Greetings once again, I am coughing again. Bill Fairman, Wendy Sweet, Jonathan Davis, Carolina Capital Management. Welcome to another episode of Active Income, Passive Wealth.
Wendy Sweet (00:21):
Alright, well said.
Bill Fairman (00:24):
And I was able to say it properly and correctly.
Wendy Sweet (00:28):
I'm impressed.
Jonathan Davis (00:28):
I thought it was Active Wealth, Passive Income.
Bill Fairman (00:31):
Well, I'm reading it right here. Passive Income, Active Wealth. Unless we spelled it in properly or put the wrong words in the wrong place, I'm getting it right. So our website, by the way, I'm doing this to mess with Scott in the background. Don't forget to share and subscribe, hit the bell! Put little heart. If you have any questions, we have a little comment section on the side or underneath, depending on the platform that you are viewing. Ask a question anytime, even if it's after the show because we always have someone that will scrape and then add that to future show. Website is CarolinaHardMoney.com. We are lenders in case you're wondering. So if you're a borrower looking to borrow some money, then click on the apply now tab. If you are an investor looking for passive income, click on the invest tab. I got all that out without coughing much. How's that?
Wendy Sweet (01:29):
Goo job.
Jonathan Davis (01:29):
Great job.
Bill Fairman (01:32):
We have a great show today, we have a great friend. Brett Snodgrass, he's one of our buddies at CG. I know we talk about this all the time. We are very fortunate to be a part of Collective Genius where we have, by the way, none of us are geniuses but collectively,
Jonathan Davis (01:50):
Collectively, we throw our 160, it's great.
Bill Fairman (01:54):
And I'm always touting this Collective Genius is our insurance policy and our board of directors. When you're a small business person, you need help from others. It's a team sport. Unfortunately, most small businesses are individuals but you need help and one of the benefits of having a group like Collective Genius is because you have people from all over the country and we're able to actually see what's coming from one side of the country to the other and not have to react but what's the word I'm looking for? Anyway, we're able to stay in front of changing markets. See, that's another thing. I might not be coughing, but my brain is a little bit slower than it usually is.
Jonathan Davis (02:53):
Ask Wendy not to or to hold her comments.
Wendy Sweet (02:56):
I'm not gonna say a word.
Bill Fairman (02:56):
I know she wants to jump right in there.
Wendy Sweet (02:59):
I know but unfortunately, I too have to have foggy brain and I'm a little behind the times as well but I'm getting better every day. That's the key
Bill Fairman (03:10):
That has got to be the weirdest virus, I think I've ever had. I had bird's flu so don't get me wrong, but this thing just, it wears you out and it lingers like crazy.
Wendy Sweet (03:22):
It goes away and it comes back and it goes away and it comes back and I was telling you guys earlier, this is my 16th day with a femur, you know, just a low grade fever, few hours and then it'll go away. And it's just, it is, it's absolutely weird. Absolutely weird. But we're part of the herd now.
Bill Fairman (03:46):
That's right.
Wendy Sweet (03:46):
Right?
Bill Fairman (03:49):
Thank you, Don, for adding the word for me
Wendy Sweet (03:52):
Respond.
Bill Fairman (03:57):
Alright. So I failed to mention the current breaking news for the day business news for the day earlier. So I'm going to do it now.
Jonathan Davis (04:21):
Live from New York. It's Bill Fairman!
Bill Fairman (04:28):
So obviously the employment numbers came out today. The continuing claims were lower than expected. So continuing claims where the people that consistently are out of work, it was in the 17 million range, which is still high but it's not 20, where we started. And then new claims this week, they were expecting like 775. It came in at 751, which is still lower, it's all going in a great direction or at least a good direction. Our GDP numbers for the third quarter were through the roof. They were expecting a 30% GDP growth and it came in at 33 point something so it was a good growth for the third quarter. Keep in mind, most everything you get quarterly is based on rearward facing numbers, okay? Thank you, Scott. For those precise numbers, 33 point something percent. So the economy is pointing in the right direction. I still keep hearing these people talking about the housing market overheating in a bubble perhaps, happening but they never mentioned the fact you can't have a bubble. If you don't have enough supply, you only have a bubble is when you have more supply and demand, right?
Wendy Sweet (06:10):
We think.
Jonathan Davis (06:12):
You're right.
Bill Fairman (06:14):
Well, crisis are going up because of supply and demand. Not because of speculation and as long as we're looking at it that way, I think we're going to be in good shape for awhile. And it doesn't mean that there won't be bumps in the road, there's always bumps in the road but that's why we love the single family affordable housing space and that's why we're sticking with it right.
Jonathan Davis (06:37):
Low interest rates. And you know, there's a lot of people needing homes.
Wendy Sweet (06:42):
Yeah. But I'm anxious to hear how the cost of supplies, construction supplies are going to make a difference in any new construction or even the rehabs going on wood is just, lumber is insane high. Sheet rock is higher. Every single thing you go to buy is so much higher. Cabinets, you know, when you're ordering cabinets, it takes, you know, where it was a two to three week order. It's more than double that now and it's,
Jonathan Davis (07:12):
Windows is another one.
