Private Money Lending 101: How to Raise or Lend Safely With Lauren Brychell

Contrary to what many might think, having a great deal is not enough to fund your next project using private money lenders. In today's episode, we have Lauren Brashaw. She has raised over $75 million, and she lays out the must-haves you need to put in place to get funded, including building an effective pitch deck to present to your investors. Let's get to work. Private money lending. Many people think that only when you don't have the funds to fund your property, you go to private money lenders. But what we would encourage you to do is private money lending is a tool to your toolbox that you should know how to use it in case if you need it or don't need it. Many people that have the cash are leveraging other people's money in order to fund their deals. And that's what we're going to be tackling today. So Lauren, what is one thing, one myth about private money lending that you would like investors to drop off today?

I would like investors to drop off the myth that just because you have a great deal means that you can easily find the money.

Oh, because that's what people say, bring the deal. And so tell me more about it.

Yeah, just because you have that great deal does not mean the money is automatically going to come. It is extremely difficult to raise capital before you've ever done it, right? It gets easier as you build that muscle and build your network. But if you've never raised capital before and you have a great deal, you think, okay, great, people will fund this, no problem. Unfortunately, you might be mistaken. Hopefully you won't be, but you might be. So I would say start raising capital and start networking as early as possible before you actually have that deal where you need the money. For your best chance at success.

So let's say I am an APECO, right? You have the woman listening here say, oh, that's actually me. I never raised, I never needed to raise, but now I am tapped out with my capital and I came across this great deal. And now what are the next 3 steps that this person needs to take before they even propose the idea for a potent— to a potential private money lender?

So a couple steps to take would be: one, write down the people in your network today who might potentially be an investor with you. So start there, start writing names down, start thinking about who's in your network already. That would be a first point of contact for raising that capital. Second, if you don't have anyone in your network, then try to go through an exercise and figure out who would you want to be your investors if you had to start completely from scratch with a network. And then from there, that can kind of guide where you can find those investors. But after that, I would start with getting some of your materials together so that when you do have that deal and you are ready to go to them and ask for capital or ask to partner on a deal together, you have something really polished to present to them that shows that you are serious. You really understand this deal. You've put time and effort into preparing this presentation. And then they'll just be wowed with the results. Oh my gosh, this pitch deck is amazing, or this PPM is amazing. And I, I can tell that they're so serious about this and they really know what they're talking about.

And if you're like, what the hell are you talking about? Stay tuned because we're gonna dissect a little bit more about the pitch deck and how can you really set yourself up for success. But I wanna talk about here the, the myth of, not the myth, or it's actually true. The millionaire next door, right? Because when we start making our list of people that we know, we always think about, okay, who has money, right? Who do I know that I know has a nice house, a nice car, dresses well, or whatever the stereotype is? Who are those people? And I think that's a big mistake to assume that, don't you think?

Yes, absolutely. With keeping up with the Joneses these days, you never know who's overleveraged, who actually has cash in the bank, um, just by the way that they look or what they drive. Absolutely.

And I think that one, one other point is that it's more of a mindset, right? Well, I'm going to be asking people for money. Uh, how did you shift that mindset for you? You were able to raise over $75 million. So instead of like, oh, I'm going to be going around and asking people for their money, how did you shift that?

Yes, and this is so important, especially for newer capital raisers. It's really scary to think, especially if you're starting with friends and family, gosh, I don't want to ask them for $50,000. That's super scary. What if they don't understand what I'm pitching? What if they don't have the money? Or what if they don't believe in me? Instead of doing that, switch that mind shift to your point, to presenting them opportunity to help build and grow their wealth. Because that's truly what you're doing. You found an opportunity, you're excited about it, you're probably investing your own capital in it, and you want to share that opportunity with those that you either love, friends and family, or with a network of people who are interested in that type of thing as well. So you really are, you're presenting that opportunity, it's well vetted, you're an expert in this space, you've been doing deals, and now you want to share either that cash flow or that upside or both with, um, with others. So it's, it's truly an opportunity that they might not have if you had not presented it to them.

