WS715: Building Credibility To Attract Capital with John Casmon

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:00.0] ANNOUNCER Welcome to the Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.

And now your host, Whitney Sewell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:24.4] WS: This is your daily real estate syndication show. I’m your host Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is John Casmon, thanks for being on the show again John.

[0:00:32.1] JC: Whitney, thank you for having me on. I’m so excited to be able to come back, that means the first episode must have been decent at least but glad you have me back on here.

[0:00:42.4] WS: I’m honored just to know you, John, and just to get to know you over the last few years, see you at events and your progress, and just so the listener knows, John was on a show, WS268. It’s hard to believe it was almost 500 shows ago but a lot has happened since then and John is just an expert in this business and has a lot of knowledge to help us in this business as well.

Looking forward to this conversation. He’s a multi-family investor and marketing maven. He’s helped professionals invest in close to 90 million dollars’ worth of real estate and is the host of the Target Market Insights Multifamily and Marketing podcast. He’s an expert in marketing, he has raised tons of capital and just done so well in this industry, looking forward to this conversation. I know many of the listeners are trying to do the same thing John.

You know, why don’t you give us an update from the last show, what’s happening with you and your business a little bit and let’s dive in in how you are helping others raise capital right now.

[0:01:37.5] JC: Yeah, absolutely, thank you Whitney. I mean, top line, you know, my background’s in marketing, I was like many of your listeners working in corporate America. I actually enjoyed my job so it wasn’t like I was one of those people who just hated it and needed to quit immediately. I enjoyed my job.

The reality was, I realized that in the field I was in, there was kind of a time clock, you know? At some point, that expiration clock was going to go off whether it was because of anything I did or just politics or whatever the case would be so real estate really became one of the reasons that I was able to make that transition.

Since then, I think of that time when we recorded the last episode. I was making my transition but still working the day job. We’ve officially gone full-time in a real estate since then. We are constantly evaluating deals, looking for opportunities and getting really close on a couple of projects, we’re really excited about these opportunities we have coming up here. Continue to work with other people, you know, trying to help others as much as we can, sharing information, you mentioned the podcast, Target Market Insights.

We also do a lot of events, many of them virtual now but we just had our Midwest Real Estate Networking Summit over the summer and continue to look to connect with other investors and seeing how we can connect and build and grow together.

[0:02:50.2] WS: Nice, well, let’s just jump into some of the things you’ve learned, some of the things you have perfected and even helping others to raise capital in this business and just, I guess, let’s just jump right in so you can get us started. I know there’s going to be lots of questions out of the listeners have as well but yeah, let’s just jump in.

[0:03:06.6] JC: Yeah, absolutely. I mean listen, the very first thing is that mindset right. There’s people who come in and want to say I want to raise five million dollars and there’s people who say hey, I want to buy real estate but I don’t have all the money I need to buy real estate, right? There’s a mindset thing in part of what I found is you know, you really do have to come into this with the right mindset and what I mean by that is, it’s not about you and what you want to get out of it.

It’s really about helping other people and serving other people and that took me a while to figure out myself, right? Because, I built my own personal portfolio starting at a one and a half million-dollar personal portfolio. I finally got to the point where you know, I was talking to other people, other more successful investors and they all told me, listen, if you really want to scale, if you really want to grow a multi-family, it is truly a team sport.

You have to partner with other people if you’re going to scale so that made me shift my mindset to, from, how do I get extra capital to help me do this deal to okay, what value can I provide to someone else so that they’re willing to partner with me? Even as a limited partner, even as a limited investor who is just doing capital but it does take a shift in mindset because there’s unnecessary pressure on yourself if you feel like you are asking people to help you, right?

It’s like asking for a donation for a cause or maybe like a multi-level marketing thing where you’re trying to get these people together and trying to convince them that hey, this is a great thing you want to do, you want to get into it, right? That’s not the position you want to be in and if you’ve ever felt trepidation when it comes to connecting with other people, raising capital or trying to get people to partner with you, it probably comes from the fact that you feel like you’re trying to convince someone that you have something that they want or that they need.

