On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. Now you mentioned a few minutes ago, 250,000 in mistakes give us a bad choice that caused some of that. Okay. So, yeah, so if I'm being realistic, it's probably closer to, like, 600 k, but the other ones I was able to kinda reel back in 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 to give a true and accurate picture of the journey of success and how you too can get 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? I'm Chaz Wolfe. We've got Corey. What if on the king stage today, my brother, how are you? I'm good, man.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. I'm excited for the conversation. You got a lot going on, even just in our few minutes here offline. You're you're, you know, I could tell you, several things going on muting your phone and stuff. I love it. I love the attention. And, thank you for being here. So tell us what kind of business that you're in, man. Yes. So I am in the mobile home park ownership business.
So real estate, we are laser focused on essentially mobile home parks and We're about to make that trek over to our re parks. We close next week and and then storage. So those are our 33 main ones. All similar business models, actually. Yeah. Yeah. I'm familiar and have had actually some other guests as Wolfe, so this will be a fun conversation. Before we jump into the nitty gritty, I wanna know. I mean, you're a young guy. What why are you still pushing?
I mean, you're gonna tell us a little bit about your success, but you own not just a couple of parks. You own quite a few parks, You're doing you're doing a lot in revenue, and you're still trying to get into new verticals of real estate. So why are you still pushing, man? Yeah. The only answer that I have is that for my kid, you know, for me, my kids, my grandkids, yes, we have enough. We're good. So that's you know, as far as I can see in the future at this moment Sure. From a poor family.
So I brought in a lot of family members, very, very close friends who I consider to be family members. And they helped me build this past 10 parks. Right? Sure. So now it's it's about them making sure that they are able to to build the same thing that I have and and and be able to create wealth for themselves. So it's like I always tell my staff that's, you know, who they are. You know, I'm not here for me. I'm here for for you guys.
So it's like when things are not being done properly, it's it's extra upsetting because I know why I'm here and climb away from my family. Estivation that your families have great lives. So that's that's pretty much it. I mean, and there's a there's a challenge to it as well. Prove people wrong, and I don't think many would have me pegged to be a gas station attendant, let alone all these things. So Yeah. Yeah. I I received that.
I'm curious to hear maybe if there's a backstory there, but as far as the why, what I'm hearing you say, not only just friends or, I mean, your your family and future generations, which is which is pretty you blew through that as a as bullet point number 1 pretty quickly, but that's kind of a big deal to have your children and your grandchildren, you know, quote unquote taken care of. And that's a really big deal.
And so and beyond that, it's now doing the same thing, creating generational wealth for your for your team, it sounds like. My family is growing up was the family that nobody wanted to borrow 20 bucks for gas too because they knew they'd never get it back. Right? I just watched that you know, tree inspired through my life and, just, you know, I went that route for a Wolfe.
And then then I kinda just seen this this side and seeing what it was like to have money and, you know, it's an easier life, but with with no less of challenges. Right? There's more challenges because more families count on you, but Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't wanna live. I'd rather, you know, I'd rather live with money than with hour here. Yeah. I'm I'm hearing you say pick your challenge. Right? Like, being poor is challenging. Right?
And and there's you know, more money, more problems, challenges. And so it's kinda like pick your heart. Right? I'm gonna cry. I'd rather have it be in a Lamborghini, you know. Don't don't don't don't get tears on the Lamborghini Series here, bro. No doubt. No doubt. Okay. Well, that's good, man. I love the perspective here. We're gonna get started. I wanna know how you got started. Like, give us give us the background. You give us a little bit of, like, the, you know, family had nothing.
And so how did you get started in business? Was it this one? Did you try something before this? Like, give us a little bit of your story? Yes. So, basically, I came home from college awaiting a job at Edward Jones. So I wrestled in college. So I got my degree, and I was waiting for a internship at Edward Jones. Wolfe, in the process of waiting for that, I got bored. And I just took a took a wrong turn. I'll say them, and I was always kind of a black sheep kid of the family. Right?
So I of my black sheep family, I was the black. That's saying a lot. Yeah. It is. So I I took a wrong turn, and And, you know, and so I ended up moving home. And at that point, you know, I Chaz pretty much destroyed my chances of even using my degree or anything like that. It just made some dumps decisions. Right? And so I came home, and I got a job at this campground, this RV campground, selling memberships. Well, I was like, I walk in.
The guy who really liked me, and I just was really good at it. So next thing you know us making, like, a 120,000 a year, which in my family, everyone would say, if you can make a hundred k, you're you're living high on the hub. You're good for life. And I got there, and I was like, it's like, this thing can do it for me. So I started saving up my money. And I was like, alright. I'll flip houses, but I had about a 4.50 credit score at that time. I got into flipping mobile homes.
