Episode 158: Profit First Lesson and Tips from Jerry Green, founder of Real Estate Solutions, Inc on how to manage Real State and Financial Systems
The Profit First REI Podcast
February 23, 2023
David Richter
Summary:
As investors, we’re always at the mercy of the market. Because of that, learning how to navigate economic challenges and adapt your business is crucial to keep your business surviving and thriving.
At 28 years in the business, our guest today has experienced the many changes in the economic climate and the real estate industry. Jerry Green is the president and founder of Real Estate Solutions, Inc., beginning his journey in wholesaling and retailing. Now, he is a successful business owner and has expanded his mission into sharing his knowledge with other people who want to enhance their businesses.
Tune in as we talk finances, operations, sales, and the many systems that make a business work from the insight of someone who has been tested by time!
Key Takeaways:
[00:45] Introducing Jerry Green and His Background
[07:30] Making Money and Keeping Money are Different Skills
[08:38] How Jerry Would Rank Business Skills
[10:27] Entrepreneurs Who Get Into the Real Estate Industry and the Tendency to Not Initially Treat It as a Business
[19:12] “Hodge-Podge” Properties
[23:28] Real Estate Entrepreneurs and Having Financial Systems
[25:30] The Importance of Knowing Your Numbers
[28:12] Advice for Real Estate Investors: Make Sure Your Sales Team is Dialed In
[31:55] Connect With Jerry
Quotes:
[07:10] “Now what happens is all these mortgage reps, they have to sell [but] they don’t know what to do…It’s the same way with real estate investors…they’ve got to change us up here first to realize that it’s no longer the marketplace that’s going to take them through, it’s their skills.”
[12:50] “Real estate’s no different than any other product or service out there….All we [have] to do [is[ concentrate on the business component…If we build that up, then that allows us to be able to turn more product.”
[30:57] “We can grow during this time (of economic shifts). We can produce more revenue…we just gotta realize that now’s the time to grow up and be business owners—true business owners.”
Connect with Jerry
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jerrygreenrei/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejerrygreen
Real Estate Training Website: https://www.thejerrygreen.com/
REI Sales Academy Website: https://www.reisalesacademy.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:
Jerry Green:
When you’re in that position where you can actually look at the business from above more,
David Richter:
yeah,
Jerry Green:
You can play success and you’re being very strategic about moving things like, well, if I do this, what happens to this? If I do this, what happens to this? Versus checkers, what are we doing? We’re just hopping around all over the board, right?
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:
Jerry Green has been a real estate investor for 28 years, been in the business world, he has seen different markets, and he talks about what to do in a down market or in a regular market or in upmarket. He’s going to give you what his formula for staying in business for that long is, which I love cuz it touches not just the finances, but also operations and sales and systems. And just really encapsulates, okay, 28 years of experience. Dow down into a 30 minute episode here. I really think it’s going to help you no matter where you are on your business journey, help you think more like an owner and not just an individual running around from property, property deal to deal. I want this to help you a lot. Thank you so much for listening and enjoy the episode. Jerry Green, man, I am super excited about this episode and really wanting to dive in about what you teach, what you offer, but then also just a lot of the things that you do to help real estate investors. So Jerry, thanks for being on the Profit for Star podcast today. So
Jerry Green:
Absolutely my man. I’m glad to be on our brother and uh, like I said, good to see you dude.
David Richter:
So, yeah, well it’s, it’s exciting cuz I get to see Jerry at a couple different masterminds we’re a part of and like out there and he’s making a big impact with a lot of people and it’s helped a ton of people. So I wanna kind of just dive into it in a declining market. Like what are you seeing in the real estate world right now? Are a lot of people panicking? How are you doing with your real estate business? Like, maybe give a little bit of background about what you do, but then just go into like what you’re seeing around the marketplace, you know, this Well, where we are right now.
Jerry Green:
Yeah, well, you know, I’ve, you know, first of all David, I think, um, I’ve been around the block a couple times on things.
David Richter:
Yeah, yeah.
