The Note Guy On Real Estate Investment With Scott Carson From The Jesse Tee Show

What's up, everybody? And welcome to the Jesse T. Show, where we highlight thought leaders, entrepreneurs, and athletes. On the show, we'll uncover how these trailblazers overcame their struggles and how they stay at the top of their game. You'll be given practical tools to succeed in life and in business. I'm glad you're here and I'm excited to go on this journey with you. On this week's episode of the Jesse T. Show, the amazing, mighty and powerful Scott Carson joins the show. Welcome, brother.

Hey, man. I am honored to be here and here to serve your listeners out there that are joining us, but honored to be here, man.

Hey, man, it's been a pleasure and thank you so much. I'm sure that our listeners and viewers are definitely going to get a ton of value and hear from your story, your journey. So let's kick it off, man. Let's give them some context on who you are, what you do, and let's dive deep.

Yeah, I'm pretty much best known across the country as the Note Guy. What I focus on is I buy distressed debt, distressed mortgages on residential commercial properties. I've been doing it over 15 years, and I got started back in 2004, went through all the chaos of 2008 and can share some stories about the ups and downs of that timeframe. Built a business, just basically kind of focused on that, honing my craft, just showing up day in, day out grind, making 100 phone calls daily, sharing videos when nobody knew who the heck I was or what the hell note investing was. And that's really built the brand and an image for me as being one of the premier debt buyers and also the debt educators out there for real estate investors wanting to dive into. And it's obviously become pretty relevant again. I mean, it's been nice. The market across the country has rebounded strong, but we all know we're in a bit of a toilet spin right now with the craziness of this pandemic. And I look at numbers and it just scares the hell out of me when I see that we're already at like an 8% default rate. 11 million Americans are out of work. It's a bad, bad time. It's gonna get a whole lot worse out there. So I think for a lot of people out there, especially entrepreneurs and business owners, mindset is critical. We all are, as we like to say from the Full Metal Jacket, we're all, it's all a big shit sandwich and we're all taking a bite out of it right now.

That's right. It's funny you bring that up. Are you military at all? I just like the movie.

I just love the movie. I was gonna go in the Marines, but I ended up getting a full academic and athletic scholarship out of college, so. That's right.

I ended up going, yeah, man, I ended up spending some time in the Navy. I was telling you just really quickly about my potty mouth, my sailor mouth, before we jumped on the show. But it was beautiful, great experience. So there's a lot I want to touch on there, but also just kind of really quick. It's interesting because, you know, my profession somewhat parallels what you do. So you're into real estate. Real estate is cyclical and over time it goes up, but then it comes down and up. And it's the same thing for the stock market, it's the same thing for investing. And you're kind of playing in that world too with investors, I'm assuming. So it's interesting for me, I've really wondered how come the real estate market as of right now, like you've noticed, the stock market has been just shit all year long and there was great times to get in and get fire sale kind of thing. But then there's some really big concerns and questions about some companies about how they're going to do because now this Corona pandemic lockdown keeps coming and going. It's not gone, it's still here. So my question in all that context is to ask how come real estate as of this moment hasn't been affected? And also a part to that is real estate's slightly overinflated. It's overpriced right now in terms of just the average consumer's value of their properties. How come that hasn't been affected like the stock market has in your eyes?

Well, we have seen an increase over the last eight years. The market can't keep going up. We all know that. And it's in some areas, it's not effective in a lot of areas you have a lot of people that are scared out of their wits.

Love that, love that.

Because what's happened is the banks and the Fed have been kicking the cane down the road. Immediately they went to forbearance agreements for 60 days or 90 days, stopped all foreclosures and evictions and that suspended it. Trying to keep the market. Stuff is still moving, stuff is still buying in the high demand markets. People are getting smart with virtual tours, stuff like that. But when I. And you haven't had a lot of defaults or Renters stopping to pay. So I think in national it's about an 80 to 85% collection rate where people are paying their rents, which is great. But when you look at people are deciding, well I'm not traveling, I'm not spending any of my auxiliary income on entertainment because I'm stuck at home, I'm not paying for gas, I've cut my insurance down in my car because I'm driving anywhere. So they're still doing it. But when we start hitting these six month time frame here, which is the next 60 days, Fannie and Freddie, if you've got a government backed mortgage, that's a beautiful thing because they're like, hey, we're just gonna add the six months on to your mortgage. But that's not everything out there. You have the non traditional, you have a lot of non government backed mortgage companies that were originating loans. I'll give an example. In the last 30 days your non prime or your subprime mortgages had a 21.8% increase in defaults where people just stopped paying. And so that, I mean while they're kicking the can down and the governments and states, oh, we're not going to evict, not foreclose right now. It's, you know, at some point that money bell's got a ring for people to actually take advantage. I mean not take advantage, but got to do something. And so I think you're seeing, you're seeing, you see a much faster impact on the commercial real estate side. We all know that $50 billion was lost basically in value in the market in March. You have a vacancy factor. It's going to increase across the country. One in five hotel loans are in default. One out of ten retail mortgages are in default. I think malls, they expect 50% of malls to fail and not to come back.

That's been happening for a while though. Malls have been this dinosaur, you know.

Exactly. But you're going to see a lot of people that the people the investors are going to be come out of the smell. And the best are the ones that can find an asset and reposition it in a variety of fashion. Taking a big box store and turn it into a gym mall or a mall gym or turning into a self storage facility or taking a vacant grocery store and turning it into office space, executive space that can be really cheap. The real opportunity is in the debt space because so much debt is going to be sold at a big discount whereas you're obviously going to have Wall street guys gobbled a lot. But there's going to be a huge market. And I was talking with a guy on Wall street the other day and he's like, listen, the biggest opportunity isn't like the five million plus properties. It's the five million below the loans that are at two and a half million or less. Wall street that's too small for investors like individual investors like you and me or the small mom pops. That's a great opportunity to come and pick up and then get flexible with the tenants in place or really offer up below market rents to help you get filled up and then stair step it up.

