Ep #413 – Glenn Gonzales – From Maintenance Man to Millionaire

Here is some of what you will learn:

      • How Glenn started with zero of his own money
      • The importance of relationships in multifamily
      • Self manage or third party management?
      • Questions to ask property managers
      • The importance of broker relationships
      • How to select a great partner
      • Finding ways around obstacles

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Full Transcript Below:

Ep #413 – Glenn Gonzales – From Maintenance Man to Millionaire

Hi, my name is Rod Khleif and I’m the host of “Lifetime Cashflow through Real Estate Investing” Podcast and every week I interview multifamily rockstars. We talk about how they built incredible wealth for themselves and their families through multifamily properties. So hit the like and subscribe button to get notified every Monday when a new episode comes out. Let’s get to it

Rod: Welcome to another edition of How to Build Lifetime Cashflow through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Khleif and I am absolutely thrilled that you’re here. And I am super delighted to interview to have my friend back on the show Glenn Gonzalez. Now Glenn has become an incredible friend, he and his wife, Heidi. And he’s a member of my Multifamily Boardroom Mastermind and he was just on stage at the LA event and Glenn is quite a success story so we’re gonna dig into all that, we’re going to talk about his new book and we’re gonna add a ton of value today. Welcome back my friend

Glenn: Thank you very much Rod and I have to say your background where you’re sitting out there in Florida is absolutely beautiful

Rod: Well you’ve been there you know you’ve sat at that table right there and had lunch with us when we had the first version of the Multifamily Boardroom Mastermind here at my house which was which was kind of the springboard for what has now become the largest Multifamily Mastermind. Really, I think on the planet and we had the first version here at the house and Glenn was here, Maureen Miles was here. Glenn’s new partner David Toopan was here and that’s where they met I think for the first time is that right? I think

Glenn: Exactly right, he and I were sitting in your in your living room right there in your boardroom in your house and we were just chit-chatting and you know I didn’t know him from Adam. So actually Rod, I got to give you a big shout out. I mean talk about networking and being in the right place at the right time and had I not been invited to come to your home and join as an original founder of this mastermind, I would have never met my business partner. And we made deals together and made a lot of money together

Rod: Now I know and he’s 24 freaking years old so you know he’s the energy component now right

Glenn: Right.

Rod: We need that energy around us. We feed off of it and he’s total energy.

Glenn: The millennial that’s getting us out there and doing all this online marketing and he loves it and I don’t

Rod: Yeah and he’s good at it. No, I feel yeah. I you know tips like hey you should be posting every day on Instagram and talking about your freaking vegetable juice. I’m like sweetheart, no it’s not happening yeah but anyway let’s dig in. But first before we start, I want to talk about your book because you were, I was honored to be able to write the foreword for it. So guys, Glenn has wrote a book called “From Maintenance Man to Millionaire” It’s an awesome book and like I said I wrote the foreword and hold it up so people can see it. Awesome book. It’s on Amazon. Just go get it. He’s my friend and it’s absolutely worth reading. So highly recommend that and you know some of the things we’re gonna talk about are in that book but you know the thing that I think I’d like to dig right in if you don’t mind. I mean let’s you know you know I mean the truth of it is guys he started as a maintenance man and now he’s had what over 4,000 doors is that about right?

Glenn: Yeah about 4,500 well actually it’s pushing 5,000 now

Rod: Five thousand doors. So guys, from maintenance man to 5,000 doors you know read the book to get more detail on that but I want to dig into adding some value to you guys because he’s got so many nuggets and bombs that he drops when he talks and so let’s talk firstly because everybody’s looking to find deals okay you know building the broker relationships which I want to talk about in a minute but before we talk about that I want to talk about that one guy. Tell the story of Ed, the guy you met, how you met, he stayed in touch and what happened as a result here