Jerry Green:
Uh, I’ve been doing this since 1994, so 28 years going on, going on 29 real shortly <laugh>. So, and over those years, um, obviously I’ve got to see a lot of different market shifts. So it’s something that, uh, I’ve seen more than once. And, um, yet it’s super important to understand, you know, going into these is that, um, you have to adjust from one. I think that’s important on that side, but I think you have to understand too, uh, David is like understanding where the adjustment really needs to be made. And, um, I, you know, one of the, I’ll tell you one of the big things that I see right now is that over the last, you know, two years or so here, you know, since Covid and stuff, I what I’ve seen so much is a lot of people are in a position where they’ve been, uh, really riding the wave of the marketplace.
David Richter:
Yeah
Jerry Green:
Okay. And I’m sure you’ve heard that a lot too on things. But, so, and what’s interesting on that David too is when people are doing that, what it does is a lot of times it gives ’em a, um, it gives ’em a whole false indication of really what this business is about. Okay. And how we do this. So yeah, and I tell you what I’ve seen on this too is that a lot of people doing this, like I said, what’s happened is a lot of their success is not so much from what they’ve been actually doing, but it’s been so much of the marketplace driving things.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Okay. And now David, well, it’s interesting and look, I’ve had to talk a lot to my own team on this. Even it’s, I told him, I said, guys, look, the last, these last two years or so, you guys have really been living in a fantasy market, okay?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And it’s never been a real market that, and now what’s happening is that things are adjusting and as we’re adjusting, it’s getting back to really not this freak out market, but a normal market.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Okay. And that’s what I spent majority of my career in, is a normal market. Yeah. But a lot of investors or team members have never experienced that, especially if they came in the last couple years. Right? Right. So they never had anything else to, uh, reference to. So what happens is they come in and they used to just locking up deals and people just buying ’em because it’s the market driving it.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And I had to, like I said, I had to reset my team on this and I’ve had to work with a lot of my students and I said, look guys, you’ve gotta look at really what the number one thing is right now you gotta depend on is not the marketplace but your skills. Okay. And David, that’s a big component. So for one is like, let’s just look at acquisitions. So acquisitions on the sale and dispositions the same thing on sales. All that was. So it was a lot easier with the market the way it was because one people were locking up deals higher and they were just pushing ’em out and they were getting it prices anyways, right?
David Richter:
Yeah. Yep.
Jerry Green:
And then dispo, if you’re, you know, even if you’re doing fix and flip or if you’re doing wholesale whatever, you were able to go out there and push to a lot of your lists and people would snatch those up and it’s you know, that’s changing. And what happens is all the people that really ignored, like true sales training are getting bit in the ass right now.
David Richter:
Okay.
Jerry Green:
Okay. Because what happened was there was not much skills in that. Okay. And another example too is in the mortgage business right now, David. Okay. So I see a couple mortgage companies I work with, uh, consult with a little bit, and I’m looking at coming in and helping their sales teams. All right? And one of the things, uh, that I’m looking at on this is like they said, everything was so easy before, cuz people just come in and they say, yeah, hey, there’s a, here’s the rate, great, and here’s a few points. Oh good, let’s just go, let’s go. But now what happens is all those mortgage reps, they have to sell and they don’t know what to do.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And it’s the same way with real estate investors or acquisitions people or dispo people. They’ve gotta change us up here first to realize that it’s no longer the marketplace that’s gonna take ’em through. It’s their skills that’s gonna take ’em through.
David Richter:
Yeah, That’s really good. Because I feel like in this market they haven’t even, you know, like, uh, if you know that statement, it’s one thing, it’s a one skill to make the money, it’s another skill to keep it, you know, we talk a lot about that, obviously on this podcast, both of those skills. And I feel like in this market for the last two, three years, you haven’t even had to have much in the way of the skills of making it. You just had to put in the offers or you were able to, if you, even if it was a horrible offer and it got accepted, you were still able to sell it for more <laugh> than what you got for. So
Jerry Green:
Yeah, exactly David. And that’s been a whole false market on things and it created a, um, I always say this, it there’s a lot of dumb people. A lot. It made a lot of money. <laugh>
David Richter:
nice. Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And I’m not trying to insult anybody, but I’m just saying this because , it’s true. And we just have to realize that you know, the people are gonna really excel during the time is the people that hammered down on their skills.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Okay. And that’s in multiple areas of the business.
David Richter:
Yeah. So obviously sales is a huge one. Where would you rank like the skills to learn during a down market? Would it be sales number one and, you know, I don’t know, operations, finance, marketing, like you’ve got a lot of different options for other skills to be a warning during the down market or any market?