Nice, nice. So, yeah, so it sounds like we're staving off the inevitable. There's going to be just like there's a correction. There's been multiple corrections in the stock market over the last few months. There's one coming in, real estate too. And so what do you feel in your bones? And it's, you know, it's impossible to predict the future, but you can kind of get a feel for it. What do you think that's going to look like for the general homeowner all the way up through, you know, businesses in the economy?

Well, we have never been at a spot where the haves and have nots have been more clearly defined. So the haves, they're not going to see much of a difference. You know, the people, they're still going to be operating, but it's the have nots, it's going to be your first time home buyers, it's going to be your minimum wage employees, your people that are always been surfing on that poverty line in the different areas trying to survive. You're going to see a big wave of foreclosures not now but in a year. Because that's what it's going to take for six months of forbearance agreements and then for the states to open up. So the bad thing about foreclosures is it just, it doesn't affect that homeowner, it affects the neighborhoods and the zip codes because it drives the values down.

Yes.

So there's areas of the country that you never think would be doing bad. Washington D.C. is great inside, but the five counties are outside of Washington D.C. are gonna be the hardest hit. Seattle, King county, which has been was one of the first places for the pandemic, really been up and coming market boom. It's gonna be one of the hardest hits when it comes to everything kind of going. So we've been studying the markets. We're actually kind of doing a 40 city virtual kind of tour highlighting the 40 biggest markets out there. And while some are going to come out good, like Arizona, they're not going to have too big a hit. You know, San Diego, San Francisco, not going to have too big a hit. It's the areas outside those big cities where the people that are commuting into the bigger ones, those are the ones to be the hardest hits because they've been without a work there or their companies have laid them off or gone out of business in total and they don't. There's too much of people looking for jobs and too few jobs to find right now and they're not prepared educational wise to pivot. You know, I think it was LA came out yesterday. So they're gonna try to have their whole school system be online. We know that's not gonna work for everybody. It just, it's just a bad, like I said, it's a bad tsunami. But you've gotta be able to those people that have a mindset of creativity and can look at something and maybe get a little imaginative, you know, knock the crap off it and say, oh, there is something underneath of this that we can polish up and then return into something. So those are going to be the biggest winners out there for the most part.

How have you been affected personally in your business? Like for me, you know, I'm in the money business and the advice business and people have more money questions now than they usually do. And like there's two camps. There's the camps, the haves and have nots. And so there's those that you know, have built something and have something that's meaningful that really haven't been affected at all. And then there's the people that are living hand to mouth right now, can't afford to pay their rent or their mortgage. So has your business by default, no pun intended. Right. With the has it been affected better or worse?

So with it's we have two phases. We have our real estate business that we do with buying and selling debt on a regular basis. Then we have our educational side where we're teaching investors. It's been different on both sides. On the non performing notes on our portfolio, we've only had a few of our borrowers actually ask for forbearance agreements. Most of them have been pretty good about those that were paying, were still paying or been communicated. So that's pretty normal. We're right in line with the national average on that. On the educational side that has actually slowed down because people are like, I need to wait and see what's gonna happen. Wait and see. Wait and see. And I'm like, you can't wait and see because you'll miss the opportunities waiting 100%. So what I, the thing that I've done is I've just doubled down. I was like, okay, I'm doing, I'm gonna be recording more information. I'm gonna be leading from the front. I'm gonna take the time to really focus on providing the realities of the business. Not all rosy, not all down, doom and despair. Let's be in the middle and share a little bit of the good and the bad. So where I see a lot of other people just kind of taking 60 days to do nothing, I've been like, I need, I'm doubling down and doing twice the amount of work in 60 days to try to make it the most of it. To be a voice out in my niche to sharing what's really going on and just trying to be there when people do decide to come out of their bubble. You know, it's gonna be a lot looking like Tom Hanks from Castaway. You know, what's going on with the long hair. Maybe reverse not being so skinny with. We're gonna call it the corona. The corona 15.

Yeah, well, that's, that's funny. I actually use that term because I did put on the corona 15. I put on 15 pounds and then I just actually more like 12 and I just dropped 15. So I'm actually, I'm doing better than I was. So. You're good, brother.

You're just like the market, up and down, up and down.

I eat, sleep and drink this stuff. So I guess it's a part of my DNA. So talk to me a little bit about your business and exactly what it is that you do for that listener that doesn't have an idea of kind of that industry and how it works, maybe some context and also how you can help people with what you do. And also people that want to invest because there's a lot of people that can and want to take advantage of this market and there's, there's alternative investing, you know. And for me, I'm an advice only financial planner and I am all about real estate. I'm all about real estate for myself personally, as a personal investor. I'm all about real estate for my clients that it makes sense in their portfolio. Because what most people probably have an understanding of is most wealth is created and transferred through real estate in the United States and usually in the world. And, and so that's a huge piece to People's wealth is housing. And whether it's fix and flip, whether it's buy and hold, whether it's renting, whether it's commercial properties and you have 80 units and you're getting, you know, 70% capacity for rent, whatever the deal is, talk a little bit about your specific thing that you do with your business and how you help people through that.

So the biggest way for your listeners out there, I would say, is if you've ever seen or read the book the Big Short, that's a little bit.

Of great movie, by the way.

Exactly. I can remember going living scenes in that movie, you know, walking properties in Florida that were vacant that we bought the dead on for 30 cents a dollar and there is two alligators in the swimming pool. All right. Or buying, buying a portfolio that. What the heck is this lady's profession? She says professional dancer. She owns three mortgages. Okay, interesting.

