On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I'm gonna show up every freaking day. Every day. And I'm gonna put myself out there and embarrass myself. And, you know, now people can look at it and be like, gosh, that was such a great idea. And it's like, dude, 5 years ago, I told you to do this. Everybody else did it. You didn't do it. I did. That's why I beat you.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolf featuring fellow 78 and even 9 figure business owners who have real battle scars. From business and life, but have prevailed as the king that they are designed to be. We welcome high performing entrepreneurs to the stage in order to reveal the real of the real on what it takes to build a successful business today.
We dissect the good and bad decisions they've made along the way Chaz give a true and your picture of the journey of success and how you too can get there. Through this dialogue, you will learn the value of growing your network and surrounding yourself with power players and kings like today's guest. Grab your pen and notebook because we're about to dive in. What's up, everybody? Gathering the king's Chaz Wolf. I've got Ryan Harris at the king stage today. How are you, brother? Oh, dude.
I'm pumped to be talking to you, man. This is cool. Thanks for having me. Absolutely, man. It's it's Friday where we're at. I got my freaking standing desk up. I got my king hat on. I'm ready to roll on this one. We don't normally do these on Friday, so you got me. I got a little extra today. So, Brian, tell us what kind of business that you're in, what industry are you doing? Like, what how you come into the king's table today?
Yeah. Well, you found me, so I'm flattered and honored, but I own mobile home parks. And the cooler thing about me is that I am really a nobody. And 7 years ago, when I got started, I had no money. I had no network. I had no variance. I was in my twenties. I was just your run of the mill knucklehead who bought the lie, go to college, study hard. You'll get a good job. Yada yada yada.
I got good grades, went to a good school, got a good job, worked hard, and I was broke and had student loan debt and was miserable. So one day Chaz just woke up, and I was like, I don't like the life. And I'm gonna go start a business. It took me years to find what business I I wanted start, which eventually was multiple parks. Yeah. And to give people perspective about why Chaz found me and reaches has reached out to me.
It's because 7 years later, after no money, no network, no experience, actually not nothing. I'll pile of student loan debt and broken promises. A pile of negative. I have the last in the last 30 days, I just closed on my fiftieth mobile home park. Love it. And, I don't even know how many I have now because I've closed on flurry of them and with a little portfolio. So I actually gotta go back and do the math. I actually don't know what I own. That's awesome. 3300. You got it.
You don't know what date it is, and you don't know how many assets you have. Yeah. Correct. Correct. I love it, man. Okay. So you've given us so much already as far as, like, your your background. I wanna dive into all of that because it's super applicable. But before we do that, at this level where you've you've closed on 50 parks. You you're you're creating tons of money, but but also passive money. You're creating lifestyle.
I'm sure your your the way that you live, you and your family is completely different than 7 years ago. So my question is, why do you continue to push? Why are you still closing on deals Why are you here talking about what you're about to accomplish if you've already reached this, you know, the pinnacle, the success, you know, that type of a Thank you.
I'm gonna give an answer that hopefully appeals to folks who are listening in who are just getting started, as well as people who run 7 plus figure businesses like myself, look, when you get started, you are chasing a dream. And that dream for a lot of people is not having to work for a jerk of a boss and a dead end job where don't really wanna get promoted. You can't really leave. You got student loan debt or this and the other.
You've been sold a lie and you bought it and you're stuck and you're miserable and you are seeking a way to escape. And and even if you like your job, a lot of people are really smart knowing that It's not really safe in corporate America anymore. You can get laid off like it's nothing. There's no loyalty with companies anymore, not like our parents and grandparents were Right. You, like, have one job your entire life and a pension and middle class lifestyle meant something.
Now a middle class lifestyle still is for millions of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Yeah. So in other words, at first, Chaz, for me, just like anyone else, it started with freedom from. Meaning, I am trying to get away from feeling stuck, feeling miserable, and how it starts is gosh, if I Chaz only make 60,000 bucks a year, so $5 a month. And then you do Chaz. And then you're like, well, it turns out That's actually not enough for various reasons. And it's not because I'm Bougie.
Seriously, I'm in, like, a white tea right now. Like, I I've been jib clothes. Like, I'm not a bougie dude, but it just for the same reason that you feel like, gosh. Am I get laid off? You have you develop I don't wanna say imposter syndrome where you're like, I don't feel like I deserve this, but you're eventually you're wise up to the fact that, hey. This may not always be. Right?
So in other words, a tornado could come and wipe out your property or do you something crazy happens 3 d printing disrupts your industry or this, that, and the other thing. And kind of where I'm at now is I've realized that you need more money, if nothing else, just for the safety. So I have my own podcast called mobile home parks in real life. By the time this goes live, we will have surpassed a 100,000 unique downloads, which is so exciting.
