Today, my guest is Trevor Mauch. Trevor is the host of the Carrot Cast Podcast and the CEO of Carrot, one of the nation's fastest growing companies, according to Inc Magazine, where they have helped the nation's top real estate investors and agents plant over 3 million online leads in just five years, closing 1000s of deals with their software and training. Trevor lives in Roseburg, Oregon with his wife and three kids, and is passionate about using business to fuel your passion and amplify your impact that are the impact you want to make in the world. Part of the impact he's passionate about making is helping entrepreneurs unleash that entrepreneurial dream of finally unlocking that freedom, flexibility, finances, and impact that you've dreamed, but have you yet to be able to fully make happen. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Trevor about online marketing and how to attract an audience and remain relevant.

I'd like to ask you, Trevor mock. What is the BIGGEST RISK? 

Trevor Mauch  39:22  

Man, this is a good question. So four years ago, we started when we do our annual planning, one of the first things that we do, like we'll set numbers and goals and stuff like that. But then right after that, we do an exercise where it's like, it's kind of kind of a SWOT, I guess you could call it but it's like what could kill us? What What can kill this business? Because oftentimes, we ignore those things that truly could take us out and they take us by surprise. And so the things that the top of that for us are, if since we're so heavily focused on Google, and not all the leads for our clients come through Google searches, it could be from pay ads and things like that. But we're very heavily focused on Google, if there was a major change in Google and we got are caught with our pants down, and our websites all sudden, for some reason weren't exactly what Google is looking for. That would be decently catastrophic. And so we take that go, Okay, how do we make sure that that's front and center in our product? Whenever we're looking at anything product related? How do we make sure we're always relevant in Google, we're staying ahead of the curve or websites or fast things like that. The second one day, and I'll just give you two here is being Frank right now in this business. I've been building a leadership team, we had an outside company come in, and did a really good audit for three year vision moving forward. So we all kind of knew what were the weaknesses, what were our blind spots, and I had kind of known it. But what what came up is that I am too key on the strategy side in a way to many parts of the business where people from all around the company see me as innocent as necessary on the strategy. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I totally didn't lead well there in those certain spots. Because if I'm that key, if something happens to me, they all feel this thing's gonna fall apart. And so we got around a table, it's like, how do we make this not true here? What what's in my brain? Where do we need to upgrade leaders? You know, keyman insurance, that is an actual thing that we did about a year ago, when we did that, and it's given me peace of mind for me and my co founder for sure.

Today, my guest is Adam Gilbert. Adam is the president of the firm commercial, where he leads a team of agents specializing in commercial real estate sales, leasing, land acquisition, development, government relations and value add entitlement deals. And in just a minute, we're gonna speak with Adam about value add entitlement deals.

J. Darrin Gross

So let me ask you, the question that I do ask people is, what is the BIGGEST RISK? Is that what you? Would you? You would, you know, your BIGGEST RISK would be just that?

Adam Gilbert  

Yeah, I mean, yeah, this is probably on the riskier side of the type of investment deals that I do. So I mean, I have a shopping center that I'm doing a value add facade enhancement on, you know, that's a tangible asset, these entitlement deals, I would say they're on the risk there, they are probably the biggest risk in terms of deals that I do. Because again, if I'm unsuccessful in getting the entitlements, I've now just pissed away all my money for something that I was able to create no value on. But the if I am successful, then the returns are high enough, you know, 5x 10x, to justify that risk. And, you know, what I equated to is off playing poker, you know, I try to do as much due diligence as I can. And if I'm holding two kings, if I'm holding a great hand, I can still lose, you know, but I'm taking a calculated risk. And knowing that I'm willing to make a bet, because I've, I think that this is where this particular property and this project needs to go.

Today my guest is Victor Jiracek. Victor is a real estate fix and flipper based in Gainesville, Florida. He completed 40 excuse me 20 flips last year and is on pace to do an additional 30 flips for this year 2021. Ironically, his best flip was a $64,000 net profit deal that almost that he almost backed out up. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Victor about what makes a successful flip, and how to get started to do your own flips.

J. Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you, Victor Jiracek, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Viktor Jiracek  

Yeah, no, I think that's that's great question, happy to answer it. I'd say it's all about the numbers. So I always teach and preach. It's like profit margin, like margin of error, like how much you know, profit, do you have potential in the deal, because if anything goes wrong, like a takes longer than you want, or doesn't sell for as much as you want, you have to go over repairs, like that's all going to eat into your profit margin. So the more profit buffer or profit margin you have, the better. So again, it's all about the numbers. And there's been a lot of deals where like we set out to make 30 40,000. That's, that's great. And then one issue came up, and then another issue came up and another issue came up. And then we walked away with 10,000. But luckily, we had that initial, you know, profit buffer to work with, or else we would have been in the red. So with that same example, like if we initially wanted to make, we said, like, Hey, I just want to make 15,000. Like, if I can make 15,000 on this, I'd be happy. And then the issue comes up in that issue, another issue another issue, and then suddenly, you're in the red. So that happens a ton. So that's why I recommend in terms of risk, like just protect yourself, like if you buy any, any property for the right price, like every single thing can go wrong, and you can still be profitable. But again, it's you make money when you buy is, is the segue from that. But it's really like profit margin buffer, just in case anything goes wrong, and it will go wrong. That's the other thing. It always takes longer than you want. And it always costs more than you want.

