On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. I love what I do, and I feel like I'm living my true purpose. I feel like I I actually don't have a ceiling anymore and sky's the limit. And I think for entrepreneurs, you know, that's something that if we can break that ceiling, And Yeah. Everything is up to us and it's possible, and we just keep going for more.
You are listening to Gathering the Kings with Chaz Wolfe, 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 reel of the reel. 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 accurate picture of the journey of 6 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. Alright, everybody. I'm Chaz Wolf. I'm your host. Gathering the Kings. We're back. I've got Paul Larson on the king's stage today.
My brother. Thank you for being here. How are you? I'm doing well, Chaz. How are you? Good, man. We were just kinda chatting offline about some really cool people you got to hang out with. I love getting with high level people and just doing cool stuff, especially when you get to do it for your future. And you were kinda you were you were tipping off a couple of cool things that you guys might be doing with an island, so maybe we'll get to that. But tell me what kind of business that you're in.
Tell me what you're doing. What kind of industry you're in that type of thing? Yeah. Absolutely, man. Totally honored to be here. Appreciate the opportunity. Paul Larson out of Spanish Ford Alabama, and I am a commercial real estate investor. And what I focus on is multifamily cash flowing assets. So starting bond real estate, small, duplexes, quadplexes, you know, really love the, you know, putting the tenant sand, creating the equity, creating the cash flow, then refinance, repeat. Right?
Yeah. And then we slowly move from small two units, four units, 10 units to larger. You know, 20, 30 units at a time. And man, I would say about a year into it, I stumbled on a mobile home park. And I love the fact that I just own the land. So I had to kind of think about this and say, how how does this work? I own the land. The tenants own the mobile homes. So I don't have to work on roofs, toilets, sheetrock, flooring. Right? I just make sure I take care of the land.
So I like that aspect of it to reduce the maintenance and just overall headache. And when you do that, you can scale much faster Right? You don't need so so many people to scale kind of the way we did it. So it was a small park. It's forty four pads and loved it. Few months later locked up another small RV park, which is a little bit different than a mobile home park. Right? So these things have wheels. They come and go, and it's a different asset class.
And what I decided to do was treat it more like a mobile home park and have more longer term tents. And Sure. So in turn, makes it easier So, did Chaz, bought a few deals. And back in 2020, I met a phenomenal person Chaz become my best friend in one of my business partners, Jeff. And I met him doing stuff like this right here. I wanted to grow. We were growing, and we wanted to learn, hey, how can we raise capital.
We're having a lot of investors that wanna come in and do deals with us and we're like, man, we have no idea how to raise capital, how to structure this and do it right. Well, I, you know, pay to learn how to do it and figure out how the big boys are doing it. So my wife at the time bought a ticket to commercial Empire event. Tim Bratz puts that on, and it was phenomenal. It changed the game for me. But while I was there, I met Jeff. And we sat down and shared a sandwich.
Long story short, we stayed in contact 4 or 5 months later, we bought our first deal together. Bought a 5 unit deal. We're like, hey, man, that was fun. Let's do another deal. We did a 48 unit deal. Hey, that was great. We still enjoy hanging out and doing deals. We did a 125 unit. And we did about 400 units last year together. So, you know, we were able to scale. We had the right people in the right place.
We enjoyed the heck out of the whole ride and And now we're, you know, buying RV parks and developing RV parks. So that's kind of the asset that I've been sticking to, which is RV parks. Yeah. I love it. I love the backstory too of just, you know, strategic connections, events, friendship, you know, all those things play into to success, and it sounds like it has for you as well.
I'm curious before we get into some of the nuts and bolts of kinda how you've done and and the scaling and and teams and stuff like Chaz, why? Why why are you still pushing at this level after you've done 400 deals just last year? I mean, you don't need the, quote, unquote, money at this point, why are you still pushing? Yeah. That's a good question. So I'll tell you a little, you know, backstory that got me to that point. So after high school, I tried college out. It wasn't for me.
Just absolutely was bored. Was bored in high school. Literally took the books, put them in my locker, and I passed without studying for one test. Right? Just didn't enjoy school. Just couldn't sit still, but what I did enjoy doing was making money. I enjoyed, you know, taking ideas and and making something out of it. But I didn't quite hit my stride, so I decided to go into construction.
