Welcome to the discount property investor podcast, where we show you how to buy real estate at a discount, so you can create wealth over time and income today. Our mission is to share what we have learned from the experience of others and help you make more money investing like a pro. We want to teach you how to create wealth by investing in real estate the discount investor way. Thanks for tuning in.

Mike: Alright discount property investors welcome back, this is episode number 11, planning for your freedom with Bill Maret.

I’m your host Mike Slane with co-host David Dodge and Bill Maret joining us today. Bill is going to tell us a little about planning, it is one of his areas of expertise. I wanted to say please feel free to check us out online at discountpropertyinvestor.com or you can visit the freewholesalecourse.com to learn about wholesaling.

Bill, thanks for joining us, you want to go ahead and get started with your story?

Bill: Pleasure; especially since I had to walk all the way down from the other side of the building here, it’s quite an effort. I appreciate you guys having me in. I am excited about what we are doing as a company; I am very excited to hear what these guys are putting together for our national coaching and training podcast and mentoring etc. So we have a lot of good skills and smart people that can help you get started from the beginning, all the way through to becoming a very successful business. So looking forward to helping the process and some of the folks around the country.

So, I will do a quick intro on myself, a little bit about my background, we will talk about what I call the freedom date and freedom number. How I have used planning and mentoring, coaching and my mentors to get started in real estate and to actually — plan myself out of my own job which I did a few years ago. So because of that plan I am able to sit here in this room today because I chose to, not because I have to.

Anyway, my name is Bill Maret, I am the older, elder statesman of the company, I have been in cooperate America most of my career. My background is in sales and marketing, mainly start up companies, through IPO. I grew up in the 80’s, came through college in the 80’s got a marketing business degree from South west Missouri State. Now known as Missouri and southern university I believe, I think they changed the name.

Anyway, —

Mike: South west Missouri state?

**talk over each other**

Bill: So I am definitely marketing — marketing was the easiest college degree I could find so I got a major in marketing business management. Always been an entrepreneur spirit, but got caught into the corporate world right out of college. The problem was they were paying so much darn money as a sales guy when computers were first coming out. If you could walk and talk you could get a computer job so I got a computer job right out of college basically. So in the mid 80’s I started selling software, made a bunch of money, had a lot of fun for 20 something odd years in cooperate America, as I said I did some start-up companies, was able to help take companies from start up to public companies. Unfortunately I was never able to cash in myself; I was able to make some other folks quite wealthy. You know who you are if you are watching in the video. Just kidding. But I learnt quite a lot, so I learnt a lot about corporate planning, taking a concept and idea, believing it and executing. I have had my mentors believe and execute and we would like to do the same thing in real estate.

So 25 year corporate guy, about eight years ago I started dabbling in real estate so, always enjoyed buying and selling my own properties. Didn’t know what that guy was doing, got some of the video courses shifted at midnight when I called the guys here. So I can do this, heck if this guy on the radio can do it, I can do it too so, made a few mistakes but, anyway I kind of follower the Rich dad Poor dad concept which was, I knew I was doing everything wrong, I knew I cooperate Joe, total dept, going nowhere, trying to keep up with the Jones’s and the Jones’s were winning. So I had a lot of expenses, the bank owned a lot of property I didn’t. Everything I owned, I was trading my time for things. So I realised I was backwards so I read Rich dad Poor dad back in the year 2000/2002, decided to get into real estate investing which is a better use of money versus getting car loans.

So switched my whole life around and got kind of lucky, I actually downsized right before the 2008 crash. Which was a good move so that funded my real estate career?

Mike: Good timing.

Bill: So I did some part time stuff, sold my house, got rid of some bad dept like houses and jet skis and things I didn’t need. Really started focusing on building my portfolio. My cooperate background being in business development and planning — I learned a lot about having a solid plan that you believe in, that you can execute in generally a one, three or five year plan. So, I use those same concepts and I was able to build a plan for a three year escape. It was actually a five year plan and I was able to replace a six figure salary — plus bonuses and commissions in just real estate passive income and active income which I will talk about here shortly.

So the idea is that the plan and execution can work and if it works for me it can work for anyone. There is a different strategy based on where you are in life. If you are young and just getting started and you have no money, we have a plan for you. If you are a cooperate guy and hate your job, there is a way out. If you are a senior person there is a way out.

