Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Solarpreneur Podcast, where we teach you to take your solar business to the next level.
Speaker: My name is Taylor Armstrong.
Speaker: I went from $50 in my bank account and struggling for groceries to closing 150 deals in the year and cracking the code on why sales reps fell.
Speaker: I teach you how to avoid the mistakes I made and bring in the top solar dogs of the industry to let you in on the secrets of generating more leads, falling up like a pro and closing more deals.
Speaker: What is a Solarpreneur you might ask?
Speaker: A Solarpreneur is a new breed of Solar Pro that is willing to do whatever it takes to achieve mastery and you are about to become one.
Speaker: All right, what's up, storepreneurs?
Speaker: We're here with the one, the only, Mr. Brent, or sorry.
Speaker: I can't think he's mixed up.
Speaker: Brent's his brother, Bennett Maxwell, in the house here.
Speaker: And so this is actually his second time coming on the podcast.
Speaker: So we haven't had too many people coming on for a second time.
Speaker: So thanks for coming back on.
Speaker: Good to be here.
Speaker: Yeah, it's going to be fun.
Speaker: And we were just talking before this, the first time I had to beg you to come on the show, and this time you hit me up.
Speaker: So what's up with that, man?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm like, I can't.
Speaker: Starting to build a personal brand.
Speaker: Everybody's talking about it.
Speaker: You know, get out there, have people know who you are.
Speaker: And I'm like, man, I post a few times a year.
Speaker: It's birthday.
Speaker: So I'm switching that up.
Speaker: Join some masterminds and they are hitting me heavy on it.
Speaker: So I can tell.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And yeah, I've been seeing you post a lot more.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And so if you haven't heard Bennett's first podcast, we'll link to that in the show notes, but he dropped some fire in that one.
Speaker: Go check it out.
Speaker: Talked about, just setting up like systems and processes in your solar business, working with VAs, virtual assistants, and a whole lot of other stuff that you'll want to check out.
Speaker: So definitely go check that out first if you haven't.
Speaker: But today we're going to be focusing on some of that, but a lot of the focus today will be on just invest
Speaker: you know how you can leverage your money in solar to do some pretty incredible stuff because Bennett now he's actually not in solar which seems crazy but but we're gonna hear all about why you're not in solar anymore so yeah do you want to kind of give well I don't know maybe let's start with that do you want to kind of tell everyone yeah like you know your solar journey in just what you're up to since we did the first podcast
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: So started solar in the summer of 19, um, went up to Sacramento and th is is the first company that said you could do a solar summer because before I was doing summer sales, but I was taught to stay away from solar because long lead times, you don't get paid after the year round.
Speaker: So I went and gave it a go and it went really well in the first two months.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, I made way more money than I ever have in a product that I believe in.
Speaker: and half the time.
Speaker: So pretty cool, pretty easy.
Speaker: I'm like, wow, this is great.
Speaker: So then I teamed up with Brent.
Speaker: Brent, my brother, Attaway, different last names, but from the same mother.
Speaker: anyways we teamed up we started in the online stuff and that's kind of it went really well so we had some bs paid some marketing companies to give us leads they would call set the appointments verify the appointments i showed up to eighteen i did a eighteen trial i showed up to sixteen or eighteen zero no shows sixteen of them closed the first set and seventeen close the second set and i did eighteen but i'm like wow this is this is great online lead setting and then uh...
Speaker: showing up.
Speaker: So then that's when I, when I was teaming up with Brent, we decided to move to San Diego.
Speaker: We started recruiting people in January of 2020 and still doing mainly door knocking because scaling that model is hard.
Speaker: You can't figure it out.
Speaker: You can do it for a few people, but not as we really scale.
Speaker: So Seth Loveland, he came out in January.
Speaker: He's the first guy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: My little brother Bailey came out and started, started kind of building some momentum COVID hit, but we were kind of already online.
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: Anyways, it kind of went through there and then that's when we started working together.
Speaker: Fast forward a year after I started January of 2021, I was seeing another company called Crumble Cookies.
Speaker: They were killing it and I had the opportunity to buy a similar company out of Tempe and I thought, what the hell?
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: Crumb is killing it.
Speaker: So let's see if I can ride their coattails a little bit.
Speaker: So I bought that company.
Speaker: I was in San Diego, running it from San Diego in the Tempe area.
Speaker: So I had to make, I'm like, if I could figure this out, then I have a scalable, provable model.
Speaker: If a dummy with no food experience can figure it out, then I think anybody can figure it out.
Speaker: So
Speaker: I started working on the model and changed a ton of stuff, redid everything, but we started franchising in December.
Speaker: So four and a half months ago, we sold 57 franchises, so it's going well.
Speaker: But yeah, Solar was a great vehicle.
Speaker: to get the money to then invest in other things.
Speaker: Really trying to work up more on the passive income side.
Speaker: Yeah, no, and it's been cool.
Speaker: I give them a hard time because I was running your team and everything.
Speaker: And then you were on the whole show.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I get a call.
Speaker: I'm in Lake Powell.
Speaker: And then I get a call.
Speaker: I get back and like, oh, by the way, we sold the company.
Speaker: Sorry to mention that.
Speaker: So we sold it in June of 2020.
Speaker: 2021.
Speaker: So we ran it just for 18 months and then we exited that.
Speaker: Me and my brother, we were the partners in it.
Speaker: So I'd already owned Dirty Doe.
Speaker: I was running a boat.
Speaker: You were really running the solar for me.
Speaker: So thank you.
Speaker: You're welcome.
Speaker: I was focusing a lot of my time on this, the cookie company.
Speaker: So, and then after, you know, June, that's kind of when I started jumping more and then until like fully it's like, all right, this is, this is what I want to do.
Speaker: yeah well the cookies were always involved because if you heard the first podcast we did that was one of the processes you guys set up is send them cookies and you know treats and stuff so and this guy is always passionate about his cookies right cookie monster watching the video
Speaker: My body and bodies are cookies.