Versus, coming from a position of serving them and letting them identify whether or not it’s a product for them. Just like if I decide to become a baker, I wouldn’t try to run around and get all of my friends and family to buy cakes from me. But what I would do is I would reach out to them and say hey guys, I’m going to open up a bakery, do you know anyone who is interested in cakes? Some of the clients that are ideal or one of them has a birthday coming up, anyone has a wedding coming up or anyone who has any kind of anniversary.

If you can identify the types of people who are best clients for yourself, then you can make it easy on people in your direct network to help you grow your business. It’s the same thing when it comes to raising capital for deal, it’s not about going to get your aunt or your uncle or your grandma or your best friend to invest with you. It’s about sharing what you do, helping them understand who is the best client or customer or contact for your business.

Who do you serve, who do you help? And then, allowing them to help you identify who that core person is.

[0:05:56.5] WS: Nice, so important, right? Know who you’re marketing to, you have to know that but identifying your client or an RK sour, investor. Are there some keys there that points that you could elaborate on that helps that person to identify who that is? We can’t market to everyone, right? It said like your market to everyone, you market to no one or something like that.

How do we narrow that down and you know, are we thinking too small? I hear a lot of people say, you know, I’m narrowing it down too much or there’s not going to be enough people, what are your thoughts on that?

[0:06:27.2] JC: Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, I think first and foremost, there’s a big difference between who you target and I call it like my bull’s eye target versus who your actual clients are. Now, I’ll take this back to my marketing days, right? I used to work on marketing for the Buick brand and also for another brand that I won’t mention directly but for Buick in particular, I was a part of the team that had to – we were charged with getting the brand younger.

You know, when I took over, it was essentially seen as an older person’s car, right? I was the average age is like 59 or 60 or something like that for the driver and we were like, jeez, how do we attract a younger person. Now, that wasn’t who we were targeting, right? We were going after a younger person in all of our marketing and everything we were doing but the people who were buying just happened to be older. Sometimes, who you’re messaging or who you’re going after doesn’t necessarily match up to who actually is buying your product, right? I’m speaking more broadly, obviously, we’re talking about real estate investing but this is marketing in general.

You know, you have brands that come out and they say, they want to go after a soccer mom whatever the case may be in. Maybe teenage boys love the product and it takes off with that group. You just never know, right? Sometimes what you have to do is you have to go out, go after somebody, you have to put a fork in the road and make a decision of who your product is best for and then you have to listen to the market.

Who is really getting benefits, what do they love about it, why do they love it? Then you have to find people who are like minded based on that. To bring this to something practical from an investor standpoint, I might say hey, you know what? I think commercial brokers, they’re already in the space, maybe they don’t fully understand real estate investing, I know a few commercial brokers. I’m going to start there. Now, you may realize that hey, you know what? There’s only a handful of commercial brokers that I have relationships with so maybe I need to expand this.

Well, if you expand it, maybe it’s folks who are in the commercial real estate industry, it’s not necessarily about brokers but the fact that they already understand commercial real estate. That’s one less barrier you have to overcome. Maybe it’s doctors if you’re a doctor or engineer or something like that. You want to figure out who it is but you don’t want to limit yourself to say hey, I’m only going to talk to doctors, I’m only going to connect with these individuals because there’s a psychographic element of what those folks are looking for. If you can figure out what that is and it may be things like creating generational wealth.

It may be things like hey, I’m going to work hard in my day job but I want the flexibility to be able to retire at some point before I’m 50 or 55 years old. If you can understand what common themes there are across that investor profile. Now you can identify other groups or sub groups that may resonate with your message as well.

[0:09:10.7] WS: Should we be ready to pivot and market to a different group if that’s who we’re attracting or should it, you know, at that time, we should revamp our marketing.

[0:09:19.3] JC: Yeah, I mean, I think so. Ultimately, it comes back to who you want to serve though, you know? I think part of this is, if you just want investors, then certainly you can go after that but if you want to serve a community, then you’re going to have to figure out who you serve, how do you serve them and get your messaging right because ultimately, you can sell whatever product to whoever is buying it but that may not give you the fulfillment that you’re looking for.