Yeah. And like you, Chaz, I'm not selling anything on my podcast. Just delivering raw actionable truth. And on that, I have an episode called safe and safety and numbers and what I discuss on that episode, little spoiler alert, is what is the case for going bigger? Cause you hear plenty of times, don't bite off more than you can chew. Don't grow too big. Right. Well, I actually I I argue that that is correct, but that you should always be growing. Why?
Because you're you're diversifying out what you have. Yep. So for for those, you know, looking me going, gosh, that's really cool. I wanna be like that and quit my job. I'll tell you it's never enough because of a lot of reasons. And for those looking in going, you know, why does he keep growing? Again, hopefully that was a good answer for for newbies and and folks who were were growing safety and numbers. Of course.
Yeah. I think you even hit one thing and then I just wanna highlight because, you know, the owners that are listening right now that that have left their jobs, but they are They just now own their own job, right, because they're not big enough to where they have systems or teams or repeatable process or or a business system or sets that pay them, whether they're there or not.
And so that's probably the biggest thing I heard you say there is that you you can leave or these guys have started their own thing, but but you have to realize that there's another level. And so for them, the next level is creating something that has more. So for safety, yes.
Creating something that has a system so that it's repeatable whether it's with or without me because that's what that's what real estate does for you naturally for someone who's in the trades or someone who's in marketing or whatever, that looks like a business team, you know, a repeatable acquisition process where they aren't involved, you know, all of those things. And so what I really heard you say was freedom. Right. And the irony is you're not free because you're never really free.
You can have a perfect system and perfect employees and people still die, get fired, get hurt robots. Like, you, I spend years teaching myself computer programming and then a Microsoft Windows update or rent manager update or iPhone update, wipes out something or creates an unexpected bug. And that's really the best example of what I'm trying to say here is an unexpected bug.
Yeah. That will happen somewhere within your organization, whether in your computer coding, if you like, amating your business like I do or within your human capital or maybe within yourself. I had my best friend was my business partner, and he told me, remember this. He was like, Ryan and my bond is unbreakable. And I remember just kinda chuckling to myself, like, Don't ever say that. And it's not that he's not still my best friend. He is, and it's not that we aren't good business partners.
We are. It's that he woke up in the middle COVID and went, my heart is not in this business. So he had the right business partner, had the right attitude, all these things went right. And then one day, what company went, I should not be owning mobile home parks. So that's another point that I wanted to bring up with your last question is why do it beyond safety and numbers Yeah. I absolutely love it. I love it. I wanna do it more, not less. Don't wanna go retire on a beach.
I've learned that about myself that I love growing businesses and talking about business and hiring people and building little systems. And when things break, I get mad in the short run, in the long run, I get excited because it's something to do. That Chaz and listeners. That is the wealth. Not how much you make a month or what your net worth is. Wealth is being able to do something you enjoy with people you enjoy with skills that you enjoy building. And enjoy deploying. That is wealth.
Yeah. Love it. Such a great we could we could end the show now. But there's so much more. Hang tight. Okay. So let's go back into your story a little bit. You obviously have grown over the course of the of 7 years or so. You obviously had several things that have worked in your favor, but what is something specific?
A business decision that you made that was unique that you can share with us that that allowed you to to have a growth or a trajectory or is it just a an amazing decision that we could glean from. Teaching myself Spanish. Wow. Okay. Yeah. I I totally got dork Spanish. I I like to joke with with all my Hispanic residents and contractors. Like, you play the all blar. Foncionna, like, Espastante, which is, like, basically just saying, you know, it works.
Chaz was something jazz that I realized about myself as a child, which was that I realized that I was smart and hardworking, but I wasn't 1% smart, and I was 1% hardworking and really wasn't 1% anything. Not 1% good looking, not 1% lucky. And I realized I'm like, okay. If I wanna be really, really competitive and people are taller and faster and more athletic or smarter or this or that or how do I compete? And I realized, you know, I have no qualms about being laughed at.
Are made fun of, or being dorky, or being this, any other thing. Like, I love getting roasted. I don't care. I think it's great. I my wife hates it because she's like, Okay. That's fine that you don't mind getting roasted, but I have to walk next to you. So, like, please be careful how, like, far you go here. And I'll tell you why that that applies to learning Spanish. It's because I realized, like, everybody I talked to in this space early on, Like, no one wanted to teach himself Spanish.