Mike: Bill’s pretty modest but he mentioned something that is pretty huge. He just said he replaced his cooperate income — what was it you said?

Bill: Six figures.

Mike: Six figure income and how long though?

Bill: In three years.

Mike: Three years. So again, there is — it is a pretty awesome story. He is very humble about it, but it’s pretty impressive stuff so.

Bill: It is motivational, I am not a motivational speaker but I do get excited about topics I believe in and — I know are going to help people. So, as I transition into real estate for full time, I quit my job about three years ago. That was a happy day, so I joined the local real estate group here in St Louis. We happen to have a great group called the South side investment club, which is one of the largest in the company. I think you guys probably highlighted that already. But — it is known as SSIC and the guy that started that is a smart young guy named Nick Bower, so I always work with Nick as a part time endeavor to help people with just what we were talking about. So I help people with their planning, their business execution and as a coach and mentor for his inner circle coaching group which is a local St Lois — really great group, we have like 140 people in the group so that is a great way to help people. We also provide them properties, and I focus on landlord deals and how to become a landlord and how to get a passive income so you can retire like me. So I am kind of a feature for the local group. Essentially it is a good way to get started. So the passive income, the planning, we will talk about how I use that and how you guys can use that to get your career super charged. That is kind of where I came from, sorry for the long intro, it is relevant to what we are talking about.

David: One thing I do want to mention real quick is that you said you had read the Rich dad Poor dad book back in early 2000s. Would you say that the book really changed — the way you thought about working for money versus having money work for you?

Bill: Absolutely, it is so obvious however, most of the people I know including most of my relatives and friends are still trapped in the J.O.B. Just above broke. So seriously no matter how much you make you will find a way to spend it. That’s how it works.

Mike: The more you make the more you spend.

Bill: The more you make the more you spend. You got the kids — they’re young so you are building your house, you’re getting the boat, they need something to do in the summer, they need to go to private schools. It goes on and on right?

Mike: You get a bonus, you take a vacation —

Bill: Exactly, so the whole thing is, it’s not about things, its about the freedom to enjoy your family, your friends and your passions. So it was really an eye opener for me, I was definitely poor dad, in the book Rich dad poor dad. 100% so by getting rid of some of the needless dept and reducing my expenses — part B is making sure you are maximizing that money so whether you are using your own money or other people’s money, which is even better. So part of what we teach and train on is how to do funding through private hard money — banks are great too. I so some private money and hard money loans to the people in the group because I saw a need for gap funding. So I call it the freedom loan, so I help people get started locally with the freedom loan.

So there is a lot of good ideas that you can execute, there is a lot of ways to make money in real estate, that’s part of what we are going to talk about today. For those of you just getting started, being a wholesaler is a great way to get started. I know people that have gotten very wealthy, including some folks — in the room that have made great money just starting as a wholesaler. We have people that have quit their corporate jobs, young guys, old guys and you have to have a passion and the right personality to be a wholesaler. That’s one of the things I’ll stress is — if you really aren’t a people person, you can do some wholesale marketing but don’t be the guy that gets in front of grandma to close the deal. Bring in your — your more credible person that can really warm up to the audience. So know yourself is part of the strategy. Knowing what part of real estate fits your personality, fits your lifestyle, fits your time that you have available, and fits your skill set so we will talk about.

David: Yeah you know Bill with that being said, how do you go about planning for your freedom, what steps do you need to take?

Bill: Good segway that means I am running behind guys it means they want me to —

David: No, not at all, i just want our viewers and our listeners to know that planning is very important and you have to be able to plan in order to reach your goals. So what would you recommend to somebody that’s wanting to get into real estate, or even someone that’s in real estate and doesn’t have a good plan, how would they implement, how would they start — what steps should they take?

Bill: That’s a good segway, so it is really about two things. Planning and execution. What I’ve found in the world people either plan but don’t do anything but have a very detailed plan and I was probably one of those guys at one point getting through the corporate world. Hey guys look at my great plan, put it in the desk till next year. That doesn’t help you. If you have a plan you can put into action or execution you have good something. I use a methodology I was taught by one of my mentors, early software guy. One of my best friend’s, but there is a methodology for planning called GOSPA not gospel, though — there is nothing wrong with the gospel. But the GOSPA stands for Goals Objectives Strategies Priorities and Activities. So think of it as a waterfall effect, you want to start with your vision in mind of course, then you want to have some tangible numbers in term of what are your objectives, if it isn’t measurable you can’t — if you can’t measure it you can’t measure your success.

