Earning big money to make your career look impressive is good, but having something meaningful that drives you to work hard is more rewarding. After his 17th Note Mastermind, Scott Carson encourages everyone to spend time and figure out where your destination is and what makes you want to go there. It could be helping 10,000 entrepreneurs to close deals or sending a nephew to finish college or giving your parents a great retirement life. Avoid drifting and know what your business mission is.

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Learn, Grow and Know Your Business Mission

I’m actually here in South Austin at the WCN headquarters attending the Digital Agency Growth Summit. We go through the day with a lot of great information and a lot of good stuff. It’s always a great way to learn and expand knowledge and also network with a lot of other digital agencies that are doing a lot of great things and a lot of great marketing for other niches out there. We have 300 plus people here plus the staff of Digital Marketer putting on this event. It’s designed to help those companies out there that are helping others to market for other entrepreneurs, other companies out there. It’s well worth it. One session let alone is just worth the price of the admission. Anyway, we did wrap up our Note Mastermind. I have to give a big shout out to all the fellow Note Family Mastermind members that came out and joined and spent three days with us here in Austin. We had a great time. It’s always great and also humbling to have people come in from all across the country to want to listen what we have to say.

I really look forward to the new relationships that a lot of the people in the Mastermind made and strengthened. It’s a great time hanging out. I have to give a big shout out to Athena and Dan for winning their Prospective Marketing Superstar Awards for doing a lot of their marketing and sharing that stuff online with everybody there at the Mastermind. It was just a great time. Anytime you’re going to have 50 plus people come together who are giving and open and willing to share their secrets, and then also be willing to accept information, it makes for a big, fun, fun time. Also, you look forward to what’s going to happen in the next year with them. Mastermind was just a lot of fun. It’s always great to see people that are taking in nuggets and sharing as well.

I have to give a big shout out to Wayne Snell on the hot seat. He shared a lot of his great information, some things that he’s done to hit 300 notes. I have to thank speakers. Joel Markovitz came in from the Daniel Singer Law Firm. We also had Aaron Young from Laughlin Associates. A big shout out to Brent Buscay from Laughlin for hanging around and spending time working with everybody that was there as well on the Rockefeller Strategy. Kristie and Elijah Whites came in from Serving Social, Thomas Nee from Teammate Fitness came in and talked a little bit to get everybody rock and rolling on some of their fitness goals for the new year. That leads me into what I want this episode to be about is what’s your mission?

A lot of times people go through life and make it all through and they’re starting new business entities while they’re doing real estate. It starts off as a hobby. It starts off, “That’s pretty cool.” They start off with ideas that’s going to help them with financial freedom that’s going to help them leave their job. There’s nothing wrong with that. What I often find is that a lot of people end up having a lot more success when they have some mission behind with what they’re doing. Some true cause whether it’s a charity, whether it’s a passion, whether it’s helping to finance some other part of their life, something that they’re passionate about. I’ll give you an example. Scott Dilley, our buddy, runs an orphanage in Haiti where he provides all the funding for twenty plus children down in Haiti. I know he’s down there right now. A big shout out to Scott with the Children First charity. Check it out, it’s on Facebook, a really, really great cause. We also have people that do a lot of support. Steph is very passionate with animal rescue especially cat rescue. She’s actually off to North Texas to pick up a cat and then flying the cat to Hartford to be with its new family. She’s traveling really across country to help save the life of a cat. It’s a big passion. We do help fund that and all other things that she does.

A lot of people are going through their businesses or going through life with really no mission or guidance. Money is always a good thing and they want to close deals. Nothing wrong with that. Whenever you can have something that drives you, give you something bigger than what you’re focused on, that will always help you. It could be your health, it could be money, it could be, I guess, if you leave your job, putting kids to school, retired parents. Those are all great missions of what you’re trying to focus on. With being this time of the year, maybe you need to think a little bit more. Maybe you need to think about what you want to do.

I think one of the biggest things that I want to share with you is what our mission is. I only talk about this because we struggled with our mission. I started with, “Where did I really want to go?” “Yeah, I want to make money. Yeah, I want to help a lot of investors out there.” It’s been a big cause for us and mission for us is that I got very fortunate years ago. I did learn the note business from some really great people and had some really great people along the way that really helped me along the way. I always promised that once I get to where I was going to be, I was going to share what we’ve learned with the people that wanted to learn. That’s been a big cause for the virtual workshops, the mastermind. We love seeing the success. We had our seventeenth Mastermind. It’s hard to believe it’s seventeen.

