Our guest hasn’t always been the CEO of multiple companies with students from all over the world and properties in various states. Back in 2015, Paul was working a corporate job… the long hours, the commute… and was tired of it. He wanted out. And real estate investing became his escape plan. And in just over a year’s time, he quit that corporate job and hasn’t looked back since!
I wanted to do things that were interesting and learn what it takes to make those interesting decisions. I wanted to make things that are interesting. And I found that growing and building businesses are really interesting and really complicated.
Why real estate?
I could get really low-interest rates at the time. Six percent or less. And that, I feel like, was a very measured and careful approach and not at all throwing caution to the wind. But I was not afraid to make mistakes. My mistake was not trying for 15 years.
Paul talks about his unique experience finding and working with his mentor.
…here’s what you got to do first. You have to go by the book The Richest Man in Babylon. I want you to get a physical copy. I want you to read it, highlight it and write a three-page handwritten essay. And then I want you to mail it to my P.O. box. And after you do that, I’ll talk to you. So it was his way of testing people if they’re serious and if they’re coachable and teachable. So I did it, and over the next two years, I probably wrote like six seven eight handwritten, three-page essays on different books that he sent me.
What advantages has Paul seen in working with a CPA that also offers business strategy?
You need that business strategist. It’s really handy when they’re an accountant and or an attorney as well, so they can give you advice on those aspects of any business that you’re in because you have to solve for both of those.
How does Paul see businesses being able to survive over the years?
I knew very early on from being in business for other people that the reality of the world in the business world, is adapt or die. You have to adjust.
Are there any other relationships that have really been imperative to your success throughout your journey?
I did not go into real estate or entrepreneurship for relationships. But I realized that, oh, that’s why you go into business in the first place. It’s about relationships, it’s about service, about creating value to other people. And you’re going to need other people in the industry or any other other professionals that you’re working with.
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Transcript
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Hello, everybody.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:This is the Harper Plus podcast, I'm making entrepreneurs
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:great, Glenn Harper.
Julie Smith:
Speaker:This is Julie Smith,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And our guest today is Paul Thompson, a real estate
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:investor. A fellow entrepreneur.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Another podcast host.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And just an all around good guy.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Our paths crossed, and we thought he'd be a fantastic
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:guest. So welcome, Paul. How are you?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm amazing. I'm really excited to figure out what we're
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:talking about today.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Well, I can tell you this the first thing we have to get out
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:of the way, we got this elephant in the room and and
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:looking at your bio, the rumor has it you used to be an
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:engineer or do you still have those tendencies?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I got to get that out. No.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:No. I needed a job at a college that paid money.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So and I happened to be good at math and science when I was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:in high school. So I found myself an engineering school and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:ended up working as an engineer for 15 years, 17 years, I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:guess in the corporate world.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Before I realized that that wasn't my calling,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That had to be horrible.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It had good spots and bad spots.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Corporate America can just they just ring ring you out and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:just leave you out to dry whenever they decide it's not.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You're not worth it anymore.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that, you know, as you start in the corporate America, is
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:that kind of when, you know, usually an engineer is the,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you know, the smartest person in the room and then but at
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:some point you recognize you've got to kind of get other
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:relationships and teammates and that kind of thing.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Did you have that consensus consensus when you were in
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:corporate America and realize that?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Or is that when you went on in your own that you decided
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:that that's how it has to work?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Well, it's interesting, I when I was in the corporate world,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I was an engineer for several several years, an actual, you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:know, individual contributor that would refer to it as.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But then I realized I wanted to be in the rooms where
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:they're making decisions. So I went into management and I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:kind of kept climbing the ladder.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I liked being in the rooms where they kept making
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:decisions. But I realized the more doors that I went into
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:there was always another door that I wasn't in.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So until you're the CEO of the company, then you're not
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:going to always be in the decision, the ultimate decision
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:maker. I finally realized, you know, let's just go do my
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:own thing where I'm always, I'm the one who decides where
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the room is in the first place.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:So that was that aha moment was because you wanted to be the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:guy making the decisions or you wanted to do something
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:great on your own.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Good question. I wanted to do things that were interesting
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and learn what it takes to make those interesting
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:decisions. So part of that maybe is the engineer background
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:is I want to build things.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I want to make things that are interesting.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I found that that growing and building businesses is
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:really interesting and really complicated, and there is no
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:one right answer.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And so that really is the drive to for me is to to grow as
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:a person is what would it take to where I could control my
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:lifestyle? It was more of a lifestyle design than it was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:like. I had to be a maker of some amazing invention.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I don't have any new ideas about being an engineer.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm more of a, I would say, a visionary, but I want to come
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:up with an idea and I want to hire people around me to go
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:make this stuff because I'm not actually the engineer.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:So that is so, such an interesting track because, you know,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I would say the majority of clients and colleagues that I
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:come across, they are they're trade in corporate America.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Whatever it is, they do this thing like you being an
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:engineer and like, OK, I'm going to I can be a better
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:engineer somewhere else.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I don't want to deal with all this BS.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I want to go do it on my own and they go, Do that job.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:As an engineer, self-employed, you bypass that and you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:went. Instead of just doing business, you decided you were
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:going to build a business.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And it's a talk about balls of steel to be able to just go
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:out there and just say, I'm going to pick real estate like
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:something random that you never did before.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:How did you settle on that?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I mean, that's a that's a big ask.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I mean, that's a very complicated industry.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:How do you just go? That's the one I'm going to do.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's funny. I think I chose it because it was the least
