WS1346: Real Estate and Social Media | Sam Primm

EPISODE 1346

[INTRODUCTION]

Sam Primm (SP):  

Putting consistent good quality content out there, being normal and talking about real-life experiences, and giving advice based on real-life experiences have kind of been my secret sauce.

Whitney Sewell (WS):  

Do you struggle with the thought of “I’m not special?” There’s nothing that’s any different than me. There’s no way I can achieve those big things. You know, I’m just a normal person or I just grew up in a normal family. There’s, there’s nothing different about me or no way for me to stand out. There’s no way for me to achieve big success. I encourage you to listen to today’s show. He calls himself just a normal dude. But that now has financial freedom. You know, he had that regular job he had the side hustle that finally became full-time, and now has financial freedom. His name is Sam Primm. A successful father, husband, and real estate entrepreneur, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, left his nine-to-five job to focus full time on his real estate ventures, he grew his $3 million portfolio to a 40 million-plus within a matter of a few years. You’re gonna learn a lot from Sam today. And it really getting past the thought of just, you know, you can’t you’re not any different than anybody else, you can’t achieve that success. But also, Sam has created an amazing following on social media that we’re going to jump into that I feel like it’s going to be helpful for most of us thinking about creating the following creating the brand and how important that is even how much time he now spends on that. That’s helped him achieve success. 

[INTERVIEW] 

Sam, welcome to the show. I’m honored to have you on and I love our conversation before we got started too, I just think about how you went from where you were as this normal dude, you call it a quote to where you’re at now and I think you’re gonna relate to so many of the listeners who almost feel like you know, they’re in that same bucket or in that same those same shoes and feel like they can’t do it or you know, it’s not for them or all those things. Tell us a little bit more about who you are. And let’s dive in. 

SP: Yeah, for sure. Appreciate you having me on. So, like you said, I’m just a normal dude, I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, my mom was a teacher, my dad was an engineer, and we grew up fine not like wanting for anything but didn’t grow up super, super fancy, definitely lived on a budget, went to school and went to college, you know, got a full-time job out of college was just going down that path that most people go down and that society kind of pushes people down. And that’s something inside of me kind of wanted more, I’d always done some side, you know, painting businesses or lawn care business growing up. So, I started to invest in real estate on the side after a few years of a full-time job. And then as you kind of alluded to went from the full-time job to side hustle real estate and then that side hustle turned into a full-time hustle that’s now financial freedom. So just kind of we can get into it a little bit and unpack that but just the pretty normal path but done some pretty cool things along the way. 

WS: What was your first real estate investment? Was it your own thing or investing with somebody else? And what made you comfortable to do that it’s kind of stepping out of the normal path as most which we’ve all kind of explore most of us have experienced that or felt like we’re kind of going against the grain to step out of that job right or even think about that. For you, why real estate, was it your own deal, was it somebody else’s? How did you feel comfortable doing that?

SP: I mean, a super crazy story reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, of course, no one’s ever heard of that book. But so, I read that actually on my honeymoon in 2011. And my best friend who I had businesses growing up with are those little you know, lawn care stuff and painting stuff gave it to me and he had read it and I read it and we just kind of had talked and we wanted to do something on the side he hated his job I didn’t really hate mine and we just wanted to start something and to go down some kind of path we didn’t you know, know what. I’m not gonna, we’re not going to invent the next app, not super technologically advanced and real estate seemed to be a proven path. Through Rich Dad Poor Dad and through what I’ve read and seen real estate’s a great way to make some extra money. So that’s what we did. We bought a house, and the plan was to flip it and take the profits and put 20% down on a rental. I didn’t know about the refinancing, the bird method and you know, using other people’s money to buy rentals, I knew you could borrow money to flip I’d seen Flip or Flop on HGTV. I remember them going to summer students’ houses and getting the money and then they split the profits with them. So, I knew you could do that. But I didn’t know anything about rentals, really. So, we bought that house with the plan to flip it and sell it but we ended up refinancing and keeping it as a rental and we still own it today. Started off right off the gate with the rental property.