Wendy Sweet (07:12):
Windows. Same way. And although the supplies for like Lowe's and home Depot and builder supply companies in our area, they seem to be stocked pretty well. I'm hearing from people elsewhere, like in Florida that the shelves are almost empty, that there just isn't a whole lot available, to choose from at this point. So I'm anxious to see what that's gonna do, if anything, to affect new construction and rehab stuff.
Bill Fairman (07:51):
It didn't help when mother nature throws 14 hurricanes at you in one summer.
Wendy Sweet (07:57):
Yeah. Crazy, isn't it?
Bill Fairman (08:01):
Yeah. Unfortunately, seven of them all went to the same place but, you know, that'll cause the prices to continually go up, but you know, that always leaves room for innovation to come in and find ways to find a product that will replace a more expensive one and level the playing field. It happens in every single industry. The good news is, oil is down to less than $35 a barrel. So that's,
Jonathan Davis (08:42):
Only good news if your at an oil company or invested in them. Yeah.
Bill Fairman (08:47):
Energy is like a tax and a lower, the energy costs, the less it costs to do everything. Yeah, if you're in the oil sector, maybe not so good but what's bad for some is good for others. Pardon me, Let's bring Brett on, cause I know he's getting tired of picking through the green m&ms back there in the green room.
Brett Snodgrass (09:19):
I just get this loaded up on M and M's here, Bill. I'm Good.
Bill Fairman (09:24):
How you been? I know we haven't spoken since our last meeting and in September, wasn't it?
Brett Snodgrass (09:30):
Yeah, yeah. That was at the Florida Collected Genius, Tampa. Yeah. I've been great. I've been actually good. I'm actually in a hotel room right now. I had a procedure done. I will just throw it on the air. I had the band procedure done. So my wife had, we got four kids. So she said, you know what? That's about all we can handle.
Jonathan Davis (09:54):
I've got three and my wife's already scheduling mine.
Brett Snodgrass (09:59):
So you guys are, you know, quarantine and COVID, and I'm just chilling out because of that. So she said arrests. So here I am.
Wendy Sweet (10:09):
You know that, Brett? I have to tell ya. We both have a really good friend by the name of Don Harris. I was talking to him yesterday. He's watching this too and he said, and he started talking about you and he said, you know, he gave you the best compliment that I think anybody could get. He said, it is amazing to see how well he's done and I was a little worried that he was more interested in getting the gospel out, then putting his business out and I thought wow, what an incredible compliment.
Brett Snodgrass (10:45):
Oh, well, thanks. I know Don. He used to actually be around any Annapolis quite a bit and I worked with Don on some transactions. I saw, he just made up a comment here, so Hey, Don, how's it going? But that is so true actually, I was given a presentation last week in front of a group of entrepreneurs about kind of this year and my journey to freedom is what we call it because this has been a very interesting year for everybody, but it's even been a more interesting year for me because I have completely stepped out of the business in the last five months. And so I'm on this new journey, figuring what this looks like for myself but one of the guys at the presentation said even a few years ago, he remembered, I was lot more interested in, you know, doing my podcast and talking about, the Lord more than running the business, honestly and that was where I really wanted to go and that's one reasons why I've stepped out is so I can focus on these things that I'm really passionate about. So, thanks Don. Thanks, Wendy. Appreciate it.
Wendy Sweet (11:49):
That's awesome. That's so awesome. I believe that revival is going to come through our business world and not really through our churches. I think it's going to come from our business world and it's really important that we be bold about whose we are and who we are and I'm just thrilled that you're on here with us and bold and it's great to see what's going on in your world.
Brett Snodgrass (12:23):
Yeah, definitely. I totally agree. You have to be bold and I agree. I remember I was sitting for coffee with my pastor one time when I used to live in Indianapolis, I live in Fort Wayne, Indiana no, but he told me this story and he was getting ready to graduate from seminary school, become a pastor and he had a mentor pastor and he walked into his mentor pastor, his professor's office. And his mentor pastor asked him, say, Hey, are you really sure that you want to do this? And he said, well, yeah, absolutely. I want to give everything I can to spread the gospel and the spread the ministry and be a pastor and the reason why his mentor pastor asked them that was because he came from the marketplace and he said, I believe that when I was in the marketplace, I had more of an influence and I can make more of a difference for the kingdom than I do now as a pastor and that just kind of hit home with me and I think that that's so true. I think that we have such an influence and such, you know, we can spread the kingdom in an amazing way through the marketplace and I definitely see some people doing it and I see some people don't. So, it's kind of one of those gray areas that, you know, you had the tread lightly but that's one thing I really want to do is just talking to entrepreneurs lives and so they can, you know, for me, at least I've kind of reached this freedom point so that I can do things more significant that matter a lot to me. So that's all.
Wendy Sweet (14:01):
That's awesome.
Bill Fairman (14:02):
Excellent. Now, before we get back into what you are doing and your business, I have to go back to the room. Let me understand this until you get the procedure, your wife put you in your own room.