Speaker: But no, they're no joke.
Speaker: They're good cookies.
Speaker: And that got us, I think, probably a lot of referrals sending cookies, stuff like that.
Speaker: Very unique cookies.
Speaker: Yeah, they're delicious.
Speaker: You do these three-layer triple stack cookies.
Speaker: So you look, it's like a brownie on the outside and you bust it open and there's a chocolate chip in the center.
Speaker: And in the very center, there's caramel oozing out.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Don't exist anywhere else right now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So probably getting hungry just hearing this podcast.
Speaker: I have to set up a discount code for cookies or something.
Speaker: But no.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: I learned a ton from you guys.
Speaker: So I always appreciate, you know, what you and Brent did helping us kind of start everything, even though I wish it could have been a lot longer.
Speaker: But it is what it is.
Speaker: No, it's cool to see how you've been able to just go into other businesses and like you said, leverage all the money you did make.
Speaker: I know you killed it in solar and use that as a vehicle in other opportunities.
Speaker: So I think that's a question that some people, I think I've seen it on social media too, but like some people I've seen, how do you even sell a dealer?
Speaker: I don't know, you could sell your solar dealer.
Speaker: I also didn't think that we were going to ever sell.
Speaker: I thought I was just going to be in it for the money.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Makes it make some good money.
Speaker: And then when I exit, it kind of just let it dissolve.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But there was a public company that was buying up some companies doing looking for revenue really to boost our stock.
Speaker: So I think they'd done 50 million the previous year.
Speaker: And this was, you know, the first about three, four months we had done about 5 million was in our pipeline because when you're that they also own an installer.
Speaker: So they're counting the total volume of the deal.
Speaker: So not just like what goes through your bank account as a solid dealer, but also what the installers get paid.
Speaker: Because again, it's like, oh, if we buy you guys, then you guys install through our installer.
Speaker: Then now the revenue's doubled anyways.
Speaker: So based off of the total revenue, it was about 5 million that we'd done.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: kind of year to date and they did 50 million.
Speaker: So like, oh, this is a 10% increase.
Speaker: And then they were buying a few other companies at the same time.
Speaker: So yeah, kind of a unique experience.
Speaker: I didn't think that was what was going to happen when the guy contacted me.
Speaker: It was Jason Newby.
Speaker: Kind of just ignored him.
Speaker: He's like, I want to buy your company.
Speaker: I'm like, get out of here, Jason.
Speaker: I'll talk to our brother.
Speaker: Didn't talk to my brother.
Speaker: Calls me again.
Speaker: Dude, I'm like, I want to buy your company.
Speaker: I'll talk to my brother.
Speaker: Then I talked to my brother again.
Speaker: And then it was you that you and Brent, some solar thing, Jason met him, talks to Brent and then Brent comes back to me and he goes, we need to talk to Jason.
Speaker: All right, let's talk to Jason.
Speaker: So Jason was the one that orchestrated it all.
Speaker: He had future home power.
Speaker: He was, had high sales, very, very new.
Speaker: I me an, a month or two in, maybe 40 sales reps where we had less sales reps.
Speaker: We were doing about 30 deals a month, 20, 30 deals between our sales teams, our online and our sub dealer model.
Speaker: And, but we had built out that, the backend process and that we're doing a little bit.
Speaker: So he kind of merged us in and then sold it to Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation.
Speaker: Anyways, everything panned out the way that we hoped it would.
Speaker: Yeah, there's definitely some, you know, throughout passes.
Speaker: But it was a good experience.
Speaker: We got some cash, we got some stock.
Speaker: We're supposed to have some future stock.
Speaker: We'll see how that works.
Speaker: door-to-door world caution on stock.
Speaker: Don't put all your marbles on stocks.
Speaker: Which I knew going in that's what I based my decision based on the cash and the stock would be a bonus.
Speaker: Yeah just kind of cheering on top.
Speaker: So I guess really it's kind of my fault that you guys sold because I introduced Brent's.
Speaker: It was your fault so you brought it on yourself.
Speaker: You guys owe a lot to me you're welcome.
Speaker: But no, that's where we're at now.
Speaker: And so I think today we kind of want to focus on just, you know, what you're doing now and specifically for people in solar.
Speaker: I know a lot of them haven't gotten started in maybe real estate.
Speaker: You have a ton of different investments you're doing.
Speaker: And that definitely something you started when we were working together is the whole finance Friday and, you know, kind of a lot of guys that were working with us now have real estate.
Speaker: You know, my brother does.
Speaker: We bought a property.
Speaker: I mean, we're neighbors.
Speaker: One of my investments, I think they're moving in.
Speaker: Yeah, so you introduced a lot of people to this whole world of real estate and investments.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm very passionate about that.
Speaker: Like that's how I was when I was in pest control recruiting.
Speaker: And so I got really lucky.
Speaker: I worked for Altera right before they became active.
Speaker: And I sold for them for two months.
Speaker: They recruited me halfway through the summer.
Speaker: In those two months, I think it looked like 170 or 100, something right around there.
Speaker: And I was taking a nap every day in my car.
Speaker: I was like, this is sweet.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: But I mean, I studied like hell just to know the sales process.
Speaker: I was a very big component of why I wanted to do sales because initially I was in Baltimore doing security installs.
Speaker: I'm like, guys, let's go do sales.
Speaker: We live in freaking Utah.
Speaker: We just saw ourselves.
Speaker: My buddies are like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: Let's go do installs.
Speaker: That's where the secure money is.
Speaker: Sure money.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We all move out to fricking Baltimore and we were installing ghetto security systems for fricking sales reps that were kind of scummy.