So I'm like, alright. I'll flip mobile homes. I went to this park. I said, hey. I wanna buy these 10 homes. He said, okay. So I gave him the down payments for all the lock rents. And then he came with me the next day and said, hey. I'm selling the park and now I was like, okay. So I'm getting screwed. And he said, no. No. Just buy the park. I was like, why? I have no credit. I have no hardly any money. He's like, Wolfe, what do you have? And I was like, I have 5.50.
And that's what I've saved up. He said, well, give me 40, and I'll finance the difference for you. So I bought the park at 250, and it just sold it. I saw I sold it, like, 2 years later for about 2,000,000. Wow. So it's it was a wild ride, but it was it was something that, you know, the people that work with me now that, you know, call deals and they get ownership of deals. It's like, they don't know what it took.
Like, so I would drive from Ohio to Michigan and post eviction notices to make sure it was done because I had a full time job. I was president sales in that time. I had been promoted all the way to the topic top of the company of the of my job. Yeah. And I have to drag it up to Michigan to post eviction notices and come in home to my wife screaming at me because we were getting eviction notices on our rental because I was running out of money. Oh, wow.
I completely out of money remodeling all these homes and running this park and just like flailing, you know, and then something clicked, you know, and and I just started doing the right things with the for the right amount of money. Sure. That's that's the tip. You just need to know your product and and so I studied every day, and that's kinda how I got started. And here you are. Okay. So much to dissect in that.
And so I wanna I wanna kinda couple of questions here, but what in that in that story that you shared with us of buying a couple of the par or homes and then the park owner coming to you, Do you is that like a pretty catastrophic event? Would you be where you are today if someone hadn't basically, like, ushered you into that deal? Well, I think I would be so now that I see what I've built here, I always I know now that I was destined to do something and a larger scale. 100%.
But I only was doing that to make enough to buy a house to flip that. So I think it would have been a different business, but, I mean, I closed that deal. So and and and it's funny because I closed that deal. He said buy it. I think it was a Tuesday. 2 weeks later, I was closed. I didn't do any due diligence. I didn't know anything about operating in park at all. I just knew that people with, you know, that were landlords made good money. So I was like, alright.
Sure. I'll buy man, but I didn't do any due diligence. Nothing. So, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I was in a park. So possibly, you know, I would have maybe elated in it, but it was kind of an odd. He got me, but I made it work. Right? He he he knew what he was doing. He he's on the park Chaz was in really bad shape. Yeah. We did it. Yeah. Okay. So the so the answer there gave me so much information. I heard I had I had no idea what I was doing, but I took a risk anyway. I was young.
And and I knew that generally speaking, landlordship or business ownership was good. I just, you know, you probably had no even idea how to do due diligence then. Yeah. No. I didn't. Yeah. No. I I had no idea and then I found out there was oil Wolfe on the property about 6 months in. And that still was already taken courses to learn about local parks. I'm like, yeah, but I do wanna tell my wife, you know, because they said stay away from those because that was weak.
And I I didn't wanna tell my wife, so I just got that to myself. It's all time to sell. I know. So I was I she was gonna kill me, you know? Because she thought, you know, for sure this thing, the ship was going down. Well, she's she got with me, and it's like I was saving a little bit of money. And then a little bit of money, and she's from a core family too. She's like, okay. I'm with a man. He's great. He's he treats big yet, and he has a nest egg.
And then I was like, I'm gonna spend it all in this mobile home park that I know nothing she's like, alright. Wait a second. Yeah. And so so let's flip the coin on that. What's the what's her perspective today? Is it like I mean, thank goodness he figured it out, or is it like I knew the whole time? I was just a little nervous. Like, what's her perspective now? Yeah. You know, we have nice things, but, you know, we have a modest house.
We have nice cars, but I don't think it's really red her to her. You know, so it is completely separate lives there as far as, like, I do this. And and then when I come home, I'm with her. Right? So I don't think it's really clicked until we sold a few of our parks, and now we have 15 listed. And it's like, you know, she was kinda asking about Chaz. And I think now she's like, I can't even believe it.
Like, I'm, you know, because it was kinda showing her some numbers, and it's it's it's worked out really well for us. And I think just now 7 years later, she's just now start kinda come to Yeah. Back to what we kinda built here. Yeah. Yeah. That's really cool, man. I'm thankful to know guys like you that have been able to do something super cool like that for for your wife. And, of course, like you said, your children, grandchildren, all of that.
