Dec 3, 2019
James: Hey audience, this is James Kandasamy from Achieve Wealth Podcast. Today, we have Coach, Trevor McGregor from Vancouver, British Columbia. But you know, he's been seen all over in the US, in a lot of conferences giving keynote speeches. So Trevor is a real estate coach, a consultant, a keynote speaker and many other things. Trevor, why not you tell the audience what do you do and what are the things that I missed out?
Trevor: Oh, well, thank you very much, James. Great to be on your show. I love your show. And yeah, you know, predominantly, my background is in business. I worked in the Fortune, you know, Fortune 500 company; it wasn't a Fortune 500 company itself, but I worked in corporate. It felt like a Fortune 500 company because I did a little bit of everything as the director of operations. I was involved in everything from marketing to finance, HR, site selection; you name it, I did it. And at the same time, as I was working in corporate, I also became a real estate investor. So I started investing in condos, townhouses, duplexes, fourplexes, single family homes. And at the same time, I also really got into personal growth. I was studying the likes of Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn, a little bit of Napoleon Hill.
And so, I had this trifecta going of corporate, of real estate, and a personal growth that eventually morphed into me doing a little bit of coaching in corporate and in real estate and in personal growth. I went on to start working with Tony Robbins. For those of you that know Tony Robbins, he's a business strategist and he loved that I had a background in business, a background in real estate and that I was big into personal growth. And so at some point in my career, I decided to just leave the corporate world and just end up doing coaching, consulting, keynote speaking and full-time real estate investing. And that's really what I do today.
James: Very interesting. So I believe that success in anything that we do is 80% psychology mindset and personal growth, internally, right? So tell us about the steps that any real estate investor needs to achieve his dream or his or her dream to become a really successful real estate investor. I mean, you have coached a lot of people, so why not we go through the list of what are the most important things that any real estate investors should look at?
Trevor: Absolutely. I'll be happy to. And I guess it all starts with understanding that there are two things. So I'll share two things before we get to the list, James, because I'm telling you, I've coached real estate investors all over this beautiful blue planet. You know, the majority of them have been in the United States, some in Canada, some in Europe, some in Australia, New Zealand, even as far away as Asia. And after doing over 20,000 coaching calls, that's an actual statistic, I found that it really boils down to just two things. You know, the first thing is to really have what I call a high-performance mindset. You've got to get what's right between the ears before you can even go out there and do the second thing, which is modeling; modeling best practices. You know, learning from people like you, learning from reading great books, attending conferences. Because if you can show up with a powerful mindset and you can model best practices, you can really take your real estate portfolio through the roof. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So let's go to more things in how the journey can be started, right?
Trevor: Yeah. Well, absolutely. And I call it the seven simple steps to extraordinary real estate success. Because again, I've identified that if you do these seven things, you're going to be wildly successful in real estate. And if you miss one of these seven things, it can take you a long time to get to your ultimate outcome. So the very first thing that I always talk about, and it's always number one with people, whether you are new to real estate investing, maybe you are an expert at it, is that there's always something going on where we need to confirm with your mindset. Because we all have limiting beliefs, we all have doubts, we all have fears, we all have anxiety. And oftentimes we'll say things like, you know, it's tough to find great deals, right? Or maybe you've heard all the good deals are gone, or that it's hard to raise money nowadays because there's so much competition Or what if the market crashes?
And so those are all questions that if you don't get your head around those things, they can literally paralyze someone and stop them in their tracks. So what I come in is I come in as a coach and I take a look at things like, well, what are your beliefs? What are your values? What are your rules? How were you answering those questions? Because I'm telling you that there's a new way of thinking and behaving that you've got to really latch onto. Because if you don't, those limiting beliefs are going to hold you back. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah, that makes sense. But where do you think people get the limiting belief? I mean, it seems to be everybody having it, right? And how can they cure that limiting belief?
Trevor: Well, limiting beliefs come from what we perceive as being true, right? So if someone says, "Oh, it's hard to raise capital."
You've got to ask, "Is that really true?"
And the answer for some is, "Yeah, it is hard to raise capital."
And from others you go, "Well, other people have seemed to raise capital so I might just investigate how they're doing it."
