Episode 091 – Terry Hale
Welcome to another episode of The HERO Show. I am your host Richard Matthews, (@AKATheAlchemist) and you are listening to Episode 091 with Terry Hale – Commercial Real Estate Investment and Coaching Simplified.
Terry Hale is the CEO of a private commercial real estate firm, he’s also an active investor and coach. His company is focused on strategic direct and joint venture investments for longterm capital gains.
He has 35 years of experience in commercial investments utilizing non-conventional methods that allow for “limited partnership to build a portfolio of equity and cash flow.”
Here’s just a taste of what we talked about today:
- Terry shares his six steps to his business model. Time to find out his secret.
- When is one and one equals, not two, but three?
- Listen in to Terry’s advice to the young listeners out there.
- What it takes to be in the commercial real estate business.
- What does it take to be a good negotiator and transaction-er?
Recommended Tools:
- Property Pre-screening form – contains detailed information of properties
- Letters of Intent – for every real estate situation
The HERO Challenge
Today on the show, Terry challenged Jeff to be a guest on The HERO Show. Jeff is into wholesale land. Terry thinks that Jeff is a fantastic interview because he has the ability to take something that’s not income producing and turn it into a money-making opportunity.
How To Stay Connected With Terry
Want to stay connected with Terry? Please check out their social profiles below.
- Website: TerryHale.com
- Website: TerryHale.com/thebuyersclub
- LinkedIn: www.LinkedIn.com/in/terry-hale-628a4573
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/terryhaletraining
With that… let’s get to listening to the episode…
Terry Hale 0:00
“If you’ve got money in the bank that money, it’s false security. You should put your money to work and give me your money. And I’ll give you a monthly return.” Well, that can blow up. And it’s a horrible thought to think that you’re going to put your money, perhaps into somebody else’s hands, and then have them move forward, and then pay you. You can take control of commercial real estate, you can move forward and get your starter property and then build upon that like a strong foundation, and then build generational wealth. So a really strong foundation, and then building a portfolio of generational wealth can put you into a situation where you can be easily be a multi-millionaire, and also have your hand on the controls. It’s all about control in this business.
Richard Matthews 0:40
…
Hello and welcome back to The Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews and I got a special treat for you today. I’m here, live on the line with one of my favorite real estate investors in the country. His name is Terry Hale Terry, are you there?
Terry Hale 1:55
Sure. How’s it going, Richard?
Richard Matthews 1:58
Awesome. I have been working with Terry for a number of years, helping him with his organization. He does some really, really cool stuff with commercial real estate. So, before we get too far into that, Terry, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what your business is like now, both from what you do in the real estate space, and then how you help people get into the real estate space. So sort of like both sides of your business. So people can get an idea of what you do.
Terry Hale 2:23
For sure. So first and foremost, for the last couple of decades, I’ve been investing in commercial real estate, and commercial real estate is not big and scary. I’m not talking about big skyscrapers or any of these property types that are – where you can’t grab it and actually control it. I’m talking about the easy stuff. And what I’ve been doing is looking at these properties that are underperforming, owned by mom and pop. There’s a reason, a story why they’re selling and I take them. I buy them with aggressive terms, sometimes creative terms like seller financing, then I reposition them and then I’ll either keep them for cash flow, or I will go ahead and offer them to an end buyer and they want to create a portfolio so they keep them. That’s one end of the business that I’ve been doing. I’ve been doing it very successfully. And I have a very nice portfolio. I’m not talking about crazy syndication stuff or, or anything that’s big and scary. Like I said, it’s about actually owning and controlling commercial real estate. The second part of that business is about 15 years ago, so about five years into my career, after I mastered a systematic approach, and doing it myself, I started teaching and started showing people how to do it. I put together eight different curriculums of training that span across all aspects of commercial real estate investing for all property types. And what I’m doing, Richard, is I’m actually doing a huge gift back and showing people how to get started in the business and also partner with clients as well.
Richard Matthews 3:52
Awesome. So how did you get started in as an entrepreneur, right? So I know just because I know from talking to you, that you’re sort of get your fingers in all sorts of different businesses, real estate’s your big one. But, we talked on the show all the time about your origin story, right? Every hero has an origin story where you started to realize that you were different, that maybe you had superpowers, and maybe you could use them to help other people. How did you find yourself on the entrepreneurial path?