So Yeah. I wanna know in in this whole thing that you kinda just shared, Was some of this based on, like, how you were raised, like, even though you weren't raised in a maybe a high level home, but you you still had, like, this risk taking ability or this ability kinda like want to want more. Did that come from that or maybe the lack of that at home? Well, you know, that was, you know, so my dad owned a carpet store, casual carpets, and then he bought a trucking company, casual, a trucking.
And then right as that was kinda starting to Deeth through decent, he passed suddenly. He's thirty eight years old. So that's where CMH comes from, casual mobile home. And then I own my own trucking company now as well, and that's casual trucking. Everything I do is kinda rebranded and rebuild why he had started there. Wolfe. But, yeah, so he was that kind of way. His but what I was able to do is kinda look back when I bought the park and say, again, he did okay.
And he I think he thought he was doing a lot better than he was because he wasn't paying attention to the So that's something that I know that I'm not good at, and I don't wanna be good at it, but I need to know how to read it. And then you make sure that people in charge of it are pushing out the data. Right? So Yeah. Yeah. I got I got that from him. And then and, also, I used people to learn from the things not to do as well. So and I learned a lot of stuff not to do it from him too. You know?
But yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, I'm sorry to hear that that he's not with you anymore, but, I mean, what what life lessons Chaz, like you said, just to be able to see the good and the bad right in front of you, pretty powerful. I'm sure. What what's been a good decision that you've made along the way?
You've kinda given us a high level one of me purchasing that property and selling it for for quite the for quite the sum, but what was maybe a practical something inside of the business that you've done that has really enabled you to, you know, grow? Yeah. So I was making about 200,000 a year for my job, and and I I left at 30. And Chaz was, like, the most scariest thing in the world. So I left at 30 and and started CMH Capital.
And and that's and then I brought in when I couldn't afford it, I hired. Even though I knew, looking at the budgets, I'm like, you'll be out of business in 6 months if this don't go well. And I was really afraid by that. So that was my first thing. And what I did bad bad decision? Is that what you said? No. Give me the good one first. Okay. Give me the good one first. Yeah. So I'd say that. Do you want me to go in-depth with Chaz?
Yeah. Yeah. So so when you said you hired, like, you you you're kind of on this line of risk. Like, the first example that you gave to us, the first story Chaz was you going, you know what? I don't know how to do this, but yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so then the second one you just said to start hiring, even though you knew you'd be out of business for 6 months, why did you do that? What position did you hire, give us some of the nitty gritty?
Yeah. So I think when you get to the point where I'm at now, you need to start analyzing risk in a big way. But back then, I said, I have to hire people, and I also know that I can only wish stand these costs for 6 months and then I'm broke. Like, I'll have to sell my stuff, and I'm and I'm out. So I just was thinking about it, and I was mulling it over before I left my job. And then one day I just clicked It's like, don't fail. And I was like, okay. How do you not fail?
And it was like, if I call 20 hours a day, which I could do, then I will get deals. And when I get those deals, I will close some, and I'll get paid. So I was like, just don't fail. And I called my wife. I Chaz a good relation with my job. So I told them, you know, I gave them my notice a month, but I called my wife on one day's notice and say, hey. I just called. I'm out. Like, I left, you know, I have 1 month left.
So it's short your spending a little bit because I'm gonna save as much as I can. Yeah. Because she knew, you know, that I was gonna do it big and Right. Went from 10 parks to 35 that year alone. Yeah. Because I'd never got off the phone. So 10 to 35, we call us, like, 25,000,000 of parks that you Yeah. In business. Yeah. It's incredible.
Yeah. I I was actually I was noticing that on the notes that we had from your pre interview Chaz And and it's such as such typical response that I've seen in business when someone, especially if they have a job. I can tell you the same thing that happened to me when I was growing, growing, and when I left my job, it was just the game changed.
And and it's it's that scary moment, but I would even say for the person that has already in business, and maybe they don't maybe they don't have a job, but they just haven't gone all the way in because that's really what we're talking about. Yeah. Are you leaving a 200,000 you know, dollar job Chaz that was you going all in. You said, okay, Wolfe. Here we go. We're jumping. Hopefully, we can pull the parachute before we hit the bottom.
Yeah. And so I think that that's probably the moment whether it's, like you said, you leaving the job or whether it was some of these folks that are listening today who are 6 figure business owners, They just they just haven't gone all in yet. They haven't hired that key person. They haven't, you know, 10x the marketing budget. They haven't they haven't decided to make 20 hours of phone calls. But when you decided to leave, it it, you know, burnt a bunch of stuff on the safety side.
