114. Managing Risk in Commercial Real Estate with Jeremy Goodrich

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni and today's guest is Jeremy Goodrich. Jeremy, I got a chance to look at your background and what you're doing. I'm super excited to have you on the show. Thanks for joining me today.

Mike, it's a pleasure to be on. I'm excited to share with your listeners about finances and insurance and real estate, and just wherever we go on pump, let's do it..

All right. Yeah, let's get this party started. So, the very first question I'm gonna ask you is the same question. I ask everybody that comes on the show, cuz we wanna know who Jeremy is, what you're all about, where you came from. So if you could, share a little bit about yourself, what's your story?

Yeah. So most of my adult life I spent as an elementary school teacher, I was a third and fourth grade teacher for eight to 10 year olds. And absolutely loved that entire period. If you take a step back from there, I was a pastor's kid grew up as a pastor's kid, so I've always been in this servant mentality place. And as we get into finances, we'll talk a little bit about how that have some pros and some cons. But I was always just in that servant mentality place group of pastors kid became a teacher, met my wife while I was a teacher and she's a third generation insurance agent. She was running her dad's agency, but her dad had sold the agency, quite a while ago. And in fact, most independent insurance agencies across the country right now are actually owned by larger investment firms. And that was the case with her dad's insurance agency. And so at some point, the two of us were like, let's go into this world, let's start our own thing. Let's change the way people feel about insurance and try and just be really good people and a crummy, weird industry. And so in 2013 we started shine insurance. And from that point I've always been into real estate. It started with first time home buyers, they would come to me for insurance and then we'd get to talking and they'd start saying do you know how to find a good realtor, a good lender? What's the escrow period. What's an appraisal. Just like asking me all these processes. And so I started getting the answers and the thing I did that I'm so glad I did six years ago was I recorded the conversations with all those professionals, those realtors, those lenders, those title company owners. And I threw 'em up on YouTube. And it just started taking off on the YouTube channel and we've got about 16,000 subscribers now, and that teaching people how to buy a house, grew into teaching people how to invest in residential real estate. And then that grew into where I'm at right now, which is commercial real estate teaching people how to invest in and protect commercial real estate. My insurance side is a commercial real estate insurance program, but I see really the financial picture as a whole from real estate, whether you're a first time home buyer or the owner of a large 50 story building in Manhattan.

No, that's great. Actually this kind of helps me figure out like where I wanna go with this conversation, because, when you, with what you said when you first started, like the recordings that you did and uploaded on YouTube with the different professionals, right? To answer these questions that you were getting asked at that time, you were doing insurance for residential real estate, right? When did you make that flip to change from doing residential insurance to commercial real estate insurance?

I think anybody who's owned a business has run into the same conundrum I ran into. So I'd been doing residential for about five years and I was growing as quickly as I could personally, but I was the only person doing that in insurance and home and auto insurance is great. I love our book of business. We have about 1500 clients on the personal insurance side, but I couldn't scale doing it by myself. And so what I did is I hired someone who was a local guy, football coach in town, all this kind of stuff and had insurance experience and replaced myself with him. And then I moved into the commercial side because I knew that was the next level, just the natural progression. And I love commercial real estate. I was interested in the commercial real estate community and had made a lot of friends and hung out there. And so I moved over to this side and as a scaling business owner for all your listeners who were doing that, I say there's three E to a successful business, education, maybe this is a successful decision in a whole, as a whole education, experience and entourage. Education, you wanna learn something you wanna get good at playing piano. First you like watch YouTube videos or watch whoever you get some books, you try and figure it out. But at some point you have to get up on that stage and play your first recital or whatever that the version of that is. You gotta go join some other folks and create a band. You gotta have the experience, an education and experience are how we grow our knowledge from the very beginning, but you can't do it without an entourage. You can't get bigger beyond yourself without an entourage. And so at some point I was like, I've gotta bring that entourage piece in. And that's how I adjusted.

No, I love that. I never thought about it from a perspective of an entourage. So the way that you describe your team, right? When you put it all together, cuz I definitely understand the education piece, the experience piece. And then of course you gotta build that team. And then you being able to use the word entourage with that to make the three E like that's perfect. I love it.

I spent a lot of time. Like I was like, I need the third. They have to be E's. It has to be an E and I know it is team, that's what is having your team, your service team, your employees, if you're an investor the people who live in your properties, that is the team, but I needed an E and I don't know if you've ever watched the HBO show entourage. It is not the best show in the world, but I just thought of it. And I was like, oh, that's perfect. Anyway.

