeah, EOS has been critical. I know it has been for us and you. So let’s talk a little bit about . . . So anything else on the kind of lessons to be learned from corporate America? Let me ask you specifically, like we talked about structure. One of the things that I’ve learned is that I don’t want to be like this stodgy, sterile environment. Like, you know, right now, it’s like I’m wearing a dress shirt here, but down below, I’ve got flip flops and shorts on today, you know.
Greg:Nice. [inaudible 00:11:09] Mike:My office is pretty relaxed. Some of my employees work from home, a couple of days. Most of my employees work from home a couple of days a week. People on my team here. So we’re just very fluid. Like, we might go to lunch and just like, “Let’s get margaritas today.” Like, we’re just, you know, we still have to be effective and efficient, right? But I don’t want to be that kind of . . . that corporate [inaudible 00:11:31] anymore.
Greg:Stuffiness, yeah, yeah.
Mike:Stuffiness.
Greg:I made sure that we left that behind and we have to . . . Although we’re all virtual, my acquisitions manager is local. He’s in Philadelphia. But the VAs are all in the Philippines. We have a really great rapport that we built, and we joke around via Hangouts and, you know, we’re on a personal level with one another. I meet one on one with them. So we made the environment more human-like. Like, I felt like there was never that in corporate America, right? It was all just to do, do, do, do and there was no fun really to be had. So we’ve changed that significantly. So I’ve taken a lot of good stuff that I’ve learned there and applied it into the business and some of the stuff that I want to change, I’ve changed within the business.
Mike:That’s great. Yeah. One of the things that we just did, because we just went through an EOS implementation I mentioned to you like five or six months ago with, actually, Gary Harper, who has been on the show before too, is, you know, this idea of having, what do they call it? I’m having one tomorrow. A team-wide meeting, right? It’s my entire team. I have VAs in the Philippines. I have a graphic designer and my video person who actually edits the show. She’s in Serbia. We have people like all over the place even in the U.S., right? Very, very few of us are actually here in my office. But I felt, I realized really just up like six months ago, that there are people that are working for us that worked for us for years and they’re doing their piece, but they don’t really understand what that means over here.
Greg:Right.
Mike:And so it took me a long time to realize, in hindsight, it’s kind of like duh, right? But when I look back now, I’m like, “God, so much . . . ” It’s a better, I say work environment. We’re also virtual, but an environment that we now have a call, a town hall meeting. We have a town hall meeting every month and we actually, as a whole team, we get on Zoom and everybody has their camera and we can see everybody and everybody’s talking. We’re asking them share some good news with us. But just for each person to understand, like, “Hey, you did this over here, and here’s what that meant kind of downstream,” where for years, we didn’t even necessarily tell people. We’re like, “Well, just do your job.” And we didn’t say it, but the way we acted was kind of like, “Do your job and, you know, don’t worry about it.” We never said that, but that’s kind of how we acted, right?
Greg:Right, how their job affected the other person.
Mike:Yeah. Now I, like, want them to understand like, “Hey, you did this over here and that meant something really good for us downstream. You never knew that. But I want to tell you every time now.”
Greg:Yeah, we always prop them up very much like in the means like, “Hey, you know, we just got the contract back that was due to, you know, Dan’s persistence, right?” He gets this persistent on calling these people or Tyler, whoever, you know, we celebrate the winnings and stuff. And we also cross chain. We’re getting into a lot more of that so that if somebody is out, they can pick up, you know, for the other person, and they can understand what the other person’s going through potentially, you know, and what they’re doing to make it work so that it’s possible that, for example, that contract gets the sales and we actually get a contract.
Mike:Right, right, right. So any other kind of words of wisdom on treating this like a business instead of a hobby because a lot of people get stuck in that trap.
Greg:Yeah, you really have to know your numbers, the key numbers, and, you know, how much you need to spend to receive the leads and how many of those [inaudible 00:14:46] contracts and then closed is and, you know, cost to buy and everything like that. But you really need to understand, you know, what your gross, you know, is. And without that, you’re not running really a true business.
