Q&A - This Is Why People Fail

Cole Ruud-Johnson (00:00): Today you guys is another q and a episode. Today I'm going in deep on three questions, very common themes that I get in my dms where I get asked at in-person events or masterminds or wherever I am that I'm speaking. Very important topics that I think a lot of you guys will find very beneficial and applicable immediately to your companies. And that's what I love to do with these episodes. Give you guys tactical tips and a short period of time you can implement right away. So without further ado, let's get it right into it. People don't fail at real estate because they suck, they fail because there's too many ways to succeed. That's why I suggest you focus on the most important skill and all of real estate, which is finding deals. I'm Cole Ruud-Johnson and in this podcast I share the exact steps I've used as source 400 deals by age 24. This will allow you to do three things, control your deal flow, make unlimited income, and build your empire as an off market operator. (00:53): Why do people fail in real estate game, especially off market flipping wholesaling, the number one question I get asked people either sign up for our coaching group or I, they come to our in-person events or I meet them at someone at some other event or mastermind or community or be exchanged over dms. That's the number one question is like what separates people that make it versus the people that don't? And that's the number one question that I think everyone thinks about, right? If we're all doing the same thing, calling the same lists, marking to the same people, what separates the guy that does a bunch of deals versus the guy that doesn't do a bunch of deals? And my answer to that is pipeline. And you know, doing your first deal or first two deals or first three deals is pretty simple. When you really get down to like the tactical stuff you have to do in the nuances and the step-by-step stuff, that's pretty simple. (01:36): Building a consistent business and I guess which I would say I don't think trying and never doing your first deals failing, right? I think failing is doing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 deals and then not knowing how to continue on that to me is more failure than it is trying for one, two years. Cuz then you actually tried, right? This is a little, a little different to me. So I answer that in two ways. One, if you're just trying to chase down your first deal, the only way that you truly fail is if you're equipped. If you truly stick this thing out for 18 months to 36 months and you don't get a deal when you are truly, genuinely putting in the reps, listening to the podcast, showing up to the masterminds and putting in the work. I haven't met anyone that's stuck to this for 36 months and actually been honest with themselves. (02:16): So have actually done the work that hasn't figured out a way to succeed. The people that don't succeed, the guys that are hanging are guys and gals that are hanging around in Facebook groups telling all their friends and family, they now flip houses or wholesale houses and they have this cool business but they're not actually talking to sellers and talking to buyers and doing this revenue generating activities that make you money in this business. So number one, if you're just getting started, if you stick this thing out for 36 months and you truly put in the time, energy, and effort to, it's my belief, you can't fill, there's enough deals to go around, there's no doubt about that. But if you, if you do for whatever reason you don't, you don't get a deal in those times, you truly, genuinely put the time and effort in. (02:50): I wouldn't say that's a failure cuz you probably might not developed skills around marketing and sales that can translate to other industries if you don't stay in this one. That's highly unlikely. The second scenario that I talked about, which to me is more failure than the first one, is usually people that don't learn how to build a pipeline, okay? They do one deal, they take off to Maui, they stop calling leads, they stop working their pipeline, they never hire, they never delegate. They're on this solopreneur treadmill that eventually they burn out. So they don't fail usually because they don't know how to do a deal. They're already 3, 5, 10 deals in, they know how to do a deal but they never actually invest back into their company. More masterminds, more learning, more communities, more growth, more people, personnel, infrastructure systems. And that is why they eventually don't build a pipeline. (03:27): So soon as they stop working, they stop making money. And that's the difference to me. So I hope that answers that first question in regards to what failure looks like and what separates people in this business. The second question that I'm gonna talk about today, it's another q and a episode as you guys found out in the intro. Second question I get asked all the time is, Cole, what's the most, a hundred percent, like what is the most important part of this business to master? If I want to not take it to 10 grand a month or 20 grand a month, but I wanna take a business to a million dollars a year more, what do I have to master? Like if I wanna do a million dollars a year more revenue, like what's the biggest thing that differs someone from, if they're doing 10 grand a month or if they're doing a million dollars a year? (04:02): And to me that only thing is true as I talked about before in previous episodes, but it's delegation or replacing yourself from tasks and spending time as you go back and listening to the hiring episode I put out a couple weeks ago, which is referencing, you know, spending time in your production