Brandon is the founder of HBG Capital, a Nashville-based real estate firm that delivers exceptional, risk-adjusted returns to investors with a strong focus on principal protection backed by tangible assets in the single-family residential sector. HBG Capital’s construction division, HBG Construction, specializes in ground-up developments, land development, and property rehabilitation. Meanwhile, the acquisitions division, HBG Holdings, works closely with local communities to source off-market land, rezone, and entitle it for redevelopment, helping bring the community’s vision to life.

Here’s some of the topics we covered:

  • From Medical Sales To Real Estate Investing
  • Why Making Your Job Your Identity is a Risk You Can’t Afford
  • The Leap from House Flipping to Land Acquisition
  • Turning Land Deals into Massive Profits in 2021
  • The One Challenge Every Entrepreneur Faces & How to Overcome It
  • Investing In Time With Your Family
  • Critical Questions You Should Ask Before Hiring Anyone
  • Brandon’s Game-Changing Real Estate Win

To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com

Full Transcript Below

01:20:15:18 – 01:20:34:10
Rod
Welcome to another edition of Life Time Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Khleif, and I’m thrilled that you’re here. And I know you’re going to get tremendous value from a dynamic individual. I’m interviewing today. His name’s Brandon Cobb and he’s from Nashville. We were just talking about that. We were joking about how the city kind of shuts down when the snow hits, which was yesterday.

01:20:34:10 – 01:20:53:26
Rod
I was supposed to be there. My flight got canceled. Thank you, American Airlines. I hate American Airlines, but I think that you probably should have said that publicly, but I do. But anyway, so, Brandon is the owner of FBG capital. The website is HPG capital Dot net. And, you know, I’m not going to steal Brandon’s thunder.

01:20:53:26 – 01:20:56:22
Rod
I’ma let Brandon tell you what he does. Welcome to the show, brother.

01:20:56:26 – 01:20:58:01
Brandon
Hey, man, it’s good to see you.

01:20:58:04 – 01:21:23:23
Rod
It’s good to be seen. By the way, Brandon also runs a podcast called A Recession Resistant Real Estate Radio podcast, which he’s going to interview me on here shortly. So you want to check that out as well. But, good to see you, my friend. Tell tell us your story. I know you started in medical device sales. I’ve got, in fact, I know quite a few people that either have done that or still do that.

01:21:23:25 – 01:21:41:04
Rod
And I know, from my experience that it can be kind of brutal because a lot of times you have to go to the hospital, you’re there. Yeah, sometimes while they’re doing surgery or before after surgery or whatever, and there’s a lot to it. But, you transitioned from that to real estate. So tell us. Tell us your story.

01:21:41:05 – 01:21:41:22
Rod
Well.

01:21:41:24 – 01:21:59:12
Brandon
If you told me eight years ago that we’d be inventing these new, affordable neighborhoods that I looked at you like you had eight heads. I never had any aspirations to be an entrepreneur. In fact, medical sales was my dream job. You know, kid in his early 20s were in scrubs every single day to work rubbing shoulders with orthopedic surgeons.

01:21:59:14 – 01:22:16:03
Brandon
What’s not to love? You know, it took me years to break into that profession. I had no desire to get out of it. And like a lot of guys in their early 20s, you know, when they come out and they get their first corporate job, mine was at 24 years old. All I wanted to do was make my parents proud, get a nice, stable job.

01:22:16:03 – 01:22:22:18
Brandon
And, I mean, I had it all for a kid in his early 20s. Had the 41K, had the company car, I think.

01:22:22:18 – 01:22:24:21
Rod
Good money too. Oh, yeah. It’s really good money.

01:22:24:21 – 01:22:39:04
Brandon
Yeah. Especially if you can get in with the right companies and the right products. I did a lot of knees and shoulders, so it was a lot of athletes that these doctors were working on. So like ACL reconstructions, rotator cuff tears and it was pretty cool being in surgery every day.

01:22:39:06 – 01:22:49:22
Rod
I tore both my rotator cuffs and, got, PRP. Yeah, platelet rich plasma and actually solved it. Fixed it. I couldn’t do any bench at all, but that fixed it anyway, I digress, please keep going. Now.

01:22:49:23 – 01:22:57:07
Brandon
Biologics is where the whole industry is going. I got the PRP in my hair to now help stimulate. It’s one of the ways I got my wife to marry me. Really had to regrow my hair.

01:22:57:07 – 01:22:58:01
Rod
Really? Wow.

01:22:58:01 – 01:23:17:16
Brandon
But but, Yeah. So was in that industry. Didn’t have any any motivation to be a real estate entrepreneur. And then one sunny Friday afternoon, my boss said, hey, meet me over at Starbucks. And I was excited to meet with them because had a phenomenal day, right? When you’re a sales rep and you have a good day, that’s all you want to do is tell your boss.

01:23:17:22 – 01:23:33:01
Brandon
Boss was somebody that was like a mentor to me. I looked up to him. He was teaching me the ropes. You know, my first medical device sales job, right? Work really hard to break into the industry. And before I could tell him how great of a day I had, he fires me.

01:23:33:05 – 01:23:35:09
Rod
No shit. Wow.

01:23:35:11 – 01:23:39:21
Brandon
And the feeling I had that day was just complete shock.

01:23:39:21 – 01:23:40:03
Rod
Why?

01:23:40:03 – 01:23:57:13
Brandon
Why what? Because I had the rookie of the year sales award. I was busting my butt at this job. I love what I did, I was passionate about it. And for whatever reason, you know, he he had to let me go. You know, at the time he told me that he just didn’t think that I was a fit for the organization.

01:23:57:13 – 01:24:11:11
Brandon
And he, he even told me, you know, I hope you learn something from this. And, you know, it was tough because I had my whole identity wrapped up in that profession. If anybody’s ever lost a job for.

