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- [00:00]
A
This is the Better Life podcast here with your host, Mr. Brandon Turner, along with my beautiful co host.
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B
Beautiful, beautiful man. I'm a beautiful human being.
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A
What's up, man? How you doing?
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B
I'm great.
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A
Busy weekend?
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B
Way too busy, actually.
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A
It was a blast.
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B
It was Thanksgiving, Beach Day, birthday party.
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A
All sorts of stuff.
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B
It's.
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A
I'm tired today.
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B
It wasn't relaxing.
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A
Speaking of tired, I was up all night just waiting for the sun. And then it dawned on me.
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B
I actually didn't know you were coming with the joke.
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A
Three though, because I traveled to South Carolina tomorrow. No, tonight, Red eye flight. So I got up at 3 this morning trying to reset my. Oh, my brain a little bit.
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B
When you travel, do you try and reset? I just went to St. Louis two weeks ago and I just was like, you know what, I'm just going to stay up till 2 and wake up at 8 or 9 and I'm not going to reset.
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A
Yeah, normally, yes, but because I'm going to like an event that starts at 8am oh yeah. Fall asleep at like 2 in the morning and then wake up at 6. That sounds miserable. So I'm trying to reset, but I have no good tips on jet lag. It's just always hard all the time. Yeah. If you have good tips, let us know in the comment section below. How do you survive jet lag? Today we're going to talk about business rules, like simple rules of business that will make you millions of dollars. It's not just for real estate. Even though both Cam and I do real estate, we also do other businesses. This is general business. Simple rules. I think we have what, 11 of them. 11.
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B
11 rules of business.
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A
11 rules of business that are going to make you millions of dollars. So if you find these helpful, let me know which one's your favorite. Put in the comments below. And of course, hit the little like button on the video. The REI Summit is coming up soon. The Real estate investing Summit. We put it on every year gets bigger. Every year gets better every year. And this year it's coming up here in April, 1st through the 3rd through the 3rd. It's going to be in Austin, Texas. Just put on my2reisummit2026.com. That's reisummit2026.Com. Get your ticket and if you use the code Christmas, you'll save a little bit if you do that before Christmas, not that much longer.
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B
So 25 days away.
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A
Yeah. Whoa. According to this. Yeah.
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B
Yes.
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A
We record this on December 1st, by the way, in case you're Curious. Now, let's get into this video. These are 11 rules, simple rules of business that will make you millions of dollars. Cam and I have built many businesses over our life, made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot. And we're going to teach you things that we wish if we were going back, going to teach ourselves how to do this whole thing better. These are the rules that we'd go by. And so I've got our list here. We brainstorm ahead of time. What happened?
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B
How many seven figure businesses have you built?
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A
It's a good question. Seven figure revenue businesses. Yeah, yeah. We just had this conversation about the number of people influencers. We talk about revenue versus profit, which should be one of our rules. But it's not. Yeah, like, but business that do seven figures. I don't know, three, four if you don't come up. I mean you call every apartment complex as a business. Oh yeah, as a business.
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B
So we've got our rental company.
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A
Yep.
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B
Home buying company and then deal flow. There were all seven figure businesses.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Two of them I made money from. So one was a seven figure business that there was also a seven figure expense business.
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A
Yes. Because sometimes when you see revenue, you're talking about influencer online. Dude talks about making he made $100 million, but it's like, did he really make $100 million? I didn't bring in revenue of $100 million because if that's the case, I can tell everyone I made $150 million last year because I've got a hundred, like I've got 14,000 tenants that I'll pay rent. Now of course I didn't see any of that at all. But. But the revenue that came in was like 150 some million dollars, you know, give or take a couple dozen million in there. It's a lot, but so be careful about looking at revenue numbers versus profit numbers. That said, that's not our first rule. Our first rule. Clarity creates momentum. Now when I talk about that, you know, I teach a lot of people real estate investing and a lot of just general business helped people. The number one thing I think that actually holds people back a lot of times is simply lack of clarity. Like what is the, what are they actually? Let's use real estate as an example. Newbies come in, they want to get into Real Estate 5 a program called First Deal, First Come. And the first thing we make them do is get very clear on decision making. So what strategy are you going to pursue? Are you going to buy rental properties? You're going to buy Small multifamily rental or large multifamily rental or single family? Are you do rent by the room? Are you going to do co living? The same thing? Are you going to do short term rentals midterm? Like, know your strategy, know your location, your condition, like what fixer uppers already fixed up. Know all of those things. And if you know them all now, all of a sudden you can make a plan. But most people never make a plan or they're going to go start any kind of business. There's just a lack of clarity. And the thing that helped me a lot, I've struggled with this for years, but then it helped me was reading in a book called Traction from Gino Wickman. He said it's often more important that you decide than what you decide. And so I'm a big believer in just picking your lane and going all in. Clarity creates momentum. Yeah.
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B
And I think about this also from a little bit of a different perspective too. Where in your personal life or like, where do you want to go in your personal life or like, what do you want for your family, for your kids? I think that's super important. One of the ways I actually spoke at a conference about this, and I use the terminology like everybody has Google Maps in their phone. I have a house in Denver and a house in St. Louis. I can type in my address in Denver and the map app is going to take me straight to that house. If I don't type in an address and I don't know where I'm going, I'm going to be all over the place while I'm trying to get there, trying to figure it out. I know it's west of St. Louis, so I'm driving that way, trying to figure it out. But if you type in a certain destination, it's going to take you right there. And I think that's so important for every single person that's listening to this. Like, have an in state in mind, an in destination in mind, because if you don't know where you're going, you're just going to wander around aimlessly. And so I think that like, for Lexi and I, that was so important for us of like, hey, what do we want with our life? What do we want? Like, what's the number that we need to feel financially, financially free even though we work still a ton? It's not like we're retired. What's that number in mind? What do we need to be able to afford the lifestyle that we live? What do we want our kids, future to look like? What do we want high schools to look like? What do we want vacations to look like? And we have that all written down and planned out. And so then that gives us almost like daily actions that we have to do. And I think a big part of that too is like, there's a lot of stuff in between that end state and where we are right now. And it doesn't stress me out. I think a lot of people, they get stressed out where it's like, I have to pick the exact thing and that's going to be it for the rest of my life. That's not the case at all. It's just like, we know our end state and we know what we have to do to get to that end state. And does that mean that we're only going to be single family investors forever? Probably not. Does that mean that we're going to do X, Y or Z? I don't know, but I just know, like, here's what I need to do to get to where I want to be. Does that make sense at all? Yeah. So I think that's important for people, like, have that in state in mind because if you don't, you're just going to wander around aimlessly.
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A
I agree. Yeah. There's a great book out there called Vivid Vision from K. I recommend it all the time to people because it made a big impact on me. And the idea is, like, create a very clear picture, like three years in the future of where you want your business to be. Just absolute clarity. And I know a lot of times people are like, well, I really know if I should do this or this or maybe that sounds good or it doesn't matter. Like I said, why don't you decide? So make your vision, read the book, make your vision, get crystal clear. And then here's the thing. You can always correct course along the way. You can't steer a bicycle if a bicycle's sitting still.
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B
Right.
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A
Like when you're like sitting on a bike, it doesn't matter how many times you turn the handlebar, you just fall over. Right. But as soon as you're moving now, you can turn the handlebar a little bit and you can create movement and you can pivot, but you can't pivot when you're standing still. So clarity creates momentum. Number two, where there's pain, there's profit. I think a lot of people start businesses because they have an idea of something cool, but it doesn't actually solve a problem and therefore never goes. So this idea of, like, all the best businesses generally solve a massive problem.