And I love what you did, man. You started making phone calls. You just said, literally, I'm gonna carry ship. And so what did that look like? It was at just that 1 year, and then now it looks like different. You've hired those things out, or are you still are you still in the the the daily negotiations. How's that roll? Yeah. So that's where it gets a little bit crazy and and and and interesting and stressful. Right? So Yeah. Buy all these parks.
And, you know, I turned around, and so that's like my You got a huge mess now. Yeah. It's like my biggest success in failure was in the same lump. Right? And by all these parts, turned around, and I was like, what in the hell is going on back there? Right? So, I mean, it was it was it was just chaotic, crazy compliance, and it was just like, okay. So it's like, I I kinda had to reel back in and it's like for the past 7 months, you know, it's been a strict regimen. It's up at 6 and it's to bed.
I try to get to bed at, like, 2 or 3 AM. So it's like, if I can get 4 hours of sleep, it it was good. So I built this whole thing. Right? And then it's like, I didn't know on a lot about parks. I didn't know what management fees was because, again, I'm kinda just jumped in. So there's a lot of parks not paying management fees. So then it was okay, I fixed it. Everything's good.
I mean, I could show you a graph where it went from 72% and then I jumped in and I became COO and then it just played last 4 months had been a 98% or something in collections throughout the portfolio. Right. And so it's going really well, but it's like then you turn around now, and it's like, ah, now we have this new problem, which is, a management company is losing money like Chaz. Right? But that's okay because we got these 25 parks and we were making money from them.
So it's like, then I had to renegotiate with my partners and to say, hey. Once I get your money back, management fees gotta happen or else we sell it. It's just fine by me. Right. So we have all those coming back in now. So now that problem is fixed. And now we are buying again. So now we're buying another 1000 pads in the next 30 days here to add on. So we kind of mix everything up. So I think it's going all in, but it's also measured.
So when I left my job, I knew in 6 months I'd be out of business. But I also knew that if I let everybody go and did it myself, then I could extend it another few months. So I knew I had about 9 months in total. So I I had a strategy there. The same thing for the for the parks. I mean, I built the the firm, and then I decided after to build the business. Right? Sure. The thing that I learned the most out of there. This was stressful.
I wouldn't have taken this approach again because it it hurt my family life to work that much, but I also noticed all the guys that made their business plans, and they were sold organized. They own, like, 1 or 2 parks, and I'm sorry. I'll take my portfolio over that any day of the week because they wanna do what I did. A scary thing. And sometimes over plan and just Yeah. Creates problems, and those problems are hard to get over.
If I would have known how unqualified I was, to buy all these at one time. I would never get it. If I would never get it, I would never know how to do it. Right? So it's like, you know, you gotta do it, and I could've found a million problems. And if Chaz of seeing in the future, I'll probably own five parks right now. Wolfe, here I am today. I'm alive. Right? And, we're good. Fairly hanging out my thread. But yeah. Yeah. You know, it there's so much truth in what you've shared.
It actually I I gave this example. It's a little bit, you know, mystical, if you will, but it it in this King's language that we use and gather the kings, you know, there's these times where you press the bounds of the kingdom, like, where you take new ground. You go out fight the enemy, you fight the war, you take new ground.
And at some point, you can take ground, you can take ground, you can take ground, you can take ground, but you eventually run out of supplies, the, you know, for the for the army, the army gets tired. You know, the actual land that you've taken over is not being cultivated properly. It's not being farmed. You know, houses aren't being, you know, built we're keeping in this kingdom mindset.
And so, eventually, what you have to do is you have to stop taking new ground and cultivate what you've gotten strengthen what you have, strengthen processes, strengthen people, strengthen leadership, strengthen the resources, and then you can go back out again. And you just gave a perfect live example to this, at full scale. Because I love what you said, man. If you had already known, you probably wouldn't have what you have today.
And so there's this huge balance between knowing the detail, knowing that you only had to 9 months, but then just going, here we go. Just go to the wind. You know? It's like it. It's about being responsible too. I would never say news. We're not meant to I know a lot of people, and we're pretty popular name with the mobile home parks based out.
And, you know, it's like I I hear a lot of these guys, you know, they'll say things like, you know, it doesn't matter Chaz long as the investor gets the return back, but it's like, I don't stop or sleep until the investor has their money back. And it's like, I feel probably too much of a weight over spots ability because my whole life was built from investor money. Well, I was my first investor. Right? Sure. And Chaz, everything happened by investor money.