WS: So, your wife married you think you got this great job, you’re on your honeymoon, reading this book, probably sharing these things. And she’s thinking what did I get myself into?

SP: Well, it’s deeper than that. So, I had that job really quickly. A quick little side story. I had that job out of college and I was doing very well for myself. I enjoyed it. Okay, I didn’t hate it ever since I was 23, 24. I’ve been making a couple of $100,000 a year and that’s in St. Louis. So that goes pretty far. And you know, when I was thinking about quitting my job I was a sales manager making even more than that. And she just was wondering, why are you doing this? Why are you spending this time doing this? You’ve got a great job. We’re set up for the future. And in order to get her to kind of where I wanted to go in my mindset. I ended up doing a PowerPoint presentation. So, I had a handful of PowerPoint presentations I gave her over a several-month period that kind of got her on board and then I jumped off the job so just kind of a funny side story that brought that bringing the wife involved gotta communicate a little better than I did. Don’t wait until you have to resort to PowerPoints, bring them along the way with you.

WS: That’s so wise. And you know, we just had a just did an interview with Julia Barbaro, I don’t know if you know her or not, but we talked about, you know, the spouse, right and their part in this entrepreneurial journey that is so important and their support. And she talked about almost what you just said, it’s like, man, be communicating with them, as you’re educating yourself, as you’re learning these things, bring them along with you. So it’s not this like big bomb that goes off eventually, I think we should go do this thing over here. You know, it’s like, no, you’ve been educating them along the way. I think that’s very wise. 

If you call yourself a normal dude, you’re in the home and the parent, the teacher, engineer, you’re going to college speak to what pushback did you receive? And you talked about your wife there a little bit, you obviously have an amazing income, and then you’re telling your spouse, oh, wait a minute, you know, I want to go do this thing over here. You know, and she even at first, you know, you mentioned a little pushback there, right? You know, wait a minute, you know, we’re set up, why would you go do this thing? You know, how did that go? But then also, are there other people that spoke to you and said, wait a minute, Sam, you know, are you crazy? You know, how did that go? Even with family or friends? 

SP: Yeah, kind of surprising, but I guess not. Yeah, there was I wouldn’t I don’t know if I’d go as far as pushback. But there were definitely some eyebrows raised and the “What are you doing?” And “Why are you going down that path?” Just because you know, everybody’s brainwashed to you know, you’re on the path exactly where people want to be and, on that path, but definitely got some pushback. My parents weren’t super excited about it. My dad definitely wasn’t a fan of it. He’s the, you know, engineer for 40 years for one company kind of guy. And that worked out great for him. But yeah, he definitely wasn’t on board with it. I remember when I told my old company, they were as, they were shocked, because I had, you know, worked up pretty quickly worked my way up the corporate ladder pretty quickly and had a pretty bright future there. I remember, my boss got a little misty-eyed when I told him I was leaving. So, it was quite a thing. It wasn’t like, you know, something crazy to where I was, you know, leaving some job to go do something that whether it works or not, I can go get that old job, you know, making 50 grand a year. It was a little bit more of a risk. Now I don’t really get a bunch of sympathy from anybody for making good money and quitting a job. But there was definitely some risk there. Because in order to replace that type of income, probably would have taken a little bit of time. So, there was some risk, but it did get worked out. Took me a couple of years to get back to that point. But when I could focus full time on real estate things got really, really blown up.

WS: Yeah, no, but you took the risk. You took this step you push through that fear, obviously, I’m sure you’re grateful now that you did speak to managing that a little bit. You started this side hustle, it grew, how did you manage job with side hustle with family and keep all that going until you can make that transition.