So what a lot of what my family did, Blue collar, And I would say back in 2007 in December, I I was twenty one years old. I just bought a house. I just bought a car. And in January of 2008, I got laid off. Had no job, but I had a brand new car and a brand new house at 21 and very little money saved up. Chaz no idea what happened. And I haven't told that story a lot, and I feel like I probably should. But so at a desperation, I said, you know what? I don't wanna Wolfe.
For a company that is gonna hand me a paycheck and I'm dependent on that. I want to be able to produce what I feel is right for me in the way I wanna do it. So I went right into sales. I had people say, man, you'd be great in sales. Once you get it sales, so I went to the financial industry. And I was lucky to get in there. I was against a lot of college graduates. A lot of people. It was much smarter than me, but I had the entrepreneurial DNA. I like, I would get them. I would go to work early.
I would learn. I was a big sponge. I knew I didn't know it all, but I knew I could outwork a person to my left and to my right. And that's what I did. And I I was blessed. I had a great couple of years there and then I was, head hunted by another company. And it was the car business. So they brought me in to sell cars. So I sold cars for, like, a year, and it was an absolute grind. From that point, they they brought me in as a gen a sales manager and then I was recruited by another top.
It was all high in dealerships, BMW Jag, Land River Cadillac, And then I started going from dealership to dealership, building out their finance department, hiring and recruiting their salespeople, training them, teaching them how to close deals. Did that for several years and I didn't know where I got a text from a guy that was a COO of a real estate investment firm. And he we had met before. And we we had a great time. We got to know each other and just Chaz and talk.
And he's seen something in me, apparently, and reached out when he made it big at a small company. And he was like, hey, man. I need some help growing this company, some help, you know, building out a sales team. I said, okay. Great. Talk to me. Yeah. Long story short, we got in there and, man, just it blew up. Spent 2 years there, helped develop the He was phenomenal. The CEO and COO, they are doing tremendous now.
We talked on the phone periodically played off together, and that's kinda how I got my start in real estate. And that was a wholesale company. So we did wholesale and we flipped. And we when I came on, they were doing 3 to 5 deals a month. When I left, We were knocking down about 40 deals a month. So at the end of the day, I was still grinding my face off and my whole point was that I wanted to spend more time on my life with my kids and make a lot of money and travel.
I didn't wanna pick and choose. So I decided to venture out, leave on great terms, and start my own company. And that's what I did. And Yeah. I started learning about multifamily and the power of multifamily and how much faster you can scale by buying real estate. So when you say 400 units, It's really not that hard to buy 400 units in multifamily. You kinda get what you look for. And Sure. As a matter of fact, I'm selling off small deals right now that are 2 and 4 units.
I just posted them today and there's offers left and right. And the way I cleaned is, hey, we're taking some chips off the table and we're focusing on our 75 unit and up properties because I promise you, Chaz, It takes just as much effort to manage and operate a 4 unit Chaz it does a 75 unit. Actually, it's less work on a 75 unit.
There's a lot more money and juice for the squeeze and you can put a phenomenal team together where people take pride in ownership and it creates a much better lifestyle. So you I keep going because it's it's easy. I love what I do and I feel like I'm living my true purpose. I feel like I I actually don't have a ceiling anymore. And sky's the limit.
And I think for entrepreneurs, you know, that's something that if we can break that ceiling and everything is up to us and it's possible, and we just keep going for more. Yeah. 100%. You one thing that you kinda said in there too, which obviously goes into what you're saying as far as living your purpose, is that you wanted freedom, time freedom to be able to spend more time with your, you know, wife and kids and your family.
What do you think looking at what you've been able to do what's the first thing that pops in your brain around why you now have the freedom that you desired then? What is it about your current situation now? Chaz allows you to have the freedom, cash flow. Cash flow, first of all, the thing about sales as you go, I always said it was you know, for a lack of a better term, you go from hero to 0 at the 1st the month, every month.
No matter what you did last month, now you have to acquire new you know, clients. Yeah. Which is fine, but that's transaction. Yeah. What we want is long term generational wealth. That means that your property is gonna Chaz rent will go into your bank account at the the 1st every month. And the more properties you have and that cash flow goes into that bank account every not month Chaz is a cash flow standpoint that helps you live your lifestyle.
You don't have to be on edge and go, oh my gosh, where's the next deal coming from? You can be in the moment with your wife and your kids or if you're on vacation or whatever you make, whatever you enjoy doing. Right? You can be in the moment. So that's the cool thing about, you know, multifamily real estate. I would say the cash flow is what helps keep the lifestyle. Yeah. I love that.
