654: Private Money Explained Part 3: The "Credibility Pieces" Lenders Love to See w/Amy Mahjoory

This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 654.

So I'm getting the commitment, but I'm still building rapport and trust. And I'll explain to you how the flow of money works. But right now, don't even worry about it. We'll cross that bridge. Wonder if we get there. Once somebody invests with you and they process the wire, that's step four, the fact framework, the transactions piece, then we really want to take a step back and look at how we nurture our network. So how do we follow up with our private money lenders so that to two things happen. Number one, they reinvest and number two, they increase their investment amount.

What's going on, everyone? This is David Green live from the Smoky Mountains. Actually, it's not live to you, but it's live to me. I'm here looking at cabins and checking on some of the ones that I just bought and getting to do a bigger Pockets podcast from the area. I'm joined by fellow Smoky Mountain investor and my co host for the podcast, Rob Abasolo. Rob, how's it going today?

Hey, man, I am barely making it making it through the day, you know what I mean?

I totally understand. I made a joke on Instagram the other day about this is a bare market and it got quite the response. Apparently dad jokes are making a comeback here.

Oh yeah, they've been popular since 1972. I don't know why that was the invention of them, but yeah, they've been big for a while. Actually done some research on this topic now that I'm a follower.

I just didn't know they were big outside of dads. Like people that are not dads are really liking dad jokes that you these days.

You know what, it's cool to be a dad, man. It is so cool. You should try it sometime.

You got dad bods? You got dad jokes.

I will hopefully not have a dad bod in the next couple of months, man. I've been. I've been hitting the bike every single day and little by little, I'm chipping away. I'm going from dad bod to.

Hard to make something rhyme with that on the spot.

Isn't kind of is. I didn't really think that out. Yeah, I usually practice my jokes in the mirror.

From dad bod to rad bodies.

Oh, there we go. Radbod. Rob Bod. How about that?

Thank you, producer Eric. Yeah, Eric's like one of those guys, our producer for this show that you never would think is in hip hop and Then you're at like a karaoke night one day and he steps up and he just starts freestyle rapping and knows like every single word to some KRS one song that most people who just heard me say that have no idea who I'm talking about. He's that guy that always surprises you. So thank you for that, Eric. Let's get to today's show. Thank you guys for hanging out through that semi ridiculous intro we just had. Yeah. In today's show, Rob and I are going to be interviewing Amy Maggiore. Amy has a four part system that helps raise money in a very simple way that is very effective. We're going to start off today's show with a treat for you guys. Josiah listened to the first interview that we did with Amy, put her system into practice and found himself with someone that was willing to let him borrow money right off the bat. So he kind of explains what he did, how he did it and how it worked out. And then Rob and Amy sort of ask him some questions about what's going on. It is a fantastic example of how simple this system is with when you work it. Rob, what are some of your favorite parts of today's show?

You know, I raise a decent amount of money. I'm raising money now for a fund that I'm putting together on a motel. And honestly, I don't think that you can ever stop improving on how you raise capital. I've been raising capital now for probably two or three years and my style to do that has really evolved over the years. And even listening to this episode today, I'm like, oh, I can really see how it affects my fundraising game for the better. So to really just start putting an actual system so that you can think of fundraising a little bit more in a, in a linear progression. Because for me it's just always my thoughts are always in the ether. And you know, I'm always kind of the ad lib kind of guy that's like, yeah, let's go with the flow. But having a direct system on how to approach getting money from investors I think is going to be super valuable for everyone listening at home.

Yeah. My two cents. The real estate investing space is changing rapidly every year. I mean, if you just look in the last 10 years, how much it's changed. It's wildly different and there's a lot of reasons why. But I think the biggest reason is that real estate investing used to be a good old boys club. You needed to have a mentor in the city you worked at that knew how to be an investor that could teach you the ropes. This was kind of, it was like Jiu Jitsu before the Gracies made it popular. If you didn't know a Gracie, you weren't learning Jiu Jitsu. Well, it's different now. This is one of the biggest podcasts on all of itunes. There's tons of people on social media that are sharing all the information. Real estate investors like to talk. This is not a place where everyone keeps their secrets. Information is everywhere. So that increases competition after these assets. And it's one of the reasons that even though the market is sort of slowing down, we're entering into a bear market. As you guys will hear about later in today's show, there's still a lot of competition for the best assets, and that's because it's much easier to own them than it ever was before. So you need to get into the private money game. Whether you are actually raising money to buy these assets or you are lending your money to someone else to make a passive return, there is a space for both people. My opinion, the next sort of evolution of real estate investing is gonna be crowdfunding made easy. NFTs are gonna play a role in this. We interviewed Ryan Pineda and he sort of talked about that on the episode that we did with him. I'm raising more money. Rob's raising money also, but we're doing it in 100% different ways. So we're appealing to a different type of investor who's looking for a different risk reward profile. And I would highly recommend, if you're someone who knows real estate investing is gonna be a part of your future, that you listen to episodes like this one and pay a lot of attention because these skills will be huge in helping you scale your portfolio faster.

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The show with Amy, today's quick tip is head over to biggerpockets.com reshow where Amy, our guest today, has some free information that you can claim for yourself. That's biggerpockets.com reshow. The RE is for real estate, but it would spell reshow and claim your free stuff today. Rob, any last words before we get to the show?

Yeah, if you are have ever been interested in learning how to defend yourself against a bear, then I would definitely stick around until the very end of the episode because we give some very tactical tips on that one.