zone and making sure that you're very focused and diligent on what you spend your time on. So that's to me, the only real difference. Once you know how to do a deal, then you have to become a business owner and get off the solopreneur kind of hustle culture and doing everything yourself. Once you have some cash in the bank, you to start hiring and delegating. If your goal is to get to a million dollars a year, uh, more in its business and there's just no way around that never will be. (04:35): You have to do the work even with ai, all the tech and technology, you guys have to do the work time in timeout. Another thing I get is, uh, you know, Cole, do you do subject two deals? Why not do you do seller finance? Why not are you doing development? Why not? And I answer this the same way every time. Every time I get this question in person or in my dms, it's my belief that and the least until you're at a million dollars a year consistently, you only need to focus on when Zi talks about this a lot too. The one product, one marketing channel and one avatar. So if your avatar is a single family owner, right, that has a property in distress, you wanna buy and flip or buy in wholesale, that's your avatar. Single family homeowner, usually it's someone that's going through some kind of distress or they're little older and they're is ready to move on from the house. (05:16): The second part of that is what's your product, right? As your product, a wholesale deal is your product seller financing. The guys that I see starting out that try to wholesale cash deals and do seller financing and do subject two and do innovations and do fix to flip and do development, they just spend in a circle. They never can hire, train, and manage. They never can onboard properly and never can build a team. They never systemize and delegate and scale. They just start chasing their tail to the next hot trending topic in a way to make money in real estate. And I, I heard pace mill say this one time, and I, I fully agree with this to my core that people fail in real estate, not because it's too hard or too complicated, but because there's too many ways to make money. You wake up one day, you hear about subject two, you wake up the next day, you hear about seller financing, you wake up the next day, you see some guy on Instagram making it seem like development super easy. (05:59): So I'll, I'll say the first part of that is no avenue and angle on real estate as, as simplified and as easy as any guru person makes it sound. That's why I try to be very open, honest and transparent that it does take work and you can't avoid the work in this business or any other business that can make meaningful money. What I will say is my thesis on it, and I could be wrong, but my opinion and advice to especially guys starting out is just if you're gonna do wholesaling, focus on wholesaling, focus on single family sellers and focus on one marketing channel, cold calling, texting, those are usually one of the two. I like to recommend people to start with how you get to a million dollars a year. And then at that point, if you have a team, you have a pipeline, you have some systems from infrastructure, you're getting better as a business owner, then add on more products, then add on seller finance and subject too, or start your business with those and master those. (06:41): So there's no real right or wrong way to do this, but my opinion is unless you wanna spin chase yourself in a circle for years and years and years and never really get traction and build a business, if you wanna build a hustle, that's a great way to do it. But if you wanna build a business and go, like I talked about all the time from H to O to a, from hustler to operator to architect, you have to get really comfortable, you guys with one product, one marketing channel, one avatar. Don't get bored. Doing the boring work is what makes you money. Once you get bored of wholesale deals, doesn't mean you stop doing them. So that's making you money, paying your bills, paying your team and that is your business. I have a mentor of mine, John, that talks about this a lot on a socials and in person, but don't fail because of boredom. (07:19): So don't let your business die because you're bored. That's what a lot of people do. They get bored, they know how to make money, but they get bored and it's no longer the shiny, flashy, exciting thing to them. And instead of scaling that they go chase down development or luxury fix and flips or ations or seller finance deals and which you can make money in all those. Some guys do crush it, they go from wholesaling to that. Most guys eventually graduate from wholesaling a bit. But yeah, that is why I think it's very, very challenging to do multiple things at once. So on these episode guys, I don't try to answer as many questions I can. I try to go deep dive into a few of the most common themed questions that I get and I put out a hiring episode again recently, but I give the question all the time, you know, what's my first hire? (08:00): And I'm still a big proponent of that depends on you, okay? If you're amazing at sales and you're crushing it on sales, your first hire shouldn't be a sales guy. It should be someone to do transactions. And so you can keep doing what's driving revenue, but if you're great at marketing and operations, go partner or hire a sales guy. And that is my genuine advice and I'm gonna be short on that. That's hiring your first position. I get that in my dms every single freaking day. I can't preach enough, you know, hire based on your calendar, but stuff that you're spending time on your calendar doing that's not in your production zone. If you don't know what a production zone is, go