Thriving in real estate requires you to be wise and up on your feet at all times. But if you find it hard to keep the ball rolling, perhaps you need to reach out to other experienced people for help. In this episode, Michael Fichman shares how finding the right mentorship has helped him shorten the learning curve and keep a consistent real estate growth. He explains how complementing an effective mentor with the eagerness to learn leads to career goals being achieved in the easiest ways possible. Michael also shares marketing strategies for accomplishing big checks and building solid business partnerships. Tune in to this episode and discover how to keep your head in the real estate game.

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Michael Fichman On How To Keep The Ball Rolling In Real Estate

I’m here with another amazing episode as always. Before I jump into that, let’s talk about what we are doing over at FlipTalk.com. I want you to go over there and check it out. We have the show there back over the last years plus everything new. We have some amazing things going on on the website. You can find out about some mentoring and coaching. You can check out our mastermind community and even apply for that. You can see what we have coming up in the future as far as events and everything else we are doing as a community.

We are growing. We are doing some amazing things. We have some amazing plans. Make sure you check out FlipTalk.com. There’s also a section where you can get some free stuff. If you crack around on there a little bit, you will find some free stuff and it’s always cool. We will be updating that on a regular basis. With that said, I have my guest here. Michael, how are you doing?

I’m doing great. It’s great to see you. Thanks for having me.

Good to see you, too. We get to see a lot of each other. I didn’t get to see you in St. Louis.

We are going to see each other in Chicago. My fiancee’s birthday falls during that spring meeting every year, so I try and appease both parties.

 

 

Fiancee’s first.

I agree.

For people who don’t know who you are, first of all, I’m going to refer to you as a gentle giant because you are a fairly nice and large man. That’s just something that I know. With that said, who are you, what are you about, and how did you get started in real estate investing?

I’m Michael Fichman. I’m in the Charlotte, North Carolina market, but originally I come from the Northeast. I’m from Connecticut. I moved down to North Carolina roughly several years ago. I went to UNCW and went to go for accounting. After I graduated, I realized that even though the skillset maybe fit my brain, the work-life balance and everything involved with it did not.

I jumped into the restaurant industry. I’d been doing that, working my way through college, and everything. I was a bartender for a long time. Eventually, I got sick of waking up every day and having ten hours before I went to work. It was maddening, so I started doing some research on things I was interested in, one of which is real estate. My mom was a real estate agent and still is. I grew up around that, but only on the retail side. Once I figured out the investing side, I jumped in with both feet and worked both jobs for a while until I was able to leave bartending. A few years later, here we are.

How did you get started? What was the catalyst? You started checking it out. Did you find a mentor? What was it that got you looking at real estate investing wholesaling, and flipping as an avenue?

I reached out and looked for a mentor. I’m one of those people that believe that you can figure it out on your own. If you can help someone else out in the process to help shorten your learning curve, why not be beneficial to both parties? I had reached out to someone I knew who was doing wholesaling. This was in the whole, “There’s no way you can make money in real estate without spending a bunch of money,” type of my discovery.

He was having a little traction in a different market. I reached out to him because he had lived in Charlotte and asked if he recommended anybody that I could speak to. Long story short, he recommended my business partner, Ed Peugh. I cold-called Ed and offered to work for free in exchange for knowledge. I would work with him every day.

Some days, about 8:00 in the morning until about 3:00 in the afternoon. I would go bartend from 4:00 until 1:00. After meeting once every two weeks, then once a week, then twice a week, we walked through a few deals and decided to go into business together at that point. Almost everything that I was able to learn initially was greatly reduced in terms of time because of my partnership with Ed. I’m beyond thankful that he was willing to take on a new young hustler like me that wanted to soak in everything that I could.

You guys connected. You cold-called him, I want to point it out to anybody reading. You found somebody in the market, you cold-called him, and you offered. First of all, did you ask him to go to lunch and pick his brain?

I did, but I offered to work for him first. It was like a billboard, “This is my situation. I’m willing to do anything and everything it takes if you want to throw something at me.” He asked to sit down for lunch. He gave me, “Here are two books. Read them.” I knew it was a test. I was prepared. I read them in a day just to prove my commitment. Shortly after that is when we decided to meet on a semi-regular cadence. This was also right before COVID started. We kept this method going. Initially, as we started working together, it would be in a common room or at a coffee shop because of the difficulties with COVID.

I’m one that’s been inclined to say yes if somebody asks to go to lunch just because I eat anyway.

Never eat lunch alone.

It’s amazing how many people will ask you to lunch, pick your brain, and spend that time with you, and then never do anything with it. That’s one of the reasons why it’s a test. Hand somebody a couple of books, see if they are serious, and see if they will show up. The point I want to make is, it’s amazing how many people have a dream, but they are not willing to do the work for it.

