The new year is right around the corner, and what better way to greet it than to make plans for your business and make 2021 your best year yet? Scott Carson sits down with business and entrepreneur coach, Marcia Riner, from the Profit With A Plan podcast and Trajectory Consulting. Marcia shares her five-step plan to profits and why a business plan needs to be updated on a regular basis with small adjustments as you progress. You don’t need to do all these things alone and struggle in silence. Join Marcia as she teaches you the basics of planning. After all, failing to plan is planning to fail.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

The Five-Step Profit Plan For Business Owners And Entrepreneurs With Marcia Riner

I’m excited to have a special guest on here. She’s a note investor, but also her resume is awesome. I know that many of you guys and girls out there in Note Nation, many of you are like, “What am I going to do in 2021?” We all know there’s a lot of changes. 2020 has put all of us in a tailspin of some sort, and we’ve had to figure it out as we go, but you’re planning for success. A lot of you are like, “I’m not sure what to do. How am I going to have the same?” We’re honored to have our special guest here, Marcia Riner. She is a rock star. She is a business strategist with Trajectory Consulting. She has many years of hands-on experiences as an entrepreneur. She’s also an author, podcast host and a CFP with a degree in Business and Finance. She and I hit it off talking about note investing and I was helping her out with a deal. I’m honored to have you here, Marcia, how’s it going?

Thank you. It’s going good. I’m having a lot of fun. On my note news, we’re moving to foreclosure and we’ve got everything lined up. It’s a great experience to use notes in your business as an alternative investment. It’s one of those things that when you get profitable in your business and you’re looking for alternatives, other business pieces to use, this as a great tool in selling note.

You’re working with so many clients, business owners and entrepreneurs who are going through the end of the year planning or also pre-planning. Let’s talk about that.

There’s never a bad time to start. Most people think of a plan or a business plan. This arduous task of making up stuff so you can pretend you’re going to go after those goals. They do it and then they stick it up on their shelf and they never look at it again. A business plan is a roadmap. It’s your blueprint. It’s the guide that’s going to tell exactly what you need to do to achieve the goals that you want to have. Most of us want to make a whole lot more money so we can buy more notes or live the lifestyle we want. You can’t do that by randomly going off and doing it. You need to have a plan.

You have to have a plan because failing to plan is planning to fail as they always say. In the world of procrastination, many people have these big goals, but they’re not putting in the day-in, day-out grind or the day-in, day-out planning of taking action. Many people, especially reading to this have a note or real estate investment as their side hustle. They get around to it whenever they’ve got a few hours left or they remember it versus planning on specific day-in, day-out tasks to help them hit their plan.

It doesn’t have to be hard. People think that planning is this arduous task of being creative and trying to stretch it all out. It’s simply a reverse engineer. If you want to get to Chicago from Southern California, you either take Route 66 or you get on some faster roads and you’ve mapped out your plan. That’s all a business plan is. It’s saying, “I want to do this,” or even a personal plan, “I want to do this,” and reverse engineering every detail you could possibly imagine so that that way you have a path to go. You get up in the morning and you look at your plan and you go, “I got to do this and that.” Easy. Instead of going, “I think I’ll call or I’ll go on the internet and social search.”

What happens is that business owners and entrepreneurs end up wasting time doing busy work instead of proactive work in their business that if they spent more focused, direct time on, they could probably get their work done in a third or half of the time. They will have more time so they can do the things that they desired when they became a business owner, which is watching a kid’s baseball game, go out and play golf on Friday afternoon. Do more things that they want to and still provide for the family with an awesome tool that being a business owner affords.

Many people brainstorm. They’ll do, “I’ve got to do all these things and I’ll brainstorm.” They start slapping that on their to-do lists. We all know people avoid the big rocks. I had a good mentor years ago tell me, “Get rid of your to-do list because all that little stuff will fall in the cracks and get around to focus 1, 2 or 3 big rocks that you got to accomplish each day and you’ll get a lot more done.” What would you say about that?