Yeah. Little known fact, The B&BJJ actually stands for bear. It's a, it's a misnomer that it's Brazilian, but that's not true. It was developed in the rainforests of Brazil where people were being killed every single day and the Russians actually copied it and now they have their kids wrestling bears for skills and we get into that at the end of the show. So it's not enough to make a lot of money in real estate. You've also got to be able to protect that money, especially from hungry bears.

Yeah.

And pretend like you know about bears. So that's, that's always important.

Amy Maggiore, welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. So lovely to have you today. How have you been?

I've been great. Thank you for having me. Excited to catch up with you guys today.

Yes. Now I'm going to have you recap what we talked about in the first two episodes where we interviewed you. But before we do that, we actually have a guest who heard the episode and put your advice into practice, and it worked out very well. Josiah, welcome to the show.

Thank you, David. Yeah, so I am a small business owner out of Southern Oregon, and I have a pool and spa cleaning and repair business. And so this business gives me the unique opportunity to get in with people I might not otherwise have access to. And then lately I've been trying to work that into possibly people to partner with or invest with. And so basically lately I started, I started implementing the four second power pitch. And I did this by building rapport over time with my clients. I would talk to them with about what being in real estate.

And so, like a little backstory with our real estate. My wife and I, she's my partner, we have our first home that we bought that we turned into our first rental. And then that was in 2021. Or no, sorry, 2020. And then in 2021 we cash out, refinance that, and then the beginning of this year, we've done two deals so far. And so we're definitely rookie investors, but we're starting to see some momentum. And so our second deal was actually an out of state property that my wife and I did after reading your book on out of state investing. And then we ended up buying that one, all cash, refinancing it, and then using that money into a tiny home, airbnb that we did on our property that we own, that we live on here in Southern Oregon. And so obviously I got that inspiration from Rob and following him on his Rob Built channel. So we just finished that project May 18th. And all along the way, I've been talking with my clients about, you know, what it is we're doing and just building rapport with them and, you know, kind of building myself up as not just a pool guy, but also a real estate investor who is implementing different strategies and, you know, growing consistently. So.

And so when I'm building rapport with my clients and stuff, you know, most of them have on their pool guy, they have big houses. So basically when I, when I meet these clients initially, you know, they're clients with big houses and pools most of the time. And I'll try to build rapport with them by complimenting their house first. I'll say, hey, this is a beautiful house you got and a lovely pool. What is it you do that lets you afford, you know, a house like this? And so I'll ask them questions about themselves and what it is they do. And that kind of also gives me information on, you know, what their interests are or, like, if they're business owners as well, and then kind of helps qualify them in my mind, While I'm also trying to build rapport with them, I would say, hey, how do you afford such a lovely house and pool? So this. This process takes a long time. It's not like it's something that happens overnight when I'm building rapport with them. And I'll often see them intermittently, you know, it could be you. And so when they do that, you know, it helps me build rapport with them and kind of a relationship. But it also, at the same time, kind of helps qualify them as a potential partner in the future. And if there's someone I think that I'd be able to work with or not. And so whenever I see them, I always try to update them on what it is I'm doing or what it was we last talked about, and then kind of jump ahead to where we're at now with those projects. And so the tiny home has been the biggest thing for us. A lot of people have been super interested in that. Obviously, they're really trendy and stuff, but we've had phenomenal success with that. We've set it up to the highest level we possibly could. And because of that, it's been booked out about 95 to 99% of the time since when we first launched it on May 18. And so when I tell them stuff like that, I mean, we're getting about a 60% return on our investment right now, and they're just blown away by that fact. And so lately, when I talk about that, I was able to caveat it into.

Possibly, you know, getting partners. Partners or private money investors lately. And I did that simply by asking them. You know, they would say, hey, that's phenomenal what you're doing. And I'd just be like, hey, yeah, we're working on another project right now where I might be taking on private investors, you know, is just sitting back and collecting income from real estate, something that you might be interested in. You wouldn't have to manage it at all or, you know, do any extra work. We do all the legwork for you. And I've done that with four or five of my clients now and I've had really good success.

That's amazing. Yeah. I was wondering how, what your parlay was because I know for Amy, you know, she talks about going out and you meet someone, you say, I help someone get double digit returns in real estate because you're introducing each other and you're like, I don't know what you do, what do you do? I do this and that. Obviously, if you're the owner of this company, that part is that they know what you do. So how have you worked on your transitions? Does it change from client to client or do you think you have a pretty streamlined pitch at this point?

I mean, I'm new to implementing the strategy, so it's definitely not streamlined and I work on it, um, as I go, but it definitely changes a little bit client to client, depending on, you know, what their exact scenario is. And so this has been such a great strategy though, because it is something to get your foot in the door and open up people to conversations in the future. And then, you know, it just opens their mind a little bit. And then later on I hope to be able to, you know, meet with them, go through and dive in a little bit deeper. And so I guess that's kind of what I'm doing. Looking for help with next, like what are the next steps? And Amy, maybe you could help me with this. But as I try to transition them from, you know, just opening their mind up to this idea and them liking it, to actually guiding them.

Josiah is the perfect.

Investor who he said earlier is a part time investor. He's a great example of someone who just, he trusts in the system. He is, he's just following a script. He implemented it. Even if he had, you know, any fears of how to follow up, he's like, I got this, I'll figure that out later. You guys saw him commenting in the chat box earlier for what do I say next? And this is what I keep telling people. You guys, this really does work. You know, just it's been tested and measured for 10 years. It's a great strategy to just get your foot in the door and then see where the conversation leads you.