Is that crazy in the movie? Like, basically, let's call it she's a stripper and she had seven houses.

Yeah, exactly. That's, you know, so what we do is. That's what we do. We're buying the mortgages from banks and hedge funds and we're buying distressed, usually where somebody hasn't paid at least six months or longer, sometimes up to six years.

Wow.

That they've not made a payment. And so we buy this stuff at a fraction of the value of the property. And that's how we make our money is in buying it cheap, becoming the bank, and then reaching out to Mr. And Mrs. John Q. And say, hey, I know something happened. You went through a financial hiccup. What's the dealio? Can you start paying again? Can we work out a loan model? What do you want to do? Do you want to stay in that property? You want to get the heck out of dodge? We've got a solution for you. And that's really where we, as I like to say, we make our money on the crumbs that the bigger funds like Goldman Sachs, you know, they're buying 26,000, 50 million at a time. We're not buying that many. We're buying 20, 30, 60, 100 at a time, which is still a lot, but it's not like the Wall street guys. But we're making a lot of our money in the fact that we buy it cheap, get it re performing. And after the borrowers kind of got back on track for six to 12 months, now it's a re performing asset. We bought it at 50 cents of value. Now we can turn around and Sell it a year later at 85, 90 cents of value. If it's $100,000 mortgage at 6%, we bought it at 50. If we can get the borrower to start paying on time, that's a 12% cash and cash return to us, not including any extra that they pay extra or what we end up selling on the back end in 12 months. So that's kind of how we make our margin. Like I like to say, we're a smaller version of the big short doing it on residential, commercial. I mean, my, I guess you could say spidey sense has been going crazy for the last two years, especially looking to commercial markets. Commercial market boom is over. We all know that. In 2008 I was buying commercial properties left and right for 20, 30 cents on the dollar and then taking them over, starting to collect rents, working with the tenants in place, even a lot of apartments. I think we're going to see a big apartment, not now in what's going to happen in two years or three years is when the biggest commercial, the multifamily space is going to take the biggest hits because you've had a lot of investors overpay for those assets with the idea they're going to build up their rents and re gentrify it and value add it and then get cashed out with a traditional mortgage from a bank in two to three years. Well, those lenders aren't going to be lending that if the value drops 10, 20%, they're not going to come to you to refinance that. They're going to come and ask you to say, hey, you need to bring another 20% cash to the table to get a store. LTV so we look at a lot of different things, but like I said, we're buying in probably about 30 different states right now. We buy a lot in the Midwest areas. I can buy a block in Ohio for what I could pay for one house in San Diego or San Francisco these days.

Crazy. I grew up in Boston and my old family house that we had in our family for 70 years was a real piece and we owned it flat out. And it was in this part of Boston that was completely highly sought after. And it was like for the amount of money that that house sold for, I could buy a couple really nice houses here in Georgia.

You know, that's the crazy thing. Boston is just a crazy market. I mean the whole New England area, you don't see a lot of defaults up that neck of the woods because it is an area of the haves for the most part, even the have nots have equity these days that they can cash out. But you look at Georgia, it's a totally different market, about a third of the value, but still one of the faster foreclosure states in the country. So it's a really desirable area when we're buying debt down in Georgia, Atlanta, Savannah and all that neck of the woods. Because the fact is that a, it's a faster foreclosure state and the values, it's hung pretty, pretty solid for the most part.

How did you get into this industry and what was your first couple transactions? First year or two in business? Just for the business owners that listen to this and the executives that listen to this, that would be interesting to hear the context of how you got started and maybe some of your, your roller coaster ups and downs to get to where you are now.

Yeah, so I actually was a financial advisor back in the day working for Smith Barney back out of college, making six figures, doing that. And then they closed their office.

Were you taking commissions too? Were you okay? Yeah, yeah.

And so they closed their offices. I got laid off overnight, basically. They closed the whole branch down. So. And at the same time, you know, they got married, bought a couple property investment properties. I got laid off. So we go to making six figures to now trying to pay three more, three house or six housing payments on a private school teacher salary because our tenants were laid off too from Dell Computers. So that was not a fun time. So I'm a little, I'm a little empathetic towards a distressed borrower because I've been there before. Fast forward. I started a mortgage company, the buddy of mine, and we were doing mortgages for investors all across the country, traveling with a couple other real estate investors that taught creative financing, owner financing, wraparound mortgages, fix and flips and that stuff. So for a couple years I was traveling the country doing that and I had a really kind of an apprenticeship of learning the creative debt and financing space. And when everything hit The Fan In 2008, I left the mortgage side of the business on the origination side and started dialing for dollars. So I was, it was almost going from a scene I compared to like being Will Smith in the pursuit of happiness, dialing for dollars, trying to get the right person at the bank to sell me some of their debt, making 70 phone calls the same bank and getting hung up and transferred to the wrong part of the country or the world. Hello, my name is Steve. No, it's not. You're not the right person I'm supposed to talk to. But I just basically went from an amazing time in the mortgage industry to basically it was just rough. I mean, it was different then than it is now because we didn't have all the social media, we didn't have a lot of the resources. So it literally was just picking the phones and just being hungry. 50, 100 phone calls a day till I get the right person on the phone. And first transaction I did, I made 54 phone calls before I got the right yes to somebody. And then I ended up getting a portfolio of mortgages. The lender had gone out of business. The lady I was talking on the phone and once she sold the portfolio, she was out of work. So she wasn't in the most positive space.

Wow.

But we flipped that portfolio. Five million dollar portfolio of loans in Houston, we flipped it, we made five points on it. My cut was a fifth of that because I had to get four other people involved. But still, 50 grand for 30 days of work was pretty good. I got pretty excited about that. Next deal I flipped was an eight unit apartment complex in San Diego. I got the note under contract for 375. I flipped it 24 hours for 415 and made 35 grand.

