How To Build a Team To Grow Your Real Estate Business
Who do you need on your team?
How do you find a good team member?
What are the roles of a real estate agent, a title company, or a lawyer in your team?
Get a good coach that leads you to a greater, straighter more assured path, simply because mistakes are expensive.
Timestamps:
0:01 - Introduction - “Ten Steps To Your First Big Real Estate Deal - Build An Amazing Team ”
0:40 - Lou’s wins of the week
6:10 - Lou’s give away
6:39 - “Ten Steps To Your First Big Real Estate Deal - Step 4: Build An Amazing Team ”
8:08 - Real Estate Agents
11:00 - Title Company/Attorney
14:36 - Mortgage Broker
15:42 - Assist Wiz
18:49 - A Good Contractor
20:00 - Get Connected with your Community
21:46 - Today’s Tip - When You Have a Team, Communication Is Key
22:30 - How to Protect your Assets: TRUSTS - https://www.MaximumAssetShield.com - October 14th - 17th, 2021
27:40 - “Buy, Hold, Sell” - Get a copy of Lou’s Book: https://www.MaximumAssetShield.com/Book
29:05 - Do I need a lawyer?
31:32 - Do I need a photographer?
33:41 - Don’t Get Ready To Get Ready
34:30 - Lou’s parting message: Everything is by design.
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Listen to our Podcast:
Lou Brown (00:00):
We're going to be talking about and continuing the series 10 steps to your first big real estate deal. And this week we're going to be talking about building an amazing team.
Lou Brown (00:28):
Welcome. We've got some great things for you today, and I'm so excited to talk to you about Building An Amazing Team, but we always start off with the Wins of the Week. And boy, has it been an amazing week! There's been lots of things happening. We had a lady with $30,000. She said, "Yeah, baby," to a house that we showed her this week. You see, now there's a great example of how our system works. Now where did this lady come from? She is Jamaican. I have a student up in New York City that's Jamaican. She told me about her friend that moved to Atlanta. She told me that her friend has $30,000. Well, my student up in New York is a real estate agent. So she's going to get a full commission on this customer that's buying this house from us this week.
Lou Brown (01:31):
Is that a cool thing? I hope that's a "Yeah, baby" for you. Because listen, what I teach you to do is collaborate with the other Certified Affordable Housing Providers in your market. Get connected, get congealed, talk to each other about what you're doing. You're all doing the same thing. You're working under the same brand. You know about the Path To Home Ownership. You've got clients coming. You can't serve all of them that come. Share, baby, share. Support one another, help each other to be a success. And don't forget what you'll be doing is helping that deserving family end up with home ownership. Helping them to have a better life than the one they've got causing your business to occur in an amazing way. So I think that's a win of the week. I'm excited about that one. Cause everybody wins. Don't they? My student and a colleague and Certified Affordable Housing Provider from New York City who is a real estate agent.
Lou Brown (02:35):
She wins because she's going to get a nice commission for just referring this person to us. And my client is winning because she's getting a great house. By the way, the house she's getting, let me tell you about this house. This got 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a full basement. It's on 3 and a half acres of land. There's a creek out back. I mean, this is a special house and a special lady is getting that. So we're so happy about that. Unfortunately, we got the house back because one of our 9-year members, his brother passed away and he simply needs the combined income. He doesn't want to move in with anybody else. He doesn't want to bring anybody else into his world. He just wants to downsize. So, he does have another solution to that. And we're very, very pleased for him on that.
