Getting into the real estate business can be difficult. Not only can it be difficult, but it can also be overly serious and unfun when you think of all the numbers involved! But for Shaunn Jones and Will Rodriguez, the real estate business is their playground. Shaunn and Will are managing partners of Quoterage Inc. and the creators of their own YouTube channel and podcast called Cash Flow Generation. Join your host, Scott Carson, as he talks to business partners and rockstar investors, Shaunn and Will, about their path as note investors and how they are making a change for themselves, their families, and their communities through note investing. Find out how they use their social media expertise, especially in LinkedIn, to teach others how to create generational wealth through real estate investing.

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Creating Generational Wealth And Taking Control Of Your Financial Destiny Using Notes With William Rodriguez And Shaunn Jones

I got a couple of guys that are flat out of hustling and doing some amazing stuff out there. You may have seen some of their Instagram Reels or IGTV stuff, or the videos they’re posting up on LinkedIn. When I see somebody who knows marketing and spends time in the note business I get excited like a little kid at Christmas. We’re honored to have a couple of rockstar investors out of San Diego, my second city, specializing in the note space. They’re also the creators of a YouTube channel and podcast called Cash Flow Generation. You’ll want to check it out. Their mission is to help people build generational wealth through real estate. We’re honored to have Shaunn and Will joining us in this episode. What’s going on? You guys doing all right?

We’re doing good. Thanks for having us.

Are your guys working together or how did you guys get to where you’re at now? Shaunn let’s start first with you.

 

I started in real estate in general as a real estate agent. My mentor, which is one of your former students, Desi Arnaz. He was the one that was mentored me in the real estate space and now mentoring me in the note space. He was a previous client of mine. I used to work for a communications company. He was one of my clients that I helped set up some cellular service for. That’s how I met him and I started talking to him about real estate. He loves talking about real estate. I love real estate. That’s how I got into real estate. After becoming a real estate agent, he started telling me about notes and being the bank. As soon as I heard being the bank, I’m like, “What?”

That’s always an exciting thing when you hear that. There are so many agents and many of them are so stuck inside the box. They don’t understand the concept of creative financing. “It’s not a bank loan or owner financing. Notes? What’s that,” when it’s been around for decades. That’s an unfortunate thing. Desi is one of those few realtors who found that valuable and is spreading the word out there for you in a variety of things, especially in San Diego. That’s a beautiful thing. You get into it and you start buying notes. You start working through some deals. What’s the concept there?

I bought a couple of notes and started working through some deals, looking at different deals, analyzing deals, him showing me the calculations, things like that. I was like, “This is awesome. You can get the same returns as flipping a house or being a landlord, but I don’t have to deal with all of that.” I’m like, “This is awesome.”

“You mean I can make more than my 3% commission?” It’s all about the dollar bills. Will, tell us about your journey. How did you get where you’re at now?

I have an intensive background in the transportation industry. I worked with a Fortune 500 company, helping with factoring another way of finance. Lines of credit and getting them paid after they deliver the load. I was doing it for a period of time afterward, I started helping government contracts and contractors with similar stuff. I connected with Shaunn during the Toastmasters event. We both went to the same church and we started hanging out. He started talking to me about notes and real estate. I’m like, “My mentor texted me and telling me to get into real estate, but I didn’t want to sell houses.” That’s not my thing. I’m more of a people guy.

We started talking shop and he introduced me to Desi and exposed me to notes and I’m like, “This is a good place to be at.” I pretty much quit my job that was secured and the job that I liked because I had five telemarketers calling and then sending me leads. I pretty much had a big influence in that company but I realized that at the end of the day, I needed to start building wealth for myself, not building somebody else’s. That’s why I quit my job and I’ve been on the journey with Shaunn. It’s been exciting.

You guys found out you went to the same church but didn’t know each other at the Toastmasters. Shaunn, were you already starting to talk about note investing and real estate investing at the Toastmasters? Why did you sign up for Toastmasters? Is it to get better at speaking or what?

