Plant Your Flag

Episode 965: Plant Your Flag, with Chris Prefontaine

Plant your flag of authority to set yourself apart from your competition. Learn from Chris Prefontaine on how you can plant your flag.

Plant your flag of authority and become an industry leader like Chris Prefontaine. This is how he established himself in the world of real estate, and if you follow his advice, you will too! 

Chris Prefontaine is the best-selling author of Real Estate on Your Terms: Create Continuous Cash Flow Now, Without Using Your Cash or Credit. He’s also the founder of SmartRealEstateCoach.com and the Smart Real Estate Coach Podcast.

Chris has been in real estate for over 25 years. His experience includes the construction of over 100 single-family and duplex homes (mostly in the 1990’s and selectively to date), has owned a Realty Executives Franchise (Massachusetts 1994-2000) as broker/owner which maintained high per-agent standards and eventually sold to Coldwell Banker in 2000. The 2000’s included coaching ½ million and higher REALTORs® in order to scale & automate their business throughout the US and Canada. He also participated (and still does selectively) in doing condo conversions (multi-family homes to condos) and “raise the roof” projects (converting single-family ranches to colonials in growth neighborhoods).

Chris has been a big advocate of constant education and participates regularly in high-end mastermind groups, as well as consults with private mentors. He runs his own buying and selling businesses with his family team, which buys 2-5 properties monthly, so they’re in the trenches every single week. They also help clients do the same thing around the country.

Chris and his family team have done over 80 million in real estate transactions. They mentor, coach, consult, and actually partner with students around the country (by application only) to do exactly what they do.

What you will learn from this episode on plant your flag:

• How Chris’s struggles during the 2008 economic crash taught him some painful and difficult lessons about guaranteeing his deals with personal credit
• How Chris and his team stuck to their specific niche and requirements regardless of the other areas they could have moved into, and why it matters
• Why firmly planting his flag in the real estate terms niche has positioned him to teach others, especially during these uncertain times
• Why times of crisis are the ideal times to double down on your expertise and be helpful to your audience
• How Chris developed his “stacking” philosophy, and how stacking his tasks and goals helps Chris and his family team continue to move the needle
• How Chris’s theme this year is “bridging the gap”, and how helping people address the gap between themselves and their audience has been key
• Why it is important to find what you love, get passionate about it, then find someone who is experienced with it and learn from them as much as you can
• Why you need to plant your flag of authority to help differentiate yourself from your competition, establish trust, demonstrate your value, and spread your message
• How Chris teaches his real estate terms deal students to plant their flags as well, and why consistency is vital for planting your flag
• How Chris made the transition from developing his methods to teaching others, and how sharing his own story helped him connect with others
• Plant your flag and see how it changes your position in the industry

Resources:

• LIVE Event September 16-18, 2020: www.qlslive.com
• Website: http://smartrealestatecoach.com/
• Smart Real Estate Coach podcast: https://smartrealestatecoachpodcast.com/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/chrisprefontaine/
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/smart-real-estate-coach/about/
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/smartrealestatecoach/
• Twitter: @SmartRECoach
• Learn how to plant your flag of authority through digital marketing

Additional Resources:

• Sell with Authority book written by Drew McLellan and Stephen Woessner
• Predictive ROI Free Resource Library
• Connect with Stephen Woessner on LinkedIn
• Listen to the podcast with Dr. Angela Lauria on how you can plant your flag of authority using her methods

 

 

Plant Your Flag: Full Episode Transcript

 

Get ready to find your recipe for success from America’s top business owners here at Onward Nation with your host, Stephen Woessner.

 

Good morning. I’m Stephen Woessner, CEO of Predictive ROI and your host for Onward Nation. I am super, super excited about this special encore interview on our nation for a wide variety of reasons. So we’re having Chris Prefontaine, who’s the founder of Smart Real Estate Coach and the host of the Smart Real Estate Coach podcast, coming back for his third interview here.

 

And why? Because we’re going to talk about all things authority and specifically how you can plant your flag of authority in your particular niche in order to build and scale your business. So we’re going to talk about why this is the time to plant your flag. In fact, let me rewind for just a second. So we’re going to go all the way back to 2008 into Chris’s story that he now can look back on and call it the 2008 debacle and pull out all of the golden nuggets and all of the lessons that were part of that story.

 

And we’re going to talk about the bridge from 2008 into 2012. And he’s going to share how that actually built this box, this new set of new rules and how he was going to do real estate deals going forward, and then how he started to plant his flag of authority and how after building a successful real estate business, others started coming to him and saying, hey, wait a minute, could you teach me how to do that thing?

 

And so then that took him into a series of stacking. So doing this piece and then this piece and then this piece, and then the next piece, and we step through all of that from where to start and then how to stack on top of that so that you firmly plant your flag of authority and very solid ground in how it grows over time.

 

And so in full transparency, he shares all of those lessons. And now today, that flag of authority is helping him build his core business as well as the people within his wicked smart community, and how he is teaching them how to do the same thing so that they can build their businesses too as investors. There are so many golden nuggets in this conversation.

 

I am excited for you to hear it. I am thrilled to have Chris back. So without further ado, welcome back to Onward Nation, Chris. 