Brett Snodgrass (14:22):
Yeah, this is my, you know, revitalizing myself, resting. And, yeah, you know, it's funny though, is this is actually a really good place. It's an Indiana, but I'll also put this out there. I went to where they did this procedure and it was called The Happy Dad but it was really good. I will give a shout out. They were actually really, really good. So I'm very happy.
Bill Fairman (14:53):
Well, so yeah, I went at it at a different way. I typically utilize my personality for birth control and it's worked out what happened.
Brett Snodgrass (15:03):
You just started talking and giving your run-on sentences
Bill Fairman (15:08):
And then they run the other way.
Brett Snodgrass (15:13):
Of that.
Bill Fairman (15:14):
So Brent, tell us a little bit more about your business and then how you've been able to transition out of it.
Brett Snodgrass (15:24):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So, uh, I got into real estate back in 2007. I don't come from money. My parents were very middle class Americans. They were actually both teachers. My dad was a high school basketball coach here in Indiana. So my family all growing up made anywhere from 40 to $60,000. I remember my dad telling me one time he never had more than $5,000 sitting in his bank account at one time so we always live paycheck to paycheck. That was just kind of how I grew up, but I had a great childhood. My parents are actually still married. They had been married for over 40 years and that I talked to them all the time and they're one of my biggest fans encouraging me to continue and take more risks and all that but I've always been also an entrepreneur at heart. Even in the middle school, I would buy candy and sell it at lunch, or I was always, you know, counting my money and my piggy bank and if you put a dollar sign behind math, I was very, very interested in it. So I graduated college with an elementary education degree as a teacher because my parents were teachers and I didn't really know what else to do so that's what I got. I tried teaching for about four months after college, and I said, you know what? This just isn't isn't for me and I need something more. I need something more entrepreneurial and I kind of tried some different businesses at that time. I did some network marketing businesses. I tried selling things on eBay and I tried a lot of different things and nothing really worked until I started reading some books about really wealthy people and most of them made their wealth from real estate. 2007, I was looking on the internet and I found a house in Ohio Youngstown, Ohio for $9,000 and this is like really at the end of 2007 so the market is really starting to go down, people are starting to freak out and I didn't know any better. I was just looking for cheap houses and I found this $9,000 house on a line in Youngstown, Ohio and I ended up getting that under contract and then selling that for $15,000 and I made $6,000 and one transaction and I was a substitute school teacher at that time and I was used to making 1200 or $1,500 a month so to make $6,000 in one transaction, that was like months of working really hard, right? So that's kinda when it all happened and I asked myself, you know, what if I could do this with one house, could I do it with a hundred or a thousand? And then 13 years later, 2020, I've been doing this ever since and I think we've flipped, bought and sold. I've lost count, but I think it's around the 3000 mark of houses or deals that I've been a part of bought and sold. Right now we're doing about 300 a year for the past four years or so. It's been pretty cool, some pretty awesome journey.
Bill Fairman (18:26):
Nice. Is that all been in the Indianapolis market?
Brett Snodgrass (18:30):
So we've done some different markets. Right now, yes, Indianapolis. We're going deep there so many Annapolis and the surrounding areas of Annapolis, but through the years I've done different markets. I've done Cincinnati, Ohio, Dayton, Ohio. I got into Florida at one time, back in '09 to 2011 when Florida was just a huge, you know, super cheap houses. I used to buy down at Fort Myers and Lehigh acres and Orlando so I got in that market for a while, but right now deepen in Indianapolis, my backyard and it's really, really good and I just, you know, I've had that conversation, should you go deep or wide? And we've been able to do 300 plus transactions just in Indianapolis and I asked myself, you know, to start a whole new market, that's just a different ball game. So we just kind of stay in here right now.
Bill Fairman (19:25):
Yeah. I was going to mention that the differences between working outside of your backyard and, you know, the issues that you have, you know, working a far so to speak without having feet on the ground.
Brett Snodgrass (19:43):
And every state's a little bit different. I mean, you gotta, and I had to learn even when I did Florida and I did Ohio, you know, Florida does the state tax, you know, at the closing, right? And instead of, you know, paying the income tax and some people use attorneys rather than title companies. I don't know. So you just gotta learn the whole new and building your team and then figuring out how you're gonna run comps and figure out if it's a dangerous area or a good area, or, you know, it's just a lot to figure out so it's a lot of pieces put together.
Bill Fairman (20:14):
So are you doing a fix and flip buy and hold wholesaling or whatever works for the deal?
Brett Snodgrass (20:24):
Well, I've done a lot in the last 13 years. So I got into wholesaling cause I didn't have a lot of money and, you know, we would just buy and sell and assign contracts and do it that way for about the first five years or so. This was 2007 to 2012. The market started coming back. So then I started fixing and flipping and I remember doing that three years and my dad started getting involved. He was a high school shop, teacher, industrial arts. So he knew a lot about woodworking and things like that. So we would fix up houses and I just remember some of the stories. I remember literally at midnight, I'm in a house sand and the floors and, you know, staying in them and I asked myself, what am I, you know, what am I doing? This is crazy! You know, and it was tough. It was a real job. And then in 2014, 15, I said, you know what? I just, I like chasing deals, I like getting them on a contract and I like, you know, that model. So really we we wholesale and whole tail so we do buy them, clean them out and then sell them as well and then we do a lot of seller financing. So I am into financing, kind of like what you guys do, I really enjoyed that model, where we buy a house, we clean it out, we fixed up a little bit and then we sell our finance it to an investor or to a homeowner too sometimes so I do enjoy that. So we've got about a hundred. Well, we used to have about a hundred seller financing transactions, now we've got about 70 because I ended up selling off about 30 this year.