Absolutely. And talking about family and friends, right, it's complicated. It can be complicated, right? You cannot just lose their money, but their— the relationship can also go down the drain pretty quickly. Would you deal differently with a family member than somebody that it's not a family member? Is there— do you usually do anything different?

You know, the only thing I might do slightly different, talking to a friend and family who might not be as sophisticated with the deal at hand versus a real estate investor who does this all the time, is I would outline the risks very clearly and let them know before jumping into this deal, hey, this is a great deal in my opinion. I've done all the research. I've put the pro forma together. Of course, real estate investing is inherently risky. And just so you know, this could potentially not go to plan. And so I would lay all the risks out there upfront, just so they really understand that this is not potentially going to go 100% according to plan, cash flow might be lower some months, you might have to sell a couple years later just to hit the exits that you need to. So I would be extremely transparent about that and open and say, hey, you know, that's the name of the game. No matter what deal it is, it has potential risk. I'm still investing in this, I still believe in it, but I just wanted you to know. So that kind of takes any awkwardness off the table. Or if you're not upfront and clear with the potential risks, it could cause for an awkward Thanksgiving.

Yeah, absolutely awful. Awful Thanksgiving. Let's not do that. When you think about private money lending, right, and the speed, assuming that you have built a relationship with somebody and then you have your pitch deck and all good to go, thinking about the current market, low inventory, many times It's the speed that's going to make a difference between an investor getting the deal and not getting the deal versus going through a traditional financing. I want you to talk a little bit about that, cuz I think a lot of people are like, go, go start raising last minute, and that is too late. That's not going to yield them the speed that is needed to get it done because at the end of the day, the private money lender Let me make a disclaimer here. A true private money lender will do their due diligence as, as quick as they can, but they still will do the due diligence. They are not gonna just say, yeah, I'll do it and let's go for it. So, uh, I wanted to talk about the, the, the time of it. How can we make this process quick, easier for both ends?

Yep. Great question. So I would say the best way to do it is to start building those relationships and start having these conversations with potential investors way before you even have a deal. I mean, possibly 8 to 12 months before would be ideal, right? So as you're looking for deals, it might take a while to come, come to one that makes sense. Start networking, start having these conversations, whether it's with your friends and family, or with other investors in the area, or people who could potentially place money into your deal. Because these investors are going to be investing with you based on the relationship, building that trust. That does not happen overnight. And so starting early is really helpful. It also is really helpful to build these relationships, especially with people who aren't your friends and family, early because they don't know you yet. They need to understand who you are and building that relationship before you just pitch them a deal right off the bat. It's going to be so much more effective for long-term partnership and long-term reinvestments. Assuming your deals go well, um, than anything else. So start way earlier than you think networking around, building your network of investors so that when you do have that deal that comes up, they already know you, they know what you're doing, they really like who you are and they are interested in partnering with you. And so they've been waiting for this moment for you to have a deal and then they're going to jump in a lot faster. Um, so that would be my recommendation there. And then on the other side, when you are looking at a deal and you think it might go through, maybe it's not quite under LOI yet or, um, under contract, start putting your marketing materials together, even though it might seem a little bit premature. Those can take a little bit of time to put together. And so having those as early as possible so that when you are under LOI or contract, you can start handing out that marketing deck now instead of taking another couple of weeks. And then you've lost a couple of weeks of capital raising time because you weren't prepared early. So those would be my couple of tips.

Let's, let's dig into that because I've seen pitch decks that had like 3 pages and I've seen pitch decks that have like 25 pages and was for a single-family house. So, I think people really underestimate that and they go last minute and then they dump their brain or they say too little or too much in one single slide that is like, whoa. Or one thing that I've seen in the past, I don't know if you've seen this, the people, take a screenshot of the spreadsheet and then they put that on the slide and it's blurry as hell. I don't know if I'm getting old here or not, but it's blurry as hell. I cannot see anything in there. I don't know what they're talking about and I don't even want to continue reading anything. So, you have evaluated many, many deals. How can you tell in 5 minutes if it is— that is a deal that you would like to pursue, uh, funding?

