How Paul Do Campo’s Money Mindset Helped Him Reach His Goals

Episode 167: How Paul Do Campo’s Money Mindset Helped Him Reach His Goals

The Profit First REI Podcast

March 27, 2023

David Richter 

Summary:

If you aren’t taking profit for yourself, what are you working for? As business owners, struggling with finances is almost a constant hazard. Sometimes it’s not enough, or there’s the fear of it, and we end up skimping on ourselves.

Paul Do Campo struggled with the same until he implemented Profit First and took the initiative in managing his numbers as he grew as an entrepreneur. Today, his fear of not having enough has gone from the dread of not being able to pay his mortgage to more of a motivation to reach his monthly profit goals. 

Paul is an investor, copywriter, and the owner of REI OmniDrip, a company that helps investors with tailored marketing. He joins us today to talk about financial management, Profit First, and the importance of discipline. Tune in!

Key Takeaways:
[00:42] Introducing Paul Do Campo and His Background

[04:17] On Struggling With “Not Enough” and Setting His Profit Goals

[10:54] On Profit First and Entrepreneurial Discipline

[18:00] The Importance of Having a Money Management System and Talking More on YNAB 

[21:43] On Minimalism 

[23:41] How Minimalism, His Money Mindset, and His Dedicated System Influences His Confidence in Reaching His Goals

[28:11] Advice for the Real Estate Investing Community and on Copywriting

[28:59] The Key to a Good Copywriter

[30:44] Connect with Paul and REI Omnidrip

Quotes:

[13:12] “It wasn’t just about having more money every month, it was more about structuring my finances for my business.”

[18:26] “For me, [YNAB is] worth the cost. I mean, I think you need something right?”

[29:20] “The biggest thing that [real estate investors] can do [for copywriting] is [to] ‘write like you talk.’”

Connect with Paul:

Omnidrip Website: www.reiomnidrip.com

Invest in Multifamily Apartments or Self-Storage: www.investingcapitalgroup.com

Tired of living deal to deal? 

If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David 

Transcription:

Paul Do Campo:

It was when I was more disciplined in getting into YAB and then realized, you know what, why am I not doing this for my business? I made 20,000 this year. I need to, my business made 20,000. I haven’t taken any profit for myself. What am I, what am I doing?

Outro:

If you’re a real estate investor who’s sick and tired of living deal to deal, then welcome home. Hear from everyday real estate investors just like you, and discover how they’ve completely transformed their business by taking a profit First approach. This is the profit first for REI podcast, where we believe revenue is vanity. Profit is sanity. It’s time to start making profit a habit in your business. So here’s your host, David Richter.

David Richter:

We have Paul Do Campo and he talks about how he struggled with mortgage payments, struggle with knowing what’s enough in his life. And we dove into both of those where he was able to conquer the struggle of the mortgage payments, but then the not enough he dives in of like, this is something I still have to conquer and still have to work on every day. And he talks about what he does, but then also we talk about the systems on the back end. He gives you something that if you are have been listening to this and you’re like, I love Profit first, but I’m not his numbers person or a spreadsheet person. He gives a great system in this episode that can make it very easy for you. So listen to this episode, lots of value and diving into his story and asking some pointed questions. Hopefully you enjoy. Thank you so much for listening. Welcome to the Profit first REI podcast. This is your host, David Richter. We have Paul Damp here. I’m really excited cuz he’s a copywriter in the real estate world. He has his own systems now as well too. I love just the world of copywriting. You’re basically able to sell on paper and like really understand that psychology. So Paul, thanks so much for being on the show.

Paul Do Campo:

Appreciate it, man. Thank you David. Excited to be here.

David Richter:

Well, I want you to get into a little bit of what your background is like. Just a high level overview cuz I know you’ve been in the real estate world, you’ve been in the copywriting world, you now have, you know, systems for the real estate world. You’re also, you know, manage them finances on the back end too with a private first type system. So we’ll get into all that, but just give them a whole, you know, like high level overview, where you’ve come from and what you’re doing today.

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah, definitely. Uh, so, uh, I started like a lot of people, um, with the rich hat for Dad back in 2015.

David Richter:

Nice.