Speaker: And so I switched halfway through knowing that I'm going from, you know, I get paid when I do an install to I could get paid nothing if I go to sales.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But I already had it ingrained in me that worked to learn not to earn.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I thought if nothing else happens, I'm going to learn sales skills and I'm going to learn communication skills.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I've always viewed it as what is that person doing that I can't learn?
Speaker: Not that I'm not doing, but what can I not?
Speaker: And then so I'm just always listening to podcasts, videos, sales pitches, and read it all.
Speaker: So that's how I got into it.
Speaker: So I think I made 24,000.
Speaker: That's what I made my first summer in two months.
Speaker: And I got married.
Speaker: I met my wife out in that summer.
Speaker: I got married six months later.
Speaker: So I paid for the wedding, the ring, all that crap.
Speaker: But I had a little bit of money left over.
Speaker: Now I couldn't qualify for a loan.
Speaker: And this is what I really want everybody to get.
Speaker: Like you can get into real estate with almost no money, with no freaking qualifications.
Speaker: You just need to hustle a little bit.
Speaker: So I'm going to tell you guys what I did to get my first property and how that's worked out.
Speaker: Because I really want everybody to get in that same real estate game.
Speaker: Chandler Smith from Aptiv, big into real estate.
Speaker: And he owns like 130 or 60 doors.
Speaker: I just was watching some of his YouTube stuff.
Speaker: He's the one who is telling me.
Speaker: And Garrett Myers, those are my managers and regional managers at Pest Control.
Speaker: So even only making $24,000, within a year I'd bought my first property.
Speaker: First investment property, kind of investment property.
Speaker: So if you're doing an owner occupied loan and it's your first home, you can do an FHA three and a half percent down or even a conventional three and a half percent down.
Speaker: Now you have to pay property mortgage fees, PMI, property mortgage insurance.
Speaker: Insurance.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So because you're not putting that much down, but it's like, okay, if so, this particular property, this was in 2016, there's like 220,000.
Speaker: So you'd have to pay, you know, the three and a half percent down.
Speaker: and then closing cost.
Speaker: What we did is we said, well, our offer was no, you pay the closing cost.
Speaker: And they came back and they said, no.
Speaker: So I said, okay, well, we'll just, I think we negotiated down to 210.
Speaker: And then we said, well, okay, nevermind.
Speaker: Let's, we'll pay you 220, even though they already agreed to 210.
Speaker: So here's an extra 10 grand, but give that back to me closing costs.
Speaker: So it's basically me financing the extra 10 grand.
Speaker: So now my three and a half percent on the 20, 200, 20,000 was like nine grand.
Speaker: Now, I couldn't qualify for a loan though.
Speaker: I'd only made $24,000 and I was on a commission.
Speaker: I didn't have taxes.
Speaker: I didn't have insurance.
Speaker: I linked up with somebody.
Speaker: I was like, okay, well, who can I do this with?
Speaker: Because this is a great investment.
Speaker: I could get in this property for $9,000 and I'm going to pay for half of it at $4,500.
Speaker: For $4,500, I'm securing a $220,000 asset.
Speaker: I just need to find another partner.
Speaker: That's easy.
Speaker: I found a partner and I'm like, well, I'm going to live in this.
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: So that's the big advantage.
Speaker: So who's not going to do that?
Speaker: Everybody knows somebody that has 4,500 bucks that will partner and sign the loan that has a good WT2 job.
Speaker: If you don't, contact me because I will partner with every deal that you guys do.
Speaker: And I'll manage the properties.
Speaker: There's my plug.
Speaker: Don't buy comments from me.
Speaker: Partner with me on real estate.
Speaker: I'll manage it all for you.
Speaker: Anyway, so that's what I did.
Speaker: I brought in my brother.
Speaker: So he qualified for the loan.
Speaker: He put in 4,500.
Speaker: I put in 4,500.
Speaker: Property went from 220.
Speaker: We sold it last year.
Speaker: We sold it for like 380 or 400, somewhere around there.
Speaker: So we had $500 cash flow every single month for the last five, six years.
Speaker: Then we sold it.
Speaker: Had, you know, rolled in.
Speaker: They're also paying down your principal, right?
Speaker: So it was a $220,000 property.
Speaker: And let's say our loan was for $210,000.
Speaker: When they paid down an extra $10,000 or $20,000, the renters did because I lived there for a little bit and rented it out.
Speaker: So yeah, we profit like 180, 200 grand on that, flipped it, threw it into a, it's called a 1031 exchange.
Speaker: So there's no taxes, goes into an escrow because you have to have an attorney to do this for you.
Speaker: But you sell the property, you can't touch the money, has to go straight to this other account.
Speaker: And this other account has been given the buyer of the property in a certain time period.
Speaker: So we found another property in BYU, right next to BYU in Provo.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: It was a duplex, 12 bedrooms.
Speaker: 12 bedrooms?
Speaker: 12 bedrooms.
Speaker: So my real estate agent shot it over to me, Dwayne Richens, super stud.
Speaker: You actually introduced me to him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You brought him out.
Speaker: Man, I'm introducing you to everybody, man.
Speaker: Dwayne's the man.
Speaker: So Dwayne's like, you need to buy this property.
Speaker: I was like...
Speaker: But prices are so high.
Speaker: This is 2021 June.
Speaker: Prices are way too high.
Speaker: And this duplex went for, they were asking $8.25.
Speaker: But that's freaking expensive.
Speaker: He's like, but look at the cash flow and the appreciation on this.
Speaker: So we rent out the 12 rooms to 13 tenants.
Speaker: So there's two sisters, they share a room, they're each paying like 450 to 500 plus utilities.
Speaker: So we're collecting about $6,500 a month.
Speaker: We pay about $500 of that goes to utilities and maintenance.
Speaker: And then 3000 is our mortgage that leaves us about 3000 cash flow.
Speaker: And I partnered again with my brother on this.
Speaker: We own it in an LLC.