Glenn: You know what the way I met Ed, and in a nutshell, Ed sold me eight apartment complexes and his management company but in order for me to tell you that Ed, I got to back up a couple of steps. It’s all about networking. So, I’m sitting volunteering my time at an apartment association function and sitting across from a guy named John Gibson and he’s a big-time owner, developer, builder, owns a lot of stuff and I’m a regional manager. I’m a W-2 guy right just do my job and he and I took a liking to each other and he was impressed cuz I was young and he was you know old and knowledgeable. I shouldn’t say old he was experienced cuz he was probably younger than I am now

Rod: We’re not gonna go there

Glenn: Yeah but I told him I wanted to buy a deal and I presented him the one that I had done some numbers on and he’s like yeah, it’s okay but I have a better deal you might like and go look at it. It’s a deal and I’ll sell it to you. I own it and I’ve neglected it. He neglected it. There was lots of upside. John Gibson sold me that deal and I brought in two investors it was my kind of my very first multi-family stuff had to come up with a hundred and fifty thousand dollars and Rod, do you think I had $150,000 at the time? No way. I was living paycheck to paycheck and he said you come up with a hundred fifty and I’ll say the deal. So, we did I went to my boss and a vendor and they each put in 75 and I put in zero. Anyway, we bought the deal, sold it a year and a half later and then made a million bucks and everybody was happy. We sold it but we carried a note back and those buyers that bought it from me they were getting into default into their loan and they were also gonna default on the first mortgage. And so, I started asking around and talking to people and somebody said you ought to talk to a guy named Ed Spring and he you know he buys you know troubled notes and defaults. And he’s an investor. I mean okay so here’s a 70-year-old man and he has been in the business for years. And I went to him and I told him about this and he’s like, yeah I’ll buy that note you know for 60 or 70 cents on the dollar and I said well I can’t speak for the lender but you know make an offer to him because they’re in default. Sure, enough he bought it and then later that deal either traded hands or the guy refinanced I don’t know but he got paid 100% on the face value alone plus he got all the default interest that had been accruing under the old loan terms. So, he made a ton of money on that just on the note. He didn’t buy the real estate; he just bought the note. And I became fast friends right we just we shook hands, we maintained our relationship and I told Ed Spring, I said if you ever want to sell your management company give me a call if you ever want to retire give me a call. He’s like I’m never gonna retire. Well guess what? He turns 80 years old something happened in his life and on the personal side he called me, he’s like I think I’m ready to sell. I’m like really? So, he’s like I want to sell you my management company and at that point having been in the industry myself for 20-30 years I said ed I don’t really need to buy a management company at this point I’m so seasoned I can run my own management company. So, I said but really what I wanted is those eight different apartment complexes that you have up in Dallas Fort Worth because he had about fifteen hundred units Rod and I wanted those. So right we came to an agreement on a price shook hands and he sold me all eight of those and guess how much money I had to raise from investors to close on those, twenty-two million dollars in equity

Rod: Holy cow how did you do that? I mean I don’t want to derail I want to talk about how you did that we can we can wait on that for a second but yeah before I’m sorry to interrupt but guys, he just gave you an incredible strategy okay whatever sub market you are in, connect with some of the owners there that owned the size property that you’re interested in, start relationships especially if they’re long a tooth is 70 years old, 75 years old, and you build those relationships and you add value and you just become friends with these people. Look at you want what fifteen hundred doors because of a relationship because you stayed in touch and you

Glenn: Yeah you know that very first one that little forty-four unit bought that one two all over relationship right. In fact, in the book Rod, Chapter 9 is all about you know the importance of relationships and how to develop relationships and you know and it’s a frame mind because a lot of people ask you know how did you do that? Well you put yourself out there you network you know those boot camps that you have and all of those masterminds, you have all these people under one roof and relationships. We mentioned just at the at the very beginning of this episode Rod how I met my current business partner because I was out networking

Rod: Right right right right guys you know you’ve all heard me say it ad nauseam. I mean this is a team sport. This is who you know not you know not just what you know it’s more who you know than what you know frankly and so you know and that’s why people keep coming back to my boot camps time and time again. They’re out in the hallways, they’re networking. I had probably close to three billion on stage. I had operators that buy general admission tickets that I never even saw in the room they were out grazing equity out in the hallways and a whole bunch of them. And I was probably another billion or two out in the hallways good networking raising equity. So, it’s turned into this giant thing and I don’t even know I don’t even know what to do with it yet. But it’s a quality problem. I’m just not quite sure how we you know make it larger, facilitate it, add value to it and just continue to grow it because we’re selling out every time and by the way guys Orlando is next, rodinOrlando.com just for you know come I promise you’d be glad you did but you know let’s talk about