 

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Plant Your Flag: Chris Prefontaine’s Introduction

 

Good morning or good afternoon whenever you listen to this. Good to be back. Well, it’s good to have you back, my friend. And, so Onward. This is going to be one of those great conversations.

 

As I mentioned in the introduction, you’re gonna want to take a lot of notes. There’s going to be a lot of golden nuggets. There’s going to be a lot that you can take and apply into your business right away. As I mentioned just a few minutes ago, we’re going to talk about why now is the time to plant your flag of authority in all the different ways that you can do that.

 

And we’re going to mix that into, you know, Chris’s story so that you can see in a very transparent way about how Chris has done that with. Excellent. So let’s actually start there. Chris, take us behind the curtain and tell us more about you, your background, your path and journey, and specifically the 2008 debacle, because that’s going to be great foundational context.

 

You don’t mind me saying great around that story for Onward Nation to really get a good view as to where you started and where we’re at today. Yeah, no, it’s great now in hindsight, but the journey before that, it’s been for me, real estate since 1991, in some form or fashion. But to fast forward to the 2008 debacle, so many people experience that.

 

But I’m sure that really delve deep into what the heck happened. I mean, for us it was or for me it was being personally tied to a whole bunch of properties when the market decided to take a dip of a third to two thirds. And so, there were some crazy craziness and crazy lessons in that. But that was a painful time to go through, as you know all too well because we’ve chatted about it.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Coping with the Dip in Real Estate Market

 

Yeah. And so let’s dive into that just a little bit more. Why was it so painful? What was it around that circumstance that made it so painful? Well, I mean I can layer this up. So it went from okay, the market dives overnight. Like a light switch was flicked and no more new money is coming to the table to finance deals.

 

All properties were underwater. All properties were signed on personally by me. That means whereas the bank I’m looking, they don’t care why they come look into the precedent sign personally. So all that stacking, all that together and laying all that together, it was probably a three-and-a-half to four-year journey for a family of 12. Like almost exactly to work out of those properties i.e. short sale, foreclosure selloff, liquidation, working with creditors, working with personal creditors, all of that was almost a full-time job.

 

Okay, so there’s this four-year period of time where you’re working through restructuring, repairing and just getting you and your family on the other side. So that’s a four year period of time. And there’s a lot of thought, you know, a lot of strategy and a lot of work to be done during that four-year period.

 

So you come out in 2012 and then you have this idea for still in real estate, but to build the business back in a different way. And so what was the decision to build or why did you make the decision to build the business back differently, if that makes sense? Yeah. No, it does. So during that four years, during those four years, I was speaking for the direct sales industry, thinking, If I’m going to go back in real estate, like, I don’t know if I was gonna go back because spent, but if I’m going to go back, what are sort of the rules?

 

What would it look like? And it would look like all of the things I can’t do anymore. It would look like because my credit was trash and my cash was gone. It would be okay. We’re not taking our bank loans, no real loans. We’re not signing personally on anything. Even if we could get a bank loan because that’s what causes the banks to come knocking on your door if there’s a problem.

 

So, and we’d buy everything on terms. That means we would never go out to solicit investors, etc., and we would be looking for things like lease purchase and owner financing. So that was like the ideal box. If it fits in that box, maybe we’ll enter the market again type thing. 

 

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Plant Your Flag: Restructuring Your Business with a New Set of Rules

 

Got it. Okay. So you restructured the business from a why would it be fair to say that you restructured the business from. You mentioned new rules like this is the parameter like we’re going to get back in the space again.

 

But this is the box. Anything that is outside of that box or dare I say that the niche we’re not going to even look at, would that be fair? Yeah. Totally fair because a couple things that you said that triggered one is in real estate. Shiny objects are real prevalent. Like, wow, that’s a cool thing. I could do that.

 

Wow. That I could go over here and wholesale, I could do a flip. Like, it’s all part of the real estate world. Number one. Number two, by staying inside that box, then it would. The intent was that it would weather storms, whether changes in market, whether hiccups and market like it didn’t matter because you weren’t on it personally.

 

We had time on the deals. That’s why I said terms like if all that was to be, then that would be the perfect setup was to think. Okay, so let’s make sure that I’m tracking with you here. So, I think what I’m hearing you say is so in the center, we’ve got the new rules that you define for yourself which actually turn into a really strong niche. Very solid.

 

But then you also exerted the discipline that there’s all these external forces, or you want to call those shiny objects. If you want to call those temptations, if you want to call those new and interesting deal structures, maybe potential partnerships or whatever, and it sounded like you and your family, you put the blinders on and said, if it doesn’t fit within that box, we’re not doing it.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Making People Become a Part of Your Community

 

Yeah, 100% correct. And that got real difficult. Now we’ll talk later about it, but it got real difficult when I started literally talking with networking, with rubbing elbows, with interviewing with my podcast people that had all these cool niches. Right? So it’s like it could be a big distraction if you let it. Okay. So you and I are big proponents of of planting the flag of authority.

 

And you’ve done very well in planting your flag of authority in this niche. And so you’ve got a great reputation, you’ve built a great audience, you’re excellent and helping that audience with amazing content that moves them from here all the way through. To potentially become part of the wicked smart community. It doesn’t happen overnight.