SP: Super well, but I handled it. So again, I didn’t communicate super well, at first, me and my wife, we didn’t have, we have a six-year-old daughter now. But at that time when we got started, and when I got started in 2014, 2015, I didn’t have any kids yet, which helped because me and my business partner Lucas, were weekends we were going to work on the house just doing what we could, trying to save money where we could and learn the process a little bit, you know, spend 20 hours a weekend gone, and then evenings meeting and meeting lenders or meeting contractors or meeting to discuss things. So, we definitely took some time away from our families, and more wives. Luckily, like I said, we didn’t have kids, by the time our kids did come around even before going full time we had started to kind of hire things out, we learned that we can manage a project or do some work and it can take four months, but we can hire somebody out to do it in two months, it might cost a little bit more. But the opportunity to do twice as many properties in the same amount of time was well worth itself. So, we did it a little bit, we’re not super hard-headed a little bit, we learned pretty quickly to hire things out to manage our time properly and do other things and spend time with family. So, we started to do that before we even went full time which kind of helped, I think that transition but at first it was just jumping in and doing as much as we could ourselves and probably not, not probably hanging the cabinets like we probably should have, hopefully, they’re still hanging on that first property. But we did the best with what we could have at the time.

WS: Awesome, you do have to do the best you can with what you have at the time. And so first thing move to, you know, scaling, you know, you have scaled you have grown your business in a big way. And you know, let’s talk about that process. Maybe not everybody just knows how to operate a business, right? There’s a lot of education that has to come in and a lot of time spent committed to figuring out how to do this thing we call business or entrepreneurship right, a lot to learn. How did you do that? What’s, when did it start to scale? What were some things that you started to learn or put into place that have now looking back you can see, man, that was a good decision, you know, that’s helped us to grow so fast.

SP: Yeah, a couple of things. So initially, just setting yourself up with this real estate investing thing, and especially the time we did it, you know, really starting to grow in 2017. That’s a great time. The markets have been great since then. So that’s good, but having that backing of such a quality asset and quality investment was huge. And then having Lucas and I, you know, my business partner, I’m more of the sales, the negotiation, the finding deals, the marketing, he’s the operations, the finance, you know, the deal process, all that kind of stuff. So, he and myself really kind of that yin and yang helped us kind of divide and conquer rather than at first, when we first got started. We were both analyzing every deal. We were both doing this we were both going to Home Depot to get stuff we were both doing everything together, which was fun, but it didn’t allow us to grow as soon as we kind of decided hey, I trust you, you trust me. You do that, I’ll do this. Let’s meet up later and talk about it. Things really started to grow. And then as we started to do that, we started to make more money and wanted to grow even more. So, we ended up hiring people and hiring the right people, having them in the right seat on the right bus really, really helped us. Having, reading books like Traction by Gino Wickman, we’re setting up our systems and processes internally, because you know, small businesses and entrepreneurs don’t have like systems to, you know, fall back on, they just figure it out. But if you have some type of accountability system, it really helps. So, I think just generally us learning to work with each other to grow and starting to hire the right people and have systems around, it takes time, but it didn’t really take time that long looking back at it, and just having the right people that you trust is huge.

WS: You mentioned being able to hire people, when were you all able to start hiring and why you know, and did you feel ready, you know, errand people say, when did you hire the first assistant or first person? It’s often a question. So, you know, were you already, did you feel financially able was at a time where, you know, everything just seemed to work out to be able to hire or was it like no, the workload so big? How did y’all work through that?

SP: Yeah. So yeah, that’s a great question and get that a lot like, what is your first hire, first two hire. So, kind of in small businesses, and I’m sure you’ve seen this, it’s kind of everybody, you know, there’s two or three people and everybody’s wearing eight hats. And when it comes to, becomes so overwhelming, that you’re yelling at them all the time, alright, what’s your like, artists thing that you can be like, put into one job description and hire that out. And then again, everybody’s going to be doing too much. So that’s kind of it’s not like a systemized way to do it. Or we didn’t do it just when everybody had too much was pulling their hair out, we hired somebody, and then everybody was doing it again, because we’d like to grow. 

