As the Managing Member of Bronson Equity, Bronson is a general partner in 2000 multifamily units worth over $200M. Bronson co-leads a large in person multifamily meetup in Pasadena, CA called FIBI Pasadena Multifamily. Bronson is the host of The Mailbox Money Show and he understands the investor mindset, having spoken individually over the phone with over 1300 investors and having raised over $30M for real estate and his ATM Machine Fund deals.
Here’s some of the topics we covered:
- The Value of Asking Great Questions
- Breaking Down The Different Roles of Multifamily
- How To Ask Quality Questions
- How To Handle The Follow Up Process
- Not Chasing Investors To Get The Deal Done
To find out more about partnering or investing in a multifamily deal: Text Partner to 72345 or email Partner@RodKhleif.com
Full Transcript Below
Intro
Hi. My name is Rod Khleif, and I’m the host of “The Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing” podcast. And every week, I interview Multifamily Rock Stars and we talk about how they built incredible wealth for themselves and their families through multifamily properties. So hit the “Like” and “Subscribe” buttons to get notified every Monday when a new episode comes out. Let’s get to it.
Rod
Welcome to another edition of Lifetime Cashflow Through Real Estate Investing. I’m Rod Khleif, and I am thrilled you’re here. And I know you’re going to get tremendous value from the gentleman I’m interviewing today. His name is Bronson Hill, and Bronson is in over 2,000 doors as a General Partner, he’s an expert at raising money, which we’re going to talk about today. But he also hosts a podcast, which I was just on. An awesome podcast called Mailbox Money, “The Mailbox Money Show”. He also actually hosts the largest multifamily meet-up in Pasadena, California. And we joked before we started recording that maybe I’ll come bore the group here next time I’m in California, but we’re going to have a lot of fun today. Welcome to the show, brother.
Bronson
Hey, Rod. Really excited to be here, man. I love all the value you’re adding to the multifamily space, and you’ve inspired me to go after my goals. I know you’re a big Tony Robbins guy like me, so love, love, love what you’re doing, man.
Rod
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. No, it’s kind of funny. I’m actually doing a Tony Robbins event here next week. I haven’t done one in quite a long time. I had a car accident and kind of screwed me up. But, you know, I followed him around the planet for 20 years, and, you know, I need a shot in the arm sometimes too. So I’m going to get a shot in the arm and very excited because it’s been a long time since I’ve been around his energy. So very much looking forward to it. Well, listen, let’s have some fun today, brother. Why don’t you give us a little background, you know give us a– do a much better job on your bio than I did. So why don’t you– yeah, tell us who you are.
Bronson
Sure. Awesome. So, yeah. I was a highly-paid medical sales professional, making over 200,000 a year. And I’ve been doing single-family because I thought that was the road to financial freedom. And then I just realized how much work it was. And there’s a saying, “when the student is ready, the teacher appears”. And so I have a cousin who’s– I just haven’t seen in years, and he’s in multifamily investing. And he said you know why don’t you do multifamily? This single-family stuff sounds like a ton of work. And I said, well, I’d love to, but I don’t have the money. And he said, well, you can raise the money. So it took me on a path of, you know, reading this book, going to this event, listen to this podcast. And, you know, within a couple of years, I had started raising some big money, found some good partners, and ended up raising a bunch of money for real estate deals. So I found just, you know, becoming a passive investor is a value to a lot of people. And a lot of people have a money problem, meaning they have money and they don’t know what to do with it, and they don’t know what to do. You know, it’s in the stock market. They’re losing money and getting it into real assets is really powerful. So I’ve been involved in that journey for the last four years now.
Rod
Wow, fantastic. Well, you know, that’s the thing about multifamily, it takes money, but it doesn’t have to be your own money. And that’s the beautiful thing. And so, you know, there’s a lot of money looking for a home. And I’m going to tell you like I told you before we started recording, and I’m writing a book on raising capital right now, actually, literally halfway through, but I really believe raising capital is going to be harder than finding deals over these next couple of years, it’s been finding deals that’s been the issue. But I really believe it’s going to be raising the money. And there are a lot of investors that are, you know, shaky right now, and I think they’re going to get shakier with what’s coming. And so, you know, I think raising capital is a topic that I’d love to go through with you today and just talk about some of the strategies you’ve used, which, you know, you’re really killing it with, you know, creating reach. And I don’t even know where to start with questions on this, but did you start with the meet-up? Was that the first thing you did or did you start with the podcast?
