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Real Estate Investing School Podcast
205. Scaling Big Storage Ventures with Ben Gottfredson
00:58:03
Welcome back to the Real Estate Investing School Podcast. Today we have Ben Gottfredson, the visionary behind Big Ben's Moving and Storage, and Big Storage Ventures, on our show. Ben and Joe enjoy a great discussion where Ben shares his journey in...
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- [00:00]
Ben Gottfordson
Sometimes when people look at really successful real estate investors, they say, man, must be nice. I'd really love it if I could just have all the good breaks they've had. But behind the scenes, there's a lot of pain and a lot of setbacks that they've had to take on.
- [00:19]
Joe Jensen
Welcome to the Real Estate Investing School podcast. I'm your host, Joe Jensen. Today we've got Ben Gottfordson. Now, Ben is the visionary of Big Ben's Moving and Storage and. And Big Storage Ventures. He excels in leading his team, delivering on promises to customers, as well as creating wealth for his partners. He has a passion for the entrepreneurial challenge and the life that it creates. He believes in prioritizing God, relationships and experiences. First creates the maximum fulfillment and minimum regret. So welcome to the show, man.
- [00:53]
Ben Gottfordson
Hey, thanks for having me on. Really excited.
- [00:56]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, I'm stoked to finally have you. I'm surprised we haven't done this earlier. I'm glad we're making it happen. It's funny because you and I have actually dabbled in trying to put some deals together with the storage space. I'm more of just like the single family long hold stuff, but you're. You're the king of storage. And so I'm excited to kind of hear more of your story and how you got where you're at.
- [01:18]
Ben Gottfordson
We'll get a deal, man. We almost got one to the finish line, but wouldn't have been a good thing. And we'll. We'll get the next one.
- [01:26]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, it's much better to not get a deal than to get a mess. So sometimes that's a win is. Is seeing. And that was what's cool about you because I didn't know. I don't know anything about the storage space as a business. Right. But I came across this deal and I brought it to you, and it was cool because you know that space. So I could confidently just say, hey, will you help vet this out? And. And let's run these numbers. And you would have gotten the majority of the deal and everything, but having that expertise is priceless. And it was really cool experience for me. Just be able to, like, normally I'm the one running the show when people bring me deals, and it's fun to be on the other side and just let you do all the work. So I like that.
- [02:03]
Ben Gottfordson
Now we had. We had a good little team together, and I think we all brought something to the table and you just. Just catch the next one.
- [02:11]
Joe Jensen
Yeah. That's awesome. Well, sweet, man. So why don't you tell us maybe a little bit about your story then? Like, when did you first see real estate investing as a whole as. As an investment tool? You know, everybody knows about real estate. People buy houses, they live in houses. But when did you first see it as like, ooh, this is an investment tool? And then from there, what was the journey to like, this is going to be my niche of part of it?
- [02:40]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, good question. I, I first fell in love with real estate by force. Like, I was always kind of a no expenses type of guy. Like, I let my. I had my service business, the moving company, Big Ben's Moving that I just kind of ran it as lean as I could. I didn't want any expenses. But when I expanded to northern Utah from southern Utah, I needed somewhere to live when I. Because I would spend half my week up there, half my week in St. George. So I bought this house and then basically rented it out to nine guys as like just house hacking, frat house model.
- [03:20]
Joe Jensen
Yeah. That's awesome. That was when you first got into it. And you're running your moving company at that time and not the storage units.
- [03:28]
Ben Gottfordson
Right. That's my first taste. Right. So I'm falling in love with real estate. I'm like, okay, my mortgage is two grand, but. But if I rent this thing out by the room, I can, you know, gross four grand and I can cash flow off this single family home really nice and, and have a place to live. Right. And so, and meanwhile, like, good timing. But you know, I had appreciated six. I had six figures in equity in less than a year that I pulled out and I could go ahead and do whatever I wanted to with that. So I'm seeing the power of real estate come really fast. And meanwhile, with my moving company, I'm having people call me, you know, hiring us to do their move, saying, can you do our storage as well? And we would just say no, and we pass them off. But I realized that I had this gap, I had this lead generation for this awesome commercial asset and I just didn't know how to own or build a storage facility.
- [04:33]
Joe Jensen
That's awesome. So the, the storage really came as more of a business venture than a real estate expansion. But you kind of saw it all as one piece together.
- [04:43]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah. And storage, we always say that it really is a business because. And we'll get into like maybe some of the, the deeper mechanics of storage, but you have all the upside of real estate asset that we love, like the tax breaks, the appreciation, the cash flow, but you also have all the Benefits of a business, too. Like, there's a lot of creative things you can do rather than just setting up a lease like that make it really special. And so while a lot of people see storage as something that you kind of set up and then just kind of let it ride, there's a lot of things you can do actively to squeeze more juice out of it. More like a business.
- [05:25]
Joe Jensen
So, see, that's cool to hear you say, because that's what I've always thought of it. I've always looked at, like, people like, oh, real estate, you know, storage. And I'm like, well, that's like, I've never really dabbled in it. Cause I'm like, well, that's like a business. Like, I don't know. I have to, like, market it and, like, run it. And there's competition. And that was one thing. When you and I were running this deal together, we're like, ooh, there's this other big name coming in. And the exact. That, like, it's in a nearby area. How big of a facility are they going to build? And it's like, it's all the entre, like the business competition and all these different avenues that aren't normally considered. You know, when I'm just buying a single family house, I'm like, yep, there's other houses, whatever. It doesn't really matter the same as. As it does when it comes to, like, competitive business. But. But there is a big element to that with the storage facility, especially if you want to, like, make. Maximize your money.
- [06:14]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah. So you see a bigger swing, like, if it's an oversupplied market or if it's a bigger there. If there's more threats, you can get. You can get in big trouble. But if. As long as you do it right and stick with fundamentals, the margins are way better in storage than other real estate classes, too. So you have a little bit of a swing there.