01:24:11:14 – 01:24:27:18
Rod
I want to talk about that for a second. Just just let me let me just say something to that. A lot of people make their business or their job, their identity. And if they fail, if the business fails or the job fails, then they are what? They’re a failure. Yeah, you can’t do that. It’s got to be your vehicle.

01:24:27:20 – 01:24:38:23
Rod
And it’s a very common dynamic, you know, because businesses fail, you lose jobs. But if it’s your identity, it can be. It can be, you know, really debilitating. I guess it was in your case, then? No.

01:24:38:23 – 01:24:54:08
Brandon
100%. I know a lot of entrepreneurs face that. I didn’t know that at the time, but I was just soul searching man. And so I, you know, luckily had followed in my parent’s footsteps, got the stable job, live below my means. I had a little savings set up. I said, okay, it’s it’s not the end of the world.

01:24:54:08 – 01:24:59:29
Brandon
Let me start this entrepreneur thing. And so I said, well, you know what? What can I possibly do? And I’ll never forget, I want you.

01:24:59:29 – 01:25:01:04
Rod
Married already or. No, no.

01:25:01:04 – 01:25:24:10
Brandon
And I was, I think 26, 27 at the time. But I watched an episode of Shark Tank and I saw this guy get a deal selling potatoes with a message on them to people. And I said, if this dude can get a deal on Shark Tank for a potato message business, surely I can figure something out. So, that’s what started my entrepreneur journey.

01:25:24:10 – 01:25:28:21
Brandon
I started a medical device sales course on how to break into the industry.

01:25:28:21 – 01:25:32:20
Rod
Oh, you did that for people to get the job. People to get the job to get it didn’t it didn’t make.

01:25:32:22 – 01:25:43:15
Brandon
No, it didn’t make it. It flopped. I wanted to be the next Tony Robbins. I became a life coach. And rod, you’re going to be shocked to find out that not many people want to take life advice from a 27 year old. Well, so.

01:25:43:15 – 01:25:58:27
Rod
Yeah, there is that too. There is that too. We talked about that briefly before we started recording guys that, you know, I spent 20 years with Tony. I was on his team for eight years. And Brandon said he’s consumed every bit of information and that’s a lot because Tony puts out a lot of stuff. But, yeah. But anyway, yeah.

01:25:58:27 – 01:26:02:02
Rod
So you were going to be the Tony Robbins in life coaching that.

01:26:02:02 – 01:26:15:05
Brandon
That didn’t work out completely flopped. And I had an online motivational blog. I was like, I like this motivation stuff. Maybe that completely flopped. And then I discovered this unique tool called real estate. How? And I was.

01:26:15:05 – 01:26:16:01
Rod
Going to discover it.

01:26:16:01 – 01:26:29:21
Brandon
I was going to meet UPS and I’d read some books right while I had a job and said, you know, so I was kind of doing all these things sort of at the same time trying to figure out what was going to work. So I had the, you know, the course, I had the blog at the end of the life advice, all this stuff.

01:26:29:24 – 01:26:46:04
Brandon
And I met a gentleman, his name is he goes by Alex. His name is forgive. Stayed off. He’s still my partner to this day. We’re the only two that showed up to a rich dad. Poor dad. Cashflow quadrant meet up. Oh, no kidding. And we just hit it off. The first 30 minutes, he had a big portfolio in Colorado Springs.

01:26:46:04 – 01:27:02:13
Brandon
He was looking to get an operation set up in the Nashville market. And so we just hit it off and I said, what do I have to lose? And so I went around and I started putting up as we buy houses, signs on telephone poles. And let me tell you that for the first few phone calls I got from the police about freaked out, oh my God, I’m going to jail.

01:27:02:16 – 01:27:23:08
Brandon
And oh, I literally called him. I was like, I can’t do this. Ended up getting a call if one of the signs for the gentleman who was facing foreclosure. And we got a pretty good deal on this house, and so I sold all my retirement accounts, paid the penalties, mustered up all the cash that I could, and I went 5050 and with my partner to buy this house, to flip it.

01:27:23:11 – 01:27:27:05
Brandon
And that was my first taste of getting into real estate.

01:27:27:05 – 01:27:33:12
Rod
So you bought a house. You with every dime you had 50, 50 with this, this, this partner who’s still a partner. Yep.

01:27:33:12 – 01:27:33:27
Brandon
Still partners.

01:27:33:27 – 01:27:37:07
Rod
And you flip that, you flip the house, you make some money, make 30 grand.

01:27:37:07 – 01:27:50:03
Brandon
And we took that $30,000. And if you’ve ever seen the movie Batman where the Joker slides down the big pile of money and then turns around, the lights are on fire for the Mafia. That’s what we did in the form of marketing dollars with that money.

01:27:50:05 – 01:28:06:10
Rod
You blew it. Okay, yeah. Now, it’s funny about the signs. You know, we used to put those. We buy houses, signs, and you’d get the county that say, take them down, or they or they threaten a, citation. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah. So you’d come up with these unique strategies of having a phone number they couldn’t trace or whatever.

01:28:06:10 – 01:28:13:18
Rod
But anyway, that’s really funny. So, so you blew the money on marketing because you were going to double down on the flipping. So then what happened?

01:28:13:23 – 01:28:18:10
Brandon
Well, so that marketing, we didn’t necessarily blow it. We spent it, but it produced 3 or 4 more deals.

01:28:18:10 – 01:28:23:12
Rod
Oh it did. Oh, so you didn’t okay. You didn’t you, you spent the money, but it created it. It created.