But as far as the first couple of hires, I mean, we were pretty strategic about that, because our first hire was a project manager. And you know, when you think you got to pay a project manager, 60-70 grand a year, you know, where’s that money come from? Well, it came out of the project. So, we just charged time from the project. So, we were to borrow $150,000, from a private lender for the purchase and 80 grand for the rehab, we just borrowed 190 grand that 10 grand paid that just came out of the funds and came out of the deal, then when we sold it or rented it, we got our money back from the bank. So, we’re able to kind of put that managed project manager’s time in each deal and tie it to houses. So, it didn’t come out of our pocket, or you know, it didn’t really, it didn’t come out of after profit, it got I guess, technically came out before the profit was there. So that was a great way to do it and not use your own money. And then we always put in property management costs in our rental in our rental analysis. And we hired a property management out third party for a little while. But then we ended up bringing that in house and had a part-time property manager just work five hours a week to 10 hours a week than 15 hours a week to grow with us. And we just paid them from rent. So it was a good way to not like dig into our business, you know, bank account or reserves or personal to just pay them out of the rent or out of the project that’s being rehabbed?

WS: Awesome. It’s incredible just to think through how different people have hired, you know, the timing of that. And because I get that question a lot, and you talked about hiring the right people in the right seats, you mentioned Traction, was that something you all were using them like Traction, or is that something that came later down the road? How do you all use that? And has that been helpful?

SP: Yeah, so we did not use Traction at that time, the timeframe, I was talking about those two hires, and everybody pulling out their hair was probably like 2016-ish, maybe I we both quit our jobs in 2018, we probably started Traction, I would say in 2019, or mid to late 2019. So yeah, that definitely came later. And that has really, Traction’s really helped us scale and get things up to the next level, you know, the $40 million run a portfolio 20 of it has come in the last 12 months. So, we really have been able to scale and grow even in the crazy market that’s been up until recently. So, we’re definitely starting to scale and having the systems in place and the right countability charts and the right people and using traction over the past couple of years has, I think kind of set us to launch which has happened recently.

WS: Nice. No, that’s awesome. And yeah, I would encourage anybody with a business to read Traction. And there’s so many other books that go along with that, that are very helpful. I did or another or interview recently on a book called Building an Elite Organization, which actually are actually have Traction sitting here as well. But these are constant books that I’m like going back to right well, what did he say about that again? Or you know, what kind of meeting or how did he run that meeting or whatever it may be. But I encourage everybody that’s trying to run a business or business to read those and think through operating business. So, I want to use a few minutes now, Sam, to focus on something that you seem to have done better than most also. And that’s creating your social media presence. And I want you to be able to elaborate on those most people that are listening are probably trying to do especially if they’re starting a business trying to raise money, talk to investors, whatever it may be, they’re trying to do that in some form or fashion. And you made it sound so simple. Before we started recording, you know how you have done this, but you’ve created a big following bigger than most, especially with no more team that you’ve dedicated to it right? And so, elaborate on your social media presence. And let’s dive into a few techniques that’s helped you to do that. 

SP: For sure. I mean, to start that off, I think everybody should be at least trying, and having a brand these days has never been easy and it’s never been more valuable used to have to have a camera follow you around. Have anybody see you. Now you also need your phone, you can reach hundreds of 1000s if not millions of people, and having eyeballs is very valuable. It’s kind of real estate in people’s minds. So it’s another form of real estate but it’s extremely valuable real estate. So, what I did was I knew I wanted to start some brand, an education brand, I really didn’t know I was posting on social media on my personal Facebook page just randomly, every once in a while it really garnered interest from people and hey, how can you help me? Or can you teach me how to meet for coffee? And so, it just kind of spurred that in my mind. So I started what most people do on YouTube and Instagram, like most people, you know, four months into my YouTube channel, my videos, were getting 50-60 views, you know, YouTube and this, they’re just both we’re not really doing a ton. And then this TikTok thing was there. And that was in mid-2020. Mid to late 2020. I decided, Alright, I’m gonna start this TikTok. I don’t know what it is. It’s a dancing app. It’s an app where girls do weird stuff. And it’s just and guys sing and dance. I can’t do any of that. So what am I doing here, but I’ll try it. I had seen somebody posts a real estate thing on there before. So I started TikTok. And I said, I’m gonna do it once a day for 30 days, this is weird. If it doesn’t work, I’m just going to cancel the account. But I think on the fourth or fifth day, I got a video that got 100,000 views. I was like, holy cow, I get that there’s, it’s a 15-second video, that’s a lot of eyeballs.