Let's take James Kandasamy if we take a look at how much money you've raised in your time, I mean, there was a time where you had raised $0 and now you've gone on to raise tens of millions of dollars. So I always say to ask the question, is that really true? Is it hard to raise capital or do you maybe need to find a mentor or a coach like James or take James's program to really find out how other people are doing it? And that's the one thing that you've got to remember is for every problem that you've got or that you're facing, somebody does have the solution. But you can't sit there and think that it can't be solved. I mean, it's imperative that you really understand. That's why coaching and mentoring exists. And that's what I love about you, James, is you do all of this in your own real estate deals and you're an expert at it.
James: Yeah. It's very tricky, right? So there are so many reasons that even I was giving, sometimes I have self-talk and would say, Oh, that's no deal. Well, I really have to force myself to think that, okay, I need to be finding different ways to find deals. That's not like there are no deals, you just have to think differently and ask different questions.
Trevor: It's really true because today alone, I mean, if we take a look at today, somebody that owns an apartment building somewhere today is going to be diagnosed with heart disease or cancer, right? And they're gonna want to sell their property. Tomorrow, somebody's going to be getting divorced and they're going to need to sell their property. Tomorrow or the next day, someone's going to be going, man, it's too hot to live in Texas. My wife and I are ready to move to Florida and live on the coast where it's a little bit cooler. So you've got to believe that as the Baby Boomers age, and as people come up with real-life conditions like heart disease, cancer, divorce, moving, there's going to be more and more apartments for sale every day because that's what's happening to these apartment owners. So again, you've got to condition the belief system to believe that every day there are new great deals about to come online. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah. It's all about belief systems and I think it will appear, right? And I think you always have to think about how can you do things differently from everybody else. And a lot of times people are just want to be handholding. They want someone to hold their hand and show them...basically, they want to be fed by the spoon. Everything you want to be given just like that. It's not how it works. I mean, for example, when I started in multifamily in 2015, it was hard to find deals. Everybody say it's pricey. I used to buy deals, the deals and my market used to be like 55 a door and that was like expensive and I had to find different ways to buy deals at 35 a door.
But the thing is it has been pricey since 2015. If you think the market is hot right now in 2019, I tell you it was really hot, even in 2013, 2014. It has always been hard. There was no such thing as it was easy last time. So, you know, it's going to be always difficult. You just have to find some different value proposition and do things differently from everybody else to get ahead. And that's what I did even in 2015. I used to start looking for direct to seller marketing, which nobody else was doing. I did find deals and that's how I penetrated the market. Otherwise, I would have been complaining and talking the same thing all over again.
Trevor: Well that's it. And people don't know what they don't know until they know. And I'll say that again: People don't know what they don't know until they know. And you have to absolutely start out by putting one foot in front of the other and starting to get some traction. Starting to look at, well, what are the different areas I could get a deal, find a deal, talk to a broker, go direct to seller? I mean for the committed, there's always a way; would you agree?
James: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, for the committed and people who want to really, really be successful. A lot of people out there, like to be successful or they want to be, but there is no requirement for them to be successful. It's not like do or die. So it's not like breathing for air when you're underwater. When your head is pushed underwater, you want that air. That's how you should feel it when you want to be successful. So if you have that feeling then you will be successful. But if you want to be like, yeah, I mean, you know, if you are taking it lightly and if you want to be or you like to be successful, then, of course, you're not going to be successful.
Trevor: That's it.
James: Yeah, absolutely. So let's go for the second step after the mindset. What do you think is the next one that is very critical?
Trevor: Well, I'll tell you, this is a big one too, James. And it really is what I call a lack of a strategic plan. And that means, as real estate investors, we've got to start with the end in mind. We've got to start with our outcome, we've got to get crystal clear on what it looks like. Are we going to invest in state or out of state? Are we going to invest with a partner or by ourselves? Are we going to look for properties that are in B class or C class? Are we going to look for things under a hundred doors or over a hundred doors? And so, I always remind people to sit down with a pen and a paper and get clarity on what their ultimate outcome looks like. And then from that place, we can reverse engineer it and start building the steps to move in that direction. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah. Yeah. Correct. And I think it also helps the person when they communicate with other people. So let's say when they're very, very specific with their goal, it helps them a lot. Like when they talk to a broker, if they say, I need a hundred unit in a C location with a C minus a property or B and a C location and I want this kind of expense ratio. Then that's definitely going to be very, very helpful for the broker to really, really give you the deal that you want. So what do you think?