Yep, great question. So I would agree with that. Having blurry pictures or screenshots, you can tell something was slapped together, is, is definitely a red flag for me, right? Um, it's so— I wouldn't say it's so easy to create a pitch deck today, but it's a lot easier today than it was in the past with all the different AI tools and everything else to put something really polished together in a decently quick manner. So having a lot of grammatical errors and misspellings and things like that is definitely a red flag. I would probably pass on a deal at that point. If I can't figure out the information very quickly on the deal, the projected returns, and who's managing or buying this deal, that's immediately off the table for me as well. It's really important. I like to take the approach of the bottom line up front. Why are investors investing? One, what are the projected returns? Let's put that right at the top. What can investors expect potentially to see as a return on their capital? Then I want to see what the deal is itself. If I can't really understand what the business plan is and where the deal is and what it is I'm investing in very quickly, you know, off the table. That's pretty much next for me. And then I want to see, third, who is operating this? What's their experience like? What's their team like? What's their track record? All of this type of stuff. And so those are the most important components. And if I can't see those quickly, I'm, I'm moving on to the, to the next deal because the goal of a pitch deck, in my opinion, is to get the investors enough information to say, okay, I'm interested in this deal. I've evaluated step one. Now I'm ready to go dive deeper. I'm ready to talk to the sponsor. I'm ready to look into the private placement memorandum, the PPM, to see all the legal, legalese, right? And so the goal for me is just to give enough information to continue the conversation and to arm the investors with great questions to ask when they get on the phone with that sponsor.

I love what you're saying, and I have so many follow-up questions. My brain went, went different directions over here. I think number one, what you're saying, I'm giving enough information for them to know how we're gonna get— how am I gonna get my money back? Or on the other side, right, depending on which side you are, you are in, if you're receiving receiving that, or if you're presenting that, you want to let them know how they're going to get money back versus what I've seen so far with good intention, good intention. But I think many people want to give all, all, all the information all at once. And Liz and I went to Alex and Leila Hormozi's workshop. And one thing that they were saying is that We assume that people want to know every single detail upfront, and that is incorrect. And I'm like, true. Many times we just talk too much. We give it too much. We make it so complicated for people to understand, and then they don't take the next step. So it's like, okay, phase one, what is the enough, the must-have information here for them to say, Okay, great. That's now, let's go to the next step. Let me look deeper on the financials and next steps. And I think one on the other side, there are people that are very short with the information, right? And that they're not providing nothing. I've seen pitch decks that I was like, who is it?

You? Is it?

Because there's no, there's not. Information about the team, as you mentioned. We don't have their picture. We don't have the team's picture. It's like sometimes stock photos. And I'm like, who are those people that you put in here? Because I don't see you here. How important is it to humanize a pitch deck?

So important because remember, these relationships with these investors are built because you're a person. People invest with people. Right? They don't invest in the deck. They invest with the team who's carrying out this deal. So it's really important to humanize it, whether it's team photos or showing the company culture in some aspect, having some interesting, you know, full team photos, whatever that might be, showing that they're sold to the company and people enjoy working there and the team is there to stay. And, and all the people that are carrying out all the different parts of this investment are happy working there. And it's really important. I mean, the more personality that you can show, The better.

One thing, Lauren, that Liz and I always raise the flag to all the women inside investor communities that don't assume that the person raising the money in case of a syndication or something like that is the same person managing the asset. Right? Sometimes, sometimes it's like, oh yeah, I talked to them and I was like, Who is actually managing the asset? Because one, one of the ways that we evaluate the risk of lending money is truly on the asset management team, because they can make it or break. They can execute the business plan or things might go, might go down. How do you evaluate that?