 

There’s a process to it. You like to refer to it as stacking, which is cool. We’ll get to that in just a second. But just let’s talk about why now is a great time to do it. You’ve obviously done it in progression. And again we’ll get to the stacking in just a minute. But why do you feel so strongly that now is a great time to plant the flag of authority?

 

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Plant Your Flag: Becoming The Expert That People Rely On

 

Well, and if I could just comment on what you just said earlier too. Before it flies out of my brain. You said reputation. You have a good reputation. Please understand to the listeners, like if anyone’s gone through anything, forget it. Like anything personally, no, I didn’t. I course it didn’t have a good reputation coming into that.

 

How could I just get beat up? And I had every credit in the IRS. Everyone I was looking at what was going on. So I don’t want anyone to hear this go well. That’s easy because he had a reputation, right? I did not come into it. I was able to build it. And so to your why now question.

 

Sorry for the the why now is in my opinion, you’ve got total uncertainty. Still, you’ve got people that literally in my world, in the real estate world, don’t even know if they should buy or sell now. Like they literally don’t know. Okay, interest rates are great, but I don’t know how that affects me. Can I even do it now?

 

Can I show my house now? Can I even get in the market now? They don’t know. So there’s screaming for a guide, the screaming for someone to take them by the hand and they literally. Yeah, whether they know it or not. And so now would be the timing to kind of up the game on that in my opinion, so that when the whatever happens next. Nobody knows the billionaires and the economists don’t know.

 

So whatever happens next. So that a position to say, hey, we’re the authority here. We’re the people that you want to call because they’re going to be looking for the expert in the area. I don’t care what I don’t give you in a restaurant. Like they’re going to be looking for the expert in the area, especially during this and coming out of this chaos, however long this chaos is.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Let People Know Where You Stand

 

Okay. So you’ll giggle when you see my rudimentary drawings here. But let’s just say this is your flag, right? Yeah. And you’ve planted that flag and we’ll talk a little bit more probably about niche and point of view because that determines where you plant your flag, Onward Nation. But if I’m understanding you correctly, Chris, is that so?

 

We’ve got niche and point of view. We’re planting the flag. And now, because you’ve done that and because you’ve done it over time, because you stacked, this is essentially, we’ll call this the market. Right. And so now we’ve got people who are coming who are facing the uncertainty. And they’re looking for, as you said, the guide, the trusted authority, the expert, the person who can take them by the hand and show them a business model that has really worked well.

 

It’s obviously worked well for you and your family. But that puts you in the right position because right now people are looking for that, right? Yeah, absolutely. Let me give you two examples. If I’m on task here, one is, okay, you’re a high-end homeowner, but you own a home. Anything over what the jumbo loan is?

 

Well, let’s say $2 million. And these buyers, literally. So what’s going on is dropping by the wayside? I mean, the banks aren’t financing them. But four months ago, they were super good buyers. Okay, so you’re a homeowner. I guess I’m done. I guess I got to wait till whenever this is over. And so we’re screaming from the rooftops saying, no you don’t have to.

 

We know how to get this done. But they would know that if we didn’t plant our flag. And then buyers think of families that are trying to move or trying to make a move. It could be for a job change during this. And they can’t get financing. They go, I guess we’re done. I guess we got to kind of pivot. No, we’re screaming.

 

So if you’re not doing that and I keep saying scream, but if you’re not planting a flag, how are they going to know where the guide is if it even exists? Yeah. Okay, so excellent point, Chris. 

 

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Plant Your Flag: Double Down on Being Helpful

 

Onward Nation, we’ve talked about this a little bit, and I probably need to do a better job of sharing these data points during solo counts.

 

And some of our other content is that right now, this is such a great time. This is the best time, especially when you look at data like from our own ROI of thought leadership study. When you take a look at the annual trust barometer that is published by Edelman, which is excellent. They’ve been doing it now for the last 20 years.

 

You look at some of the data points that 85% of your prospects, 85% of your audience, once you to be the guy, the expert, the trusted authority, they want you to be helpful. This is the time to double down on being helpful. This is going to lead into us talking about staffing because Chris is going to illustrate some of the ways that they continue to look for ways to be helpful to their audience.

 

And all of these things stand in further planting the flag in solid ground. But your audience once that the data is on your side. Right? Chris. Yeah, absolutely. And I got to say again, I’m thinking I’m just thinking my brain for listeners. They of course know you guys well. But I can’t stress enough like, if there’s any doubt creep in. When you and I first met and I don’t know how many years ago that was now probably 3 or 4, all the doubts creep in my head.

 

I can’t do that or I don’t know how to do that. Well, nobody want to hear from me or listen to me, I just didn’t know how to start that process. And so you guys have been instrumental in that and continue to be. But it’s critical to just latch onto someone or something or a group that knows how to do that too.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Start Something to Get the Ball Rolling

 

I just want to add that sorry for the diverted again. Well, thanks for that. But isn’t it interesting how whether you want to call it the imposter syndrome, you want to call a lack of confidence whatever somebody wants to sort of put the moniker on it? It affects every single business owner that’s ever walked the face of the earth.

