Be The Bank

018 - People Find a Way To Not Follow Directions

September 07, 2022 Justin Bogard Season 4 Episode 18
Be The Bank
018 - People Find a Way To Not Follow Directions
Show Notes Transcript

Be The Bank S4 Ep18 - People Find a Way To Not Follow Directions

On episode 18 of season 4, Justin Bogard and Richard Thornton discuss communication with vendors/buyers/sellers!

Key Takeaways:

  1. Skin in the game for wholesaler/flipper
  2. Making lists for visual ease or Task Lists
  3. How they answer the question

Resources and links discussed

About the Host

Justin Bogard – Note Investor specializing in performing Residential Real Estate Debt. He finds deals and acquires them for his own portfolio as well as educates investors while walking them through the process of owning a Real Estate Note!

Connect with the Host:

Narrarator:

Interested in real estate. How about wealth? Well, they go hand in hand and here you'll learn all about it, about it. Welcome to be the bank, a podcast where we discuss and debate the topics centered around real estate. Investing your host, Justin Bogar shares insights into investing in real estate to create real wealth and passive income for you and your family. He'll share stories of real estate investments done, right? Walk you through the process of owning a real estate note. And most importantly, educate you so you can be the Bangler bank. This is be the bank brought to you by bright path notes. Now here's your host, Justin Bogar.

Justin Bogard:

It is episode number 18 today. And I want to talk to my friend Richard Thornton today, and we're gonna kind of get into some topics that are not specifically to note investing, but in general business practices and business etiquette and communication, and how do you, how do you get your business thriving and, and the, and the best ways to get your business moving in the right direction? Um, we're gonna have some good topics for today. So stay tuned. This episode number 18 is brought to you by bright path notes. Richard Thornton is on the podcast today. Richard, how are you today?

Richard Thornton:

Very good, sir. And yourself.

Justin Bogard:

I am Mr. Wright, as you can see Mr. Wright, we've watching the video cast of this, uh, podcast here. That's on the right path, those YouTube channel. We'll see, I'm holding the Mr. Wright coffee cup again, and it's not coffee. It's actually tea that's in here.

Richard Thornton:

What your kids always say about you, dad? You're Mr. Wright.

Justin Bogard:

I mean, I don't know how they get that, but yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Richard Thornton:

<laugh>,

Justin Bogard:

It's all about communication, which that's right. Today's topic of conversation nurtured is communication

Richard Thornton:

Right now. Your, your ex-wife or, or, or your significant other could say, oh, you always think you're Mr. Right. That's true. Different land on

Justin Bogard:

That. There is a, a, um, what do I wanna say? Almost an almost identical cup to this that says Mrs. Is always right.

Richard Thornton:

Ah, okay.<laugh> you didn't buy that one, right? This,

Justin Bogard:

This becomes separated from the group and I keep this one and the other half gets Mrs. Is always right. Cut.

Richard Thornton:

Mm-hmm<affirmative> mm-hmm<affirmative> so, yeah. Okay. What's time for today. Guy

Justin Bogard:

Communication, Richard.

Richard Thornton:

Oh, are we communicating communication? Are we communi?

Justin Bogard:

Believe it or not, Richard, I have, um, some problems communicating with vendors and buyers and sellers and investors and things like that. Not because, uh, neither one of us are not intellectual in the Suffolk matter. It's just a matter of style, I guess. And a matter of the way information is received and the way information is outputted to another person. And so the, some of the things that I've come across Richard has been, um, I may line up an email, type it out, you know, have some good descriptions in there, lay out exactly what I want, even to the effect, Richard of pointing exactly what I am requesting from somebody or what I am still needing from somebody to complete my part of the project. Right. Whether it's a closing or whether it's, you know, after we close on a loan and we have to get some information and get the ball rolling with recording or boarding and things like that. And I feel like, um, the recipient of that information is not going down my list of, of items here and checking them off and giving me responses to each one of them. So, Richard, do you ever have that problem?