That’s what I initially signed up to. To get better at public speaking because I know in general, as far as being in real estate, you have to talk to people and you’re going to have to get in front of people. That’s something I wanted to get more comfortable with, getting in front of larger crowds of people and things like that, so I joined Toastmasters. I met Will there and Will’s like, “What do you do?” I started talking about real estate.

When you said real estate, “You’re just a realtor. It doesn’t excite me. I don’t want to go out showing houses and have open houses and carting women or men around who are going to change their minds twenty times.”

When I thought about real estate, that’s the only thing I’ve thought about. Being a broker or being a realtor, selling houses, that’s all my mind went to because I’ve never been in this industry. I was more in the transportation industry stuff.

That’s a big jump. A different aspect of things, but also a big learning curve trying to figure everything out and learn everything on the front. Also, I think it’s a benefit for you because you don’t have a lot of these preconceived notions or bad habits of what can or can’t happen.

My mentor, which is Owen Video, took me under his wing, started telling me, “Start reading books or doing this.” He pushed me and he laid most of the foundation that I have now. The attitude that I have going in anywhere is, “God called me to be a leader. How’s that going to look like?” “I want to impact my communities. How does that look like?” In my mind, it’s almost like I have a big vision and I’m taking my self-disciplines to get there. I have a no-excuses mentality.

Every great journey starts with the first steps. That’s the biggest thing. A lot of people don’t have the patience these days. They want overnight success. They want to go viral. “What’s the least I have to do to find success?” That doesn’t work. Those things don’t add up. It’s the learning curve. It’s being mentored by people, local or other things to help you read your mind and podcasts or books, stuff like that to start taking that next turn which is awesome. Kudos to you.

You decided to do this note business thing. You guys partner up. What’s been the focus of your investment? It’s probably a mixture of real estate and notes. If you’re in San Diego, you probably have a little bit of that, but let’s talk about when you guys were sitting down and say, “Let’s partner up.” What’s been your focus? If you were to look at, “Here’s what we focus on for our real estate business.” What are the assets you guys are looking for?

The main assets we look at are of course residential, small commercial, and multifamily because I’ve always liked multifamily. Talking to Will about it and him starting to understand that it’s like, “Being on the notes side and multifamily, that’s the best of both worlds.” That’s where our focus is right now. His mentor, which I’ve met is Owen Video. That’s how we started doing a lot of videos.

When I originally connected with him, he’s like, “Start reading this book and by the way, I want you to do a video for 30 days, one minute long, starting tomorrow. Go.” I’m like, “I don’t do video.” He’s like, “That’s your problem.”

That’s everybody’s problem for the most part.

That’s how I started doing videos and then obviously when we connected, I was like, “Let’s make some videos. That’s what I know.”

I’m like, “I don’t do video.” He was like, “We’re going to do video now.”

For those that are reading out there, you’ve got to start somewhere. I bet the first couple of videos, you cringe looking at them because you’ve probably gotten so much better, but that’s where you see the most amount of improvement. Just throw up a smartphone or an iPhone and start shooting a little bit. It’s so much easier than it used to be. You guys have put a lot of production value into your videos and it’s the conversations that I’ve thought about. What have you guys started to see coming from that?

We’re shooting videos from YouTube is we’re getting some connections there, which is great, then we go on to LinkedIn. Those are the two platforms that I want to focus on because that’s ideally where I wanted to improve on because LinkedIn is where a lot of the money is at. Facebook and Instagram, I looked at it more because I have a lot of friends on both platforms and I’m very vocal about other stuff. They’re already following me and I already built my person there. Anything that I post about business, they don’t take me that seriously because I never posted business stuff, more personal stuff. Now I figured I could start fresh on LinkedIn and on YouTube. From LinkedIn alone, we’re purposing our YouTube videos, making 5, 6 square videos from one video and then we’re getting connections with multifamily people and potential investors. You name it. They’re engaging in our platform, which is great. We’ve been having some great connections, great conversations and even helping other entrepreneurs.