 

And what’s interesting is it’s like when we think about, okay, this is the time for us to plant our flag. To share our smarts, and to be generous in doing so, to be a teacher and to share all of that expertise. But then when we sit down at the whatever the method of sharing that content is, we stare at that flashing cursor in the word document.

 

All of a sudden we forget the amazing, awesome, wonderful, beautiful things we do every single day. And so it does take a little bit of courage. But this is also why I love your snacking metaphor, because it’s not like you have to start doing all of these things overnight. You didn’t. So how did you start stacking?

 

Like, what was the first thing that you put into place? And let’s start going through the stack. The short answer is I listen to you, but then I’ll give you the more detailed answer. Okay, so the first one was for us. It was literally getting the podcast launched. And I think of how close I came to not doing that.

 

Like literally, I still to this day. I think I almost didn’t do that. I was like, got to have a cool idea. So we did that podcast first, and then because we did that, it’s like stacking is an understatement. It’s like a whirlwind starts because now because you we have that that led to a book opportunity because we had that that led to a YouTube channel, because we had that that led to more bookings and interviews.

 

Like there’s so many offshoots. It’s probably 50 to 100 offshoots because we started that one thing. It’s not like someone has to stop that. They could go. As you and I discussed all time, they can start a YouTube channel first. I don’t care or do a blog. The point is to start something and then allow that process to take its toll.

 

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Plant Your Flag: The Power of Stacking

 

That’s what I hope that’s what you meant. I think I answer that well. It is but let’s actually peel a few layers back in because like one of the things that I’m so inspired about when we think about events. Whether we’re thinking about in-person events, which you’ve done with excellence, and we think about virtual events, which you’ve also done with excellence, I think the starting point is what’s really interesting and, you know, on September 16th, 17th and 18th, I got those dates.

 

Right? Right, yeah I did. Yep. Okay. September 16th, 17th and 18th Chris is having he and his family are hosting Q. Last live Quantum Leap System Live, which is an amazing event. There are going to be 250-plus people at this event. And so it would be really easy, right, Chris, for people who might be meeting you for the first time and he will be, at this event to say, wow, this is incredible how amazing this community is.

 

And it is all of that. But five years ago, I think if I have the timeline right, there were ten people in the basement of the Chamber of Commerce to attend the very first one. Right? Yeah. I’m chuckling all the times in New York on that. But yeah, it was rainy, dreary day in the musty basement.

 

And that was our first quote unquote, event. I think we might have broke 12. You said I think we might about 12. That was the start we thought was really cool. but it’s comical when we look back. But I think it points huge because people hear that. I know this was me.

 

Anyway, let me speak to me. I thought back then, of all the people that I used to watch the events, I’m like, man, I don’t know if I could do that. Oh, let’s just start something because it can be intimidating. So no, we started literally in the basement. And that I think really illustrates the power of stacking because you can’t stack if you ever start Onward Nation.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Growing Your Audience

 

So let’s use another example of stacking. One of the things that I think that you guys do now that is just absolutely amazing is the weekly Q&A. There’s a 120 ish or so people from your community joining you every Thursday, but it didn’t start that way. It is not a relatively new Q&A.

 

So let’s talk about that sort of step in the stack. I think of that and I want to add to that. But yeah, that started only about, I don’t know, three months ago. Let’s say Mac, maybe right during the beginning of Covid. So let’s say March or April, April, my son like Zach’s idea and we probably had we said, hey, let’s kind of be there.

 

Let’s be the guy. Let’s help these guys that are in the community. Let’s just do a free Q&A. And I think it was gosh, I forget that I was. But it might have been a dozen or so people came on. And then we said, that was once a month. And then we said instead, let’s do it twice, and then instead, let’s do it every Thursday.

 

And that dish has grown. So now fast forward what’s April, May, June, July like fast forward like six months and we’ve got yeah, a good hundred plus on there depending what the topic is. And that made me think, Steve, if I can direct again we you know, you’ve been on some of the mastermind calls we have for our community more the private community.

 

And someone brought up last week, it was like he said, do you remember when this wasn’t a Zoom call with 50 to 60 people or 80 people that have joined as an associate? This was a ten person call with people that didn’t know what they were doing. And Chris, you had to lead that call because nobody had an experience.

 

And now the call takes a life its own and it’s on Zoom and it’s, you know, 80 or 90 people that are doing deal. It’s just totally different. But it started from me sitting on a couch doing an audio call. 

 

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Plant Your Flag: How Stacking Got Some Traction

 

Okay. So here again, let’s think about that from a stacking perspective. So let’s try to get the timeline in place because we know that in 2012, you came out the other side of this or excuse me, you came out the other side of the debacle.

 

That’s what I meant to say. Okay, now it’s 2020. So we’re talking about an eight-year period of time. But when do you feel like the stacking really started to kind of start to get some traction, right? Because it took a while to get the niche down, get the box, get the new rules formulated and get the clarity away from the distractions.