Speaker: So there's no liability if one of these girls slips on the ice or whatever, which is kind of another section.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Yeah, I made $24,000 in two months.
Speaker: And then fast forward to 2022, I now have over $200,000 of equity into this property and it's cash flowing me $3,000.
Speaker: $3,600 a year.
Speaker: That's not the best money in the world, but it's not terrible.
Speaker: I don't do anything for it.
Speaker: And then I hired a virtual assistant, Skye.
Speaker: She's freaking awesome.
Speaker: She manages all of my tenants.
Speaker: So I just went online.
Speaker: Dwayne actually connected me.
Speaker: He's like, this is attorney you should use.
Speaker: You don't even have to use them.
Speaker: Use his lease agreement.
Speaker: And if you have problems, he'll represent you.
Speaker: So I'm like, sweet.
Speaker: So we just used his lease agreement.
Speaker: Skye manages it all for me.
Speaker: And since then, I've been buying up some other properties.
Speaker: I'm closing on number six and seven this month.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, you think that you have to have $100,000 to invest in real estate or $50,000.
Speaker: And it's like, no.
Speaker: go find a little property, make it owner occupied.
Speaker: That means you have to live in it.
Speaker: We'll have the intent to live in it.
Speaker: And then have them pay closing costs for you.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: And spending solar, I mean, hopefully people have extra money in solar, right?
Speaker: I mean, if you have the money and you have a hundred grand, it's like, we'll still do this strategy.
Speaker: And then then buy another one too.
Speaker: Buy two now.
Speaker: You can put $9,000 or $20,000 or $30,000 on owner occupied and keep the rest of your capital and then go do an investment property with it.
Speaker: Cause investment properties, you do have to have 20% down.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: typically 25% if you want a little bit of a better rate.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But it kind of just depends on the market where you're at.
Speaker: Here in Utah, the appreciation is going up.
Speaker: I bought a property last April and where it's April now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I bought it for $390,000.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: I'd looked on Zillow the other day.
Speaker: It's worth 605.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: It's gone over 200,000 in a year.
Speaker: And everybody told me don't buy, don't buy.
Speaker: You know, prices are inflated.
Speaker: Prices are inflated.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like,
Speaker: Whatever that, I don't know what that means.
Speaker: People told me that when I bought freaking a house in 2017.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Paying too much for the house.
Speaker: But my advice to that is just get in the market.
Speaker: Don't time the market.
Speaker: It's not like an opinion.
Speaker: It's a fact.
Speaker: You can't time the market.
Speaker: Don't wait for it to crash.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Just get in the market.
Speaker: yeah just buy i like that because yeah so many people are into like crypto you know like jason newbies all crypto crypto crypto but it's like with all these wars and things like that and you know just crazy stuff going on i think once you say homes it's always going to be basically secure right i mean yeah it's a physical thing let's say you buy a home and it's 400 000 and the market dips 25 yeah and now your home's only worth 300 000 but what i mean as long as you can keep making the payments yeah it will go back up
Speaker: So even if you owe $370,000 and it's only worth $300,000, you're like, crap, I'm like negative $70,000.
Speaker: Just hold on to it for five years and it'll go back up.
Speaker: And the other thing is, what happens in 2008, all these people
Speaker: owned homes and then they all foreclose on their home.
Speaker: They lost their home.
Speaker: Guess what?
Speaker: It makes them makes them renters.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's the renter market.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: Market crashes.
Speaker: There's more rent that need places to live.
Speaker: So it's very unlikely that the market will crash, at least in my opinion.
Speaker: I mean, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.
Speaker: Market's going to crash.
Speaker: and then you can't find a renter to cover your mortgage.
Speaker: That's going to be possible, but it's not super likely.
Speaker: The market crashes and there's more renters.
Speaker: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker: It brings up demand.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, I'm a big fan, and yeah, well, I told you we just got our first investment down in St.
Speaker: George, Utah.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: There's probably better stuff out there, but I did it with like... Money.
Speaker: Airbnb, right?
Speaker: Yeah, Airbnb.
Speaker: And there's like six people in on it, so that's not...
Speaker: as profitable but i mean i think that's what you did yeah it's just getting in the market yeah you own 10 of investment or one percent of at least you're in it yeah and then you gain confidence and you're like okay now i can do another one yeah and i can do another like this isn't that hard yeah because for me i was like i don't know i've always been like skeptical and cautious and like i have to have a bunch of money just wait wait wait but uh yeah i like that just starting somewhere just starting on a small deal and then you can see okay this is actually working out let's use it for bigger deals and let's keep everyone
Speaker: If you have a hundred grand sitting in your account, you're not that motivated to knock.
Speaker: You're not that motivated to knock.
Speaker: You're like, I'm gonna go knock, but not that general.
Speaker: You spend that money and you don't have money in your account,
Speaker: not wasting it but investing it in things that you can't, you know, it's not stocks that you can sell and take, it's real estate or it's a franchise, right?
Speaker: It's business.
Speaker: Then now you need to go knock some more.
Speaker: You do make more money.
Speaker: When you have more money in your bank account, you make less money.
Speaker: When you have less money, even though your net worth is going up, you're more inclined to work.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, that's true.
Speaker: 100%.
Speaker: You want to be cash poor.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You don't want to be set on cash.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Other than, you know, a three to six month reserve, which should also be in a separate account, not your bank account.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Different account.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And yeah, I mean, so many, unfortunately, so many guys in door-to-door and solar are broke from stupid stuff, right?
Speaker: From not putting in investments.
Speaker: And I remember, maybe it was you that was telling me this, but some like, I don't know, maybe it's door-to-door managers, things like that would like to try to get their guys to spend their money on stupid stuff and go out and buy like expensive cars.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: do that because it meant it's like how do you recruit well you have to show up in a nice car yeah like that's one way of doing it but like the way that I recruited was based off of education yeah what what are you going into school for what do you want your career path whether that's I want to be doctor or a lawyer or a marketer or whatever it's like okay so you're telling me you need communication skills yeah it's not sales skills it's communication skills so you needed the ability to catch somebody's attention rapidly very quick
Speaker: Get them to listen to you and then persuade them to what you're doing.
