Here's What Roofstock Academy Mastermind Sessions Look Like

This episode is an example of what the Roofstock Academy Mastermind sessions look like. Mastermind groups have long been a powerful tool that successful people use to support each other and advance their goals. Gathering a group of motivated individuals with a diverse range of skillsets to focus on one person at a time helps shine fresh light on challenges, uncover new solutions and provide accountability. The Mastermind group is just one of the many benefits we offer inside the Roofstock Academy. --- Transcript Tom: Greetings, and welcome to Roofstock Academy. My name is Tom Schneider. And I'm joined by Michael Albaum, Ryan Minekime and Dean West, and today we're going to be walking through a template of a mastermind group.   So this is a mastermind session that lasts about an hour. And we're going to be going through the regular activities where everyone is going to provide an update on their successes, their challenges. We're going to go into specific action items. And then we're going to put Ryan on the hot seat and talk about what he's working on. We're going to grill them, we're going to give them some feedback, all that good stuff. All right.   Dean: All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Dean West, a Roofstock Academy coach. And I have been investing in a couple markets now. Primarily Atlanta and Indianapolis. I believe I'm the the remotest real estate investor. I'm currently in Cape Town, South Africa, while investing in the US.   Ryan: Hello everyone, I'm Ryan Minekime. I'm also coach at the Roofstock Academy. I've been investing for about seven or eight years, I started out investing in California. And now I'm doing bur investing in the Indianapolis market as well. And I live in the Bay Area, California.   Tom: Hey, my name is Tom Schneider. I'm also a coach at Roofstock Academy. I have been investing for about 10 years, and I invest remotely in the southeast of the United States as well as the North East.   Michael: Hey, everybody, I'm Michael album, I'm also a coach at the Roofstock Academy. I like Ryan got my start investing in Southern California about a decade ago and do value add multifamily investing all over the country with a emphasis and focus on the Midwest on some of those Midwest markets.   Dean: Alright. So I'm really excited today to on behalf of rootstock Academy to be introducing mastermind groups. And a mastermind group is something that's actually quite near and dear to my heart. It's It's when I first started out several years back, I was in my own mastermind group with three other people. And that's the one thing that really spurred me to take action on my real estate investing and pushed me both professionally and personally.   So the mastermind group what it is, it's a accountability group of like minded people. So groups typically consist of three to five people. And there's certain roles within the group. And how it's broken down is it's broken into four major sections. And the sections talk about kind of the week overview, talking about, you know, some of the challenges and successes that you've had during the week goes then into talking about, you know, what, what your major or epic goal is that you're trying to achieve. And it doesn't just have to be in real estate, I actually I encourage people to talk about not just real estate, but also kind of personal if you're looking to lose 10 pounds or something like that, as well as invest in a property in Dallas, Texas. Great, put it out there. And I think it's something that's, that's really helpful for people to grow.   One of the big things we do in a mastermind group is what's called the hot seat, the hot seat is kind of a deep dive. So every week on a rotating basis, and the hot seat is chosen for one person and and that person talks about any challenge that they're having that they're trying to overcome. And they use the rest of the group as a sounding board, or as a way of soliciting feedback to try and overcome that challenge. And if you don't have challenges for the week, that's fine as well. You can talk about your, your kind of your roadmap to success and just see what what people have to say about, you know, the structure that you've put in place to achieve that epic goal.   And then the last section is is talking about what are you committing to? What are you committed to from next week? What are you going to achieve before the next mastermind group. And I think it's really important to to set a goal. But ultimately, if you like myself, we don't always follow through with it and mastermind groups, hey, I don't quote me on this here. But there was a study done when the University of California University is talking about how, you know, if you set a goal, that's great, but if you set a goal with in a mastermind group, you're 76% more likely to actually achieve that goal.   So I think that that resonates really well with me, just being my personal background of getting introduced to mastermind groups, and I really hope it's a success for all of you.   Michael: And I think it was something like 37% of statistics are made up on the spot, but that probably wasn't one of them.   Dean: Absolutely not. Not this one. Yeah, so I think what we're gonna do now is just give you a bit of a taste of a dry run of a mastermind group in action. So this is the first time we're meeting together as a formation of this, this mastermind group. So the first meeting is always a slightly different than the second, the third meeting, we have a template that will be going through the four roles, which I should touch on as well says the moderator, which I will be today, the moderator is typically in charge of setting up the meetings, and really just helping to facilitate the discussion move things along during the call.   The second piece is the timekeeper. So Michael will be our timekeeper for today, very important.They are the ones that are tracking minute by minute, you know that making sure we're on schedule. And if we are running off schedule, or someone's speaking a bit long, they will help gently remind them that they're going over their allotted time.   The third role is the the note taker. So Tom will be our note taker today. They will be the responsible for filling out the template, jotting down what people's commitments are epic goals, and then at the end of the mastermind group, they will, they will then share that document with the rest of the group.   And then fourth is the hot seat. So Ryan will be in our hot seat today. And that, again, is just talking about about half the time has spoken about just a challenge or a roadmap that they're trying to achieve. And they'll be walking through that.   Michael: And Dean do these positions rotate from meeting to meeting. Are they consistent throughout the life of the group?   Dean: Yeah, absolutely. So they do rotate to keep things you know, make sure everyone gets a fair a fair say throughout the sessions. So every week it typically rotates. And at the end of the meeting is typically when we decide on on the hot seat for next week who the facilitators timekeeper, etc.   Michael: Awesome.   Dean: Great. Awesome.   