- [06:37]
Joe Jensen
Yeah. No, that's awesome. So that's cool. So you're running the storage units or the moving company? You're running the moving company. You start doing this awesome little house hack where you can live for free, makes more money. And then what. What did it look like? You saw that there was this gap there. You're like, I need to fill that gap. I need to take advantage of that. But I don't know anything about it. Which a lot of people are like, feel that way with real estate. Like, I want to do this, but I don't know anything about it. How did you fix that? How did you solve that problem and learn enough about it to actually do something?
- [07:09]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, and I would probably do it different than I did. So what I did was just. I beat my head against the wall and I went and I just tried to do it versus, like, finding a strategic partner or a coach, which is what I do now. Like, the first time I did this, I said, okay, I'm going to figure this out on my own. So I went to every different bank in town, and I would, you know, give them my spreadsheet, and then they would throw the spreadsheet back at me and say how wrong it was. Right. Like, they wanted me to. They wanted me to do it, like, you know, very conservative, which is fine. And they wanted me to do it their way. But then I would take the feedback that one bank gave me, and I would go to a different branch of the same bank and then pitch it to that banker. So I. I went to over a dozen banks just kind of learning the feedback that they gave me before the third banker at Cache Valley bank gave me a shot, you know, so that's. There's a lot that goes into it with just practicing the underwriting. You have to get to know your architect. You have to get to know what construction costs are. But it's something that I learned the hard way. Kind of just trial and error and just not giving up. Like, I got rejected over a dozen times, but just keep sticking with it and keep learning. And that's really what I would say pushed us over the edge on that first deal.
- [08:39]
Joe Jensen
And you're getting rejected from the lenders. You're trying to get a loan to fund the purchase, and no one wanted to give you money.
- [08:46]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, because, you know, my moving company is taking off. But in their mind, it's like, yeah, who cares? One good year of tax returns. We need three. I'm like, no, I don't. I don't have time. I'm not going to wait three years on this. Like, I need this storage facility, like, now. So there was just. There was a lot of, like, you know, because I'm. I'm, like 24 years old, so there's a lot of, you know. You know, you're. You're sharp, but you're just a little young. You know what I mean?
- [09:15]
Joe Jensen
Right. That's cool. So. So you kind of just push through it. But that's interesting. A lot of people in the real estate space say, like, oh, yeah, you just got to take action, take action, take action. But you're like, I actually. You would have Preferred to bring in a partner or a mentor or a coach or something like that. You feel like that would have been better than just doing it on your own.
- [09:34]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, because now, right. I had a chance to look at that deal, the first deal, we worked hard and we got, you know, we were very fortunate. So it panned out really well. But I'm like, okay, I could do one of these deals on my own maybe every three years with the money I make off the moving company and, and kind of snowball these. Or I could put together a series of deals every single year. And so what we've done is I've learned with the abundance mentality, just cutting other partners in, paying for coaching. Like I have a full time storage investing coach that I pay for. Where before I probably would have said that's a little bit, you know, I couldn't justify it. I just had the fixed mindset. So now paying for coaching, cutting people in, I'm the minority partner on almost all my deals. Right. So, but I just believe in this asset class and wanting to be a part of the most amount of deals as possible, that it's worth it to me. And that's a big paradigm shift that I've had as we've grown big storage ventures, which is our storage investment piece.
- [10:42]
Joe Jensen
That's awesome. So let's talk about that. So you, you've, you partner with all these different people and every deal kind of looks different. You said you're the majority on some, but you're the minority on a lot of them. But that's okay because your ultimate goal is just to collect and be a part of as many assets as you can.
- [11:00]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, exactly. So we, we realized that if we want to, if we want to build a syndication business, which is what we do, we're going to need to cut people in and have you. I put a lot of my own money into the deal, but I just don't have enough. So we cut other people in who they have the money for storage units. And they've always wanted to, I think a lot of people, they always tell me like, oh, I've wanted to own storage units for years, but I just don't have the know how to get to the finish line. So that's what we do. We find the deals, we negotiate with the sellers, we underwrite, we plan. You got a sneak peek at that process.
- [11:38]
Joe Jensen
Yeah.
- [11:38]
Ben Gottfordson
And then when we, when we get them to the finish line, a lot of these people have other businesses and so we make it passive for them and just mailbox money. Just send them a check and they can be as involved as they want on the deal and learn all about our processes and everything that goes into running a storage facility. Or they can be super passive and just collect the check every month.
- [12:01]
Joe Jensen
And that's what I like about it because like I said, I wasn't interested in learning the business of storage units and marketing and advertising, keeping it filled and like all that, that world. Like, not that I couldn't learn, it just isn't. I don't know, this wasn't something I wanted to learn, but I was like, oh, but I could do it passively with you running it and me coming in as a partner, finding the deal or funding the deal and then you run it and that. I think it's so cool. Like I said, everybody can bring something to the table, you know, and if you do bring something table, you get a piece of the pie. And if you, you do the part that you like and you're good at and that you've structured and streamlined, it's like you can scale it. Like you said, it's hard to fund every deal yourself. You know, even the wealthiest people I know of, they don't fund everything themselves. You know what I mean? It's like they bring in other people and it's kind of like one plus one is three. Even though it might make sense. Oh, if I just do it myself, then I get the full return. I'd make more. But it doesn't really seem to turn out that way.
- [13:02]
Ben Gottfordson
Right. Yeah, you get to spread your resources over deals, which it is a multiplying effect. Right. So if everyone gets a chance to be a part of multiple deals, there's just a lot of economies of scale that come with that. And so sometimes people are shocked when we're like, yeah, we'll cut you in just for, just for bringing the deal. Kind of like a finder's fee. They're like, that's it. It's like, yeah, like that's really valuable to us, you know, and then other people, you know, they can, they can do sweat equity to earn it. And other people, they just, they don't have to do any of the work. They just bring their hard earned dollars. And so there's so many different ways to skin a cat on a deal structure like that.