If you’re trying to help people with economic impact or create generational wealth or educate people on the opportunities that exist, then you have to find ways to connect with those individuals and part of that and I’ve mentioned building your tribe, part of that is understand who is going to be most receptive to your message? You know, you can fight that if you want to or you can understand who is going to connect with you, who resonates with your message. That allows you to build. I think ultimately, that’s going to make you feel good about the work you’re doing because you’re going to come from a position of serving people as supposed to just simply trying to raise the capital you feel like you need for your deal.

[0:10:22.0] WS: We’ve thought about the mindset and just identifying our clients. What are some next actionable steps or things we need to keep in mind?

[0:10:29.3] JC: Well, I mean, I think there’s three C’s that I think it takes to attract capital from investors, okay? The first one is confidence, the second one is credibility and the third is connections. Now, when I say confidence, I’m not talking about blind hubris and just thinking you can do anything. What I’m talking about is preparation. Making sure that you educated yourself, you’re listening to podcast like this, you’re reading books, you’re attending events, you’re doing everything you can to build your own confidence, right?

That’s going to make it a little easier for you to have conversations with people because you’ll know what you’re talking about, you’ve talked to other people, you’ve understood how deals are put together, you understand how to look at exit cap rates and compare that to the risk adjusted inflation. I mean, you’re starting to really understand these deals so that’s going to help you be more confident and that confidence is going to bring comfort so you can speak with more confidence, you can be comfortable and have conversations with people.

Now, on the second one that comes to credibility. I think a lot of people get hung up because they all say, well, I’ve never done a deal, right? Maybe I’ve done a couple of single-family deals or something like that. How can I come across credible? Well, you may have other experience that translates so for me for instance, before I started doing larger apartment deals, I was in corporate America, working in marketing and I oversaw six, seven, eight figure marketing budgets for some large brands and overseeing these campaigns with our metrics that we needed to see.

While I didn’t have experience doing large apartment deals. I did have experience managing teams, I oversaw seven different agencies. I understood the project management, I understood budget management, I understood marketing. You can leverage the real experience you do have and use that for credibility as well. Those skills are transferrable and the other piece is, again, this is a team sport, even though you may not have done the deals yourselves.

You can align yourselves with other people, get a mentor, get a coach, get a partner, bring on property management, bring on contractors, build a team, that actually does have the credibility that you’re looking for. Your credibility, your confidence, and then last is the connections and that’s going back to the investor profile, who you’re trying to connect with and figuring out who do you actually bring more of those people into your network and creating a system that allows you to not just connect with them one time but to stay connected with them while you’re looking for a deal.

[0:13:01.6] WS: What’s the hardest part of those three C’s for you, are getting to the point you are now, what’s been the most difficult part?

[0:13:08.7] JC: Well, I think starting out, the confidence is the biggest thing for most newer investors just because you just feel like you don’t know what you don’t know. I think the one thing I will tell you is that, Whitney, if you and I are being honest, there’s still things that you and I don’t know, right?

[0:13:23.6] WS: Plenty of it, that’s why we have the teams and the connections, right?

[0:13:27.1] JC: That’s why we do the teams, the connections, the podcast. I mean, this is not just to share with the audience but we want to learn too. We want to learn from everyone we come across and we want to continue to elevate ourselves. I think part of what that confidence is, not to belittle yourself or beat yourself up and live in self-doubt, you know?

You have to overcome your limiting beliefs, get to a point where you feel like you know 80 to 85% of the material and then you got to take action, you got to learn from actually doing, not from listening to me Whitney, all day.

You know, you have to take action. I think the confidence for most new investors is the biggest challenge because it just feel like they just need to learn a little bit more, they just need to attend another event, they just need to read another book before they’re ready to pull the trigger and is always going to be that, there’s always going to be something that you don’t know and something that you know, in the back of your mind is telling you you’re not ready and you just have to ignore that and just really think about l how do you overcome those obstacles.