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:complicated and specifically by real estate.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It can mean some different things.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I specifically started buying rental property just very
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:simple single family residential rental property.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And as the conflict, the level of complexity goes, that's
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:actually quite simple.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And as as an employee, I could go and buy one rental
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:property and just see if it worked because I really wanted
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the impetus for all of this is really I wanted to control
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:my lifestyle. I wanted to change the script where I was not
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:having to ask permission from my boss to spend time with my
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:family. Instead, I wanted to spend time with my family, so
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I would then ask them permission.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Could I go and spend this weekend a conference learning
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:about something? Did that make sense with our life values
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:at the time? So I really changed the order of operations
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and when I looked at the things and so I was like, How what
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:can I do? Or that is that order of operation works and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:doing something on my own was one of them, and I wanted to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:do something where I wasn't buying myself another job.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I looked into doing insurance.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I looked into starting a franchise.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:All those things felt like I was just buying a job.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So what could I do that just created passive residual
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:income, but I could do some work on the front end.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I thought, Well, real estate seems like something that fits
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that category. I started buying a few properties, and I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:don't know what. 18 months later I had a I had purchased 18
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:properties and I realized this was my thing, and that's
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:when I realized I didn't need the corporate job anymore.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:So you were able to keep your real job and do the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:entrepreneur thing on the side for 18 months.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You know, one would say that that's pretty.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That's a bold strategy.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Cotton like how do you how do you keep a real job?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Do your family and take that leap of faith and say, I'm
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:going to do this and you didn't just buy one like you said,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you bought 18 of them.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I mean, you've got to get your head examined, Mike, who
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:does that? So, so so that's the I think the impetus for me
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:on this or the takeaway is that any entrepreneur out there
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:listening to this is that you just have to go do it.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You can't think about failing.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You can't think about those things.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Did that even come into your mind that it wasn't going to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:work? Or do you just said, I'm just going full speed?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:This is what I'm doing.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So a really good question.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I think this really gets to the nugget of the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:entrepreneurial spirit.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's I sit on the sidelines for 15 years of my corporate
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:life, kind of wishing and hoping and dreaming that I would
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:go and do something else, but I stuck with a security.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Are the the appearance of security that you have with a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:corporate job and the consistency of the paycheck, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I realized that I had to get out on the field.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's the analogy that I often use is I want I had the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:vision of playing on the field and but but I wouldn't do it
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:right. I was afraid of failing, and our culture kind of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:changed that into us.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Our educational system, for sure, trains into us that
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:you're not supposed to be ever be wrong.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And that's not how business works.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You have to go out and do experiments.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Now you're not silly and foolish about it, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I didn't just throw caution to the wind.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I took a very careful and measured approach.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Let me go buy a property.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And when I bought a property, I was able to refi and oh,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:this doesn't work. Let me go, buy some more.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And then I did the next one.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I did the next one, and I happened to be doing that in
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:2015, when it was easier to buy properties and it is now.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But it still wasn't 2012.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I mean, it was harder than it was just three or four years
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:prior to that. But I realized that was the opportunity that
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:you could find deals at discounts.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I really got into the game of finding that gem of a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:property that I was buying at 30 percent below what the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:market value of the property was and at cash flow.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I could get really low interest rates at the time.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:There real interest rates now because higher interest
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:rates. But still six percent or less.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And that, I feel like, was a very measured and careful
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:approach and not at all throwing caution to the wind.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I was not afraid to make mistakes.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:My mistake was not trying for 15 years.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You know, it's funny, though timing is everything.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:If you'd have started this in 2005, six seven eight when
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:everything blew up. Who knows what could have happened?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You could have still had the same great strategy and
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:weathered the storm, and you'd have even greater
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:opportunities. But everything happens for a reason, right?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:But would you would you when you made the jump out on your
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:own? Did you have like a mentor or somebody that was
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:coaching you through this?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Or did you just say, Well, I got to figure this out on my
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:own?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Good question. So I very early learned or heard the advice.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Find a mentor fundamentally.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And you know, like finding a mentor is actually not as easy
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:as people make it out to be because the people who are
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:offering their services to you, usually it's a paid
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:transaction or it's a paid experience, and you just don't
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:know if they know what they're talking about or not.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I was very lucky, and I went and found I did some sort
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:of Google search and I found somebody that was in a market
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:about an hour from me, so probably not considered
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:competition. And I emailed them and said, This is what I'm
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:doing and I'm interested in mentorship.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm willing to exchange my time, my energy, anything to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:help you in your business as an exchange for me learning