Oh, yeah. That'd be great if I could speak his foreign language, which is code for I'm never gonna do this. It'd be nice to have but, you know, it's kinda like, oh, yeah. Yeah. I should lose £15. It's like, okay. Yeah. Fair. You're not gonna do it now, bitch. Insert cookie. Right. Exactly. Like, you're saying that in the moment to make yourself not feel as bad, but you're ultimately not gonna do anything. And I went Chaz, that, is where I'm gonna win.
It's where people will either buy Rosetta Stone and do it for, like, 30 days and then quit. Or they won't even buy Rosetta Stone. And when everybody else is behind a computer screen doing, you know, desktop due diligence and searching LoopNet for deals. And they're they're not in the field. Shaken hands, talking to their potential residents, talking to potential contractors. I am and even better when someone sees me, and then I I bloop out my my Spanish to him Chaz, what?
This this dude can speak to me. And then they're like, what? I can understand them. And then all of a sudden, I have now made beyond a friend. I've now made a serious relationship. So there's a great quote. I'm gonna butcher it, but it's just absolutely magical. The quote goes something along the lines of speak to a person in a language he understands you'll reach his brain. Speak to a person in his native tongue, and you will reach his harps. And let me tell you something.
With COVID, with the uncertainty around if our people gonna pay rent, with labor crunch that we all faced during as employers during the great resignation and and really even still today with labor prices and material costs and things skyrocketing, I cannot tell you how many people have reached out to me with my podcast and my Facebook group. Like, oh my gosh. I can't find labor and it's hard to move people in. And this and the other thing, I'm like, no problem. I'm a part of me.
Yeah. Because you knuckleheads didn't wanna teach yourself Spanish. And by the way, it took me years to be, like, 5 years to be able to come fluent. And if you look at my duolingo, I'm 5 years and change. I haven't missed a single day. So I remember someone was making fun of me. They were like, oh, I just hired someone in Columbia, South America to talk to me every day. It's really expensive and and I'm gonna beat you at learning Spanish. And I'm like, I'm gonna use duolingo.
I'm not even gonna pay for premium. Like, I'm just gonna do the free version. The thing is I'm gonna show up every freaking day. Every day. I'm gonna put myself out there and embarrass myself. And, you know, now people can look at it and be like, gosh, that was such a great idea. And it's like, did 5 years ago, I told you to do this. Everybody else did it. You didn't do it. I did. That's why I beat you. Yeah. I'm hearing I'm hearing a couple things here. I wanna pilot for the listener.
Number 1, competitive advantage. You you were honest with yourself. You looked at your specific industry, and you said, okay. How do I win, or how do I differentiate myself even, which then gives you your competitive advantage, because clearly you're a competitive dude, clearly you're sharp, clearly you're going after things. And so whether it was the fact that you were made fun of or you were a little quirky or whatever those things were that you had had before, you was like, ah, whatever.
Doesn't matter. Gonna win. I just gotta find my angle when it wasn't being tall. It wasn't being fast. All those things. Okay. Great. So you gotta find your competitive advantage or specifically how do you differentiate yourself? And, love what you did there. The intentionality of it really is what it is.
For me, that's what I took away is the intentionality of the competitive advantage is not just to be able to win, but specifically so that you could reach humans which is just, I mean, we're in people businesses. Like, that's what business is. It's just a human business. And then the second thing was just the persistence. The the day to day, every day learning over 5 years just just saying yes, even to the free version. I just love that, man.
I just love how many excuses people give in all seriousness, and we say we're gonna do things but but we don't. We don't. And so I think that if you're listening right now, there is one thing that just came to your mind of something that you've said that's important to you, that you said is important to your business or your family or your weight or your health or your the time that you're spending on things, whatever it is. It's something came to mind, and you have not been doing it.
And so I I need you to write down what Ryan just said, and you need to just level up and go take care of it because dude learns Spanish every single freaking. You can go fill in the bloke with whatever you need to do every single day. Love it. Okay. Let's flip the coin. Ryan, tell us a bad decision that you made. Tell us the weakness, bro. Oh, man. I make bad decisions all the time. You know, it's it's you gotta fail your way forward. You know, I'll I'll give you a grape.
For example, I Ian and I, my former biz partner, current best friend. He and I, our first mobile home park that we did together, like, without anybody else, just me and you. So Chaz was our 2nd overall acquisition. It was our first real dance because we didn't have we weren't JV ing with an experience operator. We didn't check the water bills. Uh-oh. And it turns out there was a pretty big leak, and it was master metered. So for those you who don't know what that means.