All right. So let's dive right in. Like I said, I'll be the moderator today. Tom, the note taker, Michael, the timekeeper, and then Ryan, the hot seat. And so kicking off is our overview section. So this in this section here, we talk about our, our challenges and successes, we typically don't want to talk for a second, I think for 5 minutes. So we only want to talk for about a minute or so about, you know, just some highlights some of the successes or the highs and lows of the week. And just to help inform the group.   Michael: Gentlemen, five minutes on the clock, start your engines.   Dean: Thank you, Michael.   So I can I can kick it off. So my my challenges and successes of the week. I guess I'll start off with my successes. I always like to start off on a high note. And is twofold. Actually, I last week, I rented out to my units that were vacant. So that is all taken care of now, which I'm very excited about. And then my second success is taxes cuz I like to cross donate and taxes. I've been pushed back a month. But that's didn't help me because I just pushed it my work back a month as well. So pretty much done to my taxes. And then one of my challenges for the week is just a personal challenge. Just the motivation to to work out on my side. Michael, you want to kick us off next?   Michael: Sure. So a high for me was I celebrated my two year wedding anniversary this past week, which was a lot of fun my wife and I did something really nice and special. My challenged that I had this week was I had a selling a six unit property that I bought as a buy and hold originally, but really turned it into a fix and flip over about a course of a year and a half. And that fill out a contract kind of went sideways due to a massive utility bill spiking and throwing off all of the valuations of the property. Because it's a multifamily commercial building, it trades based on cap rates and noi, and the noi got vastly decimated by this utility bill. So it's an estimated building, we're trying to figure out what to do with it, we're probably just going to take it off the market try to re stabilize it get the tenants in line, possibly even mass or sub meter everything or institute a rubs which is a ratio utility billing system and get the noi back in line and then bring it back on market at the end of the summer here.   Dean: Tom Do you want to go next?   Tom: I've been just dragging my feet like nobody's business on getting my insurance updated. I use the initial insurance that was provided to me and I, I knew that I wanted to change it and it's literally like years and years later. So I have officially bundled that with my personal through a big insurance broker. So kind of a big, big win for something that's just lasted way too long. And I'm also gonna I'm going to glob on to that success of getting taxes. That's something that I like to drag my feet on as well. But I have that submitted some challenges is I have a lot of balls in the air right now. With refinancing three properties, and it's a little bit ambiguous to me right now on where all of them sit, like I've been responding to emails as they come in, but I think it could be a little more proactive in reaching out to my lender. So I'd say the challenge is just being a little bit too passive in the process. Because, you know, I think there's there could be some timing considerations with, you know, making sure the loan rate lock and all that stuff. So, yeah, it's a challenge is just being a little bit more organized on some of these less organized than I should be on some of these refinances.   Michael: Is this all with the same lender, Tom or different lenders?   Tom: All the same lender.   Dean: Yeah. All right, Ryan.   Ryan: So I will start with challenges. And then we can end on a high note on my challenges. I think I've put in three offers over the past 10 days or so. And all of them got outbid by like, 40k on like, 150k purchase price. So just everything's getting taken very quickly. So that was a challenge is getting a little defeated there and putting in offers on the successes, I started looking at off market properties, which we'll jump into when I get in the hot seat. But I got two appointments that this week with potential sellers. So that was a positive note.   And then also my wife and I are said to have a baby on Thursday. And so this past weekend, we just did like everything as our last time before kids. So like we went to a brewery and we're like, Okay, this is the last time I'm going to burger for kids. We went to out to dinner, we're like this is our last date and like 18 years so. So we just, we went through and sort of did a bucket list of things we wanted to we wanted to do.   Tom: Just say Congrats. I joined the the dad club like a year and a half ago and the water's warm. It's It's It's awesome. My one my recommendation would be getting one of those giant yoga balls that you can sit on is one of the few things a dad can you know, to calm a baby like, you know, the bouncing up and down. Mom's got some special tools built right into her to help calm a baby. But yeah, I'd get one of those big yoga bouncy balls. But congratulations. That's really awesome.   Ryan: Yeah. Thank you exciting.   Dean: All right, Michael, how are we doing on time here?   Michael: We got nine seconds we crushed that guy's. Perfect,   Dean: Look at that. All right. So the next section is commitment. So we talk, this is about a 10 minute section roughly. And it's broken down to these three subsections. Again, the first one, this is our first mastermind group meeting, it will be slightly different.   But for this meeting, we'll be talking about our epic goals. Like I said, again, it doesn't just have to be real estate focus, think about you know, something in your personal life that you want to achieve, whether it be changing careers, or you know, losing weight, or whatever it is, and on top of your real estate goals as well.   So that's your your epic goal. We talked about also, it's what's called last week's commitment. Since we didn't have a commitment last week, we won't speak about it. And then if that commitment was completed, yes or no.   So I'll start off. Again, what's the timeline for the epic goals? It's it's pretty important like we talked about in restock Academy, setting your SMART goals and making sure it's realistic, timely, etc.   Ryan: What’s the timeline for the epic goals?   Dean: You want to set a timeline around it, say epic goals typically, in your three to six month period is typically what you will try and shoot for. Alright, so starting off myself. So my first, it's not really an epic. I would call it more of a grand goal. And so one notch down from an epic goal. But you know, within the next three months, I do want to do a 401k Roth IRA conversion, as well as doing a cost segregation, potentially do a cost segregation study on my four Plex if the numbers make sense.   So what I'm trying to do as much as I can this year, as I'm shooting for my real estate, tax professional status, is I want to try and drive up as many expenses or deductions that I can this year in order to kind of offset my my wife's income. And number two is. So within the next three months, I also want to take over the management of my Indianapolis portfolio. And that's a couple of reasons but number one is an a bit underwhelmed with my PM at the moment, especially after doing my taxes just kind of seeing where things lie. And it also drive up my net operating income for my portfolio.   