Episode 2: The One-Man-Band Landlord Is Dead—Here's What Replaces Him

You're listening to The Potentializer, the show where small apartment investors learn how to grow wealth faster with less effort, more credibility, and real impact. Hosted by bestselling author and platform builder Lance Edwards, this podcast is your inside track to smarter models, collaborative deals, and overlooked opportunities that create true freedom. Whether you're just getting started or ready to scale with partners, platforms, and purpose, This is your launchpad.

Hi, welcome to The Potentializer. This is where we're unlocking the true potential in people through small apartment real estate platforms and partnerships. I'm your host, Lance Edwards, author, entrepreneur, and founder of the Wealth Mastermind Network. And this isn't just another real estate show. This is all about scaling wealth, authority, and impact by potentializing what you already have, whether it's a property, whether it's a partnership, or your own untapped Brilliant. So, if you're an aspiring entrepreneur investor ready to step into your first deal or you're an experienced owner looking for leverage, freedom, and legacy, you're in the right place. Let's potentialize what's possible. And, you know, today's episode, you know, there's a reason most small apartment owners burn out, stall out, Or never scale. And that's just the facts of the matter. Certainly comes to small apartments. And it's not because they picked the wrong market. Nope. It's not because they don't know what to do. It's because they are all— they're doing it all alone. They're doing it all alone. And that is the number one reason why people either never get started or they get stuck. They can get stuck because they can't get their first deal done, or they get stuck because they got a few deals done. Now they can't scale. But there is a better model. And in today's episode, I'm gonna show you what it looks like. And so, let's start off by talking about the old model. The old model is broken. And it's the model that I describe as the one-man band landlord. And if I use this symphony analogy, or you think of the music industry, let's say that I wanted to Make money. I love music and I want to make money through music as a musician. Well, one way I could do it, I could become a one-man band. I could strap the drum to my back and the harmonica in my mouth and I could have cymbals between my knees and I could be playing a violin and I could go out and go on the side of the road, on the sidewalk, put a little tin cup out there and all of a sudden I'm a one-man band and I'm just working my heart out and I am making music. For loose change. And that is the one-man band landlord model. If I now extend that over into real estate, particularly small apartments. And what I mean by the one-man band is that you're doing everything as the one-man band. And this is how so many people get started. This is how I got started, at least how I attempted to get started. And it's not a viable method. You can get some temporary results. You absolutely cannot scale. You can wear yourself out. You can live a life of constant stress because you're trying to do everything. And a lot of it comes from the rugged individualism mindset I think that we were taught growing up, you know, here. And that rugged individualism is carried over in entrepreneurship. That's not the model for success. I'm telling you, that's not the model for success. And so, as a one-man band, what are you so busy doing? Well, first of all, Let's say you're getting started. You got to go find deals. You got to go analyze those deals. You got to make the broker calls. You got to do your direct mail. You've got to make your offers. You have all the uncertainty because you're all alone. Exactly what you're doing. Got to handle all the negotiations by yourself. That's when you're trying to get a deal done. If you're owning assets, if you're owning assets as literally the one-man band landlord, Or this might even be the one-man band mom-and-pop landlord because many of these are mom-and-pops. So now you're all wrapped up, you own this property, you think you're savings— you think you're saving money by not paying a property manager. So you're spending your personal time to fix toilets, to collect the rent, to do the evictions, to do the bookkeeping, to do the showings, to do the repairs, to do the painting, all because I'm saving money. And all you're doing is Exerting a huge opportunity cost upon yourself and most likely degrading your health. And you're working harder for less. You're working harder for less. Let me give you an example of this. I could, you know, just share one. This is one, you know, and by the way, this is the model in small apartments. I come across this pretty much every time I'm buying a property in small apartments. Again, small apartments are 2 to doors to up to 100 doors. And it's not so much the number of doors, it's the fact that these are mom-and-pop owned and operated. And what's classic is classic. I had a property I was buying in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, 60-unit property. And I was there walking the property. We were actually there as part of the due diligence, had it under contract. And the owner was walking alongside of us. The owner and his wife, lovely people, 80 years old. And been operating this property. He lives in Tulsa, so he's driving back and forth. It's about an hour drive from Tulsa to Bartlesville. Check on his property regularly, and and he's walking around the property, and I'm noticing the residents are coming out, and and they know him. Hey, Gene, how's that gallbladder surgery? They have his personal cell phone. They they he knows every person out there, and and he's involved in every step of the operations. And by the way. He hasn't raised the rents in who knows how long. And he'll be the first to admit it. He'll be the first to admit it. And so, he has— and he's selling this property because he thought now would be a good time at 80 years old to step away from real estate. Well, that is so much the mindset of small apartment owners. And if that's you right now, God love you. But I'm telling you, there's a better path. There's a better path where you can actually have a lifestyle and you can scale upon it. Now, the reason I love small apartments is because