Our big mission is that I wanted to spend some time and I learned a lot of this from hanging out here at the Digital Agency Growth Summit on Traffic & Conversion, Content Curation. These are all great events put on by the folks over at Digital Marketer. We’ve learned a lot of tips and tools that have helped us expand our business in the last couple of years from Digital Marketer and these conventions and networking with other marketing individuals. Our mission over the next five years is to help 10,000 investors close deals. I know that’s a lofty goal but if we can help 10,000 investors learn the note business and get things closed, that’s a huge impact not only in them but also across the country. It’s something that we really designed and really believe we can help handle. We already helped over 2,100 people this year; 2,100 unique people have gone through our workshop, a class and are out doing some things. I know not all of them focus on notes full-time but they’re using the strategies they learned from us to help expand their bottom line and actually help their causes. Our goal over the next five years to this time 2022 is to have helped 10,000 real estate entrepreneurs either brand new who get into real estate investing through notes or those real estate investors find having a much easier and much more profitable niche with note investing. That’s one of the big things driving us. I just have to connect to help 2,000 people a year.

You’ve got to do a lot of great things. You’ve also got to provide product. You’ve also got to find enough deal flow to help on this. That’s our big commitment. We shared a couple of things with those of the Mastermind group, a bunch of deal sources and deal flows that we’re pretty excited about. Teams Greg, Nichole and Jen were in the office so we’ll be working on that. We’re really excited coming later part of January to have our Banking Blitzkrieg. We’ve got twenty people who are going to be making phone calls out on a regular basis for basically a month to banks and asset managers to really drive product and to expand our database. I’ll also be making phone calls as well too. Technically, I make real estate investing easy.

How do we reach 2,000 people? How do we reach 10,000 people? You all should have your own mission. Maybe it’s to close 100 deals. Maybe it’s to close 50 deals. One of the great things that we focused on this weekend was getting people to a SWOT analysis. Over half of those who attended, they were going to strengthen business opportunities and threats breakdown on their business. What is insightful for a lot of people, not only for their own business but also to learn from everybody else in the room who also have strengths, who also have weaknesses, how could they matched up and partnered together or venture together to help both of them focus on their strengths and have their weaknesses taken care of. That’s always a fun thing, one of my favorite things to do, we do it at least once a yea,. I know I do at least probably about once a quarter with what we’ve got going on.

How do you raise enough capital for 50 deals or 100 deals? How do you reach out to the banks and hedge funds to find enough deal flow for you to make 1,000 offers so you can close on 100 deals? It comes down to a couple of things. Marketing. That’s what I like so much about at events like this is there are a lot of nuggets here. It was just one nugget alone from Perry Belcher. and from a gentleman from the agency Clymb. Those two nuggets that they shared made it totally worth what I paid for the ticket, and it’s not a cheap ticket. It’s not $1,000 but it’s not a cheap ticket especially if you spent three days running around an event. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is spend two days hanging out at another event, but it’s been well worth it. The energy was quite high because when you’re sitting with like-minded individuals, sharing information and doing things like that, it makes it’s pretty easy if I could enjoy as I can.

How do you get to that point of growing from a solopreneur to an entrepreneur who’s running multiple businesses? If you look at what note investing is and real estate investing, you’re running the business. You’re the GM, you’re the CEO. You should not be out there playing football or blogging. You should be the one directing traffic. The easiest way to direct traffic so that you can find enough deal flow, raise enough capital, is to be smarter than most people around you. I hate to say this but most real estate entrepreneurs are pretty smart especially those in the note game because we’re the new evolved. When you’re the lender, you’re a little bit more evolved. If you’re the bank, it pays to be the bank, I will tell you that.