That’s why I think the confidence and credibility really go together because if you have the confidence and you have the credibility, even if you’re borrowing that credibility, that’s going to make you comfortable to move forward and I’ll say anybody who is confident and credible or is confident but not credible, they’re really just being cocky, right? Because if you don’t have the credibility around you, you just assume you can go take down a 200 unit deal and you have no experience and you’re trying to do it by yourself.

You’re just cocky and you’re going to fall on your face. You definitely want to make sure that you’re taking all of those steps together.

[0:14:53.1] WS: Yeah, I love the three C’s that you laid oothecas I felt like they’re so intertwined. I mean, it is so important, right? You talking about like having a mentor, having that team, having the people around you. I’d be the first to say I don’t know everything about this business but it’s because of the team that we’ve built and so I don’t have to know everything. But I’m smart enough to know that I’ll never know everything about parts of this business but that’s somebody else’s resume also on the teams, the expert in that part, right? Not myself.

Confidence, credibility, connections, one thing about the credibility I wanted to ask you. You know, reaching out, building that team so you’re kind of borrowing other people’s credibility as well. Are there ways that you went about that, that helped you to be successful doing this. It’s such a big piece of getting started in this business is partnering with other operators usually. Do you have any advice around that for the listener?

[0:15:38.8] JC: Yeah, I think first and foremost, you have to add value to other people, right? If you are trying to go out and work with other people and have them come on your team, there’s a value exchange that takes place. You have to understand that and that’s in everything and it’s something that’s really big on the way networking and connections work in general.

If you are looking to go out there, one, I would strongly consider people to consider hiring a mentor or a coach and the reason for that is, this really is a people business and it’s about relationships and you want someone in your corner that you can ask all the questions you want to ask all the questions you want to ask. There’s going to be stuff, I don’t care how many books you read, I don’t care how many podcast you listen to.

When you are in the fire, you’re evaluating the deal and trying to submit an offer, there’s going to be questions that you have that you just can’t keep calling and bugging people to get that answer, right? It helps to have that person who has been through it. You’re also get a little bit of trepidation. So, it just helps that person in your corner who can settle you down, make sure you’ve looked things the right way and move forward. The other piece of partnering with other operators, that really comes down to building relationships. Getting to know people, understanding what they do, figuring out how you can add value and it should go beyond just “here is one or two things.”

You should figure out how do you actually get on the team, become a part of the team and add value holistically. So that’s something I think is really important as well is figuring out how do you add value to a team and that could be anything from analyzing deals, underwriting deals, following up with brokers, there is other steps that you could do. You don’t have to necessarily come in and do everything but you can play a role in it and add some value to a team.

But I think the biggest thing is really about how do you add value and if you position yourself in a way to say, “Hey, I want to add value, this is how it would grow,” that’s going to make like a little bit easier and that’s why too I say if you hire a coach or mentor, you don’t have the guilt where you feel like you are just taking and I think sometimes people forget that it is a two way street. If you are just taking from someone, you know asking them questions all the time.

Getting their advice on things all the time but you are not really giving them any value back, that’s not a position you want to be in either because that is a one way street. So you definitely want to make sure there is a value exchange so both parties benefit from the relationship.

[0:17:56.3] WS: Any big reason you see why people never get to that first deal? You know like thinking about these three C’s, why is that not happening, I know you talked about – I love the learn 80% and take action and surround yourself by experts, right? But what is the biggest holdup you see for others that don’t get to that first deal?

[0:18:12.7] JC: I think analysis-paralysis comes into play. I think part of that is not knowing what to look for but then the reality is that it is tough to do the larger deals if you have never done it. I mean you and I underwrite deals all the time and very few of them pencil out. So it is tough to find a good deal in a very competitive market but also think that you have to open up your mindset as to how to get that deal done. If you are trying to do it by yourself it is going to be really tough because we are going up against groups that have five, six, seven people that just sit there and analyze deals all day long, right?