Yeah no, that, that works out perfectly. That's great, man. Alright. I'd like to dive into, , in your background, you were describing how you're very service oriented. Growing up as a pastor's kid. And then getting into being an educator, doing third grade elementary school education. And that I'm pretty sure that can also be, it's one of those thankless jobs, being an educator. And making that switch to pulling outta that career field and, becoming an entrepreneur like you did, what was that transition like or when did that switch flip? Was it after you met your wife? And she was like, she was already into insurance, so what made you wanna say, you know what, I'm gonna step away from my safe and secure nine to five to go start this insurance company with my wife and, take this risk because that's what it is. Right? You have that comfort, you have that security blanket. And I think a lot of people get faced with this decision at some point in their life when they decide they wanna become an entrepreneur and they have to, make that tough choice and say, okay, I'm ready to take on the risk. So what was it for you that said, okay, I'm ready, let's do this?

It's a great question. And I think that one of the things that was percolating is she was no longer happy on her side because she just didn't have the motivation that was there before the agency got sold. I was struggling with leadership in my school, I really thought the school should be going a different direction, we should be serving kids in a different kind of way, a better kind of way, and the leadership at the school. So we were starting to have conflicts. So there was a scenario where the places we were at, weren't exactly where we wanted to be. And then I think that we really saw an opportunity to make an industry better. We also knew that we had a quality product. I think anybody who takes a leap wants to make sure that when they take that leap, they actually have something to offer. They have a quality service, they have a quality system that they use to make sure that service is correct, or they have a good product. If you go out and say, I'm gonna sell suntan lotion and all you have access to is, 10 gallon bottles of basically water, with just maybe a little bit of color put in there and people are gonna get burned, you're not gonna succeed or I'm sure there are sales people out there that can sell stuff that isn't good. But for me, the product is everything. Because then you're not selling, you're just helping. You're saying, Hey, I've got something that I can help you with. And so all those things came together in one place and it was like, this is the time to leap, but I gotta say it was shocking when I did leap because for 13 years I had been trusted, right? People had dropped their kids off. I spent more time with a lot of people's kids than they did. And I really took that seriously. I was trusted by everyone in my environment as a teacher, you're just treated a certain way. Same goes for police officers or pastors, or just a lot of service people who, we have a respect for, and we trust them to take good care of us. And I switched to insurance and everyone just assumed I was trying to do some bad to them, trying to sell them something, trying to sell them snake wheel. Suddenly I wasn't trusted. Suddenly everyone was like trying to figure out what angle I was coming at from. And I was like, no, I'm just trying to help you. I've got a good product. Here's the product. I'm happy to educate you about it. And that's it. And so that was the biggest sort of, thing I didn't expect when I switched was going from being truly trusted to being not trusted at all. And that took a long time. That still hurts.

Yeah. I'm sure like, just in the back of your head, you're thinking this whole time wait a second, hang on. Like my whole life I've been doing acts of service and making sure that I'm here to help other people. And I'm still continuing to do that, but because I have a different title after my name, or I'm doing a different career field now you're looking at me a little bit different. Yeah. I can definitely see that. I think a lot of people that leave the security of their nine to five to start their own business or become entrepreneurs. A lot of people get faced with that same challenge that you're describing, that same questioning attitude when you go to talk to somebody about what you're doing now and what you're offering, a lot of times people look at you like, like you are snake oil salesman because everybody gets those, DMS or messages on Facebook from their old high school friends that are selling some type of MLM product. That's what it is. So you see that all the time. And so a lot of times when people go off on their own, it's almost an assumption that's what you're doing now. Oh, you just be, you're going to go and rip people off. And when it's not the case, so now as you're doing this right, so you made this transition, you said you were also investing in real estate, right?

I started investing in real estate later, really after I started about five or six years into the insurance agency.

Okay. Okay. So I wanna get into that a little bit too, because this is great. So everybody could see like this full spectrum of your actual journey. When you transition from, your secure nine to five to your business, focused on that, built that up. Then you started investing in real estate. And I think it's safe to say that you were doing that because you needed somewhere to put your money where it's gonna actually work for you and grow instead of just leaving it in a savings account. What was the decision? Why real estate?