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B
And it's usually a complex problem, too.
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A
It usually is a complex problem. Like, I have a house. I just got divorced. I need to get rid of this house as quickly as possible. It's a complete disaster. I don't know what to do. I don't want to list it. What do I do? That's a real problem that people have. It might not be divorced. Might be, you know, somebody passed away. It could just be they were hoarders living in it. Like, there's just. There's a problem and then. So you as a real estate investing company owner can create a solution.
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B
Yeah, I think also, like, when you're looking at, like, where there's pain, there's profit, like, what are the hard, complex problems to solve? And if you can solve those, you will make money. And a great example of this is like, yes, single family real estate investing. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of problems. We've gotten really great at solving those, but it still is pretty elementary compared to other things. And I'll give you an example. We interviewed a guy I. It's probably been two years on the podcast. I forget his name, but he did land development and he was talking about entitlements and surveys and like, all of this, like, just crazy. He said a typical deal takes two years before he starts selling it to builders. And I remember telling him, like, man, that's just. That's too much. Like, I couldn't do it. That's overwhelming. And he looked at me and said, that's why I make way more money than you, Cameron. And he's right where it's like, that's a complex problem. His average deal, he's making millions of dollars. My average deal, I'm making $20,000.
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A
So I love, I love that you took a different approach at this one than I did in that, like, I was thinking from a market standpoint, there are people with pain. I love the approach you just took is like, from a difficulty, like, it's painful to build this business, therefore there's money there.
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B
Yes.
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A
Kind of like the same thing is true for either one. Like, I, like, I would say choose your hard. Like, I've been really into the rent by the room, so I'll piece both these together. The rent by the room strategy, we call it co living. There's a company called Pad Split that does a lot of co living. They're kind of like Airbnb of Pad spl or I mean, of co living. So Co living is where you buy a single family house. Typically you carve it up into a bunch of like almost like studio apartments and then you rent them all out individually. Maybe there's a shared bathroom, a shared kitchen. A lot of times you get rid of the living room. Now a lot of you are listening to that for the first time. You're going, what the heck, that sounds terrible. How would you manage that sounds so hard. Yup, it is hard. So first of all, why is this a popular niche? Like why do I love it? Why did I buy two of them this year? Why am I going to buy more of them? Because it solves a massive pain point in the market, which is affordable housing. That's a massive pain point in the market. So I want to be in the market where there's a big pain point with a solution. But also it's a big pain for somebody else to build. Like not everyone is just going to go out there and do a house where they got to rent out each bedroom individually because it's a lot of pain to build that business. So this is why I never thought about it this way. This is why I love the co living model, is because you hit the pain on both sides. It is a very big, massive, huge problem in the company country and it's a really tough problem to actually solve. And so because I can hit both those difficulties, that's why that's a profitable niche. So when people are like, well that sounds terrible, that sounds really hard to manage eight tenants to live in one house. I'm like, yup, good. It's like Jocko Willy. Good, good.
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B
Well because when you can figure that out, like that's where the money is made. Another great example of this is I've got a buddy who owns a 10 figure plus lawn care company and I've talked to other people who own very small lawn care companies and like it's so hard to find employees because you can't really that well and they're very seasonal or they're college kids back for the summer. And my buddy that owns a ten figure company, he just, he figured that out like how do I get good employees that are long term and if, if they're not, how do I continue like to hire on people all the time. And he's figured that out where a lot of people will be like I don't want to go into that business because it's so hard to get good employees for relatively cheap labor. And so just solving those problems is where, like if you can solve them you can make a lot of money.
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A
Yeah, yeah.
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B
That's ultimately what it is.
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A
When I pick mobile home parks, I got a lot of home parks. It's like we. It's a hard niche. It's one of the hardest real estate niches there is. And it's hard because one, you're dealing with a lot of low income people and you're dealing with properties that are not really allowed anymore. They're not making new ones. There's not a lot of houses available. It's hard to find them. It's hard to fill up these units. Like, so we'll buy them 50% occupied or 70% occupied and then have to fill in 50, 60, 100 houses. But where do you find a mobile home? And you got to figure out how to move it. And they get the pad prepped and the whole thing. And if I tell people that, most people go, oh, that sounds hard. It is hard. Yeah. But that's why we're good at it. That's how we make money at it. It's hard. And then once you choose, go back to clarity. Once you choose your hard, you go all in on it. You solve the problem. It takes time. You solve the problem and then it's not so hard anymore. But now you're making money. Yeah. And it's a.
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B
Choose your hard thing, I think, because like for us in the single family space, we invest in class A and class B single family rentals. The hard part about that is they don't cash flow at all. The great thing about that is they're in great areas. We have a really good tenant bas. Uh, when we list a property, it goes quick. So we have a lot of easy things about it. But also we have to figure out ways to cash flow. And part of that's leaving money tied up into the deal, paying them down versus like section eight, you're going to cash flow a lot, but you're also going to have a lot more problems. And so just choose your hard. But if you choose something hard and you figure that out, you can make a lot of money that way.
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A
Agree? Rule number three. There's actually a related one to the one we just talked about. This one. Money follows value, not effort. This is something early on in my career because I was. I don't say career, but in my life I was a working adult. I worked, I was an employee. And so my mind, I equated time to money. Like if I worked five hours, I made five hours worth of money. And so I assume like by working hard and by working long, therefore, I was going to be more successful, wealthy or rich or whatever. And then the fact that it just, it's just not true in business. It's not the amount of time you work necessarily or how hard you work. It's really just the value that you bring. So again, if you're bringing something that's not valuable, it doesn't matter how hard you work at it, you're going to struggle. So finally bring value, which again is usually solving a massive pain point or providing some kind of a great pleasure. But usually it's a pain point we want to solve. That's how you bring value.
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B
I mean, just add on it like if you're mowing lawns, everybody can do that. That's not, that that's not a hard problem. And that's not a super valuable problem that you're solving.
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A
It's hard work.
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B
It's hard. It's super hard. If you are creating a business that has hundreds of employees that are mowing lawns all over a metro area, like, that's a really hard thing to do. And money's gonna follow that. And so it's just getting out of the hourly mindset. I think when, when you, when you look at that, getting out of, hey, I work for five hours and I'm value my time at 50 bucks an hour. So it's 250 hours. Like what are those high value tasks? And I think this is important for everybody is doing an audit of your time where it's like, I spent that. I mean, I do it probably once every couple of months where it's like I spent four hours this morning setting up utilities on flips that, that we're, we're doing. I could pay somebody 12 bucks an hour to do that. Like, is that valuable or is what's valuable me negotiating deals or me managing our employees? That's way more valuable. And so doing a time audit of like what is the most valuable thing to my company. And that's what I want to focus on. And I want to hire the rest out, which I think we even have that.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Down lower as well. But like looking for those like high value things.