So if you are trying to underwrite a deal during your lunch break, it is going to be difficult to compete with the teams that other folks have right now but I think really it just comes down to mentality. If you just really focus on removing the obstacle in front of you and being open about how you do that whether that is hiring a coach or mentor, a lot of people don’t want to hire a coach or mentor and I get it because there is a lot of negativity in and things like that.

But I will say that I don’t think anyone should just wake up and hire a coach because when they get into this, I do think that once you identify what is stopping you and what is slowing you down, that’s when you should say, “All right, how can I eliminate this obstacle?” And the coach or mentor’s one way to do that then you should absolutely proceed with that direction but just figuring out what’s stopping you and you have to be honest with yourself and do a real assessment of where you’re at.

You know if you are setting goals and not hitting those goals, well okay, why are you not hitting those goals? But then take a massive action. I mean look at you, I mean Whitney, you are doing this daily real estate podcast and most people think you’re nuts for doing a daily show. I mean how many people have told you you’re nuts for doing this daily show?

[0:19:53.6] WS: Many, so many.

[0:19:55.4] JC: So much work goes into this and a lot of folks don’t understand that, right? We went to twice a week with our podcast and there is an element of massive action and if you are taking massive action, eventually the benefits will show up, right? And most people aren’t willing to do that. They want instant gratification, they will underwrite deals for 30 days but if they can’t find a good deal in a month of underwriting, they’re like, “Oh it is just too hard to find a deal.” It is hard to find a deal but your choice is to quit or to work harder, right?

[0:20:23.4] WS: I like to say, “Get out of my way, you are telling me I am crazy. I can say get out of my way. I got to move forward.”

[0:20:28.6] JC: And that’s it so I think that is part of it, right? It’s that people want to the easier route and there is nothing wrong with that. I think ultimately, it is really important to be honest with yourself too and say, “Listen, I don’t want to analyze deals every day for two hours a day.” A lot of people don’t get into real estate syndication for that reason. They get into it for freedom of choice, independence, more time with their family.

So if that is what you’re seeking, you may want to be more on the passive side. Learning how to be able to evaluate deals and opportunities, get in, if you could develop a skillset or something that you love, by all means be active but if you just want the financial benefits, why not invest as a limited partner? I think some people for whatever reason feel like they just have to be active and I’m like, “Dude, my goal is to get to the point where all I have to do is be passive, you know?”

And get this business we’re looking at passive opportunities, we’re active with the team so we have a full team but I think investing passively is the goal for most people is put your money to work and go chill in the beach somewhere, right? So do something fun that you enjoy and live your life.

[0:21:33.0] WS: So an operator John, what’s a way that you are prepared or preparing for a downturn?

[0:21:38.8] JC: Well I think right now all of us are having to take a hard look at current operations, you know and I feel like every month there is a new threat. Whether it be COVID related or the response for it, right now as we’re recording this the CDC announced the eviction moratorium. So that is something that we are closely monitoring with our rent collections for this month and we have notified our partners that that’s something we have our eye on.

We’ll see how that impacts things. I’m still awaiting on our stimulus package hopefully by the time this airs that that will be clarified and now we’ve got the elections coming up on November. So there is a lot of instability and call it chaos or change in the marketplace right now. I think the best thing you can do is really focus on cash flow first and foremost. Optimizing your cash flow, retaining tenants, locking down tenants and making sure that you have the proper reserves to navigate any changes in the market.

So if your vacancy shoots up, if it doubles from say 4% to 8% you have some reserves to cover that additional loss, maybe you are not doing as much in renovations right now. You are just holding onto that capital and kind of waiting to see what the market bears going into 2021 but really just looking at things like that and making sure we are in more of a cash heavy position and then honestly one of our properties, we are actually doing the opposite of what I just said.

Because we are trying to hurry up so we can refinance. We have a lot of equity and we are already tied up into it with interest rates very low we actually want to refinance. We could pull a good chunk of money out that way we have cash if we absolutely need it for reserves but we also are taking some hardships off the table and deal like that. So I think if you’re looking a deal specific, figure out where you’re at in the cycle.