Paul Do Campo:

Uh, at that time I was a welder, a foreman for a natural gas company, utility company. Um, it’s a pipeline construction. That was my main, that was my career. Uh, and struggling with payments, struggling making mortgage payments, struggling with not having enough, you know, that’s everybody’s drive red bridge, that port Dad, you know, do dove into the whole world of bigger pockets and wholesaling and all that. Um, I’m trying to make this, uh, brief and not tell the whole story, but, um, yeah, transit from there. Learned about direct mail, sent lots of direct mail back then. Um, I also transitioned to mobile home flipping and land flipping

David Richter:

Nice,

Paul Do Campo:

Uh, kind of simultaneously where, um, flipping those assets into notes, uh, selling those on owner finance and, uh, getting payments off those and having a note on those. Um, and then, at all at the same time, I was also kind of landed by accident. Um, became a copywriter for Carrot for Investor Kara.

David Richter:

Oh, cool.

Paul Do Campo:

And learned, yeah. Dove into that whole world of copywriting and, um, I kind of like, I kind of dive into different subjects. Um, you know, I, after two or three years I’m diving into a new subject and copywriting just, I’m today I’m still diving into it. It’s been, um, five years now, six years now, since I’ve really dove into it and became a full-time freelance copywriter. And, um, at the same time investing as well, mobile home and land flipping. Uh, today I’m more of, um, I I’d say more of a private investor, um, lending money. I don’t do whole lot of volume right now, um, just cuz um, I’ve got other projects. Uh, I enjoy the copywriting part of the business. Um, I have my own product, my own service, uh, that serves real estate, uh, that serves investors, wholesalers, and flippers. Um, so yeah, that’s kind of my nutshell story since 2015. So,

David Richter:

So tell me then you struggled with mortgage payments and then you say you struggled with not enough. Did you still feel that same way when you got into the real estate world? Like did that magically disappear or what?

Paul Do Campo:

No, so that’s a really good question. Um, I would say that, um, I never, I don’t it struggling with mortgage payments and ha not having enough or two different things, right? So I would say back in 2015, struggling with mortgage payments existed back then, but doesn’t exist today. Um, and but the idea of not having enough still exists today. So <laugh>

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Uh, that’s still even with Profit First. Um, you know, I implement that, um, and I implement it with, uh, you know, we talked about it off camera, we talked about, uh, I use, you need, uh, or you need a budget. I use that pretty religiously every week for my personal finances and my, uh, business finances as well. I use both. I have two accounts for each one of those. And I have QuickBooks. So it’s kind of, I mean, it’s probably a better way to do it. Um, I know the profit first tells you to have multiple counts. Um, I just didn’t wanna deal with multiple accounts, so I just categorize everything into yab. So are you familiar with yab, right, David?

David Richter:

Yeah, yeah. I’m familiar with yab. People might not be familiar with it, but it’s an online software that is like a budgeting tool, correct. For people?

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah. It’s really just an advanced spreadsheet if you like, if you really break it down, it’s just a spreadsheet, um, and it just calculates everything for you. And it’s based off categorization or, um, I think the envelope system, right? You just, you put money into every dollar goes has a job, every dollar has a category you put into. Um, so for business, um, I break it down into, um, the functions of general expenses, um, profit to owner, uh, profit to business, and then to, and then, uh, taxes. So I break it down those four things and I have a percentage every time I, every time I have income that comes in, um, I break the per that down to percentages and add it into those general categories in Yap so that I know, okay, cool. I have $10,000 here for profit, I for owner profit. I can take that out whenever I want. So rather than having multiple accounts

David Richter:

Sure. <laugh>, we won’t go there. I guess we could argue on here cuz I’m like, you need the different accounts, but that’s a different day for a different story. Maybe we’ll get into that a little bit later, but you’d said, yeah. I wanna latch onto this first. You stay, you said you still struggle with enough. Why do you think you still struggle with enough?

Paul Do Campo:

I’m not too sure. I think that’s a really good question, David. I never really pondered. Probably won’t be able to answer right here and then,

David Richter:

Yeah, we’re not here to play around mess around <laugh>,

Paul Do Campo:

<laugh>

David Richter:

So I just Yeah, you’re gonna give me ammo. I’m gonna use it. It’s like, I want to know, like, because you’re running this system, you’re doing this thing, is it because you’re not making enough or is it on the back end, like not keeping enough? Have you not defined that enough number? Like I just would I, cuz honestly, there’s probably a lot of people listening too that struggle with the exact same thing,

Paul Do Campo:

Right? Yeah. Um, I would say it’s probably not, it’s not enough. What does enough mean, I guess, you know, defining your goals. I have a pretty hefty goal for the next five years of having a net profit every month. And so that, yeah, so then when I look at that and look at today, it’s kind of like, oh, okay, I haven’t reached that yet. Like, how do I get there? Um, so that’s probably where that feeling comes from. Is having that

David Richter:

You haven’t reached that net profit goal, what does that net profit goal on a monthly basis mean to you?

