Episode 3: From Property to Platform: How to Stop Doing Deals and Start Building a Scalable Business

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.

Welcome to The Potentializer. Hi, 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, a partnership, or your own untapped brilliance. So if you're an aspiring entrepreneur or 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. You know, if you've been doing deals, collecting units, adding doors, or running properties, and still feel stuck, you're not alone. The reason isn't your market or even your hustle; it's your model. And in this episode, I'm going to show you the shift from owning real estate to owning a business that makes real estate work for you. So, let's describe the reality. You know, for a lot of you, the reality is this: you're chasing the next 12-unit deal, you're chasing the next fourplex, you're flipping from one property to the next. And you are actually— you're building a portfolio, but gosh, it feels like a job. It's a lot of work. That's because it is. You're a one-man band. And that's why so many investors get burned out or they plateau somewhere between 20 and 40 units, 20 to 40 doors. Because there's only so much you can humanly do when you're doing everything. And so, we see this pattern over and over. There's this plateau or some of you never get started because you're so busy trying to do everything to find deals and analyze them and make the offers and you're all alone. You get stuck there. So, this 40-unit plateau is real. And particularly in small apartments because even people that own 40 units, I've spoken to them. And as a matter of fact, I was— we were speaking to a 40-unit owner just this week, my office was. And somebody used the term small apartments. In reference to his 40-unit property. He got offended. I don't— this is not small. This is not small. Well, he got offended by that because for him, it was his life. It was everything that he did was wrapped up in that 40 units. He had no vision of where he wanted to take the property. He had lots of problems he could tell you about. But he had no plan to grow or to potentialize that property, more specifically, that business. Because what happens is with small apartment owners, typically the one, especially the one-man bands, they're not potentializer mindset. They are status quo mindset. Let me explain that. They don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to dare raise the rents because if they raise the rents, that means somebody might move out. And if somebody might move out, that might mean, well, it's going to be more work for them because they have to go Find somebody to move in. Or it's going to take a hit on their cash flow. Or like then their scarcity mindset kicks in and, oh my gosh. What if I can't make the mortgage payment? You know, I hate to raise the rent on Mildred. Mildred's been here a long time. I'd hate to raise the rent on her. So, we just leave it as is. But the real fear is that somehow there's going to be all these adverse consequences. And that is very much the status quo because they're scared. They're fearful of some negative thing happening. And so, the distinction that I want to make here is that person with that 40 doors think— they might say that they own a business. They don't. They own real estate. Or actually, real estate owns them. And so, what I'm going to talk about here is that owning a property isn't the same as owning a business. Let me say it again. Owning a property or owning properties isn't the same as owning a business. And the distinction I want to make for you right now is this. If you can lock this away in your mindset, this will do great wonders in helping you see what I'm talking about. Small apartments are simply small businesses. Think of them like that. You have clients, we call them residents. You have revenue, we call it rent. You have expenses, just like anything else. And what's left over is you have debt you have to pay. And what's left over at the end of the month is your cash flow. And just like a business, anything that we do to improve the net operating income, in other words, anything we do to improve the cash flow, raises the value of that property. Here's the ratio. Every $100 per door, if you raise the rent $100, the value increase is $15,000 per door.

Wow.