Trevor: No, you're spot on. And again, you're going to start to really understand that the 80/20 rule applies; where 80% of people are just phoning up a broker and saying, what have you got for me? Whereas 20% of the people are going into that call with the broker with a lot of specificity like you would do: here's what I want, where I want it, what my budget is, here's my team. We've got capital ready to deploy and we're ready to take down a deal. Because let's face it, the world has sped up so fast and there's so much competition out there that if you can't speak intelligently to a broker and tell them what you really want and where you really want it, he's going to go give it to someone else who is specific. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen brokers where I started talking to them for the first time, they call me immediately because even though they do not know who am I, but they said, well, your sentences tells me that you know what you're doing and you know exactly what you want, which is very important. Alright then, I want to buy a multifamily deal. I want to buy an apartment. So that's so high level.
But how do you think they should sentence it? I'm trying to think through this question here, how do you think a newbie or a new person who is trying to get into this business should phrase the requirement?
Trevor: Absolutely. So, it's a great question, James. And I think that today you can do it solo, but it's a lot easier to do it with a partner. Somebody like you where they might be able to say that my partners and I are looking for X, Y, Z. Because the first thing out of a broker's mouth is, do you have experience? Have you done a multiunit apartment deal before? And instead of saying, this is my first time and the broker going, Oh God, here we go again. It's literally, yes, my partners and I have done three deals or my partners and I have done seven deals or we currently own X number of doors. Even though the partner may own the doors and it's your first time kind of hanging onto the coattails of the partner, it's still credibility.
So you never want to lie to them but you do want to really take a look at, well, if I was to partner with someone who's already done what it is I'm trying to do, could I go faster? Because at the end of the day, and even as a master platinum coach, and again doing 20,000 coaching calls with real estate investors, I know that the whole goal is to turn decades into days. And it could take you years to break through with the broker on your own, where you partner with the right team and you can turn decades into days and really start putting yourself out there in a great way. Does that resonate?
James: Yeah, that resonated. So I'm trying to get your thoughts. Why do you think it's important to get a mentor rather than trying on your own?
Trevor: Well, again, I think that it's really, really intelligent to read books, listen to podcasts like yours, go to real estate events and really understand that if you could really turn those decades in today's, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to have a coach or a mentor or an accountability partner or somebody in your tribe that has already done what it is you're trying to do? Because my mentor and coach, Mr. Tony Robbins says, "Success leaves clues."
And again, if we take a look at your success and Shante success, I mean, you've gone on to do, you know, I don't even know what you're currently sitting at, James, you'll have to tell me.
James: I've got like 1300 units.
Trevor: Yeah. That's a lot of units, not to mention, you're also a coach, you're also a speaker, you're also an author. You've got great training programs. So if I could learn from a guy like James Kandasamy or not, I mean the choice is obvious. I want to absolutely take a sneak peek behind your curtain and see what you've learned so I can turn those decades into days.
James: Yeah. It's crazy. I've met people who are really, really smart and I've talked to them about coaching, but somehow, some people just do not want to do coaching. I don't know why they think it's a bad thing. Because I had a lot of coaches, a lot of mentors. And a lot of times these people want to try to come into the business and do the business on their own, but they're not very, very successful until now. Because they can do auxiliary work, they can do the ecosystem work, but they can't be the primary keepers. I mean, coaching itself takes a lot of time. I can teach you 'A', I can teach you G but I can't teach you A to Z unless you go through the entire program. And A to Z will take you to become a true person who knows everything. We're on the top of the food chain, that's what I would say as an operator.
So sometimes people learn how to raise money or sometimes people learn how to do asset management or how to underwrite, but nobody really learns everything. So a coach would be able to tell you what's the fastest way to go from A to Z and don't make the mistakes. I think they can avoid a lot of mistakes and in the commercial real estate industry, it's just multimillion-dollar business. You know, you're handling investor's money if you're doing syndication, it's very, very key that you get someone that you can trust and have gone through that path and can tell you what are the traps to avoid. So I think that's very important.
Trevor: Yeah, well, that's the main thing. I mean you talk about people really having three different modalities. Some people want to go out there and be the guy that finds the deal or the gal that finds the deal. Some are underwriters and the real numbers people and they want to work with the numbers and make sure it's all the numbers jive. The third type of person who wants to run and manage the asset. Maybe the fourth type of person wants to raise capital.