Lou Brown (03:30):
He handed the house back to us. We had this customer already waiting. So that's exactly how the House Monster works. We get referrals, we take those referrals. We put them into the membership. This lady did join the membership and we began looking for a house for her. And all of a sudden this house just popped up on the radar. And so that's another thing to always be aware of, is that you never know where it's coming from, but if you're not ready, it doesn't come. So, be prepared, have customers. And then the houses just kind of fall into place to kind of come naturally, which is kind of a fun thing. We're working on another one. Very similar to this one, too. So with that said that's a win of the week. I want to tell you about another win of the week to one of our licensees
Lou Brown (04:20):
One of my coaching clients, Eric Cooper from Houston, Texas. He and his wife, Lily, are amazing. They joined me a little over a year ago. My goodness, they've already done 12 deals. He's got a full-time job. They've got twins, 7-year-olds. They're busy people, right? Lots of stuff going on in their world. And sure enough, Eric shared with me. He says, "Well, Lou, you know, we've got the House Monster going." He says, "We've got 4 deals under contract right now." So that's another win of the week. And this particular deal, he had someone come along from his House Monster. Good enough credit, good enough down payment. He says, "Lou, I thought I was going to get somebody that was going to move in. They were going to live in the house for a while. We're going to help them build up their credit and they'll eventually buy the house."
Lou Brown (05:14):
But the House Monster brought somebody that was qualified. He said, "I thought the House Monster was going to be bringing me people that were less than qualified, less than perfect credit." And he says, "All of a sudden here comes this one with good enough credit, good enough down payment. I didn't know what to do with myself." I said, "Well, Eric, you had already set your price on the house, right?" And he said yes. And he said, "She loves it. She took it. She wants it." And he says, "Lou, we're making $72,000 profit on that particular property." So big clap and happy, hallelujah for Eric and Lily in Houston for their big win of the week for sure.
Lou Brown (06:10):
All right. Hey, we have an event coming up soon on Trusts and I want to give you a free book. So stay till the end. I'm going to be giving away a free book that anyone can have. It's not a free book. Any of you can download it and be able to read it. It's going to give you some great information on something that's near and dear to my heart, trusts. But I'll talk to you about that at the end. Now we're going to be talking about 10 steps to your first big real estate deal. But if you've already been doing real estate, you are going to benefit from this as well. Now I've been doing a series on this very thing to help people to really know what to do and how to do it.
Lou Brown (06:55):
And this week, I'm going to talk about building an amazing team. So everyone needs to have a great team. And if you're just getting started or you've been in the business for years, you've got something to learn about this because I wish someone had taught me this when I got started. How important it was, not just a good idea, but important it was for the success of me and my business in order to have team members that could help me through, not only the learning curve, but the doing curve, right? Because there is a doing curve to this business. And there's a lot of moving parts at certain times of a deal. And so sure enough, you're doing your marketing. You're getting the leads. You've got customers now doing your House Monster. Now we've got to go find property. Well, we got to get a deal.
Lou Brown (07:52):
We've got to get leads to get deals. We've got to get appointments first. And then we got to go visit with the sellers. We've got to structure the deal in the right way that the seller says yes. And when they say yes, now we've got to have the team members take over. So one of the things that we love is to have a great relationship with a real estate agent, at least one, we've got dozens, dozens of relationships with real estate agents. Why? Because they come and go. Deals, opportunities, come and go. You're not going to get them from the same agent. So I encourage you to get multiple relationships, but there's going to be one very special relationship that you're going to develop because that's going to get you into the MLS. Now I will tell you that about 60% of my clients that become Street Smart and are Certified Affordable Housing clients are actually licensed.
Lou Brown (08:46):
They're licensed real estate agents. So this is very easy for them because they can go right on the MLS and they can find deals and they can put parameters in place so they can get notified when certain deals come into the market, come online. And it's a great thing when you've got the House Monster because here you've got a customer just now. And as I was telling you earlier, maybe with $30,000 put down. Alright, what house are you going to find for them? And of course, they're telling you upfront, how many bedrooms, how many bathrooms, maybe they have a location preference. Maybe they have special needs, a ramp, something like that for a handicap individual. So it could be anything that might be a need for that particular group or family. So here's the opportunity. You've got a real estate agent. You would tell them, "Okay, I've got this customer."
Lou Brown (09:42):
"I want to find a property in this location. I'm looking for this many bedrooms and this many bathrooms. And what I want you to do is find a property that's been on the market for awhile. 30, 60, 90 days. Something that's been on the market, shopworn, depending on how busy and how vibrant the market is, where you are." And then the agent can bring those to you as possible deals to do. Well that can come through an agent. And the agent has a motivation to do that because they're going to earn a real estate commission as a result of it. And if they bring me the buyer as well, they could actually earn both sides of commission. So there's a lot of incentive for someone to want to be a member of your team, particularly when you tell them who you are and what you do.