A lot of people come from the fix and flip side, the post card side, maybe post in Facebook ad or post side. You have to really up your game to a whole other level. I think that’s the biggest way to up your game is not to just sit around and do what everybody else is doing but to be somewhere, like this event or other events, and learning from others to help you expand your mission, to help you bring your mission to fruition. I go to a lot of marketing events because I want to do good. Every time I come to an event, it makes money for me. The two nuggets I got will cost money to do those things, but will make more money in the long run, make us more profitable. It helps close more deals. It will help us bring in more students. It will help us get closer to that ultimate goal of helping 10,000 investors in the next five years. That’s a lofty goal. Is everybody going to stick around? No. Looking at our numbers from 2016 through this year so far, we have 80% retention rate from students from one year to the students the next year. That’s huge. That really excites me that we have a bigger retention rate. We also grow as well. We also have another 20% growth rate this year. Actually, it’s about 25% now.

What I’m trying to get at is if you’re brand new or you’re seasoned or you’re an experienced real estate investor, you have to grow. The only way to grow these days in the 21st century is not to send out more post cards or yellow letters or knock at more doors. That’s not the way to do things these days. That’s a very costly and old way of thinking. You have to get smart, whether it’s using technologies or using some of those tactics that are available out there for you that are actually cheaper but much more profitable. That’s what a lot of these events are about. That’s one of the biggest things that we try to focus on is, “We’ve done something. We can fund something this quarter. Where we are going to get the funding this next month? What are we doing now? What do we do next? How do they all weave together?”

I was talking with our staff about when I bring on new people, we usually have them go through a Shadow Day. It’s four to six hours of shadowing. I was talking with everybody at the Mastermind about how we’ve hired and found good help and how literally we hire more than what we need knowing that we’re going to end up letting some people go. People are going to flake off anyway, then you’ll be left with the people that are serious about what they’re doing. That’s the case with Greg, Nichole and Jen. They all do a really good job. You have to share what you’re doing. I literally, four to six hours one day with all of them and some more, “Send the conference we’re going through. Here’s the website that you’re going to go through. Here are some things that you’re going to be doing.” They all have been doing a lot of stuff but it’s evolved. They all do different things now and it’s exciting to see them growing and doing different things, then growing and learning more and adding more tools in their tool belt.

What’s also great about these events I go to, especially this one, there’s a lady here that runs the event by the name of DeAnna Rogers. DeAnna is an Austin native and runs an amazing event company who just does a lot of events here. I would say she probably does close to 50 plus, probably 100 plus events a year. She’s usually running two events at the same time, where there are two events going on sometimes simultaneously. DeAnna was my first ever assistant. She likes to let people know, “I’m Scott’s first ever assistant. Scott got me in the game.” It’s humbling and it’s great. She has done so much more than I ever taught her. It’s exciting to see her doing such big things and just visiting and talking and seeing what she’s grown and gone. Her mission has changed over the years too. Her mission went from just helping one big guy, me, try to get organized, to helping some other students get organized. Now, she’s done an amazing job and is helping thousands of people by being able to put on great events to come learn what’s going on. While she’s not providing the content, she’s providing a great platform and handling everything for the speakers to be able to deliver their information and also for the attendees to really be able to enjoy them. This all takes us back, she has a mission to do a lot of events.

We all have missions. I challenge all of you. If you’re listening in iTunes or on the podcast, first of all, thank you for listening. Feel free to share it. I would love to know what your mission is for the next year or five years. It could be work. It could be something you’re focused on. It could be a charity. Whatever it is, what is your real estate business, your mission for? What is the engine that drives the car? What are you focused on? Where is that ultimate destination? Where are you headed? What are you working so hard to overcome? I have to give a big shout out also to Roland Frasier. I learned a lot from you in the last couple of years. I’m very fortunate to work with you, learned a lot of stuff, learned a lot from watching what you’ve shared and other things like that too.

There’s a lot of great things happening for people out there that have a true defined mission. If you don’t know what your mission is, spend some time to figure out what it is. Take the time to sit down, identifying what’s important to you and what are you working so hard for. Your mission, it could be as simple as leave your job. Your mission could be to help 100 families staying in their house. We have a buddy of ours that wanted to, at one point, buy 1,000 notes and modify and keep 1,000 families in their homes. That was a great mission. It did happen. He bought a lot of notes, but now he’s moved on to other things.