WS: What kind of dance did you do? That’s what we all want to know.

SP: Actually I don’t even talk in most of them, if anybody sees it, I’m kind of known as the guy that doesn’t talk, I just literally point to words, and it works, I started to get traction there. And that’s kind of bled to the other platforms. And then it’s grown since then. And they kind of get into some of the reasons why and then we can get into some tactics. I think it’s just because I go back to that normal dude, the biggest thing I get in my messages is you’re just like a normal dude, or you’re authentic, or you’re real, you’re not flashing Lambos, or you’re not pretending that you’re better than us or this or that you’re not like schooling us, you’re just talking about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. And I can relate to that you’re relatable. And that’s what it’s been, it’s been me on my phone, front-facing camera, walking around pointing or talking or whatever it may be, has really seemed to, you know, hit home with people, I just had a video hit a million views. Again, I think I have over 20 videos on Tiktok with over a million views. So just putting consistent good quality content out there, being normal and talking about real-life experiences and giving advice based on real-life experiences has kind of been my secret sauce as opposed to something writing, you know, I wrote a book 10 years ago, and now I’m still talking about it, or I you know, have four rentals and I’m trying to teach people how to buy rentals. So having the quality of information as well as the real-life case studies to back it up that I talked about kind of has seemed to struck a chord and I don’t know why or how but I’ll take it.

WS: Yeah, speak to you know, what platforms did you start using, and maybe your cadence of that, you know, give us some even practical things that the listener can start doing right now.

SP: For sure. So, what I did, basically, the biggest thing I’ve done on Instagram and Tiktok has been a video a day or tried to do a video day in most people think that they don’t have it, they’re not buttoned up, or they don’t have good enough content to actually get the views. But those are the best. Those are the people that’s what’s helped me and those are what help most people somebody if they want to buy their first rental they want to see somebody that’s bought their third rental and how they’re doing it somebody me saying hey, I bought 42 houses in one neighborhood in one deal, that’s cool, but they can’t relate to that’s too big of a step. So, somebody that’s wanting to get into this do it and the fact that you’re literally talking about how you’re starting and how you haven’t bought one yet and you’re offering and you’re analyzing you lost out on this deal. People love that. So that’s better content, honestly. And it’s relatable content, but um, one a day on Tiktok and Instagram. YouTube, I’ve gone back and forth I’ve done two week three a week. I’m anywhere between one and two of those a week plus I go live I go live on on all three platforms, TikTok YouTube and Instagram a lot. And I’m teaching live on a smartboard or a whiteboard and talking answering questions and you know, providing them you got to prove yourself for someone to follow you. Tikok in five minutes they see 40 different accounts and Instagram in five minutes, they probably see 10 and YouTube, they see one so you just the quality of the viewer you got to know but just no matter what platform it is just lead with good quality information and people will hit that follow button and then it’ll kind of snowball from there. So those are my main platforms. I’m kind of getting into Twitter a little bit. I got excited when Elon said he’s gonna buy it. I thought maybe he’d rejuvenated. So I started to get on that. But I haven’t gone all, you know, tried to go to wide. I’ve tried to kind of stay narrow in my main social media platforms to try and garner as much attention as I can there.

WS: It’s incredible what you’ve accomplished there. And you know, that seems like a lot. I know a lot of listeners they say to me all right, we’ve done a daily show for like, 1400 days now. And a lot of people say, Well, wait a minute, you know, how do you come up with as much content? How do you stay consistent? I would ask you the same because I know that’s what they’re asking. You know, there’s equipment. That seems like a lot, right? Sam, how do you create the time the schedule to do that ever use it every day, you know, a video a day on Instagram and Tiktok. And then also on YouTube, you know, two or three times a week? How do you come up with that much content? How do you create the schedule where you’re that consistent?