Bronson
Yeah, so I started with the meet-up first. So I kept reading books and everything, said, well, if you’re in, you know, whatever area you’re in, if you can start a meet-up, that can be really valuable for you. And so, about the same time I had started trying to raise money or have conversations with friends and family. And I remember, Rod, I actually had 62 conversations with friends and family and thinking it was going to be great and all these people are going to invest. And zero of them actually invested when it came time for the deal. And I know a lot of people when they get started they have a similar experience. But when I started this meet-up, I basically went to a person who ran a real estate meet-up in Los Angeles and I said, hey, what about we do another meet-up and we just do it on multifamily and I’ll do all the work and you just show up. And she said that sounds like a great idea. So I found a partner even in that. And at the first meeting, we had 60 people there. And at that meeting, I met a guy I’d never seen before and he said, hey, I’d invest in one of your deals. And so here’s– you know, again, I’m not an expert in the space at that point, but I’m a leader, I’m a person in front of the room. And he said, hey, I’d love to invest in one of your deals. So we got coffee, showed him a sample deal and then I basically introduced him to somebody else that I met at that same meeting who had a deal. And that was my 1st 100K raised. And that’s the hardest part of raising money, is going from zero to one. It’s kind of that power of the first deal. Until you’ve actually done it, no one really wants to trust you to do it. But once you do it, then deals start coming to you, partners start finding you out and then also investors come to you. So that’s, I think the hardest part is just getting into your first deal as a General Partner.
Rod
I couldn’t agree more. And, you know, it’s really the law of the first deal. It’s the scariest, it’s the most stressful, it takes the longest. I see it with my students all the time. You know it’s been six months, they haven’t got a deal. It’s been eight months. Now, we’re talking about raising money, but I’m talking about deals in general, you know. And then they get one and the next thing you hear they have four. I’m like, what just happened? You know you got four now. But, you know, I want to talk about the meet-up for a minute because I’ve got a lot of students, I’ve got, I don’t know, 1200, 1300 students now, coaching students, and lots of them set up meet-ups. Very successful. In fact, two of them have set up the largest group of meet-ups in the country. I think they’ve got like 30 or 40 chapters. They’re just killing it. But, you know, here’s the thing with a meet-up, and the same with the podcast, frankly. You know, you can almost fake it till you make it, in a way. Because even if you’re not an expert yet, because you’re the one hosting the event, whether it be the meet-up or the podcast, and you bring in experts and you just know to ask the right questions, you’re perceived as an expert, which is probably what worked with that guy at your first event. Because, you know, again, its perception is reality. And the beautiful thing about this business is your ability to create reach in this day and age, really. I should have worded that differently. The beautiful thing about this day and age is your ability to create reach. And so you did this meet-up and it turned into the biggest one there in Pasadena, huh?
Bronson
Yeah, basically, you know, it started, we had some good momentum and before Covid, we were having as many as 85 people show up, which is awesome, but it really is. And your approach, I think, is totally correct. Somebody’s looking to raise money. If you can be in a place where you are leading in some aspect, you’re at the front of the room, you’re on a podcast and you don’t have to position yourself as the expert. I think that’s a misnomer a lot of people think, I’ve got to be the expert before I can talk about this. No, you just basically can be like the lead person who’s asking the really good questions. So if you’re curious and you ask good questions and you just kind of open things up, it gives a lot of value to people in the back of the room that are just getting started. I don’t know anything about this. And you’re just asking all these questions, you’re breaking things down, and it really provides a lot of value to people. And then they look at you as being someone who’s a person of value in the space.
Rod
No question. You know, at my boot camps, I spend quite a bit of time on this because, you know, again, back when– if you listen to some of my podcast episodes, I mean, I’ve been doing it now, I don’t know, six and a half years, seven years on the podcast. But, you know, some of the early people I interviewed, they didn’t have much social media. All they did was meet-ups. Okay? And so they would host their own meet-up, and they raised, you know, tens, hundreds of millions of dollars by just having these meet-up groups. And so, you know, now with social media and podcasting, my God, you know, I started my podcast and I used to say, I’ll never sell you anything, I just want to add value. And it was the truth. And now I’m a freaking liar because I sell courses and boot camps and everything else, but I never had planned to, you know. When I hit a million downloads, I’m like, yeah, knucklehead, you probably ought to do something with this. But, you know, just to have that kind of reach is extraordinary. And the same with, you know, social media. I mean, there are so many ways that you can create reach now to build an audience. And you don’t need the tens of thousands of people like I have. You know, even if you’ve just got a few hundred. But you’re adding value and you’re consistent. That’s when you start– correct me if I’m wrong here, that’s when you start creating that goodwill, right?
