Jonathan Cronin connects biblical principles to recession-proof strategies, emphasizing community, skill development, and value-add apartment investments. He argues that building high-margin businesses and surrounding yourself with the right people matters more than market conditions.
Hey everybody, it's Jonathan. Hope you're doing well today. I want to share with you something I felt put on my heart and it's concerning the recession, okay? The recession we're in and that we're going in. And I want to talk about the number one thing that is needed. And this comes from a place of both a biblical perspective and a real estate perspective. And from real estate end, this is seeing my partner and people who have been doing this for many years go through recessions and then also studying and learning about it. But why the vehicle that we're doing in real estate is going to be your best bet. But then the number one thing Warren Buffett recently said, just recently, he said, in a recession, there's two things that you need to focus on. One is developing skills, investing in yourself, okay? Invest in yourself developing skills. Skills still remain a priority in the place of a recession. And then the second thing is invest in a high margin business to be in, own a high margin business. And so from a biblical and spiritual perspective, anything that I have seen progress in, in my life, any amount of success, any amount of anything that I've done that's good, that God has helped me through that has been good in my life, okay? Anything it's been because of one principle that he's drilled in me constantly, okay? And so I have so many people come in from many different perspectives, whether through real estate, business, or maybe you're a parent and you are trying help your children, or maybe you're a child and you're trying to help your parents or blah, blah, blah, like so many perspectives because we've been in ministry and business. But I'm telling you, the number one piece of advice from me that you'll get is it's all about community, okay? Which is which Warren Buffett is literally saying, you need skills, you need to level up your skills. Now how do you level up your skills? You get in the same room with the people who are where you want to be, okay? So if you know somebody who has, you know, done extremely well in a recession, if you know somebody who is where you want to be in terms of, you know, whatever your goals are, you need to get in the same room with them, do whatever you can there. God spoke to me this morning and reminded me when I first got saved, the first thing I did, I immediately went into a ministry college, okay, With a bunch of people who really didn't have any grid for addiction, really didn't have any grid for anything like that. I've been Going through, they identified, they were people who just loved Jesus, you know, were going after ministry. Their goals were completely, you know, I had to align with those goals. So anyway, I was mentored by my spiritual dad, Pastor Ruben Figueroa in Griffin, Georgia. And you know, I have several mentors now. In fact, the Bible literally says, have many advisors and your plans will succeed. And so again, you know, that is what Warren Buffett is saying. And then as I've progressed in ministry, starting ministries, I've just sought so many people and it's literally the reason I'm here. Jesus has led people around me to help me get to where I'm going. There's so much I could say about this. But even in terms of business as ministry, like we've started kingdom minded businesses. My last business we took over was actually a family business, something that I could have easily ran by myself. But I knew there was opportunity for me. I brought in a partner that took 50% of. It's taken 50% of profits. Okay, why did I do that? Because he has a level of experience that I don't have. Even though I know the family business, I could easily run it. The value of bringing in somebody who has a different skill set, more experience, has 10x'd what I could have done in that business. And we've been able to impact so many more people's lives and fund so much more things because of me. Bringing in a partner, even though at the forefront it looks scary, you know, it's like, man, you're spending a lot of money or giving up a lot. And you know, when God called us to business, I just started buying so many courses, so many books and just programs and whatever I could. And it is, it has returned a thousand times more. So I just wanted to jump on here. I know this is a long rant, but in terms of real estate, you know, you're thinking about the exact same things. You know, whenever it comes to a recession, you know, the biggest thing you need is skills. But a high margin business, what is that? Why, why did he say a high margin business? Why did Warren Buffett say that? Because the margins are what's going to be hit, obviously. So what you have to do is when you're buying apartments, when you're buying these things, you're buying them for cash flow. You're not buying them based on speculation. Okay, so what you want to do is simply buy value add apartment, apartments. And why apartments versus single family? Because you have way more wiggle room to lose money on apartments than you do single family, you have way more units. The more units, the more you can multiply by the rents. Any rent increase is going to get, you know, each dollar you add to the bottom line on an apartment, you can multiply by 7 or 10 to the value of the apartment. So when you raise the rents 100 bucks at a single family, you just, you didn't do anything to the appreciation or to the, to the value of the property. You did very little. But if you raise it 100 bucks on 50 units, you just raised it $5,000 a month. Month. And that's about $50,000 added on forced appreciation on the value of apartments. So if the apartment's already cash flowing and then before you even do anything to it, you have much more room to lose on the deal. So anyway, the more units, the more stability. Okay. There's so many other reasons why apartments are going to be so much better. Now. People who lost out 2008, we're generally over leveraged. And so that's a whole other topic. But if that helps you, if you find value in that, I'd love to connect with you. If you feel like this is the, you know, you want to learn how to invest money in the recession, you want to grow in spiritual matters, you want to grow in anything. I believe Acts 2 is one of the biggest models that we have to look at every day. If you are truly trying to see growth, exponential growth, the model of Acts 2 is going to cultivate the most, the best culture for growth. I truly believe in my heart that to the degree that we steward that to the degree we steward the culture, it said everyone shared, everyone had, no one had lack. Everyone shared. And they devoted themselves to the teachings, to the fellowship, to everything. And it said thousands were added to their number daily. That is the power of that culture. And I believe that is what we've got to get to as both the church and people who truly want to steward the callings and giftings and talents upon their lives. So I know this is a long rant, but I hope that helps and let me know. Love to connect with you.