So you're just getting started. You start putting yourself out there. You're practicing and perfecting and still ironing out your, your, your pitch here and you actually had some success and you had someone that actually, they, they wanted to work with you. So tell us about the deal that you're going to be putting together and how you're going to be Using the funding to make that deal come to life.

Okay, so I'm actually looking at a deal local to me in Shady Cove, Oregon. And it's a kind of property. It's on about four and a half acres right on the edge of town here. And it's a pretty forested area, but it's got two tax lots and three little cottages on the property right now. And so what I'm trying to do is remodel these cottages, get them up to rent specs for short term rentals, and then we add a couple of RV pads and do a couple more of the tiny homes with the decks around it, and make it just like this little camping community of tiny homes and RV or cottages. And then maybe because it is four and a half acres and there's like a nice lightly sloped hillside, do like a glamping setup up on the hillside and stuff that come off of it in the future. And so that's kind of the ultimate dream. And luckily this property is off market right now. And so the seller is open to seller financing as well, which is phenomenal. And so it's just kind of trying to put the pieces together with everything and try to figure out, you know, basically what the next steps are. Am. I mean, should I focus on maybe finding money for the deal or, you know, trying to get it more structured before I try to raise money for it and kind of where should I go from here?

Awesome, man. Well, it sounds like you hit a home run on your first, on your first set of pitches here, not only because you actually were able to secure financing from a private investor, but because it's a seller finance deal, which these days, I mean, that's the, that's going to be the best interest rate you're probably going to find on the market. But I'm curious, Amy, since you are the fundraising royalty here on the pod, how would you, how would you approach this situation?

Yeah, so this is a great problem to have. You're putting together this deal and definitely don't wait until you have finalized the deal. We always want to be proactively raising capital as we are looking for leads. So, Josiah, you're off to a great start. You know, continue those conversations and at this point you'll want to follow up, even if it's just a high level overview about the deal. But start educating, you know, your audience on this is what's in it for me, this is what's in it for you, and I can help you with this. And here's, you know, what looking here's what it looks like to invest, you know, with us. Everyone is so into the short term rental game now. They love it, the creative ways of basically vacationing. So I think your audience will love that strategy as well.

Okay, that's great. And so as far as like structuring the deal goes, do you think I should look at, because it is my first deal with partners, maybe trying to make it a little higher, incentivization to get people to work with me until I have a more solid track record, or do you think my track record that I have so far just personally is probably good enough?

I think it's the latter of the two. And this is such a common question. You know, a lot of people will want to increase what they're offering because of their lack of experience or limited experience or maybe because of, you know, the fear of the unknown. So I'm going to go straight into coaching mode and say, hey, you don't need to offer more and we can talk about what that offer looks like. And you've already got a great amount of experience. I mean, you have a portfolio, you're starting to build it, your clientele, I mean, technically you're in the real estate industry, you know, anyways, because of the service that you provide from a pooling aspect. So I think as long as you are able to convey your message clearly and you have a solid deal and you know your numbers, you'll be fine with your current offer.

Yeah, I agree with that. I would say don't negotiate against yourself unless you have to. That is, that's honestly the biggest mistake I've ever made with partnerships or investors is negotiating myself with some really juicy terms. I think you go in with the terms that you want and have in your back pocket what you're actually willing to do. I actually do believe that you should have some flexibility because whether or not you make money on your first deal with an investor from your end, I think the experience is a lot more valuable working with an investor, understanding how to manage timelines and budgets. So don't give it away for free, but be flexible if they push back a little bit. And I would even just make sure that you have answers to all the different questions that they're going to ask because you know, with the type of property and the, the, the projects that you have going on, there will be some possible roadblocks with permitting and making sure that everything is, you know, head to toe, completely legit from a, from a permitting and a conditional use permit, all that stuff standpoint. So make sure that you know your stuff, because the more you know and the more of an expert that you can present yourself as to the investor, the easier it will be to sort of talk them down the ledge a bit and get the terms that you want.

Thank you very much for all your help in answering my questions and explaining this to me. I'll keep you guys updated on how it goes, and I hope to see you around.

Awesome, man. Good luck with everything. All right.

We wanted to bring Josiah in so that you guys could see that this works, if you work. It wasn't too long after hearing this information that he put it into play, and now he's got himself a pretty cool opportunity that it's safe to say wouldn't have if he wouldn't have done this. So, Amy, first off, thank you very much for your help to our community and helping Josiah. If you wouldn't mind, could you just give us a recap on what we talked about on the first two episodes where we discussed your system?

Sure, absolutely. You know, we kicked it off with common fears and objections when it comes to raising capital, which are all very common, whether it's, you know, we don't have the time or we don't have the experience. Even Josiah touched on that.

Right.

And we talked about the importance of. As you get out there and build your foundation, you want to be very confident who you are and what you're doing. Because if our audience, in this case private money lenders, sense any sort of timidness or uncertainty in our voice, you know, they're not going to invest with us. And that really led us into taking action. And what does that 4 second power pitch look like? And who do we start to connect with? And really, the answer there was anyone. You know, the minute we leave our house, everyone we encounter is a prospective private money lender. So what does that script look like in step one from here on out and is targeting anyone and everyone with cash or assets collecting dust and dropping that 4 second power pitch on them. And if, you know, if they don't ask you what you do so you can drop the four second power pitch, then why don't we ask them what they do? So the law of reciprocity finds its way back to us and we can continue with that conversation.