Mike:Yeah. And that’s one of the things that . . . and we’ve always done that. We got a lot better when we went through the EOS process because we create an actual scorecard and every week, we have what you referred to as level 10 meeting, right? And we sit down and we talk. It’s like a managers meeting. So we talk about how our scorecard looks, where are we falling behind? Where did we do well at? And I’ve always been a numbers guy, but I didn’t always have, like, a one-page summary dashboard right here that tells me exactly what’s going on in the business. And I think you’re right. That’s huge, right? A lot of us are even people that are trying to start this business are. They’re not dummies, but they just throw . . . Sometimes you throw kind of some common sense things out the window.
Greg:Yeah, it’s tough too, especially at the beginning when you’re running around and you’re doing everything.
Mike:Doing it all.
Greg:I mean, you just get exhausted. I mean, it depends too on your wiring, your personality, what you like to do. I mean, look, accounting is not fun. I mean, I have an accountant that does all that stuff, but we still have a dashboard that I look at, you know, basically, the property address, when we got the contract, when we received the lead, when we closed it, how much was involved in that transaction. So, you know, we can get a general sense of what’s going on, like our gross projections and where we ended up at the end of the month. How much is projected for that month.
Mike:Yup. But until you’re measuring your business that way, right, and knowing your numbers and have access to your numbers, then you can’t outsource anything to other people because you just lose sight, right?
Greg:Right. And, you know, without that dashboard too, it’s like driving down the road on your car. You know, there’s nothing there. You know, you don’t know how fast you’re going. You don’t know how much gas you have. Yeah.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. So let’s talk about the role of people. I mean, obviously, when we’re talking about treating it like a business, that usually means, you know, we talked about systems, I mean kind of dashboards and knowing your numbers, there’s obviously systems and processes, but a big part of this as you can never do any of that without the right people, right?
Greg:Absolutely. I mean that is so huge and it took me so long to even understand that. We’ve struggled, and it’s getting better and better. One of the things that we do before we hire them is we give them a test, a DiSC or Kolbe test and matched it up against that particular position is to make sure that that person is going to flourish, so they’re right fit for that position. And when that happens, those people just own it. For example, my acquisitions manager, Tyler, he had a little bit of a real estate background last year. He’s only been with us a year and a half and just a passion. And he was the right fit with that test, and he came in and he in the first year, made over 100 grand. I mean, he owned it and because he was the right fit, I think much of what happened happened. And, of course, you know, I trained them well.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. And it’s amazing how sometimes what happens is you have, you know, a lot of times when we’re newer as entrepreneurs, right, sometimes, I used to say this all the time, I am looking for good athletes. Like, I used to say, if you’re the right person, I’ll find a place for you. So sometimes I stuck people in my business, but I was just trying to find a good person and stick them somewhere because I thought, “Hey, they’re great.” Like, they’re motivated or whatever. But what ended up happening is sometimes I have people that are in the business that are the right person, but they’re in the wrong seat, right? I don’t know if you’ve had anybody like that. You’re like, “Wow, I never thought about, you’re not really doing very well there, but it’s not you. It’s because I put you in the wrong chair, right?”
Greg:No, absolutely. We have had that too. And I always tell people they always have a place in our business. It’s always growing. There’s always something to do. They have to come in with the right attitude. And like you said, if they’re not in the right position, and we feel that they’ll do better over here, you know, we’ll talk with them and, you know, maybe reposition them and hopefully at that time, they flourish.
Mike:Yup, yup. So when you started your business, you said your first hire was an admin. Is that right?
Greg:Yeah, it was. And that was actually after I finally just woke up and realized that I needed this admin. There was no other way to do it. But yeah, my first hire was an admin, Mike. And he helped answering the phones with contracts. And then after that, I outsourced sales to a friend and realtor at the time to help us process everything from start to finish. And then from there, I realized that that really wasn’t working due to many reasons and I learned about VAs. And then we brought everything back in-house and started to build there and fill the positions on the org chart that we needed. And like I said earlier today, we have six people.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. So any kind of advice you can give people? You think an admin is always the first hire you should do, or does it kind of depends on where your strengths and weaknesses lie, I guess? Right?