So, if you own 40 doors, that's $600,000 value increase by raising rent $100 across the 40 doors. Not to mention the extra cash flow you're going to be getting. And so, small apartments are small businesses. We have to treat them as such. We have to potentialize them as such. We have to manage them as such. Now, when I say manage, I don't mean you're going to property manage. You're going to put a third-party property management team in place. Us to manage to us means asset management. We're the asset managers. AKA, we're the business managers. And so this distinction leads into what I mean when I talk about having— you having a platform, what your platform really is, or, or what your business really is. And so here's how we define a platform. A platform is for you. You have systems that attract deals, attract capital, attract partners. There's systems that are running in your business, in your platform, that are bringing all those things to you without your direct involvement. It's also a brand or position that gives you credibility without you having to go chase the credibility. You can either borrow the credibility of someone else, of someone else's platform like mine, or you can build your own platform, and that gives you authority, that gives you credibility. Platform also means it's the infrastructure that creates repeatable, scalable wealth. It's systems. It's the right people. It's the right systems. It's the right environment. And other people can plug into it. You're not the bottleneck. On your team, people can plug into your platform and they know what has to happen. You're not having to be involved with every single activity. And until you have that, you don't have a business. You have a job. A J-O-B. And by the way, you're probably working for a lunatic as your boss. That would be you yourself. And that lunatic is always on your back, never happy, always has something for you to do. So, this is why you need to make this shift from thinking, you know, owning real estate. You're not owning real estate. You're owning a business. And you're a small business. A smaller business that's in the rental housing business where your clients are your residents. So, here's the difference. A portfolio pays you. It pays you. That's why you build a portfolio. A platform multiplies you. It's scalable. That platform, that small apartment business you're creating, that multiplies you. And that's where the focus— that's how you can potentialize. That's how you get the maximum potential out of everything that you do is through the platform. So, let me introduce some of the features of a platform. You could have— well, let me— let's talk about my platform. My Wealth Mastermind Network platform that I open up to my members. We have— you've heard me talk about this— AI-driven analysis. We call it the potentializer audit. We can look at financials And very quickly find the leaks. We can find the gaps, and we can find all the ways to squeeze out the true potential of that asset. Now, that undoubtedly will involve getting giving more better experience to my residents. I need to potentialize the experience that my residents have so I can deliver more value to them, so they give me back value in exchange by premium rents, other fees, and etc. But that's a classic example. Deal analysis. If you're going into a property, the same thing. You do the deal analysis. We have tools amplified by AI that can identify all the opportunities. And when you go into small apartments, as I've spoken about on prior episodes, there's always, always, always all this low-hanging fruit. It's really not tough to find all the opportunities because the classic mom-and-pop owner doesn't potentialize. Like I said, they're on status quo. They don't want to rock the boat. They don't want to rock the boat. And frankly, on my projects, there's always— that I'm going to pick up, there's always $100 rent bump between where they currently are and just the market rent. And then I do some updates to the units, there's another $100. We're talking $200 rent bumps. And if $100 rent bumps worth $15,000 per door in value creation, $200 rent bump is worth double that. It's worth double that. And so, that's an example of a feature of the mastermind. Here's another one. Feature of our platform, mastermind leverage. This is where you're gaining the leverage of other people's brainpower to solve problems, to identify opportunities. I've done many exercises where with a group, in a mastermind group, I will say, let's identify all the ways that we could get more value out of this project. And as a group, in a very short period of time, we have 40 or 50 ideas. It's just absolute abundance. It's absolute abundance. That's the example of mastermind leverage. Same with solving problems. Another way, some features of my platform of how they multiply you, it's collaborative joint ventures partners that can provide you the experience that you need maybe on a loan or provide you the financial statement that you need on a loan. Or maybe they're going to be— provide you experience on your loan or experience in the operation of your property. And they're going to provide you— they're going to share equity with each other. These are an example of multiplying yourself by having a platform, by having a business. And the final thing I would say is that another example of my platform is a credibility transfer. That you now can speak about, I'm part of a group and this group is doing this. You're borrowing the credibility, you're borrowing the authority of my platform as you're building your platform. So, let me give you some real-life examples of platform thinking, some stories. I mean, just everyday folks, members of our platform of Wealth Mastermind Network. Jason Sowards lives in— out in West Coast, San Francisco area. And when he got involved, he wanted to start owning small apartments for all the benefits we talk about. He had embraced the model. He owns an 11-unit property in Iowa. That was his first one. But of course, he put a property management team in place. When we walked that, I actually walked that property together with him. We identified all the potentializer opportunities for it. He's implementing those as we speak right now. Now he's under contract on a second one. Okay, so if you think about it, so many people think, oh my gosh, he's on the West Coast, he's buying a property in the Midwest. How could you possibly operate this property? Because the one-man band model is I got to be there to collect the rents. No.

No.

He's operating because he's operating a business. That little 11-unit property is his little small business in Iowa. He's building other properties around it to build up his business so he can create economies of scale for himself. In other markets that I'm doing, I'm inviting the members to come in and buy properties in the same market so they can share ideas in the market and they can share resources in the market and they create economies of scale by collaborating With other like-minded members of our platform, our Wealth Mastermind Network. So that's Jason. Another example is Andrew and Stephanie Shields. So they live in Pittsburgh and they owned— when I met them, they owned a couple, a dozen doors, single-family, duplex, maybe a triplex. They're now buying property in Oklahoma. They have a 25-unit property under contract in Tulsa. This is one of the markets that we are pursuing because all the— within my Wealth Mastermind network, the platform has all the pieces in place. The property management's already arranged, the collaborative broker is already arranged. He's getting off-market deal flow as a result of our platform. The insurer is raised, the lender is raised, and they're doing a great job. So, they've gone from basically they're going to double their number of doors with this one transaction. This 25 Unit property and do it from whatever that is, 1,500 miles away or 1,200 miles away. So many— if you're a one-man band mindset, you think that's impossible. Because you're a one-man band. If you think of us like a small business owner, I simply am building a business that's being operated by a third-party management company that's been vetted. The same people that Lance works, by the way. And we're building our business, we're expanding our business. We're doing it down in— in his case, doing it in Tulsa. And so, this is all possible because he has the pieces in place, plus he has the mindset. He's not a small apartment owner, he's a small apartment business owner, a business owner. If you look at my own example, I made the shift from educator. I was for over 15 years seminar, ran seminars every month, 3-day seminars on the playbooks, on how to do this. And had success stories. But so many other people I noticed had the same training, they couldn't break out. They were getting stuck. And what that— even with coaching, because you got to be careful with coaching. Coaching many times is teaching people how to be better one-man bands. That's not what's needed here. It's what's needed is how to think like a business owner. How to have all the pieces in place. And a business owner doesn't think about how. A business owner thinks who. One of my mentors, Dan Sullivan, one of his most famous phrases, we need to spend our time focusing on who, not how. Meaning, who can I get to do this? Not how am I going to do it? The one-man band thinks, how am I going to do it? And until you break that mindset, you're going to be shackled, shackled to your own efforts. So, you need to think, start asking the question, who? Who can do it for me? That gets back to having the right people. The right systems, the right environment. That who may be an AI assistant. That who very well will be technology. That who could be the collaborative property manager that we've arranged for you. But that was what I noticed, and that's why I shifted immediately from— we no longer do seminars. We're not a seminar business. We are a platform business, and we provide partnerships. We provide the platforms. We put all the pieces in place to make these transactions occur and to make it possible for people to step in and get started or to start scaling up. Scaling up. So here's the takeaways right now. You don't need to be everywhere. You just need to be seen as the leader, as the conductor. All right? Remember, going back to the symphony model, you're not a one-man band. You are a symphony conductor. And all the pieces have already been arranged in place. And your platform does the positioning for you. Whether you're borrowing my platform, you're building your own platform, it's what multiplies you. And it's what allows you to actually scale and to have the lifestyle that you originally entered real estate for. So, what that really means for you as a listener today, here's the transformation path. That I want to paint for you. You want to go from hustle, which is that person that's you know flipping properties. That's hustle. That person that's doing deal, doing deal on his own. That's hustle. You want to shift from hustle to leverage.