Glenn: Let me pause right there for a moment you know people ask me because I owned my own property management company and I bought all these units and I’m in it and I went through all your material you know the binder that you give to your students and everything you need to buy an apartment complex and to be successful is in that manual that you give to your students. I mean people call me all the time and I’m like look, if you really want to know, I can’t teach it to you in ten minutes but I’ve read the material and it’s dead on. So anyway just

Rod: Thank you thank you thank you. Yeah you know a lot of my competitors they’ll give people a taste and then you know try to upsell them or they’ll bring in a lot of speakers to sell stuff. I don’t do any of that. It’s just me for three days I bring in you know an SEC attorney to teach SEC. I bring in a lender to teach Fannie Mae debt but those you know other than the panelists I have onstage on Saturday nights it’s me and it’s a little bit brutal it took me about a week to recover from this last one but you know we add as much value as we possibly can. We even sent emails with additional content. We have this new book we just created about “How to Hire a Third Party Property Manager” and it’s really a quality piece and we got links to examples of the property management agreement and the reports you can expect and every question you can possibly ask a third party property management before you consider them and guys if you want that, you can text the word “partnership” to 41411 and you get a free copy of it but thank you brother. So, let’s talk about for a minute some of the strategies that you learned as a manager. Maybe talk a little bit about you know your start in the property management business because you did it for quite a while before you actually started buying right?

Glenn: That’s correct

Rod: And then maybe, and I know you’ve got an incredible culture. What’s that? I’m sorry

Glenn: I said I was in property management for twenty-five years before I started

Rod: Holy cow holy cow wow wow wow. Tell the story. I just want you to tell the story about when you are maintenance man and then you also ended up in a unit and you were the one leasing it. Tell that that’s funny

Glenn: It’s also the book but it’s like this is doing make readies right because that’s what maintenance guys do, get the units ready. Well I was on a small sixty-unit apartment complex. So, I was kind of a part-time maintenance guy and the part-time manager right. So, I had leased the apartments. Well somebody came into the office and then moved into one of these units that I’ve gotten ready and they handed me the checklist and sure enough you know one of the burners on the stove wasn’t working and the dishwasher wouldn’t start and the toilet was running water after you flush it and the guys like I don’t know man can you just send somebody over to fix it and I’m like, yeah I’m really sorry about that I’ll send somebody over. I didn’t tell him it was me. I was hoping he would be at work or something. So, I went over to the house. I changed my clothes first of all for my maintenance clothes. And I went over there with the checklist and a bunch of tools and the guy answers the door and he’s like what are you doing here? I’m like, well I’m also the maintenance man and we had this awkward moment of silence like so you’re the one that fix that? Yeah and then he realizes

Rod: You know it screwed up to begin with and here you are.

Glenn: I gonna go back and fix my own mistakes

Rod: Well listen, it’s a good thing you quit that day job to do what you’re doing now but do you self-manage still correct? You’re not, do you use third-party?

Glenn: I’m currently doing my third party and here’s why

Rod: Okay

Glenn: I get that question all the time right okay and it’s not always about unit count and it’s always not you know it’s not always about whether or not you’re property management company is gonna make you money or should you farm it out, it comes down to an individual choice and I’m sure you’ve covered all this and your material you have but in the last 18 months Rod, I’ve sold about three thousand apartments right. So, my unit count is going lower and lower and lower why I had my own management company? At the time I owned it, I was managing, I owned forty-five hundred units but I managed another two thousand for somebody else so I had sixty-five hundred units under property management. Well that was very distracting and running a management company and I couldn’t spend the time I wanted to spend underwriting and putting deals together right or going on tours and putting deals together. So I had to pick my battles sold that management company also to get away from a business partner and then sold the assets but now I use third party but I will tell you having been an operator myself and providing the management, I know exactly what questions to ask I could tell you if they’re regional and the onsides

Rod: Let’s go through some

Glenn: Yeah

Rod: Let’s go through some. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong probably the most important person you need to see, meet, understand, know, is the regional yes?