 

So when do you feel like you were like, okay, now’s the time for us to really plant the flag? Let’s start stacking. When did that start? But I think the first, if I think back, the first thing that was the kind of the trigger of the stacking, if you will, and I didn’t know back that would have been the first e-book I ever wrote to bring my database from 0 to 300 people.

 

That was my database, and that was in 2000. And I think it was in 2014, when I wrote a simple e-book. I didn’t know if you know, the story for a VA service that had investors who followed them and said, hey, do you have an e-book? And I said, yes, I didn’t. So I wrote an e-book and she sent it out and I got 300 options, 330, I think. Okay, that’s amazing.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Engineering the Transaction

 

Now for me to say, six short years ago, I don’t want to say it that way because I feel like that disrespects the work, because you’ve been working so very hard and six years. But I think that is also a great illustration of when you have discipline around a niche and you have your expertise, and you’re also thoughtful about creating something like an e-book, you create it quickly.

 

You build from 300 to now tens of thousands of people in your community. Did it happen overnight? No. But were you intentional about all of these different pieces that stack up on one another? Yes. And then that’s what’s amazing is the discipline and how you’re always coming from, well, what how can I help that person be better at doing deals and transactions?

 

Right. Engineering the transaction, which I think is really cool. Yeah. And I think I wrote something down. You were talking when you said six years and you can use ten, you can do whatever you want. But just for everyone to think about this, this could be a scary thought to I said recently and I think it was on an interview, I said, or maybe to my community, I said, okay, think of how the last six years flew.

 

I think I use ten or nine, but it doesn’t matter. The guy the last ten years flew and are you okay with being in the same spot 6 or 10 years from now? And usually they going on. Jesus, no. Okay. Well what are we gonna do to change that? And so for us, that is each stack. Let’s put it this way. Each stack reaching out and saying and maybe the stacks of years, whatever they are for you reaching out and saying, what do I need next?

 

Like, what does it look like to be next? Stack? Okay, well, I probably need that coaching from that person over there, that program or I need this, etc. whatever it is. Just that’s how we keep moving. What’s one thing next? Okay. What’s one thing next? We usually do it and kind of trimester early. But people can do it yearly too.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Making Yourself Better for The Community

 

Okay I like that a lot. So let’s go back to the notes here to make sure I’m tracking with you with respect to stacks. So I think what you’re saying let me just give that back to you. So you’re breaking this into quarters, right? So like if this represented essentially 2020, you’re looking at how can we be really intentional about the quarterly stacking. Whether this is a weekly Q&A call or this might be something to do with, you know, shelves live and really raising the bar yet again, like you guys do every single iteration.

 

Or is there something that we can be doing with, you know, webinars that are super helpful to our audience and so it sounds like each quarter you’re looking at, okay, how can we add something else that is helpful? Again, back to our audience that helps them continue to grow, but it also helps us stack authority which helps us then build the business.

 

Yeah, absolutely. And so that can be to me too because you can say we’re all big thinkers. I hope so. You think, okay, I can do all this stuff. I’m guilty of throwing all this stuff at the team day one and saying, okay, we got two weeks to do it. So yeah, we do it on a quarterly basis saying, what’s next?

 

Just move the wrong one. And that’s not just how can we better the community? Because you could come up with a million ideas, but it’s also how we can better ourselves to be better for the community. So that’s when I say good coaching or whatever it might be because those two things go hand in hand.

 

I think from a coaching standpoint, you guys help you. But you know what? This is like if we’re not one step ahead, I’m using one step ahead. But if you’re not, if your skills aren’t, like if you’re not skilling up, let’s put it that way. If you’re not constantly working, how can you possibly lead? And it’s tough to stack if you’re not skilling up constantly.

 

That makes sense. It does. And, you know, our mutual friend Brett Gilliland likes to say, let me make sure I get his quote right. The best leaders build the best businesses, and the best businesses win. Yeah. You nailed it. Yep. Okay, during time of crisis, which is what we’re in right now. 

 

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Plant Your Flag: Find The Bottleneck and Help Them

 

And so you guys certainly know that this is not a static environment. And, you know, I love how you and team have made a conscious effort to double down on being helpful versus doubling down on being super promotional, which feels desperate. And you guys have doubled down on access and and teaching and making yourself even more available, which is such a wonderful lesson for somebody on the outside looking in thinking, well, how did he really, truly plant his flag of authority?

 

He did it in and the family did it by being healthy and looking at all of this, you know, expertise, the subject matter expertise in this box that we talked about and looking for ways to slice and dice that out into really great lessons for people concerned. Would that be fair, Chris? Yeah. What came to marry you talk about that is you know how our theme this year not and we always we’re talking about is bridging the gap.

 

So this goes for any industry. Again I don’t care if you have a restaurant, you have a real. It doesn’t matter in every niche or every industry. There’s a bottleneck. There’s some what we call gap. And we realize in real estate it’s man, oh man. There’s people selling products. They’re great marketers and people are buying products because they truly yearn for real estate expertise.

 

But that’s where it stops because no one’s in the trenches helping them do deals. So we’ve just got real clear and you’ve seen some of our pivots get real clear on we’re not doing something unless it’s addressing that gap, and that is helping them do deals. So whatever it is in the prospective niches from the people listening, there’s a bottleneck somewhere in your industry or niche.