what I found in that property, which I find every single time I'm doing the due diligence on these small apartment buildings, is all this overlooked opportunity. It's all this untapped potential. There's generally always an opportunity for a $100 rent bump just by going from current rents to market rents. And how do we get that? Well, We could just go in and just bump the rents as I took over. I don't do it that way. I go in and I want— remember, I'm the potentializer. And so, I want to potentialize the experience for my residents. And so, I spend time showing them how they're going to get a better experience. How they're going to get updated units. How the grounds are going to be better. How we're going to secure the property. We do all these things first and then we start introducing the rent bumps. But all this opportunity is always there. And why this is so important is it's like all this low-hanging fruit. Imagine it laying on the ground, dollar bills laying on the ground. And when you take into account that in small apartments, because they're commercial property, every $100 rent bump that I make equates to $15,000 per door value increase through something called forced appreciation. I mean, it's predictable, it's instantaneous. And so, we are going in with the opportunity to add We add value to the experience of our residents. In exchange, they give us value by premium rents and other fees that they're going to pay us. And so, but the classic one-man band landlord or mom-and-pop landlord, they never do these things. And so, there's all this opportunity out there. And so, what that model leads to, it doesn't scale because you're too busy doing everything. One-man bands can only play one sidewalk at a time. And so, you can't scale it. And then you give current pressures like, you know, insurance premiums going up 60% on the renewals this year. Oh, gulp. Now, what do I do? There goes my cash flow. Or maybe I'm in negative cash flow. This exposes all the cracks because you're all alone. You have no one to turn to. So, this old model depends upon hustle. But hustle breaks down. It's leverage is what builds us up. Leverage is where the scale comes from. So, let me introduce the new model, the better model which I call the small apartment symphony. And let's stick to this music metaphor. You know, a one-man band making music, actually making pitties and making music. Symphony, on the other hand, what's the difference? Symphony is all about collaboration. It's not a one-man band. There's not one person up there playing a violin. It's a symphony where each player is bringing their strengths. You have members of the orchestra who've devoted their adult lives to learning how to master one instrument. And so there's a conductor that holds the sheet music, by the way, and Setting the vision for what they're going to produce together, and the conductor leads the symphony. And this is what I mean by having the small apartment symphony: is that each player is bringing playing to their strengths. It's a collaboration. It's a collaboration. And this gets into where you have the right people on your team. And so that your collaboration could include you could have a deal finder. You could have the operator. That's a third-party property management company. Small apartment owners again. They hate to hire third-party management companies because they somehow think that they're, you know, wasting the money. It's the best use of their money they possibly could have if you have the right collaborative partner, collaborative property manager. The lenders, of course, bring their strength. The capital partners, the private people with private capital who are going to loan you the money. One of the biggest things people think, God, I wish I could do a deal. I don't have the money. I wish I could scale. I don't have the money. I wish I could make these improvements. I don't have the money. Well, that's part of the collaboration. You bring that in off the platform. In our case, the Wealth Mastermind Network for your capital partner. And then you bring in all the advisors you need when things happen. And so, under the small apartment symphony model, you don't need to play every instrument. And that's what so many people are doing. That's what this 80-year-old gentleman was doing on his property. He was playing every instrument and learning to play every instrument. And so, you can't be very good playing every instrument. But what you need to do instead is assemble the right people, assemble the right orchestra, and be the conductor. So, when I talk about putting this— having the structure in place or having all the pieces in place, and those pieces include having the right people, having the right systems, having the right environment, that's what we've done through our platforms. And that's why I made the pivot from being seminar and coaching business to a platform business because that is truly the missing link to getting unstuck. That's the missing link to success. Let me give you an example of this. So, I'm in a— well, I have a property in Oklahoma City. 56-unit property. It was found by a member of the mastermind. It was found by a deal finder. Her name was Kathy. And Kathy found the property. She's a retired schoolteacher in San Diego. She learned how to be a deal finder. She brought the property to me. She used some software. That's the system she had. It gave us a green light versus a red light. Green light means go. She brought it to me. I took it from there. Paid her a finder's fee. Own that property today. It's running at 95% occupancy. And I don't spend 30 minutes a week on that property. Why? Because I have the right people in place. I'm gonna give you another one I'm in right now. This is a 64-unit property. This is one we actually just submitted the contract on it. And this was found by another member of the mastermind. Coincidentally, her name is Kathy as well. And so, Kathy's have a kind of a pattern with me. She found the property. She found it with our collaborative broker, one of the members of the mastermind, one of the people that do it. And they found it. She greenlighted the deal using the software. She brought it to me. And I made the offer, got the signed letter of intent, waiting for the contract to come back literally as we speak right now. But she followed a system and that gives