So, I think real estate made sense because it is the industry that I'm functioning in, right? I'm an insurance advisor and a risk manager, but it's two commercial real estate investors. So that's the place I'm in. That's the knowledge I have. That's what my podcast is about when I have people come on, my show their commercial real estate investors. So it's the thing I know. And I think that's one of the things you hope to be able to do with your passive income is gain it and invest in things that you know, and understand. You should certainly diversify and I have some diversification, but if someone looked at my portfolio as a whole, they'd be like, whoa, you're super heavy on commercial real estate. And I think, on one hand, yes, that there's a little bit of risk to that. On the other hand, I know commercial real estate a heck of a lot more than I know most of the businesses in the stock market. And so for me, that's what makes the most sense. But yeah, so that's the answer is I really started. What I believe is everyone needs to have both active income and passive income. And, unless you're already a millionaire, unless you've already established generational wealth or whatever that means to you, you've gotta have some kind of active income coming in. For me, that's the insurance agency for you, Mike, that's probably the Navy at this point, and you've maybe been adding other things over the course of your time, but you need to have a passive stream too. And so what I started doing as active income came in more and more, and that's one of the reasons I left teaching. I was, credit card debt was going up. I made $27,000 a year for 13 years of my life. And so once that switched and there was some active income coming in that could go passive, I've really tried to push it over there as much as I can and really try and grow that passive income until it covers my expenses, which I'm not there yet, but I'm working on it. And once your passive income covers your expensive expenses, then you're free. Then you have financial freedom. Then you can decide what to do with your time. Then you can figure out what you wanna do with the rest of your life, because now you have the financial freedom to be able to make all those decisions. So that's the journey that I'm on.

That's fantastic. Cuz now you could figure out what you wanna be when you grow up.

Yeah. That's so many people don't figure that out till they're 65 and retire. And you're trying to figure that out earlier. Yeah.

And some people even, they'll retire at 65 and then realize if they're gonna run outta money and they have to go back to work. So you know that typical, the standard, I, I have nothing against a 401k or Roth IRA or anything like that. I even have those products myself. However, you need to do something else besides that, because why do you wanna wait until 65? Most people I think the statistics are, when you retire, usually you last about seven years, so , you're gonna get to enjoy that retirement for maybe seven years and then that's it. Or, you can get rid of that R word and focus on financial independence, financial freedom. Cuz once, like you said, once you're at that point where your passive income is covering all of your expenses, you could just wake up and twiddle your thumbs all day. If that's what you wanna do, cuz you can. Cuz you've got the freedom to do that. Everything's covered. So, if you wanna wake up and, go out to the beach all day, which is probably what I'm gonna do cause I live in Hawaii, you can do that. So it's a beautiful thing. But for me, like I don't think I could turn that switch off. A lot of people can't when they're fired up or pumped up about this, I just want to keep going and keep building that generational wealth for my family. But on top of that, keep sharing this with other people. So they can do the same thing, like what we're talking about right now, having you on the show, explaining your journey, sharing your story. This helps other people. And to me, that's, one of the best acts of service you can do out there.

Yeah, I think just teaching, I've never not been a teacher, I've never stopped being a teacher. And that's the only thing I really know how to do. And whether that's teaching someone about a proposal that I just sent them or teaching folks how to buy a first a house, and you've experienced this, I'm sure Mike, when you get comments on your YouTube channel to say, Hey, I don't have a good realtor in the neighborhood that I'm in or the place I can I'm at that I can lean on. And your videos teaching me how to buy a house really just changed the experience that I have in that .That means something. It doesn't have to be just about money, although this show is about finances, but, it's that balance of how do we make ourselves make our lives better by helping others as well. Rise by lifting others is a big part of what I'm trying to do.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So now you've been, you started this insurance company back in 2013, right? And about five years later, you started investing in real estate. So out of, between your business, as selling insurance versus investing in commercial real estate, what would you say you enjoy more? And I'm hoping I'm not putting you like on the spot here, when it comes to that what do you enjoy?

I'm a passive investor in commercial real estate. So I'm not, there's a real difference between active and passive right and active investors. One who's out there looking for, deals and finding deals and making sure tenants get taken care of and really running the business plan of the real estate journey. I am a passive investor. And so I love it because I hand over money and that's the, basically, end of my actual work associated with that. So the question's a little unfair because as a passive investor, as you really don't have to do anything. So as far as work, I would say passive investing is the best, but obviously, I need the active income still. I am not financially free. I don't have enough passive income coming in. That I don't have to work. And so the insurance, and actually, I think I'll probably do the insurance for a long time after, because I love entrepreneurship too. One of the things I've fallen in love with in the last couple of years is the business ownership piece and realizing, and I think for any of your listeners who are business owners, that there's a difference between being self-employed and being a business owner. And I was self-employed for a long time. And I think I'm shifting to a business owner where you're really navigating a team of people who are serving your vision and your mission and the clients of your business. And that's like really exciting to do. And that's almost a different type of passive income. If you have someone who's working for you, who's generating all the income for your business and you're making money off of that, then essentially you've shifted your business to be another passive income stream. I love talking about insurance. I can talk about insurance all day long, but I love entrepreneurship more. I really love being a business owner. I love running a business. And I don't even remember what the question was. Mike. I just got excited. And started talking.