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A
Another piece of the value thing before we move on to the next problem or the next rule is I think a lot of times there's a, there's a belief that like an idea for a business, that if you're gonna start a business, it's gotta be some clever, unique, crazy cool thing. But the reality is you brought up like landscaping, landscape, it's A very boring business. The value that you bring is not. I mean, like, you can mow a lawn just as well as the guy on the street can mow a lawn. Yeah. So how do you bring value to lawn mowing? Well, one, you return phone calls promptly. Maybe you text people before you show up to let them know you're coming later that day. And then maybe you text them afterwards and ask them how it looks and ask them if there's anything you can come back and fix for them. So often value is not necessarily even in the actual product or service being served. It's in the service of that product or thing that you do. It's like how well you do it. Does that make sense? Oh, for sure, yeah. So, like, doing something exceptionally well is going to make that more valuable. I have a friend who wanted to become a real estate agent, but he's young, he was like 23, and, and didn't know anything about real estate that much. And he was like, how can I compete with these real estate agents that are doing millions and millions of dollars a year worth of transactions and they're helping hundreds of people. He's like, I just can't stand out. And I said, well, what can you do? What do you have? And he's like, I got nothing. I'm like, you have time. You don't have any kids, you don't have a family. You got lots of times. Well, yeah, that doesn't really help me. He's like, oh, make. Make that valuable. Why don't you go and tell everyone, make it your calling card or, you know, put it everywhere that you answer phone calls. Every single time the phone rings, you answer a phone call or you'll pay the client $100 no matter what. Now all of a sudden, it doesn't matter if you've got experience or not. You always answer phone calls or you pay the client a hundred dollars, you know, or whatever the thing is. Yeah. Like all of a sudden now it's like, oh, that nobody else can do that. Because I. I mean, if I'm a real estate agent, I'm doing a hundred clients a year. I'm never answering my phone. I got three people that answer phone calls for me. You don't even get to talk to me. And so although I might be doing a lot of volume, if you're brand new to something, you just find a better way to serve it and then make that your thing. Go all in on that. It's like I'm this person because that's what makes you Value.
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B
Like one of our buddies, he has an Airbnb in Scottsdale, and he wanted to put a pool in, and he called seven different pool companies, and two of them called back.
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A
Wild.
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B
Yeah. And so it's like just those small things makes you stand out in a business and.
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A
Great idea.
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B
A pool company in Scottsdale.
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A
Related is have an AI dialer. Like a AI dialer bot, whatever. You know, AI bot. Call to every business they can possibly find. Just go through the phone book and call every single business and then find out who calls you back. And then put that into an algorithm or a spreadsheet or whatever and find out what businesses and what areas have the worst callback rates. And then just open up a business in that area. Yeah, in that area. Because you're like, well, clearly, 8 out of 10 roofers do not call people back in this market. So clearly there's a. There's an opportunity there for a better customer service experience versus you go 8 out of 10 do call you back. But maybe that there's. Yeah, it's like there's competition. Yeah. Anyway, it's a cool idea. We should run with that and let me know for work.
- [18:24]
B
Give me equity, though.
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A
Yeah, I'll take 5%.
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B
Yeah.
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A
All right, you're gonna. 5%. Let's talk about the next one. If you don't track it, you can't improve it. So when I say, like, track it, I mean, like, every aspect of your business. If you're not tracking your numbers, your KPIs, I wouldn't call it more than just business. This is life. But since the episode's on business, if you're not tracking it, it's really, really hard to improve those things. So, ever you, like, what are the KPIs in your business? So, for example, in real estate, we have things like the number of phone calls that we're getting now, of course, we can't control the number of phone calls we're getting, right? Well, no, but we can control the step before that, which is how many direct mail letters do we send out, how many conversations do we have, how many meetups did we go to, how many business card do we hand out? But those are lead measures. So a lead measure is a thing that you do that leads to a result, which we call a lag measure. Both Those are important KPIs, lead measures and lag measures. In fact, when I read this for the first time ever, it was in a book called Four Disciplines of Execution. I think it's the first time I ever really like, internalized the importance of lead and lag measures in your business. And this idea of, like, what are the things you have to do or the results you have to get along the way that will produce the end result of what you're looking for. Those are KPI key performance indicators. And when you measure them, you automatically get better at those things. Example of when you're trying to lose weight, if you put yourself on a scale once a week and look at it and track it on a chart, you're going to naturally eat less and work out more. Just naturally. Just the fact that you're aware of where you're at all the time. That's how it works in business as well.
- [19:56]
B
And we don't, like in our business, we don't pay a ton of attention to lagging measures. Just like if you're working out where it's like, if you do the leading, the lagging will work itself out. For instance, like, if you're trying to lose weight and you're. But you don't care about that, you don't care about the scale. You're just like, I'm going to eat healthy, I'm going to work out five times a week. I'm going to walk 10,000 steps a day, whatever it may be, like, the end result will take care of itself. And so one of the things I say in my company all the time, which, this is from somebody way more smart than I am. But just like, you cannot manage what you, you don't measure. And so if you don't. And we.
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A
I've.
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B
I've fallen victim to that so many times where it's like, especially when I was just starting. And part of that is I was just going 100 miles an hour all the time. But then I'd get asked like, well, how many houses do you have to walk before you get a deal? How many offers do you have to put out? What's your spread on these? And I'm like, I have no idea. I'm just running a hundred miles an hour. And when the market was great, it didn't really matter, honestly. And then as the market started to shift, I didn't know, like those numbers of like, oh, I've got to walk X amount of houses, or I'm making X amount on a wholesale deal or a flip or I didn't know all those. And so putting those together and then making very informed decisions in our business has been huge for us. But that was something that we didn't start doing until probably two or three years into our business, which is kind of crazy to say, but it's so important to know your numbers and to track your numbers.
- [21:16]
A
Agreed. Thousand percent. So one of the things that we do inside of both First Deal and the Better Life Tribe is we track our personal and our business KPI. It's a big piece of both Better Life Tribe and First Deal. So if you're in First Deal, we do what we call it disciplines tracking. What are the disciplines? The things you do whether you want to or not. And Those are your KPIs. Are you going to meet ups? Are you taking investors out to coffee? Are you making offers? Are you analyzing deals? So we put those in a habit tracker, an actual tracker, like on a piece of paper. And then every single morning you just check off, did I do it yesterday or did I not do it yesterday? And when you just track it like that, you get the results of what you repeatedly do. And so the same thing is true again. If you go on a lot of dates with your spouse and go on vacation with them and talk nicely to them and don't fight, hey, guess what? You're gonna have a better marriage. And if you make offers and analyze deals and go to meetups, you're gonna buy more real estate deals. And if you have another company, you have a plumbing company. And if you're out there doing marketing and you're out there answering your phone and you've got a sign on the corner and you got a guy waving one of those wacky signs, you know, like you're gonna get leads so your business improves when you do the work. So if you want a copy just for free, you don't have to be in the tribe or in the first deal. Again, if you want a copy of my habit tracker, just go to a better life.com.
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Tracker. T R A C K E R. I think you can just download it there for free. Moving on, the next one comes from a book, actually one of my favorite business books of all time. But the tit is the title Be so good they can't ignore you. So that book by Cal Newport really like profoundly changed my life. And you can summarize the whole book by saying Cal talks about the four hour work week. And like, Tim Ferriss is like, hey, just build a side hustle, work a couple, you know, four hours and you'll just make millions of dollars. You can travel the world and do whatever you want. I'm paraphrasing a little bit and making fun of Tim a little bit for working a little bit but the concept that the be so good they can't ignore you is this idea of like, I am world class, I am exceptional. There is no one better at it than me. And that's what's going to make you stand out. It's kind of going back to the value thing we talked about earlier. Just like I want you to be so good at whatever it is that you do. Like, excellence is such a underrated skill, which sounds weird, but like, when's the last time you had like a truly exceptional shoe buying, you know, event where you went by shoes and it was is absolutely world class exceptional or when's the last time you had an absolutely world class exceptional contractor come to your house and install some shells for you or whatever? Like, it's pretty rare excellence. But the thing is like the difference between like, yo, pretty good and excellent is not that big of a difference. It's just a little bit. It's doing the little things right, it's finishing things correctly. It's just going over the top a little bit more than you would do normally and that sets you apart. And when you're world class, especially if you're world class at something that's a pain point to a lot of people, there's no chance you're not going to make millions of dollars off a book.