And and I would even venture to say that, you know, specifically saying that most people who are listening to this podcast are running some sort of a business but they're still in the the setting up stage. They're still in the grind stage. They're still trying to develop systems and teams. Maybe they're in real estate. Maybe they're not. But even if they aren't in real estate, there's lots of ways to invest in cash flowing real estate specifically multifamily.
And so for someone who's not in real estate, would you say to that person listening right now while they're building their business Chaz they should also be developing cash flow for long term lifestyle, or is there a certain point in their financial journey that they should? Should they should they close their business altogether and join you in in multi like, what what do they do?
Yeah. Okay. So I like that question because That's what I'll help people with all the time because I love to get in a room and talk with someone that really wants more. That really wants to grow. And I think we all start our businesses to for the end result. Right? We wanna have the lifestyle that we choose. And I think a lot of us run into a situation where it's not the cash flow, but there's nothing wrong with that.
The first thing I recommend you do is to get educated before you invest in money into a real estate deal. Before you invest money with a GP like me or anyone that, you know, raises money to take deals down, you need to get educated. You need to get in groups like this, right, your group. There's probably guys in your group right now that are high level entrepreneurs in the real estate asset class. Right? And you can ask questions. You can grow with them. You can get a college education.
You can get 10 years in the matter of 6 months. Because a lot of guys, we went through a ton of mistakes, a ton of problems, a ton of trying to pivot, figure out what's best for us. And we can share those with each other and help that in particular person grow. So I'll say educate yourself first, read some books, listen to some podcast because this is not a get rich overnight thing. This is a get wealthy over a period of time. Right? I would say, you know, education would be key.
And that's probably why you enjoy education so much because that's the foundation of helping somebody grow. And when people don't understand something, they hesitate to do. Right? But as you educate yourself, you get more confidence and you're able to take shots that some people never take, and these little shots add up over time. So that's why I say it's not like I get rich overnight, but you know how quick this year goes by? Look. We're at now. We're halfway the year. Right?
So if you get that education up front and the people that you meet in masterminds and the people that you meet in groups like this, it's gonna level you up. You're gonna learn faster, and then you can make a solid, you know, smart decision. Where you need to go. I would say that would probably be the first step know, obviously, I'm a real estate investor and and we share so many just mindset things I can already tell, but Wolfe you say for the person who doesn't have any real estate investments?
Can they become wealthy outside of 100%. K. And so what is why why do you choose real estate then as opposed to the stock market or opposed to, like, all these other opportunities? Why Why is real estate so close to the heart for you? Because real estate run, anybody can understand real estate when you look at numbers. Right? I don't knock crypto. I don't knock the stock market. I have money and a little bit of all of it because I diversified.
But most of my portfolio, 90% plus is in real estate. Why is that? It's because I can look at a property. I can look at a, let's say, a 50 unit property and say, okay. This is the market rent. This is the lowest it will go in bad times. This is where market is right now. Where can we push it to? What are the what are the amenities at this property? Compared to the amenities in town. Like, I can figure this out. Right?
And then I know that it doesn't matter if another apartment or park or self storage property sales, they could sell for a dollar right next to me. It's not like a single family house. Right? If that single family house, if if 08 comes and these things start, you know, being sold off, then your value drops. That doesn't happen in commercial real estate. Right?
They're gonna base that off of income producing So if I say I have 50 units and I know I can get a $1000 a month minus my expenses, this is what this property is worth in good times and bad times, period. So it's a confidence thing. Right? It's a confidence thing. Again, if you understand and you know a product that well, then you feel good about good about it. Also, there's a million other reason. Right? Tax benefits. I can appreciate my problems.
I mean, I can make money by not paying certain amount of taxes. We pay very little in taxes, quite honestly. Another thing is there's, you know, exit strategies. You know, if you wanna sell down the road when the time is right, you can 10.31 change your money. So let's say if you make a $1,000,000 profit on your real estate debt, most people, if they make a 1,000,000 bucks, pay 45 percent taxes. Right? I can take that $1,000,000 profit and I can roll that into another deal.
And now I can buy a $5,000,000 project. With that $1,000,000. And it just goes on and on. It's a snowball effect. There's too many benefits to real estate, to not, you know, take advantage of it. And again, you know, I'm not the smartest person, and I've been able to figure it out. And I've also surrounded myself with the right people that we put together on a team, and we're able to do it over and over again. That's why I love that. Is there's not a 90% drop.