- [13:42]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, I love that. And it's like, if people can focus on their expertise, then it's, it's easier too for them to get it done. Because if you guys are good at running the whole show and you have a whole system in place. And instead of me learning that if you do that, but I can focus on find deals really good, then I'll just focus on that and you don't have to waste all your time finding deals. And it's like everybody can just be better at what they're doing instead of everybody being watered down, trying to do it all. And then it's just like, it's just there's more for everyone.
- [14:11]
Ben Gottfordson
And what I would say kind of for the audience, right? Like, a lot of the people that are, they're participating in real estate investing school, like, a lot of them have already taken their business to the moon. A lot of them are doing insanely cool things, right. But a lot of the audience is still trying to figure out what's their niche or what's. What are they going to be doing. And I would say even if you're just doing your first residential deal, just have the mindset of a commercial real estate investor. Like, obviously I'm partial to storage facilities and commercial real estate. Like, my advice is get to commercial as fast as you can, right? But even if you're just going to stick with residential, you got to have almost like the mentality of a commercial real estate investor. Like, you got to know that this is a business and you're going to need systems to scale. If you ever want to have a significant amount of wealth that comes out.
- [15:08]
Joe Jensen
Of your time and money, let's dive into that. Because I think that's something a lot of people see happen too. It's like, oh, people start out with a house hack and then they, you know, buy a couple single families and once they have a handful of single families, move into multifamily and then into commercial. And it's kind of like, that's kind of like the, like, like syndications, wherever. That's almost like where the, the big dogs always end up. But let's talk about your view on that. Like, when you say commercial, what do you mean by that? And, and why is it so important? Why do you encourage everybody to jump into that?
- [15:41]
Ben Gottfordson
Well, I'll just tell you my personal experience. When I was, I didn't do just one of those frat houses, as I like to call them. I did multiple. And so I was, I was, you know, I basically just didn't have the patience to wait for the next storage deal to come. So when I made money, I would just spend it on a single family house that I knew I could do that with. And meanwhile, I'm scaling the storage business and I'm buying a couple of these frat houses and I'm realizing that the margins are just so much better on storage facilities. And I already have a budget set aside and a system built out for the property management where. So on my single family homes, it's like I was the property manager. So I have this business that I'm making way more money off of the storage side than I am. I'm putting my personal time into managing these frat houses and I'm realizing like, there's just not enough budget. I have to either do the property management myself or I have to hire a residential home property manager as well. So my, my epiphany is like you have to reverse engineer it and realize that even if it's really sweet right now, you, if you had to delegate out all the work you're doing, you have to look at it from that lens because that's where it's going to end up.
- [17:09]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, I love that because that's a lot most people get in real estate wanting some degree of freedom and passivity. Most people aren't just like, oh, I can make a lot of money there, there's definitely that element. But a lot of people are wanting that freedom. And like I said, if you're self running everything because you don't have a structure that you can delegate, then you kind of get capped out. And what I've seen happen personally is if I start to get, I always say it's like I don't buy as much when I'm, when I'm stressed out about the load because I'm like, I don't want to add more load to myself. I'm like, I don't want more properties if I'm dealing with myself because that's going to be a bigger headache for me. I remember I was in the sales world, I used to do door to door sales and I would meet with certain recruits and there'd kind of be a hold back. I'm like, do I want to deal with this guy all summer? Like, do I really want him on my team? Do I want another person? But when my, my regional manager would meet with guys and he would just recruit like nonstop and just like bring him in, bring him in, bring him in. And I'm just like, yeah, because he doesn't have to deal with any of them. He gets to just assign him to an office and not worry about it. And so he had zero, like stop to his push. And I've seen the same thing with my real estate investing is if I have to deal with every headache myself, I pull back just a little bit. But like I said, if you have a system and a team in place where you can just push it into that system, you're just like, let's go, let's blow this up.
- [18:35]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, I think, I think that's it right there. Like, knowing that you have a system and, and you have someone else that has the bandwidth to take it on, that starts to make it sweet. And you get into like a very controversial topic that I think a lot of people are torn on, including, you know, like the real estate investing school community. We know that Brody, like, he's very, very diversified, like, he has his hands in everything. But you ask me, like, I am, I'm strictly staying in my niche that just maybe it's my personality, maybe it's my strategy, but I gotta stay in my, in my niche to get the most out of my time and money. Where other people, they're gonna tell you that, you know, just, just find the very best deal and it all works out so well.
- [19:21]
Joe Jensen
And I think that comes from the business side of it too. Like, say you don't look at as, oh, I'm gonna manage some real estate portfolio and have some passive income. You're run a business that are in them together. And I think that's where that strength comes from and that mindset comes from as opposed to like, I'll just do a deal here or there or whatever. I think there's a lot of power in running it as a business, even if it's not, even if it is single family or frat houses or whatever it is. If you look at it as a business, as opposed to just, you know, a couple deals here and there, it does kind of change how much you want to focus. Because the biggest thing with business is those systems and those patterns. And if you're recreating the will every deal because they're all so different that, that, that, that slows you down.
- [20:08]
Ben Gottfordson
That's it. That's it right there. Is like, even if you're just going to stick with the frat house house hack model, you got to have the end in mind and have that system built out. Well said.
- [20:18]
Joe Jensen
That's cool. And I. Dad, this is good. This clicks with me because those are definitely things I've considered, I've mentioned many times. I'm like, I don't want to run a business. I don't want to deal with teams or get people or be responsible. I just want to manage my portfolio. But, but I'm filling That funnel right where I'm like, funnel's not the right word, but cap right where it's all like, it's getting clogged, where I'm like, ah, now I don't want to deal with everything because it's becoming too big of a portfolio. So the only step is either pull back or make it. Run it more like a business, which is necessary. When you hit a certain point.