SP: I’m a psychopath. No, I’m kidding. I just spent a lot of time on it. I see the power of it. And the biggest thing that how I get the time is I have that divide and conquer thing I talked about. Lucas, my business partner, he runs our flipping company that you know, I haven’t even been to a meeting for that company in probably eight to 10 months. So he runs that company. He does everything. He hasn’t been to an education branding com, you know, the Faster Freedom brand, he hasn’t been to a meeting in that in eight months. Having people run your other businesses and we have in house property manager that manage my rentals. Aside from the business side of it, you know, I just have a handful of meetings a week and the rest of the time is spent thinking, creating content, being smart with what you’re doing. You can use a really quality good, you know, 35-second video, you can use that exact same video on TikTok on YouTube, on Instagram, you can use it as YouTube short, you can use it as Instagram reel, you can use it so repurposing content is good. And then just you know, spending the time on it. You know, if it’s really important you’ll make the time for it. If you spend an hour and a half a day creating content, you’re going to be successful. If you spend 20 minutes today, zero tomorrow, an hour, the next day none for today, you’re not going to be successful, it’s all about consistency, the algorithms aren’t going to push you unless you’ve proven that you’re going to be consistent, they’re not going to spend that valuable time on that for-you page or Explore page or that main page of YouTube. If you’re not consistent, they don’t want someone to see one video, go to your page, and not see videos for a week that doesn’t do them any good. They want someone to binge-watch your stuff. So, you got to be consistent with quality. And then it starts to build. So it’s just one of those things where you feel like you’re an idiot and talking to yourself on your phone for three months. But then eventually it starts to pick up.

WS: Appreciate the transparency around that no doubt about it. You first start talking in your phone I was same way. It’s like, this is just silly. I’m just looking at myself.

SP: I don’t like looking at my face. And my voice is stupid. I hate it. No. Yeah, I still think that sometimes. So yeah.

WS:  So, speak quickly to like coming up with the content. Like how do you simplify that? You know, you talked about like an hour a day? I mean, are you spending that much time creating this coming up with the content, and creating that?

SP: Yeah, yeah, I am. So, it just kind of really depends. So, I have like, probably 10 go-to topics that I know will do decent to well, starting out a video I’m in $25 million worth of debt that’s gonna get their attention, that video will do well, but I can’t do that every day. Or this is how about 40 million which is the end of my own money, those type of things and talking about leverage. I’m talking about cash flow. And I love debt like those kinds of just like against the grain bigger topic, things will get people’s attention. But you can’t do that every single day because people will say that’s the same video. So, I spend, if I need to if it’s quick and short, don’t have a ton of time I’ll go to you know, something that I know works or a topic that works. But I experiment with a lot of stuff. I did one this weekend. I spent a ton of time doing it, I edited it. I’m working on hiring out some editors to help me,and it did not do well. I think it’s got like 8000 views on TikTok. And the next one has a million so it’s like I thought it was going to crush it and it didn’t. So whether it’s the algorithm, whether it was my delivery, whatever it was, you know, just always trying to invent think of new things. And just I, fortunately, I’m doing a lot of really pretty cool things in real estate buying, flipping, wholesaling, renting apartments, so I have a lot of content to back that up. But I think people that don’t have that much actual real-life case, I just talk about the struggles and the winds and the meeting a wholesaler and meeting this and all those type of things, your day to day life that somebody is wanting to be where you are, what could relate to. Kind of answered your question, but kind of rounded it up a little bit.

WS: That’s great. And then what about tracking and converting leads that you’re getting from that? How do you know that it’s working? And other than just seeing a number of followers? How does that convert to actual something substantial for yourself?

SP: Yeah, that’s fun part like you just said, you can see followers and see video of us so you can kind of see it happening then in every video is got a chance to do great. So that’s fun. But as far as transferring to leads, it’s I ask people I go live or I have a video, and I tell them to message me and then I message them a free training and then that free training allows them to learn more. And then they can hop on the call with my team to talk about the mentorship so you can kind of track them. So we have two different funnels of paid traffic funnel and organic funnel. So don’t always know exactly which platform it comes from using Instagram because that’s my main messenger. But yeah, just kind of following the funnel, the lead flow where people came in it has been a pretty good way to do it. And organics are obviously the best I think 80% of my signups organic 20% of paid ads. So people organically follow you, they trust you, they know you, they hop on the call with your team, they want to learn more, it’s never a hard sell. It’s like this is here, if you want a great, if not just enjoy my free stuff. That’s seem to be a pretty good pitch.