01:28:23:12 – 01:28:46:13
Brandon
More deals. And so I think we made $21,000 on a wholesale deal. We had two more flips. We made 25, $30,000 off and one new build that we ended up not knowing. Was it going to be a new build? It was a rehab that turned out to be a teardown. It’s funny when you get rid of all the walls in a house and see the termite damage is not just eating the floor joists, but up to the ceiling joists and the walls.

01:28:46:13 – 01:28:47:11
Brandon
You go, oh my God.

01:28:47:12 – 01:28:48:04
Rod
This is an master.

01:28:48:07 – 01:28:52:10
Brandon
This to this house. Done. Yeah. So the fourth deal I ever did was actually a new bill.

01:28:52:10 – 01:29:10:28
Rod
Wow. Wow. That’s that’s a seminar. That’s a seminar that’s really funny. That reminds me of a house that I bought in Fort Myers once where I thought I’d seen it. Oh, no. My, my my acquisitions guy thought I’d seen it, and I thought he’d seen it. Neither one of us had seen it. I pull up and there’s nothing from the top of the ceilings.

01:29:11:01 – 01:29:24:01
Rod
Up. It’s just daylight, all concrete walls. And we made money on it, believe it or not. Crazily, but we had to rebuild it as well. So that reminds me of that. So? So, when did you make the shift to land?

01:29:24:03 – 01:29:40:25
Brandon
So we scaled this business up to doing 30, 40 flips a year, you know, the first couple years. And then we saw the writing on the wall when we had a home that had half burnt down. So probably similar to a home that you had, right where the whole top floor was crispy.

01:29:40:27 – 01:29:41:08
Rod
Bottom.

01:29:41:08 – 01:30:00:12
Brandon
Floor and foundation were not really that bad, and we could buy it for less than what the land was worth. So we knew it had to be a deal because the foundation was good and the first floor framing was good. So we hired a structural engineer. We brought the city out, and we just cut out all the plaque stuff reframed up, and we rebuilt that home in about five, six months.

01:30:00:15 – 01:30:11:09
Brandon
At the same time, we had a full gut renovation right around the corner. I mean, like historic district gutting it down to the studs every the additions adding on.

01:30:11:11 – 01:30:13:05
Rod
And it took a lot of work.

01:30:13:06 – 01:30:30:09
Brandon
Oh, it’s so much work. It took us eight months to do that, that rehab where it only took us six months to do the new build, and we made three times as much money on the new build. And that was the first light bulb moment where our business pivoted. And we said, why are we flipping houses? We need to be building houses.

01:30:30:09 – 01:30:41:21
Brandon
And at this time we had in-house general contracting firm HEG construction that was able to go and execute these things. And we would, you know, cut out the GC, cut out the middleman. So you had.

01:30:41:24 – 01:30:46:00
Rod
To see that qualified the construction company or was one of you GC.

01:30:46:02 – 01:30:47:13
Brandon
So I’m actually a general.

01:30:47:13 – 01:30:48:14
Rod
Contractor. Are you are you.

01:30:48:14 – 01:31:03:00
Brandon
Got you got license. Good for you. But I don’t like to I like the higher the people that know what to do. I don’t like to be the guy that’s out there. Go and do it. I joke that I’ve screamed at five grown human beings my entire life. Rod. Four out of those five were all I was managing construction.

01:31:03:00 – 01:31:06:04
Brandon
I learned real fast what I was not good at, and I got out of it. But but.

01:31:06:08 – 01:31:23:29
Rod
But, but what’s good about what you did is you can qualify the company and say yes. And that makes that’s a big plus. I’m trying to get my son to get his GC license right now because I want to build down here. Yeah. But, okay. So, what was your what was your first foray into building after that house that you had to rebuild?

01:31:24:06 – 01:31:46:21
Brandon
So we scaled that company up and we were able to then transition to a new construction, and then we ran into a capital problem. Right. You know, we only had so much of our own money. And I’d raised a little bit of private money, you know, hard money lenders and stuff like that. Gazoo land professionally, and we need to figure out how to get all of our down payments out of these houses, how to stop these monthly interest payments, these large monthly interest payments.

01:31:46:21 – 01:31:47:17
Rod
But it was pensive.

01:31:47:18 – 01:32:04:13
Brandon
Yeah, it was very tough on the business. And so that’s when FBG capital was born. And so when we were able to go and raise private funds for all of our new builds and put all of our own money out and use that to grow the business and hire people and help out with cash flow, that’s when things really took off.

01:32:04:13 – 01:32:23:07
Brandon
And for us, the second light bulb moment was, why are we spread out building, doing all these ones, utilizing new builds? Why can’t we do it in the same area? Oh my gosh, it makes more sense. You got scale, the contractor pricing, bulk materials and we made sure to go and do it in the foothills of the national, homebuilders.

01:32:23:07 – 01:32:41:03
Brandon
So in the areas where they were building, that’s where we wanted to build in. And we were getting ready to go vertical on a neighborhood. When we got a knock on the door from a Wall Street funded national homebuilder and they said, hey, we really like your development. Can we buy it from you? And we said.

01:32:41:06 – 01:32:42:01
Rod
No.

01:32:42:03 – 01:32:42:23
Brandon
It’s not for sale.

01:32:42:28 – 01:32:43:19
Rod
Until they name the.

01:32:43:19 – 01:32:49:18
Brandon
Price. And they said, well, we’re going to give you this for it. And we said, it’s for sale now.

01:32:49:20 – 01:32:50:17
Rod
And do you want the one.

01:32:50:17 – 01:33:14:17
Brandon
Across the street? We’ll sell you the 40 lots across the street too. And we got all this other land. So we started getting bought up out of all of our land positions from these national homebuilders. And this this happened around 2021, 2022. And we said, God, man, if they’re willing to give us these kind of deposits and we can pre-sell them and they can build for so much less than us, you know what?