I was talking about what you enjoyed most which one you enjoyed more? Yeah. I do the same thing, I invest in a multifamily real estate passively. It's pretty nice. As a matter of fact, I just signed some documents last night for another syndication that I'm going in on.

Awesome.

And got a wire, the funds here over the next couple days. And yeah, so that'll be the third one for me. Because I just got started doing this. I think I got my first one in October of last year. Then jumped on another one that just closed this week, actually on the 11th. And then now this other one that's going right now. Yeah I'm pretty excited about it. Yeah, between that and retiring from the Navy here soon, man, I'm just ready to go.

It's gonna be exciting. Spent a lot of time on the north shore, surfing, waves and stuff like that.

No, not me. I can't surf are you talking about you? You come out here and go to the north shore surf.

Yeah, I can come out. One of the things I wanted to, just make sure your listeners understand as we're talking about in commercial real estate, it sounds like both of us are investing in apartments primarily. One of the questions that comes up is how do you do that? And how do you like you? I don't know how much you're wiring, but oftentimes it's tens of thousands of dollars to 25, 50, 100 thousand dollars. That just gets wired and it's gone. And. Yeah. How do you do that? And I think the number one thing you have to do is understand the the active investors in the deal, understand the sponsors, understand the operators, how is this business plan going to be engaged in? I'm fortunate enough to ensure a lot of these folks. So I see their deals. I see how they do business. And I invest with people who I already know are good at what they do, but I say, that's the biggest thing you have to do is you're looking to be a passive investor. Is how do I find good operators? A bad operator can ruin a really good looking deal and a good operator can save a deal that actually turned out to not be as good as maybe it was at the beginning.

So Jeremy can we get into that a little bit because that is something I want, I actually wanted to bring this up when you said, oh, as a passive investor, it's pretty cool. I just send the money and that's it. I don't have to do anything. You do have to do stuff. So let's touch back on that a little bit, cuz you were just talking about it, if you're gonna be a passive investor and you're gonna invest with these these operators that are going out there and finding the deals and and, raising capital and you're part of that process, right? Because you're giving them the capital, you have to do your own due diligence on those operators. You need to make sure it's a team that you can trust. You don't wanna just jump into something that looks shiny because they said, oh look, investment opportunity. Here's what the returns look like. You wanna look at their track record, you wanna see what they're doing, you wanna make sure that the team you're gonna invest with actually knows what they're doing. So can you get into that a little bit? Cuz you get to see a different perspective, right? As the insurance guy that's looking at what they're doing. You get to see the ins and the outs and the nitty gritty. So what are some things somebody should look for when picking those operators to work?

It's a great question. And I do, I see a ton of businesses and I see a lot of 'em that are run really poorly on the back end. But as a capital razor, someone is really good, cuz they're good on social media. They know what to say, they know how to talk and I'm looking at their portfolio and what I'm seeing about their business practices like, oh my gosh, I would never invest with this person. And so you're right. You really have to do your own due diligence. The first thing I would wanna know about an operator is what has happened in your previous deals. You just have to have previous deals and if someone's coming to you and doesn't have a lot of experience, I don't necessarily think that's a game like a end, an end all. What I wanna know is, okay, who else is on your team? So you've got the guts to jump into this thing. You're out here trying to raise capital. I can respect that, especially if you're honest with me about the fact that you don't have a whole lot of experience. So what I wanna know is, who on this team does have experience and who can I trust? And if a capital razor, someone whose role in the GP team is to raise funds for the deal can say, you know what? I've only been in a couple of deals. I'm coming up through this. I'm 25 years old, but I want you to meet Jimmy. Jimmy's been doing this for 25 years. This is his 17th deal. Here are the numbers on these previous deals. He is the operator of this deal, right? When you're investing in commercial real estate, usually there are four or five people, at least that are the primary folks in the deal. And the person you're talking to who's raising money is not usually the asset manager is not usually the person who's taking care of that property and following through with that business plan, now that person who's raising money is probably in the meetings. And as a part of that, they know what's going on. They're not oblivious to the process, but they're not necessarily the person who's doing the work. So you ask me a question about how I do my due diligence in these processes. And I stuck with people. Yes. I absolutely look at the underwriting on a deal. Yes. I look at the cap rates that they're looking at. I look at how they think we're gonna make money off of the deal, what their purchase price is, what the property looks like, what the town, the market looks like, all the same things, that the active investors are doing. I am doing on a very surface level, but I care about the history of the person, the people involved in the team. And I want to know more about them than anything else.