- [20:52]
Ben Gottfordson
There'S this phenomenon, like, it's hard to explain. A lot of people that I talk to, they speak about, like, growing a business, whether it be like my service business or my real estate business. And they speak about, like, you know, well, when are you going to just cap it and let it kind of level out and kind of plateau? And like, in my head, that doesn't really work. Like, letting your foot off the gas like that. It. It's against the nature of business. Like, businesses naturally need to be scaled, and they need to be, you know, you have to have that growing period of scaling and then refining and scaling and then refining. But in my. In my experience, like, just flatlining and just trying to maintain has never really worked for me. That's just my. That's just what I've seen.
- [21:49]
Joe Jensen
I agree, man. It's like there's. There's no standing still, you know? And then I think that carries over almost everything in life. Like. Like your health, you know what I mean? Like, it's really hard to, like, I'm just gonna maintain. It's like when I'm maintaining, I'm moving backwards. Like. Like, I'm like, I'm pretty happy. I like it. And then it's like, oh, a few months pass, like, dude, I'm not in as good a shape as I was. You think you're maintaining. Same thing with just. If you look at money just because of inflation, yeah, you could be running a business or whatever. And if you could be making the same, let's say a million dollars a year in your business, but if that's all you do and you maintain $1 million a year, you're. That's not good in 10 or 20 years from now because that's worth half of what it was when you used to be making a million. It's like, you have to be growing, you have to be improving either going forward or you're going backwards.
- [22:39]
Ben Gottfordson
Is.
- [22:39]
Joe Jensen
Is what I've found in every aspect of my life. Relationships, health, finances, all of it. I think you. You nailed that.
- [22:48]
Ben Gottfordson
Even, like, you know, we're playing the City League basketball tonight. It's like, same thing. If you start to coast like you have you've ever seen a basketball game where the team's up by like 10 points? There's like two minutes and they just start to pass the ball around, try to burn clock. You know, if they're really good, they can. They can squeak out a win that way. But a lot of times what happens is when they stop being aggressive, you know, that's when bad things happen. They make. They make one careless pass, and all of a sudden you cut the lead to seven. And. And you know, I mean, like. Yeah, just in everything in life, if you start to get passive or start to get less aggressive, that's when bad things. You open yourself up for bad stuff to happen.
- [23:30]
Joe Jensen
100. Well, especially in business, like, say, because it is competitive. I like that you compared it to, like, the game. Because I'm thinking, oh, yeah, you're just passing ball. But the other team is like, so hungry and wanting to win, and there's seven behind or 10 behind or whatever, and they get extra aggressive. And so you maintaining status quo, what you were doing to win and stay ahead the whole game. All of a sudden at that end, there's so much fire in the opponent's blood that they're. They're coming and doing things they didn't do the whole game. Like, what? Wait, who is this team? Like, that's not who we were playing. And that's how it is with business. Like, if you sit back, someone else will step in and they'll push harder. And so you gotta just show up and keep improving and going faster and harder.
- [24:10]
Ben Gottfordson
That's it.
- [24:11]
Joe Jensen
But I love how you pointed out that there's an ebb and flow to that. You're like, you scale. And then you said you kind of almost retract a little bit, recalibrate, take the lessons, and then go up even bigger than before and then come back a little bit. Like, five steps forward, one step back. Five steps forward, one step back. They kind of recalibrate a little bit. Maybe I misinterpreted that, but what's your thoughts on that?
- [24:34]
Ben Gottfordson
No, you. You got it. And, and what it is, is just like, I think we talked about this at our mastermind, maybe this metaphor of like, when. When you see the bodybuilders, they'll bulk and then they'll cut, right? So they're still moving towards their ultimate goal, but they have like, those phases, right? So, for example, in business, you're gonna hire five people, but. And you're gonna do your best to vet Them make sure they're good. But then you might have to fire one to get to where you need to go, right? So we have that real life example where, you know, we hire, you know, five people in our storage business to run that, but then one of them turns out to be, you know, a bad investment. We have to fire that person, readjust our systems, and then keep going, right? So you, you. And another thing is like payroll too, right? So storage investors that are scaling a business, they're going to have to bring someone on their team. And that pay that you're putting out there, that's discretionary income that you're deciding to share to buy back your time. And it sucks at first until they start to pay off, right? But once they pay off, you get to this point where that's a very profitable system. But guess what? Once it's profitable, then it's the time to do it again. Then you have to hire someone else who becomes short term unprofitable. But in the long term, if your system's thought out the right way, that's a profitable move. So that's what I'm referring to, and you described it perfectly.
- [26:08]
Joe Jensen
So let's talk a little bit about staying in the game and resilience and like, what, what that means to you and your perspective on that. Because this stuff doesn't happen overnight. You know, you said, how old are you now, Ben?
- [26:20]
Ben Gottfordson
29.
- [26:21]
Joe Jensen
29. So you said you were like 24 when you were first kind of seeing the success in your business. Like, oh, I got to expand a storage unit. Which means, I don't know, how old were you when you even started your moving business?
- [26:34]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, I mean, it was a side hustle. I was playing sports growing up. But let's just say 20, 21. Let's just say that's one.
- [26:42]
Joe Jensen
And that's funny, even if it's a side hustle, still, like that's, that's usually how things start. They start out slow. You learn a little bit, you learn a little bit, you learn a little bit, you know, So I mean, you've been in the game for almost a decade. It doesn't happen overnight, you know, and you're still, you're still growing. You're, you know, you're. It's not like you're done. You know what I mean? You're just getting started and what you want to accomplish. But talk about that a little bit.