If you are at the early stage maybe you don’t go as heavy on the renovation until we get through the next few months here. If you are 75, 80% through it and as long as you can withstand it, plow through it, get your money back and get in a situation where you can be more comfortable.

[0:23:33.1] WS: Is there a way that you like to calculate reserves or maybe if you are passively investing in a deal, you like to see a certain amount of reserves, how do you like to see that?

[0:23:42.2] JC: I mean we are taking our lead from the banks, right? I mean if you are talking to Freddie and Fannie, they pretty much are laying the law down as far as what they are looking for. I don’t remember the exact numbers but I believe like Freddie have a 0.5% foreclosure rate on multi-family last year or during the last downturn. So they do a pretty good job of underwriting deals as the bottom line and we think that that’s probably the benchmark.

So right now, I know they are asking for 12 months of P&I, principle and interest. So we are looking at that as well. So we are being a bit more cautious and then we’re also looking at what a renovation schedule is. You know maybe spending a little bit less over renovations right now or at least tempering the expectations. Maybe we have it in the budget but we are not planning on spending it all unless we are seeing people actually consider to rent at these higher lease up rates – using that as kind of our barometer.

But I think we want to take a look at what big lenders are looking for and we are trying to just really mimic that because I think that again, they analyze deals. They’ve got the professionals to institutions. It doesn’t make sense for me to come out and say, “No, we are going to do it completely different” so we’ll follow them. They are going to give us the requirements of what they want anyways. So we may as well follow their lead.

[0:24:52.5] WS: What’s a way you’ve recently improved your business that we could apply to ours?

[0:24:56.1] JC: The biggest thing and we’re still working on this all the time but we are trying to figure out how do we actually continue to engage and connect with potential investors as well as our broker partners and all of our other vendors. So we are using our CRM system, we are setting up alerts so we can programmatically reach out to key contacts. I should have done it a long time ago but I just added a new investor form to our website.

Before we kind of – Where people come in and we just didn’t have a form. So we’d have a conversation that we do it on our backend but we have automated that process now so people can come in, fill out the form and then we can hop on a phone call. So just trying to streamline things where it works for both parties, right? Because I think a lot of people don’t want to hop on a phone call until they’re comfortable and they feel like they’ve vetted some information and they’re ready to actually talk.

So trying to get on a phone call right away is what we are trying to do before as like not as helpful. So we are trying to let people get comfortable in their own shoes when they are ready to talk to us, they’ll reach out and let us know.

[0:25:57.3] WS: Can you mention what CRM you’re using?

[0:25:59.5] JC: We still use a combination of Pipedrive and Mail Chimp. We’ve debated switching over to ActiveCampaign for a while at this point we are still using those two but we’ll probably look to readjust in 2021.

[0:26:11.3] WS: What about your best source for meeting new investors right now?

[0:26:14.8] JC: Well, we are doing a lot of virtual events so that is one way that we’re meeting people. We have a lot of folks who come in organically through a lot of the efforts, a lot of the content that we are putting out. So content creation is certainly one of the biggest ways we are connecting with people. I would say again, anyone who is looking to connect with investors, put yourself in a position of serving them, right? So what questions do they have? What information are they looking for?

If you can create the answers and the content that they are seeking, now they are going to be in a better position to learn from you and want to connect with you. So that’s something we are trying to just focus on is really understanding what the audience is looking for and how do we best serve them and continue to be a great partner and a great asset for all of our investor partners.

[0:26:57.6] WS: What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success?

[0:27:00.6] JC: Perseverance. I can take a loss like nobody else. What I mean by that is, we talk about not seeing results and it took from the time I hired my coach to the time I did the third and I had already done one commercial deal. I did an eight unit commercial deal. I hired my coach the next month and it took about 18 months before I did my first deal after that, right? So that was longer than I anticipated and a lot of that was me.

So I had to reflect and try to figure out, “Okay, what can we do better here?” I wrestled in high school and I literally lost every match in my freshman year. My record shows that I won four matches but every time I beat a guy name a forfeit but I came back in. You know in my senior year when I was done wrestling my name was on the board for career wins. So it is one of those things where I don’t quit.