Yes. So basically you are asking them, hey, what do you do? Just in hopes that from a general. What's it called, like a courtesy, that they'll at least pretend to be interested in what you do, and then you actually hit them with the pitch and then they are actually interested. Right. Is that, is that kind of the idea? Or, or if you have a good connection with them at the very beginning, then you can just really lead with that.

Absolutely. And it's all of the above. Now there are going to be people that we're going to choose to target who we have a pre existing relationship with, and those conversations will be a little less scripted and more casual. We're still going to treat it like a business, though. Whereas those who we don't have a relationship with. You know, on the last episodes we talked about converting our Uber drivers into private money lenders or, or people at airports or on airplanes or, you know, sporting events. So in that case, yeah, we want to, we want to target them and be strategic and hope that if they don't ask us what we do, that when we start that conversation, it ends up leading down that, you know, direction.

Yeah, definitely. This is kind of like at the end of every episode when I'm like, dave, where can people find you on social media? Because I want him to ask me that back so I can plug my social medias. But then he forgets like half the time and I'm like, come on, man.

Or did I forget? Perhaps I know what we're doing.

Exactly.

So, Amy, can you clarify for us really quickly, what is the F and then what is the A specifically? Because I know we've got an acronym going here.

Sure. So the fact framework. The F is for foundation. So how do we build our foundation? Make sure we understand who we are, what we're doing. We want to know our role. Why are we doing this? What's in it for us? What's in it for them, our audience. And the A is for action. So now that we've built our foundation, we're confident in what we're doing and why we're doing it. We're going to get out there and start taking action and start building rapport with anyone and everyone. And it starts with that four second power pitch.

Awesome. Okay, so can you take us through what we're going to be talking about today? Because we're going to be talking about basically the second half of this and then how we can actually close these investors using the. The rest of the framework.

Right, Absolutely. So there are a lot of strategies that we can implement when it comes to building rapport and trust with people above and beyond the 4 second power pitch. And I'll share a few of those. I think we actually went through several of them on the last episode. You know, the meetup strategy the high ticket, you know, event strategy. So we can touch on more of those if you would like. And it's really step three of the fact framework, which is the credibility piece. So now that we're out there 24 7, we're taking action. We're building trust and rapport with everyone. We're planting that seed with everyone. We want to start to lock up coffee talks, whether they're in person or virtually. And during those 30 minute coffee talks, we want to be able to introduce a different credibility piece to our audience because over time, these credibility pieces will increase their confidence in who we are and what we're doing, which will eventually get us to invest with us. So that's what we'll focus on today, is the credibility piece.

Awesome. So just so that I'm understanding, because I want to make sure that we're really clear on all the different steps here. When you say taking action, we did talk about doing like the meetups, for example, because that will establish you as sort of a local authority. That is step. That is in the, the a aspect of it. Right. Taking action. Or is that in the credibility or is that kind of in this limbo in between?

It's going to be in step two, taking action. So the five strategies we discussed on episode two about taking action, there are many more that we can implement if we had the time. Anytime we're out there building our list, if you will, or building our Rolodex or connecting with people, that's all going to be a part of taking action.

Okay, awesome. Well, let's dive in to see the credibility aspect of this and how we basically transition from taking action to actually creating, you know, posing ourselves as experts and giving ourselves credibility so that people want to invest with us.

Sure. I was just going through. I actually just completed a capital raise for a project here in Austin, Texas. And earlier I'd mentioned that we're going to come across all sorts of private money lenders, people who have never done this before, and then very seasoned private money lenders. And in this case, the individual I was talking to was an expert private money lender. And so I explained to him, hey, in my business, I have over 16 different credibility pieces. I know you understand the business, so you just tell me what you want to see and I will show it to you. And so in this case, he wanted to see my deal analyzer, which is my very detailed, you know, cost benefit analysis, which takes into account every cost variable, including profits. I sh. I'm. I'm an open book. I will show everyone my personal financial situation. I will show them potential profits because I want to, I want them to see, you know, how much.

Is there in case we don't hit our numbers. Right. And so he wanted to see the deal analyzer. He wanted to see my list of frequently asked questions, which is simply a 6 page PDF of every question I have received over the last 10 years like packaged into a nice brochure. And then he wanted to see my experienced private money presentation. And so these three things I just emailed to him, normally I would schedule a zoom, I would say, hey, let me take you through each piece. I would actually only start with a generic private money presentation.

If the individual was not experienced. So above and beyond the list of frequently asked questions and you know, my property analysis template, my deal analyzer, my private money presentation which I'll take most people through on step one, it's really just a high level overview. Again I'm not dropping any details on. This is who I am, this is my background, here's why I raise capital, right? So here's what's in it for me. Here are all the reasons why my private money lenders love me. Here's what's in it for our private money lenders. And then here's an example of what a deal looks like. Very high level. And then I give them a call to action. Hey, if you're interested in learning more about the different investment opportunities we have, let me know. We'll schedule a follow up meeting, I'll introduce you to my team, so on and so forth, but there's still no call to action as far as investing is concerned. That's going to come later. So that's the generic private money presentation. For those of you who are talking to somebody who has done this before and they've lent on deals. My experience private money presentation, it's going to have more strategies in there. It's going to talk about what it looks like to leverage out of retirement accounts. It's going to go into a more detailed overview of what different investment opportunities look like. So the financial acumen is going to be a little bit higher in this case. So this is why I've got, this is a great example of why I've got 16 different credibility pieces. We've got contracts, we've got org charts, we've got.

Our business plans and I just pick and choose depending on who I'm talking to.