That’s a beautiful thing if you can help educate. You come from a servant leadership mindset, which you guys both have, obviously.

It’s John Maxwell, one, one, one.

John’s a great guy. A lot of people don’t realize that because it’s like, “How is this video going to get me a million views?” You don’t need a million views in the words of Gary Vaynerchuk. If you have one viewer you impact, especially on LinkedIn, it’s not the same thing as Fakebook or you guys popping and locking on TikTok. You mentioned something. If you’re spending the time, YouTube is your 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, basically advertising for you, if you know how to set that up. LinkedIn, obviously, that’s where the decision-makers are at. That’s where the moneymakers are at. They’re not on Facebook channels complaining about the election or COVID.

That’s what my mentor drilled me. He’s like, “Facebook and Instagram, you have to capture people’s attention.” Similar to LinkedIn, but they want to be entertained, so they have the scrolling attitude. On YouTube, people stop and then turn their phones to watch that 20, 30-minute video. He’s pushing us to make videos that are over ten minutes, but we want to keep it short and sweet because we don’t want to say too much. That’s our challenge right now. Trying to do longer videos but keep people’s attention in. I get it, finance is not very attractive. Especially note investing.

 

If you’re reading this, you can feel the yin and the yang with these two. Shaunn, when you come in like, “I’ll talk but I don’t want to do video.” How have you overcome nervousness or not wanting to embrace that? I’m not saying you have embraced it now, but how do you overcome it for those out there that are maybe struggling? Will’s like, “Just put me in front of the camera, I’m rocking and rolling. I’ll be a show pony.” A lot of people are like, “I don’t want to be in front of the camera.” Can you talk about how you overcame some of the inner self-doubt?

For me, this is something that Desi has been hammering into me for over a year like, “Do video.” Now, Will’s like, “Go ahead and jump in. Just do it.” He was like, “Don’t pay attention to the camera. Act like the camera’s not even there and talk. You have the information. You know what you’re talking about. Let’s just talk.” The first time, I’m going, to be honest, we used a teleprompter to get through it. After a while, it’s like, “Let’s just go. Turn on the camera. Let’s hit it.”

You guys are both educated, smart, and intelligent people and you can go any way you want to go with it. That is the whole point. People are like, “I got to know everything.” No, we’re going to talk about what you know already. The video is you two guys talking about a specific topic back and forth. It is very conversational than the last people do.

One thing that I want to say is that it’s very important to align yourself and be close with somebody that’s trying to get you to the next level. I’m not going to say accountability, but even partner up and committing that time with another person so you both could advance. Part of scaling a business is influencing people. Getting people under your wing like John Maxwell talks about. Building them up and then as you build them up, you building yourself up, too. You’re all growing. That’s part of the mindset here. Even though we have one intern and one production guy, we try to do the same thing to them. “How can I help you? What is your goal?” I know that this is maybe not long-term but how can I help you with your skills and advance that? How can I connect you with people that I know? That’s the same character that’s carried throughout our companies.

The rising tide raises all ships and how you can help influence everybody. Make your staff more marketable. It’s a win-win and let’s say you’ve invested like, “I want you to do well,” in an age where people are very cutthroat. Let’s face it, most real estate investors, realtors, mortgage brokers, wholesalers, fix and flippers, and you’re in San Diego, they slice your grandmother’s throat for a four cap. It gets crazy out there. The note space is different. That’s the thing, it’s conversations and answering questions. It’s a great way to answer that same question a thousand times with one take versus having to do it yourself individually. What views and responsiveness, maybe how many people have connected with you on LinkedIn? What’s the number behind the video side of things?

We put a link and square video together. We get a lot of engagements, and from that we message. From that, maybe two conversations for every post that we make. It’s solid conversations like, “How can I connect with you? I’m looking forward to investing or I’m going to watch for a little bit because I know you’re out there. I know you’re serious about it. I want to vet you a little bit more before I give you the green light.”