So, your objectives should be measurable, three to five — not 100. Then what I think is really funny is the strategy section which is the S of GOSPA. So we will talk about some real estate strategies here, I got a few slides to help people on the video. But what’s cool is with your strategy is you can start off as a wholesaler, move into a landlord role, you can start as a bank or a funder if you got a bunch of money but no time, you can make a nice return on your money that way. You can start as a flipper if you are creative or you are handy and you want to fix stuff. I enjoy passive income and I am known as Mr Landlord — not technically because Mr Landlord is actually a very popular name for a national program but — **talk over each other*

Bill: The passive income guy how’s that? My story about freedom really —



Mike: Jeremy Taylor if you’re listening — it’s all you Mr Landlord. Bill: We love you Jeff —

Mike: Been on the cruises, all that.

Bill: What’s exciting really is the strategy for how to get to your goals, if your goals are 5000 a month, 2000 a month, 20,000 a month or we have very big goals here. By the way we use the GOSPA methodology on steroids here. So it will work. The whole idea is getting the plan and essentially gets to a freedom number and freedom date.

David: So can you recap really quickly again, what is GOSPA stand for? Is it G.O.S.P.A? And it stands for what again?

Bill: So it stands for, I just put up the slide for those on the radio. So the GOSPA process is really a waterfall effect, it stands for G is for Goals, that’s your ‘why’ it’s not like I want to make a million dollars. The goal is I really want to have time for my family, I want to travel. You have to ask yourself why three or four times then you will get to your why.

David: That is a really good point, Mike mentioned that in an earlier episode about asking yourself why several times because — your first why might be real broad, then you ask it down and it narrows it down, then by the third or fourth or even fifth time it usually gets down to something really specific like providing for your family or —



Bill: I will give you my real GOSPA stuff. When I was stressed out about getting fired from my job at IBM at the time in 2008. Some of the older guys remember 2008, the crash of the market. Well I was ending my software career; I was selling software for IBM. Pretty gruelling situation, then the stock market went down 45% or at least on my portfolio it went down 45%. So I was really scrambling getting ready to either be terminated or move onto another company. So I was really nervous about how I was going to get to my freedom date and my freedom number. I didn’t have a plan at that time and that’s what makes you really nervous. So once I had it down on paper, did the plan, I was able to see there was a way out of this thing. The goal for me was — not so much that I want to make 10 or 20,000 a month or get to 1 million dollars. When I asked myself why three or four times, my real why was that I didn’t want to go bankrupt or go broke like some folks in my family had done. So — was kind of fearful, unreasonably fearful about going broke. So that’s what has really driven me is fear of failure but that is very powerful motivation. So that got my goal set. I set my objectives which is how am I going to replace my 10,000 a month salary and my commission bonuses? And so I went ahead and set my goals — which were to quit my job in a certain amount of time and also get to the state that I wouldn’t have to keep the job I didn’t like within three years. So I started buying and selling stuff at a more rapid pace, I also joined the local group as I said earlier. I hooked up with the Southside group and joined inner circle which is the local mentoring and coaching group.

David: So that group is our local R.E.I.A here in St Louis?

Bill: They are awesome so — I became a coach and mentor or that group. When Nick Bower the guy saw what I had done for my planning for myself they said it would be a great took feature for the Inner circle so I did some of the planning for the new investors. So anyways Goals is G, Objectives is O, Objectives are I want to make 10,000 a month, I need to make $600 per door per month, I need ten homes times six. I need to make 6000 a month by having ten rentals that will each make 5 or 600 income. It might also be I need to get my dept down to less than 3000. So pick three to five tangible numbers that are critical to your success. I need to get 50,000 saved.

For those of you who have jobs, it might be a good idea to get the six months savings started before you quit your job. You got to be proactive, don’t wait until it’s too late. So by learning about what these guys can teach you and what others can teach you in real estate, if you are proactive, you can be an independent successful millionaire quite literally using real estate. By the way 97% I believe I have seen the quote; of all millionaires have heavy real estate holds. So there is a reason for that.