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the business. And he is a very interesting story.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So two or three weeks later, he called me up and said, Hey,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I got your email, I like to talk to you.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And he was kind of a mercurial, interesting kind of odd
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:cat. He said, I'll mentor you, but here's what you got to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:do first. You have to go by the book The Richest Man in
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Babylon. I want you to get a physical copy.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I want you to read it, highlight it and write a three page
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:handwritten essay.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And then I want you to mail it to my P.O.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:box. And after you do that, I'll talk to you.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So it was his way of testing people if they're serious and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:if they're coachable and teachable.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I did it, and over the next two years, I probably wrote
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:like six seven eight handwritten, three page essays on
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:different books that he sent me. And then what he did,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:probably better than anything else, is he sent me to, he
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:said. Here's a conference coming up from Pete Fortunato.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Here's a conference coming up from Spotify.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Go to these are like the grand old men of real estate.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:They've been doing it forever. They're not into it for like
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:this mentorship $50000 service in the back of the room kind
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:of thing. They're just these guys have been doing it for 30
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:plus years. They have these courses on the weekend, and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that's it. There's no more upsell.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I went to those I went to over about three year period.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I probably went to like, I don't know, 20 plus of those,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and I got a master's level degree in real estate in a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:couple of years.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I am just absolutely intrigued that.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You. When you ask for somebody to mentor you and they give
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you back a test, not many people would have said, Screw
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:this, I'm not doing that.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That is what there had to be something.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And again, you you probably you don't know it consciously,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:but subconsciously there had to be something that in you.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That said, I just have to do this because that is opposite
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:of everything else you were trying to do.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:So what was that?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:What was that calling? How did you know
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It felt like a Mr Miyagi moment?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's like, Oh man, this is some like real live wax on wax
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:off shit and like, like, like, I've got to like this.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm not sure if he actually knows what he's talking about
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:or not, but I checked him out.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:He seemed like he was legitimate, like, Let's, let's do it.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:What was it? What was the cost to that?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Really, it was reading a book that I probably would have
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:been happy to read anyway, setting up a good practice of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:highlighting and taking notes of a book you should be doing
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:anyway, and then writing a three page essay, which I did
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:not enjoy the handwritten part of the essays.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That was horrible, but that was a test for him.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That was like, I've been further, further into it.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I kept asking him like, OK, well, you know, I've done these
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:handwritten ones. Are you ready for me to just send you a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:report? You know, I want them all handwritten
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:In cursive or print it?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:He didn't. That was not part of the specification.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I was like, if his cursive would be over,
Julie Smith:
Speaker:No one could read. Glenn's handwriting is why.
Julie Smith:
Speaker:So he would have had this three page essay and no one would
Julie Smith:
Speaker:have had any idea what was even on that.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And these hieroglyphics? What are you doing?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I'm using me Egyptian hieroglyphics because I can understand
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:pictures. So when you you know the ability, you know what
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:we see sometimes in entrepreneurs, you know, they have this
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:idea. They want to go do a thing.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:But the point when it becomes real is either when, in your
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:case, the realness is you had a desire, you already had
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:bought a property, perhaps before you talk to this guy.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:But then when you had to write that dissertation back to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:him, you were literally kind of made your manifesto, if you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:will, right? And why you want to do that pretty much turned
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:it from a dream to a goal, right?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that was that the kind of the thing that made it happen
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:for you?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Then that is and I actually came out of one of those essays.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It was something to do with I forget exactly the book, but
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:it was a book by Jim Roan that he had me read.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And as I was writing it, I realized there was some ego in
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:what I was writing. I was for some reason was had this as I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:was writing it, like I had typed it all out and as I was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:handwriting it, I just kind of realized, Damn, I'm I think
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm something else.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Like, I'm I'm putting myself out there as this successful
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:corporate middle manager and I've done all these things.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's all. That's irrelevant.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Those are good lessons. There are principles I took from
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:it, but I was I had to let go of my ego and be vulnerable
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and be willing to not know what I'm talking about in this
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:new world. And part of that exercise helped me consciously
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:come to that realization,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Literally as an engineer.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That was your aha moment, literally when you realize that
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you didn't have to know it all and you could, you have to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:put yourself with a team around you and hire your experts.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:How after that with this guy started mentoring you?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Did you did you like, you know, the trifecta of a business
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:owner is, you know, or an entrepreneur, you want your CPA,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you want your attorney, you want your banker, you want your
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:appraiser. You know, in your case, you probably want some
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:kind of motivation or or, you know, counselor of some sort.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:When did you start putting that team together?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Hmm, that's a good question, especially on the the attorney
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and CPA front.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So that that's I know you probably resonate with this.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's a kind.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It can be a very difficult thing to figure out when you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:need it and at what level you need those services.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I found the banker and I found the letter.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:See, which would you say? I found the appraiser appraisals
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and I found the realtors, but I didn't deal with the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:attorneys or the CPAs too much earlier, because when you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:first getting started, you don't actually need those