tremendous confidence to her. And she's able to borrow my authority, borrow the authority of the mastermind in presenting herself and presenting herself to the people I've already assembled for. The right brokers, the right property managers, the right insurers, going down the line. So, the whole point of all this is You can, through this small apartment symphony metaphor, you can plug in at your strength and you can grow without having to be everything to everyone. And that's what we're trying to— that's what people are trying to do. Matter of fact, when I came out of this, my first seminar 20 years ago, they gave me, here's all the things you got to do. My gosh, no human being could do all this stuff and not hold down a full-time job, which I had to do to, you know, keep— Housing for my family. So, you can't be everything to everyone. You can't do everything to everyone. You're going to tap in what my mentor Dan Sullivan calls your unique ability. Each of us has a unique ability. We're good, really, really especially good to do one particular thing. And so, the more you tap into that and the more you leverage other people's unique abilities to be on your team with the right people, That's when the symphonies are made. That's why I shifted from being the seminar business to the platform business. We've assembled the platform, we're expanding the platform. It's all about how do we provide all the pieces in place, how do we provide the structure, how do we provide the confidence, how can you borrow my authority, and in fact, how can you go build your own platform as you get started and expand. So, if you look at I think there's 3 components that if we want to replace the one-man band, the solo grind, I think there's 3 components. And this is what I saw, and this is why I pivoted, and this is what we're announcing and launching on July 4th, is there's 3 components. Number one, you've heard me speak about this, is a platform that attracts deals and partners. Okay. This— you need a platform to plug into whether you're aspiring, whether you're existing. My Wealth Mastermind Network is an example of that platform. You know, all the pieces are in place just like I was speaking about. All the right people, the right systems, right environment. You just need to plug in. And if you don't have the authority or you've— a lot of times people think, I don't have— I'm just brand new. I don't have the credibility. I don't have the authority. You don't have to go out and build it. You can borrow it because you have the platform to lean on. You're borrowing the authority of the platform. You can now speak in terms of, I'm part of a group that's buying properties in Oklahoma City. We just had a buying tour 2 weeks ago. Someone just closed on a 60-unit property last week. That's borrowed authority because you're part of the platform. That's what— because authority comes before your experience. For all of you that have yet to do a deal, the authority comes before the experience. You can borrow that authority even when you're scaling up. I don't have the money. You're going to turn to the platform to find the money. And as you're speaking to investors, I'm part of a mastermind, I'm part of a group, they back up all the decisions that I make. This platform is one of the 3 components to how to replace this solo grind, this one-man band model. The second component It's important— is partnerships. Partnerships as the new power move. And this is really part of having all the pieces in place is partnerships. Partnerships about the right people and the collaborations. Because you can partner on anything. I don't have time. You can partner on that. I don't have the talent. You can partner on that. I don't have the capital. You can partner on that. I don't have the experience. You can partner on that. I don't have the credit score. You can partner on that. There's nothing in small apartments that you can't borrow and partner with someone else to get the deal done. It's not you having all the pieces in place. You know, there are tremendous— it's called agency financing, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Small balance loan programs fit in the small space of small apartments, and you get the best interest rates, the lowest interest rates through these Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. And they don't have balloons, and they're just beautiful. And so you want to be in these loans, but they have some conditions. One of the conditions is you have to own five properties. One of the conditions is you have to have a net worth equal to at least equal to the loan amount that you're borrowing. You have to have liquidity of at least ten percent of loan amount. You have to have particular credit score. All right, if you're just getting started out, you may not have some or any of those conditions. Does that mean you're out of the game? No. You go partner with someone. You find someone like me. You do a partnership with me. You can borrow. My experience. You can borrow my financial statement. You can borrow my credit score. You can borrow my liquidity. And I am going to be co-sponsor on the project with you. And we apply jointly on the application. And your project gets approved. Now, you run the property. It's your property. I'm like the co-pilot. But you're borrowing my credentials to put you into these fantastic Loan deals, and to Freddie Mae and Freddie to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this is just the way things are done. This is not like something special. This is just the way it's done. But you have to be aware of it, and you're going to leverage these partnerships. This is what I'm doing with the members of the mastermind because you've got to get started somewhere. And so these are what leads to joint venture deals. There's something called well co-sponsoring. Hear me talk about that. There's the mastermind. The mastermind is a form of partnership. These are all. When I say partnerships, they're all, you know, formal or informal collaborations and partnerships. For example, when you're part of a mastermind, there's an informal collaboration going on there where you're solving problems together or you're identifying opportunities together. You know, Napoleon Hill's the one that talks about you bring more than 2 minds together and a 3rd mind appears. And that's why the