So anyway, objectives, strategy we are going to spend time on are the S. Then plans and priorities — not this is not your daily 50 things to do list. This is not what I’m talking about, what I’m talking about is — everything that relates to how you are going to get to your objectives for the year, break down what you are going to do for the quarter and for the month. It’s really about what are the key activities or priorities that you need to physically do or take action on in the next 30 days or at least by the quarter. Another one for that in our company is ROCKS. So we each have three to five rocks that we absolutely have to get done. So you have to get your rocks in order based on where you’re at in your cycle. Maybe your rocks are strictly just got to a real estate meeting and see what the hell’s going on. Maybe it’s think about how much money I need, get a budget, get some basic information, and whatever your rocks are get them on paper. Those are your priorities for the quarter.

David: The rocks are just shorter time priorities.

Bill: Absolutely, but they got to be real and they have to relate to your objectives. So ask yourself this, how much time do you waste per day that don’t relate to your objectives and your goals? If you are doing those, why are you doing them? Don’t do them, take the calls, do the things that are going to relate to your objectives and strategies, which is the waterfall effect of the GOSPA plan so — that kind of gets into the belief system not to get too motivational, but if you have a solid plan that you can put into bite size pieces, you start with a plan — you are not really going to believe that plan unless you see a bit of action success if you get me. So let’s say the process is you want to meet with an accountant, you want to meet with an expert that can show you how to get started. Wow I did that, it worked; now I have got a lead or whatever. You start with — small successes and all of a sudden guess what? Your belief grows your actions grow, courage grows, pretty soon you are like holy cow I’m actually doing the plan. That’s how I did it for myself, it’s how I did it for corporate start-ups when it went from zero dollars to a billion dollars. It starts with a small plan, a white board, some vision and some ability, some confidence and some mentors and coaches to help you make it happen. Same thing as real estate. So start with that and you will build your confidence, you will have a plan that makes sense, then you get into your strategies — this is why you need a mentor or coach in real estate investing business. What I didn’t realize was — still blows my mind, there is so many ways to make money in real estate today, it’s crazy. So this doesn’t cover everything but I have a little cheat sheet in front of me on the slide.

So really your focus and income streams as I call them — there is at least nine ways, more like twenty ways to make money in real estate. You can start with what I call bird dog work. Helping wholesalers that are in your area find deals. That can be driving a car, putting up signs; quite frankly there is nothing wrong with that, we have all done it. By the way, some of the more successful and wealthy wholesalers started out on one man teams doing that, putting up signs, taking phone calls, getting leads. Either closing the deals themselves or giving — getting a more experienced wholesaler to go with you to go see grandma and close those deals and still make the money.

David: On this topic you know, you don’t have to bird dog just for wholesalers. You could bird dog for the rehabbed themselves that are out there looking to buy properties; you could even bird dog for a real estate agent looking to pick up a listing. If you know someone that is looking to sell their home and you know an agent that — you know is in the business of listing properties, I am sure they would be happy to compensate you for making that connection. So bird dogging isn’t — so narrow, that alone has four, five different ways in which you can make money in real estate.

Bill: So it’s all about — if you are motivated I guarantee you can make money, you can learn the skill, whether it’s the bird dog or wholesaling. Again, you guys know the basics but wholesaling is nothing more than finding properties that are below market, buy low sell high. Essentially we are like commodity traders right? Think stock market. You buy low; you sell high the same day. The good wholesalers — essentially just flip the contract which is what we try to do. You don’t need a lot of money for that, if you have a good deal, you can flip that contract and make money all day long. Now, some people like myself, wholesaling is a lot of work, it takes a lot of ambition, you can do it — but for me, I would rather spend my time and effort, and I had a little cash to start with, and I had a little bit of equity so I could go straight into a landlord or starting as rehabber. So for me, my GOSPA was, my original strategy was — get to know the local wholesalers — guess who my partners are? All wholesalers’ right. So as a landlord and as a rehabber the wholesalers are my best friend’s. I started getting repeat client, I started getting discounts hopefully — that’s why you work with the old school wholesale companies. The re-house guys and those folks, however — If you want to get to be the landlord and be the rehabber you got to get the deals. So you get them from the wholesalers or you get them direct. Closer to get to grandma the better the price right?

So you can be a rehabber which is the fix and flip like the TV shows, I can assure you it is not quite as easy as the TV shows.

David: If only it was.