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:services that much because you're not making money.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's not until you start making money that you realize, OK,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:now I've actually done some things.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I've actually had some expenses but actually bought some
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:properties. Now I need to file taxes.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's when the CPA comes in and with with the attorney.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Unless you're doing, you're messing something up.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I mean, like a lot of the state contracts, we're just using
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:state contracts anyway, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So it's not even that that complicated from a real estate
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:perspective. It's when you start having multiple entities,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that's when you pull in your accountants and attorneys.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And it's very interesting dynamic.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:As a business owner, I have a difficult time talking to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:attorneys and accountants because you can't get your
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:attorney an accountant in the same room together, and so
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:they tell you opposite things by looking at your situation
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:through a different lens.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And it's really hard to find a a business oriented
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:accountant or attorney that can kind of see the bigger
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:picture and kind of nudge you along the right ways.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And that's really not their function.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:They're not there to be a business coach.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So you have to kind of take aspects of the legal entity
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:structures you get to aspects of tax, you know, legal tax
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:avoidance, right? Our tax optimization strategies and you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:take the like, what do you want to accomplish as a business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and kind of gather these, these these three things
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:together. And I found the first couple of years that was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the most difficult part of the business, not the real
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:estate part. Doing real estate turned out to be kind of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:easy. It was being the the business owner and knowing what
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:kind of lever to pull at the right time was what was.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I had the hardest time understanding because there's very
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:little that's taught about that.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Well, I think that just, you know, really, really pisses me
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:off. And the reason why it does is because the perception
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:on everybody's industry and I was I was busting a little
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:bit on being an engineer. But you know, the same thing goes
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:through as being an attorney, being a CPA.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:People think this is what you do.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And a lot of times that is what you do, but it's not really
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:what you do and you are.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Your experience with the CPAs or accountants were
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:transactional and just regurgitating data and putting out a
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:form. You never had an advisor, a business advisor as a CPA
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:to kind of coach you through that because, you know, in the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:old days, it was all about, Hey, we'll we can ask for
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:forgiveness and fix this and go back and undo this and make
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:it right. But now you kind of got us for permission with
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:the new code, right? So that architecture of setting that
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:up and working on it, that is what you know we're trying to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:do in the industry is to help clients and other
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:entrepreneurs recognize that you need to have those deep,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:high level conversations right away because that's going to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:start putting the entrepreneur in a position to kind of
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:understand their space what they should or shouldn't be
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:doing, how they got to monetize it, how they got to account
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:for it, you know, how do they make money in that before
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:they go and fall on their face and figure it out later?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And you're just picking, you're just doing transactions.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:So it's unfortunate that you didn't get that at the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:beginning because it would have been a life changing.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:We say that that's the shortcut that saves somebody, you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:know, five, seven, 10 years of anarchy.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I so agree with that.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:If anybody is listening to this, you need that business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:strategist and it's really handy when they're a an
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:accountant and or an attorney as well, so they can give you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:advice on those aspects of any business that you're in as
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:well, because you have to solve for both of those.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And if you try and just talk to an attorney about legal
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:matters and just talk to an accountant about tax matters
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and then try and like take the information because an
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:attorney will tell you to never do anything because it's
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:it's risky, right? An accountant will say, Well, it just
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:depends what you want to do. Just tell me, just tell me,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and I'll file it for you.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Well, what should I be doing? Well, that's what the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:business as a business owner is, which you need to figure
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:out, and you need that business strategy on the front end
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that and then have a legal and tax strategy that aligns
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:with that.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Yeah, we see that, you know, the order that we like to see
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:it. And when we talk to the most, you know, I don't want to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:say the most successful because it's not about the money,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:right? It's about the process.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's about having fun. It's the journey.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's all those things. But it it ends up being that you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:kind of build what you're trying to do and kind of map that
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:out. And then you go to the attorney and say, How do I
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:protect myself legally?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:People want to do it backwards, so go to the attorney, but
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:they don't even know what they're trying to build yet.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And the attorney just doesn't know what that means then.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:So it
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Depends. It depends.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I've always been
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:An attorney is like, Oh, you can't do this?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And it's like, Wait a second, no, let's define what it is
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:we want to do and what that makes sense financially tax
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:wise. And all those things then execute that with the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:attorney. Then the entrepreneur can go, Oh, well, we can
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:turn them loose. The the entrepreneur like for you, you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:know, in real estate or anything that you might be in, it's
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:trying to find that price point, the margin, the return on
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:your investment, all those things.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:When did you determine as an entrepreneur that was at a