And I'm glad you put it that way too, because just because someone's I guess a little green, or they're, just starting off as a operator, who do you have on your team? What kind of experience do you have? Because, when I retire later this year, so yeah I'm more passive right now. So I'm building up my resume right now with getting into these passive deals and learning as much as I can while I'm doing these right. I make sure I pay attention when they, when we go over the slide decks and we're looking at, the pitch and everything, and I'm paying attention to what type of things these operators are looking for. At least the teams that I invest with, like they do videos where they're up on top of the roof and they're showing, Hey, here's what I'm looking for. Blah, blah, blah. Hey, look, we're sticking a camera through the plumbing right now to make sure there's no cracks or roots going through any of the pipes or anything like that, including the stuff that's going out to the street, not to the public sewage system. Things like that are super important to me. And I'm like, oh wow, I'm learning so much so that when I go to do this myself and I become more active, and I've already got some partners that are ready to go with me, and I could bring somebody really experienced onto the team because one of the beautiful things that I love about being part of this real estate investing community is just the opportunity that I've had to network with people. And even this podcast alone, I've been able to bring on so many like awesome people that are doing amazing things and I keep in touch with everybody that comes on. So don't worry. You're gonna hear from me more after, after this is over, but , I think it's important to, to keep these connections going because you never know who's gonna need you or who you're gonna need in the future. And keeping those doors open and building relationships, it's not just about networking and having this huge network. It's about building a relationship, right? So the people that you wanna have on that team, you wanna make sure that they mesh well, that they sync. They're in sync, but at the same time that their experience level all comes together to a point where you're comfortable, handing over a $50,000 check, to make sure that that they're gonna be a good fiduciary of your money. So I think that's huge and I really appreciate that answer. And the fact that, you're not saying, oh, I wouldn't invest with somebody new. No, it's Hey, who do you have on your team? Oh, you do have somebody that's been doing this for 25 years. That's great to know. I can consider this now, so that's, it's a good spot to be in and for people that are looking to get started, do being operators and being a general partner, and you're just starting out find somebody who's experienced and bring 'em on the team. A lot of times it's hard to, see people say, no, a lot of times people so willing to help and be part of something and that's one of the things I love about this community as well. That's fantastic.

Yeah. Just to finish this out. I think your process that you're going through is what I see a lot too. Where someone comes at some point, you let's say you're gonna raise capital for a deal at some point, you, there will be a first time that you do that. But you're also build, you're already building that resume. You're an LP, you have the story of what you've done in the Navy and everything else. You're building your resume. And I guess I would make the caveat. I wouldn't invest with someone who's green and doesn't have some kind of history as to why they ended up in the position to raise capital. Although I might have invested with my buddy down the street, who's been in a friend of mine forever and just found a good property, but that's a little bit different story. That's $130,000 single family home. Like we're not talking quite the same game.

Yep. No, absolutely. When you're talking commercial real estate, you're talking millions and millions of dollars. And having to raise millions and millions of dollars. So that's, it's definitely important that you have the right people on the team and the right people that are pushing forward as operators for you. So that's fantastic. Now, excuse me, on, on the insurance side, because like we talked about earlier, you get to see, things from a different perspective than other people would see as a limited partner. And maybe, it, I wouldn't say that there's probably more disclosure there cuz you're probably, they're probably sharing everything that they're sharing with you with all the limited partners as well, but from your perspective or actually as the insurance guy, are you only investing with people that have come through, and gotten insurance with you cuz you're able to see everything more or have you invested with other people outside of outside of that as well?

I'm primarily invested with people who are my clients. There's a couple of small deals that are outside of that, but for the most part, I'm seeing things come through and so that those are the deals I'm gonna naturally invest in makes. And if I'm protecting it, I'm engaged in that risk process. So I'm a big believer in the concept that risk management, that managing risk is how we make really good decisions. And so when I see people engaging me wanting to manage the risk, it's like, all right, this is one of my check boxes and frankly, it's one of my biggest checkbox.