Priorities and things that are money-making directions are the pieces that you need to be focusing on, but how can you decide whether that’s a big rock or a little rock unless you know where you’re going? My profit plan requires prime real estate on your desk. It’s something that is open all the time and helping you make decisions, whether it’s how many sales calls I need to have this month to where I’m spending my money or where my income’s coming from. Whether I need to hire somebody or not, or even more importantly, how do you market? Who’s your target client? These are all factors that should be in your profit plan and laid out for you. When you’ve got to make a decision of, “Am I on track?” There’s another thing, it’s tracking your numbers, and I need to have $10,000 a month or $5,000 or $1,000 a month, whatever that number is that you want to make, what is your reverse-engineered numbers to get to that? What are the activities that are going to get you to that number? It is simple stuff, but it’s the stuff people don’t like.

This drives me bonkers because I’ll be talking with people and people will call me, “How do I find deals?” “How much are you marketing? Are you reaching out to asset managers of banks to find deals? Are you working full-time? How many times are you jumping on LinkedIn? Connecting with asset managers there or are you going to the low-hanging fruit?” This will maybe scary you. We have a big event every year called Note CAMP. We like to survey everybody, “How often are you emailing your database?” People ask me, “What’s an ESP or CRM?” Less than 10% of people were doing the basic thing of emailing out at least once a week. Most of them aren’t even doing it once a month, which is the scariest thing. I’m like, “You can’t be a secret agent in any type of business and hope to succeed.”

It all goes back to the plan. I’m going to harp on it for the entire time that we’re talking, about the importance of a plan. That plan is your guide. It tells you what you should be doing. In your case, you should be talking to the people at the banks that you’re going to have access to the loans for. The other thing is, are you using your own money or using other people’s money? If you’re using other people’s money, you got to make relationships with the other people to get their money, and you got to show. It’s a dance. Unless you know how many people you have over here and how many people you have over here and what their interest and combinations are, you’re wasting time. All that can be laid out in a strategy or a plan that says, “These are the type of people I choose to work with, over here.”

These are people with money. I like them. We have great conversations. They do what I asked them to. When I say I got a deal, they go, “I want that deal.” They’re the perfect ideal client. That takes some energy and work to figure out who that ideal client is. Looking and picking through your existing base and dreaming up who that ideal person is. On the flip side, it’s like, “These guys have money.” They want to invest, but they’re looking for specific deals. Now I go through this pile over here and I say, “Who are these people that I know have those deals, rather than calling up Bank of America?” Nobody’s going to talk to you there or talking to another note dealer that has these specific notes. It’s increasing your success rate by taking the time to figure out what the heck you’re doing, what the plan, goal and strategy are for doing what you want to do and getting paid for it.

One of the biggest things we all talked about is putting a plan together. I’m a big believer that a business plan should be something simple. When I was getting my MBA, they talked about putting this business plan. They give us 30, 40, 50 pages. I’m like, “In six months, it’s going to be different than where we’re at. In a year it’s going to be completely different.” You have an idea because when I say business plan, a lot of people shut down because they think, “I got to spend all this time on something.” I don’t think you do.

 

What if there were a couple of hours to set up a foundation for it? If you think of it as not this thing, that’s going to be outdated in 3, 6 or 9 months, but something that is going to be alive and breathing that you’re going to go, “That’s working. Let’s put some more time over there. That’s not working. Cut.” It’s an active environment. You can spend and have 30 pages. My finished plans are about 30 pages, but it’s not taking you months and months of sitting down doing something that you feel is wasted. It’s spending a few hours here and there on some tasks that are going to give you clarity on the path that you’re going on, so then you go, “Part A, check, over here, done.” I take part A and I go, “That creates part B. Part B is over here, check, done.” It’s not like doing this. If you ever going to go out and get some financing for any of these deals with a reputable private money lender, they’re going to want to look at your plan. They’re going to want to look at your financials. If you’re running to put that together at the last minute, you’re not going to get anything.