- [24:06]
B
On this unreasonable hospitality. Yeah, that is one of those ones that it's like the hospitality that they show in the restaurant industry and how they go above and beyond that was where it's like, you can implement that into any business. I know it's for the hospitality industry, but you can implement that into any business and be like you said, so good that you can't fail like there. I truly do believe that if you're just, if you're world class, you're to fail. What are you world class at?
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A
Ooh, what am I world class at? Good question. I believe we. So from a business standpoint, we are world class at mobile home park investing. 100% believe that we're world class. I don't know anybody better at mobile home park investing than open or capital with first deal. I think we are world class at helping newbies buy their first deal. That's what we go all in on. Which actually goes to a point I'll talk about in a minute. But like we go all in on that in first deal and it's like we're not trying to do 500 different things, we're trying to do one very specific thing, help a newbie find their first property. What about you?
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B
I'm world class of buying houses. Yeah.
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A
How'd you become world classified houses?
- [25:08]
B
Doing it over and over and over and over again. And I think obviously, like, there's a part of that where it's like, if you are a highly analytical person, well, you could be world class at buying houses, just in a different way than I buy houses where I, I think that my superpower is that I can relate with anybody in about five seconds. And so I can walk into a house and create, like, create a relationship really, really quick. And that has led me to be being world class of buying houses. But yeah, I would say world class at buying houses and I think that's transferable to a lot of different areas or pieces of business. But like my superpower is I'm great with people.
- [25:47]
A
Yeah, agreed. I think part of being world class too is leaning into what you're already naturally good at.
- [25:52]
B
Yeah. Oh, for sure, right.
- [25:53]
A
Like you're naturally good at that. I don't actually think I would be that good at home buying like the way that you do. I don't like people very much. One thought to homeowners. No, I enjoy any of that stuff. What I enjoy is this right here. I, I, I enjoy being on a podcast, on a YouTube video. Yeah. I enjoy leading a team of people, like cool people that I work with and like, hey, did you make the phone calls you were going to make and like hold people accountable? I like that. That's fun. I like. But if it was like me making the phone calls, that sounds terrible.
- [26:17]
B
Well, and I, but I, yeah, I think it's so important for people to know their wiring and that's why the disc, in our company and I talk about the disc a lot. Or you do. What do you guys use now? The Culture Index survey or Predictive? Predictive Index Survey. But it's so important to know your wiring and then figuring out like what in that wiring or how can I use that wiring to make a lot of money? Because for me, I'm just never going to be a musician. I could try as hard as I wanted to and I'm just, I'm never going to be a world class musician. I'm not musically inclined whatsoever. And that would be stupid of me to be like, I'm going to be a world class musician and commit the next 30 years of my life to that.
- [26:57]
A
Well, speaking of musicians. So I'm not like a natural necessarily music, but I like music. I've got music. I've been in music my whole entire life. I was in choir and then I was in a band and like play guitar and drums and all this stuff. But I never pursued it as a career. And I could have actually like that's a good. I could have become world class at music. I could have been a world class musician if I wanted to. But I knew that I was not willing to pay the price needed in order to become a world class musician. And that is practicing. I didn't like practicing. Wow. Yeah. I like performing. I like to be on stage and performing. I mean, even today I lead worship at a church here in Maui. Like once every, like, how great is our God? That went a while. So I leave worship. But you know what I. You know what I don't do? Ever practice. Not once. I don't even take my guitar home from church. Usually I just leave it there. Yeah, I do not practice guitar ever. I've not practiced guitar in 20 years. I have a drum set. I've not practiced drums other than a few minutes here and there of like playing. I haven't practiced in 20 years. Why? Because I just don't like, I don't want to. I don't.
- [27:58]
B
You don't like it?
- [27:58]
A
Yeah, the practice part. And if you're going to be world class, you have to like or at least be willing to suffer through the practice. That's what makes you world class. If you're not a freaking nature just naturally. Yeah, you just do it over and over and over.
- [28:12]
B
Well, and that's why for me, I love people. And so buying houses is just. It's fun for me. I love walking into a house, meeting the person, talking to them, figuring out their pain points, figuring out a way to. How can we help them? How can we solve their problems? How can I get them to sign on the dotted line? I absolutely love that. It's a challenge for me, but it's also fun for me. And so that's like a perfect progression of what I do where it's already fun. It's already something I'm really gifted at. And one thing that I would hate is being on the back end, which is something I still do right now, but is like analyzing deals. I don't like sitting down. And what's the house worth? What's the rehab budget going to be? I do it because I have to, but it's not something that I'm naturally gifted at. I'm not naturally analytical. It's not something that like brings me to life. And so I think just people, they should. How do I word this? Some people come to me. And they're like, I want to buy houses like you, Cam, and I'll talk to them. I'm like, you're never going to buy houses like me because you're just not naturally. Why? You could buy them in a different way. You can, I don't know, be the guy that analyzes deals and throws out hundreds or thousands of offers and, like, do it that way. But you're not going to buy houses the way that I do of going into a homeowner's house and sitting at the kitchen table with them and having that discussion, because you're just not wired that way. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. And so I just think that's important for people to realize, like, what are you already naturally good at? What are you gifted at? How are you wired? And then figuring out something to help. What would I say, like, raise that up.
- [29:45]
A
Here's a question for you, and I don't have a good answer for this. How do you know when it's something you should just not pursue because you're not naturally good at it and when it's something you just need to do until you're good at it? So an example would be talking on a phone to a seller. So I am not, and most people would use an excuse. I'm not good on the phone with sellers. I'm not good at it. Of course you're not good at it. You've never done it before. So you could say, say, well, I'm not naturally good at this. I'm not even going to pursue the, you know, direct mail to getting a phone call to me, have an answer. And maybe you just need to do a few hundred of them, you know, like.
- [30:19]
B
Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah.
- [30:20]
A
So how do you know when to just grid it out or when to just say, you know, that's not for me?
- [30:25]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. Because I. I think for almost everything it is a muscle, like it. Even learning how to play an instrument. I'm not musically inclined at all. I already said that I probably could learn how to play an instrument and as I got become more and more fun for me. But I just know that that wouldn't practice and it wouldn't bring me joy. It wouldn't bring me life. Working with people does bring me joy. It brings me life. And I think it's just so important to know yourself. I think that's like the key to this is knowing who you are and living in that. And I don't think there's anything I. There's nothing wrong with that. I think for a long time, I was almost ashamed of the fact that, like, I'm not organized. I'm not analytical. If you me a text message, you might get a response a month later like, that, that's just who I am. And there's a part of me is like, why can't you be good enough at this? And I kind of gotten to the point where it's like, that's just who I am. That that's literally how I was made. And I can try and grit it out as hard as possible, and I could get better at. I could be more organized, but it's just. It's not who I am. And I. I think that working on that and trying to get better at that takes me away from the things that I am great at. Like Shaq, he had this quote where he sucked at free throws, and he made this comment where he was like, I don't even. I think he said, I don't remember what it was like. I practiced 10% of my. My time on free throws because I suck at it. I'm always going to be bad at it. But I'm. I'm the best, the most dominant down low man in the world. And so I want to spend all of my effort perfecting that craft. Does that, like, does that make sense at all?
- [32:02]
A
And so focus on your strengths, not your weaknesses.
- [32:05]
B
Yes.
- [32:05]
A
I don't want to sit there and constantly try to improve the things that I'm worth at.
- [32:09]
B
Yeah.
- [32:09]
A
What am I already pretty good at? Let's just. Just double down and go all in on that.
- [32:13]
B
Yes.