This is really interesting because I, I came into thinking the, about the credibility aspect of this a little bit differently. So just so That I am getting this because I want to, I want to use this myself. You know, obviously I use components of this, but having a more linear progression, I think is going to be very helpful for everyone listening at home. So when you're taking action, for example, in the, in the meetup aspect of it, and you talked about establishing, establishing yourself as a local authority, I was kind of thinking of that as establishing credibility, which of course it does. You're actually talking about the credibility of you as someone who handles someone's money. Like as an investor. If you, if, if I'm going to give you my money, I want to feel that you are a credible, financial savvy person that can actually deploy that and perform their, their fiduciary duty versus the credibility component of, hey, I build a lot of houses, Look, I'm successful, I have good returns. I know that they're kind of similar, but I think one seems more financially focused when you're establishing the credibility versus. I was thinking it was more like, hey, look at me, I'm pretty legit from, from the real estate side. Is there much of a difference in these two camps?

There is a difference, and it'll be a combination of the two. Because we really need to know our numbers, Right? I always tell people, your experience doesn't matter. What matters is the deal. Sure. We have to be able to articulate things clearly and concisely and know how to build our power team of experts. Because if you lack experience, as long as you know how to bring together contractors, designers, architects, your experience doesn't matter. What matters is the equity in the deal. And that's where our financial acumen comes into play. And so we want to be able to explain both sides of that to our private money lenders.

Yeah, this is very helpful. This is actually one of the, this is what I needed when I was first embarking in my raising money journey many years ago when I was, when I was just a tiny little raw built, I remember I was thinking, oh, I build houses, I do Airbnb. I make great money on Airbnb. It shouldn't be very hard to raise money. And I went to my father in law's brother, I guess was that like my uncle in law? And he was like, yeah, I'd be interested in investing what you got. And so I put a presentation together that was so focused on the nuts and bolts of Airbnb. And I was like, all right, here's what I've done. Here's how much money I make. Here's what the cash Flow is going to be. And then he hit me with the wild what I thought at the time, because I wasn't really into this yet. But he hit me with a wild list of very investment and financial specific questions like IRRs, you know, if this. Then what. What about capital contributions? Who gets paid back first in the investment? Does your equity vest before or after you've paid back my investment? And to all of those questions, I felt so blindsided. And I was like, I don't know. I mean, it's gonna make money, man. What's the problem? And then he was like, you know, this is not. This is not for me. And I was like, wow, this guy, he doesn't, he doesn't get it. He doesn't get Airbnb, man. But in retrospect, I sort of see how I failed on the second half of this. So building the credibility here definitely is important.

But that's such a great example, and thank you for sharing of why we have to know our numbers. Because, and this is why I created six pages of FAQs that we don't want to only memorize them. We really want to understand them, because the private money lenders out there who have done this before and who know what they're doing, you will come across PMLs who will purposely ask you the same question five different ways, just to test your knowledge on the logistics, but also on the financials. Right. So we really have to know how our process works. And if we don't, we should not be out there ethically raising capital for deals 100%.

And when you said that, you put together this list of FAQs and your presentations, I know for me, we have a pretty dialed presentation. We have our own internal list of FAQs. But it's not like we just discovered that overnight. We discovered that through failure of raising money time and time again because every investor would ask the same question, or like you said, a different version of the same question. And so every single time we got out of an investment meeting where we didn't secure the capital, we were like, oh, we should probably think, think this through. You know, what happens when partner A wants to exit the business? You know, do we want to have a vesting period and all this type of stuff? So for sure, I think as you continue to develop your pitch and your power pitch and your power presentation, just know it's not going to be perfect. When you're getting started, you're probably going to have a few bumps and bruises. Not everyone is going to have the wonderful Josiah story obviously where he's able to lock it down super fast. But I know for me at this point, and obviously I have more of a platform. But even outside of that, when I'm, when I actually still don't even talk about the platform necessarily when I'm approaching new investors just because I want them to to know that I know my stuff, you know, I want to prove that I actually do know a lot of the the financial acumen that you talked about.

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Amy, what do you think about the credibility sort of being a spectrum where when you have less credibility as far as track record or knowledge, you have to put more work up front in the deal itself. Like Rob talking to his uncle in law who probably knew more about real estate than Rob did. He's asking all these questions that wouldn't be asking unless they were a little experienced versus somebody later in their career who's got an established track record. I was trying to avoid using me as an example, but that's the easiest way where I bought real estate for 10 or 15 years before I ever talk to someone about raising money. I don't have to put as much effort into explaining all these intricate details. It's kind of like, well, okay, it's David, I trust them. What's your. How do you see that sort of progressing?

I always respond the same way and I get this question all the time, which is if you don't have a lot of experience as an investor, then lean on your team of experts because you're not going to be the one grouting the tile, right? So as the business owner and entrepreneur, as long as you know how to analyze a deal and you know how to build a power team, then what I do is I bring my team into these conversations and I'll say, hey, even though I've only been doing this for a year or I've never done a deal before, this is my general contractor. He's been doing this for 25 years. This is why we picked this neighborhood, specifically these three blocks. This is my designer. She owns her own design firm. This is my real estate attorney. It's his law firm and we've been working together collectively and building our strategy for the last 12 months. And if you would like, I'd be more than happy to schedule a call so that you can talk to my general contractor directly. So it's, it really Is you want to create this team that feels empowered because I always tell people I'm not successful because of the things I've done. I'm successful because of my team. And it's my team that helps me shine. So that's how I overcome that objection.