Speaker: You need to do that in your business, right?
Speaker: In your future career.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: Well, I got an opportunity to teach you and then you focus on what they're going to learn and educational piece.
Speaker: And that's why I did the finance Fridays.
Speaker: The second pest control company I worked for was Sage Pest Control and the owner's name was Brandon Grover and Josh Shiffman.
Speaker: And they had their version of the finance Friday.
Speaker: I think it was Wednesdays, but they did a pre-recorded broadcast, a pre-recorded video.
Speaker: They would send that out and you just play it into your meetings.
Speaker: And then it was like this Wednesday we're going over stocks and life insurance and then real estate and then all these, you know, businesses.
Speaker: And so I'm like, I love that.
Speaker: And I recruited people off of that.
Speaker: So that's why we built that.
Speaker: Yeah, that was huge.
Speaker: But yeah, I was just going to say too, that's way more valuable than telling you guys to go buy cars.
Speaker: Because I know guys will just get their reps to spend money on stupid stuff just because we're going to keep them broke.
Speaker: We're going to keep them broke so they'll go work more.
Speaker: And you can keep them broke by buying real estate.
Speaker: It's like, do you want to work for somebody?
Speaker: that driving a freaking Lamborghini or that owns a handful of properties or one property, right?
Speaker: It's like there's more money comes than it goes.
Speaker: So before it goes, secure something that'll make you money.
Speaker: And like going back to YP's cookie company, I just listened to a podcast.
Speaker: I didn't even go freaking remember which one it was, but it was,
Speaker: You get wealthy in two ways, buying businesses and real estate.
Speaker: I'm like, I've been buying real estate.
Speaker: Here's an opportunity to buy a business.
Speaker: And then, you know, in the back, oh, well, you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker: You've never been in food.
Speaker: It's out of snow.
Speaker: Like you can't even pop in and do it.
Speaker: And then I'm like, I'm just going to get in the market, right?
Speaker: Even if it's a business.
Speaker: And then kind of playing the whole thing.
Speaker: Okay, well, what if I buy this company and it goes under?
Speaker: I'll just go knock some more freaking door.
Speaker: I mean, like I have a skill that I could go in any freaking any state and go sell pest control or satellite or alarms or solar and I can make six figures in a few months.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So also knowing that confidence, I just like throw the money here, throw the money here and I like some money over here and then that 50 grand, that business didn't do good.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I still made any money off of it.
Speaker: The business is still running.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But at the same time, it's like I got rid of the money.
Speaker: I worked harder, got more money and invest in something else.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And you're kind of throwing your money out there.
Speaker: But real estate is really what everybody should be getting into, in my opinion, first, get a property and then businesses.
Speaker: And I didn't really know much about the franchise model, but franchise your business owner with a set of really good processes and instructions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's, again, what I wanted to build when I was trying to buy crumble.
Speaker: They're like, yeah, you can buy one, but not in Utah or sold out one.
Speaker: I was like, cool, well, where can I buy one?
Speaker: They're like, well, where do you want to move to?
Speaker: I'm like, I don't want to move anywhere.
Speaker: I'm not going to go do cookies for my career.
Speaker: I mean, that's what I'm doing now, but I didn't think I wanted to do cookies for my career at that time.
Speaker: I just want to put some of my money in, hire somebody good.
Speaker: and have them run it.
Speaker: And that wasn't in their cards at that time, which is totally fine.
Speaker: So what I focus on is making it dummy proof.
Speaker: So we pre-manufacture everything at a centralized location.
Speaker: So we're ordering all of our flour and our sugar directly from manufacturers rather than third party distributors.
Speaker: So we get it at steep discounts.
Speaker: And then we use machines to eliminate labor.
Speaker: So rather than doing everything by hand and weighing it by hand, making them little balls by hand,
Speaker: We have a machine that does it all.
Speaker: So our labor is very low.
Speaker: And then we're shipping these pre-portioned cookie pucks that are already three layers to the stores.
Speaker: And all you're doing, they're still being baked fresh every hour.
Speaker: There's no difference in the freshness.
Speaker: But now you have half the labor.
Speaker: You have half the startup costs.
Speaker: your ongoing costs are less.
Speaker: You don't have to deal with raw ingredients.
Speaker: You don't have to have the space to store everything.
Speaker: So your least space can be smaller, can be less expensive.
Speaker: That's the model that I built.
Speaker: One to lower that barrier of entry so a solar guy could get into it, right?
Speaker: So or somebody that didn't think that they can own a business now can because it's very affordable.
Speaker: I mean, relatively speaking, right?
Speaker: Franchises are typically several hundred thousand dollars to a million dollars, a few million dollars sometimes.
Speaker: And we're in the range of around 200,000.
Speaker: I mean, it could be more, it could be less.
Speaker: But then we're on the SBA approved list.
Speaker: You can either get a loan, you can do equipment financing.
Speaker: And there's just different ways that you don't have to have that much cash to get into a business.
Speaker: And then we're here at Solarcon right now and partnered with Pi Syndicate.
Speaker: They, Jerry Fusel and Austin Underwood, Austin Underwood, their family owns 100-something franchises.
Speaker: Tons of five guys, all the five guys in Utah, a lot of them in Texas, Zaxby's.
Speaker: They know how to do this, so they said,
Speaker: you give us your money and we'll make it a passive investment for you.
Speaker: It's a white glove service.
Speaker: So that's another way that you can get it.
Speaker: And what they're doing is really unique.
Speaker: They see this model, they know how profitable it is.
Speaker: They know how to rent restaurants.