Glenn: Yeah you know and I think it’s important as an owner to really understand and their roles because you know we see the regional managers that catch all right. But I’ll be honest with you, if you put money in a deal and the property management sets up the balance sheet the regional manager doesn’t know the difference between you know how much equity has come in in the form of what members on the equity on the balance sheet as an asset versus you know some other, that’s not his role, he’s not the CFO. He’s not a bookkeeper but yeah, we asked the regional manager certain questions that are all surrounding you know the financials. Well, do you want them to be a financial expert or do you want him to be a property manager expert? You know I find; I would prefer for my regional manager had come up through the ranks you know whether that person was a leasing agent and then a manager and now there’s a regional manager because they get the business. And you want them to be good at that business but yeah, we tend to ask questions to the regional about other portions. So I think it’s important as an owner know what their roles are and what you expect out of them you know do you expect a regional to do a market survey? or do you expect the property manager to do a market survey? to understand where the rents ought to be. Well that’s a great question because you know what I found even though they’re third-party management companies, nobody likes to do them, therefore they don’t get done very often and you know and who should do them and who should review them? Well as an owner you better make sure your rents are right because the property management company, they’re gonna take the shortcut and like what do you want me to charge for the two bedrooms and they’re gonna see you know your advice. You may turn to the regionals like what do you recommend but I guarantee you oh here’s a little nugget, you should also understand how many properties are in that regional managers portfolio

Rod: Right how many they’re managing, are covering

Glenn: Yeah yeah yeah for sure. If that guy or girl has ten properties you know they’re spread out all over a city in their portfolio, how often are they gonna be at your property? They can’t be there once a week you know if they have

Rod: Ten percent of the time max

Glenn: Yeah yeah yeah yeah right and all the things that they have going on relative to employee turnover and all the things the regional has to do but if they have 10 in their portfolio it’s gonna be a stretch whether or not you’re gonna give their undivided attention, if they have five properties in their portfolio or six they can almost get there once a week and they’ll be very hands-on. It’s a great question to ask how many in your portfolio. Management company wants to load up the regional as many as they can because they turn to management fee and that’s a fixed expense right. So, they want 15

Rod: Right sure sure. The more people that you know the more assets that they can give that regional the more profit they get and yeah that’s absolutely one of the questions in the book guys so but you know it’s very interesting. We did a tour a few weeks back and we did our Dallas asset. We did a Louisiana asset and the Dallas asset you know 100% occupied. In fact the manager was at the LA boot camp sweetheart and we get there and I look around and I have an attention to detail and the only thing I saw that that needed attention was there was a tree branch that had broken, it was still stuck up in the tree but it was above cars and I’m glad you know what they better fix that before it drops. And I mentioned it to the regional and he said, oh yeah, I’ve already, it’s already in the report for them to deal with that today. I’m like boom, then we go to Louisiana asset and it was one thing after another after another stupid stuff that should have been handled you know from anybody with attention to detail and the regional didn’t even point these things out and we’re making changes obviously but the regional is so freakin important. So, let me ask you this, let’s shift gears for a second and guys, get that book that I did because you’re really gonna love it on interviewing third party property managers. So just text “partnership” to 41411. But I want to shift gears for a minute because everybody’s trying to find deals right now and let’s talk about one aspect of that. We’re not going to talk about direct to seller market or any of that stuff I want to talk about brokers for a minute and broker relationships. So, can you speak to that a little bit Glenn?