How about if you walk us through a deal you've done and maybe hit on how you covered all four of these steps in your deal so we can see what it looks like in a real life application.

Sure, absolutely. And you know what, before I forget, if you would like, because I'm sure there are going to be a lot of questions about how do I create a private money presentation? What are all the details that go into it? I'll just give you guys a copy and if you want to share it with everyone, feel free to do so. Take it, implement it. I'll script it out for you so those of you listening can read and even practice at home and then get out there and start implementing it.

Sure. That sounds amazing. Yeah. Thank you.

So, yeah, as I mentioned earlier, there was a deal. Why don't we start with my very first deal that I raised capital on because I had only done one deal prior to that.

So on my very first deal, you know, we often talk about, you know, mistakes or lessons learned. On the very first deal that I completed in downtown Chicago, I did not use private money. I was working my full time job. I was trying to build my power team. And so I had the gap funding in the bank and I ended up putting that into the deal. Well, two weeks later, my acquisitions manager, which is just a fancy way you guys of saying realtor, brought me two passive income properties. All I needed for each rental property, they were small single family homes was it was either 20 or $25,000 each and each property would have cash flowed $300 a month. So we're talking about $600 in positive cash flow every single month that I wasn't able to pull the trigger on because I had put my own money into my fix and flip and I had not prioritized the art of raising capital. So I couldn't just raise the capital today for the down payment. So for me that was a really hard lesson to learn. And I always say, look, is $600 a month going to retire us? No. But that's one example of one missed opportunity. And think about how quickly that can start to add up. So I really hustled, I reprioritized, I shifted my focus in my business and on the very next deal, I ended up Raising from a complete stranger to begin with, $390,000 in 21 days. Now I hustled. I was on the phone every day. So when it came building my foundation before I had started actually picking up the phone to call people and requesting referral after referral after referral, which we talked about on previous episodes, I made sure as a part of building my foundation, I had my online presence completed. So I had a website, I had social media profiles and I didn't have huge followers, like nobody knew me back then, but I made sure I had LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. And it said, said I'm a real estate investor. So for those of you who don't have a social media presence yet, go copy mine. I'm giving you permission right now. Copy my social media, like have at it. And there's your online presence for your website. Create a landing page. You don't need anything fancy, just have something. Because whether we like it or not, private money lenders are going to Google us and go to our website. I practiced my scripts. I recorded myself on my phone to make sure that there was, I was very smooth when I was chatting over the phone because I was still reading some of the scripts I had created, you know, 10 years ago. And then I felt comfortable getting out there and picking up the phone to call people. So that was how I built my foundation. I would call people through referrals and the first thing I would do is drop that 4 second power pitch on them. And then when they wanted to learn more, now that I'm taking action and connecting with them, I'd schedule a coffee talk and I would take him through my general basic private money presentation, which, which I'm going to give you guys a copy of. And I remember the gentleman during that three week time period that I was hustling and I was on the phone every day. So to those of you listening, this doesn't mean in three weeks I raise almost $400,000 through an email automation or a social media post. I'm hustling, I'm finding every single credibility piece that I can in sharing it with as many prospective private money lenders as I can, all through the four second power pitch on, all through requesting referrals, the meetup strategy, the fundraising strategy, so on and so forth. So I would hop, as a part of the credibility piece, step three of my fact framework, during these 30 minute coffee talks, I would take them to their private money presentation and then before I would end that coffee talk, which by the way, in a perfect World, you want to get through your presentation in 15 minutes. In the beginning, you're going to take 45. That's normal. Yeah, it's all a part of the process and the learning curve. And in a perfect world, which I know we don't live in, during these 30 minute coffee talks, you want to give your audience time to talk about who they are as well. Right. And their experience investing, what their expectations are. So. But before we would end up the conversation, I would ask, so what do you think? Do you have any questions? Are you interested in knowing more? I didn't say, do you want to invest in that deal? Yeah, it was $400,000 for. I was looking for a private money, so I never said, all right, so do you want to wire the 400,000? Even though internally I knew it was crunch time. Right. So I would get the commitment and they would most of the time want to know more. Because I'd practice my presentation, they could sense the confidence in my voice, they could sense the energy. And then that would lead into multiple coffee talks again, where I'm introducing them through other credibility pieces, such as the contracts I use in my deals or the design piece, or I'd share architectural renderings, or I would show them what it would look like to leverage, you know, out of their retirement accounts. And once they committed, then step four, the transactional piece is I would take them through before they processed any wire. And this is where I'm at right now on a new raise I'm doing here in Austin, Texas. I would say, hey, let me know. So this gentleman's gonna let me know within the next 24 hours if he wants to invest $300,000. And I said to him, hey, once you decide whether or not you want to invest, then let's hop on another zoom. So I'm getting the commitment, but I'm still building rapport and trust. And I'll explain to you how the flow of money works. But right now, don't even worry about it. We'll cross that bridge. Wonder if we get there. Once somebody invests with you and they process the wire, that's step four, the fact framework, the transactions piece. Then we really want to take a step back and look at how we nurture our network. So how do we follow up with our private money lenders so that two things happen. Number one, they reinvest and number two, they increase their investment amount. So that's going to go into our nurture system. But that's at a very high level how I raised the first 400. And I kind of parlayed that into like how I'm working on the, the next 300 on my current deal.