Bronson
Yeah, absolutely. We talked about this a little before the show started. Just the value of education. Right? When you can educate people just because you love doing it and people need it, right? You make yourself valuable to people. One of my best partnerships– but after the 100K, for the next six months, I was kind of grinding and I was trying to figure out, how do I scale this up? How do I grow?
Rod
Right.
Bronson
And what I did is I went to somebody who was really successful and I developed a relationship with them and I said, you know, how can I serve in this specific way? And that came from I was at this event, it was an investor summit on a cruise. It was an expensive event. So to be in the room is very expensive. But somebody at a table said this line, they said, make yourself valuable to valuable people. And so it’s a Jim Rohn paraphrased quote.
Rod
Love it.
Bronson
If I can just simply make myself of value to other people, then, you know, people get paid very well to add value. You’re adding so much value to the world, Rod, that you are making yourself incredibly valuable.
Rod
That’s kind of you. But, you know, the most successful people on the planet add the most value. Right?
Bronson
Right, exactly. And that’s why people like Elon Musk or Bezos, some people say, oh, it’s not fair, they have all this money. No, they’ve made our lives better. You know, I mean, my life is better because of Amazon. I can just point, click, and, I mean, I don’t have to go to the store. It just all comes to me [inaudible]
Rod
Yeah. Apple, Steve Jobs.
Bronson
Yeah.
Rod
Yeah, same thing. I mean, you know, you add the most value and that’s, you know, and I’ll have to say that, I got that from Tony Robbins, actually. You know, back to Tony. It’s all about adding as much value as you can. I mean, like I’ve written– I’ve got a stack of books that’s almost 14 inches high behind my monitor here that I give away. I’m just adding value, and it comes back. But, you know, back to social media for just a minute. You know, I did a course on this called Creating Reach– no, Crushing It In Social Media. It’s on my website if you’re interested in it because we’ve built, you know, the largest commercial real estate podcast on the planet. I’ve got the largest multifamily Facebook groups, almost 50,000 people in there, and so on and so forth. And so I did that course. But forgetting that, here’s the– you know, you don’t even need that. If you just pick up vehicle, pick whatever social media channel you’re going to use. And there are just two things you got to remember. One, you have to be consistent, okay? If you’re going to do it, just realize you’re going to do it every week, every month, every day, whatever it is, and be consistent. Then the second thing is you just have to add value. You know you put valuable content out there. You help people. You do it from your heart in the right place. Success is inevitable. And again, you don’t need tens of thousands of people. You get a few hundred. Like I said, people that started did it with meet-ups. And, I mean, how many people can you really get in a room? Maybe 100 at a time? So, you know, lots of ways. And so you did the meet-up– please, I’m sorry, I’ve been interrupting your bio here. Please continue with your bio, please. Yeah.
Bronson
Yeah. No worries. Basically, as I was sharing, I made a connection with somebody who was very successful. And again, they were really good at teaching people to raise money, but they had all these people that were listening, that were passive investors. And it was an area, I think because I get approached a lot. I’m sure you do, too, as well as people show up, hey, how can I help you, Rod, or how can I help you, Bronson? I mean, I love the heart, but I can’t really do anything with that.
Rod
Literally, just got a message right before we started, hey, do you have an internship program? Can you tell me about it? I’m like, no. But– right?