That means there's, you know, we had 33 units at this mobile home park and one big fat water bill every month. And we did the math and we didn't know how many gallons were normal, you know, what that range was. And we didn't do forever. Yeah. A $150,000 later. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So imagine calling your investor and being like, hey, you know how it's been, like, a year and we haven't distributed, we actually need your money and more of it. And then please don't, like, delicious out of here.
Yeah. Yeah. So that Okay. That was probably the biggest mistake I ever made. So I'm hearing out of Chaz, obviously, a mistake of processes. I'm which I'm sure you've corrected, so I'll I'll ask you about that here in a second. But then you had to you had to eat crow. You had to go back to the investor. You had to say, oh, we've made a mistake. And then on top of that, we need more money.
So give me give me some insight there of what came out of that as, you know, the the the the phoenix after the fire type thing? Well, 1st and foremost, we now have Chaz included in our checklist for due diligence. So that's That's an easy one. You know, that's that's a low hanging fruit, but also setting proper expect with investor partners. Right? So, you know, you do the math. You have your pro form a, but you always say You know, look, this doesn't mean poor fall is here. Right?
We could make a mistake, and it could end up costing a 6 figure plus amount figs. Right? So now the good news is that investor partner basically just didn't even put up a fight. He's like, how much and where do I write the check to? Right. Which was incredible so much so that this investment partners, now my best friend, and now my end has taken Ian's place as my new business partner. So we we won this guy over moreover. He's a close friend and and now my full on business partner.
But, yeah, look, there's so many stories like that over the years. I I always bring that one up, not because it was one of the first mistakes I made. It's just because it's one of the most shocking. But, I mean, dude, I've I've made mistakes. I've made mistakes literally today in due diligence, but thankfully, I caught it before My money went nonrefundable. Yeah. Right? So, look, you just, gosh, I can't tell you, Chaz, how many people I talk to that just get paralyzed.
In fear that they're gonna make a mistake. Carol Duque has a great book called Mindset where she basically argues that people can fall into 1 or 2 buckets, a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. And I try my best to help people with fixed mindsets to forgive themselves for making mistakes because you Wolfe a growth mindset isn't someone who wants to win all the time and be right all the time, a growth mindset is someone who is not afraid to fail or if they're afraid to fail fine.
We're all afraid to fail. Sure. But it's not going to they're not gonna be paralyzed in fear because they are gonna, you know, just be devastated if they're wrong. Or make a mistake. So you have to allow yourself the ability to make mistakes, and everybody does. And and I everyone will Yeah. Yeah. The I mean, so many so many nuggets there that you just gave to us, but the ability for you before the mistake was made to have the trust with your investor.
Give us give us insight there because you didn't just call that guy and he say, fine. Where do I write the check? Without there being a dramatic lead up of him trusting you fully infth degree, good, bad, indifferent. And, of course, now he's your partner. So what had happened before Chaz, or were you intentional about that, or give us insight there to what happened forward where that conversation was so easy. Whether you thought it was gonna be or not. So I didn't have to have that conversation.
Let's start there. So he has got to do that. This was actually Ian's former boss. So it was this guy was already sold on Ian. Yeah. And they worked together same university, all that jazz. They know each other for years, had a good report, already friends, yadayadayada. So Chaz, you know, but I what I will say is going forward, I always actually take the approach of, like, this is who I am. This is what I can do. This is what I'm not gonna do. These are the things I can go wrong.
I list them out in my little business plans. I carry your risk factors, primarily around infrastructure with mobile and parks, like, you're gonna put your big boy or big girl pants on if you're doing this deal with me. And just FYI, I don't need you. I don't. I don't need you. In so many words without sounding overly arrogant, This is almost a favor to you. Like, I have the money myself to do this myself. I am welcoming you in welcoming you into this.
Right. When I say jump, you're gonna say how high. Otherwise, you are not gonna invest with me, period. Right. And I am very brutal like that up front. Then when I have to have a tough call with someone, like, recently in the last 6 months, we've caught someone stealing money from us, and it was not a small sum of money. The good news is was on a new acquisition, so we nipped in the bud pretty quick, but they got away with some some money. And we had to basically call our investors hey.
You just did this deal with us. Guess Chaz? Someone stole a whole bunch of money with us. I basically, between the team of us, told everyone, like, Look. Just like I told you before, you put your big boy, big girl pants on. This happened. Yep. We are just starting this off here. Do you want me to write you a check-in on this and I'll eat the fees. Every single one of them said no. They're like, what? Yeah, dude. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah. It's part part of it.
Proper expectations of being brutal with Chaz upfront. Yeah. I love that. I think that that that goes a long way. Team members, investors, clients, however label you put the on the relationship, of spouse, children, you know, I think that's the that's the biggest differentiator that I've learned as well. So I second that the word expectations is everything. Okay. I'm gonna ask you about a process. You you're a process guy, or at least maybe you've learned to become 1.