01:33:14:20 – 01:33:23:11
Brandon
It doesn’t make sense to build the homes shorter time horizon. And so that’s how we got into doing land development for these affordable housing communities.

01:33:23:13 – 01:33:27:13
Rod
And when you say affordable housing you’re just you’re talking about smaller homes.

01:33:27:13 – 01:33:44:19
Brandon
Yeah. Little a not big a big A is affordable housing communities. That section eight government housing. We’re talking about what I think is the most undersupplied highest made real estate product in the country right now. And I know, you know, you do a lot of this is you provide housing for those people that need your blue collar workers.

01:33:44:19 – 01:33:47:18
Brandon
We do it for first time homebuyers. So we aim for that 300.

01:33:47:18 – 01:33:49:10
Rod
Thousand dollars price point. Yes, something like that.

01:33:49:10 – 01:33:54:19
Brandon
Yeah, $2,000 per month mortgage because that’s what your average median income family in American.

01:33:54:22 – 01:34:22:21
Rod
Correct. Oh no. That’s that’s very interesting. So right now the model is by land title. It and flip it to these national homebuilders. You is it my understanding that at this point you bring the builders in before you even tie up the land? Or what’s what’s the sequencing of the of of your model.

01:34:22:22 – 01:34:35:11
Brandon
Yeah. So we’ve got a framework that we work in. So we know what areas they want to be in. Right. I know what the buy box is, but during our due diligence period we’re doing a few things. One is we’re lining up our buyer and we’re making sure.

01:34:35:14 – 01:34:39:27
Rod
So once it’s under contract here in due diligence, that’s when you go grab the grab the builders.

01:34:39:27 – 01:34:55:29
Brandon
Right. We’ll go over say we got it. This is what we’re able to get approved here. Are you interested in that? That’ll tell us if we don’t have any interest in it than one. We did a bad job of picking our area in the parcel in our market. But most of the times we’ve got multiple interest because they all have the same buy box.

01:34:55:29 – 01:34:57:19
Brandon
Right.

01:34:57:22 – 01:35:25:16
Rod
And what specifically? What how do I word this. How do you make it attractive on the, in the affordable component. Is it, is it smaller lot sizes. Is it. What do you do to make to to make it appealing. To a builder for this, for that price point that’s, you know, 300 ish. You know, what we call affordable housing to sell?

01:35:25:16 – 01:35:25:23
Rod
Yeah.

01:35:25:23 – 01:35:44:18
Brandon
A lot of the lots they’re doing are six, 8000ft². They are. So they’re not that big, right? You’re, you know, like we just said, a community, 74 homes, they’re all about 30ft wide, 55ft long. So they’re not ginormous homes. Yeah, a lot of builders are sort of building smaller homes since interest rates went up, because that’s the only way that these.

01:35:44:18 – 01:35:51:09
Rod
Two story homes or some other two story homes. So this these are very, very small lots. Okay. Interesting. Yeah.

01:35:51:09 – 01:36:09:25
Brandon
Our whole thing is density. Like we add value to so many parties in what we do. It’s one of the reasons I love what we do so much is we’ve got the owner of the land, the seller who it’s, you know, they’ve got 20, 30 acres or whatever, and it’s not worth what they want. And so we come to him and say, hey, how would you like us to pay this?

01:36:09:25 – 01:36:26:13
Brandon
Or I give you an example, the 74 homes that, you know, we’re we just finished up and we sold to a builder. We went to them and they knew their land was worth maybe 300 and $400,000. And they knew that. And I said, if we could pay $700,000, would you be interested? You know, like, well, yeah, how are you going to do that?

01:36:26:16 – 01:36:34:21
Brandon
And we explained the process. We’re going to force appreciate the value of your land before we buy it, by getting it approved for these 7075 and.

01:36:34:21 – 01:36:35:28
Rod
Increasing the density.

01:36:36:00 – 01:36:36:20
Brandon
Increasing the.

01:36:36:20 – 01:36:50:13
Rod
Density. Okay. So that’s your model okay. Interesting. Now, and and you told the, the seller more money because they have to wait for that process. Is that correct? Have you ever involved the seller in a deal to minimize your outlay?

01:36:50:13 – 01:36:56:08
Brandon
Yeah, we’ve got one right now where they’re contributing. The land is equity, right? We don’t even have to come out of pocket anything.

01:36:56:08 – 01:37:13:03
Rod
By the way guys, that is a cool strategy where you go to an owner and say, listen, I know you’re you’ve had this thing forever. If you participate in this deal, you’ll make more than you would if you sold it. Because you’ll you’ll put the value with of the asset. Correct me if I’m wrong on any of this.

01:37:13:06 – 01:37:26:02
Rod
On this by a tribe I’m trying to say here, but diatribe rather is, you know, you contribute the land as the equity. Not only will you get that back, but you’ll get profit on, on on the deal because you have a percentage of the deal. Yes.

01:37:26:03 – 01:37:52:10
Brandon
It’s huge. Yeah. And if anyone’s done these type of deals or maybe in this space, what they may not know is the builder will give you a 1,520% deposit on the sales price. So it and that’s free money to use towards the development free money. It goes in second position. And so if you look at taking that deposit and using it towards the development, and you have the owner contributing Layne’s equity, sometimes you’re getting 40% LTV on your ones.

01:37:52:11 – 01:37:58:11
Rod
No kidding. Yeah. And and yeah. And it’s no out of pocket really. I mean that kind of a deposit will pay for your entitlement.

01:37:58:13 – 01:37:58:24
Brandon
Yep.

01:37:58:29 – 01:38:16:00
Rod
Wow. That’s a that’s a that’s a cool strategy. So, do you ever plan to build again or is it just going to be the development of the land? I mean, that model’s obviously working right now. Of course. Yeah. And I think it will continue to work because it’s such a huge demand.