Lou Brown (10:26):
And here's why it's important because you tell them that you only want their leftovers. The people that can't list their homes, you want to have a shot at them after they get up and leave, so to speak and not be able to list the property, okay? Then they can refer that deal to you. Another is people they can't place into a home because they don't have good enough credit or good enough down payment. Those are referrals that they can give. So those are powerful relationships. They can come from that. And those real estate agents, that's a team member. The second team member that I want you to think about is the title company/attorney. So different states have different requirements for closings. You're gonna need a closing agent. And this is such a powerful message and piece of training that I want to give you. It took me years to figure this one out, but different sellers use different attorneys/title companies.
Lou Brown (11:30):
Well, they want you to go to the one they already know, and that they have a relationship with. Likewise, you should have one that you know and you have a relationship with. When we put a property under contract, in fact, I just did one today and here's what happened. So they told me "Awww, Lou, you know, we want to buy that lot from you. We're very interested in this lot. Want to buy that lot from you." We agreed on the price. We agreed on the terms. And then they said, "But you got to close to our attorney." I said, "It's not going to happen." And they said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "We closed all of our transactions at the same place." And there's a reason for that, that we buy properties in trust. And we sell properties out of trust. They have all of our paperwork, they have all of our documentation.
Lou Brown (12:19):
It eliminates incredible headaches for me and everybody involved because they're always going to ask for things that I'm not going to give them. They're going to ask for the full trust. They're going to ask for a lot of details about the trust that I'm not going to give them. So if you don't want to have trouble, if you don't want to have challenges, we're going to close with the closing agent that we've already set up, that already has all the things to be able to insure your title without having any issues at all. Well, they stumbled and fumbled. And for about 3 days, they came back and said, "Okay, Lou, you got it." So I will say that you have to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. And, this is an example of that over the years, many, many, many, many times people have always insisted, even banks.
Lou Brown (13:10):
I mean, just incredible. They've always got us set up someplace else. We always insisted we were going to close it where we are. And in 96% of the cases, we went. So I just want to give you that knowledge that having that team member is very important because what are they going to do? They're going to look out for you. If you are a regular customer that is bringing them business over and over again, then they are going to be looking out for you. They're going to get your title search done first. They're going to get your paperwork done first. They're going to give you a better deal on closing costs than they give everybody else. It's just a great relationship. And yes, what we have is an interview form where we discover what their fees are and we negotiate our relationship with them.
Lou Brown (13:59):
But it's not just for that one transaction, it's from now on. And that can be a powerful team member to have because they're going to look out for you. They're going to be looking out for your title on properties that you're buying. And I'll tell you something. If you buy it through one attorney and you close it through the same attorney, if there is a title problem, you'll never hear about it because the ones that were supposed to clean it up in the first place. So you're not going to have the pain and suffering that you might have if you went to a different title company. So that's my suggestion for you. You need a good solid real estate agent. You need a title company. You need a mortgage broker as well. Now we do have a national solution for that. Our mortgage Wiz, StreetSmartWiz.com/MortgageWiz.
Lou Brown (14:45):
That is another solution that we have for you. And that is your mortgage broker. So when your buyer has good enough credit, good enough down payment, then you want to refer them in-house, so to speak, because that mortgage broker is going to tell you things that somebody that's not connected with you is not going to tell you, and that can help you to help the buyer to be able to get the deal done. So definitely having that mortgage broker on your team and in your ear will assist you in shaving many days and sometimes saving deals simply because you're aware of a challenge that might exist on their credit or some other thing. Maybe they're short on funds. There's a way that you could solve that problem without missing the deal, without losing the deal. So those are 3 important team members.
