Most people are afraid to free themselves from the cells of their well-paying jobs, but sometimes, you have to take the leap to find the freedom you’re seeking. In today’s episode, Derek Grandfield, midwest’s real estate investor, reveals the tipping point that led him to leave his well-paying but unfulfilling sales job to find real estate freedom. Inspired by his grandmother’s success and fueled by his own desire for financial security, Derek jumped into the game. He also shares some key takeaways that shaped him as an investor. As we explore his ventures beyond single-family homes, including multifamily projects, self-storage development, and property management, we will discover how his faith influences his approach to real estate and his passion for helping others. Grab some golden nuggets from Derek Grandfield and equip yourself before your golden handcuffs get tarnished and change careers.

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Listen to the episode here

 

Breaking The Golden Handcuffs: Ditching Pharmaceutical Sales For Real Estate Freedom With Derek Grandfield

I’ve got a special guest, Derek Grandfield. Derek is an amazing investor out of the Midwest. He’s been in the game for quite a while. He started out with Fortune Builders, left a successful career and learned how to scale responsibly, persistence and adaptability, developing a plan and quite honestly, living with purpose. We talk about all that in this episode.

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I’ve got a good friend of mine, Derek Grandfield. Derek is a Wichita, Kansas investor. He has been in the game for a minute and he’s got an amazing story and is such a solid guy. I can’t wait to dive in a little bit more about his story, and peel back the curtain on some of his success and some of the things that he’s done. He’s got some cool passion projects. Quite honestly, Derek is a wealth of information. Without further ado, Derek, thanks for joining us. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us a little bit about what you did prior to real estate. What was the impetus to jump into real estate and when did that happen?

 

The Impetus To Jumping Into Real Estate

Thanks for having me, Jason. It’s a pleasure to be here with you. My background, I was born and raised here in Wichita, Kansas. It’s a different story. It starts off a little bit with tragedy. When I was in the womb with my mom, my dad was in a car accident and passed away. I say that to lead into how I got to where I’m at. I never knew him, but I had great family support all around. I had my mom’s parents and my dad’s parents and I spent a lot of time with both of them. My mom, her mother, my grandma was a real estate agent here in Wichita and I was a big Catholic family on that side. I spent a lot of time with her, riding around in her truck and holding checks and looking at, I’m like, “What’s this for? That’s $30,000.”

That was back in ‘92 or something like that. She’s like, “That’s a house I bought. I fixed it up and sold it. This is rent from one.” It sparked my interest from an early age, being with her. Fast forward to meeting my wife. My wife’s name is Jennifer and she’s my partner in this as well. She is the brains behind everything. She keeps us all on track. We have three kids. When we had our first daughter, we were pregnant with her and I told my wife like, “We should go in and start buying some rental properties. Let’s figure this out.” She was driving down the road and heard this radio ad for Fortune Builders and said, “Have you heard of this?” I said, “I have heard of that.”

She goes, “Do you want to go?” I said, “Let’s do it.” We went and listened to it and I already had a little bit of knowledge base there, so I was dangerous, but not quite lethal, I guess. We did that. We did the 1-day, then we did the 3-day and we bought into their program, and were young. We both had paid jobs at the time. She was in medical spa and then got into pharmaceutical sales. That was what I wanted to do when I was in college. I had a professor who was in that and decided that’s what I’m going to do.

I started doing that work for two years and then got into real estate. I had more time traveling a lot, listened to audiobooks and did the whole Fortune Builders thing. I learned and took that learning curve that was pretty steep at that point and flattened that out a little bit, which helped a lot. I’m glad I did it. We started trying to find houses to buy. It took six months before we bought our first property and we were going to flip it. We got done with it, the roof had a leak, leaked on the ceiling, fixed it, and another leak. We’re like, “Let’s replace the roof. We’re not going to make a whole lot of money on this. Why don’t we just keep it? That’ll be our first rental.” That was an accidental BRRRR that we did, but it worked out. We still own it. 2837 South Euclid and we’ll probably keep that one forever.

There you go because it was the first. That’s a great story. As you jumped into real estate, you said your wife was in some medical sales, you were in pharmaceutical sales. Good, well-paying jobs. I know plenty of people in those fields. What was so special about real estate that made you want to jump in? The guys at Fortune Builders obviously have a great course in coaching and are very knowledgeable in that. What made you want to, first of all, jump into Fortune Builders and then say, “This is good. This is what exactly what I want to do.” What did that look like?