01:38:16:03 – 01:38:23:19
Brandon
Yeah, we’ll definitely like build the rent. I love that asset class. And we were we had so much stuff that we were going to do. Build the rent in 2022.

01:38:23:24 – 01:38:24:11
Rod

01:38:24:13 – 01:38:47:18
Brandon
Right before rates went up and nothing penciled for that. So luckily we didn’t buy anything and start building with that exit in mind. But we definitely want to build again and do the BTR because there’s multiple exit strategies with this. You know, as long as we control the land and it works for anything, like we’ve got some stuff for for multifamily that we’re working on, we’ve got some stuff in commercial and office space that we’re working on.

01:38:47:18 – 01:39:13:06
Brandon
We got some mixed use stuff. So this strategy works for any asset class. And it what I like about it is the multiple exits. We can just sit on the land after we force appreciate it and just hold it, or we can pre-sell it and develop it and sell it to an end buyer. Right. With all the roads and utilities ready to go vertical, or if we have to, we can be the builder and we can build it or we can build and hold it, you know, BTR.

01:39:13:06 – 01:39:28:02
Brandon
So there’s four exit strategies that we can utilize. And it doesn’t matter what the asset classes. Right. Right now we’re just noticing that there’s huge demand from national home builders for finished ready to go. What. And that’s why we’re capitalizing I had.

01:39:28:02 – 01:39:35:19
Rod
Heard that that new home sales had kind of fallen off a cliff, is that you’re not seeing a softening in the sales.

01:39:35:22 – 01:39:55:15
Brandon
New home sales have fallen off a cliff. But the problem is you’ve got these big forces that are pushing against each other. And these builders, these are Wall Street backed firms that have to grow. You know, they have to hit these 2,025% IRR and they haven’t bought anything to the last five years. Covet and the interest rate rise 2020 2022.

01:39:55:15 – 01:40:14:24
Brandon
So two of the last five years they’ve bought nothing. And they have to catch back up with those growth projections. And so they’ll they’ll acquire land just to hold it and have it on its books and have it ready to go. They’re looking at filling their pool of land to from and they don’t have enough of it.

01:40:14:26 – 01:40:34:07
Rod
That makes complete sense. That makes complete sense. Well, that’s that’s really cool. That’s that’s that’s very cool. I think you’ve got a hell of a niche there. And Nashville, you know, if there was a market in this country that I would do what you’re doing and it would be somewhere like Nashville, just because, you know, it’s you got the good old boy network as well.

01:40:34:07 – 01:40:44:23
Rod
You build a relationships with the county and the city and the, you know, Mississippi cities. And that certainly exists. I because I had a lot of assets in Memphis at one time. I don’t even want to fly over Memphis, but say I was.

01:40:44:23 – 01:40:48:25
Brandon
Like, man, God bless you for having to manage that. I’m from Memphis originally.

01:40:48:25 – 01:40:49:06
Rod
Oh no.

01:40:49:10 – 01:40:49:22
Brandon
I’m very.

01:40:49:22 – 01:41:16:06
Rod
Familiar. I don’t even want to fly over Memphis airspace. I feel like my IQ drops if I do, but, but I do love Nashville. I love I love that half of the state. I love Cookeville and Clarksville and all that over there. But, so I’ve got family in Cookeville, actually. So let’s shift gears for a minute, because you started out flipping and wholesaling, and I have a lot of listeners on my show that, you know, haven’t done anything yet, and they know they want to start something.

01:41:16:08 – 01:41:30:29
Rod
What advice would you have for someone that’s, you know, got a W-2 job, they want to do a side hustle, they want to get something going. Maybe fear has held them back. Maybe limiting beliefs has held them back. You know, speak to speak to that listener.

01:41:31:02 – 01:41:49:07
Brandon
The biggest problem people have is they’re comfortable. When you’re comfortable, you’re not going to take action. That’s why catastrophic events can be a very powerful force in people’s life. Hitting rock bottom is a very stable foundation of which to build upon, isn’t it? And so people can get a lot of change from going through this traumatic events doing that.

01:41:49:07 – 01:42:12:11
Brandon
But the problem is people who are comfortable can’t because they’re comfortable. My advice, and this is probably, there’s probably some people are going to have an issue with this and disagree with it is burn the boats. Yeah. Mentally before you burn the boats, get comfortable with the worst case scenario. For me, I was okay going back and getting a job with medical device sales or whatever.

01:42:12:11 – 01:42:13:13
Brandon
That was my worst case.

01:42:13:13 – 01:42:16:01
Rod
Scenario, that that you knew you had that to fall back on.

01:42:16:01 – 01:42:26:23
Brandon
Yes. But you have to burn the boats. You got to get rid of that safety net because you’re not you’re going to be too comfortable. You’ve got to figure out a way to create enough discomfort to make the change.

01:42:26:26 – 01:42:44:11
Rod
Yeah, well that’s good. Now I agree completely. You know, the comfort zone is a nice warm place and nothing frickin grows there. You know, if you’re comfortable and you stay comfortable, you’re going to fail period. In life as far as I’m concerned. And you know that magnificent life of your dreams, the one you want is just on the other side of comfort.

01:42:44:11 – 01:43:01:28
Rod
Tony Robbins got this quote that is, the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of discomfort you can stand. And I and you know, and if you take a look at your life and you look back on anything amazing you’ve ever done. So if you’re listening, I want you to do this. I want you to think back and look back at anything that you’re really proud of.

01:43:01:28 – 01:43:10:17
Rod
Amazing that you did. And you’ll notice that you definitely got uncomfortable. And so just keep that in mind as you’re thinking about moving forward. Well, you know, on this is.