- [27:06]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is this is not a get rich quick scheme. Like none of it. Whether you're talking about real estate, self storage. Like it's a, you know, a lot of times we start out with single digit returns and then it's not till a few years later where we refinance and turn it into triple digit returns, right? So the game and we set the expectations for our investors is like, look, you gotta be in this for a while. And same thing with the service business. A lot of people think they can start a service business and make it big in less than 12 months. That's the exception. I think it takes four years of taking punches because before you can see something pop and really start to get passive and start to get very lucrative, right? So I think, I think being resilient, believing in, believing in what you're doing and knowing that you're going to have to take several years of punches and getting back up again to really build any sort of wealth, right? And I think a lot of people think that being the smartest or having the biggest calculator brain or, you know, anything like that is what's going to get them there. But it's really just the person that's willing to keep going. And when bad stuff happens, which we could, we could rattle off a dozen crazy things, crazy setbacks that have happened and you just keep getting back up. That's what makes people, that's what sets people apart.
- [28:40]
Joe Jensen
Okay, I actually do want to dive into some of those setbacks. If you hear these stories all the time, it's always this generic, like, oh, you're gonna get punched in the face. Keep going, right? Like, let's dive in though. What are some of the things you've seen either you or your, you know, people in your business? What are like, let's, let's list a bunch of the crap that does knock you down and like, why does it need to be four or five years before you really profit? What are the things people are running into and facing?
- [29:05]
Ben Gottfordson
Well, so there's two, there's two parts of the questions, right? So like the, the, the reason that takes a lot of time to get that traction is, you know, set aside from all the issues that come up, right. Even if your business goes perfect, like to really scale, it just takes time for people to know you and for you to be able to hire and delegate and get some real traction and bust into a market, take up market share. So that on its own is its own set of tough things, right? On real life, examples of stuff that's happened to me, right? You get a call at 4am that your truck hit ice, right? All of a sudden that's a huge, huge setback, right? You have someone that backstabs you, right? Someone working for you that all of a sudden they poach all your clients and they start another business and they use your equipment or they commit payroll theft and they steal a bunch of money from you. On the real estate side, like you can get into a lawsuit, right? Like this. We're under contract for something and our real estate agent tells us that the due diligence deadline is one day, but it ends up being a different day. So all of a sudden you're in this huge lawsuit that you've never been in before and it's just, it's just over a detail. And it's like you, you, you would think that the seller would just show you some mercy as a guy in your 20s, but they want blood, right?
- [30:33]
Joe Jensen
Yeah.
- [30:34]
Ben Gottfordson
You have to, you know, sue your real estate agent and that you get sued and no one really comes out alive. And then we have, you know, most of our projects have gone as good as we projected or better. But sometimes there's setbacks and that's why you have to have a margin of stupidity in all your deals in case something goes sideways. And so you have to stay nimble. I'll give you an example. I'm rattling off a bunch, but on the real estate, we had this storage facility that we thought we're going to build out 90,000 square feet of storage, which is good, but maybe a little over ambitious. This was in the heat, the hottest high point of the market. So luckily, like we have pivots like we have out. So instead of building all of it, we're just going to build half of it, right? Like 40, 45,000 square ft of storage and then we can, you know, basically make it work. And, and we're going to phase the project and do some creative things. But you know, it just goes to show that this is not always pretty, this is not always like perfect and it's very messy. And I think sometimes when people look at really successful real estate investors, they say, man, must be nice. I'd really love it if I could just have all the good breaks that they've had. But I think behind the scenes there's a lot of pain and a lot of setbacks that they've had to take on.
- [32:02]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, no, I love that there's, there are so, like I said, the variety of the issues that you can run into are endless. And, and that's entrepreneurship, like, that's business. Business like that is working for yourself. That's creating anything as you just run into stuff. I remember when I was very first starting my sales career, and, like, I thought the hard thing would be to learn how to sell, because I was like. So I was like, I don't know how to sell. I don't know how to do this, convince people to buy stuff. Like. And then I quickly learned. I'm like, no, it's dealing with, like, the whole phone system's going down. You can't even call in to sign the customer up. And then, like, the paperwork is incorrect. And then there's, like, this shortage of equipment. And so you do sell the person that you can't even install the equipment. Like, there's just all these little things like. And how do you roll with those punches? And. And not only can you fix that. Yeah, you can wait a day, get the new part. But how do you mentally and emotionally stay as an A player when it keeps being just like, mess, mess, issue, issue, issue, issue? And I thought, okay, I'm just going to fix these issues, and then I'll be smooth when I'm running the office. Like, it'll be good. We won't have a shortage of this because I'll be more on top of it. But there's a thousand other things. It's like, oh, to win the game of business and life, you just have to be able to manage your emotions and your positivity and your vision, your outlook while all this is happening. Not fix all that, because it's going to. You need to fix what you can, but while the mess is happening, it doesn't throw you. And that was a huge paradigm shift for me.
- [33:39]
Ben Gottfordson
Exactly. I think a couple things that maybe people could examine while they're. While they're thinking along that same track. Right. Excellence versus perfectionism.
- [33:51]
Joe Jensen
Right.
- [33:51]
Ben Gottfordson
I think a big advantage for me is that I'm not a perfectionist. Right. I don't make my bed in the morning. Right. Like, I don't have a lot of these things that people swear by. And I think. I think it helps me because I'm committed to excellence in my output. My team, like, everything we do, it has to be excellent. But I'm not gonna get paralyzed, right, by something not being exactly perfect. And so I think that's a really big advantage. We talked about taking punches, right. Think about, like, a literal fight. Right? Like, if I was to literally fight someone, probably, like, my strength, I'm not that coordinated, have never had a bunch of practice. But what would really make me a pain to fight Is like that mental toughness, that resilience. So I think these are the types of things that people look at.
- [34:46]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, man, I love that. I think that's so key. And it's funny because a lot of the people I've interviewed, they had some pretty big hits right at the beginning. Like. Like, you know, they like house flippers, and they lose, like, a hundred grand on their first flip because they didn't know what they're doing. It's like, oh, my gosh. You know? But then they stayed in the game, and it's like you learn lessons from each hit, and then you fix that, and then another hit can come, and then another hit. It's almost like, well, how many issues can you deal with so that you can get to the next issue and get to the next issue and get to the next issue. It's not till there's no more issues. It's just like fighting different problems, finding different issues to deal with, because that means you are expanding, you know, if you're still dealing with the exact same issue every single time, you probably need to focus and learn that lesson so that you can go tackle bigger problems.