mastermind is so important. We have collaborations now where members are buying in the same marketplaces buying their properties individually so they can share the same management company, they can share the same roving maintenance man, they can leverage their buying power and buy materials at a discount. And so partnerships is a second component of how you get yourself out of the one-man band is tapping into all the strength. And then the third component, the third component Now, there's no getting around it. AI is here. AI is growing weekly. I think it's almost like exponential. I mean, I work with it daily. I'm speaking to it. It's giving me ideas. We're bouncing ideas off. My staff are using it. My company has embraced it. And we're applying it into small apartments through our platform. And it is— think of AI as your new assistant. Even more than that, think of it as your confidant. Because the more you work with it, the more it comes to understand what your business situation— if you're using it for particularly your small apartment business, it will start suggesting things to you. It's learning. It's learning. So, it's not replacing people. Although I've just read recently, it's going to replace people that don't— you know, I've heard someone read— say the other day that you're not going to be replaced by AI, but you may be replaced by somebody who's using AI. Because it has become a leverage tool. And so, it's about helping to make better decisions faster. Faster. And because we have applications in deal analysis. There's a great example how to put for deal analysis. How to identify revenue leaks by looking at the financials. We do potentializer audits. Potentializer audits, we go into existing properties and we can see all the opportunity to increase the revenue. I have a property right now, the one in Oklahoma City, that we're going to raise at 91%. We've identified opportunities to raise the revenue 25% more without dropping below 90%. 25% more revenue bump out of finding all the opportunities for potentializing that asset, even at 91%. So that is the— that's the opportunity. AI is the new assistant. And so, The one thing I want to share here, the future is not about owning 100% of a deal. It's about owning 100% of your time. This is about a lifestyle. If you want to be the one-man band, you are sacrificing your time. And I dare say you're sacrificing your health. Let's get you on the path of where you now own 100% of your time and you're leveraging the efforts of others. So, as we wind down here, there's an invitation I want to share with you. If you've been trying to do all this on your own, or if you've hit a wall in your growth, or you're stuck getting started, this is your invitation to do it smarter and to do it with us and to do it with my platform. And, you know, I want to— I have an event coming up July the 4th. It's going to be our virtual launch event, July the 4th, 2025. That day has significance for me. It's Literally 20 years from my last day in corporate America. July 4th, 2005 was my personal Independence Day when I walked away from a 20-year career in engineering and embarked full-time in small apartments. I had spent the prior 3 years building up on a part-time basis doing small apartments. I'd reached the point where my small apartment income was exceeding my engineering income. And that's when my last day was July 4th, 2005. So, here we are 20 years later and the time, the pivot is occurring. It's time. It's the new model is upon us. It's not— and it's not an option. For example, AI is not an option. It's— these things are happening. And so, we need to have these platforms in place. That's what I've pivoted my complete business organization to, to build the platforms to allow you to plug into whether you're aspiring, whether you're an existing, whether you want to be the owner, whether you want to be the investor, We have members loaning money to each other. So, whatever role you want to play, we've built the platform. And on July 4th, I'm going to be live from the beach. We'll be broadcasting from my deck, my upper deck on my beach house in Southwest Florida on July 4th. And we're going to celebrate 20 years since I left the corporate job. More importantly, we're going to reveal the future of small apartment investing. You're going to meet the platform. You're going to see the stories, you're going to hear the stories. I'll be interviewing a lot of the folks who've benefited from this. And you're going to get the tools to plug in immediately. It's free, it's live and it's built for people who are ready to scale smarter and own 100% of your time. And you'll be looking for information about this. If you're interested in it right now, I'll give you a page where you can go. You can go register for the event right now. Go to wealthmastermindnetwork.com/launch. wealthmastermindnetwork.com/launch. And you go ahead and reserve your spot there. And it's going to be a fun event. It's going to be a great way to celebrate your Independence Day or embarking on the journey or your liberation from the one-man band. Wherever you are in your journey, let's make July 4th our own individual Independence Days and our freedom days. Freedom from apartments on— or freedom with apartments on July the 4th. So, I want to thank you for listening to this edition of The Potentializer. If this episode sparked a new idea, challenged your thinking, or gave you clarity on your next move, do me a favor. Subscribe wherever you're watching it right now, or leave a review and share it with someone who's ready to grow. That's what we're all about here is potentializing. That's growth. And if you want to plug into my mastermind or explore partnerships, head over to wealthmastermindnetwork.com to take your, your next step. Look forward to speaking with you, seeing you on the next episode.

Thank you.

On the next episode of The Potentializer.

Thanks for tuning in to The Potentializer, where we unlock the true potential in people, properties, and partnerships through small apartment real estate. If today's episode helped you see a smarter path to wealth, authority, or impact, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the show with someone ready to grow. To plug into the platform, join the mastermind, or discover how to potentialize what you already have, visit wealthmastermindnetwork.com.