So it's like, to me when, you know, my daughter gets a new toy or we get to go on vacation. It's like, I think about the investors that made that possible. And they probably think the same thing about how I made their money better bigger. Right? But, I mean, to me, a massive insecurity in my brain because I'm a a sales guy, not an operational software guy. Right. And but it's like, nobody could say that to me now because I realized that we're not not good at anything.
We just don't do that one thing or don't care to learn it because, I mean, now I'm operational whiz. I know all the softwares. I know how to do it all. Right. And then now when I hire somebody, I'll know immediately when I'm bnbs or when things are not being done. So before, it was like, run it. Here you go. Here's your check, and and you're gonna run the whole thing for me. I'm gonna make all money. I don't know how it works. You know? It's not. It's not. Hey, Kings and Queens.
Chaz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this. Let's help each other.
Let's help each other grow. And you just keep opening up good conversation topics here for us because you're right. You I mean, what you just said is like the entrepreneur dream. Right? Somebody gets in business. They get they go this. I'm gonna build it up and I'm gonna have somebody else run it. Like, how many entrepreneurs have you heard say this? It's like, no. Dude, that doesn't exist. No. It it really it really doesn't. You know, I I gave everything to a COO and gave nice salary even.
Ownership in every park that that we buy. So it's like, I thought to myself, you got ownership, you have motivation. I showed you the way, and it's like, There's there was so many bad things that I I held on for too long. But, yeah, there's you can't you can't just build the business and hand it over. And think that it's gonna go good because it doesn't matter the motivations or the check behind it. People naturally will kinda do what they need to do to keep what they have.
And it's like, that's something that was taught to me, you know, in in a big way. And thank god. I mean, I think if I did it all over again, I probably would have failed on a few more than a few parks. We've gotten blasted in the in the sense that we the deals that we are are aggressively good. Right? They're good deals. And that's where we're able to kinda really recover and rebound from any mistakes we've made.
And we made about $250,000 of serious stakes out of all of it, which isn't a big deal. And I paid it out of my pocket, let my investors know they didn't have to pay me back. And that intern brought me even more investors. So I was like Oh, yeah. Build's trust. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love what you're saying because there is this this idea of obviously building systems and a team and leader.
And and you should have a COO and you should you know, incentivize them properly, but what Chaz the the caveat that you're that you're explaining here is that you can't just check out. Yeah. Until it's just so big and so ginormous, you know, like an apple or whatever. Now that it just it doesn't matter. It literally probably doesn't matter. But but for guys like you and I, it's like, okay. You can have a system. I can be on the pod with you today. You can be here with me.
We're not working in the business today. But there's still very much a a keen eye on the target, and that's Chaz that's what I'm hearing you say. Am I picking up what you're saying? Yeah. And it's like it's like a measured approach. So I let go of the COO, and and it's like, I I hired a new COO, and my first instinct was, hey. Here's what you gotta do. Your experience, you know how to do and and I was like, you know what?
No. So I actually took the the whole business and put it into about 3 or 4 different buckets, 4 different buckets. I'm looking at it now. So and then I said, Here's this bucket. I wanna be able to give you all four of them so that you can give 2 of them each to somebody else. Here's one. Do this one well. And then it's like, bam, he was doing it very well. He's very focused. And then I handed him 2, and everything kinda got mixed up a little bit. Because there's thought you were doing that.
So then we we kept working at it, and now he has 2, and I had 2. So I'm focused on 2. He's focused on 2. And I'm the better of the trainer of the 2 of us. I deal with that stuff. And I don't care how long I gotta sit here and do that because, you know, investors money, their kids are dependent on me too. And, you know, Some of these guys have, like, $10,000,000 of their own money with me. That's a lot.
So you, you know, so I'll sit here as long as I need you, and then know, when the time is right, maybe I hire somebody else and give them 2 buckets, and then I'm overseeing those two people. So Right. My biggest lesson learned is never ever ever step away. And you don't have to know how Microsoft is programmed to use the program, but you kinda have to know where to click. Right? I need to know where the whole is, and I need to know how to get to somewhere if it crashes.
You gotta kinda know your stuff a little bit to be able to keep track of everything. Yep. That's good. Now you mentioned a few minutes ago 250,000 in mistakes. Give us give us a bad choice that caused some of that. Okay. So, yeah, the So if I'm being realistic, it's probably closer to, like, 600 k, but the other ones I was able to kinda reel back in. Sure. I bought 40 homes at one time because everyone was really hyping me up on social media about how many homes I can buy and all that stuff.