Yeah, so it all stems back to my grandma. She was a hustler. At that point, she was close to retiring. She had probably ten rental properties that she had. I always asked her, “What’s your retirement?” She’s like, “These houses. Buy houses.” She always told me that. That was what sprung us into getting into that. The Fortune Builders, my wife is very analytical. She wants to know the facts, know how to do it. For me, I’ll jump. I’ll go, “Let’s do it.”

She steered that ship to make sure we had the education, make sure we had the knowledge to make sure we were successful if we put our effort and time into it. That was the biggest thing, the financial freedom. We had good jobs, but I also knew that if we started buying now or then, years ago, in twenty years, we wouldn’t have to worry so much. Both my wife and I, our moms are amazing people but not the best with finances. We learned we want to be able to take care of ourselves and our kids and take care of them as well.

They’re doing okay, but it’d be nice for them to not ever have to worry about anything. That was the driving factor for us to make a difference and make a change in our lives. A lot of people were out doing things and having fun. We were grinding. We were sitting at home studying and analyzing properties. We didn’t watch TV. We didn’t do anything except spend time together and look at real estate deals. That was the driving factor of why we got into it and what we wanted out of life and our finances.

 

What we want from life and our finances are the driving factors in getting into real estate. Share on X

 

Thanks for sharing. As you were talking, one of the things I was thinking through, what were some of the first lessons you think you learned early on? Sometimes, they’re painful lessons, I don’t know specifically, but what were some of the biggest lessons that you learned early on that shaped you and helped you become the investor that you are now? We’re going to get to that.

 

The Real Estate Investor’s Biggest Lessons

The biggest ones early on, understanding how to analyze properties, estimating them well and being able to adapt change to the different things that could happen that could go wrong. A lot of people might throw in the towel and say, “Everything’s against me. I quit.” I never had that attitude. I was like, “I’m going to find a way. I’m going to find a make way to make it work and if this one doesn’t work and I lose, I’m going to win on the next one.”

Having that attitude, thinking differently and trying to be creative with how to take down deals, how to make a deal work and not sell it and make a couple of grand or maybe lose. I was like, “That first one we had, if I keep it, we’ll be okay.” We did that. My goal initially, I was like, “We’re going to buy three houses. We’re going to use that money to pay a down payment on a rental.” We shifted and we built up our portfolio by doing a lot of the BRRRR method.

As you were talking, two words jumped out, persistence and adaptability. Knowing you like I do, I think that I would say that’s true about you. As an investor, I think those are two pretty key and unique perspectives and qualities to have. To be doggedly persistent and know enough that you need to be adaptable. There’s a time and place for singularity of focus and stay the course no matter what. Also, being able to know when to pivot and be adaptable. Tell me a little bit. As you exited your career, what did that look like?

I know a lot of people reading this, they’re going to be in a full-time career. They’re looking at investing as a side hustle or as a supplementary or something for the long-term. There are tons of people that are going to be looking like, “I want to go full-time.” What did that look like for you? When did you know that the safety net was there or whatever the parameters. Your number or whatever it looked like, process through like what were you thinking like, “Okay, now’s the time?”

It was one of those moments, too that I wish I would’ve done it sooner, but it’s hard. The pharmaceutical sales, they say those are golden handcuffs, they pay you well. It’s very flexible. I think when COVID happened and you had to wear a mask and for me, I love the relationships with people. I love talking to people, I love getting to know them. When you’re wearing this mask, that pushed me off the edge. For me, we had rental properties and we started looking at, “If we have to live off the cashflow of this, can we replace my income?”

 

The pharmaceutical sales are golden handcuffs. Share on X

 

It was pretty close. I also believed in myself. I’m getting properties without doing any marketing. I’m analyzing them, getting deals, making money and if I can do some marketing and go after it, this is what we projected. That goes back to my wife being very analytical. She is one of the smartest people I know. She’s my boss, but if I ever had to hire anybody, she’d be my number one pick.