Jerry Green:
Yeah, I mean, definitely I look at, um, sales, uh, I would look at definitely sales and operations being up there in the top ones because, you know, I look at when, after 2008, uh, went through a period of time there where I would say David, probably 85 to 90% of the people that I knew in business during that time, after that whole craziness that went on the actual crash in the market, I bet close to 85 to 90% of ’em went out of business.
David Richter:
Oh, wow.
Jerry Green:
And a big shift that I saw, uh, or a big reason behind all that was a lot of it was because so many of ’em were so involved into all the, they were so involved in the business and they could never, uh, have enough time to look at the business on a higher level and, you know, be able to see really what was going on. They were just grinding so fast and so hard when it shifted, they were just caught up in the grind mode to continue.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
The grind, the grind, the grind. And they never got a chance to look at it on a higher level, uh, like you guys do, you know, for a lot of entrepreneurs in this space and be able to look at those numbers and say, Hey, oh geez, we, you know, this is what I’m doing here. Not, you know, it’s the numbers, it’s the team, it’s strategies we’re using and all these things. And a lot of times you, you don’t see that stuff. And what’ll happen is a good market will cover up a lot of those sins.
David Richter:
Right. So would you say then, a lot of people that get into just business in general, do you think they start out running it like a business seen, you know, like where you’ve been able to see a lot of people, especially in the real estate investing space, or would you say
Jerry Green:
No, no, most people don’t. It comes in and it’s, um, especially I think real estate is probably one of the ones that they, people are even, um, I think this is the area that people are really bad about this more than other businesses.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And I’ll, and tell you, I think why on this is because, uh, real estate is looked at so much like on a personal level a little bit more.
David Richter:
yeah
Jerry Green:
And if you look at, you think about this David, and a lot of this comes too from what we see on television on stuff like that, right?
David Richter:
Right.
Jerry Green:
HGTV and all this. And so people get involved in that and they look at, oh, I can do this, I can do this. And if I, you know, I can just go out and I can make these improvements. And then they think they’re the home designer. And then what happens is they get emotionally involved in these properties. And you know, once you, uh, look, I always say this, if you fall in love with a property you’ve been had
David Richter:
Yeah, yeah.
Jerry Green:
And you know, and I think a big, a big change for me, and this was many years ago, and I took a lot of hard hits on this over the years is when I came down to the point where literally I drew the down a center of a piece of notebook paper. One side I wrote real estate, the other side I wrote business. And what I did, and what was interesting on this, David, was I realized something up to that point, all I was doing was I was just in the real estate business and I was just, uh, real, I was just not even really state real estate business. I was just in real estate chasing deals, constantly rehabbing, doing all this, managing stuff and you know, project management and all these things. And I never looked at it on the other side of the paper. And that is really looking at as a true business. I never looked at it in regards to, okay, let me think about this. There’s overall a operating system. There’s processes back in this operating system up there’s uh, people in different boxes. There’s true numbers that people have to be accountable for all these things. And when I started looking at that, I started, wait a minute, I mean, real estate’s no different than any other product or service out there.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And all we have to do, we have to concentrate on the business component. Right. And then realize if we build that up, then that allows us to be able to turn more product. Now, it doesn’t matter if what you’re doing, I don’t care if you’re fixing, flipping your wholesaling, whole tailing ions, buying whole, it doesn’t really matter when it comes to that, what you have to look at. It is a true business model and you have to start looking at it that way. And it took me a long time to do that. And a lot of investors don’t do that. And I get asked that question a lot too. A lot of people say, Hey Jerry, just say, you know, hey, you know, when you first started this, um, back 20 some years ago, anything he would’ve done differently. And I said, oh yeah, one, I would’ve slapped myself upside the head and realized that, you know, why not look at this day one that you really truly have a business on day one.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And that’s, and let’s start looking at it that way and start planning it that way. And it’s just like you two, you know, you guys teach too, David, the same thing. It’s, you know, let’s run it as a business. Let’s understand the numbers as a business. Uh, because ultimately in the long run, you’re gonna be much better off on things. You’re gonna be happier, you’re gonna be able to remove yourself quicker from that day-to-day side of things. And it truly becomes, um, the business. And I got a friend of mine, he always looks at this way. He says, you can have a business or you can have a company.
David Richter:
hmm
Jerry Green:
And he says, a business will be in a position where you can have a hotdog stand on the corner and have a business.