- [32:14]
A
Which leads to point number six on our list, and that is build one bridge until you reach success. That metaphor of a bridge comes from a story I heard years ago from a guy named James Wedmore. So, James Wedmore, he teaches people how to build. Like, at the time, he's seen how to do, like, YouTube videos, I think. But now he teaches how to do Internet business. Anyway, he was talking about how the mistake that most people make is when they're trying to get to Fantasy island or Financial Freedom Island, Millionaire island, whatever you want to call it. And they're on, like, struggle Island. And there's no planes in this hypothetical world. There's no boats. All you can do is build a bridge to get to this island, this success island. And so what most people do, they start building a bridge, and then they get bored after a couple days, or they start building the second bridge and then a third bridge. Then they go back to the first one and work a little bit more at it and the fifth bridge and then fourth and fifth and sixth and then they're doing all these different bridges to get there. And guess what? It, none of them ever make it. So instead when you just pick your thing that allows you to go all in on I book clarity. And then that becomes, you become world class at it. You can really double down on that thing. So the advice is a lot of people say millionaires have seven streams of income. Yeah, that's after they became a millionaire.
- [33:20]
B
That's the dumbest. Yeah, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
- [33:23]
A
Yeah, they have seven streams of income after they already became a millionaire. And then they have to diversify their portfolio into other businesses. They almost never got there by having seven businesses. I mean, I don't know of anybody.
- [33:33]
B
That I don't know one person that has started multiple businesses like from the beginning. And we're able to like make all of those businesses successful. It's usually, hey, I did one thing. I did landscaping really well. I did, I flipped properties really well. I've been to, built a rental portfolio and then once they have money, it's like, okay, I'm going to diversify into stocks or crypto or buying other businesses, things like that. But nobody I know just started and was like, oh, I'm going to build all these businesses together at the same time and they're all going to be successful. It just doesn't work that way. I think that's a dream that a lot of people hear and it's, it's not right.
- [34:12]
A
This is probably the one on the list that I struggle with the most. Like, I always want to start new businesses. I love the visionary side of it where I just like come up with ideas and, and get it going. And I tell myself lies all the time, like, oh, I can do this. I can just have this one little thing. I just do this little thing because in my head I'm like, like completely undervaluing or overvaluing the company and undervaluing how much work it actually is going to take to do. So I mean, example, the Better Life Tribe. And I have first deal and then I have my mortgage company, Better Life Ref. And then I've got obviously open door capital. So I've got four very active businesses. Plus I have a coffee company, Beardy Brew if you want coffee. Beardybrew.com but hey, did you know I had a coffee company most of you don't. Most of you don't know. I have a coffee brand called Beardy Brew. We give away all the profits to a local charity here in Maui that helps foster kids. Why does nobody know about my coffee company? Because I'm too busy focused on the other ones that I can't focus on the coffee company. So the thing brings in like a hundred dollars a month. Like it's almost irrelevant because I just cannot focus on it. And who's, who's hurt by that? The foster kids on Maui, where if I just worked at it, you know, so if I did fewer things, I could make more money at them and probably actually give away more money and do more cool stuff. I think I counted the other day. I have 12 businesses.
- [35:19]
B
12 businesses.
- [35:20]
A
Yeah. That I'm running right now. And it's, it's way too many. And so none of them are as successful as they could be be if I was running just one or just two. Now sometimes I have to run multiple ones because, for example, the better I tried. We give away all the profits to fight, even trafficking. And so I don't make a profit from that. So then I'm like, well, I better start first deal so I can make some money off that one. Well, then I'm running two. I'm chasing two rabbits, so I'm going to have a hard time catching either of them.
- [35:42]
B
So here's a question for you along those lines because I completely agree with you. And I would say most entrepreneurs, this is where they struggle the most. And this kind of goes back to what I said. I have also learned to accept it's just my wiring where I work with a performance coach and it is something I've talked with him before is like, man, I just, I wish that I could be that guy that's like, I'm all in on this. And one of the things that I've kind of discovered is like, I'm actually a better business owner when I am chasing a bunch of different carrots. Like, still have my main revenue driver and income driver, but I need that creative outlet. Does that, does that make sense at all? Like, that's just, that's who I am. I'm a starter. I'm not a finisher. And I don't know, sometimes I, I, I agree 100% with like, hey, this, you, you want to build one bridge. I say that all the time. And maybe that is like our bridge and for income is we, we flip single family houses and that. I know that we're really good at that. And we can make money doing that. But I also like, I need something else because I get, I get bored so easily and I think that also helps me become a better business owner. Does that make sense at all? Yeah.
- [36:45]
A
Are you just. I think the same thing. Am I justifying it? Are you justifying it in order to.
- [36:48]
B
Because yeah, yeah, probably, probably. There's a lot of justifications would be.
- [36:52]
A
More successful if that's all we is one thing just mentally we're not good. And so then it goes back to the. Do we grit and just get good at it and just suffer? No, I don't think so. I think what we do then is we hire people to build our bridges for us. So we build teams and you have to like earn the right. Here's what, here's. Maybe I'll combine the ideas you have to earn the right to build a second bridge and the way.
- [37:12]
B
Yes, that's a good, that's a good way to put it.
- [37:14]
A
Yes, you have Lexi and you have a whole team. But Lexi, which is like she's not building 10 different bridges up. She's got, you know, I mean family but like business wise she runs your, like a lot of your business stuff. And so, so Lexi's a piece of it. And you've got other people in different places that are running things. Opener capital. I've got Brian and Ryan and me and Walker on the board and then Walker CEO running things. And so I was able to step out a few years ago and not do as much. And now the last 12 months though, I've been in more than full time. But I'm at BLT and I haven't done a lot of better life over the last year. And so now that's hurt. Better life the last year. And so like I, yes, I've hired people to do it, but it doesn't alleviate you entirely.
- [37:51]
B
Yeah, for sure. And I would say, I mean the same exact thing happened with our flipping company where we were making crazy money. And also part of it's. The market has shifted but we moved here and started a couple other companies and, and it just started like making less and less and less money. And then over the last seven to eight months I've kind of been way more involved with it again and we're making more money nowhere near what we used to. And so, so I agree. It's just hard for me because this is the one that I hate the most. So I'm probably arguing just because it's so hard for me to say, you know what I'M just going to focus on this. I'm going to build this bridge, even though it's so important. And I've used this pace. Morbi like the story multiple times on the podcast, but he talked about, like, the hardest thing in real estate. And everybody's saying, like, raising money, finding deals, doing this, doing that. And he said the hardest thing in real estate is that there's too many ways to make a lot of money. And that's always stuck with me, where it's like so many people that are trying to build different bridges, even just within the real estate realm of I want to do rent by the room, I want to flip houses, I want to wholesale houses, I want to syndicate, I want trailer parks, like, all of this stuff. And at the end of the day, if you try and do them all, you're going to do nothing. Well, you're not going to become world class at any of them. So pick one. Become world class at it, and that's how you make a lot of money.