Glenn: Yeah you know you either love him or hate him right. You know I love dealing with brokers but I also would prefer to buy deals principal to principal if I can. I’ve done both ways but let me share with you one experience and it actually happened at one of your boot camps, no your mastermind. I want a deal to a gentleman named Mr. Black, the Westwood apartments and right before closing the chiller breaks you know the chiller you know provides you know HVAC system for the whole property there and they’re very big machinery, they’re very expensive. Well

Rod: very expensive

Glenn: I can put a band aid on it and just sell it or I can replace that whole chiller right. So, my business partner said you know I don’t think that’s a good idea. You guys are gonna close it anyways. They’ve got non-refundable earnest money you know let’s just put a repair. I’m like, dude that just doesn’t set right with me and my personality. I’m like, I would hate if somebody did that to me right. So I made the business decision to buy this gentleman a new chiller for the whole property and the broker called me he’s like, did I hear that right you’re gonna buy a new one? not pay half, not negotiate, I mean are you serious? And I’m like, yeah. Because when he found out that it broke, the broker was panicking that the whole deal was gonna blow up right. I mean right before closing. So, I said no, I feel like it’s the right thing to do. I would hate for somebody do that to me. So, we did right. It actually couldn’t even show up in time for closing so we put 50% down and paid for it and then gave the buyer the other 50% in an escrow account on the settlement statement. So, it’s all paid for upfront and it got installed

Rod: Wow

Glenn: The buyer I have never met in person,

Rod: You met him in my mastermind? I remember the Black brothers yeah yeah

Glenn: Yes, I met them at your mastermind and we’re going around circle and we’re introducing ourselves and they hadn’t yet got to me but Mr. Black hands up from across because I don’t really want to introduce me, I want to introduce Glenn Gonzalez and I looked up

Rod: I remember

Glenn: What did I do? You know who are you and what are you gonna say? He’s like, I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me but he shared this story because he was the guy that I bought the chiller for and now I’m sitting in the same room with him. So, talk about relationships and you know

Rod: yeah, it’s a small world man and this multi-family space is a small world

Glenn: Yeah in my book you know you know Rod you wrote the foreword but guess what the afterword where the broker wrote it you know Al, the broker, had this experience wrote that for me and he’s like, Glenn I will always do business with you because I know you’re a stand-up guy. So guess what? Fast-forward I’ve met a business partner with your thing Dave Toopan and I bought a deal and that same broker called me like, Glenn I got a portfolio deal for you and I think I can get you in on this deal and it was a great deal. He’s like, Glenn it’s a great deal because the owner does not want to do tours but he’s allowed me to show it to just five people. He’s like you know pick the five and whoever you show it to you know I’ll entertain an offer for them. I was one of the five, because of that relationship from that broker, got me in and guess what? We bought that deal. It’s up in Fort Worth and we closed on it and got a Fannie Mae loan. So, I mean thank goodness that broker and I had a good working relationship. So, when were in this business I’ll take long term relationship thing. Everybody wants to do deals today it just takes being in the right place, networking, developing the friendship, developing the relationship. And I put this in my book also, people will do business with the people they like to do business with, not who they might have to do business with. So, if you’re a likable guy or gal and you develop relationships, chances are, at some point you’re gonna get a deal, from a broker

Rod: Yeah, no question and of course you showed your integrity and this really is a small world guys. This multifamily commercial multi-family space, you get into it and you realize everybody pretty much knows everybody and I can promise you that that broker is besides the fact you got another portfolio from him. So, I know telling the return on that hundred-thousand-dollar gesture you know it’s crazy but he’s telling everybody he knows what a stand-up guy Glenn Gonzalez is and that’s just the way this world works. It truly is all about relationships it’s about likeability it’s about people knowing that when you say you do something, you’re gonna do it and you know a lot of this stuff happens on a handshake these relationships begin that way and there’s a lot of old-school. I mean certainly things get reduced to writing but the point is you know, you screw people around and it gets out there pretty fast and this is the antithesis of that. So well listen, let me ask you this brother. Let’s talk for a minute you know I love to ask this question and I’d love to ask it of you specifically you know if you could go back knowing what you know now after 25 years in property management, 5,000 doors now in ownership, what might you tell your 20 year old self? and what might you do differently?