And then the third reason actually one of the more important ones is the reason I want to do this is because I need more hours for my tax professional status. I think we need 750 hours. And so I want to make sure that I reach that. My last goal and personal goal for me is that within the next three to four months, I want to be able to meditate everyday consistently for at least 15 minutes. And my mind is always on so many different places at once and I'd really like to kind of take a deep breath and kind of be able to focus. And I think meditation is a good aspect for that. So those are my epic goals, or grand goals.   Michael?   Michael: Awesome. So, by July 31, I would like to have my development projects completed, finished and started to get rented. So I've talked about this on a lot of other podcasts, a lot of other episodes, I'm redeveloping a 20,000 square foot commercial use, or mixed use building and creating 15 residential units and two commercial spaces out of that it has been a long, sweaty, bloody tear field road, that we're not quite done yet, but starting to get there. So I'm trying to get that over the finish line. By July 31. I'm going to speak that into reality.   Then I just got a flip property under contract, I'm doing a flip inside of my Roth IRA, something I wanted to try my hand at. So I just got a small property under contract, I'm looking at have that completed, that flip completed and marketed within the next 45 days, we're due to close in two weeks. So that's a pretty aggressive timeline, but I think it can be done.   And then on a more personal note, similar to Dean, I want to focus more on sleep, I've definitely noticed over time, my sleep has deteriorated, I think mostly to be me being in my own head. So many things like Tom and Dean, I've got a lot of balls up in the air and constantly thinking about that. And I need to really help separate for myself, the personal world, from the business world and the sleep world from the business world, which I find hard to do, I'm not really not good at condense or condensing is wrong word. But, boxing, if you will, different different aspects. And I'm always thinking and always switched on. So I need to really help focus on on switching off. So that's definitely a big focus of mine over the next three to six months.   Dean: Right. Awesome, Michael? Thank you, Tom?   Tom: Yeah, so in going through the reef eyes that I'm doing, I need to redeploy that capital on the cash that I'm getting back. So I'm expecting to have those funds in the bank sometime in early May. So I'd love to have it two to three properties in contract by the end of May. You know, I guess, being sequential about this, I've been an SFR guy for a long time. And I was thinking about doing a little bit of either small commercial or, or like a four Plex. I see. I see Michael, he's, he's excited about that. So I really need to sit down and kind of finalize that plan. So I might put some time on Michael's calendar and thinking through that.   So having those funds in when they hit the bank account like not, because I'm paying for that, right. But that debt is running, having a very locked in plan in place, they either continue to add a couple more SFR or go multifamily. And I think they're putting a date to that, I think by the mid May, so May 15. Like I have to have a very specific and I keep looking at you know, properties down like different strategies like looking at SFR and looking at commercial stuff. So I guess really locking that down and then executing that. So number one is going to fit Yep, building finalizing that, where I'm going to just tribute the new funds for these, this next round of acquisitions.   And my other goals that I have is just have my second vaccine coming up pretty excited about that. And just starting to reengage with some friends that I haven't seen in a while still, you know, wearing masks and doing doing all the right precautions, but after getting the second vaccine starting to, to re engage with some friends and some more outdoor stuff. So I love being specific about it. So all say having, you know, two events in a row of friends. Yes, that's gonna be my my non my my fun one. So.   Dean: That's very topical. And that's, that's Adam will go on a lot of us are dying to get out there again and re engage with the world like we used to back in the day. Right, Ryan? How about yourself?   Ryan: Yeah. So on a personal note, going back to being a dad on Thursday or sooner, just trying to be as supportive as possible in all of that was my wife. So taking care of the cooking and the cleaning and everything that I can do. Maybe some some midnight shifts, if I'm been tapped for that, but whatever, whatever it takes on that end, and then on the real estate side. So just working on getting this off market deal finding process up and running. So specifically, I want to put two properties under contract either buying holds or flips by we'll call it mid June. So get two properties under contract.   And then also I'm trying to figure out a way to monetize the leads that I don't want to keep. So what I've found is there's a lot of leads coming in that are probably good deals, but I just don't want them and so trying to figure out a way to monetize that without becoming like a wholesaler like very minimal touch way to at least break even on all my marketing spend for deals that I don't want to keep.   Dean: Awesome, you know, your, your your personal goal of cooking and waking up midnight. Now that you've said it in the mastermind group and as soon as Tom writes it down, it's a kind of set in stone. So you know, we're holding you to it, Ryan.   Ryan: Luckily, I'm not a great sleeper like all of you sounds like us some of that time and go do my midnight shift then.   Dean: Alright, excellent. So we set out epic goals. So what we can do so moving forward, once the group have set their epic goals, you typically use that as your kind of baseline that you kind of go against, and all your commitments that you commit to throughout the week should be committing to, you know, essentially a small version or a sprint goal that essentially leads to your epical eventually.   And since we didn't, like I said, do a mastermind group last week, we weren't we weren't talking about last week's commitment. And and hopefully next week, when we meet, we will say we've completed it and get together. All right, I think we're at time, Michael, how are we doing?   Michael: Yeah, we got two minutes left. So again, we did a nice job there.   Dean: Excellent. Okay. On to the deep dive the hot seat, Ryan. So again, this is just a challenge. Or if you don't have a challenge for the week, you're kind of your success or roadmap to success that you can kind of solicit feedback from from the group. So, Ryan, why don't we dive right in?   