We look forty homes at one time. I don't know if you were around but on March of 2020, March of 2021, there's COVID, right, and everybody stopped. So I have 40 homes. You bought these homes in March of 2020. Is that what you're saying? I think before. Yeah. I think February. Okay. Yeah. But then it's so I'm paying on average 500 lot rent. So 20,000 a month, and nobody was allowed to move homes. So every month, like, clockwork 20,000 every single month in just I couldn't get them out of there.
And then when it came time that we could move them, well, guess what? Everybody needs to move. So it was backed up. So it's like all these homes. So I didn't go and pull out a total of, like, $600,000 out of my account, which brought me down to, like, 200 k with all these staff members. Yeah. And I paid my investors. I said, hey. Here's the money. I'll I'll let you know when I get them in. So I just paid 600 and I'm losing 20 every month. So it it brought me into the trucking.
I said, you wanna know what? I'm buying a truck. I'll get licensed myself. I'll move them myself because it's gonna cripple me. Right? Yep. So I bought them moving company, and Chaz just so happened that a maintenance band who made me a lot of money in one of my parks. He did the whole thing and he bought a moving truck, a moving truck at the same time. Let me buy the truck, and I'm gonna fund your whole business. So I funded this whole business.
Gave him 70% of the ownership, and he Chaz the most loyal, trustworthy person ever. He's hauling these homes left and right. The only rule is when my homes need to be moved, I come first. Right? And I'm and now I'm making a bunch of money off of this. So it's like the problem came from Chaz, and now we've sold off the homes to the parks and whatever. Right. Recovered about 350 of the 600. And it took took a $250,000 loss. No. It was a It was a scary, scary time.
But, anyway, yeah, we we it was it was more terrifying because the 20 homes 600 grand I can lose and I'll live okay, but I would've I was running out of money for these guys. I couldn't Yeah. There's a payroll issue at Chaz point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're talking about the weight, like you said, the weight of the crown, if you Wolfe, man, when you got other people dependent upon you, other people's families and kids and food and rent and all that fun stuff, it it's a big deal.
All Chaz stemmed back to what I heard you say is some pressure, some peer pressure on social media about buying homes. Yeah. I mean, everybody was just like, oh, man, if you want homes, Corey is buying homes, and he's buying parks, buying homes, filling them so fast. And and I was just like, everyone was like, alright. How do I get, like, just 10? So I'm kinda helping people out. And, yeah, so I was like, nope. These guys kinda went and got 15 in a weekend.
So I was like, I'll go get 40, you know, and I did. And it was a great plan. I thought. But even, let's say minus COVID. I was saying incredibly stupid of me to do. And, and it was, like, it was kind of almost half heartedly greedy, and I'm the release greedy guy in the world, but it was greedy of me to go out and buy all those homes knowing that I didn't have any movers set up. I didn't even have, like, a infrastructure to handle that. Right?
So now it's like, you know, I use homes as a way for family members back home to make some money. So I say, we'll buy them, and you get a thousand bucks. We'll buy 10,010,000. So that was another pressure of it. So I was like, hey. Right. 40 grand, right, and you go. But now it's like, they can't go buy a home unless they have a mover already scheduled. It's it's like, hey. I'm buying a home in this area.
And so now it's just all the mistakes that I made thankfully, I was able to get myself out of them, but also I hate making the same mistakes twice. Right? Right. So now I have an internal rule and it because we're scaling, if you can't do your idea a thousand times without it being stupid, then it's stupid. Right? So let's not do stupid stuff. That I I think we just quoted you, bro. Let's not stupid stuff. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.
Yes. Yep. I love I love the the mindset there too, and especially if you're sharing it with your team because, yeah, I mean, they're making decisions on your behalf. Every day. I was gonna ask you about your formula in process, and you kinda gave just gave us that. Any other discipline there that you're keeping in mind when you're trying to make decisions today, knowing what you know now from those bad decisions?
Yeah. So number 1, my big issue when I stepped in was being able to step back because I was my company's solution, but once it became running properly, I was also the problem. I became the problem. And I recognized that myself. Like, I knew there's people out here that can do this stuff better, but it needed me to get to this point for sure. So, you know, basically, I tried to Well, I'm I'm oversight in development. Those are my buckets. Right? So I'm training and I'm oversight.
So people come to me with questions And one of my systems is, you know, when they ask a question, they know, just wait one second so I can get what I wanna say. But then I ask them, how would you solve it? Because maybe the person in front of you is gonna offer you an idea that you can mix with yours, or maybe it's just better. But I try to make sure we have somewhat of a flowchart for every major thing in a mobile home park lane. We know we're gonna buy homes. We know what needs to happen.