Greg:I think it’s different for everyone too. One of the reasons why we need the admin first is because I started off and still to this day paying for leads. So we always had leads coming in and we started off with pay per clicks. If someone, as many people might know and if they don’t know, you need to jump on those leads immediately because those people are actively searching for somebody. So I needed someone to be on the front lines taking the calls, vetting these people, putting them into the CRM and processing everything. But for someone who might be going to the sheriff sale to buy, you know, the properties, they might need maybe the construction manager to be the first hire because they’re running around doing a lot of stuff with the construction. So it’s different for everybody.
Mike:Yeah. I think the admin is a pretty typical role or an acquisitions person, right? Sometimes, if you’re a really good at the selling component, then what a lot of people do is they let go of the thing that they’re the best at or the thing they enjoy doing last, right? Most of it, I think a lot of us as entrepreneurs, not that every entrepreneur is necessarily a good salesperson or a good acquisitions person, but almost none of us are good administratively, right?
Greg:Yeah, absolutely.
Mike:The same thing that drives us to being an entrepreneur is the thing that makes us a little more of a visionary, right, than like a detail-oriented person who just wants to put their head down.
Greg:Yeah. I mean I love systems and I love organization, but it’s just not . . . I don’t want to be the admin. This is where I thrive.
Mike:Yup. Yup. So let’s talk a little about the role of mindset, right? I mean, I know you’ve been through some ups and downs. And, you know, one of the things about that I know about you and we’ve talked about is you’ve been through a couple of market cycles now, right? So you realized the ups and downs and you’ve been able to do well in up and down markets and you learn lessons along the way about what not to do next time, right? But a lot of it is mindset of just knowing that you’ve got a sign up [inaudible 00:21:48] that says persistence we were talking about that, man, no matter what happens to me, I’m going to figure it out. And not everybody has that mindset. But let’s talk a little about that role that you think mindset plays into a successful real estate investing business.
Greg:Just in general, in life, it’s huge. And for me, it was just getting out of that mindset of, you know, what I was taught, you know, the corporate world, they go and you get your paycheck and that’s it. But when you get out there and you own a business and you’re building a business, I mean, you’re going to have more dark days than you are bright and sunny days. It’s just not all that fun at times. And you’re going to get beat up, and you’re going to get knocked down, but you have to just have that wherewithal just to get back up and keep moving forward and associate with the right people and read the right material and maybe even get a coach that’s going to just help you work through those tough times, whether it be personal or it be within the business.
And I think when you align yourself with those right people, and you read the right materials, you know, out there, you will develop, your mind will shift, and you’ll start to look at things in a whole different light. You know, as they say, you look at the glass half empty or half full. And I’ve been beat up. I’ve been knocked down. I went through a lot of traumatic things early on. You know, and I guess for me, it was saying, when I left corporate America, and I was the only breadwinner. We had a new house, brand new house, big mortgage, everything, the classic and my son was born. I said, “Look, there’s no options. There are absolutely no options. I have to figure this out.”
And it’s amazing when you’re in a position where you have to figure it out. Otherwise, they’re pretty much not going to eat. You know, people ask me all the time like, “Oh, how do you work from home and not be distracted?” I’m like, “It’s pretty easy.” I’m like, “I figure if myself or my team is not producing, there’s not going to be a business. We’re not going to eat.” So I think it’s [inaudible 00:23:45] motivated and driving myself forward.
Mike:Yeah. Share your thoughts on that a little bit because we talked early on about leaving corporate America and kind of jumping into real estate investing. I say this all the time, a lot of people, you know, obviously a disproportionate amount of people that try to get started or want to get started in real estate investing fail. It’s like the vast majority, right? And I don’t have these statistics printed in a manual anywhere, but just my gut tells me and my experience tells me that most of them never even do one deal. Like, they fail because they give up, right? They were going to try it and they didn’t get a deal and they’re like, “My job is a little too comfortable.” They don’t say that, but they’re like, “Well, I’m still getting a check here. So let me just . . . it’s easy for me to say, “Ah, that doesn’t work. So I’m just going to stay where I’m at.”
And so they don’t, you know, necessarily burn their boats, but talk about, you know, somebody that might kind of burn the boats, if you will. I don’t want anybody to get into trouble here, but where you don’t have any options, like you said, you’re not going to eat unless you perform versus somebody that could ease into it but keep their kind of comfy job, which may make them a little too comfortable, right?