 

I promise you, there is. All you do is go find that and help them get through that helped them get through it more efficiently and effectively. Okay, so again, my horrible handwriting here, but I can’t wait to see it. There you go. Okay, so what you just said bridged the gap. Really valuable lesson. So over here, we’ve got your audience, people who want to be successful real estate investors, but don’t have the right niche.

 

They don’t have the process. They don’t have the new rules that you’ve architected. You don’t. They’re so being distracted by all of these shiny objects, and they’re dabbling here, dabbling there, and probably not doing it very well. And so they’re looking for something so they find you obviously, because you’ve planted your flag, but then over here is the opportunity to be successful.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Keep Stacking to Achieve the Same Result

 

Right. So this is where they can be successful over here. And then the subject matter expertise, the thought leadership, all of the smart that you provide, all of your content is what helps bridge the gap. Am I tracking with you? Yeah. Big time. And I think you heard one of the pieces I did, the stacking thing came on accent.

 

And that was like, if we’re running and stacking. See, this makes sense. All I say to them is to follow, like, try to follow because I’m going to keep stacking and then showing you. But you can’t be like you can’t look at the buffet line and go, I’ll take that one, that one and that. Like you got to keep stacking if you want to have the same result. 

 

It’s like going to a restaurant and having an awesome meal and going home and like putting three out of the six ingredients and going cheese that didn’t come out the same thing. So whatever stacking you’re doing, you just got to make sure you’re tracking with whoever’s your pace setter.

 

Right. Whoever’s helping you. So, where does somebody start? So let’s assume that in on our listener is listening to your words right now and is thinking, okay, I get it that he started where he started. And whether they have an exact parallel story or starting from. No, I see zero. That sounds disrespectful, but starting from having no flag of authority and then building it intentionally as you did.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Find a Role Model in Your Industry

 

So where would you suggest that that person start? I mean, I could come up with a little tidbits here, but the easy answer is probably a cop-out. So you can go back and make me do more detail. Sure. But the easy answer is, I say this about real estate. So the same answer is find someone who’s done it.

 

And, I’ve been wanting to my three step formula to find what you love about what we just talked about. Like is is it a podcast? Is it a blog? Is it an e-book? Is it a like doesn’t matter. Like let’s get passion about one of those. Then find someone that can help you do it. You guys are obviously the great option.

 

And then third, go ahead and stick with that and stack for three plus years. That’s kind of like the basic formula in my eyes. And I can go back a detail that didn’t answer, but I’m thinking that it’s a simple formula. Okay. So let me give that back to you here too if somebody I took the quarterly out of it.

 

And so let’s change this to years, right? And still using your visual of the stacking piece. Right. So here, let’s just call this, you know, finding models, right? There have been certainly people who have done this well. And I asked Chris to be my anchor guest today because he’s a great model. So, yes, you might not be in the real estate industry or maybe you are.

 

We have many listeners who are in the real estate space. Chris is a fantastic model. So take a look at Chris, take a look at somebody else in a different niche and so forth. There are similar models in different industries, and then be able to blueprint and then be able to follow that. And then using his stacking metaphor is that once you have models, then you put your first piece in place, then you put your second piece in place, and then you put your third piece in place.

 

Now you start stacking it. And through that process, Chris, like that progression, you know, get all kinds of other ideas. But you need to have the discipline to actually still stack. Otherwise, you start going like this, right? Yeah, yeah. Let’s just start with one set okay. Yeah. Because then you start sort of meandering down the path and getting distracted.

 

I realized that I had my iPad screen up and so when I was doing this, only you appreciated it. Exactly. So let’s think about this now for more about the from the perspective of the why. Right. Because in in your unique in this because you’ve built a really successful real estate business and then in fact let’s take that backwards here.

 

Become an expert on how to plant your flag of authority through digital marketing

 

Plant Your Flag: Building Your Business and Success Will Follow

 

You built a really successful real estate business. And then I think if this will be good for my tribal knowledge too, that people started coming to you and saying, hey, how are you doing that? And could you maybe teach me how to do that? Is that how it happened, or was it in maybe a different way?

 

No, you’re right. The very first thing was we lived near a war college here in Ireland and we got a call from a gentleman that was done after three tours of Afghanistan, heard about me and said, can you show me I’m going back to civilian life. I kind of want to do what you’re doing here, and I’m moving out of state.

 

Can you coach me while I’m here? That was the very first person at scratch to check for coaching. And then that led to the e-book story that I told you earlier. And so that’s fantastic from the standpoint that you’ve built a successful business and then that took you into opportunities. Because I’ve built this successful business, there’s a lot of other people like I’ve done this.

 

Now I want to help other people to be able to do this, too. And in the fact that you are still in the trenches doing deals in that business, that real estate company still exists today and it’s still doing deals today. Right? It’s not only a great business, but it’s also a great laboratory. Like, you don’t teach anything that you haven’t done.

 

Right. Yeah. That’s why I said okay. Exactly to that point is why I said in that three step formula, follow someone that’s in it. Now, I didn’t mean real estate. I meant like in the predictive world and in a plant in the flag world, because you can go on the line online right now. Just like real estate, and find ten courses on how to get yourself set up and plant the flag and you can.