Bronson
Exactly. But when you can look at somebody who’s very successful or very valuable, making yourself valuable to valuable people, you know, you can basically come in and say, how is this specific area going here? Can I add value in this specific way, in this time? Or would this be of value just even this concept? Because people that are successful, you’re always asking questions in your business, Rod, of how can I solve this? What can I do here? How can we expand our reach? How can we– you know, it’s all about the mission, right? And so I think when people are getting started, you know a lot of times we think we have to do it ourselves. Multifamily is very much a team sport. And so to me, I was– you know, I did my own deal. I was kind of building my own brand, and then I found someone to be able to partner with who had a huge brand. And it really got me from– you know, I go from having calls here and there with investors. I’m having 25 calls a week while working my full-time job. And that’s what allowed me to have 1,000 one-on-one phone calls over 18 months and raise $15 million. That was the rocket fuel, right, to get me to the next level. Then I’ve got all this experience that I can kind of go from there. So I think I guess the takeaway really is, you know, as we look in multifamily, it’s very different than single-family. If you do single-family, a lot of times it has to do with it’s you and your agent, helping you find deals. It could be you and maybe your property manager. But when it comes to multifamily, people don’t do deals by themselves. You don’t do 100 units by yourself. You’ll have typically a team of at least two, three, or four people or more. And so if you can just find out what you’re good at, whether it’s raising money, whether it’s finding deals, whether it’s operating stuff, whatever it is, and then just find the complimentary stuff that goes with it, the sky is the limit, right?
Rod
Yeah, let’s talk about that a little– just to hear more because you mentioned a few of the things you can do. So guys, like he said, it’s a team sport. And so you could be the one to raise the money. You could be the one that’s that finds the deals, broker relationships. Maybe you do both. You could be the person that does the analysis. Maybe you’re great with a spreadsheet and you’re great at underwriting. You could be the person that has management or construction or, you know, even asset management experience and do the asset management piece. I’m sorry, I was going to say property management experience and do the asset management piece. You know, even if you’ve just got manager experience or project management experience, again, that’s what’s needed for asset management. So there are just a lot of different hats that you can wear in this business. And when I have my live events, I make everybody stand up and go meet five people and they get in a group. And one of the things I tell them is tell them what your superpower is. What are you great at? Because you’re great at something, you know. And chances are that something can add value in the multifamily space, even if it’s just your ability to communicate and make connections, so there are lots of places you can add value. And the other thing you mentioned was questions. And it’s so funny because I just had a meeting with my team this morning because– to get better answers, you have to ask quality questions– you know, how do you get the results you want by asking quality questions. And like my team, you know, the question that I’m using right now, which I stole from Grant Cardone, which is don’t compete, dominate. And I love that. That’s my mantra for 2023. So I’m asking them, what do we do to dominate this industry? What do we do to dominate these things that we want to do? And I just love that. And so, you know, find quality questions to ask yourself. In fact, you know what? I’ve got a resource I’ll give you if you want it. And I’m stealing all of my guests’ time here. But real quick. Yeah, I’ve got a list of questions that I give away. It’s quality questions to ask yourself daily. If you text the word “questions” to “72345”, it’s got personal questions, questions you should ask, you know, who do I love? Who loves me? But then a whole bunch of business questions as well because that’s what drives your life. So text “questions” to “72345” and you can get that. Anyway, sorry. Stealing all your thunder, but, you know, you’re giving me great little ways for me to dig deeper on some of this stuff. So you’ve done 2,000 units, you’ve got these incredible– when did you decide to start the podcast and why.
Bronson
Yeah, so when I first started– you know, again, another Tony Robbins principle is you start out, you take action, and then you continually change your approach, right? So if something doesn’t work, you change it. And I remember I did– I initially started doing a webinar. I think one of my first events was a webinar a couple of years ago and it was the 2021 Multifamily Outlook. And it was me doing a presentation with 40 slides. I think 14 people showed up, including my mom and some of her friends. It’s like nobody showed up. And then the next year– but I kept doing it. And then I decided to do a panel-style event. So I invited people in and then I started getting a lot of traction because panels were really interesting to people. People loved having getting different people in the room. So actually, in 2022, we were able to have you. We had Ken McElroy and we had Michael Blank. And that was in 2022. So again, there’s a saying that anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. Right? Because you learn. You just take– you know, life has an action bias. If I just take the actions and I try, I’m going to learn either this works or this doesn’t work. And if it doesn’t work, you just change your approach. So to me, I didn’t start the podcast. It was almost about nine or ten months, you know, after doing these webinars, and the webinars started to get some traction. Then I realized, okay, I’ve kind of got this webinar thing down. Once a month, we do an expert panel. Let’s start the podcast. And I kind of created a segment audience for passive investors, and this is what I’m trying to do. And we talk about different asset classes beyond real estate and different things. But it’s just really trying to find that okay, of these people, people that I’ve spoken with, there’s a need here for conversations around reducing taxes or around, you know, passive investing. Not just real estate, but other forms of passive investing and just, you know, general understanding of how this actually works. Because 98% of people that should be investing in your deals or my deals or people listening to their deals, they’ve never heard of syndication. I don’t know what this is. Right? So it’s our job to educate and get the word. I get the message out there.