Greg:Yeah. Complacency kills, I think. And, you know, having money is a blessing and it’s a curse at the same time. So I think that, you know, you just have to really say to yourself, is this something I really want? You know, how bad do I really want it? And no matter what’s going to happen, I’m going to continue to move forward because I know ultimately it’s going to drive me to that goal. And you have to have those goals set and you have to have them in writing. And, you know, those things will help drive things forward.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. And I think you would agree with this. I love the fact that I don’t sit around and think about this and I don’t really say it out loud very often, but I’ve been through so many challenges, right, that you just figure out how to deal with it and how to roll like you said. It’s an awesome feeling to know that if somebody came here and took everything away from me, like, give me six months and I’ll be back on top, you know, because I’m not going to give up, right.
Greg:Yeah, I agree. And you also have to be comfortable with the fact that there might be a time and it happens. Maybe you go bankrupt. You know, it happens to a lot of people or you just can’t afford anymore, some of these big luxuries that people buy. But, you know, you got to understand there’s more to it than just that. It’s not about . . . and I’m a car junkie, I’ll tell you. I love my luxury cars, but if the day came when I couldn’t have them, I would still be okay with it. It doesn’t mean that much to me anymore. What means a lot to me and what keeps me, you know, moving forward is my family. You know, a lot of people say it, you know, but really ultimately that’s what it’s about. It’s being able to provide for them, give them what is absolutely needed and making sure that they’re happy. And also being free too. The time is huge.
Mike:No doubt.
Greg:I mean, you can’t put a ticket on that stuff.
Mike:Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. I catch myself sometimes. I have a lot of friends that are still in corporate America and, you know, we travel a lot. We’ve traveled more than half the summer this summer and I have friends that, you know, when I talk to them, they’re like, “Well I used all my vacation days.” And I’m like it just doesn’t compute, right? I mean, I remember it, but sometimes when I hear it, I’m like, “Oh, that sucks for you.”
Greg:Yeah. It’s just like being in captivity. It’s absolutely horrible. And I think one of the worst parts about that too is until you learn it, you don’t really know, but that W2 employee and how they have a partner, you know, the IRS and how it really works against them very much and how they’re really being taken advantage of, I think in many ways compared to a business owner who has all the deductions and really pays less taxes than they do.
Mike:Yeah, yeah. So if we had to give some advice, let’s say you’re talking to two different people here, Greg. So somebody that’s in corporate America, let’s say, they’ve been thinking about getting into real estate investing for a while versus somebody that is in corporate America and they’re doing some deals, but they’re afraid to leave their job. Maybe kind of talk to those two people and just give some guidance on where they go from here to take this seriously finally and be able to kind of move forward in their real estate investing business.
Greg:You know, one piece of advice I can give is this, surround yourself with, like I said earlier, the right people that can help guide you, that maybe have been there and they’ve done that like yourself who’s experienced for many years and had done a lot of deals and I know you’ve coached people, getting involved with them. Invest in yourself. Put some money into your own education and learning the best ways to approach whatever it is that you want to do. And I can tell you from experience of coaching with many people and I’ve learned great things with all of them is that, you know, you’re only as good as the five, basically, I don’t know the exact same saying, five closest people you surround yourself with, right?
Mike:Right, right.
Greg:So those people are very successful. They’re going to prop you up. They’re going to pull you forward and when times get tough and they’re going to guide you in the right direction. So that’s a huge piece of advice I would give someone.
Mike:That’s great. Yeah. A little shameless plug here, but obviously you’re a member of our Investor Fuel mastermind. And, you know, you wouldn’t be a part of that group and I wouldn’t even put the group on if I didn’t believe that, right? I mean, from your perspective, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you joined to get access to some people that can help move your business forward. From my standpoint, I created Investor Fuel because I wanted to surround myself with people that I like and can help me push forward. So any, you know, kind of shameless plugs here on not just Investor Fuel but the power of a good mastermind and how that can help kind of keep you honest, but also help you take your business to another level.
Greg:Yeah. It’s huge. I mean, not only do you need some of these really fantastic people that, you know, hopefully will be like lifetime friends. But those people are all going through most likely the same pains and troubles that you are and have had great successes that they can, you know, help you with. And it has just accelerated and reinvigorated me by being part of the group and other masterminds in the past just to move things forward because when you’re sitting here and you’re thinking, “Oh, no one else is going through this. There’s a million people going through this. And I took one nugget away for, like I said, in our conversation from a meeting that has really transformed one of our departments. I mean, just a huge transformation that it’s made.