We know we're gonna call the homes in. We know what's gonna happen. So every major event has a flowchart, but more importantly, the system in which you get there, it can't be micromanage. I learned that people start to hate you and quits. And it's funny you could list out exactly how to do something. The other people's brains see that list and see something completely different. You would number 1, number 2, and it's like, you can't follow instructions. Like, it would get me frustrated.
Yeah. People's brains don't work the same. They need to do things their own way or else it don't make sense. So have to give them the wiggle room, but there's a flowcharting process. So that that takes place. Yeah. So so, I mean, I think that you're a 100% right. I've I've spoken on this topic handful of times, but when when when you're 100% doesn't look like they're 100%.
Yeah. It can it can frustrate the entrepreneur, but but really what's expressing is that if they're a good person, they've got a good attitude, they're that the deliverable is being done. It's just the way that they're going about it is differently. Then that's where you're, you know, oh, you look at the track record of of trust maybe and and you give them a little bit more autonomy, or you give them autonomy right from the beginning?
Yes. So I give them a little bit of wiggle room to make decisions, guided decisions, you know, in in the company of someone that can handle it and make sure that it's it's the right decision. But it's like it's like I always tell my step. My big line here is we have a meeting every day and and that meeting, I always tell them, like, if you send to me. I sat on Facebook all day, and you sent a couple emails on an answer. I didn't really look at them, but my parks are percent full.
They're a 100% collections, and my park manager and my tenants are happier than heck, and by the way, the park just got new landscaping. I don't care what you did. As long as the job gets done as long as we know what the end goal is. Now in mobile web parks, there's compliance and legal and tenant rights and all that. So Perhaps to be some process, but I allow them to wiggle room to make the decisions in between. It's like a it's like a attack list. Right?
If you keep forgetting, but you're not using the task list, that's upsetting. But if you're not using the task list, but you remember, I don't care. Right? I think. Right. So yeah. The deliverable. I love it. Okay. I'm gonna go to the speed round here, Corey. I want you to try to answer these one word, but I'm gonna dive in for for more. Tough for me, but I'm gonna try Oh, it talks. Oh, yep. Go ahead. All good.
If if you could only pick 1 metric, it'd dwindle your entire business down to one metric to trip to track forever. What would it be? Net income. K. Why is why net income? Because the mobile home parks value are based off of Chaz. When I now that I say it out loud, I would probably track occupancy because of occupancy is going up. NOI is usually going up. User. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting to to pick that one metric. So from occupancy, your brain can do the rest of the math. On the park.
Good. K. What what book would you recommend that a 6 figure business owner listening today read to scale to your level? Yeah. What got you here won't get you there. It is a book all about just because you're successful. Doesn't mean you're gonna keep it. And doesn't mean you're gonna reach the same heights that, you know, that you wish to. You know, Sears is a perfect example. They thought they had a lot up. They were willing to change their business model.
And because of that, they're out of business. Right? So the Chaz and the Sears. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That'll keep that'll keep you coming to work every day. Right. Right. It's what now. Wow. Sears is a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. K. Do you intentionally network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs? Yes. K. And why? Number 1, I I it teaches me. Most of the time, it's, you know, younger people. I mean, I'm young.
What I mean, like, younger people that own, like, one park, even if they're fifty They'll call me for advice and whatnot. And then as I'm teaching them the right way, I realized that I'm not following my own advice in certain areas, and I jot that down. So It's a way to gain investors. It's a way to gain allies. I don't know if I call people in mobiles and park business friends. But allies are nice, just as nice as friends. Right?
So and and it kind of allows you to fix your processes by teaching somebody else, and it just feels good in general when you know, when someone's kinda just excited that you picked up their call even because, I mean, too, because, I mean, when I first got into business, there was a guy. I won't mention his name, but he gave speech. And he was like, I have a thousand pets, and I had one park in my buddy who I met from multiple home parks. He had one park. And I nudged him.
I'm like, Jesus, wouldn't that be nuts? And it's like, here we are with 4000. We're now past, him. Yeah. And and it's like, you know, if you were one of my calls and gave me 10 minutes, they would have made my whole world. You know? Oh, yeah. Totally fan buoyed them. Yeah. 100%. I I love what you said. I don't hear this very often. But I I I relate to this when you can give Chaz you as that guy would have to you, I feel like it actually helps develop me Yeah.
More sometimes than actually asking someone for advice. Yeah. If I can give back to someone who and and they don't even have to still have to be, like, much further behind. They can be in the same stage. I found if we're going through some of the same stuff, I've just got one little one little piece figured out. It helps me get excited about the next piece. Yeah. No. Absolutely. It does. It develops you as a as a human, and it develops you at business.