That’s unfortunately what most people do. Go to real estate investment clubs and I talk with investors and they get up and they get this ugly piece of paper with a few details on it and I’m like, “I don’t use that.” That’s one of the things I wish investors would spend more time on is that foundation piece. Make it look professional. Treat it like a business, not some side hustle hobby that you’re only putting a few minutes a day into.

There are five important categories that you need to have in your business plan. One is having your financials organized. Having it in a clear way that makes you look good and strong and also has a plan for how you’re going to repay this. You were asking for money, so what’s your income plan to repay this? Lenders are going to look at that and go, “You got some credit. You got some assets. You’ve got a strategy going. You’re not in any trouble in this or that. You got a little bit of experience.” You book out the structure of the note that you’re going to buy and you’ve got a plan and pieces for it.

All of this stuff can be tweaked. You build it at one time, and you tweak it for every deal you’re doing so you look good. Knowing what your income, your expenses are and how you’re going to repay that thing is the way to get the deal along with the credit. The first piece is your financials. You got to have them together. It takes a bit of time, a couple of hours maybe. You reach out to an accountant or somebody who can build you out that project budget or put all the pieces in place, but once it’s done, it’s a little bit of tweak afterwards. It’s not a whole lot of work.

Number two, are you a sole person? Are you the only one running the show, or do you got a team? How are you going to make all this stuff happen? Who are your team? It’s the five Ws and an H. It’s your organization. It’s the who, what, why, when, where and how you’re going to make anything happen in this note business of yours. When you have the strategies and you’ve got the right team player here, the lenders and the investors are going to go, “You got a team going. You’re somebody. You’re not fly-by-night. I’m not going to give you my to invest and know that you’re going to go dark here, and next weekend I’ll never see my money again.”

It’s having that strength in your plan that will give confidence to both parties. When you go knocking down on someone’s door because you got to foreclose on them, you’ve got a team. You’ve got your attorneys and servicer in place. You got everything built up. On top of all of that, do not do this as a sole proprietor. You’re asking for trouble. Go create yourself a corporation, go make yourself an LLC. They’re easy to do. There’s plenty of attorneys out there that can give you some guidance. There’s plenty of stuff online you can get. Protect yourself. That’s all in the organizational plan. Set yourself up as a real business so the investors will trust you, the lenders will trust you and you’ll get deals. That borrower will come knocking on your door because you’ve got a little bit of protection.

Number three, what are you offering? What’s your solution that you’re offering? Whether you’re offering it to investors, the bank, or as your own gig, know what you’re doing. Make a list of your services. Make yourself a professional. When you have your services arranged, what are the costs for them? What’s the deal you’re doing. What’s the “business offer” you’re going? When you can plan this out, you can go to Joe over here and go, “Joe, here’s what I can do for you.” You’ve got a compelling story for him and case studies. You’ve got social proof that you can do what you can do. You go over to this bank and you have your bank deal where you’re saying, “Mr. Bank, I have Joe and ten others like him ready to buy. They’re ready and accredited. The money will be here on Tuesday. They’ve got a trust already set up.” All the functional stuff is set up because you know your stuff. You can have a compelling conversation that this bank is going to trust you by selling you their notes.

People are getting into the note space, but they’re not doing any research. They the like idea. They’re not researching the markets and the type of assets. I always tell people, “The more focused you can be in the type of assets, the states, values, performing versus non-performing. The more focused you can be, the happier you’ll be, and the smoother that your business will run because you’re not out there chasing every type of deal thinking it’s a deal when it’s not a deal in a lot of cases.”

The worse is you get into the wrong state. Here in California, where I am, they have an insane length on the foreclosure rate. You have to wait a year. If you don’t know that and you haven’t done your research, or worse, you don’t have your processes and systems set up in your offer to say, “I’ve done my due diligence on this deal. I’ve checked. There are no construction liens on it. There are no seconds. I’m not coming in in fifth place. The taxes are paid. If they’re not paid, I’m prepared. My team’s prepared to be able to pay that and be in that first position.” They’ve done a little research on the house, the neighborhood, and the owner. Is this his first show? Are you kicking out a mama and her babies? There are all sorts of things you’ve got to do, but unless what you’re doing in that product realm and your service, how can you give confidence to the people you want to work with on both sides of the deal that you can pull it off?