So again, at the end of the day you've got all of these core modalities, but there's all these submodalities like contracts and due diligence and really legal and financial analysis. Like at the core, where you're really protecting your earnest money or protecting time. Because I think time and money are the two greatest commodities in this game we're playing, called multifamily real estate. So when you think of checklists, when you think of really understanding and appreciating where do people succeed and also where do people fall down, I think it's like absolutely paramount to you being able to go further faster. Would you agree?
James: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's go to number three. What do you think is number three?
Trevor: Yeah, number three. I know it's the following in, it's called systems for support. Yes. Systems for support. Because you can't just go out there and freestyle today, you've got to create systems.Systems that might include a team. Systems that might include who's responsible for what. Systems that might include technology. Systems that remind you, when are you supposed to reach out to that broker again? When are you supposed to drive neighborhoods? When are you supposed to go to meetups? I mean, most people get up on Monday morning and go, gosh, what should I do to move my real estate business forward this week? And James, I call that hopium. You know, that's hoping you're going to find a deal, hoping you're going to find an investor. And if you want to play in the upper echelon of real estate, you've got to have tried and true systems where all that stuff's laid out well in advanced Monday morning. And when Monday morning comes, you start working on the urgent and important activities. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah. Yeah. It's very important. I mean, I think when I was starting up, I'm just sharing my experience because you brought up things that bring back memories. So when I started up, I was doing Excel sheet, everything. I even invested in management and all that. But as I grew bigger, I knew time was very important. You don't want to waste a lot of time and some things you can use for you to scale. Like even like all my investment management right now, there's a tool that I use right now. So no more doing Excel. So yeah, I mean even in the past six months, I put in a lot of time into creating systems and processes and procedures on my vertically integrated company so that we can scale. So, yeah, absolutely agree. Are there any tools that you recommend to create this kind of system?
Trevor: Well, it can be simple tools. It could be Excel. For somebody who's starting out, there are other underwriting programs. If you want to be a little bit more sophisticated, you might need CRMs to keep track of your investors because you're not just reaching out to two or three people. I mean, oftentimes we say that going out there and raising capital is a lot like flipping over a card from a deck of cards. And James, I know you've heard this cause we worked together, but you might go out there to an investor group or you might go to a meetup or you might go to a conference and you might literally share a unique opportunity with somebody and see if they want to put some money in. And every time you ask someone whether they want to come in on a deal, I call it, it's almost like you're flipping over a card. And sometimes you're going to flip over that card and you're going to get a two or three and they're not going to invest.
Then you get somebody that might be an eight or a nine and they were close to investing, but they don't want to come in. And you keep flipping over cards and keep flipping over cards until you find an ACE. And an ACE is where you get an investor that literally comes in and puts 50 or a hundred or 250 candy or deal. And then you got to keep going out there and flipping cards. But if you don't know when your next conference is, if you don't know when the next meetup is, if you don't know who you're going to be getting in front of in the local community or maybe other parents of your children's, you know, maybe your children's have friends who have parents or professionals or doctors or whatever, I'm telling you, you're really running a risk of finding a great deal and then not being able to fund it. And that would be a tragedy today. So, people will always say to you, would you rather find the deal and then the investor or find the investors and then the deal? And it's almost a chicken and an egg. I always say I'd love to have a pool of people that are ready to invest so that when I know I've got that deal that I can move quickly on it. How would you speak to that, James?
James: Yeah, so I think yeah, I did the same as well. I mean, I tried to add value to a lot of investors and get them wanting to be in my list. Because they get so much value, they want to know what's happening. They want to know like how does the tax benefit comes in? How does asset protection come in? So I do a lot of webinars. So I give a lot of values and build that database with my investors. And it's also building a trust system because a lot of times, I think investors really want to work with someone they already know. They know, like and trust. And I've seen many, many times people come and ask me out of the blue, you want to invest with me? I said I do not know you man so how am I going to invest? It's just so difficult. So, yeah, I would agree with you, you need to have a group of investors first, then you go and find the deal. At least give them hope that you're looking and always give value to the investors so that they know that you are really caring for them.
Trevor: That's it. It's really all about adding value, adding massive value, adding more value than your competitor adds. And I'm telling you that that's really what makes the world go round. We're all here for nothing more than to grow and to contribute. And if you want to grow, you've got to be ready to contribute. And if you want to grow, you also have to be ready to have others contribute.