Paul Do Campo:

The exact number, it’s

David Richter:

mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Paul Do Campo:

Exact number. 30,000 a month. And so the net profit to me, 30,000 a month, pretty hefty. But, um, yeah, I mean it’s,

David Richter:

I mean, what does it mean to you though? Like why,

Paul Do Campo:

what does it mean to why that’s,

David Richter:

That’s outta the air or is this like something

Paul Do Campo:

That, you know?

David Richter:

Yeah,

Paul Do Campo:

That’s a really good question and that’s probably the most important question, right? Why would I, why do I even want that? Yeah. And that’s, so yeah, that number was, I would say it was pulled out of the air <laugh>, but at the same time it accounts for places where we wanna live. Uh, so we have some, we have certain areas in our town that we love. And, um,

David Richter:

Who’s those?

Paul Do Campo:

Are expensive area.

David Richter:

You have family?

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah. Have, have a family of four kids, a wife, so

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

Pretty big family as my family

David Richter:

Sounded better now, so like,

Paul Do Campo:

Yes. Why you wouldn’t, so it’s right, it’s keeping my oldest is nine and um,

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

He’s getting us, he’s reaching my shoulders now, so he is getting pretty tall. He’s eating as much as me. So it’s like now, so I’m seeing, I’m seeing the future of like my wallet being empty, <laugh>, like as

David Richter:

Oh yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

As you know, I’m paying for their food, I’m paying, they’re in a lot, they’re getting more into different activities. Um, one of ’em requires, uh, some services, some, uh, mental health services. So

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

Um, you know, that these things, so I’m just forecasting, you know, how much I really need, um, and where we wanna live our lifestyle. And so that, and while at the same time being in a position where, I’m not saying where, I’m not saying my wife, well, we have to cut down this month. We have to, you know, that’s what I don’t want. I don’t wanna go back to the world where, um, I, you know, we bond too much of a house that we can’t pay for.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

And we have to shrink down our lifestyle. Like, so we are big components of health, my wife and I. So we buy, we we’re, um, so with food, we don’t buy cheap food when we’ll buy, we don’t eat out. Uh, you know, when we go to grocery store, we have a certain type of style of eating we have, so that can be expensive. So, uh, we don’t wanna cut down on that lifestyle. So I hope that answers the question.

David Richter:

Yeah. That definitely helps to answer it. So it sounds like you have, you’re very motivated by your family. Like you wanna make sure that they’re taken care of, that you don’t have to cut down on the lifestyle, that you don’t make the wrong decisions with the house or whatever to make sure that you’re not having to cut down on anything in your life. So 30,000 would help you be very comfortable in that position. Correct. Like, to be able to say, Hey, if I had this coming in, it’d be great.

Paul Do Campo:

And just to clear, when I say net, that’s before taxes, right? You know, I don’t know what that’s gonna be after taxes, but

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah.

David Richter:

I don’t mind if it’s net after taxes because then it’s like, okay, you know, like this would be actual profit to me after the business is taken care of and after what we’re doing. So just, you know,

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah.

David Richter:

Throwing the profit first mentality in there, but, uh, okay. So that’s a big thing there. So then, okay. Where did you learn about prophet first? Or, you know, separating out the accounts and getting that system on the backend to give yourself a little bit of headstart on the backend?

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah, I know I learned it a while ago and I don’t remember how, probably from a podcast and

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Do Campo:

It took me a while to actually, to actually implement it, so.

David Richter:

Okay. Why?

Paul Do Campo:

Well then like, why?

David Richter:

Why did it take you a while? Yeah,

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah. No, I think, it’s discipline. It’s really, it. I think it just comes down to discipline of doing it.

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Do Campo:

And, um, it is,

David Richter:

Oh, was it intimidating? Was it scary? I mean, was it like the

Paul Do Campo:

I didn’t see a point.