Your financials are note lined. You’ve got your organization figured out. You know your spiel and what you’re going to be delivering. Who you’re talking to? It’s all about marketing. You got to have a marketing plan. This marketing plan is going to get you in front of both Joe and the moneylender at the right time, in the right place with the right message because you’ve done all this work below that it leads to number four. Number four is all about marketing. If you’re not marketing in your business, then you don’t have a business. You need to market your product, your service and your deals, so you’re out glad-handing people, networking, putting ads, posting things, talking to referral partners and building relationships out there that are going to feed you.

You can’t do it without understanding the bottom three and then developing a marketing plan for it. Marketing plan who is that ideal client on both sides of the deal and how are you going to get to them? Where are they? What are they looking for? What are the keywords they want to hear that perk their ear up? “I can do a 17% return.” “You can?” “I can.” “What about a 30% return?” There is a bit of risk. It might take you a year or two, but I can get you that. Does that feature a 5% return on the S&P 500 when it all nets out? You got to have your language.

You got know your pitch, how to market and how often to market too.

Plus, your email list. If you send an email out to your list and your list isn’t warm, first of all, you’re going to go right into spam. Your recipient may never see your email or if they do see your email, they don’t know who you are because it’s been three months since you sent them an email. There goes your conversation and making sure you send something out on a regular, weekly basis, “I got some deals of the week. Deals of the month. Education, did you know? How-tos, do you want to figure out how to do this here? I’m having a webinar.” Whatever it is, something, all the time to keep your mind, face and your ideas in front of your potential lead.

 

Most people don’t buy the first introduction. What do they say? Eight to ten connections before they go. How many times do you see that commercial on TV? I watched a Carl’s Jr. commercial. They call it Hardee’s in the East. I’ve been seeing this commercial, all of a sudden it hit me because I was hungry. It had two burgers and it had bacon on both sides. I’m going, “I need a burger.” It’s not always right now, but when you’re hungry and it hits you, then it is “right now.” That commercial could have been on for two weeks as far as I know.

The first time you reached out, it’s about a 2% success rate in sales on the first time. Eighty percent of sales are always made at the fifth contact. Half of people never even follow up with the first time. They send one email out or they say one phone call or one letter.

“They didn’t like me. They don’t like my stuff. They’re not my ideal client.” You got to be told no a couple of times. Is it no, or is it not now? Is it no, not ever? Is it, are you going to call the police on me if I call you one more time? You got to push the envelope a bit more. It’s always best done marketing in the consumer, your ideal person’s favorite way of being communicated. It could be a phone, the social, email, broadcast or webinar. You got to go in their place, not your place. You got to be flexible enough to do it. Here’s a great tool. You don’t always have to be the one to do it. There are people out there that know this stuff inside and out. If you don’t have a plan, strategy, your numbers aren’t in line or your money is not there, then you can’t pay to have someone do it for you.

You got to get the ducks in a row, get rock and rolling and make things happen. What’s number five on the profit plan?

Everything leads to growth. If you’ve got your money in line, you’ve got your organizational structure in place, you know what you’re offering, you got your marketing stacked up. Where are you going? You got goals down the road. It’s like, “Next year, I want to make X.” It becomes, “We’ve got all these pieces in place. We can start stacking and reverse engineering that goal. Five years from now, I want to be.” How was that compared to your one? Are we going from $100,000 to $10 million? It’s probably not going to work. We can go $100,000, $250,000, $500,000, $750,000 or $1 million. That seems reasonable growth projections that you can make. I had on my podcast the greatest guy ever. He was fun. He’s called, “The Bucket List Guy.”