Richard Thornton:

No, never.

Justin Bogard:

<laugh> you almost made me spill my drink.<laugh>

Richard Thornton:

You're right. Just about winning the drink. End of conversation.

Justin Bogard:

That's right. I just spilled T all over the microphone. This is not good.

Richard Thornton:

I know. No, you know, I think it's, um, I think it has a whole lot to do with the recipients focus, you know? Okay. If they're fast, if you're talking with a wholesaler and they're fast and furious, and they're just looking at the last book, um, and they're not a detailed person, which a lot of, and I'm not saying this to defam any, uh, wholesale for anybody, but anybody who's not, uh, detail oriented tends to miss, um, a lot of those things and right. Not important to them. So they don't really respond to it.

Justin Bogard:

I, I feel like Richard lately, I've ran into a couple of people that I've been trying to put deals together with where we're actually using a title company and there's like a, uh, a flipper or, or a wholesaler involved, if you will. And they have created a situation for them to where they don't have to have a lot of skin in the game, meaning some, some cash, right, right. Actually money out of their pocket. And they've created this situation to where they've leveraged their technique and their resources and their, uh, buyers list and stuff to have this situation in front of them, uh, which is great for them. But also, I don't think it keeps them motivated in the game to really finish the deal because it seems like they would wanna push off some of those details for other people to handle it. And maybe it's just not the highest and best use of their time. And maybe they're just not the expert in that, but there still needs to be some sort of reasonable, uh, time that they have to put into the project so they can receive the benefit of it. Right. And I feel like sometimes I sit in the driver's seat and I'm, I'm orchestrating the whole thing, but I'm also driving, trying to drive all the details through and make sure things get to the finish line because I'm going to have skin in the game. Right. Or Richard's going to have skin in the game because this right. We're the end buyer to this product.

Richard Thornton:

Right. And you, you tend to be a detailed person too. So that's

Justin Bogard:

Not true.

Richard Thornton:

That is not true. It, it is compared to me, I mean, let's, you know, let's be self effacing here and true. Right. So, yeah. Um, no, I mean, I, I, yeah, I just, again, I think that some people just don't pay that much attention because it's not that important to him.

Justin Bogard:

So Richard, how do you overcome those challenges when you are laying out, um, descriptive email or you're, you're, you're laying out exact receivables that you need from somebody in order to complete your part of the project, if you will.

Richard Thornton:

Well, uh, one way is, uh, you know, I don't, I was thinking about this when you were talking about it earlier, I've got one email that I send out. Um, and rather than putting it in a line, let's, let's say I'm trying to get the basic information from my note wrong. Okay. Rather than putting in line and saying, I need the address, the sales price, uh, the original loan amount, LA da, da da in a, in a, a linear line, I'll say I need the following colon. And then I list each one down as its own line item. So it's pretty tough to miss. Right. You know, as you go, as you go down it, so I'll do a lot of things like that. I'll make lists that they can, uh, visually see, um, as possible can in an email,

Justin Bogard:

Almost like a honey do list and they can just check it off. Right. I've got this part done. Richard has this one, I've completed this task. It's almost like many tasks within their list.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. And I know, you know, in, in, in what you and I do, um, in some instances I actually do something a little bit more work. There's some, there's some work rounds, for instance, you and I have a task list. All right. Um, I set that up as a task and I'm really posting that there for myself, because I would forget that this task has gotta be done, but I've been noticing what it has evolved to is it's always, it's also a very good secondary check for you because you go back and you check my list and you say, oh, you know, Richard thinks he's got this and this and this to be done. Uh, I've gotta be copacetic with that or else, uh, we're not working on the same. So there's, there's things like that, that I think if you can set up with somebody that are a big help,

Justin Bogard:

It seems like Richard, that you and I have a really good symbiotic relationship to where I know your habits and your triggers and you know, my habits and my triggers. So I know how to send you information based on what I need to receive and vice versa. You know, how to send me information, knowing that the output that I need to give you. Right. Um, so when we deal with these, these first time interactions working with these we'll call'em projects, per se, cuz scope could be real estate. It could be note specific, it could be whatever. So we'll call it project. So these projects that we work with, so we have to get used to that relationship. They have to get used to our mannerisms. They have to get used to the way that we communicate and vice versa. Then after, you know, maybe a deal or two that we close on, we kind of get an, a rhythm, right. And it's cause it's a little bit easier to communicate, right. But we, we aren't in the business, uh, too often to where we get too much repeat, um, business per se in a short frequency, I'll say within a few months, period of time, I'll say it's more like, you know, maybe a year's time, you might get a couple of rounds of business from that individual because in, in the world that we live in, we're obviously buying things that are, you know, in the 50 to$150,000 range. So those opportunities don't come from the same individual too often, too quickly. So, and, and I like what you said about your list, uh, that you create that is bullet pointed. And after a colon, it's a very specific and clear, and maybe it might be color coded it, it might be very easy for them to follow, but I still find Richard that people find a way not to follow directions, not to read instructions

Richard Thornton:

True. And so, you know, to that effect, um, I mean, sometimes that happens just while you're talking with somebody. So as you said, we have a lot of first time conversations and that might be an only time conversation with somebody where you're initially getting in the note information. So first I've had probably four or five calls already this, this morning. And one of the things that I'm doing, because we're dealing with people as you well know with people also sophistication levels, right. Somebody will say, oh yeah, here's what you need. Bump, bump, bump, bump, boom, done, ding fine. And there's somebody else that doesn't know, you know, a note from mortgage from, you know, whatever else. Right. Um, I find myself really listen for their response, not in terms of, of, um, they're asking me questions. I listen for how they answer my question because how they answer my question, not, not the content, how they answer. It tells me how they're thinking and where they're going. And a lot of instances I have to do, I have to ask the question different way. I had to do sort of a, a workaround to fit them. Cuz it's not about me. It's always about them.

Justin Bogard:

That makes a lot of sense. So you're kind of tailoring your objective around how they react to your first initial, uh, response to them. And if they don't understand it and they can't follow it, you have to ask it a different way. Is that what you're saying?

Richard Thornton:

Yeah, I, I do. And I, and also, um, you kind of wanna loosen'em up a little bit. You wanna get'em and so, okay. I talked to a lady this morning who, uh, I'll put all of this in very nice terms. Uh, and we, we find this, um, more often than you'd think, uh, a notice being sold due, due to a divorce<laugh> um, she is, she is out to get her husband.

Justin Bogard:

Oh,

Richard Thornton:

Um, juicy, yeah. Husband, husband over the, the, the note and has, uh, been basically jerking her around by not making payments. So she's gonna sell it, you know, to the bad boy note buyers, uh, to get back at him because we're gonna pull his, uh, short hairs and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Um, I had to sort of get under that a little bit and, you know, talk about, you know, being divorced or not being divorced and what that means and blah, blah da, because that really made her start. I, I learned a whole lot about this lady more than I really wanted to know.<laugh> I, I found out the delinquency rate, you know, uh, how often the guy pays, um, what he's doing and agreed. He's going to do some of that to her and not to us, but there's a whole long story that I'm not talking about here. Right. But it's illustrative of what you're trying. What you're, what your point is,

Justin Bogard:

Richard? You, you are really good at what you do on the phone with that, because the way you're describing it to me, it's almost like you're sleuthing, right? You're playing detective, you're pulling out bits and pieces of information. Knowing like, if I can just go a little further to conversation, I'm actually gonna get some more meat that will help Justin. What'll help us know what we're getting into for this deal. And we know how to price it. And we know what we're getting into before we get too far down the road. And you've also, I, it sounds like you calmed them down as well, but they were on their, they, they were at this level up the top. I'm getting like, you know, my hands reaching up to above my head here, for those of you that are just listening to this and it's kind of Richard, you're kind of cooling them down

Richard Thornton:

To point.