Terry Hale 4:17
So what I did was very intuitive, and I actually watched things happen. I watch what people are doing, watch how people scale, how they grow. And then, I understood quickly that even though I felt like I had super superpowers, and I do have superpowers, by the way, what I did understand also is that in order to scale, you do actually have to delegate and you have to work along the same path with somebody by being able to not make them codependent but to make them independent. So what I’m doing is I take my superpowers, and what I’m doing is I’m actually just duplicating myself, and that’s part of one of the big powers that I take myself, I duplicate and then I do it again and again and again. Now there are all these tears out there, and we’re able to move forward and create an empire.
Richard Matthews 5:05
Awesome. So has his real estate been the only business that you’ve run so far? Have you done other things?
Terry Hale 5:12
I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve been in a bunch of different spaces I’ve owned and run internet marketing businesses, has different types of funnels set up showing other entrepreneurs how they can actually have a book of credibility because I’ve authored eight different books and curriculums of training. So once I did that, and I saw the flow of that, I thought to myself, well, why don’t I go ahead and show people how to get their message out to the marketplace. So I’m a part of that. I’ve done a lifestyle business as well, which did wonderful. We had three retail stores that opened in Malibu. That was great. I bought and sold that business. Excuse me, created it, and sold that business. But my primary focus is what happened when I started looking at doing multiple things and having multiple streams of income, I always just go back to commercial real estate, because there’s only so much time in a day. And for me, the commercial is one of these things. I’ll give you an example, over the last 30 days, our numbers are very strong. I’ve done a $204,000 take on one project and a $335,000 take on another. So those are just two projects within the last 30 days, and you just can’t make that kind of money doing other things in the way I see it. And again, this is not syndicating capital, this isn’t moving any big and making huge moves. These are making strategic, very careful moves, but understanding exactly how to do it through a systematic approach.
Richard Matthews 6:40
Absolutely. So you mentioned a couple of times here superpower. I’ll talk a little bit about what your actual superpower is, what you do, or build or offer the world that really helps solve problems for people. And the way I’ve been framing this for my guests is like if you look at all your skill sets that you’ve developed over the years, you’re really analyzing you probably have one skill that sort of energizes or empowers the rest right like your zone of genius. What is that for? That’s really helped you do what you do in the real estate face.
Terry Hale 7:03
I believe that it’s more than just one, I think that I have several powers that are in my brain. And one of the things is a mindset. And a lot of times we can put things in our head, we can listen to the media like a current time right now. And we hear negative media and all of a sudden, we instantly can get into maybe a blue mood, or if it’s gray outside, you can get into a blue mood. But I’ve always what I’ve always done is I’ve always just kept a clear mindset on what it is that I want to accomplish. But then, second to that, it’s how I put together my confidence and saying to myself, you know what, I can make this happen, I can go ahead and cross the T’s dot the I’s, if someone else can do it, I can do it too. And there’s a third and my third is that my power is the power of negotiation. So I’ve understood quickly that if I can work towards a mutual benefit, and bridge that gap of this, this anti-social network, as I call it, that we’re all about these days of being a little bit more impersonal. Maybe text messaging and emailing versus making a phone call, understanding the story on why somebody has a problem. And identifying what that story is, my skill set in my power is really honing in and understanding their mindset, and understanding what their problems are, and then solving their problem for that mutual benefit. Of course, I gained from that. So I believe that’s a huge value add.
Richard Matthews 8:21
Absolutely. And it’s interesting because they really tie together, right? If you understand your mindset, and how to control your mindset and be in charge of your mindset, it helps you sort of seeing someone else’s mindset be able to put yourself in their shoes, which makes you a good negotiator. So just out of curiosity, do you have recommendations for people who might struggle with their mindset, whether they’re in real estate or not, and they’re growing a business? How do you take control of your mindset and use it to your advantage instead of having to make something that’s holding you back?
Terry Hale 8:49
So a lot of times, we’re all natural problem solvers. And that right there is a problem. Because what do they say, you only use like 10% of your brain unless you’re Einstein, right? If you use more -The average person only uses a portion of their brain. So now all of a sudden, as humans, we’re naturally we get bored fast, especially now with everybody with this thing going on and –
Richard Matthews 9:12
Absolutely.