And that really does lead to number four, which is what I call having pillars for support. And pillars for support or where you start assembling your team. Do you have the person that can sign on the deal? Do you have the lender? Do you have the investors? Do you have the appraisers? Do you have the underwriters? Do you have the property managers? Do you have the general contractors, the roofers, the plumbers, the landscapers? You know, the same thing with a really good attorney. Same thing with a really good CPA, who knows all the tax advantages of real estate. I mean, if you're not assembling your pillars of support, you're really gonna miss out on optimizing and maximizing the performance. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I would add more to that. It's like when you have pillars of support, if you have a mentor, the mentor can tell you exactly who you want. I mean, you can get a PPM lawyer, but who's the best out there? The mentor can tell you because they've already gone through that phases of trial and error. Same thing with lenders as well, who's the best lender to work with you? And that's a lot of nuances in each of these, which can change your deal dramatically. If you don't underwrite properly, it can change your deal. If you don't have the right lender, it can change your deal. It also gives you an edge in terms of a buying deal in this market. If you know somebody that other people do not know or there are some things in that one person, you know that no one else knows, it gives you an edge in terms of winning deals.
And there are so many nuances and everybody has their own style and it's not written in any book. I probably need to write a book one day. There's just so much of a value proposition on specific lenders, specific lawyers, specific underwriting techniques that people have gone through this and would know that not many people know. So yeah, I would agree to get in all the team establish, but at the same time, if you have a mentor, you will absolutely know who's the best team out there for you.
Trevor: That's it. And that's a huge part of real estate today. And it's paramount. It's an absolute must and not a should. Otherwise, you face a lot of challenges and then those challenges end up costing you money and those challenges end up costing you time. And not just your money but again, if you're using OPM or other people's money, the last thing you want to do is have to go back and explain that you didn't hire the best of the best for capital preservation or to make sure they redline anything in the deal that doesn't work or whatever. So it's a huge, huge part of what people really need to consider when they go out there and start doing this in a major way.
James: Got it. Let's go to number five.
Trevor: You got it. Number five is my favorite category and it kind of speaks to the last two, but it's officially called poor time management. Because James, here's the truth. I can tell the quality of an investor's outcomes by where they spend their time. And I'm going to be just completely honest with you that we all have the same amount of time. We've got something called, The Rule of 168 and what does that mean? Well, it means we all have 168 hours a week. Now, wee sleep for a bunch of those. We eat, we pay the bills, we spend time with the wife, the kids, the husband, the kids. But what are you doing with the rest of your time? Because you've got to make sure that you're not just doing lower-value activities, but you're doing higher-value activities.
Things that can get you deals, things that can get you to meet different apartment owners, things that could get you in front of more brokers, things that can help you turn in more LOI, things that can help you really find a unique tribe of other investors. Where you're not just going out there and spending your time looking at individual investors but maybe you tap into someone who got a really nice big Rolodex so we can optimize and maximize our time.
Because at the end of the day, most people fall down here and they're not doing the things that they should be doing. They're doing busy work. For a lot of people, they think they're being productive but in an eight hour day, if you look at the statistics in America alone, people are only productive for about three hours of every eight hour day. And I'm certainly not saying that to you or me because I know how hard you work and you know how hard I work. But really, I would ask the listeners to really get crystal clear on, where am I spending my time and is there an opportunity to take it to a new level? Does that resonate?
James: Yeah, it resonated very well. But let me give you some experience from time management. I used to work in one large company, the largest semiconductor company. And you know, after a few years I realize everybody's busy for nothing. There's so much of meetings and we are busy with meetings and when we're having meetings we are doing another work. So everybody in the meeting is on the laptop doing something else and the is still running. And there was another meeting to tackle too many meetings. There was a meeting, task force to reduce meeting. And the meeting task forces meeting too many times and at the end of the day, they got killed. So I mean, I left the company, I went to another much more smaller company, which is much higher efficiency and they don't have...they have half an hour meeting, nobody does work during the meeting, it's so much efficient.
And I realized, wow, I missed so much of my time, you know, many, many years working in the first company and it's just ridiculous. You're a W2 employee, you are working on this big corporate bureaucratic company and you realize, half of your life is gone in meetings. You get paid and all that but what's the point? I mean, you are losing time throughout your life. And it's just so much of difference between a large company and small company, which runs much more efficiently. And yeah, time is something that is like a bank account where you deposit 24 hours everyday, but you're losing every day as well. You're losing all the money. You can't take it back. So imagine that kind of every day you start back early morning, you put back 24 hours and you can't really take it out again because it disappears at the end of the day. So either you use that whole 24 hours or it disappears at the end of the day.