Yep.

I found a one off note in Tampa that I got under contract for four. Sold it for ten. Yes, I made a quick six grand. So I started putting deals together like that, just quick cash, wholesaling it to other investors, started building my investor database. And then I said, okay, enough of me wholesaling. I want to take these down because I want to be making the bigger money on the deal. I want to stay involved on it. So sort of taking some assets down and fast forward 10 years later, I bought over a half a billion dollars in debt for our own portfolio. And you know, not every deal has been a home run. We work on singles and doubles. We've had some strikeouts, I'm not going to lie. Don't ever invest in Cook County. All right? Chicago, Crook county, horrible county to ever have to foreclose in. I'm not joking. Lost probably about a half a million dollars on a portfolio there of my own funds because it just took forever to foreclose and our properties were vandalized. The counties don't give a rat's ass.

Yeah, that's difficult. You have to be really good. It sounds like logistics wise and relationship wise being able to find that decision maker, especially, you know, I used to work in a bank once upon a time, years ago, and they suck. Like they're just, they're just really bad about. They're in the relationship business and they're like not the people themselves that suck but like just the process and operations and the muddying of like the red tape and all that stuff. So like what were some of the things that you learned in that process of like trying to find the right person and like how to connect with them and speak their language to be able to build your business?

That's a really good question. So it's the people that I talk to aren't going to be your like vice presidents down at the bank on the corner. I used to be there ran. I was a VP for Chase bank for a while and you know that's those aren't the people, they're in the relationship business. A relationship of your money. How many products can they sell you to have a better relationship with your money? Okay, five products. What they want to sell you.

Yeah. They got their hooks in you.

Yeah, that's right. Great sales training baby. But anyway the people that I deal with are internal. They're up the chain, they're maybe at the corporate office. They may be in a whole different state. They're the special asset managers, the secondary marketing managers, the chief credit risk desk. These guys and gals are paid to keep the bank's portfolio looking really good. Yeah, it's a matter of just tracking them out. There's not gonna be a. You're not gonna call 1-800-CHASE bank to get ahold of them. So I really had to leverage using LinkedIn. I still use LinkedIn a lot today to connect. I think it's actually how we connected originally. It is reaching out on there, following up a system. Hey, just wanted to touch base with you, see if you're the right person. Follow up with an email, follow up with a phone call. And it's all that multiple touch point basis with my team and my systems using like stuff like Octopus CRM to connect or using you know our Infusionsoft or just old fashioned calling. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, making 50 phone calls in a day. Still to touch base with people that's still one of the most valuable things. And then just following up, you know we all know that 40 or 52% of Americans never make a follow up phone call. And so the fact that I call them three or four times, they get four or five emails from me over a four month period. And it brands myself the green emails. They know what to look for because greens are my favorite colors. Those are the little things but it adds in Building a brand, it adds in building that, hey, we have a phone call at 11 o', clock, I show up. Even if they forget or can't make it because of stuff that's still okay, I still show up, leave a message. And that's one of the most valuable things that I think we need is the follow up aspect of things. These days a lot of people are saying, hey, I want to do something. But they don't show up, they don't follow up and it's all just kind of smoking the, smoking the wind for the most part.

Two beautiful things about building a business is what you can control and those two things what you're talking about. For me, my first sales gig ever, I was doing outside sales, cold call, door to door, working on commission, business to business. And I was basically like selling Groupon coupons door to door. And the beautiful thing was I controlled my paycheck, I controlled my work ethic. And I knew my law of averages. It was 1 out of 10, 10 out of 100. So if I saw 100 people, I was gonna make 10 sales. And in those 10 sales there could be multiple sales kind of thing. And so if you can go out there, whether it's LinkedIn or whatever it is, and you can control the work ethic and like, like you said, pick up the phone 50 times a day, 100 times a day, whatever it is, like you'll never be out of business like as long as you have that work ethic and that hustle. But then also not just the touches, but then what do you do with the follow up? And so you mentioned Octopus, which is a nice little CRM tool for LinkedIn built in there. There's a bunch of stuff out there. For me. I use Wealthbox, which is for financial planners. But if you don't like there's, you have things like Salesforce and there's hundreds of them that are out there and they're all really good. Some have their nuances, some actually suck. But for the most part, if you use them and you set up automation, email drip campaigns, you want to stay top of mind because eventually once you hit them enough times, like you said that infographic, I could see it in my mind. It's like most people just touch you one time only a certain amount of people touch you twice. Almost no people touch you a third time. And then it's like it takes up to 10 to 12 touches to get that sale. So you have to stay top of mind. You have to bring value every time. And I think that's a beautiful way to do it is having a CRM system or a follow up system that you actually use and that you can automate so you're not wasting time doing that sort of thing.

Yeah, and that's the thing. I love what you said that you know that 1 out of 10 would be a sales for you. You have to know those numbers. Ye. And I tell investors that all the time. Look, you're not going to close 100% of your deals in the notes space. You might close 1 out of 10. 10 offers you may end up closing actually on 1 because the due diligence and things that can kill deals. But know that so many investors going, oh, I can only make offers on the money that I have in my account right now. And they really get over paranoid, over cautious in their due diligence and they really low bid, hoping for the sake of God, like oh please, I'm gonna send my. But please don't accept it. Okay, then if you do, it's the whole, oh shit, you accepted my offer, what I gotta do now.

Called their bluff, so to speak.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's poker. But the biggest thing and I love what you do is in the advice. And you're really not in the advice aspect. You're in the counsel space. Everybody's got advice like an asshole. Okay, but not everybody gives counsel. Not, but everybody's experience. Yeah, your cousin Bubba Joe down the street can give you advice, but doesn't mean he's the right person.