To your point, if it's not very clear who is managing it in that pitch deck, it's worth a conversation with whoever is listed there, right? There are a lot of fund managers these days who are raising capital for other projects, but there's no reason they should not be completely transparent and proud about who is actually managing that investment on the backend, right? They should say, hey, we are so excited to partner up with XYZ company. And we, you know, we've got special terms for our investors and, you know, we love their deals and I've invested in them personally or whatever it is. If they're not going to be the ones managing them or they're not being transparent about that, that would be a really big red flag to your point because who knows at that point who you're actually investing in just because it's the middle, you know, middle person fund manager. I've seen it both ways to your point. I've seen it where it's very transparently laid out and they are proud to focus on the asset manager. And other times I have seen it where they want the spotlight even though they're not the ones carrying out that deal. And that's a big issue because You don't know what that track record is of that person actually purchasing that asset and carrying out the operations. And that can be, yeah, make it or break it.

Absolutely. One thing that Liz and I have seen many times, right, is the social media moguls and people. We're like, don't, don't assume. Ask a lot of questions. If you are lending the money, ask a lot of questions. If you're looking to get investments, be okay answering questions versus, oh my gosh, why are they asking me so many questions? They're not trusting me, or what is going on? It's just a common practice to be transparent and clear as much as possible, because otherwise, how are we going to get to the end line here, you know, to the finish line? For the introverts out there, right? Like, like me, we're like fake introverts. We get a little excited, but we would like our quiet time. What is your perspective actually? What is your perspective between introverts and extroverts raising money? On the hand, you have the extrovert that talk a lot, talk a lot. They talk a lot and might not really understand the communication of the other person and adjust to that. And introverts might talk very little. Again, it's all about the person in front of you and our way of communicating. But what have you seen that both have as an advantage?

So I would say, yeah, definitely pros and cons to both, right? So the extrovert who talks a lot, they might not end up building that relationship quite as well with that investor, maybe, because when you're building those relationships and you're having those first calls, you really should be letting the investor do most of the talking. You're needing to know them and their goals and what they're looking for. And then you're kind of assessing and asking great open-ended questions to further that relationship and build that trust subconsciously. So I would say that's maybe a, you know, a con on the extrovert side. Um, but, uh, but a pro on the extrovert side is they love networking. They're going to go out and meet 5 times as many people as an introvert might. And they love that and they love being around people. And, and that's definitely a huge pro. I would say that I'm an extrovert and I used to fly to a different networking event every single week and I thrived off of that. I loved it. And so I was able to build a big network and I just love people. So that's definitely a pro. And for the introverts, I would say, you know, if you're not loving talking to people as much, maybe you keep your circle a little, a little bit closer, tighter knit, but you're probably building some deeper relationships because again, you're letting the investor talk more. You're not talking, you know, broadly to 100 people, you're talking very deeply and intentionally to 10. And so you might have larger check sizes that come from that. You might have more reinvestments, you might be introduced to their friends and family and colleagues faster, right? So that's a potential pro. And then, you know, a con that could be turned into a pro, maybe you don't like talking as much, but maybe you have all your written materials really buttoned up and polished so that you can present that to your investors. And then they have 90% of their questions answered off the bat. So you don't have to talk.

There we go. So, there's no excuse, ladies. If you're introvert or extrovert, it doesn't matter. One thing, um, that is common, a common denominator is building the relationship, right? You mentioned about start building the relationship before you have a deal between 8 to 12 months. During the presentation, you build that relationship during the funding process and the, during the, the execution of the deal itself, keeping that communication. What I have seen is that a lot of people put a lot of time networking and then they have somebody that is lending to them and then they forget to nurture that relationship after. And then they start looking for more new people versus nurturing the current relationship because at the end of the day, if you ran a tight project, they got their return on the investment, you're going to hear at the end, okay, what's next? And they roll that money over. So I think a lot of people forget the nurturing at the end of a project, um, to continue that relationship. Of course, you're always looking for more, more people, but really nurturing the current ones. Where are the data of them? Like where you're keeping the data, how you're communicating with them. And really intentionally reaching out. How do you nurture your private money lenders or, or the people that you lend money to?