Trevor: I think that's it. And really what I would say to the listener there, James is really, check-in with yourself, whether you're being outcome-focused or whether you're being task-focused because there's a big difference. If you're outcome-focused, you're really going, okay, what is the outcome for this meeting I'm about to go into? What do I need to achieve? Or if you're picking up the phone, you've got to start with, what's the outcome of me making this call? What am I really trying to get? Or what's the outcome of going to this meetup? Or what's the outcome of sending in this LOI? Or what's the outcome?
Whereas task-based people are just busy working off of a to-do list. They're just trying to get things done rather than really focus on, does this really help me go further faster? So I encourage everybody to get crystal clear on becoming an outcome-based thinker rather than a task-based thinker. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah, that makes sense. So can you give some example? Let's say if someone go to a conference, what are the outcomes that they can plan to get from the conference?
Trevor: I think that's a great question. Maybe you want to come out of there with 10 new contacts, 10 high-level contacts. Maybe you want to learn the next greatest thing about what's going on in the market. Maybe there's someone from Marcus and Millichap who's presenting there that puts up all these graphs and you start to see where millennials are not moving into and places where millennials are moving into. Maybe it's something about cap rates. Maybe it's something about legal or financial analysis or my favorite one, how to keep more money out of Uncle Sam's hand and put it into yours. Because I think real estate is the greatest wealth vehicle on the planet and there's so many tax advantages. But if you don't go a conference going, I'm going to come home with one or two new things about how to really optimize my taxes, you could be missing out. Versus just going to a conference to go to a conference and thinking, well, I'll just soak up whatever I can soak up here and that's it. Does that make sense?
James: Yeah. Yeah. I'm guilty of that. Sometimes I go somewhere and I don't really think about what outcome do I want. So I need to improve on that too. But that's really good advice because I think, as you said, time is very limited. You want to make sure you get outcomes for any action that you spend time on. Especially when you are getting away from your family.
Trevor: Especially if you're on a weekend conference or you going to fly to a different city or if you're spending a lot of money. I mean, the money's important, but you can always make more money, James, you can't get your time back as you alluded to.
James: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to ask you a dangerous question. You have been to many, many conferences for real estate. So without naming names, I mean, what kind of real estate conference that you think is the most beneficial for a newbie to start up in this syndication?
Trevor: Oh, that's a great question. I think you want to find somebody who has got, what I would say as a heart-centered tribe and what do I mean by that? Well, it's somebody that isn't just putting on a conference to make money, but somebody who's putting on a conference to really teach, to really coach, to really train, to really mentor, to really facilitate. And it's not where the speakers stand on stage and just pound you with information, information, information, information. Because I like those events where the newbie can go and do a lot of networking; have lunch, have dinner, ride in an Uber with somebody else because it's really, first of all, the human experience. And I think real estate is really not about being in the real estate business, it's about being in the relationship business. But secondly, I find that the events where you can go and have some networking time or break into small groups or do some focus groups or really have panels that talk about best practices, those are the types of events where I see newbies going into and coming out of there going, Oh my God, that was worth it and more.
Because it's not just the information they got, it's the transformation that they see in other people who have already started to do what it is they want to do. And they get inspired, they get engaged, they get enrolled, they get compelled and say, well, if they could do it, is it possible that I could do it? And those are the best types of events for people to go to.
James: Got it. Got it. Awesome. Okay, let's go to number six.
Trevor: You bet. Number six is all about leverage. It's all about outsourcing. It's all about that old model being broken of try to be everything to everyone. So what do I mean by that? Well, if my passion is going out there and finding great deals, and that's what I'm really good at and that's what I love spending my time doing, then that's what I should do. And that means I might give the outsourcing to someone else. That means I might give the underwriting to someone else. That means I might give the asset management to someone that's maybe really good at managing the asset.
So I'm a big believer that if you try to do every single thing yourself...I think it's good to understand it and have a taste of it but at the end of the day, what are you really good at and what do you love doing? And then are you able to outsource or delegate some things to other people who are passionate about what they do? What do you think of that?