Wise counsel.

Yeah, exactly. You're providing wise counsel to your clients. And that's the same thing. You need to look at people, you need to look at mentorship. You need to know somebody who's been there, been up and down once or twice.

Yes.

Because there's a lot of realtors, a lot of mortgage brokers, a lot of people have made money in the last four or five years because the market keeps going up. But you need to know the people that have been around since the last time who can advise you, like, okay, pull your money back. Wait, because it's about to get really cheap to buy a lot more stuff versus buying at the peak of the market. Same thing, investing in stocks. Hey, let's wait. When the market drops, now's the time to act and then ride that wave back up for the most part.

I used to be a big Gary Vee disciple back in the day and he's always talking about, especially recently, since 08, since the market crash. Up until, you know, Corona, we've been on a Bull market run. We've been on a high, we've been growing year over year. We were overdue for a correction by about a year or two in terms of the stock market because about every 10 years on average it corrects, which it needs to, it needs to correct. But he's always talking about, you're going to see the real entrepreneurs now. You're going to see the people that you know. It's been easy for the last 10 years. Anybody can go out and make money. But now when this downturn comes and when the shit hits the fan, who's gonna rise, who's gonna be prepared, who's gonna stick through it? And that's really gonna, it's gonna shake out a lot of people that were just kind of like enjoying the easy part. Now you find the real go getters.

And that's the thing too is a lot of people are only looking at things what they can see. There's still roughly about 9 trillion in retirement funds sitting out there to be invested in. You know, there's a lot of money sitting on the sidelines making 0 to 4% and as I call them, certificates of disappointment.

One of the worst things that's ever invented. And by the way, can I just, I'm just gonna go down a little.

Bit of a rabbit hole.

I was in banking.

Let's do it.

I was that VP you were talking about, which means nothing. It's a title. That's garbage. I was a retail banker, business banker, all that bullshit. But yeah, but banks are absolutely. And again, they're just crooks. Like they take our money into their accounts and they make more money off of our money than we do. And the interest rates that you just talked about, the 0 to 4%, they're making 8%, 12%, even more than that. And they give us these CDs where they want to confirm they're keeping our money for five years, two years, one year, whatever it is, for like 2% or lower interest rates, you're essentially losing to inflation and your money's locked up, you're losing time value of money. There's all these things wrong with that concept, but it's because most people don't have the knowledge to understand that things that, like what you do or what I do or some other people are doing out there for investing, there's way better things that you could put your money into that you'll work your money for and it actually will grow and you'll have liquidity with it too.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, we could Spend another hour just talking on this. That's why it pays to be the bank. The bank always wins. And that's why I like being the bank, because we're closer. But if you know how to arbitrage funds, if somebody's making 1% sitting in a savings account, if they wish they were making 1% that you could take that money, go invest, buy some deals, give them a 6 or 8 or 10% return, like a hard money lender or even a private money lender can make out there for a short period of time of like 12 to 36 months to really capitalize it. And that's one of the biggest things that we're trying to do, is just getting out and educating. Spend a lot of time with investors, say, listen, here's where it at. Here's where the opportunity lies. Here's how you can put yourself in the middle without having to be the operator, without having to go find the deals. Hey, just sit back and kind of make money passively and then take that money and reinvest it in the market in other ways that you want to do for a variety of reasons. There's just opportunity. But the biggest thing is getting educated, understanding what's going on. Biggest mistake anybody can make, I'll tell them right out there, is invest in something that they don't know anything about. That's where people get hurt the most, is researching, you know, researching what you're investing in, the companies or the products, the deals. I mean, there's a lot of due diligence what we do. There's a lot of no's before we ever actually get to a yes for the most part in our deal flow. But that's the most important thing. You're gonna have a lot of people trying to also. I love what Gary Vee says, and I used to watch Gary Vee every day. Then I realized I gotta have that hour back. I can't watch GaryVee for an hour every day, right?

Because the thing for me about him was he's like, I say the same shit over and over again. Like, eventually it's gonna dawn on you, you already know what you need to know. Like, move on. Like, he tries to, in a way. And he's really. He's a wizard when it comes to many things, but basically he's just like, you already know what you need to know. Just go do it. And like that. He said it enough times where I heard him like, you're right, Gary. I don't need to listen to you.

Anymore because it's the same 102 weeks of comment. It's like the 10 times. How many different ways can I say the same thing? Ten different ways. And once you understand it, hey, I hope he buys the Jets. And he has been a savior to a lot of people. But what he says more than everything else and you tell he gets frustrated as all get out is the shit when people come, oh, how do I do this? Quit fucking whining and go take some action. Do something versus nothing. Because the only thing that you're going to guarantee, no matter what you're investing in these days, the only thing you're going to guarantee is by not taking any type of action is failure. That's the only thing you can guarantee not getting in there. I mean, even if you buy a deal or invest in something that goes south, you learn something and you're much more valuable along the way, you know?

So, yeah, your failures are the best teachers. And as long as you don't quit, as long as you don't give up. And again, you have to be able to take the hits and keep on moving and be smart enough to not put yourself out of business. But at the end of the day, it's going to be those, those, those, those pain points, the bumps, the bruises, the knockdowns. If you can keep getting up like my, like my buddy Rocky Balboa, just keep getting up and you can keep moving forward. I know you're a movie buff by the amount of quotes that you've dropped from movies, but it's so true. It's cliche, but it's true. If you don't give up, you're going to keep moving forward. If I'm an investor, I'm someone who wants to get into what you're doing. This is speaking to people that may have an ear or an eye for this. How does an investor work with you.

And what you're doing?

How do they get into your world? How do you help them out? How do you partner together? What does that look like?