What process do you take decisions through? So that you can attempt to make the best ones possible every time. Great question. I'm glad you I saw that on your list, and I was like, I'm probably just asking you this because I am a very big process guy. My concentration when I got my MBA was in operations. So there you go. I'm an ops guy. I'm a sales. I'm a sales person at by nature, but I'm an ops guy by education and by interest, I guess you'd say.
But listen, if you are listening in and you're hopefully or at least you're hopeful to gain some insight out of this in terms of I wanna get to the next level, whatever that may be. Odds are you probably already know the answer. You probably do. You probably know exactly how to get to the next level. You just don't wanna do it or don't don't think you know how or this side of the other thing. Look. It's usually a workflow problem. It's really that simple. It's usually a workflow problem.
You're not doing enough work, which actually believe it or not is usually pretty rare for hyper achievers and really successful folks. Like, those of you tuning in most likely are because you don't just listen to a podcast like Chaz if you're I'm not gonna go ahead. Right? So in other words, you're it's likely not that with you. It's more likely that you're either doing the wrong work or you're getting sucked into black hole of nothingness. So I'll give you a grape, for example.
I've I've got, I don't know, 30 plus people in my company that report to me and I caught someone someone new under and and just the absolute perfect example to describe good process because I like to answer questions with stories if I can. So this this woman, she takes a call from a resident. This resident's like, my air AC is out. And so this new person basically was like, Oh, okay. Let's call the maintenance guy. So she calls the maintenance guy, hey. Such and such AC is out.
He goes over there quote set goes back to the property manager, and the property manager is like, this is not a rental unit. This person owns the home and is renting the dirt. Not my problem, dude. Right? Like, Why is the maintenance guy going to a home that does not belong to us?
So in other words, what I realized there in what I realized there was Number 1, there's a a a place in my system that was broken that we addressed, which is okay, but The bigger thing there is this woman took 5, 10 minutes of her time plus plus plus to field this call to log this issue, you know, to then go get in contact with the maintenance person. The maintenance person then had to take 30 minutes Stop what you're doing. Go out there. Get this fixed. Wait a minute. Let me quote this out.
Figure it out. Now let's go back to the property managers. That takes half hour, the property manager has to stop whatever they're doing. Spend couple minutes wait. What's going on here? And now that property manager has to call this resident and be like, They don't own the home. Why call me? Right? And has a little bit of confrontation, a little bit of this on the other. And now all of a sudden, you you need to have woman answering the call, the maintenance person, and the property manager.
Just three people. Oh, and by the way, now me, because now I'm getting looped into what the heck's going on So now I have four people involved. And by the way, if my normal person wouldn't have fielded the call, my normal person would have gone. Wait a minute. I'm looking at the rent roll to make sure Chaz the number matches and we got the right person. Oh, gosh. You you you no. What what do you mean your AC's run? Not my problem. Right? Nipped in the bud.
Here's a good phone number for someone you can call. When you when I say, when you're listening in, ladies and gentlemen, and I say, you probably know the answer. It's probably a workflow problem. When you build out a team, if you build out a team without good systems, processes, and trainings and backup, right, because that was a backup woman answering that call. Right? So and she's a new person. We're training her. She's gonna be great. Everybody on the team loves her including myself.
So this isn't a bad person. This isn't a terrible, unfixable mistake. It's actually I'm glad it happened. I've told my entire team, if something happens, you come to me because I wanna know if it's broken. Don't want a bunch of yes people following me around. I want a bunch of bad news bears people come and tell me what's broken so we can fix it. Right? So this is not a bad thing. These are not bad people.
But I see this again and again and again and again, Chaz with people that own more than just real estate. It's people that own all sorts of business is they have people who are untrained or they don't have good systems and processes or they have poor communication across the organization. What ends up happening is you have little black holes running around, little magnets running around. And these little magnets, they suck in everybody around them, and it just goes into nothingness.
Whereas the right person and or the right system nips problems in the bud. And by the way, if my normal girl had answered that call, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Right. I cannot tell you. I literally cannot tell you. I cannot quantify how many instances of hours and hours of work have not have accumulated because I had the right person and the right processing eliminating the need to suck in all these people.
Oh, and by the way, for most people, when you are on a task and you get sucked into another task, your productivity goes down. So it isn't just the amount of time taken to solve this. It's also the amount of, like, emotional strain good or bad Chaz happens in that moment that now lowers the productivity across the way.