WS: Alright, Sam, shifting gears a little bit. You know, looking back now to where you started a number of years ago, you know, whether it’s social media, whether it’s you know, leaving your job, what would you have done different than, you know, looking back five years ago, whatever it was, what are one or two things you would say, you know what, I wish I had known this then or you know what? I’d do it the same way? Or maybe I would have done this different when I presented this to my spouse or what would you do there?

SP: Yeah, no, I’m not gonna do the whole Yeah, I would everything the exact same? Because it’s put me where I am today kind of answers. Yeah, I definitely I feel like we did a lot of things, right. We screwed up a lot, too. A couple of things I would have done different I would have communicated a little bit better with my wife at the beginning. And the other thing that I would have done differently that I’m just kind of realizing now because as I talk about this great content about it, you know, I’m talking it and like really reflecting on a lot of things more than you would as you just go because I usually just blow it and go it and not worry about we’ll figure out later it seemed to work out so far. Maybe not super efficient, but we get a lot done and then we create efficiencies, I would have created a bigger goal. 

So I think last year our three-year goal was to have 26 million in real estate and we’re at 40 now and we just the goals seem big when you create them but we seem to you know really have some good luck and some good fortune and hard work and a good team, we really seem to beat those goals. I just wonder what my goals would have been higher at first, where would I be right now because now the 20-year goal is to bring an NBA team to St. Louis. That’s a big goal. So to bring in Nash NBA team, to St. Louis, you know, an expansion team going, that’s a crazy goal. So we’re finally figuring out how to make big crazy goals. But up to this point, we kind of didn’t really push ourselves, I feel like, you know, our first goal was one house a year for 10 years, one house each year, and have 10 houses at the end of 10 years. So just setting bigger goals and having more confidence in myself and our team that we can, you know, do some really crazy things, I think that would have probably made us be bigger, better, faster, stronger, and maybe not, you know, hindered us even mentally just that, hey, this is all we’re going to do. Because this is our goal. I think setting those big, crazy goals probably could have been would have helped us even more

WS: Awesome, stretch yourself, right? Bigger than what you probably thought. What are the most important metrics that you track? It can be professionally, personally, what are some of those for you?

SP: Yeah, the biggest metrics that we track in like my education brand, you know, we track leads, and then we track retention ratio. The biggest metrics we track in the flipping company that buys and sells houses is again leads and profit, you know, if there’s a common theme of you need eyeballs, or leads coming in to make money. And then in our rentals, its value of rental properties, we used to track doors, but a single-family rental in St. Louis is you know, $180,000, but in another state is $360,000. So tracking doors is not as apples to apples. So we’re tracking dollars of rental portfolio is what we’re tracking right now. And we’re also starting to track paid-off rentals, we’re starting to refinance and pay off rentals to have some security and have some paid-off properties that we can take lines of credit and loan against. So those are kind of the bigger tactical number factors. 

And then my personal life is just being there and trying to be more present with my family, my wife, and my two daughters and trying to put the phone away and not be as you know, business when I’m home. You know, it doesn’t always happen. But just trying to be more present is more of my just number one goal there in home. 

WS: That’s a great goal, by the way. And it’s not always easy as it may sound right. So, Sam, what are some daily habits maybe that’s one of them, but that you are disciplined about that have helped you achieve success?