No that's that makes sense. That makes sense. Cuz you're getting, you're getting all the details like right up front. So that's a, it's a good spot to be in. So not bad. All right. Now, do you go out to any like local, real estate meetups in your area? How is it that you're meeting people outside of, just doing insurance, like other investors and everything?.

This is the fun, the most fun part of the conversation, right? And one of the reasons I chose commercial real estate as the thing to focus on is cuz I liked the community. I liked the people. And so the way I do it is a tiered process. And and every tier gets closer to deeper relationships. And so when we're just first trying to connect with people, we don't know the people in the space, then we need to start, out in, I, I really think LinkedIn is probably more valuable than any other place out there. Yes. I go to my local apartment association meetings and my local broker meetings and things of that nature, but my clients are all over the country. And so I can't personally go to all those things. And so I start with LinkedIn and that's the place I go first. I search hashtags, I search for job descriptions that I wanna connect with. And then I connect with those people. The next thing I do is write a lot of content on social media. So I put as much content out as I can on LinkedIn and have that there. So that's starting to first, I'm looking for people and then I'm engaging them with content. And then the next layer is what you're doing right now, Mike, and what I do as well. It's the podcast, right? A podcast is the number one networking tool that any person has, whether it's co it's going on someone else's show like I'm doing right now with you or having someone on your show, like you just said, Mike, it's 45 minutes of a one-on-one engagement with someone talking about your lives. I will know you better after this show. And you will know me better after this show and nothing changes that. And so when I find someone that I think it could be valuable and to connect into my network, I invite them onto my show and I've been doing that for six years and three different podcasts. It works really well. So I do that. I do conferences, I do meetups. And so this is all in the realm of creating those, just sit those relationships that are on the surface. They don't, we're not, we haven't had lunch together. We haven't brought our kids together or whatever found out that we both like to play hockey and played hockey together or whatever. But we're establishing that. But the next layer that I really try and work on is what I just said. I went down to Nashville, Tennessee, which is about four hours south of where I live a couple weekends ago to meet two different people. Just one on one. I had dinner with one of 'em and then the next day I had lunch with the other. And for the second one, I went over to his house, met his family, played with his kids, and so we're just, we're in his backyard, swinging the kids on the swings, talking about our lives and how we got to where we're at. That's a relationship that's really established at that point. And that's how I do it. I'm trying to connect and then make friends. There's a business connection to it, but I'm just trying to make friends. I'm trying to connect with people, find value in each other's relationships and take it from there. So I see it as a tiered process as we get people closer and closer to us, until. We're friends.

Yeah, no I love that Jeremy. That's fantastic. And one of the things I just wrote down as you're talking about is you're out there and you're trying to find value, but not only find value, but add value because you're doing that, as you're building these relationships the you're adding value to each other and that's fantastic. And, I really appreciate what you said about the podcast being like a, like the best networking tool out there. Because, back in March, I spoke at the real estate wealth builders conference. And that's actually what I was talking about. I was talking about networking, why it's important to network as a real estate investor. And then at the end of that too, I talked about the importance of having a podcast and why a podcast can actually get you connected with more people than just going out and trying to meet people at a meetup or, on LinkedIn, like you said, too, which LinkedIn is a powerhouse and I definitely need to get better and post more on LinkedIn, but LinkedIn is fantastic. But having a podcast I think has got me connected with more people in this industry than anything else, because I'm getting to share ideas with other people getting to, and I'm a guest on another podcast as well. I absolutely love doing that. I was a guest on a show yesterday, I'm gonna be a guest on another show next week, and then a week after I'm a guest on another show. So I'm trying to get on as many as I can as well, because all this just helps create awareness. Both for my brand, but also for, getting this information out there and spreading the message of financial literacy, investing and why it's important and why, just sticking your money in the savings account isn't gonna do anything for you. So it's important that we get this message out there for everybody. So I just wanna say, Jeremy, I appreciate that. And thank you. So that's super important.

Yeah. I think networking, however you can. And I think a lot of people say Hey there's a trillion podcast out there and that's true. When I started podcasting, there were, it was a small little group. And now really it's you. Everybody has a podcast. So what, I mean, everyone goes to a BNI meeting, everyone posts on social media. The fact that there's lots of podcasts out there, I don't think is a reason not to start your own because it really gives you, and then we can move on, but it really does give you the capacity to find your voice and believe in something that you believe.