Ryan: Perfect. So like I mentioned, I'm trying to find off market deals. And I started this about a month and a half ago. And I think part of the issue right now is I'm just a little bit scattered. And so I have a cold caller that's basically cold, calling six hours a day to just find leads. And what I've found is that I'm running through my potential options pretty quickly. So again, I'm investing in Indianapolis. And my criteria is pretty narrow. It's like three bedroom, one and a half bath in certain neighborhoods. And there's only so many phone numbers that you can call. So I'm finding that I'm running through those leads pretty quickly. And I'm not finding the quality of leads that I wanted. And then now I've also started to try out direct mail campaigns as well.   And I think part of my issue is I'm just not quite focused, because I feel like I'm running out of leads in one spot or the other. So I'm just trying multiple things to see what sticks. But nothing, nothing is clicking as easily as I hoped it would or thought it would. And so I'm having a little bit of trouble there just like actually turning leads into appointments and getting the deal closed.   As I sort of mentioned in my epic goal, one of the pieces I'm trying to do is have this direct marketing source be sort of self funding. So if I can figure out a way to, if I get 10 leads, and maybe one or two look good for me, how do I get rid of the other eight without just throwing them away, like passes up someone that wants them, whether it's a relationship based thing, or actually sell them to someone. So I've been experimenting with a couple things on that end, for example, one I found someone local and IndY that can sort of track leads down. I've tested that out with a couple of them. Another one is I'm talking to the wholesaler that I normally use of actually selling him the leads, and then getting a commission on the downstream.   So those are the two approaches I've gone after. But it's just too early to tell right now if either of those will really work. So all of this, I would say I'm like early on in the game, but I don't know how people continue to do this year round and make it work because there's there just doesn't seem to be that many deals out there.   Dean: It's one of those things that inventory, not as Indianapolis I invest as well. So I noticed scarcity there, but just across the US is so scarce right now that people are going to cold calling and skip tracing, do all these other things that they can try and do to try and find some kind of deal out there. And so I can certainly empathize with your situation.   Ryan out of curiosity, what what um, what do you use for your cold calling? What's the I know, we spoke about deal machine, but I don't think it was that. What do you use right now?   Ryan: It’s a company called scale and grow. And I think they're brand new, but I actually went to an investor meetup in Indianapolis last November, so and I happen to be sitting at a table with one of the guys who was just trying to kick that off the ground. And so it's very small right now. I think they have five or six school colors in the Philippines and they just sort of rotate those between they'll do the skip tracing for you and, and all that. So that's what I'm using right now. And I'm using prop stream. I mentioned I tried out one direct mailer. I'm using prop stream for that.   Michael: Ryan, I'm curious why your criteria just about your criteria that three, one and a half. Can you get into that a little bit and maybe we can try to figure out if we can't expand that a little expand the scope?   Ryan: Yeah, that's a good question. So honestly, I'm just a sucker for like three, one and a half brick building. So part of it is just personal preference. Like whenever I see those, I always jump on them.I really liked the one a half bathroom, it's more than one and a half bathroom than anything else. And so I feel like overall just attract a little bit better clientele of a renter, if I'm trying to keep that long term. And it's more attractive to sell if I want to flip it. So it's a little bit more the one and a half bathroom than anything else.   One thing I started to look at last week is expanding out to two beds, one and a half baths that are bigger in size. So 1000 square feet, so I can, if that's where you're going try and build a third bedroom on or maybe try to build a second bathroom on. But I almost feel like the building a third bedroom is probably easier than building a second half bath, just because of plumbing and everything else. But that's definitely an option or an opportunity to expand there.   Michael: That's exactly where I was going with that. And for everybody listening or watching, but Ryan's talking about is, is buying something that has enough square footage to add an additional bedroom, maybe it has a formal dining room or just a large living room that you can corner off or build some internal walls without changing the exterior footprints, because that's much easier to do is changing the interior footprint. And then adding a third or fourth or fifth bedroom, whatever size your heart desires. And that can add a tremendous amount of value both on the rental side and on the resale side of things.   So I think that's a really good way to expand the scope, I would not be shocked if your lead list doubled. As a result of that. I don't know what the housing stock looks like specifically in Indianapolis. But I said that weird Indianapolis. Indeed, but I think it could be could add a lot of names to your list.   Ryan: Yeah, just to give you a sense for the size, when I just did the three, one and a half. And I'm also doing over 25% equity. So people that aren't like leveraged up completely and would actually want to sell this at a discount. There was about 8000 people on that list. But given that 8000 people on cold calling, I actually don't even know the stats, I should notice that but a very small percent answer and then a very small percentage of that are willing to actually sell.   And so that's why I'm having trouble, like the 8000 actually run through pretty quickly with direct mail. I'm sure it lasts a little bit longer. But at least on cold calling, I'm running through that list pretty quickly.   Tom; That's a great segue into my comments, do you like so much of this business is like knowing your funnel and like what your conversion rates and like understanding what like baseline should be. Because I mean, you get to that point. And it's sort of just like an equation like, Okay, I know, if I do like, you know, a 10th of 1%, I need to put this many leads in or there's like, I think those metrics are super important to understand in this kind of a strategy, not only for like working backwards on hitting your goals, but also to monitor your partnerships that you're using, especially a newer company that's just kind of getting off the ground, I think it's really important to have kind of know what the industry baselines like of that type of either a cold call or a mailer. And then you can go back to talk to them and kind of see how they're performing against it.   Because I mean, there's so many different chains in the in the flow here, where there could be issues, where it's super important to have kind of a baseline of expectations on industry and kind of working working backwards. From there, I think that's also going to just add a lot of sanity of, of just being data driven about it instead of you know, just looking at the end of the day from the very start to the very end, but looking all those little like sub parts.