It like crypto, like, look at the market, man. Right? Real estate is up here. Everything else is down here. So, you know, when I look at these different, you know, aspects to an investment, real estate is always gonna be just a top 10. Yeah. I love the passion. That you're speaking with. I think that all entrepreneurs to a degree, once you find that lane, you just hone in on the energy of of passion, excitement. Totally tell that it brings you life. So I I love that perspective.
Okay. So let's let's go back in the journey a little bit, and let's talk about some X's and o's. Wanna know first. You kinda gave us a story of how you got started and the mindset of why you wanted to do your own thing and the ceiling, a little bit of sales background. But was the sales unto then entrepreneurship with the ceiling just that you described. Was that simply because of money, or was that the money and the freedom together. Was one more important than the other for you back then?
Money was more important at first. Right? So you go from, you know, being laid off and a house and a car and no money in the bank. Money is like the first thing thing you're thinking about. Got it. Got it. Make money. So and then when I realized that, you know, sky's the limit in sales, as long as I provide value, then I understand my product and I truly wanna help someone, I can sell. Right? It's just the way it is. If the product makes sense for the customer and it fits, That's a done deal.
It's closed. So, you know, at first, it was money. Then it would come time for you because sales, you can make a lot of money. And I guess a lot of money is just, you know, an opinion. How much is a lot of money. Right? But I would say the the the top 1% makes $450,000 or more. Right? And so if you're making that or more, you're you're filthy rich. That's just the way it is. And money is not hard to make. Money is very easy to make.
It's easy to multiply, but you have to have the right opportunity to do it. And it takes it starts somewhere. Right? So I would say first it was money, then it was then it was time for you because then my second kid was born. And so I left before he woke up I came home and, you know, I used to have to drive home and have lunch and try to spend time. And I said, you know what? This is not good.
So so it just kinda all worked out because when the real estate investment firm reached out to me, it was it was like a perfect storm, you know, so so I kinda jumped on it. And and then from there, I realized, man, I'm still working a ton of hours. Right. I know that I can do this. I have to take a shot. And right now, I have to take it, so I took it. And thank goodness I did. And it's it's scaled past my wireless streams to be quite honest with you.
I'd be lying to you if I told you I thought we'd be here this fast. Yeah. But it worked out and I'm very thankful for that. Do you do you think that you had real estate kind of, like, in the back of your mind. And so that way when when this opportunity popped in, it was like, boom. You took it, or did you not even know much about it at that So we owned a couple of rental properties, but we didn't have the we didn't have the best experience with them. So it wasn't like I had a burning sensation.
But I knew after, you know, we did a commercial property. So to tell you a bit about my wife, we were in the restaurant industry for 10 years. And we just sold 3 refs from us and a food truck catering business as of 2021. That was my wife's. Yeah. My wife is lay ocean, her background, her a lot of her these own restaurants across the country. You know, my wife Chaz a, you know, a little kid Wolfe cook in the in the kitchen with mom and dad.
So, you know, we had some really successful restaurants. Chaz really had us working a ton of hours. But one of the restaurants we did a seller finance deal, and in, like, 2016. And the cool thing it was was a triple net lease. And when I got a taste of that, I was like, wow. This is awesome. I have a triple net lease. The tenant pays for everything, insurance, expenses, mortgage payment, and I'm getting paid. Right? Right. So that was several $1000 a month net profit on one deal.
And I said, man, this is awesome. So that's a few grand on this little simple deal. If we get another one here and know them there, and that's when the money started making sense. The numbers started making sense for very little with the right processing system in place, and it's pretty incredible. I think that's when I had a taste of that. And when the opportunity came, I was like, I got I gotta take this.
Yeah. Okay. So I I completely relate to Chaz, but you you've done a really good job here, Paul, of of painting a picture of how little effort in how we can make gobs of money in real estate, but I wanna flip the coin. Usually in the show, I'm asking for, like, a bad decision or what was the struggle? What's the sticky Chaz is just like, ah, you know, what's that for you right now in your in your role? So I would say I don't there's not a big sticky right now, but I went through a ton starting.
You know, I Chaz hear that. I think that's a little bit more important. You know, at first, we were flipping and buying properties and just over rehab it. Right? No. I need to over rehab a property. You know, you gotta really understand. You gotta understand the market Right? Just because you want something to look really nice, you need to make sure you're in the right market, which is the difference between courts and from like a countertop.