David Richter:
Right.
Jerry Green:
He says, but how can you take it to a company that thrives without you being involved in the day-to-day side of things?
David Richter:
Yeah. No, that’s good. Would you say too, cuz you mentioned a lot of investors that went down before, like 85%, 90% wiped out in the last correction. Would you say a lot of them had businesses or companies at that point or they were, had the business mindset? Or were they more the, just do the deal churn and burn? Do you know, deal after deal? What?
Jerry Green:
Yeah,
David Richter:
I guess 5%.
What would you say they had?
Jerry Green:
They definitely had the, the big chunk of ’em had that mindset of just, you know, constantly grinding on things. I,
David Richter:
yeah.
Jerry Green:
I remember one in particular, uh, nice couple and, um, really nice people and I really enjoyed them and stuff, but they were so caught up in it all that, and, and, and I remember the, one of the owners, he spent majority of his time running from property to property, uh, make sure the rehabs that were being done, things like that, and just constantly out in the field on things. And what, what he wasn’t doing, it was actually overseeing to how the business could grow, how it could adjust into marketplaces. And um, and if you think about it, he was just really being an overpaid project manager. Yeah.
David Richter:
Okay. So you’ve seen different markets for the last 28 years, like you mentioned. Have you seen anyone who did have a company who was of that business owner mentality, how often do you see people like that go down in this space versus the, that other side? Well,
Jerry Green:
I think it’s greatly reduced on that side of things. I think that, um, you know, probably in that 15% or, uh, you know, to 20% range and, and there that went through the last cycle, people were more focused on that side of things because Yeah. Was thought about that. They thought about the numbers and, and, and all this all, all these moving parts that we have in any business. And they were more aware of that and they could actually plan. Right. And you know, and, and I think that’s a big component of that. They could plan, they could make, uh, strategic type moves. Cuz I, I, you know, I’ll, I’ll never forget one of my, um, friends that I got to know, and he’s been a mentor to me as well. Um, now this, not in the real estate space, but it was another business. But he took a company to uh, about 300 million a year in revenue. And, you know, he always, he, he, he always look at things too in the regards to, you know, um, he would compare it to plan, um, chest to checkers.
David Richter:
Okay.
Jerry Green:
Okay. And he says, you know, then when you’re, when you’re in that position where you can actually look at the business from above more,
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
You can play test and you’re being very strategic about moving things. Like, well, if I do this, what happens to this? If I do this, what happens to this? Versus checkers, what do we doing? We’re just hopping around all over the board. Right,
David Richter:
Right. Yes, I understand that game with a five-year-old daughter. So
Jerry Green:
<laugh>. So, you know, and I think that’s a good comparison on that and head home on that. And that’s like, yeah, that, I mean, it’s exactly the way it is. And I’ve experienced myself, I’ve seen a lot of investors go through this side of things. And I think, um, really to, you know, especially in this adjusting marketplace here, I mean, you know, with this adjusting market too, I mean, we’re not seeing anything. We don’t have the crash thing that we have going on before, you know, we’re having an adjustment, but the reality is we needed an adjustment. Okay.
David Richter:
Right, Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And we needed to get that back to a little but more normalized market on things. And, but if you’re not used to that, this is gonna be more of a freakout stage than anything. And then I think, you know, the other side of that too, David, is that way I see a lot of investors dealing with, and even with our sales team, we’ve had real continue to work with them even daily, I mean daily to the point where they start understanding that, you know, uh, sellers are pretty well six, seven months behind the reality of things.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Okay. And our job is to also not only put deals together, but to get to that point of putting deals together too as a salesperson is you’ve got to, you gotta educate your, your clients.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
So,
David Richter:
Man,That’s really good. That’s, there’s a lot of good stuff there because, you know, we need to make sure that people are business owners and not just, you know, just running around like from deal to deal or project to project chess versus checkers. I like that you said you’re daily working with your team or other teams as well too. It’s like you gotta start educating these sellers, that’s where you call back to the, the most important skill. Right. You gotta be skilled and it can’t just be, you can’t just throw stuff at the wall anymore and it’s gonna stick.
Jerry Green:
Right? Yeah. You know, I, you know, David, the funny thing is, and look, like I said, I’ve seen this in my own team, even on some sales where they would throw a hail Mary and it would, and they would get it sold, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Well you can’t do that anymore.