Bill: I have done 40 or 50 flips. That is not my primary — passion but I do three or four of those a year, or at least when I started to take place of my commissions. Remember we talked about my GOSPA? So I took my rentals to pay my bills, and I needed about 10 thousand a month in income to pay my basic bills. Budget never seems to go below that — the other thing was my bonuses and commissions I used the flips for those. Also helps to do a few flips to pay those taxes as the end of the year. So have a strategy that makes sense for the way you live. Either do some rehabs, do some landlords — essentially my program was pretty simple. I was going to buy two or three rentals per year, make about $900 to 1000 each — per rental cash purchases. So I was buying as low as possible. I learnt that from my loyal R.E.I.A that I didn’t have to buy [00:22:15.16] rentals which I was doing when I first sold my big house. So I can make 8-900 a month net profit on a $30,000 house, I needed to tie up $80,000 to make a thousand, does that make sense?

Essentially I have three high priced rentals — once I did my plan I sold my three expensive ones and bought 10 cheap ones.

Mike: That makes sense to people here in the Midwest that might sound a little crazy if they are on the coast.

**talk over each other.**

Mike: With that being said, if you are on the coast — or in a market that you are not able to buy a home for 30 or 40 thousand — that will have tenants paying $800, 900 or even 1000 a month — we are in the wholesale business and we would be more than happy to help you find those deals. So check us out at discountpropertyinvestor.com there are tons of deals on there, you can invest in our market and get the same returns that we are making.

Bill: Put us on your plan. We can help you get deals in our market. We do have a lot of out of town national buyers in our market, so we know — anyway there are lots of ways to make money, you can flip, you can be the landlord which I think is best — for me passive money is some of the easiest money I have ever made. You can graduate into commercial properties which would be four family or more. We — for example on our plan we want to get to 50-100 unit apartment complexes. A lot of people even get into the trailer parks believe it or not. That is also a high profit business. So there are a lot of ways to get into multiple units without buying single family homes. You can get into retail of course if you have that passion, getting your licence has pros and cons but we won’t cover that today.

Property management, again — there is some property management issues or at least requirements to be a landlord. So for me property management I do a little bit myself but I outsource a lot of the stuff I don’t want to do. I like to choose my own tenant, I like to make sure I chose the right tenant, even though I make a lot of people screen those tenants. I also may have my own handyman because I don’t like the mark-ups that I get from the property management folks.

So there is different ways to use property management, depends on your time and your interest in that area. Finally — private money funding on joint ventures, I do a little bit of that. So as you build wealth or have access to wealth, maybe someone in your family has a lot of money just sitting around, that is another way to get into deals where you can be the funding person and someone else provides the expertise to fix and flip.

David: Or do it the other way around. You might have the expertise to fix and flip and you find someone else that has money you partner with them and — depending on how you guys work out a split, everybody wins.

Bill: Absolutely — so think about what is your personality type. Quite frankly everybody watches the TV shows and the flip shows and if you go to the weekend seminars [00:24:51.17] but some of those folks — really simplify the wholesale process and frankly it’s like any sales professional. If you are going to be a good wholesaler/I am going to buy and convince someone to sell the house to you, you have to be credible, you have to have a good way of communication, you have to be fearless and you also have to have a good buyers list when you get properties. So that isn’t for everybody and its not to say that you can do it. But understand what your passion and personality type is. How much time do you have to devote to it? How much cash? It’s hard to be a full time wholesaler without investing some money in marketing. Quite a bit of time and intention just like any other business, right guys? So think about what your state in life is, your age, your income needs and there is definitely ways we can help your local real estate or business planning folks can help — part of real estate that is going to help you reach your gaols. Obviously wholesale and the bird dog referrals and all the mentoring — all the things you need to do to get started are going to be in training modules either from your local — folks like us will be providing in terms of podcasts.

So that’s kind of my story, we talked about where I started — we call it the golden handcuffs, when you get into cooperated with golden handcuffs, and a bunch of kids it’s really hard to quit. So that’s why it’s even more important to have a plan to get you out of that rat race and — obviously there is a happy story on my GOSPA plan or I wouldn’t be here talking about it. But — I did have a very serious plan like I said in 2008; I was sitting in a pretty bad spot in terms of my mind. I did not have good job security; I just lost half my money in the stock market. Was working 60 hours a week to pay off stuff — I was only a part time investor at that time, I didn’t really have an exit strategy, I didn’t have anywhere near enough passive income to survive. So guess what? My savings would have been gone in about five to eight years by my calculations unless I took some serious actions. So motivation was — compelling event, do something or risk losing all your assets and your house and — so I formed an [00:26:49.03] and a meeting with my power team at the time. I laughed because my power team in 2008 was not so powerful. Nothing against my team but my nephew was my contractor — had a couple of agents helping me, got a cousin that was a rehabber and — I had a few other folks.