Which is a difference between dollar 50 flooring to $5 flooring. So I've seen a lot of guys run into that. We ran into that a couple times just having so many projects going on and over overdoing it. You know, I think raising capital is important. You can lose a lot of sleep if you don't know how to do it because you know, once you take someone's money, you're it's getting a showtime. Right?
So getting all that stuff into play, I waited a long a lot longer to raise capital than I should have, I think that you can learn how to raise capital a lot faster. You don't have to spend 2 years trying to figure it out. You can go to an event, learn from someone that's doing it, reach out to me, reach out to guys that are raising capital, take them down, because you need to get in and do deals with people that are already doing them. So I would say, you know, don't stay on the sidelines.
Just hop into a deal with someone. Put some money into a deal, offer some value, figure out how to join venture. I didn't joint venture at first. I did I did the lone wolf thing for a couple years, and I absolutely love to joint venture. It's been phenomenal the way we structure our deals. So we're able to take deals down, bring in smart people. Sometimes we have 2 to 3 GPs on a deal. Everybody plays a role. So you play your role.
I play my role, and we we do Zoom calls, we meet, we talk about everything, and we make sure we keep the project on timeline. Yeah. That's great. And and and that's more it sounds like more of on a project basis as opposed to a long term multiple project scenario. It's not like you're set up a long term company. You just you have yours. They have theirs, and it's project based. Per, yeah, per deal. So you and I may, you know, take down a 100 unit deal. Right? It might be in your backyard.
So we may raise all the capital and say, hey, you know, we need your management team to manage this. We'll teach you guys how to operate this park. We'll raise the capital. We'll sign them alone. Let's work out the project management side. Right? So let's get you to oversee this. Let's do our call every week. Make sure we get this thing to finish on and make it worth x. Take it to the finish line, cash out refinance, pay investors money back, and then just move on to the next deal.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that you're you're right. The the principle that joint venture really leads into, and this is maybe just a little plug for the listener here as they're listening to your talk, it it's the who not how factor. Right? Like, the Malone Wolfe says, how do I do this? Yep. The joint venture perspective is who do I need to do this? I think that's also a that's a super applicable in every single business.
Obviously, it's applicable in real estate, but in every single business, you have to get out of your own way. And you can only get as big as you allow yourself to be or until you start, you know, replicating or duplicating or or going outside of yourself. Huge principle.
Okay. What so would you would you say that, you know, not raising capital early enough or, you know, doing things on your own, were those were those bad decisions, or were those things that you just kinda, like, just it took you longer to understand and that you would have just done faster if you had to go back? Yeah. I I would've done it faster. I I don't think it was a bad decision. I learned a ton. You know, it made me a better operator. You know, I mean, I worked a ton.
I got more gray hair in my beard, obviously, of it, but it made me a much better operator. I don't regret any decision whatsoever, but I think those are some things that I could have done faster. Obviously, you know, the past couple years show what you can do with the right people. And now, man, I look for ways to give equity away. I look for ways to bring people in. Right? If I And that all comes down to like when I'm network. Right?
I I won't do it with Joe Blow that walks up and says, hey, I wanna do this with you. Right? We're gonna have to know each other for a little while. We're gonna to connect, have some calls. I need to learn about you. You need to learn about me. And if things sound right, who knows in 6 months when a deal comes along? We're gonna call on your name whenever it's time to put it together.
As long as there can be some value added and you're the right person for the seat, a lot of cool things can happen. Was it just the history of we've done this a couple times now, and this is really successful. What what's giving you the confidence that you just expressed? In in being able to joint venture so easily. Yeah. So what we did was we bought a roughly about a 150 doors before I met my business partner.
And so we learned a ton together, and he had a a phenomenal background working as an asset manager for a big REIT. Managed about a half a $1,000,000,000 in real estate, and he knew a ton about it. Right? When we linked up and we just enjoyed each other's background, added a lot of value a lot of different ways. I handle the project management. You know, he helps with the property management. We both bring deals to the table.
We both raise 50 in capital, but the things that we do well are some of it. Like, he loves to look at spreadsheets. He loves to analyze the deal. It makes my skin crawl. I can do it. I do a great job, but I prefer not to do it. Right? We can't be great at everything. So he does that and then he says, alright, Paul, this is what we need to pay for and then I go to work. And then the rest is just teamwork all the way to the finish.