01:43:10:18 – 01:43:30:13
Brandon
Funny though, how if I may interrupt. It’s funny how when we are with our buddies or friends, we don’t really talk about the good times when we’re having, you know, lots of fun and all that. We talk about the stuff we went through, the stuff that built our character. That’s the stuff that we’re proud of most that we want to brag about.

01:43:30:16 – 01:43:32:12
Brandon
And I think that says something.

01:43:32:15 – 01:43:49:27
Rod
It’s the same dynamic. It’s exactly what we’re talking about here. So I, I don’t know if, you know, I do these 5 to 10 minute clips every week called On Your Power. They’re around mindset and psychology. And I know that that that you’re big into that as well. You know we talk about goals and visualization motivation things of that nature.

01:43:50:00 – 01:44:02:08
Rod
And so you know I want to ask you the question where do you get your drive. You know, what’s your why. And, and what what makes you jump out of bed in the morning? Because you’re a very dynamic personality. So I’d love to hear your answer.

01:44:02:15 – 01:44:23:22
Brandon
Yeah. It was funny. So my business is a tool to build the life that I want. And I remember when I discovered my why my wife right now is to build as many unforgettable experiences with those that I love, because I see life as a game of collecting experiences. And at the end, when we’re on our deathbed, we’re not going to wish we’d died with more money.

01:44:23:29 – 01:44:46:28
Brandon
We’re not going to wish we’d died with more things and stuff at the, you know, when you retire or you retire on your memories. And so what I’m trying to do now is I’m trying to treat memories as if they are an investment. And so the earlier on your invest, the more dividends you get throughout your life. So if I can create these cherished memories when I’m younger, I get more dividends off that memory because I have it longer throughout my life.

01:44:46:29 – 01:45:06:03
Brandon
You know, I’ll give you an example. When I was 22, I started these annual sibling trips with my brother and sister, and this was a way of me kind of repairing the civil, the, sibling rivalry, you know, younger siblings, they fight like growing up in 22. I was young, my sister was 16, my brother was 18.

01:45:06:05 – 01:45:30:24
Brandon
And we’ve been doing it every year since. We go on one of their or my bucket list, and it is just the amount of fulfillment I get from it is amazing. I do these annual mom son trips. My mom as a history teacher, and she’s taught history forever, but she’s never had the the means to go and travel and see the places this year or a few months ago, we got to go to the Alamo in San Antonio.

01:45:30:24 – 01:45:49:12
Brandon
She’d never been there before. So I do these trips at my dad. You know, he’s big bourbon whiskey guy. Never wanted to spend the money or time to go up and do the Bourbon trail and get to see some of his favorite spirits that he grew up with. So we’ve done trips down to see the Lynchburg Jack Daniel’s, been up to see a lot of distilleries in Kentucky.

01:45:49:12 – 01:45:56:21
Brandon
So for me, I’m trying to build as many of those experiences as possible before I die.

01:45:56:23 – 01:46:16:05
Rod
I love that, you know, we mentioned this briefly before we started recording. You know, Tony Robbins has this quote, around the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment and, and how achievement really is a science, you know, and I and I tell people this, if you want to learn multifamily, get your ass to one of my bootcamp.

01:46:16:05 – 01:46:32:18
Rod
So there you go. But fulfillments in art, you’ve got to figure out what juices you. And that’s in your families. What’s juicing? You and I, you know, I, I completely resonate with this. You know, I, I, my brothers and I went on a trip down the Rhine River and one of these river cruises where we went by 38 different castles.

01:46:32:18 – 01:46:52:20
Rod
And it was, three of my brothers and I, and we just had a fantastic time. And unfortunately, that’s been several years ago when we were trying to do one last year and didn’t make it. So I’m going to you’ve inspired me to push them to do that again. And, and I’ll tell you, I’ve made a big shift in my life personally to move away from things and focus on experiences as well.

01:46:52:23 – 01:47:08:17
Rod
You know, I’ve had all this stupid crap like the, you know, Lambo and the rolls and the watches and all the stupid crap that that, you know, but the experiences are like you, I love the I love how you described how it pays dividends. Because it really does. Because you can look back on them fondly and, yeah.

01:47:08:17 – 01:47:37:19
Rod
I, you just inspired me to do something with my kids. My kids are grown now. I mean, they’re in their 30s, but, yeah, I think I’m going to take them on a trip, so thank you for that. We talked briefly about your team that you put together because because team is so important. And, we talked about, you know, how important it is to have an operating system, how important it is, your how important the selection process is.

01:47:37:21 – 01:47:48:02
Rod
Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Let’s talk let’s talk about the team you put together that you hired, how you went about that and how you manage your operation.

01:47:48:04 – 01:48:07:19
Brandon
Yeah. So if, a lot of your listeners are going to have to hire somebody or if they haven’t already, they’ve been in the process of it. And let me talk about what you don’t want. Okay. You don’t want to spend the first 4 or 5 years of your business hiring the wrong people. It which is what I did, and I paid dearly for it.

01:48:07:24 – 01:48:30:02
Brandon
You know, as a guy who started who’s 27, I was in a management role. So I had no experience hiring management people. And so I had to learn the hard way. Lots of turnover, lots of wasted money. And so through this, I’m proud to say we’ve got a beautiful framework. You know, we use some of the iOS stuff, but there’s a few big dominoes that if you get this right, it will make the hiring process very simple.

01:48:30:02 – 01:48:31:03
Brandon
So I want to.

01:48:31:03 – 01:48:51:26
Rod
Stop you one second. But he mentioned iOS. So iOS is from a book called traction. The author is Gino Wickman and it stands for Entrepreneur’s Operating System. And it’s what we use in all my companies as well. And it’s it’s extraordinary. So, you know, whenever you’re to the point where you’re actually going to take off your employee hat and put on an entrepreneur hat, go read that book and implement that system.