Whether or not you are working for someone else or you are trying to start up your own business. There’s got to be a way where you are continuing your education. It’s silly to think that you know it all. For me, if you are not actively reading books, listening to podcasts, or doing things at a pace you want to grow, that’s stagnant. It’s one of the biggest things I look for is how eager you are to learn.

Whether you are working for someone else or starting your own business, always find a way to continue your education. It is silly to think that you know it all. Click To Tweet

If you are built like me where you read the first page or two of any book, then you are ready for a nap, you got Audible. There’s no excuse. I will just put Audible on in my car when I’m driving wherever and listen to it. Always keep educating yourself. That’s good advice. You got started by putting yourself out there. You guys meshed well and decided to be partners. What does your business look like? What are your strategies as far as investing?

We try not to be the jack of all trades, but we try and focus on a few that we are good at. Our business is built as a wholesale company. The purpose of that company is to build the marketing machine of creating our opportunities so we can cherry-pick the best ones to keep ourselves. The wholesale machine allows us to dispo them in different facets. Whether that’s whole tailing or a small rehab. We just did a gut rehab. We will do different strategies, but our main three are either, take it down with creative financing, take it down when it’s a great opportunity for a cash purchase, or wholesale it out to another buyer with whom we have been able to build a strong relationship within the community.

What are some of the marketing strategies you find work best for you?

We are almost all cold-calling and texting. I have a team of virtual guys, as well as two guys in-house that are filtering through those leads and keeping up with them constantly. We also do some texting on a daily basis. Mainly what Ed and I have been able to be pretty strong at is keeping ourselves out there in the community of investors.

By constantly being on Facebook groups and being able to offer value to someone who has a question, whether it’s a realtor, wholesaler, or fix-and-flipper. By constantly having CLT buyers’ names out there, it creates a view from the community as we are experts in the space. When people have problems with deals or people have a time crunch, Ed and I are usually at the forefront of their minds because we try and stay out there. It’s very active marketing. We don’t do any inbound marketing at this current moment, but we have been pretty successful in how we have done it so far by trying to focus heavily on the Charlotte area.

 

What’s your long-term goal? If you live in a perfect world, what would you like to accomplish with all this? I don’t usually ask that question. I don’t know why I’m asking it now, but I’m asking you.

That’s okay. I’m a young guy, so I have got a longer road than many others. The long-term game was always buy-and-hold cashflow. I think that’s a very attractive part when we first get in. We then realize as we are picking up wholesaling or flipping that the short-term big check is very appealing to help grow the business. We step away from that and start chasing those big checks.

Our whole purpose is to acquire properties at a rate that we can refinance and keep in personal portfolios, and just grow cashflow and net worth by acquiring properties at a quick rate. My personal goal is to own property in a different country. I’m not sure where yet but I try not to look at the long-term picture because it can be overwhelming because I hold myself to a pretty high standard. I try and keep 5 to 10-year goals in the limelight. Everything else, I just assume that I don’t know yet. It keeps me on the toes to always learn something new rather than fixating on a long-term goal for a super long time.

What’s the model for what you keep and what you wholesale? Is there any rhyme or reason? Do you have a certain buy box? Is it just what makes sense at the moment?

We don’t have a structured, “Yes, this passes. No, this doesn’t.” We try and keep everything that has creative terms just because we don’t have to go get financing. We are doing everything possible to do that. At the same time, in a tax foreclosure or a tax auction situation, sometimes the amount that’s owed is so heavy even on the reinstatement that it doesn’t work to go through. We are just looking at things where our own money or a private money lender is putting less than $40,000 down on a long-term purchase. If we are doing short-term, obviously we are funding more, but that’s typical for our down payment approach.

Let’s pivot to partnerships. There are advantages and disadvantages. The first thing I want to ask is, what works well with your partnership? Why do you feel like it is a good fit?

We are just different personalities. In one way, we are both the visionary. I’m more of an integrator than Ed is. We would get nothing done with Ed at the helm in terms of those daily operations-type things, but we both have a very similar long-term vision. It’s just that I am someone that gets very granular. I’m someone that can get down into details.

Ed is very lighthearted and constantly tries to keep us focused on short-term goals and not worrying too much about small details. Just the personality where I know he’s giving me advice that maybe isn’t what I want to hear, but what the company needs to do is everything. We might not always agree, but we have this little thing we will do where it’s like, “I’m passionate about this, but I’m not going to die on that hill, so please let’s execute it.”

At the same time, if someone is going to die on that hill, as a partnership, you have to respect their wishes as well. It’s been great. I wouldn’t lie, of course, there are times, especially considering we are right across the hall from each other that I want to leave early that day. That’s also because we are both competitive and trying to bring the most amount of value that we can. Stress and other things sometimes come into play.