SP: I don’t have the morning routine of getting up at 4 am and meditating and scribing and hanging up upside down in the sauna and, you know, having affirmations and all those kinds of things. I don’t I don’t have that I’ve tried those. I’ve tried the morning miracle or Miracle Morning, whatever that is, I’ve tried all that just doesn’t work for me. And it’s almost forced and fake. So, what I really do is I just get up and I go I wake up usually my daughter and kids and wife are sleeping, I just start off the day running. It’s all I do. It’s nothing special. It’s different every day, check my calendar before I go to bed, set some to-do’s before I go to bed, you know kind of as I’m just like, kind of more peaceful and just more relaxed. And then just like get up and go. And just nonstop all-day figuring stuff out, you know, knocking stuff off my lists, creating short-term and long-term lists. And you know, there’s no magic sauce to it, I kind of wish there was but it’s really just getting up and going every single day and not really taking too much time because I love my family. And I love my work. So I don’t like golf every weekend or do all these crazy or all these fun things that people think you do. As you start to get create success and time freedom. I just love my family and love my work and love my job and my businesses. So that’s all I do those two things all day every day, and I get enough joy out of that, that I don’t need to go on the golf course or going for vacations a year or have free you know, have a vacation house. I don’t need that right now. Maybe I will. But right now it’s just spending my time with my family and growing my businesses and I get more than enough joy out of that sometimes it feels silly to even get paid for it. So, I think that’s kind of the raking up and going and then not having all these little side things that take up time and not watching a ton of TV do and all those things has allowed me to kind of get where I am.

WS: What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success? 

SP: Probably my lack of satisfaction with the status quo, I’m happy where I am, but I’m never satisfied. I always want to do more. Our education company basically broke in for 18 months, and now we’re extremely profitable, like very, very profitable. And I’m like alright, how do we make more money? How do we do this? How do we impact more people? How can we hire more people so we can you know, impact more lives? So just always wanting more. It’s definitely a detriment at times, as long as you can control it, but it seems to be what always drives me I think one of my team members the other days like when are you ever going to be just okay, I’m like, I don’t know, but not right now. So go do that and let’s make it better. 

So, always just wanting to improve and never being satisfied. sounds negative and it can be but I think always wanting to improve and always having that competitiveness to be the best but not at the expense of others. There’s enough out there for everybody having that mindset of abundance. You can win, I can win we both can win. It has been big for me I think.

WS: How do you like to give back? 

SP: We have a nonprofit that we just started last year it’s called Greater Giving. It has a focus on mental health awareness our kind of take on that is if we can start kids young to have you know mental health awareness not have it be a negative stigma. Learn how to deal with trauma that can last generations. They’ll be better in high school, they’ll be better in college, they’ll be better parents so start it young and have kids be able to deal with the mental health issues that kids are dealing with today. So, we just started last year we raised 137 grand last year which we’re super excited about all our companies donate 2% profit we do a golf tournament we do a trivia night so that’s how we get back along with trying to support our community through providing safe housing and good housing and being good landlords so those kinds of things are how we get back.

WS: Awesome. Sam, I appreciate you sharing that and how you all give back in that way. Appreciate your time today even expressing or being willing to be transparent about being the normal dude you know that has now done so well right and just your path from a full-time job to side hustle to full time to now financial freedom and even elaborating on your social media presence and what that’s done. And, but also, you know, how you all scaled right even there’s some things about Traction and right people right seats those things. Grateful for your time to have met you and the value you’ve created for the listeners and myself today. How can they get in touch with you and learn more about you?

SP: Yeah, just on social media I’m on all of them now I say just pick your favorite two or three if you’re not on Twitter don’t follow me on Twitter you know if you’re are active on Twitter follow me there so just follow me @Samfasterfreedom you can check out the website fasterfreedom is the brand and my name is Sam so anyways, my handle on all the social media @Samfasterfreedom so just check me out on social media you’re on if you like what you see you can message me on Instagram I’ll reach out to you and we can have a chat but if not, just enjoy all the free content I put out there and hopefully inspire some people to know that they can take their own path they can control their future they don’t have to let some job or some boardroom full of crusty old people make decisions for a company that they work for. They can make their own path.

Whitney Sewell: Thank you for being a loyal listener of the Real Estate Syndication Show, please subscribe and like the show, share it with your friends so we can help them as well. Don’t forget, go to LifeBridgeCapital.com, where you can sign up and start investing in real estate today. Have a blessed day. 

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