Lou Brown (15:42):
I would say a fourth would be depending on the amount of time you have to work with. And first of all, we have to look at your own personality. You either have a personality where you're good with people. You're social. You're able to communicate with people in a good way. You like people, and that is a good person to be your buyer. And if that's you, then you're good in the buying realm. Well, over in the selling realm, that's someone who's very good with people, who's good with paperwork, details, doesn't mind going over the program over and over and over and over again. Doesn't mind doing all the backend after the people move into the home and doing the ongoing collections and all the processes to get people to move up the Path To Home Ownership. That's a great team member. Well, maybe you're married to that person, that other person, cause I say that this is very much a 2-personality business.
Lou Brown (16:45):
There's a buying side of this business. There's a selling side of this business. And I say that if you have that other person on your team as a spouse, you've got a great thing. But many of my licensees are single. Single mothers, fathers, individuals. The spouse has no interest in the business, whatever the case may be. Good news, we can hire the missing. So whatever may be missing in what you're good at and somebody else is good at, then we can hire that person that is good at the things that you are not good at. So that's our Assist Wiz. And we do have that. We do have that as part of our program because we do want our licensees to be successful. And we've found that there are many things in this business that are very repetitious and that there's people out there that can do those repetitious things, very well-trained to do it, and very inexpensive as well.
Lou Brown (17:47):
So imagine that a lot of our business can actually be done remotely. You do not have to have someone come into your house. You do not have to have someone coming to your office. They can actually be doing this in another part of the town, in another part of the state, in another part of the country, in another country as well, to be able to do your business. So we have identified those folks and we call them our Assist Wiz. And you can definitely find out about that as well. So think to yourself, do I have a team? Who's on my team? Are they strong enough to be members of my team? Are they people that can actually do what I'm asking them to do on a regular basis? Can I depend on them? Are they giving me a good deal? Those are all factors in finding good team members.
Lou Brown (18:42):
And that's a good starting point. I don't want to load you up with too many team members, but there's another one that you want as well. And that's a good contractor. A good all-around contractor that can do many things. Minor plumbing, minor heating and air conditioning, minor electrical, minor repairs, hang ceiling fans, order things, move things, and also pick up things, Home Depot, get things done, and you don't have to be the one to do that. So hooking up with a good handy person that can do many things, not a single thing, but many things is great. Now, as your business expands, you're going to get individuals in each one of those different traits. But in the beginning, having someone that you can just call upon to help you get a property ready for a client is a great team member to have as well. So there you go. There's five team members that we need to organize and I've given you exactly what to do and how to do it.
Lou Brown (20:01):
All right. I know a couple more things just in the arena of building your business, is the community. Really getting connected with the community, getting connected with other people in the community. They are people that can bring you deals and solutions as well. So you probably have in your area something called a BNI, which is a Business Networking International. You join one of those groups. Well, first of all, they let you come to the first meeting for free. You come to that meeting, you look, and there's everybody in the room. There's a real estate agent. There's a mortgage broker. There's a plumber, there's a heating and air conditioning, there's an electrical. There's everybody that's unique, maybe right there in your community. So if you can get connected with people in your community to cause your business to occur, well, that's exactly what I teach you to do is to build a community-based business in your local market.
Lou Brown (21:00):
You know, you can invest across the country. You know, I've made jokes that I'm a long distance investor. I actually invest in our city, but I don't go look at any of the properties that I don't own. So if I was working remotely, if I was buying properties in other parts of the country, which actually we do, we buy properties all over the country and we're able to do that remotely because of being able to build a team right there in that city on a remote basis. So learn how to do this. It's a very powerful thing that will help build your business.
Lou Brown (21:48):
So today's tip is when you are building a business and you have a team, communication is key. So definitely staying on top of things. For example, with my team at Trust Properties, every Tuesday morning, 8:00 AM, the entire team is present online, via Zoom and we connect. And we have an agenda that we go through every single Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM. So you've got that same opportunity as you're building your team. Have regular meetings, communicate regularly with them so that you can forward your business and forward your actions.
Lou Brown (22:38):
Another topic that's very near and dear to my heart. And one that I think every real estate investor and everyone should pay attention to is protecting your assets. Avoiding probate. Creating privacy for yourself and making profits. And that is what I've discovered is available on an amazing thing called "trusts." Land trusts, personal property trust, living trust, offer amazing benefits and something that most people are not aware of. You see, likely, you've heard of LLCs, corporations, limited partnerships, and they do have their place and they do have their benefits. And there's another powerful thing called "trusts," and trusts have 30 benefits over and above the benefits of the other entities that you're not even aware of. And that in fact, most attorneys are not aware of. And in fact that most CPAs and even financial planners are not aware of. And the reason is they haven't been exposed to it.