Leverage.

You know everybody's familiar with leverage of money in real estate. And real estate is famous for that. How about leveraging other people's time? How about leveraging other people's credibility? It's all about leverage. It's all about leverage. It's asking who, who, who can get me to this point? You also want to think about going from landlord to symphony conductor to platform owner or business owner. That's the transformation you're making there. You want to think about— instead of thinking about from doing another deal, shift your thinking, your focus from doing another deal to building something scalable, ownable, and brandable. In other words, build your own business And build your own platform leveraging my platform. But build it so it's scalable. Get the full potential of your capabilities, of your relationships, of the opportunity. And you're going to potentialize all that through the platform and through partnerships. So, you know, I want you to feel like you're not behind right now. You're just one shift away from seeing what you already have as a launch pad Not as a limitation. Take everything you've done up to now because I believe every experience up to now has led here for a reason. You are here because your life experiences had led you to this point. And now you just need to embrace that and leverage all those, you know, those life experiences as your launching pad into your next scalable pursuit, your next platform, your next small apartment business. It's— I want to just reinforce that with you. So I want to invite you. We have a July 4th virtual launch going to be coming up on July the 4th, 2025, which is the 20th anniversary when I walked away from corporate America. And we're going to be announcing going live from the beach at my— from the upper deck of my beach home in Southwest Florida with the Gulf in the background. It's going to be a live transmission, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, etc. And on that day, that July 4th, that Independence Day, celebrating my Independence Day from that J-O-B 20 years ago, celebrating your Independence Day from being shackled as a one-man band, celebrating your Independence Day by embracing small apartments and creating freedom from apartments. On that day, July 4th, we'll be going live. We're going to share how this platform came together, how you can plug into it as an investor, as an entrepreneur, how you can plug into it As an advisor, as one of our collaborative service partners. And you'll see how people just like you are scaling faster, making more, and finally stepping into the role of platform leader, business owner, instead of property juggler or one-man band. One-man band. So, to go reserve your spot, go right now. There's a webpage we set up, wealthmastermindnetwork.com/launch. wealthmastermindnetwork.com/launch. Reserve your spot. We'll continue sending announcements to you. And be all kind of great giveaways and all kind of resources I'll be sharing with you on the July 4th launch straight from the broadcast, straight from the beach live. So, here's a closing thought for you. Deals are great. But a deal without a structure is a one-time win. A platform, a business, that's wealth with momentum. And that's what you deserve. Everything in your life up to this moment today has prepared you for this. Let's potentialize all these life experiences and get what you deserve and create that wealth for you. So, I want to thank you for listening to this episode of The Potentializer. If this episode sparked a new idea, challenged your thinking, or gave you clarity on your next move, do me a big favor. Subscribe to wherever you're watching it or viewing it and listening to it right now. Leave me a review. And share it with someone who's ready to grow. Share it with a fellow potentializer. Share it with someone who's looking to get more out of whatever they're doing in any aspect of their lives. Because I believe this potentializer mindset, it just extends into everything. It extends into everything. And if you want to plug into our mastermind or explore partnerships or these collaborations, head over to wealthmastermindnetwork.com. And over there, you can take your next step. And I'll see you on the next episode of 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.