David Richter:

Discipline? didn’t see a point. Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah. Like, at that time. Yeah. Because it’s like, well, you have very little profit coming in, especially when you’re starting off with new business. You don’t, you don’t have very much coming in. So it’s like, okay. Yeah. So should I just invest the little measly pennies I have back into the business or take a profit for myself, so

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Do Campo:

I didn’t see a point back then. Do I start,

David Richter:

When did you start it then? Did it, was it progressing as you got more money in? Or like, what was the point where you’re like, you know what, this does make sense.

Paul Do Campo:

Um, it was when I started using YAB for, um, for my business. So I’ve used YAB for my personal finances for years. I wasn’t very disciplined in being in the books every week. And I’m in my books every week. Uhm

David Richter:

No way, kidding. Most people aren’t that are entrepreneurs stars, that’s for sure.<laugh>

Paul Do Campo:

<laugh>, I think it’s a great, like, just to see the money coming in, the money flowing out to see that, you know, and that might give some people anxiety or de depend really, or it might give people, um, uh, for me it doesn’t give me anxiety more, not because I guess, it’s a money mindset really. It’s not a scarce mindset. Even if you have a really low month that month,

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

I mean, um, you gotta have hope, you gotta have, um, optimism about things. I mean, I’m not gonna get into that. There’s plenty of like, you know, entrepreneur rule book books on a mindset and, uh, money, uh, mentality. But, um, yeah, I would say that it was when I was more disciplined in getting into YAB and then realized, you know what, why am I not doing this for my business? I made 20,000 this year. I need to, my business made 20,000. I can’t just, I haven’t taken any profit for myself. What am I doing? Like I need to take just a little bit to get into, it wasn’t just about like having more money every month, it was more about like, like structuring my finances for my business to make sure that, um, you know, I haven’t yet, uh, really thought, I mean, I’ve thought about this, but I haven’t really yet practice it is having the mentality of, hey, if I take, if I have a month where I make 5,000 off the business and I take 10% of that for myself, um, but I’m running like my expenses are really low that month, you know, I gotta not be tempted to take that $500 for that’s supposed to be paid to me and take it and run it back into my business just because I’m r running a really tight month. Um, I have to be tempted not to do that and run more on a, uh, my innovation and creative ways to either reduce my expenses or make more money. Right. Does that make sense, David? I was kinda rambling sense.

David Richter:

So you were 20,000, you, like when you made the 20,000 in the business, like maybe that was your first year or whatever, you still had another job at that point, correct. Like you were running or there was some other income coming in, or was like 20,000 what you made for the whole year.

Paul Do Campo:

Oh, right. 20,000. No. Yeah, no, 20,000 was not what I made. Yeah. I had, uh, so that was, so I would say, so I was a full-time freelance, um

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

Copywriter at that time. Yeah. So and then I had my other business, REI omni Drip,

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

Uh, where it’s, um, yeah, making $20,000, uh, a month. Um, that’s a mix of $20,000 a month off of uh, selling services,

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

Uh, marketing services for real estate investors. And also a combination of some, I have some pro. Um, property in that LLC

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

Where it’s no income that comes in, uh, a thousand dollars a month that comes in. Um, and so that’s a combination of all that. So

David Richter:

Yeah, that’s why I was asking that too, because you were like, okay, maybe I don’t want to take some of the money out. And I was like, well, maybe you don’t need to if you have another job or something. That’s why I was asking that cuz it’s like, okay, you might not. Right well I as much.

Paul Do Campo:

Right. I don’t need to. Yeah, you’re right. I don’t need to take money out, but it’s just the discipline of doing so,

David Richter:

Yeah,

Paul Do Campo:

Discipline of running it like an actual real business. Um, even if it’s only making, uh, 12,000, I mean the lowest point of my, of income, all my business was probably, um, $12,000 a year. Um, you know, that’s just. That’s all passive

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

Income from notes and stuff like that. Um, I still functioned in taking a little bit out for myself, um, just to get the habit of that discipline habit, you know? Well right

David Richter:

That’s great. That’s what it’s all about. It’s creating those good habits, those good disciplines in your business. So I’m glad you were doing it then. And what you said too, I thought it was really interesting. You were like at first didn’t see a point, didn’t have as much coming in, but you were already, it sounds like at some point, disciplined with you need a budget on the personal side. So you saw the power of a system already, but it wasn’t linked to your business yet. So then it sounds like you were using that and then a light went off and like, why am I not just doing something like this on the business side as well? That’s what it sounds like happened at that point. Was that kind of like the Okay, I kind of see how this parallels and I need at least something over here on my business.