Rod
Yeah, no, I couldn’t agree more. You know, you talked about just getting started. I look at some of my early videos and the blood drains from my face when I see how I was. And nervous and self-conscious and imposter syndrome feeling and all that stuff, you know. But you mentioned Tony’s thing, and he calls it the ultimate success formula. And I just want to share that give us a little– where you have an outcome and you hit a wall on your path to that outcome, and you just change your approach and drive a different approach with your mindset on that outcome. And when that doesn’t work, you change your approach with your mindset on the outcome, and ultimately you’ll be successful. That’s the ultimate success formula. That’s, Tony’s. But no, I love it. So let’s talk about the conversation you have with an investor. When you’ve gotten them to– you know, you’ve got a website and you woo them in with some free resources or whatever like everybody does. A free book or something, and you get them on a phone call. Talk about the conversation that you have once you have them on the call, just to let people know what you do there.
Bronson
Yeah, this has been refined a lot. Obviously, the first call, you’re stumbling through stuff, you know, everybody kind of feels like, I don’t know, you feel like you’re a faker or a [inaudible]. You don’t know what to say. By the 50th conversation, you’ve gotten a little better, and then by 1000 you’re like, dude, I could do this on my sleep, right?
Rod
Right.
Bronson
So I think the biggest thing when you get someone on the phone is you say– you small talk. Hey, welcome to the– you know, I’m excited to do this. The purpose of this call is to talk with you about you know our passive investments. Does that sound okay to you? And get them to buy into the fact that they’re there for that reason. Sometimes people get on the phone with me and they’re just they’re active investors and they want to learn about raising money. That’s fine. I’ll add value and, you know, I’ll do a call, and that’s great. But in general, I’ll try to say, oh, this is where you know, generally these calls go. Is that good with you? And then I’ll ask them, I’ll say, well, how did you hear about us? How did you get connected? That’s really helpful to know you know what’s working, and what’s not working.
Rod
Of course.
Bronson
If something’s working, I need to do more of that.
Rod
Right.
Bronson
So that’s valuable information. Then I say, well, tell me a little bit about your work background and your investing experience. So that gives a lot of information. So I’m trying to figure out who is this person on the phone. Are they somebody who’s brand new to real estate? They’re low net worth or high net worth, but they’ve only done stocks and bonds? Or is this somebody– this is their 20th syndicated deal. It’s going to be a very different conversation. We’re going to go talk about cap rate inversions and, you know, all these different technical things. Then it’s interesting to know, right, or whatever, if they’re an engineer, they’re going to ask typically more technical stuff. Then I get into, you know, are you accredited? If so, what’s your net worth? I asked the net worth question because if they’re not accredited, there are certain, you know, qualifications just to make sure somebody actually fits for that deal. You don’t want to take, you know, 50,000 if somebody’s net worth is 100,000 or you got to make sure it makes sense for them, then I say, you know, are your goals more cash flow or appreciation? And for most people, it’s cash flow, but for some it’s appreciation is learning kind of what their goals are. And then I say, okay, well, thanks for sharing. Here’s what we do. And I say, you know, these are, you know, we buy large multifamily. This is where we buy. This is how we do it. These are general returns. This is our hold period. Does this meet your investment criteria? After I share that, then I say, okay, well, can I share a little bit about what we do? And I say, these are our core values. You know, we like conservative underwriting. And I give an example. We like being very transparent in our communication. I give an example. And then I say, we really look for a long-term partnership with our investors. We’re not trying to just be a one and done do a deal. We want our goals in five years, you will have had this experience. So what I’m doing is I’m trying to create the experience. You know, when you go to your favorite restaurant or you go to Starbucks and you get your drink, you know exactly how they’re going to prepare it, you know that you’re going to be treated a certain way. You’re going to have a certain type of attitude and greeting when you get there. And so nobody’s invested in your deal before, at least this person hasn’t. So you have to walk them through that process of how a deal works when it goes live. So you’re basically setting the table so that when you have a deal, they’re teed up and they’re ready to go.