Glenn: Yeah, my biggest heartaches in that whole process Rod or time, has been my business partners that I went in business with. I didn’t spend enough due diligence figuring out the partner that I’m about to be married to for years and years and years. I went into it you know with all rosy eyes and you know and everything’s gonna be wonderful only to be disappointed two times that I’ve had to separate from business partners because of ethics or personality or greed or whatever

Rod: Work ethic

Glenn: Yeah work ethic you know all of the above. So, I actually took all those sad stories and those heartaches and I actually put them in my book. I’ve got a whole section on good partners versus bad partners you know

Rod: Fantastic

Glenn: You know how they had that one the one book Rich Dad Poor Dad and they compared the two mindsets, I’ve done the same thing you know I’ve shared my heart aches that I had with business partners and then what I really look for and need in a business partner. So anyway, that’s been one of the things if I can go back in time, I would tell my younger self dude you need to pay closer attention and ask all the right questions when you’re getting in bed with somebody you know to do all these

Rod: Awesome. Hey guys, get his book for sure I’ve also got a free resource to supplement that. I’ve got a list of partnership questions the hard questions you should ask up front you get it for free if you text “partnership” to 41411 you know I’ve thrown out as much content like you to add value as I can and those hard questions you got to ask them. The other thing, tell me if you agree with this Glenn. I mean certainly you have to ask all the questions you know what happens if somebody dies you disagree you know you need to do your due diligence see what they’ve done in the past, what their work ethic is, you know see if your core values are aligned but what do you think about just the simple trusting your gut just your intuition if it doesn’t feel right. Do you believe in that at all?

Glenn: Yeah very much so you know I’ll be honest with you. I’m a religious man, so when I get to the toughest questions that I can’t find solutions to, I will close the door to my office and I’ll kneel down right here next to my desk and I’ll pray about things. And honestly you know what’s the difference between that and your gut you know I mean you’re looking for influence, you’re looking for intuition and you’re looking for you know inspiration. They’re all you know; you’re entitled to all that stuff so I turn to my father in heaven actually for that

Rod: All right. No, it’s beautiful man. That’s beautiful I love it. Absolutely love it and you know yeah, a prayer and just reflection you know whatever you you know, however you do it, you wanna trust it

Glenn: They don’t really, but I would encourage and go meditate then or find way to get that intuition that your gut tells you that I can work well with this person or I can’t. Along those same lines Rod you know we talked about how I met Dave Toopan and it was sitting in your boardroom and then we didn’t become partners actually spent more time talking Maureen about business separating from partner than I did

Rod: Right right right right she went to a partner problem as well right

Glenn: And then I listened to Dave Toopan present some of his underwriting skills and stuff at one of your masterminds and I thought that’s an impressive kid know but anything much about it. It was actually my wife we were thinking, Las Vegas conference, right?

Rod: Yeah, we had one of the masterminds in Vegas right

Glenn: We bumped into you and Tiffany at the airport, you’re like, hey you want to jump in the limo with us?

Rod: Right you three in the back of the limo with us and we went to the hotel right. We got to know your wife a little better and it was beautiful. So back to Toopan so you got to see him speak and

Glenn: Yeah and my wife actually heard him speak and learned a little bit about David. My wife tapped me on the shortest thing, Glenn, that’s the kind of partner that you need somebody like that. So nicely talk about that for a moment you know and we’re looking for inspiration, my wife’s an inspiration to me sometimes she just calls it the obvious. So anyway, we ended up doing one deal together not under one company I mean we he was a partner and I was a partner we did one deal together and we kind of tested the water with each other and sure enough he was all that he said he was. I mean it wasn’t make-believe he put his money where his mouth was and for me that’s credible. So it was then that we decided do you guys want to do this you know partner and be partners going forward? And yes, and actually we’re building a partnership and a team around you know multiple individuals. We’re going to bring in another partner that’s gonna be a you know asset manage

Rod: I’m so glad you said that so glad you said that because that leads me up to my next question but guys, there was a big nugget he just gave you. When you get into a partnership you know definitely get my list of questions read Glenn’s book and when you get into a partnership, you do not have to do a global thing that you’re gonna do everything together. Do one deal, get to know each other, understand each other, look at each other’s work ethic, see if the person you’re aligning with does what they say they’re gonna do and really pay attention with micro detail to how they do and how you do and how well you work together. Are your values aligned? Are you aligned in general before you get married? You’re basically dating before you get married and yeah, it’s so critical but what you just said that you’re building your team leads me to my next question because you’re an incredible leader. You’ve had you know you’ve had lots of people working underneath you. What do you think is a characteristic that every leader should possess? or more than one if you like

Glenn: A leader? you know other employees? You want what should a leader?