Mike:Yeah. And I think that’s one of the things that a lot of people don’t really realize until it happens is like when you surround yourself with the right people or you’re part of a high level mastermind, something like that, you don’t have to come in and absorb three days of content and like do it all. It’s, like, but you just listen and you hear this one little nugget. I mean, I can tell you over the past 10, 11 years here in the business, some very specific times, it’s usually a conversation at an event, at the bar in the hallway. I heard somebody say something and I said, “Hey, I want to ask you about that in the hallway, you know, clarify it. Little bitty nuggets that moved the needle, like, substantially for me, right?
Greg:It’s so huge. I mean, without meeting people like yourself and other people in the mastermind, I don’t think I would be where I am honestly. You can’t do it all on your own. You’re not going to know everything as much as they think you might know everything. Somebody out there knows a lot more than you and you could probably benefit by, you know, speaking with them and getting [involved 00:31:13].
Mike:Awesome. And I hate to say it, a lot of us are surrounded by, I know you said that you can just surround yourself with the right people. A lot of the wrong people, this going to sound really bad, but a lot of the wrong people are members of our family, right?
Greg:[inaudible 00:31:28] Mike:Especially if you’re trying to get started, like a lot of people in your family, your spouse or sometimes your parents think you’re crazy. Like, “Why are you doing that? Why don’t you just stay where you’re at? You got good insurance.”
Greg:”Don’t take a risk,” Yeah.
Mike:Right. They don’t want you to take a risk and it’s kind of human nature to not take risks and just stay safe. And I’m not saying that don’t be around your family, but it’s hard to tune that out sometimes if that’s all you’re around, unless you get a mixture of being around other like-minded people, then that’ll just weigh you down at some point and cause you to not take action at all.
Greg:Yeah. That will plant the wrong seed in your head and most likely, you’re not going to do anything because you’re going to stay in that little complacency and you’re going to do what those other people are doing. I mean, if you hang around people that go to the bar and drink all the time, that’s most likely what you’re going to do. Or do you hang around with people that go to the gym maybe are fit or they’re just into something that, you know, has bettered their life for them. So, you know, those are the people that you really want to be around. You know, and the family members, you know, you need see them a little bit less.
Mike:Stay away from that crazy aunt that’s on your case all the time.
Greg:Say I’m a little busy. I can’t make it.
Mike:Well, Greg, if folks wanted to learn more about you and all the stuff you’ve got going on, anywhere they could go connect with you at.
Greg:Yeah. They can come to our site at HomeVestors to make . . . homecashguys.com. That was a big blunder. Or they can, you know, send me an email like [email protected].
Mike:Awesome. Awesome. That’s cool. We’ll add some links down below there for that, for your contact information and for a few other things we talked about here, some of the books you mentioned and some other great resources. So appreciate you being with us today, my friend.
Greg:Yeah, it was great. I appreciate you having me on the show.
Mike:Absolutely. Good to see you. Everybody, hey, this is episode number 430 with Greg Yuter. Great guy who’s up in Philly making it happen. So if you haven’t yet, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Google Play, YouTube, wherever you watch or listen to our show at. Of course, all of our shows you can listen to and watch on flipnerd.com. We have over 1,500 podcasts across all of our different shows that we’ve had over the years here. Lots of great information and lots of great people. So appreciate you all. We’ll see you on the next show.
If you’re an active real estate investor already doing deals and looking to double or triple your business, you should consider joining the Investor Fuel Real Estate Investor Mastermind. We’re a small group of investors that share our best practices, tips, and tricks with one another in an effort to all win. Real estate investing can be a lonely business for successful real estate investors, but it doesn’t have to be. Investor Fuel members meet four times a year, but we talk to each other 365 days a year, and we focus on improving the profitability of our businesses, improving the quality of our lives. That’s why we do this, right, and making an impact on those around us so we can truly leave a legacy. We limit our membership to only one to two members per market, so everyone shares their knowledge, tips, and tricks openly and honestly.
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