Bill Fairman (21:56):
We just had Bob repass on the earlier show with a Note School and Note Expo and we were talking about how we much prefer to control the asset than be responsible for the asset. So that's why we're in the note business too.
Brett Snodgrass (22:14):
Yeah. There's definitely some benefits to it. So I definitely highly, highly enjoy that business just because you're totally hands-off. You just, you see the money coming in and you know, most of the time, the last time I talked to the borrower or the homeowner is as only close, and then we have systems that we set it all up but this year, my accountant didn't say, Hey, you know, you might try to buy some rentals because that would help your tax liability. So I dunno, it's, I guess there's just kind of that as well.
Bill Fairman (22:47):
Well, here's what you do. You passively invest in someone's fund who has a property ownership and they can pass through your appreciation to you and you still don't have to be responsible.
Brett Snodgrass (23:02):
Love it, love it. I needed to hear more about that. Actually. I mentioned that already
Jonathan Davis (23:12):
Well, Brett, you've had a long journey here and I think a lot of people realized and if they don't they come to realize soon that the easiest way to get into real estate is through wholesaling. Like that's the easiest way because you can do it with almost no money but it's also one of the hardest jobs out there. I guess, what advice would you give people trying to get into this space of like, you know, stones to step over or just little kernels that might help them along the way.
Brett Snodgrass (23:45):
Yeah, no, you're exactly right. I mean, we actually host a meetup here in Indianapolis and we typically have 50 to a hundred people in the room and we're teaching how to wholesale actually and if you want to check out that here in Indianapolis, it's called the Wholesaling Made Simple Meetup, but yeah, we're always trying to teach other people how, what this process looks like and, I would just, you know, highly recommend that this does take a lot of work. It is a simple model but it's not easy at all and that's why we came up with simple wholesaling. The model is actually pretty simple. You go out, you find deals, you get them on our contract and then you find investors and then you just match the two together. You match the investor with the deal, right? But to actually find deals is very, very difficult and that's where the expertise and the experience comes in is because, you know, you have to find good deals. So there's a lot of marketing involved and there's big companies now, you know, when I first got started 13 years ago, no one really knew what wholesaling was, I don't know that was a term at all. I was just, you know, there wasn't a lot of courses about it and I didn't really know, I just kind of learned from experience, but now there's a lot of information out there. You can look at courses, there's big companies that have really turned this into a business, right? A wholesaling used to just be the stepping stone. This is how I'm going to get started, right? And then I'm going to get into real, real estate investing and that is fixing and flipping or buying and holding or apartments or whatever and then wholesaling was always a stepping stone. But what I found out and where other people have found out is you can really do very well and make this a very legitimate business, right? The stepping stones, I would just say is you have to learn, it's kind of a marketing business and you have to learn to market, right? So you know, what we do is you have to learn to get leads, right? In any business, how do you get leads? And you can do it the freeway where you're knocking on people's doors, or you're cold calling people, or, you know, that's some of the freeways, or you can do things that cost money and that's where direct mail, we do a lot of direct mail. We have television commercials that actually, you know, people are watching, especially in these days that people watch are watching the TV a lot so we have television commercials, we have radio commercials, different things like that. So that brings our leads in, but then you have to have a sale to work the leads, right? And that's where a lot of people, you know, fail too. It's like the money is always in the followup. You never get it on their first conversation. Sometimes we're talking to someone 10 times before we get the deal so it's all about systems and developing that process and that's what we've done. I've built a great team here in Indianapolis, we built systems around it. So I get the leads to come in and we have a great team to handle the leads and we have a great system where now I have been able to step out of the business because of all of those puzzle pieces and it's been pretty cool, but I would just say wholesaling is mostly a marketing. It's a marketing business. So you have to be good at marketing and just learn marketing.
Jonathan Davis (27:10):
Yeah. And, you're right. You know, most people think, you know, you get into wholesaling, then you get into fix and flips, and then, then you do the long-term rentals and then once you've built up enough wealth, now you can be a lender and, you know, like they think that's the Genesis of how things are supposed to happen and I love that you've made a complete model out of, you know, what most people think is the first step and you've made a very successful model out of the first step that I would say most lenders would be envious of, you know, where you know, where you are and your businesses, because you have, you know, literally no risk. Like it's great, you make money with no risk.