Rod
Have you ever done a fund?
Bronson
A fund of funds?
Rod
Yeah, just a fund in general. Yeah, a fund of funds or a fund specifically to buy assets? Because we’re thinking about doing one now.
Bronson
Yeah, we’ve done it. We have an ATM fund, we have a car, and we have other funds that we do. We haven’t done a multifamily fund.
Rod
Not multifamily. Okay. Yeah, okay, fair enough. So once you’ve had that conversation and they maybe have put their information in your portal, is that you direct them to get in the portal so that you know when a deal comes along, you can get right on it. Yes?
Bronson
I typically don’t.
Rod
Oh, interesting.
Bronson
Sometimes they’ll ask and I’ll put them on the portal.
Rod
Okay.
Bronson
Typically after the call, you know if they had any follow-up, anything they wanted, I’ll send it to them. I’ll typically send that, here’s a sample deal. There’s a current deal, I’ll send it to them. If there’s a prior deal, say, well, here’s a prior deal. Here’s generally what we do. You know, I encourage you to go take a look at it, look at the executive summary, watch the webinar, it’ll answer a lot of questions for you, and then if you have any questions, we can get on the phone again or we can kind of dialogue via email. But it’s a great way to get to know. I’m of the thought, too. And there are different thoughts on this. Some people are really good at follow-up and calls and texts and all this and that. I don’t like to be in the position where I feel like I’m chasing somebody to raise money, right? I like to feel like I’m the prize.
Rod
Right.
Bronson
Like if people invest with me, they’re lucky to invest with me. Right? And that’s not like an ego thing. That’s just like if there’s a limited amount of space– so even what I do in the conversation, I’ll say, hey, you know, some of these deals we fill up sometimes, and, you know, we fill up a deal in 24 hours. We fill it up in a very short period of time, and, you know, if it fills up, we’ll have the next one available. What I’m doing is I’m setting up for them is, hey, this deal is available for a limited amount of time, and if you want to get in, you know, that’s great. If not, that’s fine too. But it basically says, hey, you can’t just sit on this for a long time.
Rod
And you’re pre-framing scarcity. I mean, that’s really smart. You guys are getting some great information here, guys. So take note here. By the way, one other thing on the sample deal. Guys, if you come to my boot camp, that’s one of the things you get, okay? I give you an example of a sample deal because a lot of people are afraid, they’re talking to investors. People that are more introverted, don’t love the communication as much, can use this and just say, hey, this is an example of the kind of stuff we do. If we find something like this, are you interested? You can modify it for your own purposes as well, but that’s one of the things you get at my boot camp. But once you’ve got them, Bronson, I know you don’t want to chase them. Absolutely not. You want to have the velvet rope up, you know, and have people in line because people want what they can’t have. But you’ve got to have some sort of a communication mechanism. Is there something you do?
Bronson
Yeah. So we basically– we don’t necessarily put them on our portal right away, but we tag them on our CRM or, you know, the way that we [inaudible]
Rod
CRM, and they get an email sequence of some sort?
Bronson
Yeah, they get a welcome sequence. Typically, after they schedule the call, and then after a while, you know, they’re on my weekly drip. And then I’ll say, hey, we’re looking for our next deal. So it’s tagged based on, you know, who the person is. And then when we have a deal, we blast it out to those people and then we say, here’s the webinar, here’s the time, and then we just move on to the next one. So it’s been challenging because I had some partners like, hey– you know, especially the last six months when it’s been a little more challenging to raise money, hey, what’s doing their webinar or do anything I’m like, I don’t do a second webinar. I don’t go back and chase people. I basically sent out an email. Here’s the deal. You know, I give people an [inaudible], I usually send maybe two or three emails, and then I sent out the replay to those that want it. And then I don’t really send anything else out. Once in a while will do a text message right before the webinar. But I don’t– I would rather be somebody who’s like you adding value in the educational space so that people are drawn to the education and, oh, by the way, we do these deals. So they’re constantly getting all of that and it’s, oh, by the way, yeah, if you want to get in one of these deals. But I’m not– you know, I’d rather be an educator that does deals than to be just a deal guy, right? Because I have a way to add value to everybody. Right?