- [39:08]
A
Agreed? Agreed. Moving on. Number seven, Ideas are mostly worthless. It's all about execution. In other words, how many times have you guys had an idea and then somebody else did it? You're like, oh, that was my idea. They stole it. Right? Like, you know, an idea for some invention or something happens all the time. Or if, like, what happens to me a lot. I don't know if it happens to you, but, like, people will come to me like, oh, I got this great idea, but I want you to sign an NDA for me to tell you. And I'm like, I'm not going to sign an NDA. You can just either tell me or don't tell me. I'm not taking your idea. And then even when they're like, I found I'll tell you the idea, it's always just like, generally a dumb idea. It's just like. I mean, it's just like, it's like, it seems really cool to you at the time because you're really excited about it. But ideas are almost entirely worthless. There's no shortage of amazing ideas. I mean, earlier on this podcast, I was like, hey, it'd be really cool to have an auto dialer that calls up all these businesses by the thousands and then figures out which ones. Like, that's a cool idea. Am I worried about anybody taking that idea and running with it? One, I know I'm not going to do it because I need to stick with my bridges that I've got. And two, you're not going to do it. Anyway, like it's a cool idea. No one's going to do it because execution is the game changing dynamic and nobody executes well unless it's their idea. And so I don't worry about stealing ideas at all. I don't think ideas are worth anything. No matter what idea you have, it's probably not that good. You're not going to come up with the next Google or the next Apple or the next Tesla probably. And even none of those companies came up with their ideas. They just iterate.
- [40:32]
B
There's nothing new. It's all iterations of something. Yeah, there's a book, it's called Steal like an Artist where it basically talks about that. Where it's like nothing is proprietary at this point and it's all about the work that you put in.
- [40:45]
A
I once heard it said it this way and I love this concept. I don't know if this will come across on a podcast. Well, but is that execution is a multiplier. And what it said it had a graph. So imagine this graph in your mind's eye here. It was like an idea is worth one point, two points, three points, four points, five points, whatever, six points, let's say. And then execution is worth one point, point, 100 points, a thousand points, 10,000 points, 100,000 points and you just take the two and multiply it. In other words, if you have a crappy idea and it's worth one and then you have execution at a one crappy execution, you end up with one. Yeah, but if you have a world class idea of five, let's say a five is the biggest and you execute it badly, you still only have five. Like you have five bucks, good job. But if you have a mediocre idea that's like a one or a two, but you execute at a hundred thousand, obviously you have hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so execution is the multiplier. Ideas are just single based numbers.
- [41:41]
B
No. And so have you anybody that's listening to this or for you, have you ever like seen somebody or known somebody that has start started 10 different multi million dollar businesses and you're like, how do you have so many good ideas? It's not that they have good ideas, it's that they're incredible at executing on those ideas. It's, I mean Elon Musk is a great example. He's built multiple billion dol companies. And it's not like he got lucky seven times. It's that he's just a phenomenal executor. He has an idea and it's a good idea, bad idea, whatever it may be. But then he executes and is solely focused on that. And that's how he's grown so many companies. And so I think the idea is worthless. It's more about the execution of the idea. Because the reality is, is anybody listening to this? You and I, like even your idea earlier of this, somebody's thought about that. Somebody's doing it. Like there's somebody out there that has already thought through that is just who can execute better. Which is also like a scary thing to be in, where it's like, then it puts ownership on you. Because I truly do believe that any company works. If you want to go start a lawn care company, if you want to start a plumbing company, if you want to start a real estate company, all of them work. It just matters how you execute. And if you can learn to execute, you're going to make a lot of money.
- [42:57]
A
Yeah. And that's where books like Traction come in really handy or the book four Disciplines of Execution come in really handy. It's like, here's how you actually execute. In the Better Life tribe, we talk a lot about how do you go from, from whatever, a few rental properties, 4, 5, 10, 15 rental properties to a million dollar 2 million, $10 million a year portfolio. It's just execution. Like the, the ideas. It's like, okay, there's like a dozen or two, couple dozen strategies and then you just do them better than everyone else. And the fun thing though is the bar is really low. Let me just tell you guys, the bar is really low for good execution. Talking about earlier being world class, the bar is low. So you don't have to be like, I used to think that like the best people in the world were like a thousand times better than me. They're really not. Like, they're just a little bit better. Like they just do things a little better.
- [43:41]
B
You just have to return phone calls. You have to like return phone calls.
- [43:45]
A
Send out some marketing, like, do the work consistently, show up. Which actually leads to number eight on here, which is consistency beats brilliant. It's a very related one. But consistency is just such a superpower. And when we're talking about consistency, we're talking about doing the work over and over and over and over, even though you might not see a result from it. Like, how do you actually lose weight? It's consistency. It doesn't matter if you choose vegan diet or you choose the whole 30 or you choose Paleo or it doesn't really matter. Like they all tend to Work. What doesn't work is when you give up on them. It's one of the reasons I think 75 hard has been so successful in the program is because it makes people be consistent for 75 days. Exactly.
- [44:24]
B
And you're gonna. You're gonna be successful. You're consistent. A great example of this. And this is gonna. It might sound a little bit. Little, like a little douchey, but there's a guy back in St. Louis when I was. When I was getting started, and he owned a crazy amount of real estate. And I remember meeting him at a meetup and we started talking and I remember leaving, being like, that guy sucks.
- [44:48]
A
Like, he was a good.
- [44:48]
B
He was a nice guy, but I'm like, I'm better than him in a lot of different ways. And so I was like, I gotta figure out, like, what is his secret sauce. And so we went and grabbed coffee and then I asked if I could spend the day with him. And I went and spent the day with him. And the dude was a workhorse. Like, he. We started at 7am, we ended at 7pm he was on his phone, on his computer. He was just consistent. And he had done that for 30 years. And like he did. And this. I'm not trying to be mean to this guy, but he made up for a lot of probably flaws just relationally, and it didn't seem that sophisticated, but he crushed everybody because he was just consistent every single day for a long period of time. And that goes back to what you're just saying, where it's really not that hard. Truly isn't. It's just saying, hey, I'm going to buckle down, I'm going to be consistent, I'm going to answer the phone, I'm going to return emails, I'm going to walk houses. If you're in the single family space, I'm going to make offers. Like, you just do that enough times over a long enough period of time, and you can't not be successful. I truly do believe that.
- [45:51]
A
Agreed. Consistency, such as superpower number. Are we on nine? I think now. Hi. To buy back your time. That's a phrase I stole from a podcast guest of ours and Dan Martell. He's a good buddy of mine. I love that book. Buy back your time. And the concept of like, you know, when you're trying to hire people, you find the things that you're doing that are like the lowest dollar per hour that you're doing and then hire someone to do that so you can focus on a higher dollar per hour. Task. So you're buying back your time and sometimes you're going to reinvest that time in business. Sometimes you're going to reinvest that time in golf or in taking your kids movies in the middle of the day. But either way you're going to buy back your time and that's how you replace yourself. So it's just a great rule of business. I'm going to remember when I first hired my very first person ever with my mother in law for like, I don't know, 3, 400 bucks a month just to answer phone calls because I didn't like talking to tenants anymore. So I mop back my time of dealing with phone calls every day, randomly throughout the day, get phone calls. I just got tired of that and so I had her do it and she loved it, she was good at it. And all of a sudden I had more time. Then I could go out and buy more real estate deals and I could start a blog and I could start the Bigger Pockets podcast which became the Better Life podcast today. Like all this happened because I started buying back my time. And that's just a great rule for.
- [47:04]
B
Yeah, and it goes. We talked a little bit earlier about the time audit, like looking at your time. What are those low dollar tasks like for me? Setting up utilities on properties. I could hire a VA for 10 bucks an hour to do that. So that's really important. One, one caveat to that though that I'd say is I think that a lot of people when they first start out, they have bigger egos than they should have and they start to hire things out where it's like, no, you still have to put in the work up front. I think it's, it's one of those things where it's like you earn the right to hire somebody. You said that with building bridges, you have to earn the right to build another bridge. I think that same thing with hiring in a lot of ways, like you have to earn the right to hire out utilities.
- [47:49]
A
You, I mean, you want to make the financial mistakes and like all the consequences of hiring badly. I'm not that you should. It was a bit of result. If you're not ready to hire somebody, you don't know what the role really is. You have to have, you know, systems and KPIs defined. You don't know how to hire. You're going to make some big mistakes.