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:return on investment on on your rent roll?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Was it on flipping a property?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:What what were your matrix is that you were trying to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:determine to decide if that property was worth it?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:How did you come up and figure out those calculations?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Ok, so when you're looking just like you said, when you're
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:looking at running a business like you want to figure out
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:what your angle is like, like where are you adding value
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and where is the margin? Where is the profit opportunity
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:right? And so I wanted to replace my income first, like a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:building. Wealth was nice, but I wanted to be able to.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I my freedom back by my time back so that I had the freedom
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:to go, figure and do the things that it took to build
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:wealth. So for me, it was cash flow.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I wanted to buy properties that had a certain amount of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:cash flow. I want to have a little cash in those properties
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:as I could, so I could turn my money.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I would buy a property and then I would want to get a do
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:do the BR method or buy and refi.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I wanted to get the refinance and get most, if not all,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:of my money back.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And so I was into it for zero dollars, which you know is a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:great believer. Yeah, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Infinite cash return.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I wanted it to cash flow when I did that, so I didn't
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:want to borrow so much that I was just breaking even was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the point in that. So I wanted to have, you know, $200 of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:true net net net cash flow per day or per unit that I that
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I purchased so that every time I was buying something, I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:was adding a cash cow into my portfolio of at least two
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:hundred dollars per month.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Yeah. How long did it take you to build the model so you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:could scale this thing? I mean, you obviously had to figure
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:that out within the first, probably three or four deals
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:before you got to 18.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:But how many did you have to go?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Oh, son of a gun, I missed that one up.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And how many times you have to fall forward?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Yeah, I definitely made some mistakes.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Surprisingly, when you buy properties that you know are are
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:30 percent below the value of what?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Again, this is you're buying a property that there is some
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:sort of underlying motivation from the seller that they
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:need to sell, and time and ease is more important for them
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:maximizing the seller return.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's the fundamental aspect of my business, so I'm trying
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:to buy things at a discount.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And when you do that, it's really hard to mess up because
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:you're buying things at such a discount so you can have
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:some rounding errors have makes them a erroneous
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:assumptions. Have some prices come come up and still not be
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:hurt that badly provided that you are truly buying the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:property at, at, at a big enough, a discount that gives you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:a margin for error. That's the fundamental part of that.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Now, as I got further along, I got more aggressive because
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I had the financial means to be more aggressive because I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:would then buy properties that are more valuable, that had
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:less cash flow. But they had the potential for higher
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:appreciation. And I made some mistakes.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I mean, I've bought properties that I intended to flip.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Did the rehab spent $50000 in rehab?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Did the flip? The rehab cost more than I thought, and then
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm stuck with, Oh, I did all.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I did all of that, and I lost $2000.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Why? What lesson did I learn there?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And usually I'm buying an odd property, and I'm not
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:sticking to the fundamentals of buying a property that you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:know, that is very marketable to to the marketplace.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that probably a fair statement to say that as an
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:entrepreneur, whether you start out or you've been in
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:business for five years, 10 years, 20 years, you have to be
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:willing to pivot and change.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You've got to adapt right.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And some people fear that and they get all nervous.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And oh my god, I can't believe that happened.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And they go in the doldrums and other people go, Aha, I'll
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:just do it different this time.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It sounds like you were. That are I'll do it this way the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:next time, right? Yes.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:When? How long did it take you to?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Did you ever feel like, Oh my god, what have I done?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Or was it always, Oh, I got this?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:No problem?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Yeah, so far I haven't felt like, what have I done?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You know, time will tell if that ever happens.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I knew very early on from being in business for other
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:people that the reality of the world is is in the business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:world, is is adapt or die.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You have to adjust.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You will not be in, especially in real estate.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You will not be in one aspect of the real estate business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:for your entire career and just not worry about anything,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the environment not changing on you.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:What worked 10 years ago doesn't work as well now, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So you're going to have to always adapt to the current
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:circumstances. I mean, in now, things are changing faster
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:than they ever have. Like who would have predicted COVID
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and who would have predicted how COVID affected the housing
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:market? It ended up being a net boom for us during the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:time, and it still happening right now.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:What's to happen in the next three years?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I mean, who really knows?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Like, we have a lot of prognosticators, but my crystal ball
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:is just opaque and I have no idea what's going to happen.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I'm keeping my options very open and I'm being very
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:careful about not overextending myself over the next couple
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:of years because of that.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I recently read it, read a fact that, like a couple of days
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:ago, the last BlackBerry, the BlackBerry service, it was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:shut down. In 2012, there were 80 million BlackBerry users.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's correct. So in nine years, what was an institution
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:now is a relic, and that is happening every.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So as an entrepreneur, you have to kind of keep your your
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:finger on the pulse of what's happening and what's working
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and be willing to adjust to something that is that is
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:working, that wasn't working a few years ago.
