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Transitioning from one business to another isn’t a tough decision to make if your reason is your family. Someone who sold a previously successful business to focus on real estate and family is Adam Beckstedt, and he shares how that move made him closer to his kids and his wife. For Adam, real estate is a long-term business that will let you go where you want to be. He shares how going into conferences and organizing meetups can help you to network with the right people. He also talks about the YouTube page he’s created to teach people how to invest in real estate passively.
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Transition From One Business To Another with Adam Beckstedt
Our guest is Adam Beckstedt. Thanks for being on the show, Adam.
Thank you, Whitney. I appreciate the opportunity to be on your show.
I’m honored to have Adam on the show. He’s going to have some great advice and can relate to a lot of the readers. Adam owned and sold a previously successful business to focus on real estate. I’m anxious to hear about that process and that transition. He owns multiple properties in his hometown area and is focusing on larger deals where he can bring on partners and investors to grow with. He loves to help others by hosting a meetup, mentoring. He’s started a YouTube channel to help others learn as well. Adam, give the readers a little more about who you are, in case they’ve never heard of you and what your focus is in real estate.
I sold a previous business to focus on real estate and family life. It was able to offer me to become closer with my kids, spend more time with my kids and my wife. I grabbed ahold of that and have hit the ground running. It was back in 2016 when I started buying stuff on my own. I was buying a single-family, multifamily and some office space to see what I grabbed hold of. I wanted to fine-tune and figure out how I want it to proceed forward. My wife and I ended up attending a Rod Khleif’s conference boot camp in Chicago to see if it’s what we wanted to move forward with, see if there’s any secret sauce that we’re missing out on, that we weren’t already implementing.
We fell in love not only with the process. We realized, “This is reinforcing what we’ve already been doing.” We fell in love with the community of people around there that wanted to see everyone succeed, share with them and teach them. That’s where we are now. We’ve spent fine-tuning our processes, our network, getting out there and meeting new people that have been doing this for much longer than I have. I’m looking to transfer what I was successful in with my previous business to all of my real estate deals.
I’d love for you to elaborate on leaving one successful business to move to a different one and the level of focus, and jumping in that way. I did the same thing. I can relate to some extent. That previous business took so much time and dedication, I’m sure, and then to decide, “This is maybe not what’s best.” Maybe you can elaborate and help us to understand. How did you decide, “This is what’s best, I’m going to put this business aside and I’m going to flip this over here?”
My parents are retired from investing in real estate. I have put it off for far too long. I have meant to, years ago, get into real estate but I was consumed by the business. I had no more mental power to invest in real estate. Probably in the given situation, nine out of ten people would have kept that business and kept going. I could have kept that business for the rest of my life and lived a nice life but I wanted to spend more time with my kids and my wife. I wanted to nurture those relationships. Pulling away from that business and realizing that I was missing out on that. I’m never going to get that time back. I honestly feel like I’m working more but I’m also spending more time with my family, which is fantastic. It’s given me what I wanted in selling that business. I wasn’t planning on it. I got an offer out of the blue and I took it.
[bctt tweet=”A small step each day is massive action.” via=”no”]
You were able to monetize and sell that previous business.
I was in the process. I had two other businesses under a contract of purchase when I got the offer to sell. Before I could close to those other businesses, I ended up selling.
What was the kicker that said, “I am definitely leaving this and focusing on real estate?” Was it the time with the family and the time you were missing out on?
I talked about it like it was a simple decision and I made that decision there. It was a grueling decision because I enjoyed a lot of the people that I worked with. I enjoyed the business, but I looked at the long-term benefit of it and what that was going to look like many years down the road. I believed that real estate was going to get me where I wanted. Even in a short time, within a couple of years, it was night and day. I’m happier. I’m able to do stuff. I’m able to focus on myself along with my family and still be successful in the real estate business.
Tell us about how you got the family on board? Were they on board with this big change? It’s a family thing. It’s a big decision to alter the entire course of the whole family for the business. What did that look like in that dynamic? I know a lot of people can relate to that. I can as well.