So whether it's you know, you're just starting out and you need to learn, but you're, like, handling a bunch of really stupid menial tasks and know, you're you're taking the $1 activity, not the $10 activities. I think Tim Ferris puts it, you know, or you run a big organization, you know, small small to medium organizations, probably more a better way to put it like mine.
And you have a bunch of people you're trying to manage at the same time, regardless of where you are on that spectrum, You probably know the right answer. You probably know where you need to spend your time and where people around you need to spend their time. 1 of the highest value activities. And your systems and your processes and and your, you know, veterans, if you will, people who really know how to do what they do.
They will actually nip a ton of work, unnecessary work, absolutely in the bud, and you may never even know what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. I had a guy maybe last week on the show talking about if you just hire 9s and tens. Don't waste time with 5, 6, and 7s. Just hire 9s and tens. And and the reality is is what you're saying, Brian, is that it the all the unforeseen things that that you're dealing with that I don't have to because I've either just paid more or I've created the process.
I've just found the right person. All of those things, I mean, and maybe even a combination of those things. And it may it's the same thing in sales. I taught sales for many, many years to individuals and then, of course, entrepreneurs, but it's like, a lot of people focus in on objection handling and sales, but for me, it was like, if I could build relationship and figure out what the person really needed in the sales process, there were no objections. Right?
So I just eliminate all of the back half of what most people deal with Chaz long as I did a couple of things right and was actually like a human through the process. And so I think it's the same mindset of, like, if you can put a couple people couple things, systems, people, ideas, sales process, whatever it is, in place, the unquantifiable amount of time, money resource savings is, it just it actually makes it seem like it's easy.
So the guys like you and I are like, actually pretty easy to build a 7 figure plus business, but it's not. It is, but it's not. It's just the guys that don't know it. They just don't they just don't know where the pinch is in essence is what you're saying. Yep. So find the pinch, write down your write down all touch points in your business and figure out what's broken and and and Ryan saying just to ununclench that pinch. Anything else you wanna add there, Ryan?
Yeah. Remember, document workflow. What are the most important activities? We run a debt collections business. What does that mean? The most important activity. Collect the rent. Collect the rent. You have a limited resource. You are leasing to someone. The most important thing you can do because your gross revenue is capped. Yeah. Sure. Maybe you get late fees or some other small fees here or there, but the majority of your gross revenue in leasing real estate is Chaz you collect?
So any employee of mine, I tell them the the most important thing you can do collect the money. The second most important thing you can do is make sure money is not leaking anywhere. Right? So let's make sure everybody is safe and happy so the money comes in easier and No one gets hurt. We don't get sued. Nothing breaks. No water leaks. No this. That's the other thing. Right? So that's it. Make sure the money's coming in. And the money's not going out in ways that we don't want it to.
And beyond that, obviously, make sure people aren't doing stupid things on property too, but that's that's simple. And so what I do for all my employees is I say you got the big 3. You got delinquency. You got lease up. Right? So our units actually have to be leased out and number 3. Violations. Beyond that, everything else is just nice to have.
So whether it's the CFO you're talking to, your CFO, or your property manager or whomever you have to understand the workflow for people because if you are managing people, and you're asking them to do $10 activities, but you catch them doing $1 activities. You can't get mad at them for not being productive. They just weren't optimally productive because why have you do the $1 activities when you could have them focus on the $10 activities? And it's on you to set up your processes.
And your people to encourage them and hold them accountable to do the highest value activities first. And if they can get to the $1 activities later, great. But if you don't check that, if you're like, I'm just gonna be a passive owner. I'm gonna let him have autonomy that's like, no. You have to make sure Chaz if you're, you know, you got people working 9 to 5. They're not working 9 to 5. They're working probably like 10 to 3 with a lunch. Right?
Right. I, and if I'm only gonna get, like, 4 or 5 hours of real work out of your day. You know what I want you doing? The $10 activity, not the $1 activity. Yeah. Yeah. It's huge. Okay, Ryan. We're gonna switch over to the speed round. Sure. One word answer is if possible, but I'm notorious for asking for more. So we might we might get into some some some discussion here. Cool. First question is this.
If you Chaz only pick one metric inside your business to track for all your teams, all your departments, all your all your everything, what would it be? Collections. K. And why? Literally my last answer. I'm just gonna come in. Limited resource. Yeah. And if you don't, there is no business. Right? Yeah. Yeah. There you go. K. What book would you recommend? I know you gave a couple earlier, maybe same one, but for a six figure owner specifically, who's trying to scale to 7.