Absolutely. And Jeremy, so think of it this way. Cuz I've had other people tell me, oh, I started a podcast, but I only had 20 to 40 people, like four 20 to 40 downloads on an episode, ah, I don't know if this is for me. I said, go ahead and stick 20 to 40 people in a room. And have them sit in front of you while you're talking about what you're talking about and then tell me that you don't think that there's people listening. Cause 40 people in a room, a hundred people in a room, a thousand people in a room, that's a lot of people, right? So if you continue to grow and continue putting out good content and your message continues to resonate with people you'd be surprised how many of them come back to listen again, and how many connections you can make that way. I get DMS. I get emails all the time from somebody saying, Hey, I listened to this episode. It was great. I was at a real estate meetup last month where somebody came up to me and said, Hey, man, that guy that you had on the show from the episode two weeks ago, he's reached out to him and now I'm doing his program and this and that, it's really helping me out. I'm like, dude, that's awesome. And to have somebody approach me in person at one of the real estate meetups that I go to, to tell me that, really that's completely separate than getting like a message on Facebook or Instagram or something, to have somebody actually come up to you in person and say, Hey, this really helped me out means like means the world to me. And the message is great too keep those coming. But just getting that in person interaction was absolutely phenomenal. Again, this is why we do what we do. Now I wanna kind of transition this into cuz we, we talked about a lot of great stuff here but we're running a little low on time and I wanna get into the final round. So this is some four of the same questions that I ask everybody that comes on the show. They're hard-hitting questions, at least three of 'em are. And just kind to try to see like where you're at and where your mind's at, when when it comes to what you've done throughout your career to where you're at today. So if you're ready, we'll get this party started.

I'm ready. Let's do it Mike.

All right, Jeremy, let's go. So the first question is what's the biggest mistake you've ever made?

Yeah. So I talked about the three E's earlier in the conversation, right? That is education experience and entourage. And I think that I've had this mentality, my whole life of just doing it myself. And the biggest mistake I made was I waited too long in my business journey to start to build the entourage to sh start to trust other people and to build the systems that you have to have if you're gonna have other people succeed in your business. And so I, I waited way too long. I think I'm still, I need to hire more people. I need to take more leaps. And so that's, the biggest mistake I've made is really waiting too long to grow that entourage.

I think that's great. I think that's great. I've found myself in that crossroads a couple times too, still being active duty in the Navy. It's hard to do a lot of these things on my own. So I've had to outsource a lot. Like I outsource the podcast editing. I outsource a lot of my social media stuff. I have a VA that takes care of all that, so most of the time when you see posts on social media, it's not actually me, except for the stuff like on my personal page and stuff, but, it's important that you understand that there has to be a point in time where you can say, I'm gonna take my hands off of this and let somebody else do this, and for people like you and me and anyone else that has this entrepreneurial mindset, it's very hard to let go of certain things. It's, but it's a fact of life, right? It's something that you have to keep going and scale.

Yeah. You're used to being the player. If you use the sports metaphor of, soccer, I love soccer and you're used to being the player, but now you're shifting to the coach. It's not that you're not doing it anymore, it's not that you aren't a part of it anymore. You absolutely are a part of it. But now you're teaching other people how to do the thing and you're running the team. And I think for all players, you wanna be a player. You still wanna be a player. You still believe that you are the, that's our ego almost. And if we can put that aside and say, you know what the most powerful role on the team is the coach and the quicker I can get there, the quicker this team can win.

Yeah, Jeremy, I absolutely love that. And I love that analogy too. Thank you for that. All right. Let's move on to the next question. And that is what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

What I just said, I think would be important too, but I think that one, the other thing that I've really learned is you have to set your systems up from the very beginning. I'm a detail oriented person. I love numbers. I believe numbers tell stories. And I always like to find the stories and numbers. But I also love systems. One of the big things I've learned that I wish I knew at the beginning was to take the things I was doing right from the start, record a loom video, or write it down, create a checklist, whatever you have to do to start setting up your processes, I wish I would've done that earlier. Now, I created a process for two people. I hadn't hired the second person yet. And for almost a year, I was doing my part, and the other person's part who had never other person played that role yet. That's the evolution of how systems could have worked for me. At the beginning I was just again doing it myself running along, but I really learned that you have to build those systems underneath it because that makes hiring someone so much better, so much more efficient and so much more likely that they succeed in your business and that they stay in your business.

Jeremy that is fantastic systems super important. And make sure you have that in place when you first get started. And that really ties into what my next question's gonna be. And that's you know, do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started today?