David: But what’s important is that you had a team even though they weren’t — looking back the power team that you now have sitting next to you, thanks to me and Mike here. But at least you had a team, you put together — a plan and you were executing that plan. One thing I want to mention too bill is — you said that your income would have only lasted you five to eight years roughly give or take. I think the average person probably doesn’t have between one and two years of income saved up to last them. So you were sitting pretty decent, however — you were worried about, you were stressed.

Bill: In my brain it’s all about — your own emotions or your own state of mind. Again, that was part of my GOSPA was –I was really concerned about having to deal with bankruptcy issues and so forth because of that driving issue — I took some radical actions. A lot of my family and friends thought I was crazy. But I actually quite a very high paying job — probably a dream job — I won’t mention the company but a high flying technology company. People would have killed to have the job that I retired or quit from three years ago. But I am so much happier now, I’m — my wife said I thought we retired, i said no just switching to things we like to do. So I am probably working ore hours but it’s more fun, it doesn’t feel like work for me. I am talking about things that will help people, serious thing is — have your plan. I knew that I had to get my cost down, I knew I had to get my average cost per house much lower from what I was learning form my loyal real estate group. At the time I had my plan set in 2008, I actually have my team come into my corporate office, and my boss was out of town that week. We actually used the board room and I went through this plan which I just spoke of. It worked so — I got my team motivated so they could see how serious — I was able to get my wholesalers excited, hey this guy is going to be a real client so I can get better deals. At the time I hadn’t done any flips so I got flip deals, started doing some flip deals to take the place of my commissions and I used the rental to get to 10,000 a month. As I said earlier, ten rentals for me on the low end and paid with cash, generated 10,000 gross income per month.

I actually got to 15 rentals quite frankly so — I was able to execute, get the plan going — what’s important is your source of funding to. I am also pretty good with money, planning. I was able to take a few assets such as downsizing my house — use that money and some lines of credit bank money to fund my entire business. Since then I haven’t looked back. My metrics were pretty good as I talked about. So my plan was by — my plan was written at the end of — well the middle of 2009. Crash happened at the end of 2008 so it took me to come over that shell shocking — I built a plan in 2009, started executing it in 2010 and my exit strategy was to be out of there by 2015, end of 2014. So — the results were, I quit my job in December 2013 so — going on three years. Haven’t looked back haven’t had to touch savings so that’s good. I was able to get — my initial plan I was going to get ten rentals making $800 a month. I actually got to 17 rentals — averaging 875 gross a month, no mortgages, good tenants, not evictions, those were all key metrics.

Remember metrics are important; these were my objectives I met. My average cost before my plan was around 70,000. Actually it was more like 80,000 — my original target plan was 70,000 — get this when I started hooking up with wholesalers and learning what I could do, I got outside my comfort zone, i was buying — full all in homes at 38,000. With no bank loans. So that was a game changer for me. The average value I was trying to pick up 20-30,000 equity per house which I did. So by picking up those homes for cash — I picked up somewhere around — 70k each. Almost a million dollars’ worth of equity because I was buying low and improving the equity by improving the property. So I was actually getting 13,000 a month income at one point, plus doing three fillips a year. All my flips, remember metrics guys, my metrics were 30,000 profits per flip. You can also do it by percentage of the cash invested. But have a number that you are shooting for. And I was able to average well above 30,000 profit per flip.

Excuse me, in 2012, 2013 I got carried away and did six flips in 2013. I would not recommend that. that’s — I still stick to my rental money which pays the bills, I got a great crew, i got a great network. I became a coach and mentor. In 2014 — full time investor at the same time so — I was all in. Get a plan, start at — pace you are comfortable at — build a little cushion if you can and essentially get started. Essentially think about it, what have you got to lose? Didn’t Donald Trump say that? Not getting into politics folks but — what have you got to lose when it relates to your life? Action is going to be based on your belief system, a plan and your team. So — you know it’s funny; it boils down to five excuses. So — if — like my brother says, — but it won’t work for me, why isn’t everybody doing it? I said everybody is doing it. You are just hanging with he wrong crowd.