It’s all about trying to put your life together with your business and enjoying it instead of pounding the hammer harder to get that square peg into the round hole. It was such a fun conversation because it made me think, your full goals need to be put in place. Your personal, family, financial, enjoyment and your health goals. With the craziness going on, you need to make sure everything’s in line, but all of that is a growth strategy. That’s number five. It’s putting it in.

The whole thing requires one thing to make it work, and that is action. You have to move. You cannot dream, hope and manifest that the world is going to come to you on a silver platter. You have to work, but you don’t have to work the hundred hours that you were working in the past. If you design this out the right way, you could be working efficiently and effectively in a fraction of the time you were before because you’ve got clear paths, directions and you’re going. This is my vision of what a plan does.

One of the great things too about what you’re doing is you work with so many different types of entrepreneurs and maybe you keep track of what everybody is doing. How many do you see that they either have no plan or it’s a way outdated plan? What’s percentage of that compared to the people you sit down with initially?

Most, if not all, have no formalized plan. When you become an entrepreneur, many of us have come out of a corporate type position or some business position. A lot of us came out of sales. When you set up your business plan for the year in corporate that you know you’re great in, “Last year I did a $100,000 in sales, this year I’m going to do $150,000 in sales. Last year I did an average of 30 appointments a month, I’m going to do 40 appointments a month.” It’s BS. It’s made up. It’s achievements that you’re going to strive to and you’re going to aim a target at it. They don’t have the real plan or if they do, it’s moldy and it’s fictitious with a lot of graphs that they found something online that looked good. I pulled that one on my clients. She’s an organizational girl. She helps specific clients. One client is a disorganized person that has a lot of stuff. The family is starting to nag him and they say collect all sorts of stuff so she can go in and organize closets, garages, kitchens.

The second client she has is a busy real estate person. That busy real estate person has high-end people that are moving, so they need a white-glove service to help them move. She packs, organizes, then goes to the other side, unpacks and then organizes their new house. When I got and saw her plan that she used to get her first business loan with, I was like, “Are you kidding me?” Not only were there blank pages in the plan that I don’t know if either side saw them, but it was all fictitious numbers. I’m like, “How did you arrive at this one?” “I don’t know. I pulled it out of my ass. That’s where it came out of.” She’s like, “But I’m doing okay.” I said, “It’s because you were lucky.” What if we put a plan together to make it real and feasible with all the pieces in it? They’re far and few in between that are doing the plan.

It sounds a little arduous and I’m in the process of trying to make it sound sexy, fun and simple. With the right team around you or right steps and strategies and fill in the blank pieces, it can be easy, but it takes a bit of thought process and it takes a little bit of vision for you. You have to do it outside of your office. You can’t be there with the girl coming in, the phone’s ringing and you’re looking at the computer going, “This email came in.” You have to step away. The great thing about it is it can be a tax write-off. Business planning and board of governors meeting, you can go someplace, strategize and work on this. With a little bit of homework and some coaching, you can have a viable plan in a short amount of time. I like to say that I can make you profitable in 87 days or less. Eighty-seven days seems a long time, but that’s only a couple of hours a week.

That brings me to the next point I wanted to ask you. Eighty-seven days to get to the point there. I love that. The things that fall in line a lot of times, if people can have a realistic number that they’re looking for, but also figuring out exactly what they said, “I want to make $1 million.” “If you made $100,000 this year.” “No.” “Let’s get you to make $100,000.” How does it fall into what are you selling? What’s your average profit on the deals you’re doing? Figuring out, what did you have to do marketing-wise, as far as leads, phone calls, LinkedIn connections to get that number? That is always the biggest gap I see in a lot of people. They throw a number. That’s not how it works. You got to figure it out this and this. It’s not difficult, but you said you got to spend a little time or align yourself. Talk with somebody and ask them questions who’s been where you’re at and is beyond where you want to go or beyond where you’re at so they can give you the best counsel and advice.