Absolutely. And that's such an important piece that I agree. So many people forget because they get busy, they're running the project, they think, oh, well, they've already invested. It is so much easier to raise capital from people who have already invested with you than to start from scratch again. Of course, you always need to be doing both to your point, but I like to put together a really simple CRM, like a HubSpot account. It's $20 a month. That way you can track all of your texts, emails, notes. You don't have to remember their kids' names. You can have it all in a note there. So when you call them up, hey, how's, how's Sally doing this week? Right? So I like to also set reminders in my CRM as well so that I don't have to remember every quarter to check in with them. I personally love a really simple approach of Checking in with them monthly, quarterly, you know, at least, and just calling them up and saying, hey, how's it going? Continuing to build that relationship, asking about how, you know, maybe their kids just went to college. How's their experience been? Tell me about your family vacations this summer. Really just continue that genuine conversation. And when you're nurturing them and you're keeping up with them, I recommend not pitching a new deal. I recommend not asking for more money. Just call them up and say hello. Invite them to lunch if they're local, if you're going to be in their city, really just put more of an emphasis on the relationship and taking the time to say, hey, we're still here. You know, you can give a project update if something's going well or not well or whatever. Just, hey, I just wanted you to know I was just on site last week. Project's looking awesome. Just something casual to let them know that, you know, you're still there, their money's safe. Um, and you're not asking anything from them. So I think that's a great way to do it. And again, it can be monthly, quarterly, whatever you have time for, but make it genuine, make it on some sort of consistent basis. And then if the projects are going well, this is also a great time to ask for referrals. So maybe they've invested for the last year, they're getting timely distributions. Hey, by the way, do you know anyone in your circle who might also be interested in monthly distributions? That's a great way to build that. And people like to help people. So it's, it seems really awkward in the beginning to either A, check in with your investors casually, or B, you know, you feel like they don't want to be bothered. They're investing passively for a reason, but they really do want to hear from you. And it always feels awkward to ask for referrals, but people really like to help people. And again, you're presenting opportunities to their network to help them with their financial goals. So it's a win-win all around. It's just changing that mindset.

I want to emphasize what Lauren just said. Do you know anybody that would be interested in monthly distributions? It's focusing on the goals of the person, not like, are you in? Do you know anybody that could lend me money? It's not about you. It's about them. Like, it's very, it's the same thing, but it's very different. The focus is different. And I think people are like, okay, let me see who else is also interested. In getting monthly distributions. Because guess who? Rock stars know rock stars, and that person might be hanging out with 3 or 4 more. And when there is a referral, the trust factor goes so much faster. So Lauren, we talked about so many things here, right? And let's go back to the deck, because a lot of women like, okay, I know that it's so important and I want to do that, but I actually need help. I need help with that. And I truly need help. I don't need to watch another video. I want like a hands-on, somebody helping me build my deck. And for all, if that's you, take a deep breath, first of all. And get prepared because guess what? Lauren is going to be running a workshop at InvestorCon to help you build your pitch freaking deck. You're gonna do it together. So Lauren, what people can expect from this workshop at InvestorCon?

I'm excited about this workshop. So people can expect to come with nothing except for maybe some project specifics, or even if they don't have a project that they're actively looking for, we can build a template out so that when they would do have the details, they can, you know, plug and play, right? They're ready to go. So I would say that they can come prepared with maybe a little bit of branding, maybe a little bit of colors that they want or not, right? We can start from scratch there as well. And we're going to do a start from finish pitch deck. It's not going to be crazy 30 pages long, cause I don't think that's necessary, but it's going to be a full pitch deck. That will be usable for a project you've currently got going on or a future project that you can plug and play the information into. So start to finish, we're going to do it all together, and you're going to leave with a really easy-to-edit PDF or Canva document or wherever we decide to do it, and you'll be ready to go.

Love it, love it. And the good news is the workshops are before the conference starts, and it's included on your early bird ticket that will end soon. So we're gonna leave all the information on our show notes. What are you waiting for? Get your ticket, RSVP to Lauren's workshop, because I will be there taking a sneak peek because you're gonna get started at InvestorCon with already a few steps ahead. It feels good when we get things done, don't we? So get your ticket today. Lauren, thank you so much for being here. I can't wait to see you in Arizona. Thank you again for all you do to our community.

Thank you so much.