Rod
And so you get them in a drip, a weekly drip with some value you’re adding of some sort, though. You’re giving them– you do a newsletter?
Bronson
Yeah. On YouTube, I have a weekly video that we put up.
Rod
Okay, that’s what it is.
Bronson
And then it basically goes as a blog each week. And then we have other you know, a few other interviews will come out on there and all that [inaudible].
Rod
Got it. Got it. Okay. You said you tagged people. I want to circle back to that for a second. What parameters do you use in your conversation to have a tag on somebody?
Bronson
Yeah, so we have– and I’ve learned this over the years is that when you have 100 people, it’s easier to know who’s in your network. When you’ve got 5,000 or 10,000, it gets to be hard to know how people came into your network with your leads and things. So everybody is tagged based on how they come into your contact management software.
Rod
Okay.
Bronson
Or, for example, if they schedule a call, they get tagged as investor deal ready, right? That they’re ready for a deal.
Rod
Got you.
Bronson
So I have the 5500 active you know, on my list. Maybe 1200 of those are active, saying, hey, I raised my hand, I want to hear about these deals. So that becomes more important as you get bigger.
Rod
That’s what you meant, is tagging where they are in your process.
Bronson
Right.
Rod
Okay. Same here. What CRM do you like?
Bronson
I use ActiveCampaign.
Rod
ActiveCampaign. Okay. Yeah, we use HubSpot. We’ve been really happy with HubSpot, but, you know, there are lots of them out there, guys. And guys, you know when you do this as a business, every business is nothing but people and systems. And a CRM is one of the systems you must have. And there are quite a few out there. I love HubSpot, and ActiveCampaign is fantastic. Some other ones are really simple systems. Insightly is another one, Zoho is another one. So there are different ones you can use. And if you don’t know what a CRM is, it’s Client Relationship Management software where you’re just tracking who you’re talking to. And you put reminders in there. You can email from there. You know, it’s just how you organize your life, and you must have it. So let me ask you this, Bronson. I like to ask this question, especially with successful people like you. You know, if you could go back and tell 18-year-old Bronson something, you know, is there anything you’d do differently than what you’ve done you know, in your career so far? I mean, not like you’re super old, but, you know, certainly– yeah.
Bronson
Yeah. What would I do differently? Yeah. Sometimes I meet people that are 18 or 20 in the space and I’m like, oh my gosh, I wish I had started [inaudible]
Rod
Oh, no kidding.
Bronson
Which is kind of the whole question, if I only started younger. But I think, you know, really, you talked about questions. Just being really curious and getting in rooms where there are people that are uber successful. And I think that’s a principle that really is applicable to any level of your life. Now, sometimes I probably spend $50 to $100,000 going to events and Masterminds and different things each year because I want to be in the room with people that are 10X or 100X from where I am. Right? And it’s really pulled me up. I use that to 20X my net worth over the last four years. It’s just simply being in the right rooms. You know, there’s that saying you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And it doesn’t just work in the areas of wealth. It works in the areas of fitness or health or all of the spirituality, other things like that. So getting around people that really inspire you, that is the secret. So that’s the rocket fuel, in my opinion, to life change.
Rod
Couldn’t agree more. And, you know, I’ve been remiss in the last couple of years. I’m actually doing two big events and spending, what, 30,000 over the next two months. So, you know, I’ve probably spent close to a million on my education as well. But one thing you said about curiosity. Guys, if you have a child, there is no greater trait, in my opinion, that you could teach that child than to be curious. Nothing to me is more important than that. Would you agree with me, Bronson?
Bronson
Yeah, actually, I have a daughter that’s ten, and I think that’s a great point. How would you teach a child to be curious? That’s something I think that’s, like, some kids are just very curious about certain things. But like how do you instill that?
Rod
Well, I think you play with them and say, what do you think about this? You ask questions, you expose them to as many things as you possibly can, and tell them, you know, be curious. Why do you think that’s doing that? Why do you think that works like that? And make them think like that. You know, to me that’s– and another thing, since we’re talking about children, I want to talk about failure for a second. At a Mastermind, a very expensive mastermind, I got to meet Sara Blakely, you know, the billionaire owner of Spanx, the woman’s undergarments, to hold everything together. And she was just in Forbes a few months ago. She sold a big chunk of her company, but she started with five grand, and she’s, you know, on the billionaire list now. But also, as an aside, beautiful human being, but she told me that her dad used to ask her and her brother once a week, what have you failed at this week? And I thought, what an awesome freaking question to ask your kids to not fear failure as well, you know. Anyway, I digress.