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a really good point. And I think I definitely need to investigate that. I asked the company themselves, but they didn't give a good answer on baselines, probably because they're new. And they don't do it that much yet. But I think that's a really good point. And another thing I've been trying to do a little bit is sort of a b test, at least with different neighborhoods to say like, Alright, this neighborhood, I'm going to try cold calling this neighborhood, I'm going to try direct mail and see what gives a better response. So kind of testing within the two strategies that way, but I think knowing the industry benchmarks.   Tom: And the different layers of the funnel, right, so like, okay, what's the pickup rate? What's the actual like, talk about rate, you know, you know, I'm saying like getting as granular as you can there. I think that's gonna help identify, you know, where there are issues, issues in the flow, where you, you know, get as granular as possible that we might be my feedback on.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a really good plan.   Dean: And Ryan, what about So you said right now you're, you're limited to kind of your buybox to specific area of India, East nd Have you looked at other regions like this, the South, the east is obviously a lot more affordable and then the South has also kind of one of the places we talked about Greenwood. Southport, I think you have a place there, that you're gonna have some affordability even the West, I know there's some really good neighborhoods that are somewhat affordable still. And have you thought about expanding your your markets or your different neighborhoods?   Ryan: Yeah. So the 1000 I mentioned before is all of Indianapolis, including the west side, one thing I did start doing recently is expanding cells, as we talked about a little bit. So going down to Greenwood, the, the constraint I was working with in there is trying to keep it within the neighborhoods that I know my property manager manages. And so I basically reach out to them, ask them, which neighborhoods they expand to. And I've tried to stay within that just because I didn't really want to go down the headache of finding a new property manager and a new contractor and all that good stuff. So I want to try and keep it within the system. To the extent possible.   Dean: If you did find a place outside of the zone of where your pm works, would you be open to just flipping it and then kind of passing it on for profit moving on?   Ryan: Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not necessarily sold on buying hold as a strategy for all these. It's more just an overall income stream. So I'm more than happy to, to flip, if I see an opportunity that comes up, or even potentially wholesale something, if it, if it works out, I'm trying to keep it sort of my overall goal is to not spend a lot of effort on this sort of keep systematize it as much as possible so I can sort of stay out of it, but just have extra leads coming in to myself as sort of a lead flow more than anything else.   Michael: This might be a bit of a naive question. But as someone who's never worked with cold callers, or hired a company like that, how much of this deal flow conversion rate do you think is a result of the physical person on the other end of that phone? Who's calling the lead?   Ryan: I'm sure it's a lot of it. Because I personally get cold callers, like calling me every day. And some of those almost all of them, I hang up immediately, but like some of them just something about, I mean, are you just like, Alright, well, what would you offer me and like, you just go a little bit further with them. And it's something about the person on the other side. So I think that's probably a big piece of it. And I think that back to Tom's point of like, knowing the industry benchmarks would probably add a lot of value there just to know if like, if this company is coming in at half the rate or if they're actually on par, and it's just a small funnel that you have to work with?   Dean: And what about the other thing, that from a personal experience, like yourself, I have to be hanging up on the cold callers and always get that call interested in selling my property? What about text messaging, you know, that's, that's less, it's a bit more formal, but it's, it's the only messages I've ever responded to on text. And that's definitely I don't like to speak to people, you know, potentially a precious situation of trying to sell my home. But if done via text, it's a bit more informal, that more relaxed, the seller could be the more relaxed by giving out information and being a bit more willing to speak to you.   Ryan: Yeah, I think that that's another good point. I actually have a friend who has sort of a text message business for a different industry. And so I was picking his brain a little bit on like how this might work for real estate, I just, I need to talk to him to see what the options are. I know, there are some legal things recently about texting that kind of made it a little bit tougher than it used to be.   But I definitely need to talk to him and talk to someone about this. I think overall, I should just talk to someone who does direct marketing, because I haven't necessarily done that. Like, I've watched a lot of YouTube videos, and I've read a lot of things about it. But I haven't talked to someone who's actually good at it that can probably like, help me skip over like two or three of the like learning steps that I'm going through and probably wasting money on right now.   Tom: I think that's a great like segue that kind of into like, another piece of advice is like, what, what parts of this do you want to be good at? And which parts do you want to outsource? You know, I think naturally like we're inclined to like to be sort of a jack of all trades and do everything but you know, this could be a good spot for you, right? And you don't want to spend too much time on it. Just find people that are already doing this, that already good at it. If the ultimate goal is deal flow, you know, let somebody else work, you know that you can vet and trust, like manage the sausage factory, where you just kind of be on the other side. Now, sure, you'll probably end up paying a little bit more for this, but I'd say for your time, it's probably worth it.   Ryan: Yeah. 100%. And the the piece that I'm trying to stay out of is like getting on the phone with potential sellers everyday like I have no business being in that I'm not good at it. And I don't want to be good at it. And so I've been trying to find someone that is willing to do sort of that piece of it. But it's just it's hard to find that when you don't have a track record of closing deals yet. You're like, hey, do you want to jump on the phone and talk to a bunch of random people that may or may not sell their house? And then maybe I'll give you a cut of it. So I think figuring out what that piece looks like and finding someone that I trust is definitely a big step in it.   And I've been trying to do that a little bit. I've talked to probably three or four people that are like local Indianapolis investors that are willing to jump on the phone and talk to people. But I think finalizing that piece of it is definitely worthwhile and definitely good plan.   