So a couple, it depends on your listener, right? If you're just getting started in the financial, like making your financials better, working towards financial freedom, then to me, it's to delineate what is the act of income that I have and what is the passive income that I want to create and how am I gonna go on that journey? So that would be step one to me, for someone trying to find financial freedom through using active income, to create passive income. For someone who's starting as an entrepreneur, I would say, systems, I already said it. I'm not gonna resay it again. I think that's really the most important thing and be a brand that you believe is you. I really hope that when people see my brand, Shine Insurance, they see me in that brand. And so make your brand, you, and then if you're just starting in commercial real estate insurance, I think one of the line items in your performance is insurance and that can be a hard item to figure out a lot. And so I've created a ballpark, just a basically you can go to our website and put the address in answer nine yes or no questions, and then get a ballpark number immediately. And so anytime that you can get good numbers, For your underwriting, you're gonna have a better idea of what success looks like and have more success in your commercial real estate journey. So proformas are key. Underwriting is key. If you're not good at underwriting, then you have to team up with someone who loves numbers. It's okay. You can succeed in commercial real estate and not like numbers. Maybe I don't, I don't know very many people who like, who just don't like numbers at all.

You can maybe if you don't like getting too technical with the numbers, but you like the numbers because you like the numbers of the money that's coming in. You're gonna like those numbers, but at the same time, as long as you've got somebody that really knows how to do that piece, how to crunch numbers to make sure that the deal's gonna work, then you have to make sure that you're hiring somebody that you can trust, but you should know the basics about the underwriting. And, to make sure that, you're not getting swindled or anything like that. I'm not saying you have to double check, whoever's doing your underwriting's work, but as long as you understand it, have a good, basic understanding of it, you'd be a lot more comfortable. Yeah. So it would be a lot higher.

The less you like numbers, the more you have to trust the other person on your team who does.

Yes. Keyword right there. Trust. So make sure that you're the people you're bringing on your team are people that you can trust for sure. Okay. Awesome. I've got one more question for you in the final round, and that is besides your own, do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

So I love this guy named Jay Baer and he's a marketing guy. He's not commercial real estate. But he had all of his books, whether it's Hug Your Haters or Talk Triggers or I'm blanking on the third one, but he just has these books that help you to understand marketing in a really simple way. And the title of the book, like Hug Your Haters is all about how to glean information from people who have had a negative reaction to your brand and how you can use that information to elevate your brand. And I just think that he is a great author. I would go out and look for his books. His most recent one is Talk Triggers, but any of 'em are good.

No. That's fantastic. That's great recommendation. Thank you. I'm gonna look his books up, cause I don't think I've heard of Jay Baer before, so yeah, I'll go check it out.

Yeah. And I'm gonna throw in a quick one. Hunter Thompson's Capital Raising book is insane, so good. There's lots of good capital raising books out there. You're someone who's wanting to learn how to capital raise, but whether you wanna be in a passive investor or an active investor, I feel like his book was the perfect amount of nerdy for me. In the commercial real estate world and maybe it's not nerdy enough for other people, or I don't know. It was perfect.

All right, Jeremy. That's awesome. I appreciate that. So thank you for the recommendations. Definitely appreciate that now. I do have one more question for you, and this is the most important question of all, because as we're sitting here having this conversation, we dove into various different topics, but people really got to understand who you are, what you're doing, right? Your story and your own personal journey, and why you believe in commercial real estate and why it's been working for you. Now, who knows. I might have a couple syndicators, listen to the show saying, Hey, we do need a good insurance on our next deal. So let me reach out to Jeremy about Shine Insurance. So, where can people find you? Do you have a website you could share with us social media, anything like that?

Absolutely. So the podcast is Managing Commercial Real Estate Risk. It's all about how to make good decisions in your commercial real estate journey. And again, at ballpark, if you just want that if there is a syndicator listening out there, the first step I would say is go to shineinsurance.com/ballpark. Put the property, if you're looking up a property, put up the property information in answer nine yes or no questions. Get yourself a ballpark for the insurance piece. Don't get that piece wrong.

Fantastic. Definitely appreciate that. Hey Jeremy, we'll make sure we have those links in the show notes and I'm pretty sure you could find his podcast on any platform. So go look it up, check it out, go see what he's talking about. If you enjoyed the conversation that Jeremy and I had today, definitely go give his podcast to listen because he's putting out some great information. This conversation I feel like to me was fantastic. I genuinely enjoyed it. And thank you again so much for coming on the show and having this chat with me.

Absolutely Mike. Great pleasure. I enjoyed it as well. And look forward to growing our relationship. I wanna know who you're investing with and I'll let you know who I am.

All right. Fantastic. Aloha.