Speaker: So they're offering 100% ROI.
Speaker: So they're kind of minimum package.
Speaker: You do 27,500 and they open up a store for you.
Speaker: You own 10% of that store, but they guarantee all your
Speaker: money back year one which is crazy it's like who's doing that who's that confident in what they're doing yeah so super cool i'm glad to glad to be working with those guys and some other all-stars in the industry in the food world no that's cool yeah pretty crazy investment and uh great so we'll uh you know link to that for those that are interested and give a more plug at the end of the show but let me ask you bennett were you uh so transition out of the solar industry like were you nervous getting out of solar going on on this cookie thing because oh
Speaker: I mean my thoughts are like you already got crumble you're especially in Utah you got a million cookie shops yeah so what were your thoughts like how did you feel making this whole transition I always had kind of in mind of if I was looking at Utah I wouldn't have done it yeah but looking outside of Utah it's like there's only crumble though it's like when's the last time you seen a McDonald's that you don't see a you know California Jack in the Box or a Wendy's or a Burger King within eyesight that's true yeah
Speaker: Or the targets are always right across the street from the Walmarts.
Speaker: The Jamba Juices are always in the same freaking strip mall as a Starbucks.
Speaker: So I looked at it on the outside, I'm like, okay, well, Crumble's killing it in all these other states and Utah's kind of saturated.
Speaker: But again, we built a model that's profitable with low cells.
Speaker: We looked at like a Mrs. Fields and Insomnia cookies.
Speaker: those have been in so many cookies been around for 20 some years.
Speaker: 40 years.
Speaker: They've weathered the recessions, you know, they don't rely on a growth economy necessarily.
Speaker: Yeah, they're taking hits in the growth economy.
Speaker: They're shutting down, but there's a lot still open and that's because they do centralized production.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: and they're shipping it out.
Speaker: And then you look at Crumble and I see, I mean, they do a lot of things really well in their marketing and their weekly rotating flavors.
Speaker: So it's like, well, can we take the weekly rotating flavors, the novelty item, giant cookie, served warm, delivered to your door, but take in this robust business model of a Mrs. Fields of insomnia cookies and combine them so we can get the higher sales of Crumble while keeping the lower costs and the lower risk on these other business models.
Speaker: So that's what that's what we've been aiming to build.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think we've done a decent job.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're opening up, you know, 57 stores in our first four months is what we've sold and funded so far.
Speaker: Four stores opening next month and then basically four every month after that's about one week is what we're doing.
Speaker: Wow, that's crazy.
Speaker: So yeah, it's pretty impressive to see the growth and it seems like everything you touch just goes to gold, man.
Speaker: So congrats on the success with it.
Speaker: But yeah, I mean, so we've talked about two different things here.
Speaker: Real estate, you got the cookie shop.
Speaker: So if I'm a solar rep or I want to start investing, are you telling me, do you think I should invest in a cookie store before I do some real estate?
Speaker: Do you think guys should go real estate first?
Speaker: I would do real estate first.
Speaker: First, if you're going to actively manage it.
Speaker: If you're looking for just something to throw your money, I would do a franchise, but I would do it through the Pi Syndicate, get the guarantee.
Speaker: So that's kind of, I think you want to do both for sure.
Speaker: But if you don't have the time to go find a deal with real estate, you don't want to find a renter, you don't want to move, it does take work.
Speaker: If you want the, like,
Speaker: I have money, I want to get in the market today, then let's get you with Pison to get.
Speaker: If it's, well, I have a little bit more time, I want to get into real estate, cool.
Speaker: And again, I'm happy to help.
Speaker: If you can't qualify for yourself, then let's partner on the deal, go 50-50, 51-49.
Speaker: You don't ever go 50-50.
Speaker: That's the one wrong answer.
Speaker: And then I have obviously a system that manages it all.
Speaker: It's very cheap.
Speaker: It's not an 8% management fee or 10%.
Speaker: I'm paying somebody out of the Philippines that manages over 20 tenants for me.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that's the other thing I was going to bring up because I've heard some people, oh, real estate is so much work.
Speaker: It's not really passive.
Speaker: We have to do
Speaker: so much managing it but yeah you've taken the hold and again if you haven't does yeah somebody has to manage it so you just hire somebody to do it is my point yeah it does take time but it doesn't have to take your time and so yeah i mean this guy's a whiz with the virtual assistant so again go listen to the first podcast if you haven't already but he's taken a lot of the same stuff that our assistants were doing in switch to solar the solar dealer you had and now you're just using them for other things and leveraging that so i don't know
Speaker: How do you, I guess for guys that maybe have properties and stuff like that, do you have any tips on how to get maybe a virtual assistant or someone running this stuff for you or ways you've used it in real estate or other stuff?
Speaker: There's a lot of different companies that can connect to virtual assistants.
Speaker: So I've gone with, after we hired our first few, they just hire, they're hiring out on their network.
Speaker: So I don't go through any different companies.
Speaker: I know there's a year, Matt Sphere Marketing, I think.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The owner's name's Ken.
Speaker: He's got a good company.
Speaker: There's some other companies that are popping up doing that.
Speaker: And you can also shoot me a message, Instagram or something.
Speaker: I can refer you to somebody that I'm not going to make any money off of it, but I'm happy to refer.
Speaker: Because man, it's awesome.
Speaker: Now, most people are hesitant with the virtual assistant because they don't know how to be like, oh, well, do you trust them?
Speaker: It's like, well, you protect yourself, but you use password management systems and use credit cards.
Speaker: You don't use debit cards, things like that.
Speaker: And it's all into really training.
Speaker: Like yeah, there's some good people and there's some bad people and you're gonna run into that.
Speaker: But it's, they're doing a bad job and you've trained them right, then you get another one.
Speaker: And if they're doing a bad job and you train them right, get another one.