Michael: Is this how wholesalers find their deals?   Ryan: It's basically wholesaling. But I'm trying not to do the work of wholesaling for like, I'm not trying to take it to fruition and actually sell the deal on the other side. Just take the lead and keep it for myself.   Michael: Right. Right. Well, so my guess is that the wholesaler that you buy from locally in India is probably not going to want to chat with you about how they source their deals. What about or do you think that they would? Would that be a good a good source to chat with?   Ryan: Well, so they're definitely not going to give me tips on how to get better at it. But what I think I mentioned this at the beginning, but one of the things I'm doing now is actually passing the lease that I don't want off to them, because I know they'll pretty much buy anything. And so we've actually worked out a deal, where they'll give me a cut on the back end of a deal that I've passed to them, and then they end up selling, which is a very low touch way to hopefully at least break even on this thing. But it's just too early to tell how many of those they're going to close.   Michael: So you're wholesaling to your wholesalers.   Ryan: Yeah, selling leads to my wholesaler. And then potentially buying it from them on the back end of   Michael: Full circle. Yeah, I I've got to imagine that there are wholesalers because I know that they're, you know, professional wholesalers in other markets, maybe on bigger pockets that you could try reaching out to just to see, kind of like Tom, the analogy, Tom uses the sausage factory, what components are they using, and they're a sausage factory, I've got imagine it's relatively homogeneous throughout the country, what that process looks like, I'm sure you're going to tailor it to slightly towards individuals and to different markets. But I think at the high level, just that the deal flow and the lead acquisition process, I would guess is is relatively done. And so trying to rather than trying to reinvent the wheel or build your own wheel, there's there have got to be folks out there that you can get on the phone to chat with.   Ryan: I think 100% I can and I read like a wholesaling book, which kind of got me there. But it's definitely more tailored to like how do you double close and all that kind of stuff? And so I think just the beginning of the process like that lead gen funnel, definitely worth talking to someone. And yes, that is exactly what they're doing. So I think that would probably be a good place to start. Probably someone not in Indianapolis, but I don't think I'm trying to steal their business.   Michael: Poach their deals. Yeah.   Ryan: Yeah, exactly.   Michael: And just people who don't know, Ryan, what's a double close?   Ryan: So the way I understand it on wholesaling, there's sort of two ways you can do it, you can either get the deal under contract and then assign it to someone else and have an assignment fee on there where it's very clear on the transaction that you are making 5k or 10k on this deal, or there's a double close where you technically close on the house, and then you immediately sell it to the end buyer. But you still don't need to bring any money to the table because they're sort of using the funds from the third transaction to from the first transaction. So there's sort of two ways to close on that from a wholesaling perspective.   Michael: Awesome.   Dean: This is a bit I kind of outside the box but I just remember listened to a podcast and I forgotten the name of the gentleman who does the study is quite an ingenious way you always have people flooding you with you know sell your house like speak to me like there's always people soliciting your business in the way do you want to stick out from the crowd right? You don't want to be just another one of the people asking do you want to sell your house and this one guy he used to send mail mail letter with often you know I want to buy your house etc. But he also left like a little Rubik's cube with it. And his tagline was, let's figure this out together. And I thought that was quite brilliant that they stuck out in his head and maybe like it they went into right now but when they are interested they will probably go back to that guy or left to like a weird little puzzle piece with their mail and just kind of makes you stick out from the crowd.   So I wouldn't say necessarily go down that route of mating off Rubik's Cubes or chess pieces but you know something similar can help you in the long term. Stick out from the from the card like that.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a great idea. My wife actually had a similar idea this weekend. She's like what if you just mail everyone cookies? I'm like I don't think we want to mail 8000 cookies to the city of Indianapolis.   Dean: Or candy!   Tom: Carmel, wrapped Carmel get like you know   Ryan: But yeah, no, I think something like that. So you're not just one other mailer and the 10 mailers they got this week is definitely, definitely a good idea.   Tom: I've got a sweet deal for you!   Dean: I know you're probably in Indianapolis. Aren't you heading to Indianapolis soon? Meet the buyer, at some point.   Ryan: Oh, I have an appointment set up. Yeah, but someone else is my product during the appointment.   Dean: Okay, I think the other thing is it's been more manual, but you know, highs, I'm driving for dollars, you know, driving past places where, you know, there's overgrown bushes, or you know, the grass is too long. And you can kind of see it, you know, just people who, you know, aren't picking off the place that may be on the verge of foreclosure, that you could potentially help them alleviate from a sticky situation.   So you could do a very targeted marketing that way as well, just to kind of another option.   Ryan: Yeah, I think there's a bunch of ways to do it. And it's just finding the right figuring out which one works for me. And then just sticking with that.   Michael: Wouldn't that be awesome if the grass front lawn grass link was public record, and you could search that?   Dean: I think it sounds like we have a few action items that you can work with. And then try and utilize to see what might be the best cold calling method or kind of wholesaling to wholesalers type of method that you can utilize for your for your investing.   Ryan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think I'm gonna try and talk to a wholesaler gonna try and figure out what some of those industry benchmarks are. And just try to narrow in on some of the details, at least give myself some sanity on whether I'm actually just spinning here. Or if this is just the normal process.   Michael: With the industry benchmarking, I would push that company a little bit more on it, because I've got to imagine the whole reason they got into business in the first place was because they were trying to accomplish some goal, or they saw a niche in the marketplace that they could add value. So there's no way that they don't know what the industry benchmarks are like that just seems pretty naive to start a company and have no idea or not be able to give your clients a pretty straightforward answer of what's reasonable for the for the market.   