Lou Brown (23:49):
They've got other vehicles, they promote those other vehicles. They're not aware of the power and benefits of this. Now I was forced into learning trusts in 1982 when the government made a change. And I discovered that the use of trusts could solve that problem. And so, in fact, I bought my first house by taking over existing financing on the property and the government allowed them to put a due upon sale clause in the mortgage, in a new law in 1982. When I read that law, I'd discovered an amazing thing was there. It said, "Except, except when you use trust. If you use trusts, you can avoid the due upon sale clause." I said, I need to learn more about trust. I became a master on trusts. I started using it in 1984. I started teaching them in 1986, then teaching them ever since then, and I'm telling you, it's the most powerful thing.
Lou Brown (24:50):
You're not aware of it. You need to be aware of it. I have a 4-day event. I only do this one time per year. Very important that you take the step. You clear your calendar. You come. Because this is not only to teach you about real estate investing and how to take over existing financing on properties. It's a whole lot more than that. You've got to protect everything that you own. The United States of America is a crazy place here, as opposed to the rest of the world. It's very easy to sue someone. It's very inexpensive to sue someone. For a couple of hundred dollars, somebody can file a lawsuit against you. And if you don't respond, they can actually get a judgment against you. It's called a default judgment. What a crazy thing. And that can be a significant amount of money. And you didn't even participate in having that come against your name.
Lou Brown (25:43):
Well, imagine that your name is not on public record anywhere in terms of owning anything. So who, if somebody gets a judgment against your name and you don't own anything, isn't that a good thing? And there's a lot more to that story. I want to teach that to you. There's many, many details that we're going to do together. In fact, you're going to bring a deed to class. We're going to be right there together in class. You're going to be filling out the paperwork. You're going to understand what to do. You can understand how to do it. And more importantly, you're going to understand how to duplicate it. So you'll be able to do it on every one of your properties. As you acquire the properties, I call it a state planning as you go, because you're literally going to be purchasing those properties directly into trust.
Lou Brown (26:29):
And you're going to be able to create that privacy, that asset protection, that probate avoidance with each and every transaction that you do. And we don't stop there. We also teach you about your vehicles, the highest liability you own moving that into trust. And now you are a driver for the trust, but the trust actually owns the vehicle. And your bank account, getting your bank account into trust. There's many details. We have a special manual. You're going to have all of that as part of the event. I definitely want you to get enrolled in that, 1-800-578-8580. Or go online at MaximumAssetShield.com. Listen, I've got a special going right now. So take advantage of that. Get yourself to the event. I only do it one time per year. So don't miss this chance that's coming up soon and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon. Yeah, baby!
Lou Brown (27:40):
All right. So every one of you that just heard me talking about trusts, you got to learn more about trusts. I do have an entire chapter that I carved out of my book. I have a book called "Buy, Hold, Sell," and I actually saved a whole chapter out of that book to share it with everybody. And that is on trusts, one of the most powerful things that most people don't know anything about. Create privacy. Avoid probate. And protect everything. You can get your own free copy by going to MaximumAssetShield.com/book. Download that book. You're going to get some amazing information about trusts. Study up on that and definitely get yourself enrolled into the event. I appreciate it and love it when you do subscribe and you do leave a comment. So definitely like it, love it, share it. We appreciate you doing that. All right, Scott.
Scott Paton (28:55):
We've got a couple of questions. So you had talked about title companies and lawyers. So one question someone had was, do I need a lawyer?