Paul Do Campo:

Absolutely, yeah. Having a personal operating system for my finances, my personal side, which I’ve seen the benefit of it. Um, just an accumulation of cash reserves on personal side of things just from budgeting.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Um, yeah, so I know that there’s, um, I mean, and now I’m transitioning into a whole different topic of whether or not you should have cash. I’ve met investors that don’t like having lots of cash available.

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Do Campo:

Like dump it into, you know, buy notes, buy a property, dump it into it. Um, I like having cash reserve in place, but it, I mean, it makes sense for business and I personal life. I think it makes sense for myself as well, just from having the mindset of having a chunk of cash. People call it, you know, the f you money or screw you money

David Richter:

Sure.

Paul Do Campo:

When youre doing client work and stuff like that. So you don’t have to take on clients, the crappy clients. But, um, having that mentality of having some, uh, chunk of cash right there reserved for yourself. So

David Richter:

Yeah, I think that’s a very key point there. And I like what you said. I mean, there’s definitely two sides of that fence and I’d like to see where they end up without having cash reserves and unless they have, like you said, few money where it’s, I already made the millions and millions of dollars and now I just want to put everything into my assets and everything else. But if they’re not there, they’re probably struggling in a rat race, honestly. Probably struggle with like what you even talked about up upfront. Mortgage payments not enough. It’s like more and more and more when does it end? You know, like when, when does it end? So now I love that. And what, so why nab? Is that’s a paid for software, correct? Like you have to pay on?

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah. I don’t know how much it costs. I really don’t. It’s a yearly, I think at one point it’s like 50 bucks and they might

David Richter:

yeah

Paul Do Campo:

Have raised it to 200.

David Richter:

So do you think it’s worth it to have it as a system in your personal finances and, uh, sounds like you’re still running that system, like to run the profit first, <laugh> the system on, you need a budget, but that’s where you’ve got that going. So is it worth the cost of doing that, I guess is my question?

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah.

David Richter:

That you need a budget.

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah. I, for me it’s worth the cost. I mean, I think you need something, right?

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

You need, uh, either pen and paper if you want to do it that way,

David Richter:

<laugh>,

Paul Do Campo:

You know? Right. I mean, like, you need something. Um, so for me, I’m not an Excel guy, so I’m not gonna go create the Excel spreadsheet. I’ll just pay somebody a hundred bucks every year to have that for me.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

The license, you’re paying for the license to use it. Right. So, um, whether, I mean, can you run profit first without it? Yeah. I mean you’re probably, you’re the guy to go to for that. I mean having the multiple accounts and all that. And uh, yeah,

David Richter:

I like having options though for people cuz like what we do with people, we don’t fit into everyone’s category. Like you have to have a business, you gotta be doing at least $200,000 a year, you know, in gross profit. So it’s like if there’s another tool people could be using. I love that. So I, you’ve heard it from Paul, he’s using, you need a budget for his business and for his personal life. I think that’s probably a really good tool. I’ve heard other people say that as well. I was literally on a Zoom call right before this podcast where some people were using that and, but they asked the same question they said, I’m using, you need a budget. Do I really need to set up the bank accounts? I went on off a tie, right of yes, you still need the bank accounts. I usually use your system, but still set it up to actually see the physical money there. But that, like I said, we don’t have to get into that. But I,

Paul Do Campo:

Well actually I do have multiple, I you know, I take that back. I have a general expense

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Account, and I have a, um, and I’ve combined profit and taxes.

David Richter:

Yeah, that’s fine

Paul Do Campo:

Together.

David Richter:

I even love stuff

Paul Do Campo:

Like that. I don’t, I’m not disciplined enough to like, like I see the money in my wife heaven, that’s what I account for,

David Richter:

ahh Okay,

Paul Do Campo:

But I’m not physically moving the money out. Right. So I need to get a habit of moving money out.