Speaker: And if they're doing a bad job and you train them right, well you're not training them right.
Speaker: It's your fault.
Speaker: Yeah, I like that.
Speaker: No, I've been using, they're super helpful.
Speaker: So, and it took me, I did go through like four virtual assistants before I found one that's crushing it now.
Speaker: So yeah, I think that's, and that's one of the benefits.
Speaker: Maybe there's agencies, guys that will help you find more.
Speaker: But I think me, I'm Bennett.
Speaker: Interview and vet them properly.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I always start them at a very rapid increase in pay as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So we would hire $5 an hour.
Speaker: kind of average out there.
Speaker: We do a 50 cent raise every quarter.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So within the, if they stick with me for a year, that's seven.
Speaker: If they stick with me for two years, they're at nine.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: So they've almost doubled their income in two years.
Speaker: And then after that, I switch them to a 10% raise per year.
Speaker: Well, it's a two and a half percent raise per quarter.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So it ends up being just over 10% because of the compounding effect.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But it's like, let's start you at it low for us, right?
Speaker: But like kind of an average in the Philippines, maybe a little
Speaker: like two years you're gonna make me make a double the money so stick with me because to the culture is like high turnover I'm gonna work for you for three months I'm gonna go find somebody else yeah yeah it's like no incentivize them to stick with you so who's not gonna pay somebody $10 a dollar $15 now that's been with you for a few years
Speaker: Yeah, like that's a no-brainer.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: I mean, that's good advice because I haven't given mine a raise in a year.
Speaker: So I should start giving mine a raise.
Speaker: You're doing good enough for a raise or that you're not doing good enough at all.
Speaker: Yeah, you're fired type of deal.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's not like I'm gonna evaluate it and see if you're gonna do it.
Speaker: These are guaranteed raises if you work for me.
Speaker: That means you're doing good and you get the raise.
Speaker: Okay, well mine actually edits all these podcasts.
Speaker: So she's gonna hear all this right now and be like, what the heck Taylor?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm giving me a raise though.
Speaker: All right, Angelica, better give you a raise.
Speaker: But cool.
Speaker: And so just kind of as we start wrapping up here, Bennett, my last kind of question with real estate, how would you mind these deals?
Speaker: Because that's what was one of my, I guess, things that has held me back to is I don't even know where to begin looking for these deals.
Speaker: Like how do I connect with a good real estate agent?
Speaker: What to
Speaker: What tips do you have on that?
Speaker: Facebook groups are amazing.
Speaker: Now, because now we're doing real estate in multiple states for dirty dough, right?
Speaker: So not buying residential properties, but you look up Phoenix, Arizona realtor groups.
Speaker: Go on Facebook and join them and say, hey, I'm looking for a realtor, and I need, this is my first time buying investment property.
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: But you need somebody that's done this, and you want a realtor.
Speaker: If you're getting into investment, you don't want any Joe Blow realtor that's like, oh yeah, I own my own house.
Speaker: And it's like, well, do you own investment properties?
Speaker: If they own investment properties, then use them.
Speaker: If they don't, I mean, just flat out don't use them.
Speaker: If you're buying investment property from somebody that doesn't own investment properties, just don't do it.
Speaker: So, Duane Richens, you know, I get realtors like, oh, why didn't, you know, how do I earn your business?
Speaker: Bring me a deal.
Speaker: You know, bring me a deal.
Speaker: Duane brings me deals.
Speaker: So, when you brought Duane to me, you know, he came out and he did his presentation.
Speaker: I got under contract with two properties.
Speaker: I paid $1,500 for a condo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Earn this money.
Speaker: And the other one, I bought a town home that was like, I don't know, 10 or 15 grand because I was paying for some upgrades and stuff like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Finished the basement, made a five bedroom so I could rent it out.
Speaker: But anyways, the condo, just focusing on that, paid $1,500.
Speaker: Is that what Tanner did?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Brother?
Speaker: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: So me and Tanner put $1,500 down on a condo.
Speaker: That was our only risk.
Speaker: This was in May.
Speaker: Now these condos are being finished here in April or I think May 4th maybe.
Speaker: And when I got under contract at $389 and those same condos in the same spot in Lehigh, Utah just went for $454,000, something like that.
Speaker: So it's like, gained $60,000 of equity.
Speaker: And my risk was $1,500.
Speaker: Because I'm securing the price and the market's just crazy right now.
Speaker: So turning $1,500 to $60,000, I mean, what type of return is that?
Speaker: That's a 400% return.
Speaker: So we're talking crypto returns, but with real estate, just crazy.
Speaker: But yeah, now that I'm secured it, like now I have to pay 100 grand to actually pay for it, right?
Speaker: But at that point, it's like, how easy is it to go find somebody with 100 grand?
Speaker: Like, hey, dude, we could walk into 60 grand equity.
Speaker: So if you need a partner, you can always do that.
Speaker: So it's finding these deals, but finding the realtor and asking those questions to vet them.
Speaker: If you're in Utah, I would use Dwayne.
Speaker: Dwayne's the man.
Speaker: Yeah, he's awesome.
Speaker: That's sweet.
Speaker: And so you could turn around and sell that and make 60 grand, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Like 30, 40 because you have to pay your realtor fees.
Speaker: So you sell on a property for 450, you're paying five, 6%.
Speaker: That's going to go up, but yeah, I can sell it.
Speaker: Now this particular builder requires you to keep it for a year.
Speaker: I did two properties.
Speaker: I did a town home.
Speaker: The town home I bought for 475 or 85, somewhere around there.
Speaker: And they just went for 609.
Speaker: It's like, so I'm going to get, I'm signing on both of these properties for the next two weeks and I'm walking into like 180 grand equity.
Speaker: And it's like, it's crazy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, it's, it's finding the deal.
Speaker: We'll find somebody who's finding deals.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not actively looking.
Speaker: I didn't find the duplex.