Julie Smith:
Speaker:Now, Paul, we've talked about, you know, just a pivot here a
Julie Smith:
Speaker:little bit. You've talked about your driving passion, being
Julie Smith:
Speaker:your family and having the ability to make those decisions
Julie Smith:
Speaker:with those relationships and what that means to you.
Julie Smith:
Speaker:And you talked about this close mentor throughout your
Julie Smith:
Speaker:career. Are there any other relationships that have really
Julie Smith:
Speaker:been imperative to your success throughout your, you know,
Julie Smith:
Speaker:your journey?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That is a great question, and I think that ends up being the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:question. I did not go into real estate or entrepreneurship
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:for relationships, but I realized that, oh, that's why you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:go into business in the first place.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's about relationships, it's about service, about
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:creating value to other people.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And you're going to need other people in the industry or
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:any other other professionals that you're working with.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And the greatest reward, after buying my time back and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:being with my family is the new relationships that are
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:forged through being parts of masterminds and going to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:conferences. So I now am in a new business entirely, so I'm
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:in a business that I call dirt to curb.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I'm brand new and I am like way over my head and like, I'm
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the absolute greenhorn.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So we're buying basically raw land and we're converting it
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:to residential development.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So that is not a business that I know very much about.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I joined a mastermind a year ago and a little over a year
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:ago, and I went to a conference, an event that's hosted by
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the mastermind and met one of the people part of the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:mastermind there.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And while I was there, there was someone talking about this
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:business and I thought, Oh, that's interesting.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I actually purchased a course that was had to do with
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:land development and took the course.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And me and this buddy that I met there, we kind of sunk up
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and started a new business.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And last November, like three months ago, we purchased a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:new tract of land in the DFW area, which is not was not in
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:my plan for 2021 at all was to be in the land business or
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:to buy land whatsoever.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I feel like it's a blue ocean strategy and I'm
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:currently in in a very transaction heavy red ocean strategy
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:where I'm trying to find a discount.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And it's so hard to find discounts now, and it's so hard to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:deal with single family situations, and it's so much more
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:difficult. This raw land scenario is just a completely
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:different level of conversation, and I would never have
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:been able to even be aware of that business or have access
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:to the kind of professionals that I needed to work with.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Had I not been a part of that mastermind to begin with?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You know, it's funny about that, as somebody who is not an
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:entrepreneur is probably breaking out in a sweat right now.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Let's talk because they just could not comprehend that you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:would do something on top of what you're doing something
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:totally new and not only doing it, but excited.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's fun, and it's just it's looked at as an opportunity,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:not as a stressful situation.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That mindset is so hard for people to tap into for
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:themselves, like.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And it sounds like you probably always already had that in
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:your your program that way, way back in the day, it just
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:took a while for it to come out because your obligations
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:and your responsibilities and the right timing.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that a fair statement?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Yeah. But I would not characterize myself as the classic
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:entrepreneur that had that sold candy when I was, you know,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:in fifth grade or something, you know, I was extremely shy.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I was it took me a while to kind of come in, come out of my
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:shell, and I never had like a business drive or a potential
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:acumen for or interest in business.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:My initial motivations was I was broke and I didn't have a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:lot of money and I needed.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I wanted a path towards a means of getting a respectable
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:working wage that allowed me to have a basically upgrade my
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:socioeconomic status from where I grew up.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And it wasn't until I got into that that job that I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:realized that I had some, some some talents and skills,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:some things that I could go do in the world.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And I kind of took me a while to develop.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But no, I would say I.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I am not the kind of person who would jump in and do what
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:you just described as far as, you know, getting into a land
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:business that I wasn't familiar with until recently until I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:realized that I had to build that mindset that if you want
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:to realize your dreams, you're going to have to go into it.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And if you are making decisions based on fear, you're
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:always going to find yourself lacking at.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Right, so finding a way to overcome those inherent fears
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that we have that just your your primitive mind trying to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:protect you is something that I have I've had to overcome
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:because I would characterize myself as a risk averse person
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:when I was in the corporate world and realized that was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:just like another phrase for I was afraid to fail.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:But I think a fair statement would be is that, you know,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:taking a chance, getting a success, failing forward.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It builds and you you develop this shell or this, I don't
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:know a safety net or something in you that just says it's
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:going to be OK, no matter what happens.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I mean, because if not, you would.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You wouldn't have bought the second one you had.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:There has to be that trigger.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And again, this is a for all the people listening.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I'm not saying you can go.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You either have it or you don't, but you've got to.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You've got to feed it, you've got to nurture it and you've
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:got to work through that and you can't give up at the first
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:sign of adversity. You have to keep grinding through.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And I and I think this attributes to that because at no
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:time in this conversation, you wanted to have a comfortable