David Richter:

You’ve heard it here, Paul is going to start that habit in the over the next week because that’s the key piece. Like you can do it on a spreadsheet all day long, but he’s gotta see it on the, in the side of the physical bank account. But that’s just, yeah. I <laugh> it sounds like you’ve been on this journey where you went from, well I, the journey, even from the beginning of struggling with even mortgage payments and what’s enough to then, okay, now I’ve got a business, now I’m doing the freelance work, now I’m getting some, now I don’t struggle with the mortgage, but maybe the, the enough part, but then I took it a step further. You took it and said, I need an actual system. Like I have it for my personal life now what about the business? And then you went there. It sounds like the next step if you allow me to just lead you there, is like, okay, now let’s implement Profit first and actually do some of these transfers and just keeps getting better and better. So I would say with that budget, it sounds like you’ve been able to build cash reserves. Do you think you would have done that without any system in place for your business? Would you have as much as you do now in your cash reserves?

Paul Do Campo:

No, I don’t think so at all. Unless I was just had a really strict mentality of being extremely frugal.

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

And I’m not, I well we’re kind of frugal, I guess in a way. Meaning like we’re, my wife is minimalist. She,

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

She attached herself to that whole, uh, movement and I think that’s great. So

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

Um, you know, we moved from southern California to North Idaho, uh, just recently. And, um, we took nothing except, uh,

David Richter:

Wow.

Paul Do Campo:

Backpack, clothes and <laugh>,

David Richter:

Oh man.<laugh>. Okay i have to ask before you keep going there, I wanna hear that journey, how are you on the minimalist movement? Do you like that she’s doing that? Or is this like, I’m have to really bend my mentality of being a minimalist

Paul Do Campo:

<laugh>? Uh, no, I have to bend my mentality for certain things. So I had a ton of books. I’m just, I love, I’m avid reader. I have tons of books. I had tons of books on my bookshelves, right? So, you know, so we had, I had to make a decision to move. Like, I was like, either we are going, I’m gonna have to pack this all up into a box heavy box and pay for the extraordinary shipping costs on this.

David Richter:

Right.

Paul Do Campo:

Um, or I had to get rid of it. And so like, okay, so I said, it’s a aside. I thought, thought, look, these books I can get again, you know, I’ve read these books, I sure I’ll read ’em again, but I need to just get, there’s no point in taking it with me. I can get them again if I really want to. So I got rid of all the books I donated, all of ’em. And so that was like the big, I guess that, and when it comes to you asking, you know, do I ascribe to that? Um, I guess yes and no, but it was really hard to get rid of the things that are important to me. And it’s not a minimalist attitude is not like, it’s not get rid of everything. It’s only keep the things that you absolutely love.

David Richter:

Yeah, yeah. For sure.

Paul Do Campo:

So, yeah, so, um, my wife, I’d say my wife is very much more minimalist than I am. Um, like she has less clothes than me. <laugh> believe.

David Richter:

Wow

Paul Do Campo:

She’s a woman. She has less clothes than me. So, um, so yeah, so I’ve attached to it, but not gotten full bore with it.

David Richter:

Sure. I just wondered because they, I’ve um, they have the Netflix specials, right? They’re on there and they’ve got like some books out and stuff. So that’s where

Paul Do Campo:

I got,

David Richter:

Right. She’s on there. And then there’s the actual guys that like, started the minimalist movement and you know, I’ve watched some of that. I saw like, this is great, this is like anti-American, you know, mentality of just hustle, hustle, hustle. Which it sounds like, okay, now to come full circle, the struggling with not, it’s like, okay, maybe we have to some of these mindsets, it’s like, okay, take what I need from minimalists, but then also make sure that we have enough, if that’s 30,000 or whatever it is to be, you know, to bring that in. But I guess how confident are you that you’re going to hit that number as long as you can still progressively scale and grow? How confident are you that you’ll hit at least that first number that you’ve got on your vision board there, or whatever that 30,000, how confident are you that you’re gonna be able to actually keep that and bring it in? And even if it’s before taxes or whatever with the systems you have,

Paul Do Campo:

Right? Yeah. How might, uh, I, well that, you know, increasing the income, that’s, you know, that how confident am I? It’s bringing pro, it’s increasing customer list. It’s bringing good products into the marketplace. Um, so yeah, I mean, I, calculating the numbers, I’m pretty confident given what I’ve done so far, given the products I have, um, given the numbers, crunching the numbers, um,

David Richter:

And then you have a system on the back end. So,

Paul Do Campo:

Right. And then that’s what I was gonna get to. That’s what I was gonna get to then having a system to keep that money. Right. So,

David Richter:

Awesome.