Having her knowing that like she’s got my back, she believed in me, that was a big thing. It goes back to my faith as well. I had been thinking about this, I’d been talking about it with my wife and we did the baptism of my son and we were walking out church and this guy came up to me and he went, “Can I pray for you? I had this word from God that I feel I need to share with you.” I’m like, “Sure.” He goes, “Record it if you want,” because I wanted to. I recorded it. It was windy that day. He didn’t know me. He didn’t go to our church. He was just there. His name was Gabriel. I was like, “That’s funny.”

He’s talking to me, saying, “You are favored. You have this big change in your life coming. I see it and you need to follow that.” There’s a lot more to it. I’m like in tears thinking, “If I’m getting a kick in the rear end, this is it,” because I didn’t talk to anybody about this. I was like, “All right.” I set the plan six months later. I waited until the end of the fiscal year of the job because I was good at my job. I was always in the top 10%. I was running to win the national sales champion award thing you have and I was like, “If I win, that means I have to stay longer.” I always say the God thing was my numbers tanked right at the end.

I was sitting number two in the whole country. They tanked at the last quarter. Not because I wasn’t working because I wanted to win, I wanted to win for my boss because he was in the running. It went down and I was like, “All right, that’s it.” It was a hard call because I’m going out working and I called my boss. I’m like, “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. This is what I want to do and I’m going to do it.” I quit. At that moment, it was hard. It was a very hard moment because it’s like you’re giving up a lot of stability, but I’m glad I did. I would never look back. I wish I would’ve done it 2 or 3 years sooner.

 

It sounds like your golden handcuffs got tarnished. I think you mentioned that serendipitous divine appointment. That’s super cool. As investors, people exit a corporate career or some full-time job and go into full-time real estate. It is oftentimes a very scary moment. What I hear you saying is you put a plan together. This wasn’t a blind leap. This wasn’t like you hadn’t already been actively investing. You had a plan. I think that’s key. I hear stories about people that prematurely quit some job. They’ll see a YouTube video and they’re like, “I’m all in. I’m going to go for it.”

That’s not the best-laid plan. That’s not a plan at all. You had a strategy and obviously, it served you well. Let’s fast forward to what you’re doing now and let’s see how this plan actually did develop. You exited a corporate career. You had your plan in place. Tell us exactly like what you’re doing now. What does your business rhythm look like and actually day to day, what are you doing now?

 

Derek’s Business  Rythmn

One of the big driving factors of quitting that 9:00 to 5:00 job was I started buying large. I was doing a lot of BRRRRs with single-family, with duplexes, with fourplexes. I was like, “If I’m doing it with that, why can’t I do that with a bigger project?” We bought a 128-unit apartment complex. It was run down. Knowing your numbers, knowing the market rents that you can get and understanding rehab costs, that was huge for us. We put this plan in place to rehab it and bring it all up. It took two years, but that was a big factor of me leaving as well. The cashflow on our half of that project was almost $200,000 a year. I was like, “That could cover what I was doing.”

I’m doing a lot of that. I still do quite a bit of flips. I’m not taking down as many rentals unless it’s more multifamily. I enjoy multifamily. I like the bigger bang for your buck, I guess. Finding projects that have an opportunity to increase the rent value that currently is going to improve the property, the renovation side. That’s probably about half of my time. I love being creative. I love doing some development-type stuff, like thinking outside the box, doing some self-storage-type things. We are not necessarily into the self-storage, like small storage, but we’re doing some boat and RV storage with a couple of my buddies.

We are developing out the land, putting the plan together and putting the numbers and running with it, not being afraid to actually act on it. I’m doing some of that and then, I guess the rest of the time, spending time flipping properties and going out. As with you, the goal is to help people through different circumstances and that’s what we lead with. It’s not, “How is this going to benefit me the best? How can I help them?” Do it honestly and with integrity. That’s how we lead our business.

We have property management. That’s another big factor of leaving the job, too. We started a property management company mainly doing our stuff and stuff that we’re partnering with other people on. Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately has been helping. I have a lot of friends that they’ve sold businesses. They have a tax problem, essentially. They want to help with that tax burden. I’m like, “I’m an expert in this field. Let me help you with that. Let me find you properties.”