01:48:51:26 – 01:48:53:14
Rod
But please continue on the hiring stuff.

01:48:53:17 – 01:49:19:04
Brandon
Yeah. So big thing is, when I’m hiring somebody I used to I would hire bottom up, which means somebody that’s affordable. I had to train them to do everything. And that’s how I saw hiring. Now it’s top down. That means hiring what I call a strategic partner. In other words, if during the interview process, they can’t teach you something you did not know about this role, show you how they can make it better.

01:49:19:06 – 01:49:35:10
Brandon
That’s not the right hire. And so I make sure that I’m hiring strategic partners. They can teach me how to make the world better and learn something that I didn’t know before. That’s a big domino. So as far as the process goes, I kind of share the literally the whole thing. I go through a pretty quick. So but we use wise hire.

01:49:35:10 – 01:49:43:22
Brandon
I love wise hire because why hire to all the job boards? They take care of Monster.com and indeed they do all of it. And what do you mean.

01:49:43:22 – 01:49:45:29
Rod
They do all of it? They compile all the information from.

01:49:46:00 – 01:49:51:12
Brandon
Yes, it’s one website and they blast it out to all the other job boards for you and they just feed all the information.

01:49:51:12 – 01:49:55:24
Rod
So you put your ad in wise hire and it gets posted everywhere. Is what you’re saying.

01:49:55:24 – 01:50:09:02
Brandon
Was hires a website. You pay for the subscription, okay. You put the job out there, okay. They shoot it out everywhere, and they bring in all of the applicants that fill out from the various job boards into that one dashboard.

01:50:09:03 – 01:50:13:26
Rod
Well, that’s nice because you got indeed you got monster, you got LinkedIn, you got all these different places. Love it. Okay.

01:50:13:27 – 01:50:33:10
Brandon
And they know what CEOs really well and what catches eyes. And so their team will look at your job posting and make recommendations to the title to what’s in the description. They’ll even let you hey look, you know this pay is kind of low. If you want to have kids you probably need to bump it up. And so they do this for a living.

01:50:33:10 – 01:50:48:23
Brandon
They know what sells, what doesn’t, so they can make recommendations. So was I at first things I have my assistant go through. If they don’t have a minimum of the years of experience that I’m looking for, they don’t make it to the next level. So if I’m hiring sales rep, they need a minimum of four years in the same industry.

01:50:48:23 – 01:51:16:07
Brandon
So, so so they’ll drag that over to the next stage, which is qualified. They’ll mass email somebody out, hey, no brain would like to speak to you about a phone interview. You know, set it up. So here’s the phone interview. First question I ask is tell me what stood out about the company or opportunity to you. And if the person can’t tell me anything if they didn’t do their homework, I immediately thank them for their time and I hang up the phone because that tells me that they did not take the time to actually look us up and do a little bit research and prepare for the call.

01:51:16:07 – 01:51:23:24
Rod
So you have your name of the company in there, so they can go to your website and do some homework and got a smart, smart. Yeah. Okay.

01:51:23:24 – 01:51:40:24
Brandon
Second thing, we do a second question is what do you want to get out of this position that you did not get or are not getting out of your current position? And if they can’t have something and explain that it just tells me they’re kind of job hopping, right? They need to be looking for something. Third question is, what do you want to get out of this long term?

01:51:40:27 – 01:51:57:04
Brandon
Right. I need to make sure that we can offer them something that they’re looking for long term, whether that’s growth or a certain amount of money. You know, whatever it is benefits, because if we can’t, then they’re not going to stick around long term. Right? You know, your your people make up your business. So it’s important to keep a long time.

01:51:57:07 – 01:52:18:25
Brandon
Fourth question I ask is tell me about your pay expectations. How much do you want to make per year? A couple million, and they always laugh. But I can’t tell you when I didn’t ask this question in my early days, how many times I would waste my time with in-person interviews and all the way to get to the end to figure out that the pay was off and they didn’t read it on the job interview, and I just wasted too much time.

01:52:18:27 – 01:52:32:26
Brandon
So we make sure the pays there. And then the last question I ask is, what questions do you have for me? And based on the sophistication of the questions they’re asking me that will allow them to get on the next level. So that’s just your basic filter.

01:52:32:28 – 01:52:45:28
Rod
Okay. That’s a fantastic filter. And, and and I love some of those questions. I’ve hired hundreds of people. Yeah. And and I learned something just now. So so very impressed with that. What’s the what’s the next stage you.

01:52:45:28 – 01:53:00:20
Brandon
Want to screen for core values. Can you do that as sit alone video. If you’re not familiar with loom, it’s a piece of software that allows you to click a button and record you talking, and it immediately makes a video link out of it. I use it for all my communication and emails with my team, because I don’t have to type it all out.

01:53:00:20 – 01:53:15:03
Brandon
It saves me so much time. If you don’t know what lumens, you gotta go check it out. So I send them a loom video and I say, hey, I want you to send me a loom video back or a video recording. I let them figure out how. And I want you to answer these questions, and I’m just screening for core values.

01:53:15:03 – 01:53:32:06
Brandon
So one of our core values is growth. Everybody. The company always wants to grow and get better. So I asked him, tell me about the last 4 or 5 books or podcasts that you read or listen to. What did you learn from it? And that tells me whether or not they’re actually worth looking to learn how to grow in themselves.

01:53:32:08 – 01:53:48:08
Brandon
And then I’ll ask them, like, you know, extreme ownership is another one of our core values. Hey, tell me about a time where you had a project that you were working on with a team that failed. Whose fault was it? I want to hear that story and see if they place blame on other people, or if they take ownership of it themselves.