Bronson
I love that.
Rod
Yeah. So, you know, where do you get your drive from, Bronson? Where do you get the juice? Is it from these events that you go to? What do you do to self-motivate?
Bronson
Yeah, so I think that the older I get, the more the why becomes important, right? Because you become more comfortable. And once you have enough, once you become financially free, it’s like, well, why do you work? Why do you do this? I work as hard or harder than I did when I was busting it in medical sales. But the thing is, I get to do it the way I want to do it, how I want to do it. I can travel. I can do these things. But I think, really, for me, I heard a story a number of years– this is actually just a couple of years ago about a girl who was rescued from modern-day human slavery, and this was in the country of Greece. And this girl, when she was rescued, she was 15 years old, and she had been basically taken from her country and was involved in sexual slavery in Greece. And when she was rescued and she realized she was being rescued because she was so traumatized, she just, with tears in her eyes, said, to the rescuer, why didn’t you come sooner? And when I heard that story, Rod, something in my heart just broke, and it said, this is it. Like this is a cause for me worth living and dying for. So to me, all of the financial, all of the stuff I’m building, all the nest, all that is basically to go toward that cause because today there are 20 to 40 million human slaves. So to me, that’s my big why. I also want to be a great dad. I want to give back in other ways, but the central one is really that.
Rod
No, that’s awesome, brother. You know, my wife is huge in that as well. And, you know, not to get political, but I’ll get political for a second. We were down on Lincoln Road, and she’s a Trump supporter, and she’s black, which is a little unusual, but she saw some guy with a Trump hat, and when the election was happening, she’s like, yeah, Trump. We’d had a couple of drinks, and she got interviewed, and it went on TikTok. And it went viral, like two and a half million views. And one of the things she said was that she admired about Trump and again, love him or hate him, hang up if you don’t like me talking about it, whatever, but, you know, he put a lot of effort towards sexual trafficking and spent a lot of money when he was in the presidency, and she really loved that about him. But anyway, well, listen, brother, I appreciate you– well, one last question. One last question. What’s your definition of success? What does success mean to you?
Bronson
Yeah. Success to me is, you know, Warren Buffett, I follow Warren Buffett a lot. He talks about you know, you have the outer scorecard of how people look at you and how they assign success to you. And then there’s the inner scorecard that basically has to do with how did I live according to my values or what I say I believe. And I think, really, that’s what’s most important because the entire world can think that you’re crazy, think you’re ridiculous. But if you’re living according to your values and you’re actually taking those actions, I don’t think there is any other way you can really better define success.
Rod
What a great answer, brother. What a great answer. Well, it’s great to see you, my friend, and I really appreciate you coming on the show, and honestly, I’ve enjoyed it so much. We’re going to need to do it again in a year. So thanks for coming on and happy New Year, and we’ll talk soon, brother.
Bronson
Rod, thanks so much. My pleasure. Thanks for having me here. I just love what you’re doing. Love you, man. Thanks.
Rod
Thanks, man.
Outro
Rod, I know a lot of our listeners are wanting to take their multifamily investing business to the next level. Now, I know you’ve been hard at work helping our Warrior students do just that using our “ACT” methodology, which is Awareness, Close, and Transform. Can you explain to the listeners how they can get our help?
Rod
You bet. Guys, we’ve been going non-stop for three years building an amazing community of like-minded people and our coaching students which we call our Warriors have had extraordinary results. They’ve purchased thousands and thousands of units and last year we did over 1,000 units with our students. And we’re looking to grow this group and take it to the next level. We’re looking for people who want to follow a proven framework that’s really step by step and then leverage our systems and network to raise equity, to find and close deals, and to build partnerships nationwide. Now, our Warrior community is finding success in any market cycle. So if you’re interested in finding out more about how you can become more of our incredible network and take advantage of the incredible opportunities that are coming very soon, apply to work with us at “MentorWithRod.com” or text “CRUSH” to “72345” and we’ll set up a call so you can check us out and we can check you out. That’s “MentorWithRod.com” or text “CRUSH” to “72345”.
