In this conversational video, Cody and Christian Osgood discuss how new real‑estate investors can move past the crippling uncertainty that often stalls their first deals. They argue that confidence comes from three core pillars: (1) mastering a very limited set of core skills and delegating the rest to professionals and mentors, (2) becoming an excellent communicator to build relationships and convey a simple message, and (3) crafting a clear, simple personal brand that reinforces confidence and makes the message easy to repeat. Drawing on their own early experiences—Cody’s faster learning curve and Christian’s slower start due to fear—they illustrate how focusing on a few competencies, leveraging experts (brokers, plumbers, property managers), and avoiding imposter syndrome accelerates deal flow. They also stress the importance of using partner strengths (Cody’s capital‑raising ability, Christian’s logistics) and maintaining a “keep it simple” mindset to reduce overwhelm and enable rapid progress toward long‑term goals.
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If I had to start over, it'd be much easier today than if I had to start from where I actually got started. And today's video is about how to build confidence and gain certainty in the marketplace and what you're going and achieving.
Both Cody and I started with the same difficulty. In the beginning, you just don't know enough to have full confidence. We call this operating in theory. Both Cody and I got stuck there on our our first few deals, my original goal was to get into large multifamily. And ultimately, it was really fear that got me into my first duplex and my second duplex. And while those worked and they were good cash-flowing deals and they helped me build confidence, that lack of confidence is what slowed me down. If I could go back and do everything that we've done again, I would have started with larger buildings with more creative finance, the strategy that we've learned here.
And so really we want to compartmentalize this. Our brand is keeping things simple. We need to be able to keep things simple because there's too much to go out and learn and then master. And so one way to overcome your fear and uncertainty is to just go learn one or two things and let everyone do everything else. Let the professionals be the professionals. You don't need to be a plumber to own real estate. If there's a plumbing issue, yes, it costs money, but it costs you time to go learn all those skills, and you may not have all that time. If you keep it simple, you're going to overcome really a lot of the fears, and you're just going to go do more. If you've ever heard of imposter syndrome, where you feel like you're doing something you're not an expert at, we do that all the time. Like, we're there all the time. But we are going out and doing it because what we found is that when you're not certain about what you're doing, you have to slow up a little bit. And so while Christian bought a few duplexes, his first one was a little bit harder than the second one, and his third, fourth, and fifth one happened a whole lot quicker than the second one. Mm-hmm. You just got to go out and master just a couple things. It's part of our circle drill and our circle and square drill. You just need to go master a few things and let everyone else handle the rest. I let Christian handle the logistics, and it allows me to go quickly on everything else.
Mm-hmm. And for the deal flow, Cody had so much momentum going to the market that I'm able to use a lot of Cody's deal flow and ability to raise capital, and we can go quickly. We just have to make sure that we cover ourselves in the back end and everything runs smoothly for ourselves and our clients. But that took time, and so when you first get started, Day 1, you don't know what you don't know about a lot. You want to surround yourself with mentors and professionals in the space. On your first deal, don't plan to be the plumber, the property manager, the deal negotiator, the broker. Don't add all those steps. A lot of people, and this is one of the most common things that Cody and I get with our mentorship group, when people call, they go, "Hey, I'm in the middle of getting my broker's license so I learn how to invest." They do that, and it's really common, because they want to build confidence in being an investor, but it adds an unnecessary step. What I recommend in a situation like that, find a broker who's already a professional. Don't add that step. Have them help you find your deal and negotiate your first deal. Just get in. If your goal is to be a broker, then great, do that. If it's not, don't take steps that don't get you to your goal.
Yep.
Oh, go ahead.
Well, the second piece to this, and as an extension of that, is become an excellent communicator. Mm-hmm. When you're becoming an expert at just a few things, as Christian was mentioning, right, you're not going out and being a plumber— unless you are a plumber, then go get your earned income and invest. But if you just want to be an investor, don't focus on all these different pieces. Hone in on a couple things, and if you're gonna be a professional expert at anything, become an expert communicator. That will serve you for the long term. And Christian became excellent at this at his previous job.
Yeah, now on one hand, my previous job, I wanted to get into real estate, and I spent too many years in the 9-to-5. I lost time. I gained some valuable skills. I didn't need as long as I had in that 9-to-5. And again, it was fear and uncertainty that kept me back from jumping out because I had a wife to support and no kids, but you know, a dog and a cat, and I didn't want income to leave, so that slowed me down. If you can learn the steps quickly and you can identify, I have learned what I need to learn here, I'm ready to move to the next step, that is what you need to do. Start with communication, so whether that's practicing in the mirror, that's watching videos, that's reading the right books, it's getting your first sales job, you need to identify when you know enough to move to the next step.
Yep. And then this last piece. So you start out, right, you're focusing on just a handful of things, and then you prioritize becoming an excellent communicator. You want to be able to connect with other people, and you're— I've said this before, but your ability to connect with others determines how far and how fast you go in relationship to your goals. The last piece is just build out a brand. Build out your brand. Who do you want to be known for? What do you want to be known for? For me, I want to be known for keeping it simple. If it's simple, anybody can do it. And I want anybody that watches these videos to have the confidence to go do what they want to do, have their goals accomplished in the next 5 to 10 years. And that builds confidence in me because I know if it's simple, it's going to be easier for me to project and communicate to you. If my message was complicated, I wouldn't be as confident because it would be harder to repeat and share effectively. And so I've simplified everything and I just know my message. And so if you can just focus on being an expert at a few things, you can keep everything super simple. You know how to connect with people through your communication skills and you know your brand, you know who you are and how to present that. You don't have to think as much about what you're saying, when you're saying it. We don't script these, we just, we let it flow. And so because of that, we're more confident when we're going out and talking with people because we don't have to think about what to say. We just expect that we can get there because we know why we're doing what we're doing. We have the confidence that we can effectively communicate with people and we know our brand, we know who we are, so we don't have to think about this anymore.
Mm-hmm.
Like I mentioned in the beginning, if I had to start over today, it would be much easier than starting where I was at because I didn't know my brand. I wasn't an expert at just a few things. I was absorbing way too much information, and I didn't know how to communicate. And so if you can master those 3 things, it's gonna be incredibly easy compared to what you're thinking and how difficult it is today. Because you're going to have more confidence going out, communicating with people, learning new things. You're not going to overwhelm your brain with too many different ideas, and you're going to be able to accomplish your goals.
The reason we shared this particular subject with you today on today's video is this is where both Cody and I got stuck. The hardest place you're ever going to be is the start. You can do so much more after you get your first deal. You have more confidence, you have more talking points, you have experience, you're more relatable.
Right?
You're talking to owners. It's easy when you've become an owner to have those connections. When you're starting from ground zero, it's hard and it's scary. This is the part that both Cody and I got stuck on. It didn't delay Cody as many years as it delayed me, but it still slows you down. Lack of confidence will keep you from doing deals. The only way to build that is to start with skills. The first one you need is to be able to communicate. This is a people game.
Yeah, so that's it for today. But as always, if you guys like this, check out our channel. We're posting a lot of this stuff every week, 3 videos a week. And if you have thoughts on this or you want to see a new video, put a comment down below and we'll check it out and keep you guys posted.