Today, my guest is Joe evangel. St. Joe is the executive coach with over 5000 hours of experience under his belt, as well as the CEO and partner of one of the top Self Storage development companies in the country. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Joe about the opportunities in self storage and what you can do to level up your investment game.

J. Darrin Gross:

I'd like to ask you, Joe, evangelist at what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Joe Evangelisti 

Absolutely. And I have insurance background as well. So I mean, I'm not going to answer from an insurance perspective, but I understand where you're coming from. And, and look, I think insurance is one way, you know, we could talk about risk, but really, when we're talking about risk in life, and we're talking about risk and success and growth and contribution and creating something that, you know, when we talk about legacy, wealth, or legacy building, I think about legacy as when I create that thing, there's some kid 100 years from now, who's never heard my name, who's going to be impacted by that, because his grandfather, and Father, you know, taught that, you know, took it down the line and created that long term legacy and wealth, right? In order to create that there's no way you can do it without risk, right? Everything we do is risk, you drive your car to work in the morning, it's a risk, but you don't not work, right, you don't not go to your job. It's the same thing, I think in our industry, is there's going to be a lot of risks. But the one way that we can create risk mitigation is through proper due diligence through making sure we check all of our boxes through thinking 12 months to two years in advance or five years in advance in some in some cases, right? So, you know, when it comes to like, let's say Self Storage development, for an example, there's a lot of outliers, right, the market could change the the the price of materials right now has gone through the roof. And so we build in contingencies for these things, we pay attention to the what ifs, we look ahead to, you know, making sure that we ask the right questions and do the proper due diligence. You know, we don't buy sites that, you know, used to contain an underground oil spill or you know, have major water issues or any that type of thing. So I think the best way to mitigate risk when you're in the development business and in your in the construction business, is to do the proper due diligence, like you see here, most of the nightmare stories of big developments gone wrong. It's because someone forgot to ask the right question. someone forgot to do the right study, someone skipped paying for the feasibility report and just went in all in on a gut feeling. You know, one of the things about these big deals that I like is there's so many people involved in the approval process, right? It goes through 20 different hands before we say yes, and before we even decided to go take investor money in. So we want to make sure that we're mitigating the risk to create the best possible upside, knowing that it's going to go wrong, that we have problems, things happen, right, and then being surrounded by really good problem solvers. So when they come up, we have a plan B and A plan C and a plan D.

Today, my guest is Manny Renteria. Manny is a 15 year veteran of the solar industry, and has been designing commercial solar systems for over eight years. He is a founder of one up solar, an industry leader and residential, nonprofit and commercial solar installs in San Diego. And they are expanding their reach to the entire country. And in just a minute, we're going to speak with Manny about the opportunities in solar for real estate investors, and specifically more commercial aspects. 

if you're willing, I'd like to ask you, Manny Renteria, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Manny Renteria 

So the biggest risks that we run as a nationwide consultancy, and myself myself personally, as a consultant that has, that has a phone with with over 1000 clients, and that call me You know, every other day is, is, is not meeting the performance, right. So I've, I've made this mistake, you know, when I, when I first started consulting, in the consulting business signing agreements, on behalf of service providers, so I would be the the in between the service provider and the customer. And so, in this agreement, I'm the one presenting disagreement to the customer and saying, hey, these are all the benefits of, you know, doing solar with, with my, with my service provider. And so in these agreements, it's it's not, it hasn't been a standard to have a performance guarantee. And that I think, is the biggest, biggest ticket item for me, for my customer. And for him, even for the for the service provider, is to have that, because now without that I cannot sell anybody's product, I cannot promote or sign anybody's agreements, unless there is a performance guarantee, which covers me, and it covers my, my, my client, in this case. And what that is, is very simple if if your system is, is out there and is producing power, but the power that it's that it's supposed to be producing, let's say I presented you with a proposal that says, hey, this, this system is is supposed to produce 10,000 kilowatt hours every month, okay. And for the first year, you know, multiply it by 12, that's 120/3, whatever that is, right. So, so they sign up based on the fact that you showed them, you know, a performance estimate on the proposal that they signed, and then the agreement didn't really have any performance guarantees. And what happens is, a year later, when this system underperforms significantly, and and your customer ends up with with a system that doesn't produce or meet their needs, and on top of that, now they have a huge utility bill, why because all the power that they didn't produce is now coming from the utility and now they have this extra bill on top of whatever, you know, if they're financing, then they have the only have two bills. And so what ends up happening is I have to go and explain why the system is underperforming, or whether or not they need more panels. And I'm stuck in between, you know, explaining to the customer, hey, you know, your system didn't produce because these trees are still in the way or something like that. So it's really, really important that that a performance guarantee is set in place by any service provider. And then that performance guarantee has some sort of sort of sort of monetary compensation in in the event that the system underperforms in a certain year or every two years and typically what a performance guarantee does is every two years if the accumulated power doesn't equate to this much you get reimbursed at this rate. So that to me now is is one of the biggest risks that I that I've had moving forward. And so now I always look for that in service providers to give me that performance guarantee. Otherwise, I'm out there, you know, exposing myself and my company as as you know, as being untrue or just on I don't know, just not not trained, I guess