So the first thing I always like to ask is what their background is. You know, if you've got a real estate background, okay, it's easier. You've done some fix and flips. Okay, let's figure out your knowledge base. If you don't know if you're brand new, hey, first thing I do is say, hey, let's have you watch some videos. Let's have you learn something. And we've got a wealth of knowledge of thousands plus videos on our YouTube channel. We've got our Own the no Close show podcast. We're looking forward to having you on here in the near Future as well. 600 plus episodes. Just start to get some knowledge, start hanging out with the people, reading, you know, reading blogs, articles. Take a little bit of training so you understand the nuts and bolts aspect of that. That's the first thing that I recommend I won't invest with. What if somebody invest until they understand what we're doing? Because then it ends up becoming, no offense, a pain in the ass trying to explain everything. If they just sat down for a.

Couple hours and educate themselves and it's bad for business. I mean, in my business, I control the people that come in as clients. And I don't want a pain in the ass in my business. If I can limit that, it makes my life better. But also, you're not screwing anyone over either because they don't know what they're doing.

Exactly. It's a PETA free environment, pain in the ass. And then we always like to start people off small. Okay, if you're looking to do this yourself, great. Start off with maybe 50 grand, buy you a couple deals. Let's get your systems in place, let's get your vendors in place, let's get the. You know, I don't want to say the school of hard knocks, but you can learn a lot from watching videos or going through a workshop, but you're always going to learn more by actually partaking, getting your hands dirty. And so that's one of the big things that we tell people. Like, listen, hey, if you're going to do this yourself, let's figure this out. Pick one or two states and I'll look at those. We'll look at your deals with you, review your due diligence. We'll kind of walk you step by step, hold your hand while you get rock and rolling, and then go from there. So that's a big thing for us.

You know, there's a feeling that I'm getting based on the things that you're saying in terms of, you know, always learning, always growing. And you've put yourself into a position after a decade of doing this. How long have you been doing this?

Totally 12 years.

12 years. Right. And you started it right at one of the worst times for real estate ever in the history of the United States. And you've been through some growth and some changes in a lot of different things. What are some of the things that you lean on to learn from, to grow with the tools that you use? I mean, obviously experience is one of the best teachers you've had 12 years in this industry, those failures that we talked about. But are there any thought leaders, are there any people that you plug into? And it doesn't even have to be business. It could be anything. It could be mindset, it could be spiritual, it could be whatever it is. Like what are you leaning on to help you grow so that you can continue to show up, grow and serve those that you work around better?

Yeah, I think that's one of the most important things for leaders out there, entrepreneurs, is to have that unplug or that recharge space where they can go and listen to somebody, hear somebody. I'm a big fan of Tony Robbins, actually. Big fan, read his book. I've had some great mentors along the way, like Greg Reed, Dr. Greg Reed from Think and Grow Rich, three feet from gold, had the chance to hang around. I love listening to Lou Brown. I'm sorry, Les Brown. There's a Lou Brown and a Les Brown. They're both. We do gotta be hungry.

He's great.

Charlie. Tremendous. So I'm a big avid of listening and reading. I love to read books. I love listening to podcasts of other thought leaders. I will tell you this. I've had goods and I've had bad. When everything was going through the fan in 2008, I'd gone through divorce. I had to write two big checks for my last two rehabs. And then I had basically enough money to rent a one bedroom apartment in a house for $400 a month. And I learned more in that month, two months. What I could go through. I eat a lot of top ramen, a lot of peanut butter jelly sandwiches. Survival mode, survival. And once you've gone through that, you're not scared of failure. And that's the biggest thing is everybody who has been somebody has gone through failure after failure after failure, or failed so that they learned from their failure so they didn't, you know, repeat those things. And the biggest thing I can tell you is I always try to show up with a positive mind. Even the worst of days, like, oh crap, you know, she goes sideways all the time for everybody. Even this market is a crazy time. But I think the most important thing is if you can have a positive mindset and plug yourself in to people with a positive mindset and just show up. If you've got to show up, whether it's an hour or three hours and you've got to be there, you might as well be there with a smile on your face versus a Debbie Downer. That not only drains your energy, but drains the energy of the people around you. I want that. You know what I mean?

I love that little soundboard sound effects set up you have there. It's hilarious. So, yeah, I think that for me, you know, I've been very. It's going to sound weird to say this, but I've been very lucky and grateful to experience some crazy shit in my life because it's given me perspective. And it's what you're talking about right now. It's like you go to the lowest of lows, but you're still alive, you're still breathing. And that's actually something that Les Brown talked about, one of his talks. He's like, can I look up?

If I look up, I can get up.

If I can start breathing, if I can start moving. Like motion creates emotion kind of thing, right? And then all of a sudden, you know, it ties back to another movie. Quote, reference. I think I'll be amongst friends with these, is with Fight Club and the sentiment of what they said. One of the things is, like, it's only after you've lost everything that you can respect everything or you can grow and, like, learn. So, like, when you've hit that rock bottom and then you kind of really just have nothing else to lose or give a shit about. Like, the whole world, paradigm shift changes, and you can go into the world, step in the world brand new and create yourself and do all these different things. So I think having that perspective of going through some of those trials and tribulations, that's what really teaches you. And honestly, that's what life's about. Life's all about going through those things. So I think it's beautiful that you're able to experience that any other.

Any other big.

Because that's a huge thing to go through. The divorce and getting humble pie served to you in every direction in terms of finance and social, economic status and relationship and all this stuff. Any other. The mountains that you've had to, like, go to the Valley to be able to come back to the top that you can give to the viewers.

So in 2010, everything was in the fan. Worst market out there, you know, 15 million homeowners underwater. I was renting this place. I'm a big baseball fan, okay? Huge baseball fan.