Yeah. I I love the, you know, identify your lane, clarify your lane, run fast. Very good. Okay. So I I wanna ask you about, you know, we've kinda talked about good and bad decisions a little bit, some good things that you've chosen to do along the way. But is there a process that you follow?
You've kinda identified the process a little bit now of, like, getting to know someone before you'd bring them in for a joint venture, but just in general, like, disciplines that you have or maybe even around making decisions inside the business Chaz you follow some sort of a process in order to make continued good decisions. Yes. Absolutely. I would say our buying criteria is key. Like, we're gonna have a buy box. And if it doesn't check each box, Yes. What we do next? Right.
Because we call we we do what's called kill the deal. Right? We're gonna kill it. We're gonna shoot as many holes in it as we possibly can. And if we can't still kill it, then it's a deal. Now we'll raise the capital. We'll sign them along. We actually put our own money in each deal too, you know, and then we'll take it to the finish line. So the buy box, we buy this population in these markets. Right? We're being in the southeast. We're in Mississippi, Florida and Alabama.
We're moving into the Carolinas, Georgia. You know, it's really great RV Parks area as well. We love the southeast because it's year round. Right? It's year round. We have 10 inches year round. But I would say the buy box. And then if we check it all off, we're good to go. It reduces a lot of stress. It mit mitigates our risk completely. And we know as long as that deal fits our buy box that we created over the past few years, then we're good to go. Now we can we move on and close the deal.
If it doesn't check the boxes, then we move on to the next deal. So without that, there's no other steps that are taken. And that is probably our number one process, definitely. The language that you've used, super familiar with, but for the person who who's never heard by box or criteria, decision making criteria, they're listening right now. They're going, okay.
This thing that I chose to do, it it it fits, you know, I I created 4 checkboxes and it and it matches 3 of the 4 let me I could do it real easily or, like, and and they they get excited about the opportunity, maybe for the revenue or for the sales, because they're trying to grow. They need the money.
They're trying to you know, make payroll, all the the different motivations of why to take the deal when maybe we shouldn't take the deal or the next project or the next client, we can apply this to any business. Right? Would you say to that person in that moment where they're they know they probably shouldn't, but they they feel like they have to. There's always another deal. There is always another deal. I promise you.
I have a problem with it too still to this day because I'll get a little emotional about a deal, you know, but I learned to to cut the emotions off. When it's easy, you get it, you get involved, you get invested, you go through due diligence, you spend money, you spend time, and it's man, you know, it's almost just right. But I can promise you, you're never going to have any horror stories to talk about by passing on a deal. Right? That's right.
But all it takes is one bad deal to slow you down from 3 or 4 really good deals. So I had a mentor telling me that. If you buy a really bad deal, what it's gonna do is slow down 3 to 4 deals you bought. Right? So you wanna measure backwards. You wanna kinda say, okay, what is this gonna happen? What is gonna happen if I buy this deal? Alright. So now I have a bad deal, and I'm raising capital. Right? So what do we have to do if an investor goes, hey, have you ever lost on a deal?
What am I gonna have to say? Yeah. I have. And that's not cool. That's not good. Do we make mistakes? Yeah. Our deal is gonna go south sometimes. Yeah. But that's why that buy box is there. If you don't listen to that buy box, then you have to blame yourself or anything that goes wrong. So I would say don't put that, you know, don't don't put that on yourself to have to try to make something work.
Have that buy box, figure it out, understand what it is, and then just make yourself be disciplined enough to wait for the next deal because there's always another deal. Every, it never fails. Even when we work on something for 3 4 months at a time, and we have to let it go, there's always something right down the road, right around the corner. It happens almost every time. So and that Wolfe be my life. Yeah. I agree with you.
Even from an outside of real estate perspective, you know, the opportunity train comes by frequently. And you get so excited as an entrepreneur because that's what got you into business or real estate to begin with because Yep. You didn't want the traditional thinking of 9 to 5 or or whatever you wanna freedom. You you you had you're optimistic. You you you you you want creativity.
So when the opportunity training comes by and you start looking at these these deals or or businesses, man, it's so hard sometimes to to stay focused on what it is that's in front of you or what you've committed yourself to because the possibility over here, right, the shiny object. You know? Absolutely. We all know we've been there, you know, and it's gonna happen again. You just have to exit, move on.