That’s the biggest thing with videos. When somebody reaches out, it’s not easily day one, it’s day 30, day 90, day 180 because they’ve been following you to see if you’re consistent enough. I think a lot of people don’t follow through with the consistency of posting on a regular basis and staying top of mind. That’s one of the things I love. You’re taking these short videos, which I can be like, “That was a longer conversation they sliced and diced up and replicated it in a couple of different ways,” which was beautiful stuff.

With your guys being located in one of the most, as I say, Garden of Eden, in San Diego, for the most part, although you have a governor who’s from hell. With your note business, let’s dive in a little bit. Do you have any plans as you’re doing case study videos on specific properties? Have you started targeting and talking about different markets trying to attract investors or deals with those areas, or is that on the horizon?

Honestly, we’ve spent a little bit of a time trying to connect with more asset managers and bank asset managers to try to locate more deals. In our business, there are two things we need. It’s deals and money, all the time. It’s been a little bit difficult finding more real deals because there are people out there who are paying more than what they should be paying for these things. That’s where we’re running into some challenges but we’re still digging. We talk to Desi at least once a week and still do a little strategy session with him and we’re trying to connect the two dots.

The low-hanging fruit, the websites that are out there, those are so overpriced. For most of those investors, it’s a lack of marketing. They’re relying solely on those places. You mentioned you’re reaching out to banks actively. One thing that we found worked well was when we sent an invite, we included a short two-minute pitch video about our company or what we were doing, and that worked well. It’s an easy thing for you guys to do through Octopus or through LinkedIn. It’s taking a minute to say, “Here’s what our company’s about versus the education side.” That works well. If you switch it to a private video or an unlisted video, you can see how many asset managers have seen it. The thing is you stand out from the crowd because you’re doing something more than highlights connect.

I like doing voice messages. It throws people off guard and they respond through texts and I still do another voice. They’re like, “Let’s get in a call. I’m responding to you because of the voice message.” I’m like, “Thank you. It sounds good.”

That’s a little step most people won’t do. A voice message or a text message saying, “Hi.” I like to do short little videos and send them over to people to watch and that throws them off. Let’s dive into a little bit of this because the business that you guys have been doing, you’re doing a great job at marketing it. You’re breaking it down and talking with asset managers about stuff there. What are your plans with your marketing? Don’t give away the golden goose juice, but with what you’ve seen so far with the results, what’s your process? I’m sure you’ve planned out a big chunk of the next 90 days or so. What’s your focus for that?

In the marketing piece, we could always do more. We’re looking to either hire or outsource more of the stuff that we’re trying to focus on because we’re trying to be more engaging on LinkedIn. My goal is to post about five-plus times a day on LinkedIn alone to bring that engagement. I want to make sure it’s real engagement and not like, “Here’s a post.” We are trying to make sure that if we put stuff out there that everything that we put out there’s going to be good. Outsourcing that stuff maybe a little bit difficult. My goal right now is to recruit people that I know are skilled, but I’m trying to influence them to come under me so I could teach them some stuff. I have a guy that went viral on TikTok. He has four million views. He is a great and humble guy. We’re going to meet up with him and talk about marketing. I’m going to bring something else to the table for him but he still could keep on doing his TikTok stuff. Our plan is to build up people and to do more YouTube videos and webinars. We’re launching our podcast, so our marketing plan is intense.

Shaunn, besides the marketing side, we talked about assets and stuff like that. As you’re launching and doing things, we all have financial goals. Have you guys have talked about what goals you’re looking for? Are you looking for re-performing? Are you looking for notes that you can take back and foreclose and get bigger checks? A mixture of the two? What’s been your goals for that?