One of my biggest things that I preach to my listeners and my followers, is that you’re not an island. Don’t be alone. Don’t try and figure this whole thing out all on your own. There are people that have already done it ahead of you. They’ve got specific skills that you could spend twenty hours doing your own financials, or you can hire the accountant to do it in an hour and a half. They know exactly what they’re doing. Stop trying to be everything to every part of it. I know some of our readers bootstrapping it and trying to get it all up on their own. There are certain things that you can do to shorten and smooth out the trajectory and get the goals that you want by using people that know their stuff and are willing and able to help you shorten that curve to get there, like your program. You can go out and try and get your own note. You probably get in a whole lot of trouble and end up in a lot of mess, but if you went through the coaching and training program, you’re going to learn the skills to make it a successful opportunity.

 

Who’s been a coach of yours that’s helped you out put this? I know we all got a variety.

I’ve had different coaches in different phases in my life. The greatest thing ever is to outgrow your coach. I’m all about that. I’ve had a young lady who was coaching financial money people. She got me to a certain point and I left her. I went to another girl. We did a lot of stuff together, but she was big, almost in the corporate based. I realized that wasn’t my gig so I pulled back from her. I’m all in with this little Mormon kid and I’ve got a little crush on him. He’s teaching me the internet and online marketing in a way that has been fabulous. I’m sure y’all have heard of him, or you ought to have been able to hear of Russell Brunson. I’m in his Two Comma Club. I’m striving for that million dollars in my new practice, or since 2017.

It is a process. It is a system. A lot of things have to align when you’re working with that coach. Do they understand? Do they speak your language? What is the result? It’s never about what are the five steps and how many hours do I have to do to get it. If I’m solving a problem for you and that problem is painful enough, you’re tired of drowning in your business, you want to take it to another level and do it and be efficient so you get your time back instead of working those hundred hours a week, then who cares how long it takes. If I solve your problem and it costs you $5,000 to work with me for a couple of months, but then yet it makes you $25,000, is that a trade-off? It doesn’t matter how long, what it is or what you have to do. If the problem is strong enough and there’s a solution in front of you, you reach for it.

A lot of people don’t realize that every great person out there has coaches. Business coaches, life coaches, health coaches and marketing coaches. You and I are both going through the Two CC stuff to upgrade our marketing and take things to a whole different level. It takes an investment of time and energy. To focus on your plan, you’ve got to get out of the office away from the distractions. That’s hard for a lot of people because they’re stuck at home in COVID and they’ve got the TV, the internet or their pets, the kids. Other spouses working from home together, they’ve never had to do that before. There’s a lot of uses that we can throw up there, but I like what you said about, “Get away, go out there.” I’m going to ask you one that you’ve used before, but also, you’ve got a bucket list, probably, a place you want to go and hang out and you use it as a write-off. What’s the place where you want Marcia?

As the US is still on lockdown, the only place we can go internationally is the Cabo area. They’ll accept dirty Americans. We can go down there. Airfare is not too bad. That’s a nice weekend away. In a weekend with some solid work and lots of alcohol, we could come up with a great strategy and plan.

If everything was open, where’s the place?

Most people are busy, it becomes, “What’s a close-by near town that you can go and spend two days or a weekend or three days together and create this thing?” For me, I’m in Southern California so I can pop out to Vegas, or I can go to Palm Springs or Santa Barbara. Those are all nice areas that have wine and entertainment. You can’t work on something straight for 24 hours. You’ve got to go, enjoy yourself, talk things through and relax a bit, then those pieces all line up. Anywhere, even if it is to a local golf club for an afternoon in a private room, a lunch and a bottle of wine.

We’ve done events at different vineyards before. It is nice to get away from the stress, unwind, surround yourself with like-minded people, your team get a chance to do that, or get your coaches to come together and other people that help you plan that out there for you.

Masterminds are wonderful, especially if the group that is coming together has a similar situation. They’re all note closers or they’re all small business owners that are doing this or they’re all CEOs. You got to find the right minds of people that you can share with. I like to be in the middle. Someone always used to say, “You don’t want to be the smartest one in the room, but you also don’t want to be the dumbest one in the room.” I like to be able to give what people give back to me. For me, it becomes that in between, because as you teach you learn, and as you learn you can share and serve with others.