Brett Snodgrass (27:51):
Yeah, yeah. Obviously the risks comes and especially if you're assigning contracts and we do buy in and we close in a lot of our deals and that obviously is risk, but it's the reputation, I think. If you look around a lot of wholesalers don't have very good reputations because they don't think about the consequences of their actions. So, you know, so for me as a person that I want to run a successful business and have a good reputation and a good brand, we always try to do things the right way and so if we get a property under contract, we take that really seriously. Like we're not just going to say, Oh, if we don't sell it, we're just going to walk away. Like we don't hardly ever do that. We, you know, we make sure we're treating that person right and I've had to do things that I didn't really want to do but it kind of saved our reputation and a lot of different ways. So I think that the risk is your reputation. If you want to make this into a business, you have to do things the right way and listen to the right people, teaching those. So,
Jonathan Davis (28:53):
Yeah. No great advice. Great advice. Bill, you're muted. He's over there talking,
Speaker 2 (29:08):
I love COVID. I've been coughing so I'd put it on mute and then I forgot to take it out. Anyway. We did have a question about recommending a fund that has the pass through depreciation. We have a friend, Greg Hughes. If Scott can get a chance to put a Hughes Capital up on the screen, when you get a chance, that'd be great, but he buys a single family rentals in the Midwest and rents them out and if you're in that fund, you can do two things. You can get that pass through of the depreciation. And if you have a 10 31 exchange, you can actually count that and still be passively in a fund because they'll make sure that they have a property that is actually in your name and then that way it will qualify for 1031 exchange as well, which is pretty cool. I love the meetup. Are you doing this monthly? Are you doing this weekly or are you having like a group of local mastermind type things? How's that working?
Brett Snodgrass (30:17):
Yeah. We do it once a month? So we've been actually doing it for about three plus years. Most of the time, we get together as the fourth, Wednesday of the month and we just take a topic about wholesaling and then we just teach about it. So sometimes it's about how to talk to sellers, sometimes it's about how to get leads, sometimes it's about how to sell properties sometimes we have a panel up there about title companies and what to look for. So we do different topics each year and we teach wholesalers. So that's one thing that I just kind of learned is that if, you know, most people say, why would you ever do that? Because you know, you're creating competition for yourself and your own markets and I just kind of like flip that around and I'm always like, you know, if I can bring value to people and to an audience, then the value also come back to us. So what's actually happened is we're teaching other wholesalers in our market how to wholesale and some of them have gone off and done some pretty amazing things but a lot of them, especially at first, they bring us deals, right. They partner with us on their deals and, you know, kinda, it just kinda works out both ways. So we're educating, but then we also get a lot of traction from it as well. So I would highly recommend if you're in a market and you're doing whatever it is, it could be lending, it could be notes, it could be fixing and flipping, you know, host a meetup. I think it's just, you know, it brings a lot of value to people and your market. And also, we also kind of link up with some of the RIAs in our markets. So they also push our meetup as well. So I think that's important.
Bill Fairman (31:59):
Yeah. Wendy and I both have a RIA subgroups that we host. I do a once a month. Wendy does once a week. I don't know how she comes up with kind of content
Jonathan Davis (32:14):
She doesn't have a content. She's got like, 70 people in there who are just, you know, crazy well educated investors and each one of them teaches something. It's amazing.
Bill Fairman (32:24):
There's probably 40 of them that could run the meeting themselves so this could benefit for her, that's for sure.
Brett Snodgrass (32:30):
I just think that's the magic to just the collaboration and that's why I'm part of several masterminds. I've been part of that and then, so you think you have to come up with all this content and education, but sometimes just the magic is just getting like-minded people in the same room, they have questions, right? And a lot of times it's just, Hey, what questions do you have about certain things? And you're just answering people's questions, you know, off the platform as well.
Bill Fairman (32:56):
So on the, I don't know about the rules in Indiana, but I know wholesale has and there's some States that are requiring you to have a real estate licenses. Is that one of them?
Brett Snodgrass (33:16):
Indiana is not right now. Obviously, you know, some of are, you know, connecting States, I think Ohio has came out with some things that are like that they require you to have a license but as of right now, everything's still on the up and I actually have my license and I've had it for 10 plus years and we've never had any issues. As long as, again, we're up front, we're trying to do the right things, we're not trying to take advantage of people and we disclose it, right? You know, so if you have your license, they, Hey, we have a real estate license, but we're not wanting to list your home or wanting to buy it and we're investors, right? And we just we're investors that have a license and where does that front about it? And having never had an issue.
Bill Fairman (33:59):
Well, I was going to mention that, that there's nothing wrong with having that get a license if you're in a state that requires a license.
Brett Snodgrass (34:06):
Yeah. And getting a license is not hard. I mean, it's here in Indiana. I don't know. And maybe some States are different by getting a license here in Indiana is not, it's not a difficult thing. I think it's like 500 bucks. And then you take a course, which isn't that hard and take a test and it's not a hard thing. It's not like you're going to a two year, you know, school to get your license, anything like that.
Bill Fairman (34:28):
Well, again, any education is, is a worthwhile effort. As far as I'm concerned.
Brett Snodgrass (34:34):
I really enjoyed actually the classes. Yeah. I enjoyed the classes. I learned a lot by getting my license and some of the things you think you don't need, but just, you know, what's the differences of deeds, quick claim, deed versus warranty deed, some of the fair housing laws, which we don't like to talk about, but it's very important to talk about, you know, and learning what those are, environmental laws. So I think it's really, really worthwhile. I learned a lot.