Ryan: Yeah, that's a good point.   Dean: All right. Well, Ryan, you were speaking about some your your goals or what you plan to do. That segues well into our next topic, which is this coming week's commitment. So we'll kind of go around again in the same order. But working looking at your epic or grand goal, my case, you know, what you're committing to every week should be essentially biting away at the goal that you're trying to achieve eventually. So what you're trying to set for yourself, your commitments should kind of align with those, those epic goals.   So for my, for my commitments, I talked about my epic goals of doing the 401k, Roth IRA conversion and doing a cost seg. And I think, what I want to do next week, well, this coming week is run the numbers to see if cost segregation for my four plex would be worth spending the money to get it done. And so that's what I want to do this week to help achieve that goal.   And the second one is I want to read this is my second goal was to take over management about my portfolio is to read the first 30 pages of the book on managing rental properties. And so I have that collecting dust somewhere around here. And that I want to pick up and read.   The third one. I'm one meditate, set a commitment to meditating at least twice this week. And that's what I plan to do. And in terms of the next pieces is talking about your actionable next steps. So it's great to kind of set these these small goals. But let's go even further like how what do you need to do to achieve that commitment this week?   So like, what's that bite size or your most important next step to achieving that goal, or that commitment for next week. So kind of an auto just went down for my actionable next steps. Michael sent me a contact for a one of his people that helped him with the cost segregation study. And so I'm going to my actionable next step is to reach out to that contact, send them an email and introduce myself and kind of tell them what I'm trying to do the next actionable next step or most important next step about reading my book is to find the book. It’s a crucial, crucial step in achieving that goal.   I just moved. Yes, I have boxes and boxes full of stuff I'm going to try find that book. And then my third one about meditating. I'm gonna set an alarm on my phone for two times this week to, to make sure I'm going to be meditating at that at that time so that I can't kind of back up. So that is my next week's commitment and my actionable next steps.   Michael?   Michael: Are you using any kind of assistance for to meditate any kind of app or book or music?   Dean: Yeah, yeah, I, I use an app. Right now. Actually, I download I used headspace last year, I tried to get into it. I wasn't really feeling it as much. So I downloaded Comm. app. It's another one of those very popular apps out there. And I part of my meditation rituals, I kind of set a little candle in front of me and just kind of focus on the breathing and look at the candle kind of zone out.   Tom: Love it and that when   Dean: I will livestream it as I'm meditating defeats the purpose. But anyway. Yeah. All right, Michael, what is your commitment this week?   Michael: So commitment this week is to make additional headway on the redevelopment projects going to push the contractor to make additional progress. And I'll talk about how to do that in my here in a minute. I want to get additional legwork done on the flip as well. And I'll talk about that in just a minute and then going to commit to watching some there's a TED talk or I think some YouTube videos on things you can do when you're having trouble sleeping. So I'm going to be watching some of those this week and trying to implement those.   So what I'm going to be doing stepwise actionable stepwise to get the contractor moving along. This whole time we've been on time and materials, he's been building me time and materials, which is basically how much time his crew spends, and whatever the materials cost. That's what he builds me, I'm gonna be moving to lump sum payments going forward. Because the longer they take, the more money they make, versus now when it's a lump sum, they are now incentivized to finish the project as quickly as possible, because that's when they get paid.   So for this whole time, there was just a lot of unknowns. So they said, Hey, we can't give you a lump sum number, we got to do TNM. So I said, Okay, and now we're past all of the major hurdles, knock on wood. So we should be able to, he should be able to give me a number. And that's really what I need.   Then I'm going to be getting a scope of work for the flip from the project manager out there, who's also the property manager and the agent. And so I said, Okay, I need you to commit to a number. Again, this is if it goes over, you're paying the bill. So I'm not playing these games anymore with these flips. So Ryan, off the chat with you offline about how the best way that you've done that with your burrs is and then yeah, I just watched those TED talks and YouTube videos on on things I can do to implement sleep, better sleep and then utilizing them throughout the week as needed.   Dean: Great. Thanks, Michael. Appreciate you walking us through that. Tom. How about you? What are you committing to this week?   Tom: I was just lastly on sleep. My goal, like I like breaking a sweat can be kind of helpful, like in the evening, like, like, sometimes I'll do like a night run. And I don't know, I find it helps a little bit. I don't know. Anyways.   Michael: Meditation is right.   Tom: Yeah. Meditation is a big is a big part of my spiel.   Michael: You can meditate in the sauna and do both for the price of one.   Tom: Oooh, meditate in the sauna, while running on a treadmill. Just defeat the purpose.   Dean: Yeah, but highly, highly interesting.   Tom: Alright, committing to this week, so I am committing to getting uber organized on my refinances that are going on right now. So like, I'm going to be able to say like exactly what the close date is set for. For those different and you know, they're all occupied units. So it's, you know, making sure that the right appraiser is is in contact is there just a clear date on closing, so getting very organized with my refinancing on knowing that capital is going to hit into the bank.   And the other I think kind of social one, right was like, scheduling a little, you know, safe little friendly outdoor thing with some friends. So I'm gonna get a little text, get set of dates. For my little outdoor, I'm typing my notes as well, outdoor, outdoor Hangout. So the specific actions I'm going to do to fulfill these next commitments is I'm going to call my lender and just walk through every single property and make sure that they have everything and that the, the appraisal has been scheduled.   And then for my actual step for a little social thing is I'm going to get a text thread going with my, my group of people, they're going to do a little, I don't know, either like wine tasting or some random outdoor thing. So get my get a text message thrown. So that'll be my text, spread text thread going with those friends. So, okay, done.   