Justin Bogard:

Exactly. You can talk on the same plane.

Richard Thornton:

Exactly. You, you end up being in a more, um, conversational almost sort of friend level, because then they know then you're not just, uh, I'm not just some guy from California.<laugh>, you know, who's, who's out to get you because I've got lots of money, which, you know, obviously it's always fictitious, but that's the way people think, um, excuse need some water there, but I understand any rate. Yeah. You're trying to get them down on your level. And that's when they really start to talk, that's where you really get the information that you need to, you know, do I need, did I need to know that she runs a farm and ranch store? No, but you know, come on, we talk about the farm and ranch store. That's in my community and, and you know, lots of guys and cowboy hats are up here and, you know, whatever else.

Justin Bogard:

But so when she first called you, she didn't know you, she just knew that it was Richard from company X.

Richard Thornton:

Right. You introduced, she got a text and she was a little bit irritated cuz I was bothering her with the text.

Justin Bogard:

Right. And so now after she's kind of spilled the beans quickly and you're able to kind of cool her down quickly and just get her gradually down to your level. Now she's opening up to you and, and speaking to you as if you're a family member that she didn't talked to in a while and you're catching up on the story on what's going on. So it's, it's an amazing Richard, how you can get to that point so quickly and you can diffuse the situation to where they're not as passive aggressive. I don't know what you wanna call it to where, you know, they're just like, oh, just gimme a quilt right now. And you like explain things to them, you get the story and like, oh wow, this is really good information. I'm sorry you have to go through this. This sounds awful. You know, I see, I see how you relate to them and get that. So it's, it's a very artistic way about gathering information. It's time sensitive, right. Because you're, you're trying to pull the information as quickly as you can without being on the phone for an hour. But sometimes you have to have a conversation for 20 or 30 minutes just to, just to get them to, uh, be able to have a second and third conversation with you, right?

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm usually able to, to be on and off in, in five minutes, but, but that's good. Yeah. Um, like I say, it's listed, it's meeting people where they, where they are. And I think, you know, I don't wanna get too philosophical here, but I, but I think a lot of us try to meet people where we are, what, where, where we're coming from, not with where they're coming from. If you understand where they're coming from, you're gonna have, you're gonna get a whole lot more out of them.

Justin Bogard:

That makes total sense. So that, that brings me to another point, Richard, um, cuz in the opening package there, I talked about just like running a business in general mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so in running a business, you and I have talked about this many times before we both have tried to run a business solely by ourselves, a note business. And we both come to realize after, after too many years of not doing this sooner, that we're, we're better off doing this together because we have complimentary, uh, strengths to each other, right. There are things that I'm not as strong at and there are things that you are not as strong at. And, and luckily we compliment each other well in that aspect. And so we're able to combine a lot of our resources and power that's way. Um, and it just makes things easier because the accountability can be spread, um, divided in two, right. Everything's divided in two when, when you and I team up together, everything's divided in two. It just makes things a little more palatable. And then you can see there's more return on your time because I'm, I'm concentrating my work on half the, the, the bandwidth. And so are you right? So now our focus is, is more, is more tractor beam driven, right? It's more, it's more, um, singular, not, not singular per se as in one, but it's definitely narrowed down the field, right?