Bill Fairman (35:03):
And for selfish reasons, I'm saying you should do a little inner circle kinda meet up for folks that want to take their business to the next level. That's something you should think of doing.
Brett Snodgrass (35:19):
We're actually considering that and we haven't launched it yet, but for next year, 2021, that's one of the things that I think that,, you know, being a part of mastermind groups is really, really important but a lot of times when you're part of a mastermind group, you know, you got people flying in from all over the nation to, at some central location and I've always tried to think of how can you create a local mastermind group? But a lot of people don't do that because it's, again, it's credit competition. So for me, it's like, Hey, let's get all the wholesalers in one room. Well, and in your local market, I don't know if that would bring the value that we would want it to, but real estate has a lot of different industries, right? So I was thinking about that and you got wholesalers fix and flippers note buyers, lenders, title companies, insurance companies, property management companies buy and hold people. So, and I was thinking, yeah, that would be awesome. If you get maybe two people from each industry in the same room to help them scale their business, that's something that we've been kind of toying around with, for sure. Do you guys have that or?
Bill Fairman (36:25):
No.
Brett Snodgrass (36:25):
You guys should do too.
Jonathan Davis (36:33):
Yes.
Bill Fairman (36:35):
We are all about the education thing we want to, and we get the same problem too. Why are you telling everything, you know, you're going to create competition and we all have the same attitude that you have is that the it's an attitude of abundance and we will, it's great. If somebody comes in, learns what we do and starts their own business, they're not necessarily competition. We'll end up doing business together on something. They'll have a deal that they can't do and vice versa and we'll share it amongst each other and that's fine. All it does is in my mind is, is build a larger network and then you're also going to be surrounding yourself with people that are going to up your game as well and I think that's more of a benefit than worrying about somebody taking an extra crumb off your plate. You know what I mean?
Brett Snodgrass (37:36):
Yeah. And you get so much personally, too. So when I, especially, if you get into a room with other business owners, other entrepreneurs, and we all have different business and professional challenges, but we have personal challenges too and I think, a lot of times as entrepreneurs and business owners, we feel a little misunderstood. So whenever, if we go to where our church or have a small group within our church and they all, you know, your whole group has normal jobs and nine to five jobs and you're kind of this entrepreneur and you feel a little bit misunderstood and people don't really understand you. So I feel like if you can get into a room with other entrepreneurs, you can also do a lot personally, too cause a lot of us struggle with personal things too. Our marriages, our parenting, our health, right? I mean, I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with the stress and anxiety that running a business has on you so I don't know. I think there's definitely a lot to that as well.
Jonathan Davis (38:33):
Yeah. I'm gonna take that kind of, you know what you said earlier when we first started this, you know, about doing more good or starting more of the word through business, through the marketplace then through the pulpit and I think that's so true because day in and day out, people get to see your actions as opposed to your words and actions I think are so important far more than words and it's easy, I think a lot of people's minds to stand somewhere and say something. It's a lot more difficult today in and day out, do what you say you're doing and carry those actions and I think that's where the impact really takes place with, with the business or your small communities or your inner circle groups. That's where it happens.
Brett Snodgrass (39:19):
Yes, exactly. Yeah, for sure and, I do agree. Yeah. Actions, and as a business owner, you get to see a lot of that. and then if you get real close with other business owners and entrepreneurs, they get to see on your personal site to your actions cause I can say whatever I want on this interview, but when I go home, I could be complete monster, you know?
Jonathan Davis (39:40):
I mean, yeah. You could, you know, people get on here and say pretty things and you know, go back to work and they're the worst boss and they treat their employees terribly and you know. We see it every day with, with people that we work with and choose not to work with anymore. You see that a lot. And it's, you know, when you find the ones who actually do what they say and they're, you know, even if they don't even talk, most of them don't even talk about it most of them just do it and those are the people that you want to pull into your circle.
Brett Snodgrass (40:14):
Yeah. Yeah. And that's the humbleness of it. And that's obviously the Christ like qualities is the humbleness and a lot of times the humbleness, or they just don't really think about themselves as much as just constantly think about other people and a lot of times they're just not remembered because they're kind of an you know, unmemorable person, right? Cause they're just, they're thinking about other people all the time right now.
Bill Fairman (40:40):
That's me, that's why, I have no stress. I sit there. My goal in life is to make sure that I have as little responsibility as possible.
Brett Snodgrass (40:53):
I love that.
Bill Fairman (40:55):
So in case you guys were wondering, Wendy fell out. Every day for like 16 days, she's been running a slight fever, thanks to this stupid COVID thing and Wendy reached her point and vowed out. She says, sorry, love the first part of the interview. Brett,
Brett Snodgrass (41:26):
Can I talk about, just a little bit about just this year, this is something I'm really, really passionate about.
Bill Fairman (41:31):
Yeah, absolutely.