We’re looking at a mixture of the two as far as non-performing and performing. Just building up a portfolio on performing so that consistent check comes in and grab the non-performing to make those bigger checks come in at times. With non-performing, our biggest thing is trying to get people back on track, if we can. Our secondary option is foreclosing. Our primary option is trying to get people back on track and we know there’s going to be a lot of it. It’s already on the horizon. We can see it coming. Right now, is the calm before the storm and we know that. That’s what we see that we’re going to be able to help a lot of people stay in their homes and in some cases, at least, that way they can walk away with dignity and maybe get into a home later on down the line. That’s our goal.

Twenty-four months to get a new mortgage is better than seven years in foreclosure. Are you buying stuff in San Diego or are you buying mostly elsewhere?

Outside of San Diego, California where it’s so expensive, even though we are negotiating a note on multifamily in LA, it’s not going well because the bank was asking too much, but we will see if we can come off the ledge.

Give them two weeks and then counter it back and say, “If you can close by a year in.” I’ve always found that being a good end-of-the-year tip. We can close by December 27th, not the first of the year, which often helps things. Looking at other places though, predominantly.

Primary, Southeast to Midwest, we see that we can get a lot of better deals. Our money can stretch in those areas overall.

Let’s talk about the money side of raising capital. You guys are in the land of milk and honey when it comes to a lot of investors having fun. Last time I checked, there are 59,000 people with an IRA in the San Diego County area and 70% of them have over $150,000. How are you guys approaching that on the raising capital side? Are you networking their local if you can network? Are you talking to people at churches? The videos are part of that to get the word out, but how’s the capital raising coming for you?

We have been connecting with a few custodians that have reached out to us because of one of our videos and the things that we’re doing. We’re going to be on a couple of platforms coming up soon.

Everybody, they’re out here sharing their valuable information. Self-directed IRA custodians or retirement companies are reaching out to them to share their message to their clients.

Some guy was like, “Put together a seven-minute video. We’re going to promote you guys on our page for a month or something like that.” I’m like, “Okay.”

There are so many vendors and they are a great way to leverage in raising capital. Any type of vendor in the real estate, the note investing space, or finance space, self-directed IRA investors, servicing companies, BPO companies, realtors, investors, especially on the commercial side. If you guys are talking about some commercial deals, talk to commercial realtors as a potential option because that’s the biggest opportunity. We’re going to see first and foremost in the next few days, it’s more commercial debt versus your single-family and residential stuff, as they continue to kick the can down 2021.

 

You talking about 401(k) holders, people who have retirement accounts, the calculation in the nation is about $11 trillion. That’s huge.

That’s another thing too, that most people don’t know is that if they have a traditional 401(k), there’s new legislation that’s come out that they can take a big chunk of what’s in their 401(k) and move that into a self-directed IRA custodian to invest with outside of their 401(k). This will be based on their contributions. It’s not going to be on stock price or any matching stuff like that. Still, that could be a sizable amount that’s sitting out there that people need to know about. You guys are doing a great job in educating people when it comes to that.

We’re trying. That’s our goal. Most people, the money that they have in their 401(k), if they’re relying on that to grow, they will not have enough money to retire.

That’s the beautiful thing that I love about notes. In the ex-financial advisor in me years ago, you can see banks do such a great job in brainwashing individuals in America. “If you want to retire at 65 and you’re going to make 8% on the frontend, but you want to retire and make 4%, you need to have $8 million saved.” That’s depressing right off the bat because that seems like such an enormous amount but you said something I want to make sure we bring up and reiterate. Shaunn, you talked about the idea of taking down performing notes to bring in the capital, cover the bills, and cover the expenses basically on autopilot.

If you had $5 million in the bank and you need to make 6% on that, which $30,000 a year roughly, how many performing notes at $500 a month do you need to have for that? Think about that. It’s reverse engineering that retirement goals are what I’m trying to get at. You don’t need $4 million in the bank. You need 20 performing notes or you need 30 performing notes to build that residual income on a regular basis so you can technically retire at 35 versus death-five.