David Richter:
No.
Jerry Green:
Okay. It’s changed on that side of things. And then even, um, what we call, um, I would call ’em like, um, hodgepodge properties, <laugh>
David Richter:
Hodge properties. Okay.
Jerry Green:
Yeah. So here’s what, uh, the thing I would see a lot of, and my team’s done it too, and I’ve seen, but I see a lot of investors do this. So over the last couple years, what they’ve done is they’ve taken properties that, what I call hodgepodge, and it’s all put together. So it’s, it looks like it’s a, um, they call it a multi-family, but it’s really a single family home with a, uh, bunch of rooms converted and they turn it into,
David Richter:
yeah
Jerry Green:
Right. You’ve seen that dude, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And then what happens is, um, they take those and they say, oh, great. And an investor, somebody else wants to sell it. So it comes into like my team or somebody else’s team and they think, man, I got this great multi-family deal. What’s something about multi-family deal?
David Richter:
Right.
Jerry Green:
Okay.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
It was a hodgepodge put together on things. Now before the last couple years you’ve been able to sell that stuff, but now what we’re seeing already, those type of deals, if it’s an oddball one, boom, it’s out.
David Richter:
Right, Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And it could be even from the appearance. So literally I tell my team, I said, look, you can look at the appearance of a property literally on a street view photo from Google, and if it’s got a front of the property that cannot be fixed, your chance is, oh, you’re not gonna be able to sell it now.
David Richter:
Right.
Jerry Green:
Okay. It’s got like a really oddball, you know, like very low hanging front porch or uh, could be something that, I’ve seen stuff before where you can’t figure out if it’s a commercial building or if it’s a house and they converted it, you know, from, who knows what, you know, one time an old drugstore into an apartment or something
David Richter:
right,yeah
Jerry Green:
Like that old corner drug store and see those things you were able to push out because it was such a demand on that. But as the market shifts, people became, become more particular. And then all of a sudden that buyer pool, that was really the ones that we buy anything, they start to go away.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And then all of a sudden you gotta think about, again, more strategic in saying, oh, I met this stuff, you know, I had before, I gotta change it the way I’m doing things or change your strategy. Right. So, like I remember back in um, nineties as the market was shifting and things like that, I had buildings like that and I’m like, man, there’s no way I’m gonna make this thing happen. So I would just do an option on it.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Okay. So I control it with an option. I didn’t have to do anything with it, you know, it was a, basically a unilateral agreement. I have the right to act on it, but I didn’t have to. So, and I, but I controlled the deal.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
So, I’ve done that like, on a lot of like small commercial properties and stuff like that. And that’s the thing that we can do. So, you know, it’s realizing too that not only your skills, but sometimes you have to change your strategies when you’re going into a deal. So you have more strategies on your exit.
David Richter:
Yeah, no, that’s really good because you don’t wanna get stuck with one of those hodgepodge properties.
Jerry Green:
Yeah, Exactly.
David Richter:
Shoot. You know, like, what do I do with this thing? I’ve gotta convert this to some office space or something. Make it worth it so you’re not just, you know, draining money there. And then I like what you said, give yourself options so that way you can give strategies. So lock it up with an option. Or just making sure going into the deal, what am I gonna do with this before I, you know, before I try and sell it first, or if I had to keep it, what would I have to do? That’s really good stuff. Would you say then, cause you say okay, sales operations, you see a lot of that on that side. Would you say a lot of the people that you help at work with, how many of them have systems for their finances and for the financial side of their business?
Jerry Green:
Very few <laugh>. Very few on that side of things. In the beginning stages.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
On things. Um, you know, I think it’s obviously as they go further into things, we really talk about that a lot, you know, in regards to putting that more in place setting, you know, because I think, um, David, and that, I know that you see this a lot cuz you’re on the front lines of this, but I actually most, uh, entrepreneur, especially in this, uh, business space, that what they do is they operate off a checking account balance versus actual financials.
David Richter:
Right? Yep.