Dean: That's awesome, Tom. Now I have one of those things. And it's it's breaking down those bite sized chunks makes it so much more achievable as whenever you set a goal for yourself, even if it's small, you know, just taking that first step allows one to just be a bit more committed to kind of fulfilling it, you're a lot more likely. What do we say? 37%? More likely, if I'm making a random statistic now to be fulfilling that small goal.   Have you been vaccinated on that you have you gotten your vaccines yet?   Tom: I got my next one coming in the very beginning of May. I will say putting in the, you know, commitments to doing like fun things is pretty fun. I like that.   Dean: It's important as well. I mean, we totally we get sometimes it's not it's not just about work and try to get as much money as possible. It's, it's also about you know, what, you know, what your personal life is, and trying to kind of focus on taking a step back and focus on that as well. So that you feel that way.   Ryan? How about yourself?   Ryan: Yeah. So on my personal goal of becoming a father, I don't think there's really anything I need to do that's actionable to make that happen. Yeah, go to the hospital, pack the bags. On the on the real estate one, I think my goal is to talk to two leads and schedule one appointment in the next week. And then also just understand some of the benchmarks and everything a little bit more. And so I think my actionable steps are, I'm going to network with at least one wholesaler, or someone who's done lead generation through cold calling. So I'm going to just network with one person that's done that.   And then on the benchmark side, Michael, I'm just going to follow up and ask him again and say like, how do you not know this, like you should know this. So reach out to the company directly, as well as figure out, find another way to get industry benchmarks for that. So that I can compare it against something.   Tom: I might have a contact for you on on some industry benchmarks I went to, there was another mastermind I went to last year and actually just reached out randomly about being on the on the podcast. So I've got another contact for you who I'm sure has a pretty good handle on wholesaling benchmarks.   Ryan: That'd be awesome.   Dean: Real time feedback. This is one of the benefits of mastermind groups.   Ryan: That'd be awesome, Tom, thanks.   Dean: All right. So I think my problem better we're ahead of schedule. We're on time, right?   Michael: Yep. Still on time.   Dean: Excellent. So the last, the last thing we like to do is the last minute or two is just to talk about setting the next meeting date and time, I would typically recommend you sticking just to one, like weekly occurrence at at a specific time. Because if everyone's like, oh, let me check my calendar and try and figure it out, then it's not going to get done. We're all busy. And it's the way to getting this done and without fizzling out is setting a specific weekly, date and time every week. And then the other thing we do in this section is speak about who's going to be the next week's rolls. So I typically just kind of rotate it based on the attendee order.   And so we can, we can do that now. And for so for next week. We can commit to the same date and time. And then Ryan barring any kind of hospital occurrence at that time, but for the roles. Let's let's do Michael as the as the moderator, Tom, let's put you in the hot seat. Ryan, you can be the timekeeper. And I'll be the note keeper. Note Taker.   Michael: Perfect. Sounds good.   Dean: That's it. That is how you run a mastermind group session.   Tom: Beautiful.   Ryan: Great.   Dean: And I was just gonna say mastermind like I said it's it kind of resonates personally for me just because this was one thing that really pushed me to be more specific. I literally committed to booking a flight to Dallas, Texas, to check out real estate in that area when I was touring that back in the day and I pulled theTrigger because I had my meeting coming up, and I'm like, Alright, I better commit to this, I'm going to do it. And I booked my ticket and met a couple real estate agents there and did all the stuff. And so that's kind of my first step I took towards real estate investing with mastermind group.   So to me, it kind of resonates Well, it's, it's, I think it's a really important way to, to challenge yourself and to be held accountable to those challenges.   Michael: Absolutely. I think I've never participated in a formal mastermind, I have a couple of accountability buddies that I have calls with standing calls on a weekly basis. And if somebody misses a call, they got to pay the person 10 bucks. And we just talked about what the goals are for the week and what you know whether or not we accomplish them and why we didn't, did or did not accomplish them.   So just to piggyback off your point, the and I think that the localization of what your goals are, I think that there's a lot of science behind that just speaking them to yourself, but then even more, so speaking them to somebody else. Now, I'm not just letting myself down. I'm letting down my accountabilibuddy, who is holding me to an expectation so i think it's it's huge.   Dean: I like that, uh, that the accountabilibuddy, that's a very catchy.   Michael: That's great. It's great. Ryan, I'm curious, just doing like a live quick post mortem. On the session? Was that feedback helpful? Was that were those things that you hadn't thought of? On your own yet?   Ryan: Yeah, um, some of them. So there were things that I hadn't thought of. And then there were other things that I had thought of, but I kind of like wrote off in my mind, I was like, ads, probably not gonna go anywhere. But like hearing you guys say him again. I was like, Okay, I probably should go investigate that. I probably should, like industry benchmarks. I was like, I should know that. But like, whatever. If it's working at the end of the day, it's working, but like just understanding that knowing that, so I think it was really helpful. Yeah.   Dean: Don't forget that Rubik's Cube, you know, fundamental.   Ryan: Yeah. Got your sweet deal.   Dean: That's right. That's right. And one of the important things as well, mastermind groups just being able to people showing up in time, being held accountable to just speak in that time, and then it kind of ending on time as well. I think it's also it's one of the things that's really important. You know, one of the toughest things with mastermind group is just keeping people going and making sure people that doesn't fizzle out and the by kind of cutting the chit chatter a bit or just kind of sticking to the script or the the the template really helps keep people focused and keeps people coming back.   And so yeah, that is a first session. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Appreciate your time.   Michael: Alrighty, everybody, that was our episode, a big thank you to coach Ryan, Tom and Dean, that was a lot a lot of fun. I know I got a lot of value out of it sounds like Ryan did as well. We're going to be hopefully doing these continuously going forward. probably not going to be recording them, but we're still gonna be participating in the mastermind groups. Again, at this summit. You're interested in being a part of come check us out at rootstock. academy.com and we look forward to seeing you in the next one. Happy investing.