Paul Do Campo:

Uh, do, I honestly need 30,000. I, you know, we live pretty minimalist. I would say. Like, like I said, we moved to North Idaho. We have a,

David Richter:

Dream if your wife’s on the minimalist plan, like it sounds like that money is gonna definitely stretch a long way. So

Paul Do Campo:

Right. It’ll probably take us a long way. More than enough, you know, so if even if I don’t hit

David Richter:

Good

Paul Do Campo:

That number. Yeah. So, uh, we moved to, uh, so instead of, uh, buying a ridiculously expensive, I mean, mortgage rates are ridiculous right now, so I mean,

David Richter:

Right. Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Double what I’m gonna pay for in the same house two years ago. Um, so right now we’re renting right now since we moved to North Idaho, like, uh, three months ago.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

And so we’re kind of faced, okay, uh, are we gonna pay, you know, the house that we wanna live in, are we gonna pay double the amount of the mortgage rate when I can rent it, when I can get a rental for half that price?

David Richter:

Right.

Paul Do Campo:

Just down the street. Right. So that’s what I, so we decided to rent for now, um, because it’s just again, like, uh, you know, how far is my money gonna take me if, and I can really stretch it, really stretch our expenses by doing the whole traditional buying right now, paying double what I’m gonna pay on a mortgage. Um, right. So instead we just moved down the street to a really nice house, uh, and it’s half of what I’m gonna pay for a mortgage every month. Um, so, and then just live here until we see something change in the marketplace.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Or I find a good deal. Um, yeah. So

David Richter:

No, I totally get that. I also like the free, like, I had owned several houses outta I lived in and then moved across the country and rented, and I’m like, I love this. I don’t have to worry about the maintenance and all this stuff. It’s like, this is just taking another burden off of my mental capacity. So I’m totally like, I could go either way. The buying and the renting, like, I see the positives of both sides, but it sounds like it’s fitting into the overall plan, at least for now. Like what you and your wife have discussed, where you’ve moved together. Now it’s like, okay, making sure that you’re actually moving towards

Paul Do Campo:

What we found in this area. There’s a lot of furnished houses. It’s just, there’s a lot of short term air Airbnb stuff out here. Oh,

David Richter:

Okay.

Paul Do Campo:

So, you know, we don’t have, we didn’t have the furniture. We, like I told you, we came with our clothes and our backpack.

David Richter:

Right.

Paul Do Campo:

So, um, we’re just like, okay, cool. We found a place that’s fully furnished has everything for us. You know, we’re paying, uh, half the rent expense compared to a mortgage.

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

So I like, let’s just come here for a bit and see what happens. So

David Richter:

That’s pretty cool. And man, it’s like, you know, that stuff just seems to work out like that. And now that’s, no, that’s awesome. Well, this has been awesome. I appreciate your insight here. I think that you need a budget is really good. Like, if people are wondering, if you’re like starting out and you’re wondering, like, I need some sort of system. I love Profit first, but I need some sort of, uh, you know, extra system to actually calculate this. And I love what you said too, that you’re not a spreadsheet wizard, that you’re not really the numbers, you know, guy, you’re more of the like, Hey, I wanna go, I’m the copywriter, you know, like, I want to go out there and hustle and get the sales and all that. It sounds like that’s who you are. So I love that because I feel like you gave a lot of value of like, okay, you need a budget or something of that effect to be able to say, okay, run profit first, but then make sure you’re tracking it as well. Thank you for opening up too, like with the struggles of like, where you came from and then, you know, from where the systems have helped you overcome some of those things as well too. I would just ask two more questions. One, do you have any advice or last minute advice here for the real estate investing community?

Paul Do Campo:

Oh, man. Uh, I’m always looking up to the real estate investing community. I mean, I, a lot of guys, these guys are, um, you know, I aspire to be some of these guys who have tons of houses, tons of property, um, do, I mean, the only advice I ever come in to play, I guess for them is cop writing or marketing. Um, so yeah, I mean, <laugh>, uh, if they, I mean, if they ever want to, um, see what I do, they can always jump into my website, um, or reiomnidrip.com. Um, I do follow up marketing for those guys. Um, but, uh, yeah, as far as advice, man, I, I’m taking advice from them every day, so

David Richter:

Sure. But you have expertise that they don’t have

Paul Do Campo:

<laugh>

David Richter:

The copywriting side. What would you say is a key to a good copywriter?