Rod: No, I want to know what a leader is because we’re all leaders okay. We all want to build teams. We want to work together. We want to motivate people. What do you think is a characteristic that every leader should possess?

Glenn: You know that’s a great question and I feel passionate about this. So, I’m gonna try and find the words that that will convey exactly what I’m trying to say but I think that if you’re gonna be a good effective leader you better be a master of your craft. If you’re gonna oversee the underwriter you should understand underwriting. You don’t have to be perfect at it, you’re not better than there, you got to understand it. If you want to oversee you know asset management you better be doing pretty good asset manager. Yes, go hire somebody better but what I get frustrated with is when these leaders’ step in and they treat people like they’re just I don’t know throw away pieces of trash right. It’s like yeah just do what I tell you to do you know that’s not leadership you know hiring somebody and saying go you know go do this and don’t do that. That’s not leadership. Leadership, everybody wants to do a great job but they’re gonna look to you to lead and guide them right. I mean and the other thing is don’t be afraid to be a leader you can’t always be their friend in everything right. I think people will respect you more as a leader if you lead them to success. I mean if you and your team are having success, everybody around you is gonna put more value on that whether or not they were able to cry on your shoulder and all that. But you can still be friends but that shouldn’t be your first priority. You should be able to, your priority is gonna lead you and the team to success. So, one of the traits I guess I’m trying to get out is be really good at what you do and lead the people around you by example lead by example. Maybe that’s the you know the term. You can’t really tell someone to be here forty hours a week if you’re only working 20 hours a week it doesn’t work that way it’s not a good leader you know if you want somebody work 40 hours a week you better be there for 41 or 45 or 50 or 60 or whatever it takes because people will watch you. They watch you more than they listen to you. So anyway, I get our

Rod: Oh, that’s great advice man, great advice. So, tell me you know people think that this road to success is just a straight line and there’s no bumps and there’s no hurdles and there’s no sacrifices. What did you have to sacrifice to get your success if anything?

Glenn: you know I have a whole section of my book about overcoming challenges. I like you Rod. I’ve filed you know I don’t know if you have or haven’t but I had success, I lost it. I had to file bankruptcy. I had properties get foreclosed on I had stuff get short-sale. I went through a tremendous downturn. I think my success came at having to give up on pride and give up on materialism and give up on the difference between or knowing the difference I had to sacrifice whether it was a want or a need and when I arrived at that place, and I had values placed on correct principles instead of you know incorrect principles, I was able to have a little more success. I don’t think I sacrificed my marriage. I don’t think I sacrificed my kids. I think I’ve always tried to maintain that balance and relationship. I think that’s the one thing I had going for me is I do things for them not for myself.

Rod: Nice you know all right well let me ask you this then let me ask you this if you had another thought please add I’m sorry

Glenn: No go ahead

Rod: I have a question I’m dying to ask you. What’s the most courageous thing you think you’ve ever done?