Awesome. So let me clarify on the c, on the, the credibility aspect of it. When you end that power pitch or not, the, sorry, the coffee talk, you're going to say, do you want to know more? I got to imagine that a large percentage of those people are like, yeah, keep going. Do you, then do you try to cram it all in that meeting or. Because you can sort of, I don't want to say like close them while they're warm. Right. But. Or do you schedule another. I know you said you do multiple coffee talks. So how does this, how does this play out for you usually?

Yeah, I won't, I don't want to cram it as much as I can into one meeting, even if the investor is a seasoned investor, like the gentleman I'm talking to right now. Because it can still be overwhelming. It's a lot of content. Even if you guys email me an executive summary before we even talk about the deal, I'm going to be like, what is this? Like what are all these numbers? What are they doing? And I probably will either delete or not read it. Actually not if it came from you guys, but that's a whole nother conversation. So whether it was 10 years ago or today, I still approach it in the four step process and I will still offer to take my private money lenders through all the credibility pieces, you know, similar to what David said earlier. Sure.

Now through social media, now through these interviews, you know, now through my experience, I have people who reach out to me saying, I want to invest with you. There are going to be times where a lot of people don't even know who I am, but whether they know me or not, I still offer to take them through the four step process.

That's really cool. So then at the end of the transaction side, you talk about the nurturing. I imagine that at the same time there you do want to be a little high touch, probably for the, at least a couple of days or the, the week after. That way someone doesn't wire you 100 grand and then you stop talking to them. They're like, oh, well, what happened here? So is there a little bit extra communication that happens directly after just to, you know, cure any, any buyer's remorse that might be setting in for an investor?

Yes, I always take care of my private money lenders and I like to over communicate, but in a respectful way. For example, the gentleman I was Just talking to you today about this Austin raise. He said, all right, so are you. He goes, I'll send you an email. And then you're just going to email me, like wire instructions if I decide to move forward. And I said, no, I'm at. Even now, 10 years later, I'm still not going to raise capital through an email blast. I'm going to pick up the phone and call my top 10. I've got 10 private money lenders who I go to first. I'm not going to text them. And he, this gentleman asked, you have like an opt in page so I can learn more about future investment opportunities. And I laugh because I was like, oh my God, no. I've been doing this for 10 years and I don't, I don't have an option page. A lot of investors do. But that's because I really focus on building and sustaining that relationship with my private money lenders through old school strategies. Picking up the phone and talking or going out for lunch or coffee. So that's how I will. That's a part of how I nurture those relationships.

Yeah, that's awesome. I can really see, even for me, how this is going to play out because I'm currently doing a raise right now for, for a $7 million, 23 unit motel in. And you know, a lot of the times there's like this, the platform, right? And that helps me establish, I guess, the foundation where I can talk about it and get people interested in that project. But I haven't really. I had a marketing plan in mind, but now I think I'm going to adjust it based on what we talked about today, which is, you know, I talk about it, I gather the interested leads and then I was going to. I plan on now hosting meetups or I guess virtual workshops, if you will, or virtual meetups with people. That way I can reach the entire country. That would be a. Taking action, getting people in a room, telling them about what I do, telling them about the deal and then going to credibility at that point, taking it from the group, the group setting down to individual, as you call it, coffee talks, where we actually start taking those calls with investors to actually walk them through the specifics of the deal. Not just the actual real estate side of it, but talking through the actual nuts and bolts of a syndication, right? Limited partnerships, the general partners and everything like that. And then finally the transaction side where we then have to get them through all the nuts and bolts of that too, make sure that they're accredited, make sure that they actually are able to sign up online, get them into the portal, and then as we just talked about keeping it sort of high touch there for the next couple of weeks just to make sure that everybody's updated. So you have already influenced my raising strategy on what I'm doing right now. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. You know, but I'd love to hear both your thoughts on this because to me, you know, raising capital is fun, like talking to people and networking. It's fun. And I always tell investors, you know, it ends up turning into not so much a game, but you don't even realize eventually once you get good at raising capital, you don't even realize, realize that it's happening and you'll be out there every day raising capital. So for me, I like spending time with my private money lenders. My private money lenders have become my friends. We take vacations together, we go on masterminds together. So in my business and everyone's process may be different. Once a private money lender has invested $1 million with me, it can either be in one lump sum or across multiple deals. I will pay to fly them out to the job site, give them this VIP experience, take them out to dinner, sit down with my team, walk through properties, and they love that. And it's another great way to continue to develop that long term relationship. So now not only are they reinvesting with us and reinvesting greater amounts, but now they're starting to introduce us to our network of prospective investors. But what do you guys think? What is your experience? Been there.

I think it's really great. I want to. When we were going to originally launch our fund where we were going to build a few houses or 23 houses in Joshua Tree, we actually had intended to allow the different investors to stay at those properties at short term rentals. You know, they're building, we're building a short term rental portfolio. Come and actually stay there a few nights once it's all done, which is great, but it's not instant gratification. Right. So I definitely think that there's a level of credibility even that's added when you say, hey, thanks so much for investing, come out. Well, we'll meet you out there, we'll fly you out there and we'll actually take you through the project because I mean, I'm sure, you know, actually walking a project is completely different than seeing it online. David and I hadn't seen the Spanish mansion that we bought in Scottsdale in person previous to buying it. And then we showed up and we were like, whoa, this, this was worth it. This was worth the massive investment that we just made it. It's a little magical, right? Especially as an investor to actually walk through something that you purchased in, that you participated in. And it's very surreal. So I think as long as you can keep that up and keep an investor very, I don't want to say enchanted, but very excited about the opportunity, then yeah, I think the funds there open up because we have investors that we work with now and we are relatively high touch. We definitely communicate with them and everything. But the more you can do that and the more you can nurture that relationship like you're talking about, they tend to want to invest again and again and again. So it definitely is a strategy worth pursuing to get someone out there to actually see the property. But I don't know. That's me. What about you, Dave?