- [48:04]
B
Oh dude, I've done that so many times in our business where it's like, I don't like this. So I'm Just going to hire it out. But I've never learned it. I don't know. To the blind, leading the blind there. And I think, like, nobody, especially when you're building a business, is the business owner. You're never too good for anything. I think that's so important for people. Like we. We flip a hundred houses a year and I'm still setting up utilities sometimes, like, that's just. It just has to get done at times. And right now my wife is committed to. We've got twins, young twins at home. We've got five kids and she has been in charge of that. And. And now I' doing it. And so probably neither of us should be in charge of it. Yeah, we have a couple vas that I'm sure we could. They could do it, but I've not set up the system for them to do it yet. Exactly. It's like, it's so. I just think that people do need to hear that where it's like, don't have an ego in business. You have to put in the work.
- [48:57]
A
I hired a business coach, worked with me, a guy named Gary Harper, Sharper Solutions. And they're really, really awesome. I love them. But one thing that they have us do which has been so helpful and maybe be helpful in your business as well, well, is once a week you have to document one process that hasn't been documented before. Every. Just a rule. So 52 weeks out of the year, every week doesn't matter if it's holiday week, doesn't matter. Whatever. You have 52 processes you've documented. So that would be a process you would document is setting up utilities. It's like this week we're going to get together as an executive team and we're going to document the process for setting up a. You know, utilities. There's not. I mean, there's. There's a lot of processes in a business, but in real estate, there's not thousands. There's maybe a hundred, you know, or whatever. Oh, yeah. Like over a year. A year. If you did it right now, every week, consistently documented one process and then handed that over to somebody after a year, you'd have done 52 of them. That's wild. And so I'm a big fan of that. Pro of that. Going to the Sharper Solutions. It's been really helpful.
- [49:56]
B
That's one of my biggest regrets, is a. Wouldn't say regrets, but flaws as a business owner, especially because we started, we were solopreneurs. It was just me and Lexi. And as we grew, we Started hiring on more people. And up until probably a year ago, every system and process was in my head. Like, I just kept in my head. And when we actually hired a director of operations, it hasn't been weekly, but it's like, hey, we're just going to sit down and we're going to talk for four hours and I'm just going to write down things and I'm going to take that and I'm going to turn into a process that's now, now when we hire somebody, we've got a playbook to give them versus you having to train every single person that comes into the business. And it's been so helpful where I'm like, I should have been doing that from day one. Just like writing out exactly what, what I'm doing. And there, there's even great AI tools now where it's like, if I'm analyzing a deal, like I can just turn it on and it's going to record my screen and it's going to write out a process for it.
- [50:48]
A
Yeah. Loom does that.
- [50:48]
B
Loom does that.
- [50:49]
A
Yeah.
- [50:49]
B
There, there's a lot of really great AI tool tools that just will follow and they'll create systems for you as you're just doing your daily work. And it's something I, I, I missed completely when I first started where it just, everything was in my head.
- [51:02]
A
Yeah. One thing I learned from Gary Harper and their team team, the way that they do process is a little different than I've ever seen before is their visual processes. Everything is so they're like literally a piece of paper or you could open up. There's different software that can do this for you, but it's like draw a box and like the first box will be like, you know, bought a rental. And so then I'd be like lying to a question. Does this rental have utilities turned on already? Yes. No. And then if yes, then what? And so the whole thing is drawn out on a piece of paper. The entire flow of the process. You sit with your executive team and you think through the entire flow of every possible scenario. We're doing that stuff in our heads anyway. Yeah. So once it's all written out in the flow, what I like about that is then you can look back later and see where your, where things broke down and then improve it. You're like, oh, circle this little, like this spot right here. So I'm a big fan of that.
- [51:52]
B
I love so for me, because it's the way my brain thinks where it's like, I can't Pull out just a word doc and write it down.
- [51:57]
A
Exactly.
- [51:58]
B
But there's a website, it's called Miro. Have you used a Miro board where it's the same exact thing where I can like put buy a house. Okay, so what do we need to do to buy a house? Well, we need to get the lead, we need to make an offer, we need to walk the house, we need to get funding and I can write all of these arrows off of that and then I can just keep building it and building it and my mind's very visual versus of writing it down on a piece of paper and that's helped me so much to be able to build out processes and see the entire flow of this is what it takes to buy a house. Yeah, so, so love that.
- [52:30]
A
Love it. All right, number 10, test fast, fail fast, fix fast. Now this one might not, I mean it does apply to real estate, but this is going to be a bigger one for non real estate. What I mean by that, the reason I separate the two is real estate investing is a very defined business. It's like a franchise almost. And it's been done by thousands or millions of people. And so there's not a lot of like mystery on whether it's going to work or not. There are specifics like will flipping work in San Diego? I'm sure it will. Will it work in Nebraska? I'm sure it will work in Minnesota? I'm sure it will. But what about will rent by the room working all through those markets? That I don't really know. So this is, there are some testing to do here, but this applies more like you have an idea. We talked about the business idea with the, with the robo dialer, the AI call to call a bunch of companies and see who calls you back. So that's a cool idea. How do we test it as fast and as easily and as cheaply as possible to validate a hypothes this. So what was my hypothesis? This is like scientific method applied to business building. My hypothesis is that an industry in a city that has a low callback percentage has opportunity for building that business in that city. That was my hypothesis and I put that forth an hour ago here on the show. We don't know if that's true. That might be totally wrong. Yeah. So how can we test it? And that's what's called a minimal viable product. All this comes from a book called the Lean Startup by Eric Reiss. Phenomenal book, one of my all time favorites. But the idea of like how do you take a hypothesis, I believe that X will happen in Y market. Or this is a good. I think a dog walking business just for pit bulls is a good idea and will make money. Okay, that's your hypothesis. How do we test it? What's the minimal viable product like the, the most small, easy to test product that's not crappy, just minimal. How do we test it and how do we try it? Well, what if we put up signs all over town that said we walk pit bulls and if you get no phone calls, then it's not a, it's not a good idea. Right. In fact, one of the ways that they test renfi the room to know whether or not your city is going to be good.
- [54:35]
B
Well, should be illegal I think, but.
- [54:36]
A
Right by the room.
- [54:37]
B
No, no, no, duh. Fake. No fake. Fake list, fake listings.
- [54:41]
A
Because that's. Yeah, it's not. So I'm going to do it. I, I have not done this, but I will do this.
- [54:45]
B
Everybody does it. It's, it's, it's normal. Like it's, it's.
- [54:47]
A
Yeah. How we do. If rent by the room was going to work in a market, I would go to Facebook Marketplace and I would make a list seen for a room in a house and I'd put the number that I needed to make in order for the numbers to work and see how many phone calls I get. And if I get three phone calls and none of them are qualified, I'm like, oh, probably not a good market.
- [55:05]
B
You do that for long term rentals. If you're looking, if you're interested in an area, make a fake listing and put it out there for the number that you need to know if that area is a good cash flowing area. And then you just see how many calls do I get? And if you get 50 calls you're like okay, okay, this area is underserved. This is a great area.
- [55:22]
A
And then lean into it which is where the idea of a lean startup. So people think the lean startup means like lean as in like maybe he. Maybe it meant this way in some ways like lean as in like tight and small. But I think of more like you, you test something. If it works, you lean into it and you do a little bit more. Yeah. And then you take, make another hypothesis and you lean into it a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And then you find your. Eventually you navigate through and find product market fit. You find the thing that's going to work and going to make money and you put in a dollar and you get $2 to out. That is the idea of testing fast, failing fast and fixing fast.