Who's your team?

And I was like, well, I'm a big Minnesota Twins fan. I grew up. I'm from Minnesota originally. You know, school, hard knocks, Everybody wanted a few times. But I also am a big fan of the Giants. The Giants Are my NL team. Okay. A big, big fan of that Kirby.

Puckett live a few times when I was a kid in Boston.

Yeah, such a, such a great Miss Kirby.

Amazing athlete, that guy. Like he used to run the wall, kind of like Bo Jackson. Like he'd jump up. It was incredible.

With a beer belly. Yeah, talk about an athlete, right?

Like Bruce go out drinking the night before coming and just hit some boards.

So in 2010, I'm watching football, I'm watching the preseason games or winter league, Great fruit league. And I said, well, what would it be like to go out and hit all 30 major league clubs in a year? And I was like, well, let me see what the schedule, what would that really look like? Because I'm kind of free. I don't have anything on my back. Well, I didn't. So I actually planned this 30 week trip to go around the country. And I'd already been starting to market a little bit what I was doing with Facebook videos and me out walking a property. And in a matter of a couple weeks, I had four or five investment clubs reach out to me and ask me and say, hey, Scott, we see that what you're doing. Would you be willing to come speak to our audience, our meetup group and share your story? I'm like, okay, when do you want me to come? And the dates that they had open lined up perfectly when I would be in those cities watching baseball. And I was like, okay. A total divine intervention. I was like, okay. So sold everything else that I have except my truck and my dog. And I jumped in my truck and thought I'd be on the road for 30 weeks. Well, it turned into three and a half years of nonstop travel. But sometimes I would be meeting, meeting with, speaking for 100 people. Sometimes I would just post it out. Hey, I'm in town. Anybody want to meet? I had like one person and I think that's what a lot of people in today's social media world. We're all worried about the thousands of views or going viral or, God, I had a hundred thousand people watch my TikTok video. Me dancing like an idiot for a day.

I don't get it.

I don't get it. I get it.

But it's not for me. Like, it's just not.

Yeah, exactly. But I think we have to in today's world and exactly how the market is, you have to realize those conversations, if you can impact one person in some sort of fashion. A good way of preaching sharing. Yeah, exactly. Cheering them up or giving them some advice or Counsel that is just as valuable as speaking to 100 people out here. And that's what I love. Being on podcasts is one of the big things that really helps me. And having people on my podcast has helped me get through this the last 90 days. Because while we can't meet in person, Jesse, and if we did, we'd be sitting down, having a beer, cracking up, high fiving and having a good time. We can still do that virtually here. So it still helps everybody out there. Most people when bad things happen, they curl up in a ball like an armadillo does and hide. You can't do that. You got to get out. You got to embrace it. If you're going through a world of shit, a shitstorm, get up and face it and let it pass. Things willit's never going to be a long term thing. And we've had our shitstorm storms, good deals, bad deals. We've had good things and bad things happen. You just got to realize it's a temporary thing. And as long as you keep walking and keep moving forward and keep moving forward and showing up and getting up off a mat like Rocky, you're going to come out small and rosy and you're going to develop not only a thicker skin, but people will start to respect you because you didn't give up, you didn't go crying back to mommy. You actually sat there, hey, the buck stops with me. I'm going to try to fix what I can and move on.

Built that resiliency, built that, that self confidence. And I got a buddy, ex NFL player, his name's Joe, he had this thing called Man Van Dog Blog where he had his dog and a van. He sold a bunch of his stuff and he just hit the road for years. And he's kind of transitioning now, but it sounds very similar to what you did for three and a half years. So that's a very interesting time of your life. What are some of the. Maybe give me one of the most interesting things that have happened, the craziest or scariest thing that have happened. And what did you really learn from just that, being able to do that for three and a half years.

So I'll start with the scariest thing is in Miami beach. And we checked into a hotel, Miami and you know, just we pulled in, checked into Miami and I didn't have a lot of money in my account. I had a couple grand in my account from stuff because I was basically speaking and selling classes or online trainings. I was going, well, the hotel instead of Running my card for 150. Ran it for 15,000. Yeah. So that was pending on my account over the weekend. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to balance this. I'm going to. I'm like, what am I going to eat? I'm like, well, princess, I'm not going to eat your dog food. Let's make her run to Taco Bell really fast, get some 99 cents. But that was a scary time. But being out alone on the road, you learn a lot about yourself. Luckily, my dog had it for 17 years and passed away about a year and a half ago. But the thing that I love is just that getting out, you get to know yourself a little bit. I was doing regular conference calls, you know, tele, webinar, teleconferences with investors, just talking to market. And I would be pulled over and doing it on my laptop and there would be 100 people that showed up. And then the next week 110 and the next week 130 and the next week 150. And I was just amazed that people would take time to listen to this idiot and his Ford F150 out talking to banks and asset managers and sharing what's going on, what he's finding in the market. And that's the thing, people, people want you to. One of my favorite authors is Seth Godin and I think a book that everybody needs to read is Tribes that he wrote. And we all have tribes around us. You've got a tribe. Anybody listening here is a tribe. People are looking for leadership in today's world. You just gotta get your voice and share it. You don't have to be loud, just, hey, start with it. With one, share your audience. If you're feeling something, get out and communicate. That is the advantage of social media. You can share your message, but you also got to try to always. There's so many people with the bad side of social media. Always focus on the negative. You know, we've never seen a country this divided, not only politically, but social economically and stuff like that. And so if you share your message, people want to hear that message and make it positive. We need more positive voices now than we've ever needed before.