That’s the thing to keep in mind. Your mission is going to change as time goes on and that’s all right. The idea though is if you don’t have a mission, don’t have a focus, you’re going to drift. That’s the biggest thing that I see from note investors or real estate investors. They drift from one topic to another one, from another one to another one. They’re trying to do too many things at once. It doesn’t work out very well because they don’t really have a true defined goal, they don’t have a true defined north of what they’re working towards. The minute you find that, the minute that you have that target, not only does it help you, it helps your team. It helps the people around you. It also helps your vendors if you share your mission and what you’re trying to do. It literally helps everybody in your tribe either support you or get the hell out of the way. That is an ultimate thing. I see a lot of people, they’re trying to do a variety of things, they talk things online, but you never see any results from or you may see a little bit of results but not near the results that should be merited when there’s much talk as most people do. I say 95% of people talk and 5% of people actually do.

Your biggest, biggest, biggest goal here between now and the end of the year if you can is figure out what your mission is and go do something. I appreciate you seeing work smarter not harder, that’s great. Figure out what it is. If your goal here within the next 90 days is to close one deal, get one deal closed. If it’s to get three deals closed, get it closed. If your goal for next year is to close 100 deals, great. That means you’re going to get 1,000 offers. Where are you going to find these 1,000 assets? You better spend some time, focus on building new sources for it, hedge funds, banks, whatever it is. Spend some time doing some great things out there. Trust me, if you can help 1,000 people, you can help 100 people, those 100 people are going to help other people, and it’s going to just explode like wildfire.

Stay tuned, you’re going to see some more stuff from us on our mission. Our mission is to help 10,000 real estate investors over the next five years. We usually do some amazing things. Closing that first deal and make some things happen. Work smarter, not harder. Take some time to hone your skills. If you like a list of some ideas of some marketing events to go to, drop me an email. I’m always glad to share. There are so many of them. It’s hard to take them all but make sure to try to expand yourself and maybe expand your knowledge.

If you’re not happy with where you’re going with what you’re doing in your business, it comes down to probably one thing and one thing only. If you’re not making enough money and you’re not closing enough deals, you’re not marketing enough. It doesn’t always mean throwing more money after the same will save money. You’ve got to develop new ways of marketing. You’ve got to develop new ways of doing business and maybe that’s your mission for the next 90 days. Learn something new that can help impact your bottom line immediately. Trust me, if it impacts your bottom line mainly in a good way, it makes life a lot easier when you’re closing more and have higher sales, more profitability, and making things happen. That’s all I’ve got for you.

If you’re listening on the podcast, once again, thank you. Make sure you share it out there. We’ve gone over 40,000 downloads. Help us get to 50,000 before the end of the year. Let’s kick 2018 in the teeth and make it your year. I know that 2018 is going to be an even better year for us than 2017. 2017 has been an amazing year. A lot of great stuff has happened, closed on a lot of deals, spent a lot of money, helped a lot of people, but also we’ve gotten stronger because we’ve also worked on fixing our core structure, fixing some things, expanding some things, working on some mentees, new students, new ventures. The only way to grow is to keep focused. Keep focusing on yourself, focus on new ventures, keep training yourself. You’re never too old to learn no matter what it is.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. Have a great day. The thing to keep in mind is nuggets are great to share, but if you’re not here and you’re not in my shoes, you don’t really understand the nugget. Usually at these events like the Traffic &Conversion Digital Summit, there are two speakers I try to always make sure. There’s nothing against the rest of the speakers, but I always try to listen to what Roland Frasier has to say and Perry Belcher. What Perry Belcher shared on one slide was worth it. Totally worth all the ticket. Twenty minutes of him discussing and sharing one nugget totally clicked. Another one that the Digital Agency of the Year Founder shared was worth it. I’m not going to share the nuggets because if you’re not in the same place I am, it doesn’t make any sense. If you’re not here, it’s hard to share what’s going on. You can’t repeat what you missed. Stay tuned, I’m sure you’ll see some of the things that we do in our actions with our marketing in some of our classes over the next few weeks as well. You’ll probably see some of the nuggets that we learned and implement. That will be the best way, just actually walk the walk versus just talking and sharing. Have a great day. We’ll see you guys later.

 

Important Links

• Digital Agency Growth Summit
• Digital Marketer
• Wayne Snell
• Daniel Singer Law Firm
• Laughlin Associates
• Brent Buscay
• Serving Social
• Teammate Fitness
• Children First
• Traffic & Conversion
• Perry Belcher
• Clymb
• Roland Frasier

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