So it’s usually I don’t have the money, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the knowledge, I can’t swing a hammer, I definitely can’t do that. But it’s really that they are too fearful. What if something goes wrong? What if it doesn’t work — what if? How do I get started? It’s too overwhelming. There is really those five excuses, so if you do nothing what’s going to happen right? DO nothing you are not going to change your situation. But I can tell you this with real estate, its real, its tangible, there is millions of us making millions of dollars. It starts with a local plan and local team that you can build with our help or other people’s help in your local coaching and real estate groups. It’s really — for those of you who can see the screen. A lot of it has a lot to do with who you hand out with right? So if you hang about with what I call watchers — they watch but never doing anything. Perhaps they just criticize. The nay sayers or the negative nelly’s. Or do you hang out with doers like I hang out with doers, you guys are doers — everybody is focused on positive results and having fun. We don’t worry about what might go wrong. One of our partners is called Ray the Rhino — Ray the Rhino if you haven’t seen his podcast, maybe you will watch that one on some motivation. But Ray doesn’t let anything slow him down. He just charges ahead so — great example. Also great to have people that have common interests, starts going to the local groups — and you guys have seen how that works. Essentially Steve Harvery said it best. People you chose to associate with determine a lot about where you’re going in life. You guys know that’s true from school and college life.

David: Me and you both man.

Bill: Real estate was able to get me out of that crazy world so guys that’s it. I just want to give you guys a little bit of motivation and — I believe that you guys out there in podcast land — take the first step, we are here to help you in terms of national training, and your local groups can help you as well. Thanks for listening; I will close with a good quote from Tony Robins. I am not sure if Tony actually coined this but — he’s taking credit for it. “If you do what you have always done — you will get what you have always gotten.” Take that to heart folks, best of luck — we hope you guys succeed and get started today.

Mike: Yeah Bill thanks for sharing all that, it was great — I know I have gotten a lot out of GOSPA and setting goals, and putting together strategic plans to reach those goals. One of my favourite quotes is “A goal without a plan, is a dream.” It’s so true, it’s so simple and it’s so true — not having a solid plan — for gaols that you set is just dreaming. You have to plan so I would say start — set some gaols but set goals that are achievable. You got to put that plan together folks; you have to have a good plan. Don’t just write it down on a piece of paper and throw it in the draw. Write it on the mirror in your bathroom; post it up in your home in your bedroom.

Bill: Put it on your phone.

Mike: Put it on your phone, my goal is on my phone and I show everybody, they think I am obnoxious and annoying probably. I make my goal clear to the world you know. I see it every day and my cousin, he writes his goals in his bathroom with a sharpie on the mirror. So every morning he is brushing his teeth — its funny when I go to his house because I am always giving him a hard time. But it is so true, i go over there and see these goals written on his mirror and it’s like he looks at them twice a day when he is in the bathroom in the morning brushing his teeth and same thing when he is on his way to bed. Just putting those in front of you often is a great way to constantly keep reminding you of what you want to achieve. Having a plan to achieve that so.

Bill: Absolutely, I will close with one more. My boss told me this about ten years ago. i just thought about this and it’s so true. We talked about plans, there is only two types of people, you either have the plan, or you are on somebody else plan.

David: So true.

Bill: Much more enjoyable when you are writing the plan.

Mike: It is much more enjoying when you are writing the plan, you are in control. Like you said bill, you are either the one writing it or you are working towards somebody else’s — achieve their goals.

Bill: It is a not a bad thing to get started, but if you have the entrepreneur spirit and the vision, i would say go for it.

Mike: Really depends on what you guys want to do so I think our overall action item for everyone this week would be — to come up with a plan. Again — get started but make sure that you have direction in where you are headed — so have a plan, have where you want to go in mind. To get started in wholesaling we would encourage you guy to go visit freewholesalecourse.com — got a lot of great content on there, pretty much everything you need to now to get started in wholesaling. If you are interested in looking for some properties, some discount properties that we mentioned that we have here in St Louis, visit discountpropertyinvestor.com.

And next week we are going to have our other business partner Ray, he is going to go in-depth with –

David: Rhino Ray.

Mike: Rhino Ray, that’s right, he’s coming up.

Bill: Who knows, one of these days they might coax me back to

Mike: So we have hit on a ton of quotes on this one, we are going to end with one more. “Failing to plan, is planning to fail” Thanks for listening guys.