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:lifestyle. But at no time if you mentioned that you want to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:make a gazillion dollars and you're going to end it.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Right, right. You have no end game.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That's the trick with entrepreneurism.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:There is no endgame.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's the journey. It's the fun.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's the new things.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's it's it's acquiring knowledge, meeting people, doing
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:the deal. I'm excited for your land deal because one of my
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:favorite questions to ask entrepreneurs is, you know, what
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:is your dream deal?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I don't know if this land deal is a dream deal per say, but
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:it certainly is something that's going to probably after
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you do this one and you're successful at it.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:What do you think is the next deal?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is it going to be assuming that this will be successful
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:because it will be? Is it going to be a bigger development?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is it going to be a commercial development?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is it the special property in downtown Manhattan?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is it a south beach property?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:What what is your dream deal that if you could just do
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:that, you'd be like, Wow, I just hit the peak.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So great question.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I'm going to answer this in two ways.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So one is that my my dream deal is developing a property
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that kind of creates community and allows me to host events
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:there. And it has.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Sufficient space to have recreation and have people come
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and stay. Kind of like an event center kind of thing, but
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:but I live there that's like my inn in state place that I
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:want to be in five 10 years.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:In order to get there, I need to learn to develop and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:develop myself personally, but learn how to also develop
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:land and develop and get into this land game.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's just it just adds zeros to what I'm used to doing.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's like the the principles are all the same.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:There's some new aspects to learn.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But right now, like my near-term goals are taking this one
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:deal that I'm working on now and.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Using that as a proof of concept to become a land developer
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and make the significantly more income and wealth building
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:so that I'm in the position to basically give it all away.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That's fantastic. Do you have?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is your family involved in the business with you or do you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:keep that separate and or do you have like extended family
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:or is it buddies or is it everybody is strictly, you know,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:a separate type of deal?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Good, good. Good question.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I like to do joint ventures and I like to have business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:partners because I think doing business with people you
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:really enjoy is fun.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:My wife is somewhat involved in the business.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:She has little aspects of it, but she she is not the the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:grand big thinker she likes to like.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:We're doing this thing where we're working on mid-term
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:rentals, where we're taking our existing rental portfolio
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:and renting them out to traveling nurses.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And so she's really enjoying working on those properties,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:getting them furnished and decorating them and having them
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:a nice place for a traveling professional to come and stay
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:at one of our properties for a three month to six month
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:work cycle. That's something that she's interested in.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But she does not want to be in like the details of the land
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:deals and raising money.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:She has no part of us, no part of that.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I have business partners on these others other
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:activities, and I really enjoy the kind of like the iOS
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:system of looking at a business, creating the business in
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the meeting structure and the business structure and the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:entity structure so that we have a single clear focus goal.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And working on that and doing that with a with a team and a
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:team member that has equity in the business, it's something
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I really enjoy. So that's typically how I structure things.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:How long ago did you implement like that iOS and what the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:strategic partnerships was that something you did on the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:10th deal, the 20th deal, the 50th deal?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:What did you say? Oh my gosh, this is definitely way easier
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:that my partners are bringing me value versus giving me
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:money. When did that happen?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So probably about three or four years into it, I started
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:implementing the like a small company's version of iOS.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That operating system where you have this, you know, the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the daily huddles and you're like, you have a focused
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:purpose for every meeting and meetings are actually fun to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:attend versus these like long, drawn out things that don't
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:make sense. And then using a profit first like system for
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the accounting is was very helpful so that as an
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:entrepreneur, I was I.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I fight the the if I see cash in a bank account, I want to
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:go, I want to go invest it, and I got to realize that
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that's a good portion of that money.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:A good portion, a good portion of that money is is not
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:investable right now, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So be careful because you get yourself in a cash cash
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:crunch too quickly or very easily and then very quickly.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:You can find yourself in bankruptcy if you're not careful.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Do you do you not just sometimes just sit back and wish you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:had have back in corporate America and have a meeting to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:determine if we're going to have a meeting and then have
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:another meeting to determine what that meeting is going to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:be about? And we're going to another meeting and then you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:go to the meeting and never have the meeting.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And then I mean, don't you miss those days a little bit?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Hmm. I don't miss that aspect of the business at all, and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:that is I mean, anybody who's lived in the corporate world
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:resonates with that. So, so clearly I do miss the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:camaraderie of the people in the larger teams.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:My teams are very small and we're super tactical and we