- [55:54]
B
So a great example of this in our business, we just did a direct mail campaign. And on the direct mail campaign, on the front of the postcard we put that we will be your highest offer or we will pay your next month's mortgage. And then we had a little like terms and conditions applied. And the whole premise of that was we get beat by out of state people all the time who've never came and walked to the house. They threw out a ridiculous offer, but then it's filled with contingencies and if they can't wholesale the house, they're going to either renegotiate or back out of the contract. And I wanted a really easy way to be able to tell the homeowner like, hey, this is why our offer is still better than this offer, even though we're lower. We are seven day close, huge earnest money deposit, no contingencies. And so that was the whole premise of that is like, if we put this on here, it opens up a really easy conversation of why our offer is still better. We got zero calls, so I think we spent like $8,000. We might have gotten three calls saying, take me off of your list. So I know it's not a good idea. And, and I still think it's a good idea. I, I think that the wording was scammy, where people were like, what? I, I don't know, I still gotta figure that out. It might not be a good idea, but it's something like, hey, we're gonna test, we're gonna retest, we're gonna keep going. And there's people, I'm not gonna say his name, but I've got a, a, a friend, friend of yours too, that I think is phenomenal. It just, he throws out on his Instagram, like anything that he's thinking. And there was a time where I'm like, dude, you're all over the place. And then I talked to him and he's like, no, I'm just seeing interest. Like, and if I get a lot of interest, then it's a business that I'm focus on and build. But it's like all over the place. Like, I'm just testing all day long. Like, what gets interest, what piques people's interest, what are people willing to spend money on? And then I'm going to dive into that realm. And so moving quick is so important. What, what was it Nike or was it Apple? That was like one of their Models was move fast and break things.
- [57:41]
A
I don't know what I heard that.
- [57:42]
B
Yeah, move fast and break things. I don't remember who it was but.
- [57:45]
A
I'm a big fan of that. Yeah, you got to be quick and you got to like because ultimately entrepreneurs, we all think that, we all think that we know the answer. Like I know it's going to work like for, you know, we've struggled with better life tribe a lot because we know it's an, it's a tribe for existing real estate investors. But what is the actual product that we do? So we did pods for a while and then we found out we the theory was if we can put people into groups of like five to six people and have pods that will be valuable and people will pay money for that. It's true, they paid money for it. But as soon as a pod broke up, which pods always break up, people left the tribe cuz the value, the pod, okay hypothesis, we approved it. That was not actually that effective and we went to one on one coaching. We did that for a while but then there were problems with that one and so we moved up. We just keep moving the model and we're trying a new model and now it's gonna be much more like advisor focused. So like you pick a track. Almost like I want to do rent by the room. I want 10k in cash flowing years. I'm gonna do it through rent by the room. We've got an advisor that, that's what they do and they're world class at it, books on it. You come into the program and then you work under them and consult with them and coach with them, whatever until you get your number. 10k, 20k a month, whatever. So that's a. Now will that work? I don't know. We're going to find out. I mentioned it right here. Maybe some of you will be like, yeah, I'm interested and you go to my Instagram and DM me the words blt. Just bltm Instagram. And if I get a whole bunch of them then I might be like hey, cool, I think that's good. Yeah. But we often think again, we're visionaries and entrepreneurs and we think we have the greatest idea in the world. At the end of the day it does not matter what you think. It matters what the market thinks. It matters what the market thinks. So don't get stuck on your idea. Find a way to test your idea, validate it as you're true or false and then move on and do it over and over. And over until you're a millionaire.
- [59:23]
B
Yeah, I am sorry, I know we gotta move on. But another you're talking. There's a guy I follow on Instagram and he just, he's a business guy and posts about starting businesses and he created a million dollar business overnight. It was so easy and simple and it was so easy to test where he basically had AI go through Craigslist and Facebook marketplace and look for anything for free because that's just junk that people want to get out, get, get rid of. And then he hired a VA to call those people and say, hey, if you pay me 200 bucks, I'll come and remove this for you. So he, he started basically a junk removal company overnight, just using that. But, but the way that he tested it was, hey, I'm just going to get AI to scrape Craigslist and Facebook for anything for free and I'm gonna have a VA call and see if there's any interest in me coming to remove that stuff from him. Yeah, and it was just like, and he, he, the, his hypothesis was proven because when he called him, everybody was like, yes, I will pay X amount of dollars for you to. So he started a million dollar junk removal company overnight just based off of that. So moving fast.
- [60:28]
A
There we go.
- [60:28]
B
Last but not least.
- [60:29]
A
Yeah, last but not least. Business owners don't fail to give up. Almost always when you hear somebody that say they failed in business, it's very rare that they lost all their money, went bankrupt and had to file, you know, you know, whatever, bankruptcy. No, it's usually this gave up. When I think of my life, all the businesses I've failed at, quote unquote, failed at. There's been a lot of them. Like I had a wooden sunglasses business for a while and I bought like just random things, things like that. I just shut them down. That's not a bad thing. I think businesses should be shut down. If you don't find product market fit or it doesn't align with your values or your interests anymore and you're not going to stick with it, then fine, shut it down. That's not a bad thing. But the point is there is like failure is only final when you just give up and quit at it. And so I think that there's just a rule here that business owners don't fail, they just give up. And so if you don't want to fail, just don't give up. Now what does that mean though, tactically? It means how do you keep doing going? Well, you got to have your cash flow Right. In other words, you can't just be. You can't run out of money. If you don't run out of money, then you don't have to worry about that. And that's where books like profit first come really, really handy. Because if you're, if you're making profit, you can withstand anything. And that's one of the reasons opener capital, we haven't really bought anything in the last year. How do we keep going? We're not making acquisition fees. It's because we have ongoing property management fees that pay for the salaries of most people on the team. And therefore we can pay the bills we don't have to buy. And so we can't fail. If we just keep paying the bills, we can stop buying for five years, wouldn't really matter. And so I'm not pressured to do it. So I guess that's the tip here is business owners that don't give up eventually win. They're pivoting, testing, trying, doing all these other tips. Yep.
- [61:59]
B
I mean, I can't really add on to that. It's just business owners, real estate investors, they don't fail. They give up when it gets too hard. I think that's the easiest way to say it. I've heard. I think you've said that before. Like, I've never met a real estate investor investor who's failed. They've always just given up when it's gone hard or they've never started and.
- [62:14]
A
Even fail at real estate. I mean, think about it. Even if you went bankrupt, even if you lost everything, okay, go do seller financing, but you literally can just go right back into it next day. Like, unless the government puts a restriction on you from practicing real estate because you did some terrible.
- [62:29]
B
I mean, yeah, I don't think, like, look at that.
- [62:31]
A
You can actually fail at real estate.
- [62:33]
B
Yeah, look at, look at all of the richest people that you know. Most of them have a bankruptcy or two on their. On their track record. Part of that's for different reasons, but. But at the same time, like, it's just as long as you keep going, you. You can't fail. And I think part of that you have to have, like, your ego gets in the way sometimes where you want to look like a bigger deal than you are and things like that. But as long as you just keep moving forward, you cannot fail. It might feel like it at the time where it's like, oh, shoot, I'm having to move out of this house, into this house because I can't afford it, and I'm making less money. But keep going. You're gonna. You're gonna be successful.
- [63:07]
A
So. So. Well, we're not going to keep going. We're going to end this video right here. Helpful. Don't forget to, like, subscribe. Do all the things that everyone tells you to do every time you watch a video ever online. And if you like this podcast, subscribe to it wherever you get your podcast. So thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week.