Emith revisited Michael Gerber. What'd you what's the what's the takeaway there for you? Same answer for the entire podcast. I have to I have to credit Michael Gerber for that book. It is mind blowing how important it is. I love it. Here's what I love about guys that have had success. This is for the listener, but I'm talking to Ryan. Is that we don't know. I mean, look, we didn't figure this out on our own. It's a book. Right. It's a seminar. It's a friend. It's a connection.
It's a like, we're just regurgitating all the things that we've learned and then done. And it's worked for us. So fantastic. It doesn't mean that I was the one that created the processes for a podcast or a franchise system or my real estate. Like, I just I just learned from someone else and then either put my own flare on it or or did exactly what they did. You know? So I love that that you said that, you know, that a lot of your interests have come from that because you're right.
And it doesn't have to be something that we've created. So I love that love that humility, really is what it is. The next question, do you intentionally network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs and why? Yes. And, yes, for everything you just said right there, like, I am not that original or talented or hardworking or anything. The difference is I do things like teach myself Spanish so I can have a competitive advantage and everybody knows this.
Everybody knows everybody's grandma knows this. It's all about who you know. Everybody knows this. Your taxi cab driver knows this. Your Uber driver knows this. Your haircut or every oh, it's all about who you know. Okay. Well, what are you doing? Listeners to go and meet more people. I'll tell you what I'm doing. I created a podcast before podcasts were cool. And guess what that did? It made me a little celebrity within my space.
Now when I go to conferences, like, I brought my wife because my wife thinks I'm a total door. I brought my wife to this conference like, sweetheart, we're about to hit a 100,000 unique downloads. Like, you know, we got this Facebook group with, like, five thousand people in it. Yeah. Get emails and text calls and stuff all the time, people asking about mobile home parks. Like, I'm kind of a big deal. And we she's like, yeah. Okay. Whatever did. And we show up to this conference like, oh my god.
Can we ever spend any time together? I'm like, not unless it's preplanned and we escaped because, like, I can't walk 10 feet without someone be like, oh, dude. You're the Momo park. It's a real life guy. Like, And so I'm like, sweetheart, look. People people know me. Why? Because I wanna know people Right? And I want people to be like, oh, that's Ryan. I wanna know him too. Right? Because now when I call you, if I help you and you don't help me and I call you, you're gonna help me.
And so in other words, I'm pumping out reciprocity into the space and pumping out my network. And I got my LinkedIn going, not because I'm selling any just because I want people to know who I am. So that way, if I call them one day, they're like, dude, I love your post. I love your YouTube. I love your podcast. I love, you know, that you're willing to give your time away for free. Great.
So 99 out of a hundred of those people I never talked to or never ask anything from, but that one person may make me a $1,000,000. Yeah. And that's made all those other 99 that yielded me literally nothing. Yep. I gotcha. So, yes, And we could probably spend do an entire podcasting series about why networking is huge. Yeah. Yeah. I know you're a 100% right, and I appreciate the just the genuine perspective there. I think that most entrepreneurs are so stuck in the motion.
Like, they're working in the business. We kinda talked about this at the beginning. But working in relationships is not on the job site or working with the client or whatever, you have to you have to be able to remove yourself. And so for a period of time, the operation stuff that Ryan was talking about a little bit ago, you've gotta really dial into that. And, of course, sales as well.
But once you figure those things out, what that should do is it should buyback some time of yours so you can work on the business. And immediately, you've gotta be thinking relationships and being known. You know, and I'm the guy too. I'm I'm introverted naturally.
And so I'm the guy's, like, totally cool saying under the radar not having a podcast because I really don't, like, it doesn't really matter if people, like, to me, like, know, on the internal, the the the introvert in me, but but once you start realizing the power of the one, like you just said, then and then things to start like, literally connecting or or the value that you're able to provide so many people.
Like, I I already know someone right now that I need you to connect with because of what you do. Like, that's gonna whether whether we do something or not, I don't know, but maybe you and him do, you know, so I just think that that's how the world goes around. So thanks for the perspective. Next question. If you only had 1 hour each week no. This one's not on the list. I'm throwing at you. Yes. You only had 1 hour each week to run your business successfully like you do now.
What would you do in that 1 hour? Collections. Or do you mean growing my business? Because growing my business, I'd say cold calling. Okay. Okay. Give us the perspective of if if you had to do both, would you split the hour between those 2 opt? Okay. Yes. And realistically, I would automate collections, which I've always already done. So I use Rent Manager. I get everybody's phone number. I come from sales too. So it's all about contact info. Web manager will text cash pay numbers for Walmart.