Jerry Green:
And, uh,
David Richter:
yes, indeed,
Jerry Green:
<laugh>,
David Richter:
no, If you’re seeing that too, then it’s all over the place
Jerry Green:
yeah, <laugh>
David Richter:
because where it’s what we see for sure. But then, yeah, I was just curious because I know you work with a lot of people and you help them with their sales, their operations, you know, just really tightening things up and so I was just genuinely curious like how many people you walk into and they’ve got the financial portion buttoned up, but
Jerry Green:
Yeah, very few actually have it buttoned up on things. Um, I think one other thing that I see a lot of things too, David and I experienced this years ago too, was that, um, this is another reason too, people, if you think about it, when you’re working really heavy in the business
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
What happens is, and you know this, you see this a lot, um, that the financial side becomes so down, it becomes way down on the to-do list,
David Richter:
right, Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Right way weighing down on there. So they’re just like boom, boom, boom, boom, going, going, going, going, going. And uh, then what happens is they get behind on tax, uh, returns, right?
David Richter:
Right. Yes.
Jerry Green:
Yeah. And, uh, I’ve been there, done that.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Um, and you get behind on that side of things and you just, and that starts piling up and then what you’re doing is you’re just flying blind.
David Richter:
Yeah, exactly. Oh man. So then I guess, can you speak to that just a little bit? What is the importance of, in your business and the others that you see, the financial portion, being able to see what your numbers are and being able to know where you stand financially?
Jerry Green:
Dude, it’s critical. I mean, it’s, look, I mean, ultimately it’s really hard to make the decisions that you need to make without that day. But, and you know that too, man, I’m, you see it all the time, but it’s, I think it gives you, um, the cool thing about it is when you really start understanding that side of things, then you can really, uh, start understanding what type of returns you’re actually getting on your marketing dollar for dollar. You start understanding too, um, you know, uh, team members you’re investing into, are they making a return? Okay. Uh, and we start understanding that side of things, which to me is, you know, it’s like, it’s easy to get to the point where you’re just pouring money out into team members and all these things, and you’re not really sure if you’re getting a return on that, uh, on that money, And you know, really once it comes down to that, once you really understand that side of things and you’re working within those parameters, then you can ramp it up, you can scale, you know, damn whatever you need to, but you know where you’re at and it really makes a big difference on that component, you know, and it’s, and you know, we like to try to go in and plan and look at any company. Like we, you know, we took over the sales academy this year, the
David Richter:
Yeah,
Jerry Green:
R R E I Sales academy from John Martinez. And, you know, we went in, we had a monthly, uh, budget that we planned with, uh, right out of the gate. Um, you know, and, uh, we had those numbers from one historical data where, you know, where the company operated at and we know what our monthly, uh, you know, our monthly nut is
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
On things. And, uh, we know where we need to be on that. And, you know, we understand our margins on that side of things. And, it makes a big difference on that component instead of just waiting to get into a p and l to find out, you know, if you made any money or not. So.
David Richter:
Right, man, that’s good because especially, I like that example, like, you bought a business, he had to know the numbers, he had to know what were they bringing in, what was going out.
Jerry Green:
Yeah, absolutely.
David Richter:
So I mean, that’s just part, like, I like how you said too, business versus company. You, if you’re going to acquire, you’re going to acquire companies, you want to acquire companies that have like systems, processes, list data, people, whatever it might be. So
Jerry Green:
Absolutely.
David Richter:
That was really key. I just have a couple last questions here, uh,
Jerry Green:
Sure.
David Richter:
With our time here today. So then what would be some just last minute advice that you give to the real estate investors listing here? It could be on anything sales, the skills, operations, it could be finances, whatever you think that the real estate world needs to hear right now.
Jerry Green:
Well, I think a big thing is, um, no, I really, and it’s not just because I own the sales academy now, but
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Um, I think it’s extremely important to make sure your sales team members are really dialed in right now. Okay. And I mean, really, and to the point where they’re heavy on the training side because they have really been able to do a lot of stuff the last several years here that they can’t do anymore. Okay.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And, David, if people don’t get that, I’m telling your brother on that skills is going to really push you through this time and let you also not, not just put you through, but put you way ahead. I mean,
David Richter:
Yeah,
Jerry Green:
Look, during this time you can kick butt during these next, you know, couple years. But the thing is, is you gotta rely on your skills. And it’s amazing on that side of things, but you know, if you, it’s just like, if you think about things, David, a perfect example, if I’m talking to a seller and I don’t, uh, you know, we talk about a lot of times in like in the sales academy about price anchoring people. Okay? But also you have to learn how to market anchor people.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
So what you do is you anchor them based upon what’s going on in the marketplace.
David Richter:
Yeah, that’s true.