- [35:38]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah. And you develop a stress tolerance, too. I think that's something that, from day one, like, the littlest stuff is gonna keep you up at night. Right? And then, like, now, today, someone would literally have to die for me to get rattled. Like, knock on wood. Right. But my point is that now it's like my stress tolerance is so high that it's just because I've practiced and I've hung in there. And I think you develop, hopefully, a strength of what I like to call triage. And what I mean is like, think of like an army doctor when they have someone come in to the medical facility. They have, like, three people that are all bleeding. They're like, okay, this one's for sure gonna die. This one's for sure gonna live. But this one in the middle, I could probably save them and do the most good for this person, right? And then they save their life, and then they move on to the next one. So I think having. Because in your business, there's someone always dying, and there's someone that. That would be easy for you to handle. That's always going to be okay if you were to do the hard stuff first. But I think identifying your impact corner right where you. Where you can do the most good right now, that's what helps people create.
- [36:54]
Joe Jensen
A lot of value, man. That's money. Those are two really good distinct points of success, right? The triage, knowing exactly where to focus on when it needs it the most, and the stress tolerance. And I think that's kind of what I was referring to before is like, when you. Yeah. Like, if every little thing throws you off and every little thing stresses you out is really hard to grow and expand. But once you build that up and. Yeah, most successful people I know. I remember I had this manager, and he just. I never. I'd never seen him lose his cool. Like, I never seen him lose his cool, and it blew my mind. And it would bother me because I'll be like, maybe I'd be losing my cool, especially when I was beginning, you know, in that business world. And I'd be, like, frustrated about a thing, and. And he would just always be calm, cool, collected. And it's like that strength despite the whole world falling apart, not only does it help you actually think clearly so you can triage the situation correctly, but. But it makes it so that you're not just getting thrown off every single time something goes wrong.
- [38:01]
Ben Gottfordson
Because what was that guy's role?
- [38:04]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, he was like this manager, running teams and everything like that.
- [38:08]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, he's a leader, Right. And so, like, one of my things that I don't see a big way that you can get around it is developing a team. Right. And so when you have a team, eventually, like, my company's got to the point where now I have middle management, where now I'm not like the only leader I have. I'm, like, leading the leaders. Right. And so not only is my example really important and just having that. That rock that's never going to get rattled running the show, but also helping the leaders see that they need to be the same way and they need to learn how to pick their battles. Right. So a lot of times we get, you know, we get so worked up. I remember I. I have my mom on payroll and, you know, whenever anything would go wrong, my mom, she's. She has a high standard of excellence. So she would just like, this is not okay. We should fire them. We know, like, we got to keep this together, right? And I'd be like, come on. Like, what is that going to do? If we just fire everybody, then we. We have no one left, right? Yeah. Have to. We have to pick our battles. We have to be patient. We have to do. We have to attack this the right way. And so I think when you're scaling a team, it's. It's only going to serve you if you can have that. Never get too high, never get too low. Mentality.
- [39:41]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, man, that's, that's powerful. Like, I think that's such a huge, like underrated skill. And it is a skill. Like, it's not like, oh, well, Ben's just so level headed. He's always been that way. He's so cool, you know, like, and then maybe you have. But for me, I had to like learn that I came from a home where it was like we weren't. We went like, short fuse fight. But like, man, arguing was a sport. I mean, we would just battle to wits in and devil's advocate this and battle that and like, I don't know, I had to learn to like change my stars a little bit and recorrect and not let everything stress me out. I had a, you know, I got to that point where like big things had happened. It's like, okay, well, we'll figure it out, you know, but. But it's a skill you can learn. So, you know, that's hot headed as somebody might be right now. Like, you can become where Ben's at, where it's just calm, cool. No matter what's going on, he's not freaking out. Like, even if everything throws you, like, it's a skill that can be developed and learned no matter who you are or where you're at. And it's when you have to keep perfecting and learning because the stresses get bigger. You know what I mean? You got more and more people. You know, like I said your mom was on payroll. You don't want to have to fire her and fire everybody else. And there's people's livelihoods on you. They're like, ben, we're counting on you. Like, that's a lot of pressure. And so the, the stresses get bigger and you have to keep growing that stress muscle of, of not letting things take you down.
- [41:08]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, I would, I wouldn't say, to give me a whole lot of credit. Like, honestly, my nature is very quick tempered. Like, I think people would have known me in high school. Right. Would have just like very aggressive, very hot tempered, very, like no filter with anything I said at all. And no, I'm not perfect.
- [41:29]
Joe Jensen
Sometimes that one's changed yet. I've been to dinner with you before.
- [41:34]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, I'm still not perfect. But my point is, like, I would not give me like a whole lot of credit for changing. I would just say, like, I would be. My business would not survive. It's not really like a choice. Like, if you want to scale a company, you don't get to like decide if you want to be quick tempered or not, it's like you have to have that, you have to develop that or else you die. Right? Like, you can, there's, you can read books on business owners who just could never keep it together and then their whole company, like implodes, falls apart on itself. And so I see it as more like a requirement. Like, you're never gonna have something big if you can't do that.
- [42:21]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, I love that, man. I want to dive into some of our final four questions with enough time to really kind of dig into them. Not just like a fire round, but, but if people do want to reach out to you, Ben, and be a part of what you're doing, because you do do a lot with other people. You know, it's not just like, hey, I want to follow your journey and see and be kind of inspired because you're doing stuff. But like you're, you're doing partnerships, you're running syndications. People can play different roles. Like I say you, you'll even give long term equity just for finding a deal, which is hard to come by nowadays. Like, that's really, really cool. What kind of things are you looking for if people wanted to come be a part of what you're doing and how can they reach out and kind of build something with you?