That’s a big thing so many people don’t realize. Here in the note space, this is the one thing I found when I was talking with people as an ex-banker is when you start approaching people telling them they can make 8% to 12% on their money, they listen to that banker. “That’s got to be a risk. Are you in the cannabis industry? What are you doing?” That’s another thing in California that you don’t have in other places. Tapping in the cannabis and performing notes. I had a bank approach me that had a loan on a cannabis grow house and then a distribution center they wanted to get off their books. I was like, “I don’t know if I want to get into that yet but we’ll see how it goes.” There’s so much stuff on the West Coast, it’s different from other parts of the United States. They have an opportunity for people with making money that they need and need a place to put it. Do you guys have family or kids or is it you two wild and crazy guys buying notes?

I’ve been married for years. I have a daughter. I was born and raised in Oceanside. I’m still here. It’s pretty much where my roots are but I’m looking to move out of state again. We’ll see how that goes.

It’s me and my wife. She grew up here in San Diego, that’s why I’m here. I grew up in Los Angeles County. We’re trying to grow this business and we’re thinking about moving outside of California like a lot of us, for business especially.

You got a little one. If you started looking at like ESAs, Educational Savings Accounts, or talking about that with people. Self-directing ESAs is one of the nice things. We’ve got a client of ours that’s taken 5 to 10 of their friends that they’ve put in ESAs and they’re funding their kids’ education as a group. Going in $10,000 on a deal together, split them up, and do some stuff like that for you. Oftentimes those smaller amounts, you have to be careful about the people you’re borrowing that money from, but it’s still an opportunity to put some things to work and help the people grow on that stuff there.

If you got kids, then that’s an easy transition and doing that stuff there for you. Even in churches too, a lot of churches are looking for stuff. I got to tell you a funny story. Years ago, when I first started off, I was in Pittsburgh. I was working with an investor out in Pittsburgh and the guy calls me up as we’re coaching one another there for four days. He’s like, “We’re going to go meet with my pastor.” I’m like, “Great.” We go to this triplex and then we meet the minister there. He’s 7-foot tall. I was like, “Are you a minister? Are you a defensive end for the Steelers?” He goes, “We have gifted this property and I’m not in the real estate space. Would you buy it so that we can convert that property into funds?” Churches are a big thing that’s why I’m bringing them up. A lot of times, churches are given property they can’t do anything with. We go and knock up. We opened the door. We go to the first floor. It was a central area with rooms off the side of it. “Realtors and investors here, don’t shoot us.”

There were drugs and other things going on in the neighborhoods and we hear rustling up on the floor above. We go up the second floor, peeking around the corner. There is nothing there. Somebody had some cans, then suddenly there’s rustling on the third floor. I go up to the third floor and there are these four rooms off of it, and there’s this noise coming from the main room. This big minister guy walked over. His thighs were as big as my circumference.

He goes over and he tries to door and it’s locked, but you hear a commotion going on there, so he kicks the door open and it almost comes off the hinges. It flies up and inside of that are two homeless people high as a kite, jaybird naked, going at it. We’re laughing and they don’t care. They crawl out the window and my investors like, “Oh my God.” Without a beat, the minister goes, “You want to buy the place or what? Come on.” My investor ended up buying that property. He converted it. He got it through a steal deal and made a lot of money on it. You see things like that. I think there’s a big untapped thing with churches.

There are a lot of places that you’re getting the out and things like that. You guys are doing such a great job with the videos and sharing and documenting your journey. You set some big goals. You’re leveraging other professionals to help you do that, instead of you spending time there. You’ve got your goals to cover your bases. I want to put this out there because so many people are reading who are scared to pull the trigger to leave their job like you did William. What was the conversation with your wife that night when he came home like, “I think I’m going to leave the job to go hang with Shaunn 24 hours a day?”

My wife is like, “It makes sense. Do it.” Just like that. It’s because she knew the frustration I had. I read a book called Who Moved My Cheese.

That’s a great one.