[0:27:54.3] WS: A lot of good lessons right there.

[0:27:55.7] JC: Yes, some folks I always say, “You should quit that, you’re not that good” and it’s like, “Yeah? I will get good” because it is not about natural skill and I have learned that it is not about waking up and being great at something. It is about practice and putting the work in. If you are committed to something and if you are willing to invest the time and energy to get better at it, sure. I mean not being able to play basketball as good as Kobe Bryant or something like that.

But I can get to the point where I can be a solid player and that is really the goal here. I think when it comes to real estate, the beauty is that this isn’t like the tech space where we are developing world-class apps and I’ve got to develop a better Facebook. I don’t have to compete with you Whitney. You know I don’t have to underwrite better than you, I don’t have to do anything better than you. There is so many apartments out there, I just have to find deals that work for us and our investors, right?

So that makes life a lot easier because I am really just competing with myself and I think once people understand that you are competing with yourself, you are trying to better your underwriting skills, better your negotiation skills and really developing everything you need to be the best version of yourself, life gets a lot easier and there is no one to blame. There is none of that stuff. You just have to look in the mirror and say, “All right how can I get better today?”

And if you are willing to commit to that, I think you can thrive. It may not be as soon as you want or hope but if you stay committed to it, you will see results.

[0:29:16.1] WS: I love that, you just need to be better than you are yesterday, right? Don’t compare yourself to other people and that’s awesome John, great words of wisdom no doubt about it. Tell us how you like to give back.

[0:29:27.2] JC: Yeah, you know one of the biggest things right now is I am on the board for a company called Surge for Water. Search helps underprivileged countries with sustainable water solutions as well as personal hygiene. So we are working on our gala event coming up on October. So really excited about that. That is one of the biggest things really so we are helping to buy water in. Water is one of those things that we take for granted, right?

When we turn the faucet and water comes out and it is safe for drinking and we’re so you know first class problems that many of us won’t even drink the water that comes out of the faucet unless it’s filtered, right? In these countries, they’re basically just drinking out of the well or the river or whatever that’s coming and this water hasn’t been filtered at all and it is still with e-coli and bacteria. So we actually go in and help to create filtering systems.

So it is not delivering water bottles or anything like that. We create filtering systems and teach them how to go in and create sustainable solutions so we can leave. It is not about us being the hero. It is about us helping them create the community they need to take care of themselves. So I am really proud of that organization and being involved in that organization. It is called Surge for Water, you can check it out at searchwater.org if you are interested in donating.

And then also I like to help other investors. So we are spending a lot of time now educating people. We are creating I am calling it a marketing experience right now but we are going to create something that helps people learn how to leverage marketing tools to engage and grow as a multi-family investor. So that should be coming out probably by the end of this quarter, end of Q3.

[0:31:01.4] WS: Nice, well on that note John, how can people get in touch with you and learn about your events as well?

[0:31:07.0] JC: Absolutely. So if you are interested in getting in touch with us, the best thing you can do is sign up for our sample deal. So we put together a sample deal package on our website, if you go to casmoncapital.com/sampledeal, there you will see what a deal framework looks like, whether you want to be a passive investor or an active investor, it’s got great tips so you could figure out what to look for just in a package right?

From there, you will get a few follow-up emails that kind of let you know what we look for and things to pay attention to. That is really the best way to get on our list to learn more about the things that we have going on and then from there, you’ll figure out how to get on our investor list and everything else but just go to casmoncapital.com/sampledeal to join our newsletter.

[0:31:45.6] WS: Awesome, that’s a wrap John. Thank you so much.

[0:31:48.7] JC: Awesome man, awesome.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

[0:31:50.8] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show.

Subscribe too so you can get the latest episodes. Lastly, I want to keep you updated so head over to LifeBridgeCapital.com and sign up for the newsletter. If you are interested in partnering with me, sign up on the contact us page so you can talk to me directly. Have a blessed day and I will talk to you tomorrow.

[OUTRO]

[0:32:31.4] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.

[END]