Brett Snodgrass (41:31):
And I just want to kind of talk to the entrepreneurs out there to the, maybe you're in this space and let me just tell you a little bit about where I was at in 2020. So for the past several, you know, two, three years, one of my goals was to get out of the business to step out, to let the team run the business so I could have freedom, right? So I could do the things that I'm really passionate about and not be handcuffed to my desk all the time and just do the business. So 2020 hit COVID comes around March all, the businesses shut down and you know, I'm freaking out a little bit about what's going to happen to our business and honestly, one of the thoughts I had was if our business goes under or if we minimize our business to only a few people, like I would be okay with all that, honestly like a relief kind of came over me, but like that would be something that I would could desire and at that point I realized maybe I wasn't the best visionary of the company anymore and maybe I should let the team run with this company. So that's what I did. So our COO at the time, Brian Snyder, I said, Hey, here's how I'm feeling. Do you want to be CEO? Do you want to run this whole ship? And I'll be in the owner's box, I'll still own it, but I'll step over and whatever decisions you decide, I'll be your biggest supporter and fan and it's your vision now. And he said, yes. So for the past five months, that's kind of what has happened so what does that kind of mean is I've had this freedom to be able to do a lot of things that, uh, you know, I wasn't maybe able to do. I've been able to travel with my family. I've been able to really spend time with them, pour into them. I've been able to, to take a step back number one and actually think. Sometimes when you're in the middle of something you can't really think because you're just in the middle of it all, right? The health, what I've talked about, I remember a couple of years ago I was sitting in a hospital you know, getting an EKG done on my heart cause I'm having chest pains and anxiety and all that stuff and I haven't had that since. So that's been like a huge thing and not saying our business wasn't going good, but it's like, there's a lot of pressure on the business owner. You've got all this people asking you all these questions, making all these huge decisions and, and all that, right? And then it was just kind of getting to me. So I just wanted to encourage those people out there that this is something that I've achieved and that you can achieve and it's really was just a decision, right? And it's having those hard conversations and those hard reflections on really what you want and it can be achieved but you also have to kill off a lot or some of the different things and some of the things I had to realize was if I was going to step out of the business, I had to be humble about it, right? I couldn't let my ego get in the way. So I wasn't going to be the face of the business anymore. That had to be okay with me. It wasn't my vision anymore and I had to be okay with me, right? This other team could run it without me and it's not all, you know, I'm not Mr. Superman over here having to make all these big decisions and I had to be okay with all that so I just want to kind of point that out there, because this is the journey that I'm on. I love teaching people how to achieve that because I'm in a lot of masterminds. I talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and I even asked Jason Medley, the leader of collective genius. I said, Hey, Jason, I would love to meet other people who have made that decision in their lives, right? And he could name a lot, right? He named a couple, but, and I said, Jason, why hasn't people, you know, made that shift? And he said, well, there's people that could, they just don't make that decision. So, and I'm just trying to figure out the reasons why, and things like that. So like, I don't know if anybody's listening here that once that freedom, I love to just talk about it and kind of share with you, you know, some of the things I went through because it's not fun. It takes a lot of courage and almost it takes as much. It takes more courage to step out of your business than it is to when you started it in the first place so you take yourself back when you started this, you were scared. It takes, you go through that same feelings with this and, it's just kind of journey I've been on and I love to share and if anybody's interested.
Jonathan Davis (45:50):
That's great.
Bill Fairman (45:52):
So first of all, that's awesome. Number one, it's very difficult for entrepreneurs to give up, control.
Jonathan Davis (46:05):
Stop entrepreneuring.
Bill Fairman (46:05):
Their identities and self-worth seem to be wrapped up into that.
Brett Snodgrass (46:10):
Yeah. And I guess to your point too, Jonathan, is that that's one of the fears. I think that people fear is if they step out, they won't, they love creating, right? They love being an entrepreneur and they'll have to stop doing that and I'll have to sit on a beach somewhere and be bored to tears, right? And that's not the case either. You can still create because that's how we were created. I was made to create, but it's just different. Now I'm back and I'm getting passionate about things and I'm creating things, you know, mission things and I don't know, it just kind of gets these creative juices flowing. So I guess I want to encourage those. You don't have to stop, I guess, just because you step out, you can still do the things, but you have options, right? And I think that's the big difference.
Jonathan Davis (46:55):
Yep. Now the decisions and choices made out of fear usually end in resentment either by you or the party that you're, you know, making the choice with. So fear-based decisions are never very good decisions or don't seem to be.
Brett Snodgrass (47:08):
Exactly.
Bill Fairman (47:10):
We have a quick, quick question from Mark. He wants to know, how has the income chaired since you've backed away or, well, thank you, Scott. I'm looking in the wrong place now.
Brett Snodgrass (47:27):
I see it here
Bill Fairman (47:30):
Are your people employees? Did your income go down when you pulled back? How did that work out for you?