In that book, I realized that everywhere I’ve been, I’m the type of person that’s always showing up and I’m trying to see how I can get a raise, a promotion, and scale-up, but I always found that was putting me in a box. It’s like, “That’s great that you want to do that but here’s your box.” I’m like, “No, I’m trying to do more.” “No, you don’t get paid for that and I don’t want you to do that either. Here you go, stay in the box.” The last job that I had was, in a sense my dream job, because I was helping government contractors with a lot of stuff. I spend my time looking at Black Hawks and tactical training.

I’m reaching out to these folks to having meetings and when I connected with Shaunn, that’s what was hard for me to quit because I’m like I have security. The main, the CEO, the VP, everyone loved me. They wanted to do stuff together with me to do more outreach on the marketing side. I’m big on networking, connections and going to conferences. They’re like, “Please, don’t leave. We got a spot for you,” but for me, I’m like, “I need to be in a place where I could start my own thing, scale up and have no boundaries. Not be limited.”

For me, it made sense because going back to my mentor, he’s like, “Why don’t you have your own business?” I’m like, “Having a business on what? What do I do?” He’s like, “You’re so skilled, go do real estate,” but he’s not in real estate. He’s more on the video side of it, but he’s like, “You need to start your own thing.” I realize after reading that book, Who Moved My Cheese, that everywhere I went, the compensation is always going to change. I’m always going to either get laid off or something’s always going to happen. I’m never going to have full control of it even if it’s a secure job.

That’s a big thing too. At the end of the year, you work your butt off to maybe get a 4% increase in pay for a lot of times. That was always what’s frustrating to me. I could be number one and the guy next to me didn’t do half of what I did and he got the same raise. I’m like, “Why am I doing this when somebody else is going to control my growth?” You guys both have found real estate and notes, commercial, whatever it might be to help you grab your cheese versus letting somebody else move it.

My biggest advice for people that are stuck in that place of like, “I don’t want to quit my job because this is security.” The reward is way bigger than the security. Just because that holds us back where it’s like, “I’m always going to have this.” What if we don’t have that in 5, 10 years, or prior to your retiring or whatever the case? Here, you could start not only collecting good money but start helping other people. Your communities, other business professionals and churches because we have a big vision and the business side is 1/3 of it.

I’m so glad you said that. I think back to conversations and when you think about so many people, they fall into that fear of scarcity. “I don’t have much. I can’t raise capital. Who’s going to lend me money?” Leaving a job where I’m getting a steady paycheck, I’ll take that cheese, but you’re going to confine me to the trap.

We’re going against the grain because Shaunn’s black, I’m Latino and you can’t get worse than that.

Mortgage notes are colorblind. That’s the thing I look at it.

People think that only white people are doing it and black people and Latinos don’t have a shot. They’re not going to be able to influence or persuade any investor. None of that. That’s the mentality a lot of people have.

It’s the lie that we’ve been fed. That’s one of our biggest goals. It’s for our community to help people understand, “You can do this. This is someone else. Stop letting someone tell you that because of who you are, you can’t be successful.”

We live in such a financially uneducated society economy. When you look at school districts and things like that, it’s no longer about acceleration. It’s like, “What’s the base floor that we can get everybody to pass,” and kick it down the road and let them get out there. They’re unprepared. They do not understand it. Wealth and financial literacy aren’t taught by your parents because they weren’t taught it. My parents were entrepreneurs but we struggled and things like that. All the things I learned were because I went and bought a book. I had to read it and I started feeding my mind and sharing the same things with friends and family.

What book was it?

Rich Dad Poor Dad was the first one. I’m very blessed I’ve met Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter who’s the co-author is a friend of mine. She is absolutely amazing. She’s out of Arizona and has such a huge drive for helping people to gain financial literacy out there. If you ever get a chance to read, Think and Grow Rich, Three Feet From Gold, which is written by Greg Reid who lives in La Jolla, not too far from you guys there in the Diego area. Also, Outwitting the Devil, I think it’s one of the most valuable books that you could read out there because it talks about mindset. You guys, obviously, are very strong mentally. You’re faith-based, which is great. You believe in what God has set out for us all. We plan and God laughs, but we’re all meant for bigger and better things out there than what he puts us in there.