01:53:48:08 – 01:54:02:07
Brandon
So whatever your core values are, create questions around that and then send me a video allows me to get to know their personality a little bit. You know, I can, you know, see what they look like. See how well-spoken they are, see what their personalities like.

01:54:02:08 – 01:54:19:15
Rod
So that’s that’s a hurdle. And it’s a hurdle they have if they’re not willing to at least do that. Yeah. They’re not going to. So that’s that’s double double benefit there. Well now I have to ask the obvious question. And this is one of the things you discover in iOS, by the way, is one of the first things you do is come up with your core values for the company.

01:54:19:20 – 01:54:20:29
Rod
What are your core values?

01:54:21:01 – 01:54:26:00
Brandon
So we have stewardship growth, extreme ownership and integrity.

01:54:26:05 – 01:54:42:11
Rod
And humility and yep. And humility. Oh good good good. Integrity is our number one core value as well. And it should be in any company. And I love I love your core values. Those are very good. And typically what you’ll do by the way when you do these core values is you pull your whole team together and get them involved in that process.

01:54:42:11 – 01:54:43:22
Rod
So they have ownership. Yeah.

01:54:43:22 – 01:54:44:07
Brandon
They created.

01:54:44:12 – 01:55:00:13
Rod
Yeah. They, they they helped create it for sure. Okay. So what do you consider your biggest business success so far? And I want to ask you personal success as well, just so you know.

01:55:00:15 – 01:55:24:08
Brandon
God, biggest business success. You know, it’s kind of funny. I don’t think I’ve ever been asked that question in, but it does tie with business. We had somebody there was a there’s a girl in our in our market who, I’d known since I was flipping houses and, you know, she’d worked at the airport making, you know, minimum, minimum wage.

01:55:24:08 – 01:55:43:02
Brandon
I think she worked her way up to, like, a manager role. And, you know, didn’t come from a very wealthy background, and you could just tell, like, you’re rooting for her, right? You know, you want this person to succeed. She’s reaching out and trying to figure out how to make money and quit her job. And we had done some just free coaching, mentorship tours, because really it was about giving back and trying to help her.

01:55:43:04 – 01:56:12:23
Brandon
Well, she ended up bringing us a deal, didn’t know what to do with it, and we ended up making a lot of money on that deal. We took it through all the entitlements, we sold it and she made, over six figures on that deal. And part of my, part of my deal with her to, to do that deal was when we closed on it, she had to quit her job, and we had to film her turning in her two weeks with her, her boss, and starting her real estate business.

01:56:12:26 – 01:56:35:23
Brandon
And, you know, we made really good money on that, on that deal. But I couldn’t even think of the money in the closing because I was so excited being able to film her, quitting her job and starting her entrepreneur journey and seeing the path and the journey that she’d been on, that was probably the coolest thing I’ve ever done in business.

01:56:35:25 – 01:56:38:25
Brandon
And it wasn’t even about the money. Yeah, but it was.

01:56:38:28 – 01:56:43:14
Rod
It rarely is, you know, that’s that’s that’s awesome. How about a personal one?

01:56:43:17 – 01:56:46:06
Brandon
You know, for personal personal success.

01:56:46:06 – 01:56:47:13
Rod
You are. You’re married. You have.

01:56:47:13 – 01:56:49:08
Brandon
Kids. Yeah. I’ve got a newborn is three.

01:56:49:08 – 01:56:50:26
Rod
Months old regulations. Yeah.

01:56:50:26 – 01:57:09:12
Brandon
Thank you for that. Wow. You know, personally. I’m really proud of the life partner that I picked my wife. I there was a point in my life where I did not think I was going to find somebody. I thought I was too picky. I, I had dated a lot of people. I wasn’t going to settle. And I was like, I refuse to settle.

01:57:09:14 – 01:57:31:01
Brandon
And if that means being single my entire life, you know, so be it. And I’ve found somebody who makes me a better man, who’s a phenomenal mother to our children, who has all of my same core values. It’s kind of funny how in personal life, in business, a lot of what works in business, like the core values in picking people that have this core values to help your company grow also work in your personal life.

01:57:31:02 – 01:57:52:00
Brandon
And I didn’t know it at the time, but I was figuring out that a lot of these business hacks that made me successful in business also made me successful in my personal life. Right? The core values in a life partner, building a culture in your business, building a culture in your family, having a set of rules and guidelines to go by and you know, learning how to sell in business.

01:57:52:00 – 01:57:56:21
Brandon
You know, learning how to sell your family to do certain things. And I recently had my mom and dad, let’s.

01:57:56:21 – 01:57:57:21
Rod
Use the word influence.

01:57:57:22 – 01:58:12:24
Brandon
Influence. Yeah. Influence sell. Right. Well, I’ve recently had my mom and dad, move here and in set up, and that was a goal that I had set three years ago that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to accomplish. And through a series of events and a lot of time and effort, I actually got them to move here.

01:58:12:26 – 01:58:15:08
Brandon
And so, yeah, to Nashville. And so that was pretty cool too.

01:58:15:11 – 01:58:32:17
Rod
That’s cool. Well, listen, Brandon, I want to tell you, this has been this has been a lot of fun. And, I really appreciate you coming down and spending some time with us, and, and I’m impressed with, with your business model. And again, guys, it’s HPG capital dot net, and you want to check out his podcast only because I’m going to be on it.

01:58:32:17 – 01:58:41:05
Rod
I’m just kidding. It’s recession resistant real estate radio. And, Yeah. So, we’ll, I’m sure we’ll stay in touch, my friend. Yeah.

01:58:41:06 – 01:58:42:16
Brandon
Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

01:58:42:16 – 01:58:45:15
Rod
Likewise. Thank you for listening to the lifetime cash flow.