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. There's a, there's a, uh, it's not a trick, but there's a, a, an illustrative exercise that a lot of job job coaches use and they say count from one to 26 and they do do it on a timer. You go 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, all the way, way to 26. And they say, now go from a to Z, you know, a, B, Z, D. And they, they count again. So you add up those two times and you get, let's say, you know, 15 seconds, whatever it's okay. And then they say, all right, now go a one B, two C3 and so on. And C how long that takes. It always takes much longer to do the latter, which is a basic in, uh, uh, indicator of the fact that multitasking doesn't necessarily work. And you really have to play to somebody's strength, which is what you and I do quite well. Um, you are more detailed than I are. You're much better at the back end. Um, I think we, we both compliment each other in terms of being able to bounce ideas off of each other. Yep. Um, and that's always very all very, um, as, uh, one of our associates, uh, is very fond of saying, uh, the four walls of your office never tell you anything. And, and uh, you know, you gotta have somebody to talk to, to bounce things off of, to play your strengths to, and that's, that's where you're gonna get. Yes. You're gonna share your profits, but guess what? You're gonna have more profits and be happy. Right?

Justin Bogard:

That's right. Yeah. I, I agree. And it's, it's, it's took me a while to, um, get to that point to where I realized this, this, this can will be done by yourself. There are successful people out there that can grow their business, you know, solely by themselves and they can do it all and they can start outsourcing and take a true per se partner, like a 50 50 partner. But there's, there's also companies out there that thrive on just spreading, spreading the risk and spreading the accountability equally amongst, uh, the peers and people that they respect and people that compliment them in the business as well. And so it just makes sense if you're, if you're in a growth mindset and you're trying to scale a business, you know, you really have to consider taking on a partner.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. I mean, I mean, let's face it. If you're a crypto trader or your dairy trader or something like that, and you consider it a screen and do it for four hours a day and call it a day, then, then you know, it's not, it's good to talk to people about how they do it, but are you really going to necessarily need a partner in doing that? No, but if you're gonna do anything where you've got multiple tasks in it, I think in general, yes, you're gonna be better off. And, and one thing that, that you're very good at that I have not been so good at is getting assistance to do things. I mean, get a VA yes. You have to pay'em 20 or 30 bucks an hour, whatever it is, but get them, assign them to do things and then focus on what you can do best.

Justin Bogard:

Exactly. Exactly. It's not how you do it. It's who does it for you?

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. I mean, in two, in certain sense that what we're saying is not that profound or that new. Right. But, but it's kinda like, we kind of need to keep hearing it again and again,

Justin Bogard:

So you're right. You have to be constantly reminded. Um, so in, in our business, isn't, isn't different than anyone else's business, whether you're making widgets or providing a service, you know, you have to have accounting, right? You have to have some sort of acquisitions to where you're, you're buying products or things at wholesale pricing and resale, and that retail pricing, you know, you have to have distribution list, right. To offload your inventory or service to, and you have to have, you know, an acquisition part of your business to where you're getting your product and stuff, getting an inventory and controlled pricing. And it's like, there's all these things that you have to do. And now you throw in social media where, you know, it doesn't cost you anything, but it really costs you a lot, you know, to social media. So it's like, there's a whole nother new category of business that you have to allocate, you know, time and energy to as well. And so at some point you can't do it all and if you can do it all, you can't do it all really well. There's probably certain things you can do. Well, it's very, I don't think I handed somebody that can do everything very well. Those things that people that can do things really good. Not really well.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah. I mean, it depends on how fast or how big you want to grow too. If you're doing something like investing notes on the side and you're doing it hour a day, or maybe five hours a week or whatever, then yeah. You can probably get along and, and do it most yourself, but that's a whole different game rather than trying to actually build something that you can live off of. Um, and that's what you and I are both trying to do. So that's, that's separating one class from the next,

Justin Bogard:

Yeah. Just to come full circle in this conversation. If you are able to do things by yourself and you have a lot of different departments that you're running, if you will simultaneously, the communication part is vital to what you do, having a system in place. Uh, because as we started off this conversation, we understand that we can be as very detailed and specific in our ask, as we want, as we feel like we can be and be very clear that if the person on the other end isn't receiving it the same way, because you don't know how they want to receive information, it, it could be a, a wasted effort if you will. Um, so if you're trying to move on to the next thing in your business and you're, and you're expecting this part of this email to be responded to exactly why you want it to be respond well, you're, you're gonna be, uh, very, very upset because you're not, you're gonna find out a lot of times you're gonna have to manage the expectation of the other person, or maybe a couple of people as well that you deal with until you learn the way that they like to receive things. Like maybe it's not best to give them a list. Maybe you give them two things at a time. I need these two things by Friday. Okay. Now I need these three things by Monday, you know, and kind of feed them slowly if you will. And so, yeah, I, I feel like it's, you, you it's it's if people can do it by themselves, it's, it's an amazing feat, especially if they're not even a franchise.

Richard Thornton:

Right. And it's also, I mean, for a small practice, like we have, um, I, I really, I, I really like the way we use podium mm-hmm<affirmative> because we do a lot of notification back and forth. You can say, well, gee, it's not that different than a text or something like that.<laugh> but, but it is in that it sits there and it sits there right. In whatever project a or B is mm-hmm<affirmative> and, and next time you pull it up, it's there in front of your face. Yeah. So you, you know, that it's something you, so I can post 24 hours a day. We're on two different timelines. Yeah. And, you know, time schedules and zones. I'm sorry. And there's quite often when I'm lying in bed in the morning, and I hear you pecking away your three hours ahead, me, what the heck is this guy doing? But he's three hours ahead of, I it's

Justin Bogard:

Four in the morning here. What's going on.

Richard Thornton:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and I'm sure there's sometimes on a Sunday night when, you know yeah. You you're going, what is Richard doing?

Justin Bogard:

Richard? I, I got my glass of bourbon. What's I'm not, I'm not talking to you right now, buddy. That's right. I love you. But not that much. Right.

Richard Thornton:

That's right.<laugh> that's right.

Justin Bogard:

Yeah. It's communication, communication, communication. It, it, it, it's an art, it's a science it's, um, uh, you know, something that we haven't done together. And I think that we probably should do is, is to recalibrate, um, our kind of business relationship through like a predictive index. So we can kind of get granular now that we've been working together for so long on specifically, maybe some things that we haven't discovered that maybe that you're really good at, and I should kind of let go and vice versa, uh, too. So that's maybe something that we should consider doing.

Richard Thornton:

Actually, I've, I've got one I did about, uh, a year ago. I'm sure he hasn't changed. I'll be glad I to send it to you.

Justin Bogard:

All right. Let's let's do that. Sounds like I need to get on board with the predictive index.

Richard Thornton:

I know you do if, and actually, you know what, uh, it's interesting that you're bringing it up. I thought the whole predictive index process fascinating in terms of actually telling me what my strengths were and, and are not, you know, doesn't say you're gonna be good at adding to a two plus two, but it, it tells you in general where you should focus and what you're good at. And, uh, let other people know that too. So if you want, you know, mine says you don't want Richard to be an accountant. Guess what? He's not that detail oriented. Well, um, that's fine,

Justin Bogard:

Richard. We are running outta time for today. That's a great topic of conversation. Uh, episode number 18 is brought to you by bright path notes. Don't forget to check out the YouTube channel on bright path notes. So you can watch the video stream of this, as well as all of the other bright path notes, educational things that we talk about with notes, even our live monthly broadcast that we do, uh, which will be September 14th. I think this podcast will air right before that. So be sure to check that out on our YouTube channel on September 14th. So I'm Justin Bogar with bright path notes. My cohort here, Richard Thornton. Um, and we will see you next time on episode number 19. Thanks, Richard.

Richard Thornton:

All right. See you Justin.

Justin Bogard:

See you, bud.

Richard Thornton:

Bye.

Narrarator:

Thanks for listening to be the bank. We hope you learned something from today's show. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review us. Plus check out our bright path notes channel on YouTube and follow us on Facebook and Twitter at be the bank and on Instagram at be the bank podcast. Be the bank is sponsored by bright path notes. Thanks again for listening.