Brett Snodgrass (47:35):
Yeah, no, uh, that's that's a great question. So the way I did it was I had all these, I had all these thoughts going through my mind. So number one I could give up equity in the company. Is that something that people would want but I'm in a wholesaling business so is equity worth a lot? I don't know. You know, the money is in the kind of the systems and the houses and the team, I guess. So that was one thing I didn't really want to do because I've heard horror stories about that. I could try to sell the business, so that's one thing, but who's going to buy a wholesaling business, I can maybe own or finance it to the team. So that was a thought I had, but what I came up with is, Hey, what if I, cause I still wanted to own the business because it's a very profitable business and, but I wanted to give up more pieces of the pie that if, if the team wanted to grow it, then uh, then they were getting right? So my proposal was, I just did more profit sharing. So especially for the leadership team, I just carved up and say, Hey, if we reach this point, I'll give you this much of a percentage and it's a sliding scale. But if we reach this much profit this year, then I'm going to give you more and if you reach this much, then I'm going to give like half the money away to the leadership team. So I started to just do more of a profit sharing bonus plan and that's how I carved it up. So, but everybody's situation a little bit different. Some people might want equity, some people don't, but again, you know, I look at the risk, right? And we still have all the risks. Like I'm still the owner and I still have the money out there. I still have all the risks and a lot of the team, they don't want risk, right? They would rather just have the money, the profit sharing plan that if you do make money, but if you don't make money, I still have a lot of the risks, right? So it's just worked for us.
Bill Fairman (49:29):
Well, I think what you end up finding out when you back away, give other people more responsibility. What you end up with is a lot of times you become the choke point and by giving up a lot of the responsibilities and allowing other people to make those decisions, they are quite competent in doing so and your business ends up growing larger without you then with you. Does that make sense?
Brett Snodgrass (50:02):
Yeah, I agree. Actually, the quick story. So this is October now, September Brian who's CEO comes to me and he asks me for the records of our company. Like, what's the record gross profit, what's the record net profit and the whole 13 years you've been doing it, give me the record and so I go through my records and I look up and I find all these records, right? Well, last month they broke them all and then I, yeah and didn't even work in the business. So that was just another example of number one, it starts to give me a lot of confidence about what we're doing and a number so a lot of times we say, if we have an employee, we say, our business has outgrown this person and you're like, but this person started with me. I mean, they were my first employee 10 years ago and I can't let them go, but your business has outgrown that person and honestly, as a business owner, I feel like our business has outgrown me and that was just something I had to realize and then just even last month, I think that was just gave me the confidence to, that was a great decision that I made and Mark asked about my income. I mean, my income actually has gone up since I've stepped out well, all of the businesses do that.
Jonathan Davis (51:16):
Especially if you count it, if you spread it across by hours that you spend on it, you know,
Brett Snodgrass (51:21):
exactly.
Jonathan Davis (51:23):
Your dollars per hour, you've definitely gone up.
Brett Snodgrass (51:25):
Yes, exactly. And I think you're right, Bill. What I learned was when you let go, the leaders step up and that's what I've seen on our team. Like I'm not there anymore that to ask questions to and my biggest thing, my biggest comment that if anybody ever asks me a question, which I don't get that many questions anymore, five months into this, but at first I did. And I would always say, what do you, you decide, I, you know, I'll support whatever you decide on that decision and I started saying that, and now they don't even ask me, they just decide.
Bill Fairman (52:00):
It's a lot like, you know, Jocko Willink in his book about extreme ownership and allowing other people to make these decisions. As long as they know the why and the plan, it's a whole lot easier for them to make those field decisions on their own without having to come to you and if everybody has to come to you, then again, you're the choke point.
Brett Snodgrass (52:28):
And that's what Brian said too when I offered him the CEO positions. So this is what he said on a show recently is, so what I told him, I had a lot of relief and then when I told him, he said he had a lot of relief and I started to ask that and he said, because things go so much faster now. It's just like, if someone asks him a question, he makes, they make the decision. He doesn't have to say, okay, well, let me check on Brett. We're going to meet next week and it's just slow, right? So he just, it just has helped a lot. And this system and processes as well.
Bill Fairman (53:02):
Well, I told you this would last like 35, 40 minutes, and we've been here for almost an hour.
Jonathan Davis (53:11):
[inaudible]
Bill Fairman (53:12):
We certainly appreciate your time.
Brett Snodgrass (53:15):
No, thank you. Thanks Bill. Thanks Jonathan. And I hope Wendy gets to feeling better and you guys all do so I appreciate you having me on the show so much,
Jonathan Davis (53:25):
That you very much.
Bill Fairman (53:25):
Thank you so much. Hang in there in the green room for just a moment, if you don't mind. Folks, thank you so much. I know you guys enjoyed this. Brett's got a great story and it's something that, if you're an entrepreneur, it's something that needs to be followed and understood it. You turned out better for everybody involved in your business if you end up letting a few more people making the decisions than just you, because you end up, as I said earlier, becoming a choke point in that business and you're the one that's holding it back and you hate to hear that because it was your baby from the first, the beginning. Again, we're Carolina Capital Management. We make loans. Our website is CarolinaHardMoney.com. If you're interested in borrowing money, go to the borrower tab and click on apply now. If you're interested in passive returns, go to the investor tab and click that on. Don't forget to subscribe, share, like hit the bell, do a back flip, whatever it says. If you have any additional questions, you can add them to the comments. Again, we always have people that scour this afterwards as well. Jonathan, thank you so much and you folks have a wonderful day.
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