Lou Brown (29:07):
Well, you know, you need what you need. So in other words, each state has its own way of doing closings. For example, I'm in Georgia, Georgia is an attorney state. That means that attorneys close transactions, whether you're buying or whether you're selling, an attorney's going to be involved in that. Other states allow a separate company to do that. A title company. Usually there's an attorney affiliated with them, but you don't ever see the attorney. The attorney is reviewing things and dealing with other things, but you're dealing with someone, an administrator, a clerk, someone causing that transaction to occur. And that's a title company. So find out what kind of state you're in. Is it an attorney state or a title state? And then you'll be able to find the right people to do that. What I suggest you do is you shop around. You shop around and compare fees.
Lou Brown (30:05):
All title companies/attorneys are not created equal and they do not charge equally. So find out what they would charge a regular customer, not someone who's off the street doing one closing note. A regular customer, someone who's looking to establish a relationship, a long-term relationship, many deals over many years. That's what you're looking for. And that I have established that in my world. I've had 3, count them, 3 real estate attorneys retire on me. So I've actually had to go get new ones over the years as one would retire and replace them. Hey, there's something to be said for gray hair. And I will tell you that pure experience in titles is a very, very good thing because they've been there, done that, and fixed problems that have come up in the past. And now they know what to do when that problem comes up again. So it doesn't hurt to find somebody with a little bit of gray hair in your life because they're going to solve a lot of problems that you don't have to learn from the school of hard knocks.
Scott Paton (31:19):
That's a great point. And one more question we have is, "Do I need a photographer?"
Lou Brown (31:38):
A photographer? Not really. I mean, come on, we've got these smartphone things, right? They got darn good cameras on there. I don't care if you've got a 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, whatever version of that phone that you've got. You've got a great camera on there and let's face it. I always advise people to look through the camera and actually look at what you're looking at before you take a picture of it because I've definitely seen some really bad pictures. And it's only because the people didn't consciously look at the frame before they took the picture. But other than that, you can do a good job. Now I will say this. If you're going to be doing a top-end retail, granite, staged property, you definitely want to hire a professional to do that. You definitely want to use the drone thing flying in. I did one of those this year. In fact, it was fun. And we had a great experience with doing that, that deal. That was a flip and it worked out great. And we did hire somebody that came in and did these 360-degree pictures all around and also did the drone. And we sold that property very quickly. So that is, there is a place to use a photographer, but, you know, I found them on the internet and it was easy and they were inexpensive as well.
Scott Paton (33:12):
So the real answer is, it depends on your property, depends on if it's a luxury-type place. It's going to be different than if it's an affordable home or a starter home. But I think one of the lessons from this question is, don't get ready to get ready. Like don't look at, you know, there's a lot of things that you can be thinking about to say, "Well, I shouldn't be, I can't do this until I do that." And, you know, making sure you've got the perfect photographer falls oftentimes into that category.
Lou Brown (33:41):
Well, Scott, I'm glad you brought that up because that even could be a tip of the week. Don't get ready to get ready. I used to find so many people tied up and concerning themselves with a whole bunch of steps and doing a whole lot of things to get ready, to do something, as opposed to doing something. Listen, all of these things, all the mortar between the blocks can be put in place if you've got a deal. So I encourage everybody to always focus on getting the customer and then getting the deal. We can deal with all these other aspects as they are needed.
Scott Paton (34:23):
Perfect answer, Lou. And so that brings us to the end of today's show. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Lou, any last words before we sign off?
Lou Brown (34:33):
Well, just have a fantastic week. We are going into some amazing times. I will tell you that the market is already starting to totter and teeter depending on what part of the country you're in. And there are going to be some amazing opportunities as a result of this and do not ever think that this is by accident, always understand it is by design. And once you understand that you can watch what happens and how it happens and be present to the fact that you should not be in fear, but you should be ready to take advantage of the opportunity that's been presented to you because certainly, being in that opportunity is being created for a lot of other people as well. So I look forward to you having a great week and I'll look forward to seeing you again soon. Sunday night, 9:00 Eastern Time for our licensees. We do have a special training that we do. If you're not a licensee yet, if you don't own any part of the Street Smart System, you need to go visit us StreetSmartInvestor.com and you can get some amazing tools, training, technology, and team that we have available for you. That we've developed granularly over 4 decades of being in this business of buying, holding, and selling property. So I look forward to being of service to you and look forward to seeing you again soon. Yeah, baby!
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