You know, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic and I don't want to make this a two hour episode. So why don't we do this? We will let Amy have the last word on this show, kind of wrap up what she was describing. I will save my thoughts for the follow up episode to this episode which will be sort of putting a, putting a button in it as you might say, Rob. And we'll get into. What do you do once you've got someone who's like, yeah, I've got some money to lend you work the fact process, it works out. How do you invest that money? There's debt, there's equity, there's combinations of the two, there's all kinds of creative ways. So I think that this would be a good thing to get into once we've finished the four part system. So if you want to hear my advice or my feedback on what I do when I'm raising money or different ways to do it, you're going to have to listen to the next episode before we get out of here. Amy, do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to leave us with?

Sure. Just as we wrap step for the Fact framework and those transactions are coming in, we talked about briefly about the VIP experience and defining what our follow up system looks like and how we're going to nurture our network moving forward. I always like to be clear with my private money lenders and let them know, hey, you are an investor in this deal. So as far as I'm concerned, this project is just as much yours as it is mine. So use this in your portfolio, put this on your website as one of your properties. You know that's coming soon. Blast it all over social media. Media. Tell your friends and family members about this amazing new build that's coming up in Austin, Texas. And just be comfortable sharing this project as a part of your own, because I really believe that this is yours just as much as it is mine.

Oh, that's awesome. Robini, what do you think about the show so far? Any last words for us before we get out of here?

No, I was just gonna say that the reason I say put a button on it is because you're. You're cute as a button when you talk about real estate, David. That's all.

You know, speaking of cute is the button. There are so many bears. I'm out here in the Smoky Mountains right now looking at more cabins, and I've seen about seven bears in two days. They're, like, everywhere. I mean, I just thought it was like every once in a while you might see a bear, but no, they're walking down the street, they're going into people's front yards. I was literally looking at a house, and a bear came walking up on the porch as I was stepping outside to, like, open the door and see the view out of the corner of my eye. What I thought was, like, a black lab was actually a very big black bear. Well, I guess it would be very big for a lab. It was a small for a bear, but still, it just comes, like, sauntering up, looks right at you, cruises around, sniffs around for food, walks away. It's kind of amazing how they're everywhere out here, and I keep hearing people call them cute. I was like, you know, that's not what I think of when I see a bear. I see, like, that's an apex predator that has, that is not afraid of anything that is competition for me. Like, I don't see cute at all. Amy, what's your thoughts on that? Are bears cute or are they scary?

Yeah, I will. They are not cute. Even a giant black lab. I love dogs, but, no, I, I, I'm like, I don't know. I haven't even been to Yosemite. Like, I don't jive well with bears.

Yeah, I actually, I had a bear walk up to me at my chalet in Gatlinburg. When I bought it, it was probably about 4 or 5ft away. Just like, like you said, just, like, casual. And I was right next to someone, and I got, I was tying my shoe, and I got up and I was like. And I just started, like, basically, me and the person I was next to.

We saw.

We realized it at the same time. And she was like, bear. And we did what you're supposed to do, which is just run as fast as you can away from the bear. We made it out alive. We're okay. I'm glad she did because I was out of words. And I later found out that what you're supposed to do is instead of running, you're just supposed to point at it and shout out its insecurities to its face. But I just, I didn't know that that tidbit at the time. So I could go back.

Never approved of you. And the bear will just turn around and run away.

That's right. I wish I had known that. But it's okay. We made it.

You have really small paws for a bear your size.

You call those bear paws?

Barely paws at all. And on our final episode, you will get to hear Amy's insults towards a bear that she uses to keep herself safe when she does encounter a bear as well. So don't miss it. Rob, if people want to find out more about you, where can they go?

Oh my gosh, your ass, dude. You, you pick up quick, man. You can find me on YouTube over at Rob Built. That's R O B U I L T. You can find me on Instagram @Rob built as well. And tick tock at Robbilto. What about you, David?

I'm David Green, 24, and I'm now doing YouTube lives@YouTube.com David Green Real Estate. If you guys want to come in and ask me questions, feel free. But most importantly, Amy, if someone wants to give you money or they want to learn more about your fact system, where can they find out more about you?

Sure, you guys can catch me on Instagram @AmyMaggiore or just come join us. In October, I'm doing a live event in Long Beach, California and we'll have a two day conference all about real estate and money. And it's going to be a lot of fun.

All right. And most importantly, you can follow Bigger Pockets for more than just the podcast. We have a YouTube channel where I interview different people. Other people are interviewed about different things if there's a specific topic. Short term rentals, finding on market deals, finding off market deals, commercial real estate, whatever your first flavor is, head over to YouTube and check out the BiggerPockets YouTube channel because there's a ton of content, much of it shorter than this, but more specific in nature. You can get lost in there and I hope you do because it's good to spend your time watching real estate videos instead of cat videos or on TikTok biggerpockets is much better for your financial future. All right Amy, thank you so much. If you guys would like to hear Amy again, all you gotta do is check out the next episode. Please like share and subscribe this episode on the podcast. We love you and we'll see you on the next one. One this is David Green for Rob the Bear Cub Abasolo signing on.

Thank you all for listening to the Biggerpockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico, Content and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. the content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk, so use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose and rem. Remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. Biggerpockets, LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.