- [43:07]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, we're, we're really making a focus on being very approachable. So you can always feel free to DM Big Storage Ventures or my personal account, Ben Goffertson and I just hired two more executives in Big Storage Ventures, you know, on a long term basis, so I could have the bandwidth to be approachable, to take DMs, to take phone calls and coach people through it. And really our goal is that everybody owns storage units and everybody owns commercial real estate. And whether, like we're a part of that or not doesn't really matter as much as just building that community and building that network. So I would say, you know, with anything, any questions in general, business wise, I love to nerd out and jam, but anything storage specific, like, we look at deals for free, we coach people through the finish line and help negotiate. So that's where you find us. You know, those are the two best ways.
- [44:07]
Joe Jensen
Awesome. So Instagram's a great way. And then it sounds like you can, they can actually get ahold of you.
- [44:12]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, just DM me your phone number and I'll call.
- [44:15]
Joe Jensen
That's awesome. I think that's, that's a huge value that you guys can provide, especially in the quality of what you're Doing. You know, a lot of times, like, these little beginners will do that because they have no deals. I had a guy reach out, like, hey, would you. If I give you, like, a commission off of everybody that did a loan with me, will you send me people? And I'm like, dude, that'd be cool. You know, I recommend lenders all the time. And I was like, sweet. Like, how big is your team? Like, how many deals do you do a month? And he's like, well, we haven't really, like, been around that long. Like, how many deals? Like, well, I've done three. I'm like, 3D. You funded three loans? Like, no way in hell am I going to recommend my students or anybody I interview to go to a lender who's done three deals. Like, he doesn't even know the crap he's going to face. To get people through the finish line. You got to be. I was just like, no, like, that's not gonna happen. So my point is, there's a lot of unqualified people that are very approachable and want everybody to work with them, and they'll give you the world if you, like, talk to them, because they don't. They have way more bandwidth than they do success. But if someone like you, as you guys, you actually know what you're doing, you've brought many, many, many deals through the finish line, you know, and you have that quality and that credibility, but you're still open to teaching and helping people. Like, that's. That's a gift for. For those listening that want to participate. And it was cool for me, like, I got to participate in this. We were putting that one deal together, and it was a cool experience. You know, I'm excited for the next one.
- [45:42]
Ben Gottfordson
It's fun to be in the sweet spot where you're like, you know exactly what you're doing, but you're still not so big and so corporate that your phone's off, you know, so it's fun to be in the sweet spot.
- [45:55]
Joe Jensen
Okay. All right, so I got a question here. So for final four questions. I know we'd sent you these before, but I changed them so you haven't heard all of them yet. Yeah, exactly. Keep it on your toes. You're like, I gotta go. Time's up, everybody. If you had to start your real estate journey over, but you know what? You know now, what would be your first, second, or maybe third move?
- [46:23]
Ben Gottfordson
Finding. Yeah. So for me, they say, he who has the gold makes the rules, but really, he who has the deal makes demands. The gold. So I think, you know, the biggest. And we just hired a full time acquisitions executive because of this because you know, really whoever has the deal, we feel like we're in this golden age on this asset class where it's still not fully consolidated and there's so much left out there. And this is the same for a lot of other residential and commercial asset classes that it's just about whoever's going to find it first. Whoever's turning over the most rocks whoever has the best strategy to drum up business and hunt deals. That's the, that would be like, if I had to start over, I would be spending a lot of time on that. Because you can create value, wholesaling, partnering, anything. If you can do that.
- [47:22]
Joe Jensen
I love that. And it's like it doesn't take a lot of skill or knowledge or experience or money. You know, if you can find a deal, you can play the game and you'll be in the rooms with the people that have the money. If you can find deals like it doesn't matter who you are, like no one's too good. Like if you have a good deal like that, like I said that that speaks no one, no one cares anything else, you know?
- [47:49]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, I just, I mean you, you would be surprised if you can find good deals, how fast you'll have access to like celebrities and people in the NFL that just want to place their money. Like we, we've had that, you know, we've got introductions to NFL football players just because it's like, yeah, like we want to get in on these deals. So that's a great thing. And other thing I'd say is like the finding. Then there's the operations, the property management. Like that's a great skill set. And if, if my business crumbled like I'd probably. Whether it was residential property management or commercial property management, getting that operation side down and building out those systems is a, is incredibly lucrative thing to do as well.
- [48:35]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, it's cool. I actually had a student just message like, hey, I'm looking at a, I want to start another part time job and I want it to be in real estate. And I think that's awes like, yeah, go work for wholesaler, go work for property manager. See the backside of how everything's done and that'll give you such an awesome foundation for when you start to hire it out or do it yourself or however you're going to grow. I think that's awesome. That's a great answer. All right, Ben, question number two. What is A book or podcast you would recommend.
- [49:07]
Ben Gottfordson
Outside of real estate Investing School Podcast, Beyond Net Worth Podcast.
- [49:13]
Joe Jensen
Those two, of course, but beyond besides.
- [49:15]
Ben Gottfordson
Those, I mean, I love traction. Like traction has become kind of the bible for my business, both, both my service business and my real estate investing business. And so I think it's a great way to kind of get your implementation down. You know, we, there's lots of good bit. There's lots of good business books about motivation. But that's as far as, like, if, if I could just. Because I'm assuming I'm making recommendation to this audience, assuming that they're already motivated. Like, right, if you don't have the motivation, like you haven't eaten enough ham sandwiches and you haven't worked enough days clocking in for a job. Like the motivation should be there if you're, you're just the fact that people are listening to this podcast when they could be watching, you know, Breaking Bad says something about them, right? The fact that they're going to make that sacrifice. So really what you need is you need to know how. Right. You need to get that, that implementation down. And I think traction is a good, a good starting spot.