Glenn: Courageous

Rod: or biggest risk you’ve ever taken you know I want you to inspire people that maybe haven’t taken action yet that know they deserve this, they want this,

Glenn: Well you know you have a lot of listeners that are getting into the business and you remember that first deal, that 44 a unit deal where the guy said I’ll carry you got to come up with 150 thousand dollars you know that obstacle was right there. I did not have 150 thousand dollars at all and I went to my boss and a vendor and asked them each to put up 75 thousand you know I was gonna put up zero. That sounds ludicrous right, crazy but the numbers didn’t lie and they did it. Well that was I was pretty bold fast forward a few years I came across a deal, there was 200 units in San Antonio and my old business partner didn’t want to buy it because it was too complicated or hairy. The bank asked me to do analysis on it and they you know my analysis on the management side was they need to put a million dollars into that deal and the bank said, well we’re gonna foreclose anyways we’re not investors we’re not gonna dump any more money in this we’re gonna cut our losses. I said to them, hey if you carry a note back. I’ll put up a million dollars and I’ll fix the asset. You know what they said to me? Do you have a million dollars? It was no different than it was little time before you know

Rod: Right right

Glenn: Dollars? So it took almost a leap of faith to say I can go get a million dollars but Rod here’s what happened when I went and started raising a million dollars, people asked me, have you ever done this before? Have you ever syndicated a 200-unit deal before? I’m like no, this is my first. And right after that they’re like I’m out. So, 9 out of 10 people said I’m out and I thought I’m never gonna raise a million bucks but here’s the courageous part. The person that says no I’m out, you ask him, do you know somebody else that might and they’re like yeah you might call so and so or so and so and they’d give me two numbers. I call both of them and you just work the phones you know what Rod when we close that deal. We raised a million bucks. We managed it. We fixed it up. We brought back online. Armed Esther’s got a 48 IRR on that deal. Now all those nine that passed out of 10 and it was a lot more than nine I mean a lot of them passed I called every one of them back and actually showed them the results. Guess who I had on my second deal? Right. It’s no bother. And I think being courageous there you just have to keep going I have a whole section of my book about overcoming obstacles as you know Rod there was a time when I was building the business and my wife was dying you know her lungs were failing and she was in a wheelchair and she was on an oxygen and she had this little tank that she had you know towed around just to live and she got on a transplant list. There was a moment in time where I decided you know is this all worth it? is trying to build a company all worth it? And you know and I honestly, I thought about maybe I should just take time to spend with my wife instead of building a company and again took her to the Lord and it’s like he helped me get through both of those right. So, when my wife was struggling, I was holding her hand and I was by her bed and when she went through surgery, I was there when she went under. I was there when she woke up. But you know what I was doing the rest of the time? I had my laptop open. I was putting deals together just as best as I possibly could and when she woke up from you know recovery, I closed the laptop and I was all in there. I was all in it both at the same time and a lot of people might find obstacles in their way to stop them from moving forward. And if you don’t mind, I’m gonna use one analogy that’s also in the book but we were on a fishing trip with all my employees, my team, and we were up in I think we’re in Oregon and we came across this railroad crossing that was down and it’s just ding-ding-ding-ding and there were two cars in front of us and a whole bunch of cars behind us and I look around and that still think ding-ding-ding. There’s no trains I mean right ding dinging nail it’s like what are we doing here this we could be here half of the day. So I told Mark, hey Mark jump out see if there’s a place that we can go over the curb and jump the railroad tracks to see if it’s safe and so he did he got out of the car and everybody’s watching us and he looked both ways and no train coming and he found an area that we could drive over the railroad tracks you know so we did we jumped the curb and went over the sidewalk and into the dirt over the railroad tracks got back on the road and on our merry way. And I look at my rearview mirror and there’s all these cars still stopped at the ding ding ding ding and I think a lot of people get in that mode right when the railroad when the obstacles are in front of us, they’re just gonna sit there and stop moving forward and I guess the analogy is this is you can find a way around the obstacles safely because we did you know you could still move forward. And there will always be obstacles in everybody’s life, in every chapter of your life there’s gonna be obstacles. So unless you can find the courage to move forward go over them go around them. A lot of times at con you can’t eliminate the obstacles. They’re always gonna be there in some way or another right. So anyway, there you have it.

Rod: That’s a beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful example my friend. Well listen brother it’s so great to see you. Give your bride a hug for me and thank you so much for being on the show. Guys, get his book and maybe

Glenn: on Amazon

Rod: I’ll see you soon my friend. Great to see you brother!

Glenn: Thanks for having me Rod. It’s always a pleasure.

Rod: Of course, always take care man see you