back and listen to my show on hiring and building a real estate company that you don't hate and that's where I talk all about your production zone A to Z. (08:38): Another big question I get you guys is the value of masterminds and mentorship. Like, should I pay X amount of dollars? And it's my belief that until you have five, 10 million, you're not gonna get a huge meaningful return on your money if you're going to buy single family houses or blah blah blah, blah, this is my thesis, you guys should be investing most of your money back into yourself for skills specifically in this business. So for me, most of my income that I don't need, right? I keep a lot of living expenses in the reserves, obviously I don't wanna put my family in a bad situation, but beyond that, you should be investing into infrastructure, into systems and into content and the distribution, into, uh, learning more skills. So people like come to me and say, Hey, oh man, I know I joined your mastermind. (09:14): I'm crushing it, man, I'm just, I can't stop doing deals, my pipe plan and so forth. But you know, Cole, should I go join so-and-so's mastermind and coaching group? And you know, I've vetted them, they seem legit, they got good testimonials. I know some guys in the program that are freaking crushing it and learning from 'em, but man, I just, you know, I've already spent the money with you or someone else and I'm doing well, but like a hundred percent of the time you're not gonna regret spending that money. I have never spent money on a course mastermind or trip education, anything like that, that was well vetted where actually, you know, a course vetted the program. I didn't just give a random person my money, but they had a track record, they had testimonial social proof. I knew some people in the program. I've never regretted a dollar I spent on education and I talk about in a ton of episodes. (09:50): But like your business can't really outpace your personal growth. And so if you guys wanna grow business, you can't stop investing in yourself. Your mindset, your tool belt, your skillset, your confidence, those are the things that truly drive business growth. Cuz as your, your job, as you become a CEO and you know, an architect of your business and your empire is to spend time doing a couple things, right? That's growing. Distribution could be content or bringing on the right people, bringing in resources and strategizing. Strategizing comes with, you know, skills and mindset and stuff you learn from other people that are crushing it in business. And most of what I know and what I'm able to know to consolidate and give to you that I've applied to my companies is because of masterminds and people. And I, it's cliche as hell, but you guys, you're truly, you morph into the people you spend your time around. (10:29): Good or bad. Like when I was living couple years ago at 22 years old now was single living in Pacific Beach. Like I'm a very different person now sitting here at almost 25 now that I'm married and living a completely different life around different people. And for me, you know, a million dollars a month does not seem like insane. Cause I know guys that are doing, making a lot of money, hundreds, hundreds of thousand dollars a month and most of my circle is in fact that doesn't seem like something that's that out of reach or crazy to me. But of course, if you're, if all your friends are, and not to speak badly, there's no right or wrong way. There's people happier with five grand a month than with 300 grand a month. But from I'm saying what my goals are, being around those people make it seem very feasible. (11:04): And when it's feasible and attainable and you can, you know, you can reach it, you will do everything, every single, every, yeah, you will do everything you can every single day to get to that point. That's the long answer is make sure you guys are spending time around people that truly, truly, truly make you what your goals are, seem reachable and I can't express that enough. So those are the three questions you guys I'm gonna go deep on today. Again, I keep these episodes short and to the point that you can listen to them in a quick car ride or if you're, uh, on the treadmill, wherever you listen and consume content like this. I might explore going a little longer here in the near future. But this is today's episode, the three questions I've been doing q and a's once in a while, kind of three common themed questions. Whenever those questions come in and I and I sit down and do a q and a. So (11:49): Another q and a episode down, you guys, thanks for sticking around. And again, these are three common questions a a lot of you guys ask me and in my dms are all over the place wherever you, uh, consume content, usually you guys are in my dms, ask me stuff. I love that. But I wanted to consolidate three of these and get 'em out to the masses and make sure you guys can implement this stuff and this advice into your company right away. As always, please, please, please, please contact me and my dms with feedback on the episodes ideas. If you have any input, I do take that into account in consideration. This is for you guys to start doing deals. I'm, I'm not trying to monetize this here or sell you guys on something. It's for you guys to take actionable item and advice and implement it into your business in real time, you know, continue to crush it. As always, you guys, uh, like to follow a share on your socials means the world. Uh, and if you guys could follow me here, wherever you'd like to consume content off market operator.com, find me on any platform where you guys consume content. And as always, you guys, hell, next time you are only one deal away.