- [50:21]
Joe Jensen
I love that. And just that principle of like the boring book, that's just like the nitty gritty stuff is, is what's most lacking in out there today because there's so much motivational stuff and it's good stuff. There's really good content. Take your pick. You follow anybody on social media, it's like all the inspiration and all the good quotes and it wasn't always like that. I remember back in the day I came across a Jim Rohn CD and is like, what is this stuff? It was mind boggling, was so cool. Now it's a dime a dozen, all this stuff. But the people are actually like teaching the boring stuff. That's not clickbaity, that isn't fun in a one minute sound bite. Like the books like Traction was like, this is how you create a system and do this and this, this, they're actually way more exciting once you dive in because it'll make a difference. It's applicable, you can use it. It's not just like get you excited and then now what do I do? It's like, this is what you do. So anyway, that whole concept, find more books like that, find more people like that, find more podcasts like that, we'd have a plethora of exciting stuff. But the boring stuff is to me more exciting because then I can actually do something with it.
- [51:32]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, yeah.
- [51:33]
Joe Jensen
Love that. All right, two questions. Second, last one. What is an expensive mistake or interesting? I say, you know, expensive or interesting mistake that you've made in real estate investing.
- [51:49]
Ben Gottfordson
Hmm. Expensive mistake or disinteresting? I would say, like one mistake that I'll say you gotta be careful with is going with the cheapest number, right? So sometimes that pans out. Okay. Sometimes that can ruin your life, right?
- [52:15]
Joe Jensen
So, so what do you mean by the cheapest number? Like buying the cheapest thing or what do you mean?
- [52:20]
Ben Gottfordson
Yeah, so I'm referring to like, for example, an architect or a general contractor. Right there they're going to have different numbers, right? And so there's a range there. And I think. I'm not saying you never go with the cheapest number or one of the ones towards lower end, but I'm saying that you got to be really clear about what your priorities are. And also, like, include, like, if you get a contract, include some conditions, like liquidated damages. So, for example, like, we go with the lowest number on this architect, and they take literally like 24 months to do their set of plans. When we were assuming they were going to be like three or four months, right? And we went with the lowest number. There was other hiccups. Like, you know, they're not like dishonest, terrible people, but they just didn't understand the full scope of the job. So, you know, we go with the lowest number on a different type of job and they do a fine job, right? Same, same. But that's something that can really mess you up. I think the other thing I hinted at having a margin of stupidity in deals, right? So, like, if. If you have to have everything go perfect for the deal to work, it's a bad deal. I don't care if it's, you know, like, sometimes you can make that conscious decision of just you're trying to bust into real estate by any means necessary, and you need a deal that's like, maybe mediocre or break even just to learn and earn your stripes. But, right, just be. Just be super careful because everything won't go perfect. So if your numbers, if you're paying for something off pro forma numbers that don't exist, if you're assuming the very best in the market, that's going to get you in trouble.
- [54:19]
Joe Jensen
I think that's such good advice. If everything has to work out right for it to be a good deal, it is not a good deal because that's how we start this whole thing, right? Is like lists of issues that are going to Happen. You don't know what they are, but. But they will happen. And if for some magical reason you're wrong, this is the one deal that will work out, you know, then like, great, it was even more profitable. You know what I mean? But you don't want to bet on that. You want to bet on things going south.
- [54:47]
Ben Gottfordson
That's where this, that's where this whole thing ends up is. It's like you're going to give, you're going to put together three sets of underwriting, your worst case doomsday scenario, your realistic scenario, and your best case scenario. And you're always going to want to assume that things are going to go the worst case scenario and hope that they just pop. And we've had that happen. Where I got, I started out, like, the banks made me put in like doomsday scenario numbers to turn into them for the loan. But that first deal, that one really popped. So even though we gave them the bad projections, like we were ready if that was the case, but it really popped and did well. So you, it's almost like if you prepare that way and plan on it going bad, it's almost more likely to, to go well.
- [55:35]
Joe Jensen
Yeah. And, and because if it doesn't, it still went well. Right. When things do go wrong, it's like, yeah, like, that's fine. I was listening to this quote, like Dave Ramsey was, you know, crapping on real estate investors. Oh, you can't live off of real estate because there's going to be vacancies and there's going to be, you know, repairs and there's going to be. I'm like, yeah, I calculated that all into my calculator before I bought the property. Like, I knew all that was going to happen. And when it does go south and there is all these issues, I'm still winning because I prepared for it. And if they don't have, and then like, say, then you're, you're really, really winning. But either way, you're winning if you're prepared, which is what you're saying, which is awesome.
- [56:12]
Ben Gottfordson
Screw Dave Ramsey.
- [56:13]
Joe Jensen
Yeah, screw Dave Ramsey. All right, all right. One word. Why you love real estate investing.
- [56:22]
Ben Gottfordson
If I had to narrow it down to one word, I would say powerful. I'll put it, I'll say powerful because, you know, like, it crossed my mind. Like, okay, well, it's like a solid investment. But we even like to clarify, like, it's not recession proof. It's just recession resistant. Right. Like, it's, this is not, like, this is not something without any risk, so I couldn't say that. But I think when you look at what it can do, powerful is a little bit vague, but the power that it has to really create wealth and, and between the big three, right, which are cash flow, equity, and the tax advantages, this can take someone from financially nothing to financially set for life. And that's. That's powerful. You can open up yourself to serve. You can open up yourself to follow your passion and your dreams. You can live a life with no regrets. That's. That's the power of real estate.
- [57:32]
Joe Jensen
I love that. Powerful. That's a. That's a good, good word to use there. Well, Ben, this has been a treat. Thanks so much for your time and, and sharing your experiences, your knowledge, and a way for people, though, to reach out to you. Thanks for being here, dude.
- [57:46]
Ben Gottfordson
Thank you, Joe. Thanks for being the face of the Real Estate Investing School.
- [57:50]
Joe Jensen
I love it, man. Well, this is Joe Jensen signing off for the Real Estate Investing School podcast, reminding you that things will go wrong, and that's all right.