That’s a big thing, being in the middle and being able to take and give both. You don’t want to take and take. People can see that. You got to give too, but you want to be able to level up to as a mastermind. You can surround yourself with that. That’s the thing too is you want to grow to a different level. You’ve got to have your mind grow into that. If you’re making $100,000, and you want to grow it into $1 million, you’re going to upgrade that mindset to a $1 million mindset.

I am happy when my clients outgrow me. That means they succeeded. My niche is between that $100,000 and $1 million in profitability for the small business owner. It works with the note players as well. That’s my sweet spot. When they make $1 million, let’s have a party. Go, shake your hand. Move onto the next one, because you rock. That’s rewarding. It’s like your kid graduates.

That’s always a beautiful thing when people are doing big things and growing up. That’s always the most rewarding thing I get. When I get emails or messages from people, “I closed my first deal.” I’m like, “Not at once, now you can go do it 100 times.”

Back to profitability, when you’re making a lot of money in your business, there are huge tax advantages to buying notes. When I first got into this business, I started talking about all the sexy stuff when they were already profitable of, “Here are some tax strategies you can do. Here are some businesses you can buy. Here are some notes you could buy. You could be a lender. You can get into these avenues here to offset your taxes so you’re buying mini businesses.” When I pulled back their curtain and opened their jacket, I found that they were a mess and didn’t have the plan. That’s why I started going back to the planning.

I have two phases of my business. The functional planning stuff to get you profitable and then when you are profitable, I’ve got some sexy strategies for that. This is closing notes, buying notes. That’s a sexy strategy with some terrific growth opportunity. There is a little bit of risk like anything, but probably less risk than buying the S&P 500. It’s a fabulous opportunity for those that have some money that wants to make money to make a nice return. It’s a piece, not all of your investments. There goes my certified financial planner conversation coming in.

Let’s talk about your note piece of your pie a little bit. What states are you loving? What’s your focus for the most part?

You can’t buy in California, which is sad. It’s a mess and the pricing’s wrong. Anybody that gets in here, they gobble it up. As an entry-level note person, it’s probably a little richer for me. I’m buying in the Midwest, Indiana, Chicago and Ohio. I’m staying away from the southern states that get hit by all the tornadoes. I’m going with nonjudicial states so I can get through the process faster. I’m looking at nonconforming because I get it. I’ll try and make them conforming, but they’re going to have to pay and get it current. I’m not going to play a game with them. I don’t want to throw out a woman and her babies. I like investors.

The deal that I’m moving on is a duplex in New Hampshire. It’s an older guy. He’s an investor. He has a bunch of different properties. The house is rented. It’s two units and I got it at a steal. We had some issues in transferring the documents over, but that’s all been finalized. It’s going to have a sweet return on it when it’s all said and done. I’m in with the attorney and the time and all. I’ll send down, I’ll be in about $20,000 and we’re going to get about $120,000 out of it.

That’s not every day. I would be happy if I put $20,000 in and got $50,000, $60,000 out of it. That’s still better than I can get anywhere else in 1 or 1.5 years. How many exit strategies do you create? More than 2 or 3. You finance them out, so you know what the numbers are and different exit strategies. Do I hold it? Do I sell it? Do I rent it? Do I sell the note again? What are my options? If you know your exit, you’re going to be okay. You know that there’s a couple of doors you can open to get out of that. In the worst-case scenario, I get all my money back, plus juice and I go on the next one. For me, it wasn’t one of those kinds of situations where I could have lost money.

You did your due diligence. You’ve got people helping you to take it down, to foreclose. You got the servicing. You’re taking care of it. You pick the phone. It put you in the right direction when you’re dealing especially. That’s the beauty of it. That’s why I look at people. Many people had 6 to 9 months of sitting at home. I’m like, “If you’re not taking action, if you’re not planning for next year to be your best year ever, what are you waiting for?” There’s a lot of opportunity, business-wise. It’s not going to matter who won the election, one way or another. It has zero to do with your business for the most part.