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:live in a COVID world now and we don't.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Everything's on Zoom, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So which has its benefits.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I miss having those intimate like business structures
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:where where you have this common goal, you're going to work
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:on it. And so to help solve for that, I actually host
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:events now. I did my first one last fall where I host
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:events. People who are in my mastermind and people in my
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:community can come and we actually work on our business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:strategies. We go through the iOS system, we go through our
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:our nine day goals and we plan out our five year vision and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:kind of work our way back into it.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I find that very rewarding.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:That's a part of the business environment that I liked was
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:being that strategic thinker and putting together a plan.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So I just helped build the people do that now in their
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:businesses, and I get that that feeds that part of the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:business of the world that I that I miss from the corporate
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:life
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that is that more of a a fee for service?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that more you mentoring people?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I guess I am serving as a mentor in that sense, but it's
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:really just the mastermind people who are part of the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:mastermind. It's a monthly membership, but the event is
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:open to anybody who wants to come, and there's a lot of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:people from the mastermind there.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And so you see this very close group of people who are kind
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:of going through business together in our individual ways.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But we all know each other's businesses and we help each
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:other. And so just going to the event is just the price of
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:the event.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You know, it's so hard to find like minded people and not
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:have the paranoid schizophrenia that somebody is going to
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:steal your idea, right?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You know, you have a unique superpower that makes you who
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you are, and helping others is kind of a cool thing to do
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:because you wouldn't have got where you got without
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:somebody helping you.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That ability to want to pay it forward and help out.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And you know, we've found, you know, I found out in my
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:world that, you know, it is actually kind of I know it
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:doesn't sound fun, but talking to other CPA firms is is
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:kind of fun because you just kind of see how other people
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:are doing it. You're not going to take their clients,
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you're not going to steal their ideas, but you're
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:everybody's kind of leaning on each other and helping them
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:and and commiserating with the pros and the cons and the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:ups and the downs. And I think that's probably what you're
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:trying to do as well.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:It's the the network in your community that you work with
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:being able to share that knowledge and help somebody.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You just you're not doing it because you want something in
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:return. You just doing because it's fun.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Is that? Is that something that you find very rewarding?
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I'm almost as much as doing in the next deal, right?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Yes. To me, it feels like the next deal because I very much
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:am a deal junkie and I like to chase like some sort of land
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:deal or deep discount somewhere.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But no, I I do the events because it it feeds something in
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:me that I that I need to do.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:It's my mindset the way I contribute.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:And it also has a unintended consequence of.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Creating something new that I would never have planned for.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So sometimes it has nothing to do with me.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I just see other people come to the event they meet and
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:they become really good friends or they start a business
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:deal together or they do some sort of transaction together,
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:right? Sometimes I'm involved in that transaction.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Sometimes I'm not. It just doesn't matter to me.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But building that those relationships and those that kind
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:of web of connections just creates really interesting
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:things that you would can't you cannot truly predict.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:But I just like to create that environment to see what
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:happens.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I think that's that's one of my favorite words is the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:unintended consequence because we intend to do something.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And when something else comes out, that's so much more good
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:or for lack of a better term, it's it's the best because
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:but that could never happen.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:If you're scared to say yes, if you're scared to do the
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:deal, you're scared to meet somebody.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You always say yes and figure it out later.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:And I think that's your mindset that you've had, and that's
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:probably what's giving you the success.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Do you can you do you have like a a plug or a website or
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:something that we can put to our listeners that they, you
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:know, may want to reach out and contact you for any of
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:those things that you want to do?
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Sure. So the best way to find me is on my website at Paul
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:David Thompson and all those names are spelled about the
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:way you would expect.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:I have the pleasure or the curse of having a common name.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:So it's Paul David Thompson.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Excellent. Well, I appreciate you taking some time with us
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:today and wish you continued success and I know it that
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:you'll be just fine. And the Landale.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:I'd love to check back in with you in a few months and see
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:how that's going, because that just makes me grin when
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:somebody takes a really, really big chance and gets out of
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:their comfort zone because that gets the juices flowing.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:That's where the action is. That's the fun.
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:Yeah. Also, I will do is I'll let you know if I if I drowned
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:or if I kind of found my pace and kept my, I kept my head
Paul Thompson:
Speaker:above water.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Just put your aqualung on.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:You won't drown. You'll be fine.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Well, there you go. Thanks again for coming and spend some
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:time with us again.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Paul Thompson. Thank you very much.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:This is Glen Harper signing off.
Glenn Harper:
Speaker:Julie Smith: This is Julie Smith.