Yep. And that you hit a chord with me. I've been speaking and getting in front of audiences for a few years and I was taught by one of my mentors that it's, you know, if you have a room of 100 people, if you can change the life or perspective of one person for the better, you've done your job. So it's not about the likes, it's not about the thousands of views. It's not about whatever it's about. Are you making a difference? And how are you adding value? And in adding value, you've took it a step further past business. And you have your own show. So you have your own. It's a podcast. And so talk to the people. After 600 episodes or 600, you know, that's a lot of work. That's a lot of putting yourself out there. What have you learned from that for yourself? What has it been able to do for you and your business and just talk about that experience?

Well, yeah, we crank out about three to five episodes a week, and we're doing it for three years, so it's been a lot. And I don't do the production myself, otherwise I'd never get around to it. So payment big, big kudos to my team over@poditize.com that do a great job for me. But the best thing that I've learned is that you never know where people are listening, and it kind of goes in line. You never know when people are watching you. And it's the most valuable thing, and I know you've got to feel the same way, is when you see people comment or leave a review or you send an email, say, hey, I was listening to this episode and it really changed my day, my opinion. And that's the biggest thing people have always told me that I'm not afraid to be who I am. There's only one Scott. There's only one Jesse. There's only one you. If you're listening out there, be you. God gave us all gifts, gave us all weaknesses, and you all. You have to know that. And that's just who I am on my show. It's like, I hear, I am. I make fun of myself. I share the good, the bad, the ugly. I have used it as a platform not only to spread my message and to people that would never have heard of me before, but also to spread other people's message. One of the biggest things I get a kick out of is when my guests or vendors that I interview on my show and stuff like that, they call, hey, somebody called me off your podcast. I'm like, that's awesome. I'm so, so happy. Or somebody who calls me and says they've taken my counsel on what I shared with them and they went out and did themselves, hey, I went and did this. That's awesome. You're not mad that I didn't go to Your training. No, I don't care. I'm glad that you took action. You made an impact on your life and then others around you. And that's really. I think it's sad that there's a million plus podcasts, they say, but really only a third of them are really producing things on a regular basis.

Yep.

And it's really the last bastion of free speech out there, uncensored free speech. So if we wanted to drop F bomb the entire time, we could. But you can really share what you're doing about and really get a true insight without it being. I don't know, I hate watching the news. Whether it's the big letters or your local news, a lot of these are. News agencies are all have agendas. They're all owned by the same thing. They're all repeating, regurgitating the same word.

Yes.

And that's not the way with podcasts. It may take a little while. It may not be exactly day in, day out, but I think podcasts is the wave of where everybody is going and, you know, start something, share it. It doesn't have to be. It's a lot easier than ever. It was three years ago, a lot easier than it was 10 years ago, for sure.

Yeah.

And just. And it's just you never know who's listening or watching. And I know you feel the same way with the comments I'm seeing and the reviews you're getting and stuff like that too.

Jesse, it's been beautiful, man. And all I can say from my perspective, I've been doing it for two years and it's, it's. It's just get started. Just put something out there. Like. Like, for me, it was taking that first initial step, and then from there it's been night and day from when I first started till now. And I'm still learning. Like, even, even, like the first, like, first 12 episodes I did, I've done about 70. But the first 12 episodes were. I look back on them now, I would have done this different. I would have done this different, but it was. It was who I am at the time and how I could do it at the time. And so you learn, you grow, you evolve. And so you can't look at a production like a Joe Rogan or some of these other things that are out there and be like, I don't look or sound like that. Well, he didn't either. He's in 1500 episodes he's been doing.

He's like.

He's like pretty much one of the kings outside of Howard Stern, he's like one of the kings of podcasting. And it's like you can't look at that. If you have a calling on your heart, if you have a mission on your heart, whether it's very, very like segmented into a specific industry or it's just a talk radio kind of thing, it is one of the last places where you can actually be free, especially if you've taken on sponsors and things like that. It starts to kind of change depending on how you run your show. But at the end of the day, if you want to say something and you have something to say, it's one of the best places to do it.

Yeah, it totally is. And there's so many avenues in so many different ways to share. Kudos to Joe. I saw Joe literally New Year's Eve here in Austin, High as a freaking kite. He was so high, wearing the biggest, pinkest, flamboyast, sparkly shirt on a New Year's Eve and he went on some tirade about eating babies. I don't know what it was, it was just crazy. But he has honed his craft. You look back to when he was doing stand up and then when he was doing all the UFC stuff that he does. Yeah, he deserves that 100 million because he's put the work in and he's really showed up on a day in, out, day out basis. And that's really what's going to change. That's what changes the world is work ethic. It's a four letter word. Work is. I know, but you got to show up. And on a day in, day out basis, consistency is key. Whether it's once a week, once a month, once a week, whatever it might be, showing up is the key to success in anything.

Beautiful, brother. Let's end it on that. So if people want to, want to connect with you, find you, you know, do business with you, or learn more about you, what's the best way for.

Them to do that? Easiest way is just go to our website, we close notes.com that'll take you to our all of our training. The podcast, the Note Closer show is out there on any type of podcast and platform. We're also syndicated on 17 anthem radio stations across the country as well. So pretty excited about that. But if you really want to do us a favor, if you're listening, go on over if you're listening to the show and hit the subscribe button and leave Jesse a five star review. God knows we love doing that. And he's putting out some amazing content. Whether you're listening to this on itunes. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button as well, but leave a comment. We love to see who's see who's watching, but also the impact that we're making. So do that for Jesse because he's doing an amazing job.

Well, I appreciate the love, brother. And likewise back at Scott for what he's doing. Make sure you give him a follow. Check him out. If you have business questions, reach out to him at his website. All that stuff will be in the show notes where you can find links and click on them a lot easier. He's the amazing, powerful Scott Carson. I'm Jesse T. Be sure to catch us on next week's episode of the Jesse T. Show.