It balances all sorts of things. You can automate it, automate it, automate it, in other way, and you can automate your reporting. So 6 AM every morning, I add a delinquency email. My robot does it for me. So if I have an hour, I've spent 5 to 10 minutes just double checking. There's no bugs in the system and sending out a mass text or making sure my employees are sending out a mass text We have notes on these folks for why they hadn't paid, and the rest of that is cold calling.
And cold calling doesn't just mean calling someone I've never talked to for it. Maybe I should rephrase that to lead sourcing. So spending time with brokers, spending time with the other mobile home park owners cold calling people I've never talked to all of the above. So I Wolfe say, you know, 5 minutes making sure money's coming in. Maybe another minute, making sure not inappropriate money is going out, right, and then the rest, Qualcomm.
But if I could summarize this all really simply, the genius in running any business isn't making it more complicated. It's making it as simple as stinking possible. And that is what I I want. I want when people talk to me, I want them to be like, dude, duh. Right? But that's the genius of it. Is because, you know, you're not always gonna be able to hire nines and tens. And by the way, a 5 might be an outstanding He may be a 10 in one thing and maybe a 2 and something else. Right?
So does that mean Chuck that person away? No. What Bill Bell a check coach of the patriots does so well is he takes bunch of people who can do, like, 1 or 2 things exceptionally well and everything else they're terrible at. And that's all he asked them to do. Right? So he doesn't need, like, Lawrence Taylor all over the football field. He can have one person who does one thing incredibly well Yeah.
And then builds an entire defensive scheme around putting all these chess pieces across everywhere. So in other words, yeah, if I was to only have an hour you know, make sure the money's coming in, make sure the money's not necessarily going out. And then the rest of it, just focusing on on trying to find the next opportunity to buy so I can grow. Yep. Love it. K. Last question. If you lost it all, Ryan, what would you do? Do what I did back in 2017.
Go move into a mobile home and start all over again. I mean, even my wife was like, Are are we nuts here? You're leaving a job at Wells Fargo with an MBA from Wake Forest University on a pile of student loan debt to get paid nothing with no health insurance and no benefits go live in a mobile home. And now it's oh, yeah. That did nonchalantly. That's exactly what we would do. Yeah. I've I've look. I one of my best friends said this, and I love it. He's like, you know, he grew up poor now.
He's fabulously wealthy. And he's like, I came I was born into nothing, and I'm gonna die and take nothing with me. So if I go back to nothing and I, at one point, had something, know I can always get it back. And if I don't, hey. It was a fun while I well, it it it happened. Right? And rich dad poor dad, if you recall, the rich dad goes bankrupt twice something like that. Right? So it's like, it happens. It's part of the business, but you can't forget how you started.
And how I started was I quit my job. I paid myself next to nothing. Moved into a mobile home, I do it all over again, even with kids, because that's the number. Oh, yeah. Well, you didn't have the kids when you did that. Yeah. My son and my wife we're we're going in in any future kids we have, we're going in it. It will be a tremendous learning experience for my kiddo. Yep. So in other words, would do it all over again, man. I'd move right back into that mobile home.
Dude, Ryan, you're you're stud, you're king, really. So thank you for that. Appreciate all the value. How can someone connect with you, do deals with you, learn from you, whatever they they wanna do with you? How can they find Sure. Like my favorite rapper Tupac used to say, I ain't hard to find. My last name is Naras. It's spelled n a r u s I'm the only Ryan Harris in the world, I think. It's very rare last name. If you Google me, it's the first thing to show up.
I have my podcast mobile home parks in real life. I address the in real life portion. I'm just like I am now. I'm not selling anything. I'm not raising any money. I'm not asking you for anything. I'm making you all the listener into my army of reciprocity people. I am a giver. You can take from me all day long and 99% of you, I will never ask you for a thing. But that one person out of 9 9 a 100 of you would I ask you for something you will have gotten so much value from me.
You'll be like, oh my god. But please, like, whatever you want, dude. So I am deliberately easy to find. My website, archimedesgrp.com Chaz tons of ways to get in touch with me. I got my podcast, got my YouTube, got my LinkedIn, got my Facebook group, ain't hard to find Chaz. Yeah. That's awesome, man. I want you to find me people. That's why I'm here. Yeah. I wanna be known. Right? We talked about it. You're you're here. We're we're doing the thing. Right now. So I'd I love that perspective.
Thank you so much. You just incredible. I I I am glad that I know you now. And whether we Whether we do deals or whether we travel together, something something magical will happen for sure. 2 personalities like this don't get together without magic. So Thank you so much for being here. And, I just so appreciate you, man. Appreciate it being here. It's fun. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today.
Hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself, doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries, and now interviewing literally over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings literally exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities, and here's what we believe. That in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gathering the kings dot com.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.