And if you can pick up the phone, somebody's phone call, and end the call smarter Chaz when you picked it up, It's always a valuable call. It's like, you when you talk to investors, it's like, sometimes they wanna ask, like, you know, just monotonous stuff, and it and it takes a lot out of me when I've already worked 12 hours, but it's like, let's say one thing and they're like, okay. Cool. You know?
And and, I mean, one investor told me something really simple back in the day, and stuck with Chaz, and it looks like it's gonna be an out. He said, when you get multiple properties, when you have ones that can pay you well, cash wise, take the opportunity to take the cash and keep your leverage low. And as long as your income goes up and your mortgage goes down, at the same time, You're good. So it's like now it's like we have all these parks leverage below 60%.
We have good cash in the bank, and it's like now we're in high interest rate times. And it looks like we're headed for a recession. And it's like, I'm gonna look like a pretty penny when I come in and I'm saying, oh, I wanna refinance this park. It's 50% levered, and I got a bunch of cash in the bank do it myself. And then somebody next to me is like, oh, yeah. I'm 8 90% levered and, you know, upside down, and it's just gonna look right now.
So just that Chaz one call that I picked up that I probably didn't wanna pick up, she, you know, change my life. Changed these times for me now. I'm not stressed. Yeah. 100%. Love it. K? If you only had 1 hour each week to work on the business, what would you do in that 1 hour to successfully run your business like you do know? What I do now, training because Yeah. Training. Yep. Okay. No. That's good. You're keeping to the one answer. Give me you can go ahead.
Give give me the full answer on that I wanna know, like, who who are you training inside the business? What what impact are you making within the I mean, yeah, 1 hour? Yeah. So I train every day with my entire team regional managers and district managers essentially do the same job. Regional managers get the data and drive the data and push the data and we would call it. Meaning, hey, tenant. Lot 2, you have a paid.
And regional manager is driving those tasks, making sure that they're getting done. So I train them all the same. And what I noticed is in business, you're always in a rush because it's your money. When you're the owner, you're always in a rush. And, of course, nobody has to say, I would do it better. Yeah. Of course, you would do it better. You built the whole thing business. Right? Of course, I'll do it better than you, but that's not the point.
You'll end up killing yourself or not being able to scale further. So instead of rushing, even on the most dire of things, unless it's tenant safety. It's that a rush. It's like, oh my god. We just realized Chaz Wolfe is a license. Whatever. It's like, we'll deal with it tomorrow then. And and that's how we have to approach it because you have to take time to develop your staff. And if you develop 1 hour a day after 7 after a week, you're 7 hours, And after 52, I forgot what it was. 52 52 weeks.
That's 3 164 hours of trade. You know, it's like, I think of my mess, right, right, there. Right? But it's like, then there's doing a couple things really Wolfe, and you teach them the most important first collections and expenses to make sure those are in check. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you don't have collections, it's it's your revenue. There is no business. Yes. Okay. Last question here for you, Corey. If you lost it all, what would you do? Nothing. I would I would regroup.
I would regroup because I feel once you understand money, you understand it. So if something catastrophic was to happen, I always keep a safety net fund and, you know, you know, stored in cash. I'd go buy 2 trailers and flip them 2 trailers and take those 2 and flip another 2, and I'd build my wealth that way. At the same time, I know that calling mobile home parks is free. And I know that money isn't plentiful. It's the good deals that are scarce. I learned that a long time ago. Find the deals.
Forget about the money because when you find a deal, you can find the money. So I always tell people, if you found a deal for $6,000,000,000 tomorrow, he told me the next be worth 12,000,000,000. Do you think it'd be easy to raise the 6,000,000,000? I'd say so. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I love that I love that perspective. How can someone connect with you? They they've been listening to you. You're you've got the mindset that they wanna get after. Maybe they wanna get on in on a deal of yours.
How can they connect with you? Yeah. So Corey, c o r e y at cmhcapitallink.com or at my LinkedIn or Facebook is is it good at 1 too? Awesome, man. Well, you've been extremely valuable and and, dude, your success, the story behind it, the the Chaz, as you say, that you've created. And then now the operations that you're that you're doing to to clean it up, I I love it. I love I love how real it is.
I think that if someone listening here today was honest with themselves, even though they might be on smaller scale, you're doing the same things, and they can get to where you are if they just apply the same things that you've already done. So thank you, man. You've been extremely valuable here today again, and we just wish you nothing but success. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah, man. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today.
I 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 business 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 1 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 Chaz 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 king's 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.