Jerry Green:
Okay. That’s really, so I might be talking to Davis and David. Hey, uh, as you know already, man, um, you know, inflation’s really hitting us hard gas prices are going through the roof, you know, all these things and we’re just, we’re anchoring, you know, uh, feds are raising rates and all this stuff. So we’re anchoring on that side of things.Okay.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And, it, I think it’s important for people to understand that and that’s how you’re gonna really excel on this. So I think that’s a big component, and I’m wanna give everybody a tip on that is focus down on heavy on your sales teams in the training.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
That is a huge, huge component. Okay. And then the other things is really understand your business and your numbers and uh, make sure you really tighten that up. Because ultimately what you wanna do is you wanna have a really, um, mean lean machine right now.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
Okay. And understand, you know, what’s really, what’s given you the ultimate, uh, return and let’s cut out all the fat crap. Okay.
David Richter:
Yeah, no, that’s really good.
Jerry Green:
So I think if you focus in on those things, you’ll see your business grow. That’s the cool thing about we can grow during this time. Yeah. You know, and we can produce more revenue and everything else. We just gotta realize that, um, now it’s time to grow up and be business owners, uh, true business owners, right?
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
And not just let a market take us on a ride, but now it’s time to become and you know, that real business owner, that company that you wanna take, get and build.
David Richter:
Yeah. No, that’s really good stuff. So this has been awesome because we’ve gotten down the road from, hey, you need to work on those skills to become not only to survive but thrive during this time play chess. Now checkers, you know, working with the team sellers are seven months behind, like being able to get them up to date. I like what you said there at the end, anchoring the market, not just price, but like now you’re anchoring the market, this is where
Jerry Green:
Yeah
David Richter:
The market is. So really helping there. And then, oh, I love what you said about the numbers and making sure people know the numbers and have the grasp on their finances to really become those business owners. Last question is, you provided a ton of value there. Where can people reach out to you? What are you working on right now? I know you have the sales academy, but what else would you wanna Uh,
Jerry Green:
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks David, I appreciate that. Sure. Yeah, so a couple places you guys can reach out to me, obviously through social media, you can follow me. Um, easy to follow just uh, on Facebook. Uh, it’s Jerry Green, um, I got a business page, Jerry Green and my personal page. I think I’ve still got some friend requests. I try to clean that out of once in a while.
David Richter:
Yeah.
Jerry Green:
So you can follow me there. It’s pretty simple to pop up on that. I’m right on Ohio in, uh, Dayton, Ohio area, so you can pop that up pretty easy there. Um, the other side, uh, two guys is uh, Instagram and uh, I think my hand on has, uh, the Jerry Green. Okay. So that’s easy. And then I, uh, I have two main websites you can go to, David one is djgreen.com. Very simple. You go on there. Talks about my systems and operations training that we do. We do a two day event, show people exactly how to do what we’ve done on our business to systemize it. Um, two days. We actually got come on coming up December 1st and second right in my office. We do a small group, keep it about 20 people, and we just go through our complete business, all our departments. And then day two, you get a complete roadmap to take, run your business with.
David Richter:
Awesome.
Jerry Green:
So yeah. And then if you need help on your sales side and you really wanna master this game of, uh, converting more deals, um, and creating bigger spreads, then um, you know, check out my RDI I sales academy. That’s rdisalesacademy.com. Okay,
David Richter:
Cool. Well, there, there you go. That’s how you can follow Jerry. And then that’s where you can get in touch with him depending on what you need. Sales operations, he covers a lot of different things and I love that he flies, you know, that people fly in to watch and get to see the day-to-day operations there and get to learn from different people and get to see what go is going on in it and actual true company. So that’s good stuff. But
Jerry Green:
<laugh>,
David Richter:
Jerry, this has been great. I wanna do, if you’re listening right now and you’re a real estate investor and you wanna make that leap to business owner and run a company, reach out to simple CFO as well too. We can help you get the numbers in place and know exactly where you stand and be able to get your cash flow and everything that you need to be on the financial side. Don’t just make a ton of money. Keep it as well too. You can head over to simplecfo.com, you can make sure we can see if we’re the right fit for you, but wanna make sure you remember make Profit a Habit in your business. Jerry, thank you so much for being on today, man.
Jerry Green:
You’re welcome, brother. Thank you.
Outro:
This episode of The Prophet 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.
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