My family is very much on board. I have a son and a daughter. They’re ten and eleven. They love spending more time with me. They are learning about the business. It’s hilarious that I bring up deals at the dinner table talking to my wife and my kids will chime in and ask what the returns are and how many units it is. It’s great because when we started off, it was smaller properties, I brought my kids along. I taught them how to work on the properties, get their hands dirty and feel what it’s like to earn a dollar with your hands. It was great because I grew up with that as a small child with my family. We did fix and flips, live-in flips. I’m familiar with working on properties.
You’re educating the kids about real estate as well as probably your parents did. Giving them a position where they can earn a little money, there are many lessons there for them. Tell us about how you’re moving into the syndication business and where you’re at in this process? How are you growing your education? Let’s get into your next steps.
I’m going at it on multiple fronts. I’m looking for my own deals. I’ve selected a few markets, my hometown. Some people don’t invest in their hometown but the statistics are there, that it’s a lucrative area. I’m looking in my town. I don’t have a lot of multifamily here. I’m also looking in Indianapolis and a couple of few cities in Southern Michigan. It’s been great there but it’s a hot market now. Finding deals are scarce. I’ve come close on a few larger deals and someone was willing to pay more than I was on these deals. I don’t want to overpay for something and end up regretting it a few years down the road.
On top of finding my own deals, I’m also networking so that I can partner with other people. Getting into these large deals, I definitely need experience. While I’m able to bring my business background in and a lot of stuff is easy and it worked hand-in-hand with my previous business. Knowing this deal and how to grow these, how to implement the value add and turn properties around on a much larger scale than I’ve already done is critical to bring on those experienced partners. I’ve networked and found a few people that I definitely have vetted and realized their experience and their know-how. When I find a certain deal, I know who to go to and say, “Here’s this deal.” I know they’re going to bring value to it.
How have you focused on networking? What has helped you to network with the right people?
I have multiple fronts not only locally. I don’t get a lot of people locally that do large properties. There are few people that do syndications. I’ve had to travel all over the US to get in these groups of people that are doing this on a regular basis. People that are much more experienced than I am and figure out their track record. Figure out what type of people they are to see if we match. If you don’t match with people, it doesn’t matter how good either of you is. It’s not going to work out. Going to these conferences that people are at and have done it and they’re there to network with people too. They’re there to network with people that are coming in, that is new. People that know nothing. Sometimes people go to these conferences and they are looking to invest their money. They have no intentions of finding deals themselves. They want to go there to find people to invest their money with. There are far too many for anyone to go to realistically in a year.
Passive investors also go to these conferences. I found many passive investors built those relationships from conferences like that. I find that a lot of people that go there, that are trying to be an active syndicator, they’re not networking. They’re not trying to build those relationships. They are passive investors there. They’re thinking, “Everybody there is trying to learn how to do this business.” You never know who you’re talking to. You’re hosting a Meetup and you’re also doing some mentoring. You also started a YouTube channel. Tell me about Meetup first. What is your plan or your goals for that?
I’m a big proponent of not only learning to grow myself. I got one hand up for someone to help bring me up. I also have more than one hand bringing other people up. I love teaching other people this skill or how to grow and become their own boss through real estate. In the Meetup, I’m cohosting it with a good buddy of mine. We started this Meetup to teach others ethic ways to invest in real estate. It’s bloomed into the Meetup. We are typically over 60 people in attendance. We meet once a month. For being a little over a year old, that’s impressive. I’m proud of that. The people that come to it are awesome.
I want to say congratulations. It’s impressive to have that many people coming to your Meetup. Congratulations to you too on taking that step and making it happen. Many people say, “I need to have done this many numbers of deals.” You’ve been in real estate. You understand real estate. Maybe you’re not an experienced syndicator but you’re getting there. It’s like, “Take the step. Let’s make it happen. Who cares if everybody else thinks you shouldn’t do it yet?” A lot of people were there and you’re the guy at the front of the room. Tell me about the layout of this group when you all meet. What do you all do?
[bctt tweet=”You could go in and spend a few months learning the process, and you’ve only scratched the surface.” via=”no”]
It’s on the first Wednesday of every month. We’re in a basement conference room of a big realtor in town. We’re able to get in this space for free. They’ve donated the space. That’s recognition for them and it’s worked out well. We’re maxing the space out. It’s tight in there at times, which is a good thing. This meeting is a mixture of not only multifamily investors but also single-family flippers and note investors. There’s a mixture of people that are in there. What I like about that is there are a lot of people that are strictly multifamily Meetups. They’re missing out on those sectors of people that will come across multifamily and have no clue what to do with that stuff. They may pass on it, but if they know someone that invests in multifamily, they’re like, “I know who to give this to.” Sometimes they’ll flip those leads to me, “Here you go.”