 

And there are people that didn’t even they maybe didn’t do it or they did it ten years ago. Guess what times end completely different now. So it’s even more reason to say I have to follow someone that’s doing it now, but already accomplish what I want. And then I don’t have to reinvent all these or relive all these lessons that make sense.

 

Yeah, it does make sense. Really fantastic. And so there’s a great opportunity here Onward Nation because you’ve built a successful business. Now, is there an opportunity for you to plant your flag of authority in that niche where you build your business and be able to help other people do a similar thing? And that’s awesome.

 

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Plant Your Flag: Attracting Bigger Players 

 

Okay. So let’s think about this from the perspective of still authority planting the flag of authority because you have several of your associates like your higher tier associate. Do you call a high six where you’re helping them in the trenches, plant their flag of authority? So why is that important to them as it relates to within their business and attracting sellers and tenant buyers to their business?

 

Does that give them maybe some defense? Does that help them, dig a moat, you know, from other competitors. How does planting their flag in their local market? How is that helpful to them? Yeah. And again, I keep saying it’s I think it’s any business. Right. But for them and for me, specifically, here’s what is happening.

 

And again trends and other industries will do this too. And that is okay, especially because of Covid. But what we’re doing is becoming more popularized, no question. So that’s attracting slowly but surely I see it happening. Attracting bigger national players and international players and money. Okay, so then you live in XYZ County and you’re trying to establish your business.

 

And because you planted your flag when the company comes in from XYZ National or XYZ, the international net trying to do what you’re you’re doing, you’re in our case, sellers and buyers are doing what they’re going to search online. They’re going to search who’s going to be the person I can attach to? Who am I going to trust?

 

Who’s going to be my guide, this outside company? Or oh, look at this. I found this person that has a YouTube channel, a book, a podcast, whatever. And so they’re comfortable with that. And you just establish authority and scream from the rooftops without even having to do anything else. That makes sense. It does make sense. I love this. This is great!

 

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Plant Your Flag: Encouraging Your Clients to Also Plant Their Flag

 

So you said moat. I was thinking fence, but we were thinking the same thing. A defensible structure of some sort. Let’s take this. Let’s peel the layers back even further into the Hi6 community because I, you know, I’ve had access. You’ve given me access, which is just lovely to be able to kind of sit on the sidelines and also to participate with some of your high six associates and be able to be kind of privy to those conversations and how you coach and encourage and so forth, which is, been amazing to see and how you nudge them along to plant their flags of authority.

 

And so in those conversations, you know, a variety of sort of niches within a niche have come forward because they share the same niche is how you’ve niche down in terms of deals. But then there’s just kind of this unique specialness. Oh, I think I want to maybe focus on this type of deal and so forth.

 

And a few weeks ago, you and I were in one of those conversations and the topic of owner financing came out like, wow, that’s a really interesting niche within a niche. So if I was tracking that conversation correctly, you’re encouraging your high school associate to plant her flag around owner financing so that the right sellers in her market as well as the right tenant buyers who would be interested in that sort of deal structure.

 

Really. That’s more seller, I guess, in this example. Would then be super attractive to her and she would be attracting the right person because she’s really built this flag or planted this flag of expertise around that type of deal structure. Right? Yeah. It’s completely opposite of what we talked about earlier with the shiny objects that I think you so eloquently drew on your graphics there.

 

And that is instead of saying, oh cool, I had this niche, I can do 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 different types of deals. Okay. How about because you love that and you love the profitability and you love the people you don’t have because you love all that? How about just do that? And so, as you have been teaching her, as you hone in on that, you’re actually attracting a whole bunch more of that and that there’s something to say, too. About that there’s the laser focus that happens automatically when you niche down a flag in one area, just subconsciously and consciously.

 

Become an expert on how to plant your flag of authority through digital marketing

 

Plant Your Flag: Just Be Consistent

 

I would say, what do you think? I mean, yeah, I think so too because then when she goes out to, you know, create content, when she goes out to create her cornerstone content, then each of those stones is properly set and it’s got the, you know, right helpfulness in the right niche. You know, her point of view is carried through every single piece.

 

It’s not one day she’s talking about this and the next day she’s talking about that, and the next day it’s this. And then maybe back to the first one. It’s all very consistent. So that when that right seller comes along. She’s got this body of work that speaks to that topic. And so if that person is interested in that deal structure, there’s no doubt that she’s the expert.

 

Right? Yeah. No question. Because she’s screaming from the rooftops who she wants to work with. It’s no different than us. Like we I’m thinking as you’re talking we have like from us was screaming that okay, we’re in this to do deals with you. That’s our niche. Okay. What about a mastermind? No, we just want to do deals with the series and the committed.

 

So she’s screaming. I just want to do deals with on a financing who are free and clear and who can wait for the money. That’s it. Yeah. And that Onward Nation that makes it so much easier for your prospects to really understand that. To Chris’s earlier point, there’s no better time for you to be the expert, the guy, the trusted authority in your space.