Looking at the cost segregation aspect, it all has to fit right with their dynamic and their family and needing someone to be a full-time real estate professional. I’m doing some more of that. I enjoy that. I think, for me, the part of helping people grow their wealth and their tax savings side of it is mutually beneficial because I’ll help them find it and then manage it for them. We take great pride in our management of properties and keeping them nice, keeping them performing. You’re always going to have some that don’t do great or bad things happen, but for the most part, we have a good success rate on working with managing properties.

I go back to the adaptability. You’re a walking talking example of being able to understand opportunity where it is. I’m sure, much like every entrepreneur, you probably have squirrels that you’re tempted to chase and be disciplined in that, but being adaptable enough to tackle a different asset class. Real estate is a relationship business and that keep that component right there. You’ve got friends that have unique problems that you can help them solve. You’re not able to help them solve those if you’re not investing in relationships. I say it all the time, real estate is a relationship business. If you’re willing to lean into relationships and willing to lean into networking and willing to lean into helping other people solve problems, doors will open.

 

The skillset that can pivot to another asset class and not be in a one-trick pony. Being able to take the same skillset that you need to flip a house and use it into a development or use it in multifamily or like you said, in self-storage and marina and on and on. I think that is so key. A lot of people, we get in and we drink the Kool-Aid about the BRRRR strategy is the way to go or the flipping, or they start out as a wholesaler and they don’t understand investing or the how to be an investor. Honestly, we’re doing ourselves a disservice. Understanding the width and the breadth of what an investor can and the opportunities that come their way. As I said, you’re a living, breathing, walking example of that. That’s super cool. I know you’ve got some cool passion projects. You and I were talking about one of those and there may be a big pivot on that.

You mentioned your faith. You and I have had many conversations about that and I love talking about real estate, faith and my family. Talk about some of the driving factors and what your faith means to you and some of the passion projects that you’ve dreamt up, some that you’ve completed, some that are in the middle of the process, some of them might die on the vine, but that’s not going to keep you from dreaming them up. What does that piece of the puzzle mean to you? I say a piece of the puzzle, it’s not a piece of the puzzle. It’s the DNA and the fabric of who you are. What does that mean to you and how you conduct your business?

 

Business And Faith

I think moving forward through this and growing as a person, as a man of faith, serving others, I love to help people. People that know me, it’s like, “How can I help you? How can I serve you?” I think that’s been a huge part of it. Some of our passion projects that you’re talking about that you know about, one of my good buddies that he lives down the street from me. We always hit it. We actually started playing basketball together and we’d ride there together and we started talking about mission trips, different things that we’re passionate about. It created this two LLCs. It’s our Kingdom Investment. Our whole goal was let’s buy real estate, let’s develop some different things and let’s take that money and do good with it.

I’m big Angel House Orphanage that I went to in Tanzania. The people that are part of that, they deserve so much and they’re amazing people and never asked for anything and always happy. I was like, “I want to give to that. I want to do the different things that we’ve been part of.” We aligned. My buddy Nathan, we aligned with that and we created this LLC. There was a large building downtown that he went and looked at for an office space for his company. It didn’t work. He goes, “You should go look at it.”

Of course, naturally, I scheduled a showing the next day and went and looked at it and I had a vision of what it could be. We started talking more. We were going to name it The Kingdom Building and all of it’s going to relate around Kingdom work. We started dreaming up like, “What could this be? Some faith-based nonprofits could use some of the office space.” One of our good buddies, Joel Potter, he owns Nameless Coffee. He put the coffee shop in there and we can have apartments on the second floor that cover it.

We’ll have some meeting space in the basement with meeting rooms for counseling and different things. One of our pastors at our church, he’s an amazing videographer and does some cool stuff. He needs a studio that’s dark and completely soundproof. We’re like, “Let’s build that, let’s put that in there.” All of it, we started working through that and obviously numbers and the initial bids we got were great and then they fit. They worked and then we get the numbers back and it was not feasible. It’s tough to see some of those projects drop off, but the cool thing is you dream that up and then the other doors open.

 

The cool thing is you dream, and other doors open. Share on X

 

Nathan’s uncle actually has a building. He’s like, “I bought this for this. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it now.” Now we have an opportunity to pivot this building that will probably have to develop and do something different, but we have another opportunity to do that. It’s pretty cool. One door closes but God opens up another one. Those are some of the things. I love that. If I could do that all day long, I would, because it’s fulfilling and it’s cool to bring that to the front of Wichita.