Yeah. I think even because we both got a sales background, you can do the same thing in sales too. Right? Like, if if you're hungry for a deal, if you're desperate for a deal, the prospect knows it. Right? You could they can they can sense it. They can smell it. They can sense it. Absolutely. At the end of the day, you know, you just gotta have your buy box and that's something I don't think enough people create as they're looking for dosed.
You know, and if you wanna be taken seriously, by brokers, by sellers off market, you have to have a buy box because eventually, I get tired of sending sending you deals if you're not closing thing. Right? So it, you know, when my phone rings a broker or a seller or somebody, I want them to go, alright, this is Paul's number. He's he wants to do a deal. This guy can do a deal. So if we give them the right criteria, we can shoot that out.
We can shoot that out to the mass and think about the lead gen that you'll get, and you'll get what you're looking for. Right? They're not gonna send you something that doesn't fit your buy box. So it's a good way to clarify how you buy your deals and then start bringing some leads in and looking at deals and make some offers. Yeah. Yeah. You said you said it earlier in the call here. You said you get what you look for, which is so true in life. Right?
Like Yep. Whether it's positivity versus negativity. You're looking for family time. You're not looking for I mean, you get what you look for or even maybe a better way to say it is you get what you want, what you really want. That's right. Chaz is exactly right. Because we can say what we want, but if we don't if we aren't doing the things that back up what it is that we say that we want, then we don't really won it.
And so to your point, I think that if you can create the buy box, even inside of a business, a buy box for a client, a buy box for the next, you know, project, for construction, whatever it is, that fits these criteria, we do it. If it doesn't, we don't. And it's just cut and dry. It makes it super easy.
And and also too, even even to the benefit of what you're saying, It it seems as if you'd be cutting things off and cutting away opportunity, but it actually opens you up to all of the things that you really were looking for to begin with because you were clouded over here with all of the things that really weren't a good fit. Yep. Okay. Well, that's awesome. So let me let me hit the let me hit the speed round here with you. K?
Okay. I wanna know which you may I might already know your answer on this one, but inside the business, if you could only pick one metric, to track forever and ever. That's the only thing that you could track. What would it be? Man, I mean, I buy for cash flow. I would say ARV after repair value. Okay? So I'm gonna buy a deal 55 percent AR V. 55¢ on the dollar. Right? So I don't have to run around and buy a 100 deals. To make good money and I live a good lifestyle.
I just have to buy a few really good ones. So I'd say ARV. You look at what the project will be worth. You buy a 100 unit project or 50 or 10 units, whatever the case may be. Yeah. You you run it on a 90% occupancy. At a market rent with a certain vacancy and what Wolfe that project be worth? So if it's worth 2,000,000 bucks, I'm buying it for a little bit over a 1,000,000. We'll never fail that way. Yeah. And I won't buy a deal every single month, but I buy 3 or 4 a year, and they're big deals.
And so that will put you leagues ahead of other people that are just scratching bond deals. And there's plenty of them. You have to look for them and you have to work to get them. So I would say AR V. And then after that, I mean, your buy box is that's that's that's everything for us. Exactly. Okay. Good. Alright. What book would you recommend that a 6 figure owner or maybe someone who's newer in real estate since we've kinda gone mostly real estate on this, you know, conversation should read.
I'm gonna say who, not how, by Dan Sullivan, that was a great book for me, to help me understand, find the who, right, to get it done. And it just It really woke me up. It really showed me that, man, you gotta get out of your way, Paul. You have to get out of your way and have other people leverage other people in a way to where we all win and grow together and have so much more fun and scale them at a much faster rate or as fast as you like. Who not held by Dan Sullivan? Lovely.
Incredible book. I read it not that long ago, actually, earlier this year, but probably time to read it again. But I I reference it off So that's that's fantastic. I I know the answer to this one already, but for the sake of the listener, do you network or mastermind with other entrepreneurs or real estate people 100%. Just got back from Charleston, South Carolina last week, a part of legacy family, Tim Braatz, phenomenal guy, friend, and learned a ton from him the past couple of years.
But, yeah, I definitely got a network. You need to join a mastermind. You need to get in the right room. I mean, this is where, you know, the real deals get made. The real friendships are made. The lifelong friendships, right, people that are really gonna tell you how it is. And, you know, if you're if you're in that room, you're gonna learn tenfold. And just remember to to add value.