Speaker: I wasn't even looking for it.
Speaker: I'm not analyzing the numbers.
Speaker: I'm not saying you should do that, but find somebody that's an expert in what they're doing.
Speaker: They're already doing it for other people, and it's just like, put me on your list.
Speaker: Bring me a good deal.
Speaker: Yeah, and so why isn't like Dwayne, for example, why doesn't he just buy up all these good deals himself if they're so good?
Speaker: Or does he buy... They release condos and townhomes and homes every single week, like these new builders.
Speaker: Okay, so he's not going to buy up the whole complex.
Speaker: You can't buy five a week for a year.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: okay so yeah i mean i bought a house i moved from san diego to pleasant grove utah yeah bought a home and i moved in february 2nd yeah got under contract on january 1st a buyer fell through yeah and that that was kind of just lucky so same thing this was being built had all the upgrades everything that we wanted they signed their contract probably in january last year yeah so i got under i just took over their contract so i
Speaker: Within 30 days, I found this property bought it moved in and walked into like 60, 70 thousand dollars worth of equity because again I got their last year's price Wow so kind of just being on the lookout but man my time is limited so having people do that for me yeah like these are my criteria or what should my criteria be right a lot of people don't know what they're looking for so it's like tell me what I should look for yeah what's a good investment and at the end of the day just get into it and if you lose the money going freaking knocks more doors
Speaker: more money I know get in the market your your net worth and your wealth goes up very quick yeah hundred percent and that's why we're in solar baby take that money and get some investments so no appreciate the you know real estate tips all the good stuff you've shared with us Bennett and Alex would you say all these real estate it's like paying your expenses you're making I don't know I spend a lot of my two now
Speaker: but pretty good passive money like 6,000 and I'm okay this other two it's gonna it's gonna increase so not so much all my expenses but at the same time like if I wanted to retire of all the properties I own it's worth like maybe three and a half four million dollars so let's say goes up five percent here like last year went up 20% if you look at Utah specific over 20 years it's going on five percent here so what's five percent of four million that's 200,000
Speaker: So it's like I have seven properties.
Speaker: So every year I can technically pick a property and I do like a cash out refinance or heal up or something and pull out 200,000 and then let that property grow for the next seven years.
Speaker: And I take $200,000 out of each property per year within the seven properties there.
Speaker: I'm gaining $200,000 somehow passively on top of my cash flow.
Speaker: So that's where the real money is at in this market.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: is the appreciation and then yeah i'll get yeah maybe 60 grand a year or something in cash flow but i'm getting 200 in appreciation yeah and then you just need to know how to take that out and either reinvest it or if you want to spend it on something but definitely yeah always try to reinvest yeah yeah that's fire well cool so guys go get started in real estate if you haven't or yeah buy a cookie store either one okay
Speaker: depending on what your goals are, how active you want to be.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I mean, before we let you go, Bennett, if guys want to like, you know, get in the cookies or, you know, hit you up about real estate, what's the best way to connect with you and hear more about how to get in on that stuff?
Speaker: You can go to my website, Bennett Maxwell.com.
Speaker: So B E N N E T T. And there you can inquire about franchising, set up a call with me or my partner.
Speaker: You know, if you had some questions about real estate, message me on Instagram or Facebook or LinkedIn.
Speaker: connects me through there.
Speaker: And then I do have a, I'm starting to do a monthly like in the trenches report of really what's going on in my business and really getting in the nitty gritty of like actual numbers.
Speaker: Like we lost this much money.
Speaker: We gained this much money and building an enterprise value.
Speaker: So you can subscribe to that.
Speaker: And I do a few of those a month though.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: I don't even know you had a website.
Speaker: So look at you moving up.
Speaker: Fancy, fancy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So go check it out.
Speaker: We'll link all that in the show notes.
Speaker: So check it out.
Speaker: Hit up Bennett and some, yeah, amazing investment opportunity with a dirty dose.
Speaker: Check that out too.
Speaker: So Bennett, thanks again for coming on the show.
Speaker: And yeah, it's been fun.
Speaker: So guys, go hit them up.
Speaker: Let them know you appreciate them.
Speaker: I guess any final advice or any tips you'd give to guys in, in solar, anything else you'd add to before we wrap up here?
Speaker: Work to learn, not to earn first.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Be educated and build yourself to be the best salesperson, the most educated salesperson.
Speaker: And then you will get the money and you will get into investments after that.
Speaker: It's just about the education.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: Nugget right there.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: We'll appreciate you coming on the show, Bennett.
Speaker: And maybe we'll have to bring it back for a third one when you have 100 properties or something.
Speaker: Let's do it.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: So thanks again for coming on.
Speaker: And yeah, we'll talk soon.
Speaker: What's up, solopreneurs?
Speaker: Hope you enjoyed the episode.
Speaker: Before you run out and start selling more solar yourself, wanted to let you know about an exciting new cheat sheet we created specifically for you in mind.
Speaker: One of the top questions I get asked on Instagram, on Facebook, by our listeners is, Taylor, where should I start?
Speaker: What episodes should I listen to in the podcast?
Speaker: You got too many podcasts, man, because now we have over 200 episodes.
Speaker: So what we've done, we created the top 10 most downloaded, most listened to, and I would say widely accepted, most useful podcasts that we've done here on Solarpreneur.
Speaker: We put them together all in one sheet so you can go, you can hit the ground running, especially if you're new, you do not want to not have this sheet.
Speaker: So go download it right now.
Speaker: It's going to be at top10.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Again, that's top10, the number 10,.solarpreneurs.com.
Speaker: Don't forget the S on solarpreneurs.
Speaker: We will have that in the show notes.
Speaker: Go download it right now.
Speaker: And especially if you have not listened to them, go listen to them and you can re-listen to them.
Speaker: That's going to show you how.
Speaker: So go download it and we'll see you on the other side.