Depending on volatility in the market makes real estate better. Even if it is crazy and you don’t know which way it’s going to be, someone always needs to have a home, a place to cover their head. It’s not going anywhere. If the place burned down, you still got an insurance policy. It’s hard to see the downside of anything, except for potentially kicking out a mom and her babies. It’s a fun world to be in. Opportunity only comes to those that are prepared to accept it.

You’ve got a book out too. Let’s talk a little about that.

I do. My book is Big Profit Secrets – Exposed. This is some of the sexy stuff that you can do and a bit of the planning. I wrote that in 2019. It’s a sit-down, about 140 pages. It’s an easy read and some stories. It’s meant to get the juices flowing. There’s no reason why you should be continuing on with an old worn-out way of doing things. Try something new like notes. If you weren’t exposed to them, you wouldn’t know. There are all these opportunities. Look for opportunities.

It’s the same thing on the marketing side. Add something new. It’s the 21st century. The whole idea of sending out millions or thousands of postcards or yellow letters and spend all that money to get a low hit rate. There’s a lot better return on investment for marketing-wise these days.

It’s an opportunity to reach one too many. My podcasts, PROFIT With A Plan, you’re sharing wisdom in a way to be attractive to your ideal client. By sharing this information, it’s one more platform of marketing. Coming on your show, I get to educate. We travel in a similar circle, that’s nice. We had a common interest and it gives me an opportunity to showcase my genius and possibly help and introduce to somebody who wouldn’t have seen me before.

Marcia, what’s the best way for our readers connect with you, find out more what you’re doing and connect with you?

I’m Marcia Riner on any of the social platforms. I got a great little survive and thrive tips on things that you can do in your business and your life to get a grasp on things, refresh and tighten up a bit. It’s six valuable tips. If you go to FailProofBiz.com, you can pick up my free report there. I’m rolling into little courses along the way that you can get in and start building your own plan. There’s no reason why you have to go home and try and figure it all out yourself. There’s a cost-effective and simple way of doing it with help. That’s where it goes.

If you’re struggling, pick up the phone and call. Don’t struggle in silence. Don’t make 2021 a repeat failure of 2020 or 2019 or 2018. If you’ve been struggling, it is time to reach out to an expert and somebody who can help either kick your butt or give you a little gentle push in the right direction and help you guide along the way. Marcia has done that. That’s why I wanted to bring her here because as we get to the end of 2020, it’s so important for you to put that plan in place and follow her five steps to a profit plan. Take advantage or reach out to her, reach out to her and connect. Listen to her podcast. We will see you all at the top when you do take action.

Thanks.

Important Links:

• PROFIT With A Plan
• Two Comma Club
• Big Profit Secrets – Exposed
• Marcia Riner – Facebook
• Trajectory Consulting
• FailProofBiz.com
• http://Bit.ly/BigProfitSecrets
• http://www.TrajectoryBiz.com
• Marcia@TrajectoryBiz.com

About Marcia Riner

Marcia has helped tons of entrepreneurs to set up a tangible plan that guarantees sustainable profitability & directs their growth. Her clients know EXACTLY what they need to be doing to grow their profits in as little as 87 days. She works closely to develop quick-action strategies that are clearly laid out in a simple to follow plan.

With the current business environment, she says it’s even more important to have & to follow a well-designed business plan so that your business will not only survive but thrive.

Marcia is a Business Strategist with her company Trajectory Consulting and has over 22 years of hands-on experience as an Entrepreneur. She is an author, podcast host, certified financial planner, has a degree in Business and Finance that comes from a family of business owners. Her experiences have created a unique way of driving bigger business profits.

Marcia enjoys being active. She plays ice hockey & rides her Harley when she’s not babysitting her adorable grandson, Liam.

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