Paul Do Campo:

Right. So yeah, I think the simplest advice I can, and yeah, thank you for narrowing that down. So I think the simplest advice as far as copy, I know we didn’t discuss copy on this, but, um, for copying a whole lot of real semesters, don’t really care about copy, I guess. I mean, I suppose for copywriting list has results. So I would say that the simplest, biggest tip I give to real estate investors when they’re writing an email, when they’re, um, writing a letter when they’re, um, even just like a sales presentation, right? Or webinar, whatever it is

David Richter:

Yeah

Paul Do Campo:

That they’re doing, that involves sales. Um, I’d say the biggest thing that they can do is uh, write like you talk. And that’s like, that’s, I tell that to everybody. That’s like copywriting 1 0 1, right? Is right, like you talk. Cause I think a lot of real, especially real estate investors, they get too much into trying to sound professional. They, when they don’t need to, especially even if they’re talking to other professionals, right? They don’t have to be, um, sounding like the HR department. Um, and you know, they’re not writing up a legal document. So there’s no need. You just come out as more authentic. Um, just copywriting 1 0 1 is just, that’s been for decades, for a hundred years. The mentality of writing, like you talk writing like Joe Schmo down the street, um, it automatically has this, um, when you read something like that automatically you have subconsciously the reader has this, um, connection, authentic authentication with the person behind the letter.

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Um, rather than sound like a business, a corporation, um, nobody likes that. It turns people off. You don’t have that trust and that credibility, that connection, that sub we subconsciously have. So,

David Richter:

Yeah.

Paul Do Campo:

Does that make sense?

David Richter:

That makes a lot of sense. That’s good stuff. So then you told about that website, it’s reiomnidrip, and you wanna just talk real quick about what that is and is that where they go to find you? Or like that’s what you’re working on? Just

Paul Do Campo:

Sure.

David Richter:

Go from there.

Paul Do Campo:

Yeah. So, uh, you know, I’ve talked about my business. That’s it right there. What we do is we build, um, follow up marketing for wholesaler, for off market wholesalers, flippers. Um, we have a whole system of follow up marketing and flows. Uh, we plug in copy driven, uh, SMS messages, emails into their crm. We actually install it for them. Uh, it’s custom made to them, meaning it, we take their business, their buying mod, uh, methods methodology, plug it into the messages, make sure everything’s congruent with their business, um, and copy driven emails and, uh, voicemail scripts and all that. We plug that into their CRM for them. So,

David Richter:

Awesome.

Paul Do Campo:

They can get a sample samples, they can get, uh, a demo of the whole thing by just going to, uh, reiomnidrip.com.

David Richter:

Cool. Well then that’s how to get a hold of Paul. This has been really great. Like I said, I think a lot of great advice, but also just your great stories from your journey and then how you’re using some of those backend systems. Then if you are like, Paul, you’re listening to this and you’re like, holy crud, like that resonating with me. I hate the numbers, I hate spreadsheets, I hate all this stuff. That’s like, okay, do you need someone to help you? Then we have our company, simplecfo.com. You can go there, it’s a fractional CFO service. Put a financial leader on your team. If you hate all this side of stuff and you don’t wanna manage it, you, we can help you manage it. We can help you to know where every dollar is going in your business. We are gonna help you set up actual physical bank accounts and make sure we hold you accountable to actually move the money as well too. So that’s where I wanna make sure you have it all in place to know where every dollar’s going so you can keep more of it. Like Paul is keeping more in reserves because he has an actual system on the back end than if he would’ve never set anything up. He would’ve had to be even more intentional, more strict, and trying to dive into numbers that no entrepreneur wants to. So if you want to go to simplecfo.com, thank you for listening. Make sure to make profit a habit in your business. Paul, thank you so much for the value brought today.

Paul Do Campo:

Thank you, man. Appreciate being on

Outro:

This episode of The Profit First for REI podcast is over, but there are plenty more where that came from. Are you ready to learn how David and his team can help implement the Profit First system in your business? Schedule a discovery call at simplecfo.com right now. We’ll see you next time on the Profit First for REI podcast with David Richter.