The thing is, I love what’s going on with what you guys are doing in the market, you’re doing great stuff. You’re showing it how to be done. You’re two normal guys. You’re saying, “I’m a Latino, I’m a black guy.” We’re having fun doing this. We’re not only making differences in our lives in our families but the communities that we ended up helping by buying the notes or negotiating, trying to keep people in their houses when we can. Obviously, it’s always our first. That’s the beautiful thing. You guys have such a great untapped market for a couple of reasons. Both the Hispanic and the black people have a very tight-knit family model.

I remember being a banker in a bank here in Austin, Texas downtown, which is 90% of the clientele was Hispanic or Spanish speaking. When you reach out to them to share knowledge and share trustworthy stuff, and they realize you’re trying to help them, the waves of people coming in and you can help support. People will stock money in their mattresses. Some will take care of their house, they paid for their house first. I’ll have 2, 3 families which are great, but they’re saving money. They got cash to put something to work. It’s such an opportunity for you guys to put that money to work in and help them out.

They got that insurance protection issued too. As soon as you start helping someone, they spread the word like wildfire. I’m right there with you.

What’s the best way for our audience to follow up with what you guys are doing or connect with you if they’re looking to find more information or connect with you there locally or internationally?

Check out our YouTube channel Cash Flow Generation. Our website is SWCashflowGen.com. Look us up on our podcast. Check us on LinkedIn. It’s the biggest place you can connect with us. We love connecting with people there especially. Follow us there. You know our names. We’re not using any aliases there.

You guys are doing a great job. You’re normal guys. Everybody’s pretty normal in the note space for the most part because you have those conversations. You guys have a great background. You’ve got a good solid foundation. I’m really excited at what the future holds for you two and your families and communities and stuff like that. We may need to have you back on at a later date. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Understand what they’re saying. You guys and gals out there in Note Nation, you learned some nuggets on here of getting started in 30 days of short videos or leveraging LinkedIn and YouTube where people are. Get off the negative time-suck and black hole that Facebook can be for you and start sharing. You heard them both. They’ve got goals. They’ve got dreams and are focused on things. If you’re waiting to start something, get out there and do it. You don’t have to go cold turkey, quit your job overnight, but start building a plan of action.

Talk with your family, talk with your friends and leverage. Find somebody and that’s one of the most important things that these two guys did not share, but a little bit is that they’re accountable to each other. At the end of the day, many of us will give up on our goals because we don’t have anyone to be accountable for. If you’ve got somebody there who’s a friend and a family who’s not afraid to hold your feet to the fire or give you shit if you don’t come through on it, an accountability partner is one of the most valuable things to find success. Also, finding mentors. They talked about their mentors and how important that is and helping them get off in rock and roll. We encourage you guys to go out, take some action and we look forward to seeing you all at the top. Bye.

Important Links:

• YouTube – Cash Flow Generation
• Cash Flow Generation – Apple Podcasts
• Who Moved My Cheese
• Rich Dad Poor Dad
• Think and Grow Rich
• Three Feet From Gold
• Outwitting the Devil
• SWCashflowGen.com
• Shaunn Jones – LinkedIn
• Will Rodriguez – LinkedIn

About Shaunn Jones and William Rodriguez

Shaunn & Will are real estate investors out of San San Diego, CA., specializing in the Mortgage Note space. They are also the authors and creators of the YouTube channel and podcast CASH FLOW GENERATION.

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

• WeCloseNotes.com
• The Note Closers Show Facebook
• The Note Closers Show Twitter
• Scott Carson LinkedIn
• The Note Closers Show YouTube
• The Note Closers Show Vimeo
• The Note Closers Show Instagram
• We Close Notes Pinterest