It’s all about your network and letting people know what you’re doing. The awesome thing about that Meetup is that you’re in the front of the room and everybody knows who Adam is. Even if they don’t know somebody that can do something with that multifamily property or they don’t know anything to do with it, they’re probably going to come to you to see if you know of somebody. In addition to the Meetup, it’s great that you’ve created 60 or more people. You also started a YouTube channel. Why would you start a YouTube channel?
It takes a lot of time to do a YouTube channel. People would not think that. I wanted to reach out to more people. I wanted to share this with more people that have questions. I felt that YouTube was the best platform to do that. There are multiple ways to do it. You can go through social media. You’ve got Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. There are a lot of people that share stuff on there, but YouTube’s the only long-format tool to teach people stuff that is widely used. YouTube is the second-highest search engine on the internet. Putting stuff on there, I’m able to get in front of more people. I do videos not just on real estate. I take my past in investing in general business and I’m trying to make videos and put them on YouTube to help others grow.
There are lots of things that happen. We have a thought leadership platform like that. Are there other ways that you can say that has benefited you by creating that YouTube channel?
Not only the YouTube channel but also the Meetup. Even though you may know the material, when you sit down to try to teach someone else, you learn so much more. You not only learn, but you reinforce what you already know and you’re like, “I’ve completely forgotten about that from a couple of years ago. Why don’t I implement that?” Sitting down to teach something, you reinforce what you know. You may even learn better ways to do things. It’s been helpful to do stuff like that. Anyone that has tried to teach someone something can relate to that.
Would you say it helped your credibility like speaking to other people? If they don’t even know about your YouTube channel, it probably helps you speak to them because you’ve already taught through these videos. You had to study that material but talking to somebody else about it becomes a lot easier. You’ve built the Meetup, the YouTube channel, what are your next steps? What are you doing next? What are your goals?
I feel like those sources are teaching and helping people that want to invest in real estate. My next goals are going to be starting to do stuff that is going to help people learn to passively invest in real estate and to teach them how to passively invest in real estate. There are few resources out there. Maybe for people that are sitting at home that want to invest in real estate and have no clue how, they feel overwhelmed. They don’t know the next step to take in order to get there. They don’t know how to find the right people. As I’m saying, I’m networking with those people with a lot more experience. They don’t know how to find those people. They may be intimidated to go to a conference and go around 200, 300 people to find the right person. It is teaching them how to find the right people, how to look over the deals so that they can feel comfortable with it and what to expect by passively investing in real estate.
You’d also mentioned finding the right people to do deals with or knowing the right sponsor to go with. You’re going to teach people that are going to passively invest. Help us to understand that a little bit. How have you known the right people? You’ve got 60 people in that room you’re developing relationships with and they knew who Adam is. How do you know whom you want to partner with?
Don’t tell anyone, but it’s by being burned. I partnered on a deal early on when I started investing in real estate and I got burnt. I did not do my due diligence on this person and it burnt me. I’m still living with that burn. I have pulled back to assess people to figure out what their goals are, to do background checks on people. Anyone that wants to partner with me absolutely does a background check because I want to do a background check on anyone that I invest with. It’s because I want to know your history. A few years ago is an eternity. I can’t even remember a few years ago. Maybe things have changed, but it opens up a dialogue to start talking to that person and realize maybe what they were going through, what decisions they made. Sometimes people have a bad record, but it’s for a good reason.
I hear that more common and I encourage it as well. It may be from numerous years ago but there’s still maybe something that opens a conversation that you need to have.
How they handle that situation may make you want to invest with them even more.
What’s been the hardest part of the syndication journey for you so far?
Learning because there are many different aspects to it. Someone could go in and spend a few months learning the process and you’ve only scratched the surface. I am also part of a large mastermind, a group of people that have dedicated their lives to this. I’ve learned many different new things from that mastermind that I didn’t read anywhere in books. I didn’t see anywhere in all these conferences that I go to. You have to learn constantly. I bet even a few years down the road, I’m still going to learn new things. Take the time to learn. When you get into anything new and you think you’ve conquered it like this, that’s when you’re going to make the biggest mistakes.