James: Yeah. I mean, I was doing a lot of things on my own and actually we got really, really busy. I mean managing almost a hundred million dollars in assets and what I've learned for the past one year, I think well maybe one and a half years I've started outsourcing. I have like three VA's right now helping me all the way all over the world and they're really good. It takes time to train them, but once they're trained, they are really, really helpful. And I'm trying to focus a lot more on the most important stuff that can play to my strength and that's really good advice. Got it. So let's go to number seven.
Trevor: Yeah. The final one, number seven, is really all about taking massive action. It's where the rubber meets the road. Because you can get rid of limiting beliefs and you can create a plan and you can create systems for support and you can literally figure out what you're going to do with your time, you can leverage things to other people. But if you're not out there driving neighborhoods, talking to brokers, go into conferences, hiring a coach, learning the tax advantages, you're really fooling yourself.
Because when I say take massive action, notice I'm throwing in the word 'massive', right? It's not like, do a little bit and then stop and then do a little bit and then stop. I believe that momentum breeds momentum and the more you get excited about it and fired up about it and you go out there and do it, it's amazing to see how investors, whether they're new, intermediate, or even veterans can really put the ball in the hoop and really find some great deals out there.
The other thing that's kind of an extension of that is to have some sort of accountability. Whether that is a partner, whether that is a coach, whether that's a mentor. I mean, most people find that they get excited for a little while and then the going gets tough, James and then the path of least resistance kicks in and they find themselves watching Netflix every night instead of going out there and going to the meetups, going out there and driving neighborhoods. So you've gotta be very, very careful that it takes massive action, course-correct as you go. And then make sure you've got some system of accountability so that you stay on track.
James: Yeah. That's why I like a grant Cardone's 10 X, right? Because it's just a representation of taking massive action. Why are you looking at 1X or 2X 3X and that drives a lot of action, a lot of effort from your side. So I think that's what it means. A 10 X is not really, you know, he's asking you to really hit 10 X. Because it's not like not realistic. Of course, it's possible but I think the thing is, your thought process and the amount of work that you put in to go to that 10X, represent massive action. And I think that's important. I think mentors and coaches are very important because they hold them accountable. When someone is holding you accountable, you are like answerable to someone.
If you're on your own, you are like, okay, I can do whatever I want. So that's what happened. Even when I was doing my single-family, because single-family, you own everything. And sometimes we don't even look at financials, money come in, sometimes we lose money in cashflow. We don't really care. But when you have passive investors with you in multifamily, we are like looking at finances every day because now we feel very accountable to everybody. Because we are syndicating and holding passive investors and people trusting you. So that accountability factor is very, very key to have in yourself to be successful.
Trevor: That's it. That's it. And if you follow these seven simple steps and you really maybe go back and rate yourself on a scale of one to 10, where are you with your beliefs? Where are you with knowing your outcome? Where are you as systems for support and on and on and on. If you rate that out of 70, it's going to give you a score and then you're going to be able to start to take a look at how to close that gap. Because we're all humans and we all want more. We want more deals, we want more money, we want more fun, we want more love, we want more experience and travel. And I really do believe that you can have it all in real estate, but you're gonna need to really own those seven simple steps. And not just that one time, you've got to check in with them at least once a week or once a month. And then keep moving forward with what it is that you want to achieve.
James: Awesome. Awesome. That's absolutely a lot of value, Trevor. So why not tell our audience how to get hold of you?
Trevor: Absolutely. Thank you. It's really simple to reach out. There are two ways you can do it. You can simply go to my website, which is trevormcgregor.com. Or if you ever want to have a call and you're somebody who is serious about scaling your real estate and taking it through the roof. And right now, James, my clients collectively that I have in front of me right now, own $1 billion worth of real estate. So they're really serious about growing their portfolio and having a big impact. Anyone who's interested in playing at the next level and needs a high-level coach to help support that, you can simply go to www.coachwithtrevor.com. You can fill in your details, click the send button and we can set up a complimentary 45-minute call where I can hear more about what's working for you, what's not working for you, and we'll show you how to close that gap. And at that time, if you want to hear more about my coaching, I'd be happy to share it with you. But my main intention is to give you massive value on that call.
James: Awesome. Awesome. All right, Trevor, thanks for coming in on the show. I'm sure you added a lot of value to our listeners and audience and happy to have you here. Thank you.
Trevor: Thank you for having me on, James. And the final thing I'll say is, you know what? Have passion and have hunger. Because if you're passionate about real estate and you're hungry to go to the next level, that's where possibility lives. So thanks for having me on.
James: Awesome. Thank you.