 

Become an expert on how to plant your flag of authority through digital marketing

 

Plant Your Flag: Everyone Has a Story to Share

 

So when you decide to intentionally plant the flag, as he has done in how he teaches others to do, then you’re the obvious choice, right? Chris? Yeah, I thought of something and I hope this is, applicable to what we’re talking about. We’ve talked about the beginning, but when you ask me about my story, I think what we didn’t say throughout this is every single person has their story.

 

Laura had a story which led us to this conversation about on the pricing. So everyone has a story. They might not know it yet and they might not want to share it yet, but there’s a whole boatload of people that want to hear it and are like you. That makes sense, but it does make sense. In fact, when you said that, I just thought of the chapter that Nick, your son has written for the book that we’re coauthoring together – Sell with Authority. Yeah. And his chapter in particular, because he talks about his story and then he makes the bridge to everyone has a story. And that’s so very true because typically it’s just a competence issue when we start thinking like, oh gosh, what is what? How would my story be helpful when the reality is it builds rapport, it shares some smarts, it gives some great lessons along the way.

 

Right. Well, yeah. Trust me. When I was in my story in these four years, I did not think anyone would even care to know about it. And I was embarrassed to tell it. And let alone whether you care about hearing it. So yeah, everyone has one. Okay, so when and I know that we’re quickly running out of time here, but I want to loop back to your origin story.

 

At what point? So it essentially asked from 2008 to 2012, at what point did you did you feel confident to start sharing it and to be sharing it with all of the different layers that you share today? It maybe it’s as you’re going through that I’m thinking timeline. It maybe started in 14 or 15 of a piece, a fraction of it, but it didn’t.

 

It didn’t come full bore until probably 16 when we started doing group events and getting out there and working with you guys on the podcast. You know, I don’t think it started to that. And, then I’m sure to the first time that you shared it, there was probably a little bit of trepidation. Oh, sure. But what was the reaction from essentially the recipient?

 

Like, how did that land as a message? Well, people started coming out of the woodwork with, yeah, I got hurt in a way too. And I related to your story. Can you help me? I was in debt, too. Can you help me? I dealt with credit to again how I dealt with IRS like all of it came up because it ends up being reality.

 

But I didn’t realize it. So would it be fair to say that the reaction was like 180 degrees different than what you feared? Yeah, maybe 360 complete opposite. Okay, so Onward Nation, I hope what we’ve illustrated here is your story matters. Don’t discount your subject matter expertise. We all have to start somewhere. Chris gave you some great lessons about stacking.

 

Become an expert on how to plant your flag of authority through digital marketing

 

Plant Your Flag: How to Connect with Chris

 

We also talked about why this matters and and how that’s going to help you attract as well as, you know, he he talked about, you know, all of these different whether we’re breaking this into quarterly or breaking this into yearly like that metaphor is just so perfect and the discipline around the niche. So, Chris, I know that we covered a lot and I know that we’re quickly running out of time, but any final advice you want to share?

 

Anything you think we might have missed. And then please tell Onward Nation business owners the best way to connect with you, my friend. Yeah. I think, as you were just wrapping that up, not know you’re going to ask him. I’m thinking, as a final note, I would say this to my community and I’ll say it to your community, and that is we talked about coming along for the stacking.

 

I can’t imagine for the life of me, if someone is an Onward Nation, why they wouldn’t. I don’t even know if you have this, but get on the phone with you for a session and go, okay, well, how can I start? Like, I can’t imagine it, especially with the chaos that it’s going on right now. It’s just like ice cream from a rooftop to our community going. I can’t imagine you not coming and finding out how to do this.

 

So I would just say to your community, you got to get on the horn with you. And I’m probably volunteering you for more work than you want, but get on the horn with you and figure out what is the next step, even if it’s one little inkling of a step. That’s all. Yeah. Okay. Very kind of you to say thank you.

 

Thank you for that. And so best way to connect with you. Just SmartRealEstateCoach.com. If they don’t mind listening to me babble for another half hour. There’s a webinar. It’s free. Just go listen to it okay. Fantastic. And then we’re if any of our Onward Nation listeners think I’d like to learn more about the Shoals event.

 

That sounds amazing. Great community and so forth. Where can they find more out about the event? Yeah, just go to qlslive.com. They’re going to see the speakers like yourself. Ed Marlette, Mike McCall. It like some amazing people going to be there. I will tell you that one session is worth the entire three day, one session is worth the entire three day.

 

So qlslive.com, Onward Nation. Have you been listening to the show for a while now? You know that Mike McCalla has been here twice. You know, talking about profit. First he is brilliant. Ed Mallette is off the charts. Amazing. So, if you have an opportunity to attend, you definitely should, because it’ll be well worth your time.

 

And, Chris, I know that we all have the same 86,400 seconds in a day, and I am grateful is always when you share some of your time, you share your smarts, you share your expertise and come to the show to help our listeners, you know, move their business onward to that next level. And this was another installment of Boss My Friend.

 

So thank you so very much. Yeah. Thank you. Time well spent. Love it. This episode is complete. So head over to OnwardNation.com for shownotes and more food to fuel your ambition. Continue to find your recipe for success here at Onward Nation.

 

Become an expert on how to plant your flag of authority through digital marketing