It’s crucial to surround yourself with people that are way ahead of you. Hopefully, they have that hand down like you were talking about. What is some advice that you give somebody that’s starting out in this space as well? From what you’ve learned and how you’ve got rolling here.
[bctt tweet=”When you get into anything new and think you’ve conquered it, that is when you’re going to make the biggest mistakes.” via=”no”]
It’s the same thing as what’s been hard is learning. Networking with people that have done it. Find the right person. Find people that you click with that can give you advice, tips and pointers. Everybody that comes into this is going to need maybe to focus on something different than the next person because each one of us has different struggles, different things that don’t click with us. Some of us suck at math. Analyzing the deals are going to be hard for you. Maybe you partner with someone that is good at analyzing deals or it’s going to take you more time to practice that and get good at it. It’s the same thing with networking. In my previous position, my previous business, I didn’t have to do a ton of networking. It was local so I didn’t have to network with people all over the US. That’s something new for me, getting out there and networking with people all over the US. That’s a new skill that I’m learning. It becomes so much easier by doing the YouTube channels, by getting in front of people at the Meetup and talking, that stuff has helped me. The number one fear of everyone is public speaking.
What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success thus far in this business? You’ve had another successful business, but what is that one thing?
I strongly feel the number one thing to be successful at anything you do in life is determination. Sticking with it through the tough times and the good times is key. I’ve had many downtimes. When I have those deals where I’m on the last inch of closing them and I lose it, that’s depressing. Determination and realizing to keep moving forward. Every day that you take a tiny step forward is progress.
Everybody talks about massive action. You want to take massive action, but it may be a small thing. Consistent small actions lead to big things.
In my opinion, a small step each day is massive action.
That’s a bigger step than other people are taking. What are you excited about in your business or moving forward?
I’m working on a deal. We’re running numbers on a deep value add, 384-unit complex. I am excited about it. We have a good chance of closing this deal. I’ve already run the CapEx figures. It’s looking like a lucrative deal. I’m excited about this one. I’m crossing my fingers that I’m going to have a slimmer competition than the previous ones I’ve been working on.
Adam, how do you give back?
I co-host in the local Meetup, the YouTube channel and mentorship with other people. I love going out to lunches with people and learning their story. I’m giving them any advice I can, even if it’s outside of the real estate. A lot of times I find my conversations diverge into personal life and the struggles that they have. I’m no expert at everything. I’m constantly learning on multiple sides of my life, but I love being able to share my experiences, like when I got burnt. I share those with other people that haven’t got burnt yet so they can be more cautious and possibly not get burnt themselves.
Adam, how can the readers get in touch with you, learn more about your business and your YouTube channel or your Meetup up also if they’re local?
My Meetup is in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Connect with me through Facebook, Instagram. If you want to comment on my YouTube channel, go ahead. My email is [email protected]. I would love to schedule a call with anyone and talk some more.
Adam, thank you so much for your time and telling us how you’re getting in this business and the dedication it took to leaving another successful business and jumping in and making it happen. I appreciate your time. I appreciate the readers that have been with us. I hope you all will go to Life Bridge Capital and also connect with me. Join us on the Facebook group, The Real Estate Syndication Show. I would appreciate it if you would do me a favor and share the show. We will talk to each of you again on our next episode.
Thank you, Whitney. I very much appreciate it. For all the readers, subscribe to Whitney’s channel.
Thank you, Adam.
Important Links:
- Adam Beckstedt
- YouTube – Adam’s channel
- Rod Khleif
- Facebook – Adam’s page
- Instagram – Adam’s page
- [email protected]
- The Real Estate Syndication Show
About Adam Beckstedt
Adam owns and manages several multi-family and single family homes within Indiana and Ohio. Adam has owned and managed a multi-million dollar company based on customer service and building strong relationships for nearly 2 decades before selling it at its peak in 2016 to focus on real estate. Alongside his wife he now focuses on larger purchases where they can bring on partners and investors to share in the growth of the company.
Eager to help others in need, they spend their time giving advice to new investors and entrepreneurs looking for answers through local meet-ups, mentoring, and Adam has started his own YouTube channel to help others learn not only about real estate, but investing in other avenues as well.