What would be some of the challenges in a partnership? What are some of the things that if you are getting into a partnership, you should have a conversation with right in the beginning, versus six months or a year down the road?

The first thing I would do is determine your 10 to 15-year goals. No one’s entering a partnership for one year. If you are misaligned from the get-go, you are going to be forcing something to work rather than trusting the process. I think a lot of times when people say, “Work for someone for 2 or 3 years, and then create your path.” That’s great. It’s not for everybody.

 

I think starting with a long-term goal in mind of obviously real estate is a long-term gain, let’s make sure that we both want the same thing in 10 to 15 years. After that, I’m discussing strengths and weaknesses. What’s the last thing you want to give up in the business? As owners, we wear multiple hats. Over time, we delegate and hopefully are able to take off a couple of hats. What’s the last hat you want to wear?

If both of us are going to be fighting to be the closer or overseeing acquisitions, that’s a blind spot that we might need to account for later down the line. Who’s going to run dispo as passionately as they want to run acquisitions? Looking for differences in terms of which course of action you want to attack is beneficial as well.

What advice would you give somebody just starting out?

Prepare for a lot of minutiae. Prepare for a lot of putting your foot on the pavement and working through it. You hear the great stories of people getting first-call closes. You hear the first story of getting contracts on your first appointment. That’s not typical. I think being willing to go through the mud and understanding that it will take 4 to 5 months to start getting a pipeline going. It will allow you to face much bigger challenges later down the road. Expect a lot of no answers. Expect a lot of long-drawn-out follow-ups. Again, we are building a pipeline, so you have to have time and your expectation.

Be willing to go through the mud and understand that it takes 4 to 5 months to start getting a pipeline going. It will allow you to face much bigger challenges later down the road. Click To Tweet

You mentioned books and educating yourself at the beginning of this conversation. What are some books that you would suggest people read?

I’m a book nut. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. As far as real estate books, I’m not going to say Rich Dad Poor Dad. Never Split the Difference is a super popular book that I have taken so much of our sales process. I also try and read books that are finance-related. Things like The Debt Millionaire or The Wealthy Code by George Antone.

Things where you can adapt your knowledge to think of something other than just real estate. You can bolt on another tool and use one to help another. I’m a big proponent of educating on the finance space in general. As far as motivation or mindset, my favorite book will always be The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. That book just spoke to me.

All good books. George Antone, I consider him a personal friend and he is a financial genius. His books are worth reading. Anything that I did not ask you that you think should be shared on this show?

I think you covered most of it. The only thing that I would say is don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and get the ball rolling. I think so many of us when we get on the phone or get in front of a seller, we are concerned about saying the right thing and making sure that we don’t sound like we lack the knowledge. I try and keep in mind our sales team that we are still the experts in that phone call. We know more than the seller does usually.

Attacking it with the mindset that you are still the one that they are relying on, helps overcome the nerves of saying the wrong thing. Even in positions of power, if we don’t know something, we can ask, re-verify, and then let them know. There’s no situation you can’t correct. Just don’t seem like you are nervous because it will portray itself through the phone or through your body language.

Sometimes nerves are okay. You can be honest with a seller. You even say it’s one of your first conversations. Sometimes, they will be inclined to be a little bit more forgiving of you in the conversation. Some sellers, when I was new, did business with me because I was not a seasoned investor. There are advantages.

I couldn’t agree more. I think the overarching point I’m trying to make is to be who you are. If you are new, tell them you are new. Tell them you are going to do everything possible to get them the best information you can.

Fantastic advice. I appreciate having you on here. Tell everybody how to get a hold of you if they want to find you.

Facebook is the best way to get in touch with me. My name will be here but my last name is Fichman. Other than that, check out our team on Instagram, @CLTBuyers. I had an eye on there all the time and would be happy to answer any questions anybody has about anything. That’s what we do. Try and bring value.

If you are getting value from this show or any other show that you have read, make sure you are liking, subscribing, and sharing it wherever you can share it. It helps us get the message out and helps change lives and impacts people’s businesses. If you are looking for a group to be a part of and you are an active investor, check out the Inner Circle Elite at BeInThisRoom.com. As always, make sure you go to FlipTalk.com for updates on events, coaching, mentoring, and all the episodes we have to offer. There are also some free tools there as well. Mike, thank you for being here. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I’m looking forward to Chicago.

I can’t wait.

 

Important Links

• Michael Fichman
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Never Split the Difference
• The Debt Millionaire
• The Wealthy Code
• The Alchemist
• Facebook – Michael Fichman
• Instagram – @CLTBuyers
• BeInThisRoom.com