I love that and I echo the same sentiment. Real estate can and will produce a lot of wealth if you stick with it long enough. The truth is you buy real estate and sit on in twenty years, you’re going to be wealthy. It’s what you do with that or what you can do with the possibilities. At the end of the day, we don’t get to take any of it with us. The only things that we’re going to have is what we leave behind. I love that purposeful kingdom-minded mentality and thinking outside of your own little box and what good you can do in the world.

I love investors and entrepreneurs who will adopt that mentality and know that it’s not who dies with the most toys wins, but leaving a legacy. I talk about legacy a lot and that can mean different things to different people. Look it up in the Webster’s dictionary. Legacy is something that stretches generations beyond. We can leave fingerprints on all kinds of stuff in our lives and in our world. If we can intentionally and purposely take and leverage the wealth that we can create and do good with it, I want to encourage everybody to do that.

Honestly, selfishly, you’ll feel good about it and unselfishly, you’ll be able to accomplish a lot. I would say this even more. Partner with other like-minded people that have the same goals that you have because you can go a lot farther together. There’s a proverb that says that you’ll go fast by yourself, but you’ll go far together. Find people that have the same vision that you have and work with them. Real estate’s a perfect way to do that because you can have non-traditional partnerships with people that you’re not completely in bed on the whole project and the whole business. You’re working project by project accomplishing a goal. I know you do that and we’ve got another mutual friend, you’re doing similar things with too.

Anyway, the point of that tirade is that purpose in mind with whatever you’re doing. Real estate can be an amazing vehicle to accomplish a lot of great things. That being said, I told you it was going to be a short and sweet. We go fast. Derek, if you could surmise maybe 1 or 2 biggest things that you’ve learned maybe in the last couple of years in your business and your investing, whether it’s something to do with marketing or a leadership principle or time management. Whatever it is, your experience as an investor, what’s an actionable piece of advice that you could give to somebody right now that they could take and run with?

I think there are so many, but as I started doing this full-time, the systems are one of the biggest things. I realized how important it is to have systems in place of how you do things, whether that’s with rehabbing or your marketing and tracking it. The leads that come in. I can’t count how many leads I let slide through in my first year doing this because I’m like, yeah, that sounds good. On to the next. It’s like you miss out the follow-up. The systems in place, having a good CRM is very important to being successful in real estate. I think giving back, treating people with respect and not trying to take advantage. As you know, real estate investors in general, can have a bad name of coming in and taking people for everything.

I was buying a property. He had an offer for $50,000, but he didn’t trust the people. It probably was a little bit high. He might not have closed, but he goes, “What would he give me? I need to be done.” I could have probably said $25,000 and then it would’ve been good. I was like, “$40,000 is fair to me. I feel like it’s good.” Doing the right thing and it’s not all about money. I think if you lead that way and treating your people and showing the people who work for you the same way. You lead that way. You treat everyone that way and good things should happen.

 

You’ve got to sleep at night. I got to put my head on the pillow and wake up the next morning to myself. I agree with that completely. You do right by people. You do this business the right way. You should not have to resort to sleazy tactics and business practices. Honestly, they may have a short game, but they don’t work in the long run. There are guiding principles that are going to work day in and day out as an entrepreneur and stick with those because you’re going to win in the long run. I guarantee you. Over and over and over again. You’re going to win in the long run.

Systems and process, I couldn’t agree more. Don says this all the time. You can’t scale chaos. If you do not have systems and processes in place, you’re not going to succeed. You may fumble forward for a while, but once you get that piece of the puzzle in play, you get some systems, process, CRM, work with your team, develop standard operating procedures, it’s game changing from there. I love that. Derek, such a wealth of information. I appreciate you joining us. If people want to reach out to you, if you want them to, what’s a good way to get ahold of you?

Yeah, absolutely. Facebook, I’m on there, Derek Grandfield. They can call my cell phone if they want. That’s (316) 518-2882. Email works as well. It’s my name, Derek.Grandfield@Gmail.com.

I appreciate that. For those that aren’t following Derek and what he is doing, he’s an amazing guy. Such a go-giver. I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate you taking the time to visit with us. This has been another episode. Until next time.

 

 Important Links:

• Derek Grandfield
• Derek.Grandfield@Gmail.com