Don't go in there and try to take don't try to go in there and take take even if you even if you feel like you're the smallest guy or growing the room, understand that we're all just people trying to grow and be better people. Better fathers, husbands, wives, you know, so on and so forth. Right? Business owners. So you get in these deep conversations and, you know, not these normal conversations that you have, just walking down the street or having a breakfast or this and that. Right?
These are guys and girls that are at the top of their game, have worked very hard to get where they're at. And you're able to sit down and have a one on one conversation with them and enjoy yourself. I mean, the knowledge you gained is, you know, it's not measurable, really. Yeah. No. I I love the perspective that you have. You said one thing that I wanna just ask you a follow-up question too.
How how does one who maybe feels like, you know, the smallest person in the room, how does one like that add value in that in that setting? They get into the room. Around other people. I'm the smallest guy in the room. What do I do? Yeah. I would just be completely honest. And I Wolfe say, Chaz, you know, it's amazing to hear your story. I mean, man, uh-uh my head is spinning just from, you know, hearing what you've done and how you built it. Quite honestly, man.
I feel like the smallest person in this room, and I'm I wanna add value. I just don't feel like I Chaz. But I'm so open to to hear you tell me what I can do to help whatever you think it is, man. I wanna add value So how can I add value to you or anybody in here? What's your recommendation? And let them help you figure that out because that's why you're there. You're there to go. And trust me, you can add value, but I think if you ask, you will write. If you're looking for it, you'll find it.
And it just to be genuine, just be yourself. And when you're your genuine self, like the creative juices start flowing, you'll hear something. You'll be in there. You'll hear someone speak or you'll have a conversation with somebody that night and all of a sudden your head will be on the pillow. I'll tell you, man, now I know what I can do. Now I know I can help. Now I know I can be a part of this. And everybody starts somewhere.
And just remember, be yourself, be genuine, and, you know, keep that positive mindset and you'll add value left and right for it so good. Yep. I love it. Thanks for the the just phenomenal answer. Appreciate that. Last question, if you lost it all, Paul, what would you do? I'm getting right back in the real estate game. No questions asked. 100%. And this is this is where it's at. The do the same thing. Same asset class. Do all over again. Like, what, like, what would happen?
The Yeah. That's a multi multi family. I mean, I love multi family. I love the asset. I mean, I'll probably Wolfe start looking at a 100 units before even looking at the duplexes and duplexes. I would do that different. I would do bigger deals faster. You know, I just I'm so bought in on real estate investing. I understand it. It's the cash flow. Right? It's awesome for your your bank to fill up on the 1st every month, and then it just does it again and again and again and again. Right?
So you can buy, you know, a few deals or you can just keep going. It gives you options. I would say I would I'd buy bigger deals right off the bat. I would network. I would join Mastermont I would worry about how much it costs. I would figure out how to pay for it. I would sell my car and pay for a mastermind and ride the bus to work if I had to to get in a room and learn because it's not about now. It's about the rest of your life. Take advantage of the opportunity that you're given right now.
There's so many beautiful things that will happen, and you can achieve anything you want to achieve. And real estate is where I try to point people. And help people. And, you know, it's it's it's changed my life. Yeah. Just so appreciate the value that you've given. I Usually, I find myself, like, interjecting and trying to pull out little nuggets, but, man, you've just delivered it up on a silver platter.
I really just appreciate just your approach and just, humility throughout the throughout the show here. How how can someone connect with you? They they've really enjoyed everything that you've got. Maybe they wanna invest with you. Maybe they just wanna get to know you. How do they find you? Sure. Okay. So you can find me on Facebook at Paul Larson. That's p a u l l a r s o n in Spanish for Alabama. Instagram is underscore Paul underscore larson.
I'm on, let's see, linkedin, Paul Larson, and I have a website which is larsonrei.net. And then my email is paul@larsonrei.net. So you can cash me on any of those platforms. There you go. Again, Paul, thank you so much. So just curious to see, you know, as time unfolds, even even where our connection goes, I'm just thankful to meet high quality people like you, and you never know. I I I do have a piece of land under contract right now in Kansas City, maybe it needs an RV park on it.
I don't know. Yeah. Hey, man. Let's talk. We have we have good ideas. We'd love to hear about it and just honestly thrilled to be on, thankful to be on. And I I do appreciate your chance. Yeah, brother. We wish you nothing but success. Thanks for listening to Gathering the Kings. We hope you got a ton of value today and learned a thing or 2 about taking your business to 7 figures and beyond.
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