Terry Hale 9:14
Unless you’re really enjoying yourself and you like yourself. You and you’re not around a lot of people and you’re in a space where you’re actually growing in the mindset, but the problem is we’re all-natural problem solvers. So with that, it’s also a disadvantage, but what I find is that people become worrywarts. Some people worry more. Some people create problems in their mindset, you sit there and they start biting their fingernails to start worrying about everything. And maybe you’ve been in a situation where you’ve really been concerned about the outcome of an event, and then all of a sudden, it just naturally works itself out. 95% of the problems that we focus on never come to fruition, because we’re natural problem solvers, but we also create drama in our head. So what I do is I try to remain drama-free, right? I limit my exposure to negativity. And I move so fast that negativity doesn’t stick to me. And that’s just the way I do things. Money likes speed, and I like money, so I ride its coattails and that’s the way I do my businessman, I move quickly and I stay positive.
Richard Matthews 10:14
I love that. My wife always tells me that worrying is her most effective means of affecting her life. Because if she worries about it, it never comes true. I just find that funny because we do solve problems really well and I love the concept of money loves speed, I always liked the inverse of that too. So money loves speed and wealth loves time. So, if you can quickly get the money you can use the time to create wealth. And those tie really well together with real estate because of things like appreciation and compounding interest and stuff like that, where if you can move quickly on deals and move quickly with negotiation, you can use that time to your advantage and create a lot of, I think, what you call generational wealth.
Terry Hale 10:58
Correct. It’s not just a one-time thing, it can be a rinse and repeat model. And what I found is that since we’re dealing with mom and pop, and we’re not dealing with this crazy, I know all of you guys have heard about syndication about how, “Hey, if you’ve got money in the bank, that money it’s a false security, you should put your money to work and give me your money, I’ll give you a monthly return.” Well, that can blow up. And it’s a horrible thought to think that you’re going to put your money, perhaps into somebody else’s hand, and then have them move forward, and then pay you. You can take control of the commercial real estate, you can move forward and get your starter property and then build upon that like a strong foundation, and then build generational wealth. So, a really strong foundation, and then building a portfolio of generational wealth can put you into a situation where you can easily be a multi-millionaire, and also have your hand on the controls. It’s all about control in this business.
Richard Matthews 11:51
Absolutely. So just from a tactical perspective for someone who’s looking at commercial real estate and they may have been looking at single-family or looking at other things and they might have a little bit of money. Maybe, they got their stimulus check sitting in their pocket they just got from the crisis. Is there a minimum sort of like cash on hand you would need in order to, I don’t know, put earnest money down or put down payments or get your hands into the commercial real estate businesses? It’s like, if I don’t have a million dollars in the bank, I can’t do it? Or is it something that you can do with less cash on hand in order to actually get into that business?
Terry Hale 12:25
It’s a great question. And it’s a misconception across the board because people see, someone’s talking about commercial real estate, how you have to have like an 800 plus FICO score because you can give your personal credit, then you have to have 20 or 30% to put down and then you also have to have cash reserves, and then you have to have marketing money, and money to keep it stabilized. And that’s so far from the truth. So, there’s a few different ways to do it, Richard, if you’re going to be just talking about tying up the property and wholesaling it, like I’ve been doing. Like I said, over the last 30 days, at two takes of 204 and a $355,000 take on both of those projects, and only took the actual end which is an earnest money deposit. And those earnest money deposits are as low as 1000 up to just a couple thousand dollars, and they’re not at risk. They’re applied to the purchase price at closing. And they’re fully refundable, so they never go hard. And then, since you’re going to be assigning the contract, somebody else replaces their earnest with your earnest, you get your money back. And then, whatever price point you tack on top of the dollar amount that you locked it in for, you’re gonna put your money on top. So, if you put a couple of hundred grand on top of it, black closing, then you get the couple hundred grand that comes to either your personal name or entity, however, it’s structured. That’s one way to do the business. The second way if you’re actually going to be closing it for long term hold. When one’s wholesale, the one next one is a long term hold, you’re going to be putting down anywhere from 10% to 20%. Typically, you never go over 20%. But at that point, we do use OPM, which is other people’s money. And what we do is we actually give equity versus debt. So, we don’t create this debt structure over giving a return on the money. We just say hey, you know what? But you know, someone over here, they have, say, we’re going to get into a deal with 10% down and it’s a million-dollar purchase price and we need that hundred thousand down, we’ll go ahead and bring that money in. And we’ll give an exchange for equity. So, somebody may come in with an additional cash reserve. So, maybe if we come in, say 450 or 175,000, and we give a percentage of the deal to them. So now they’re actually a limited partner. They’re on the operating agreement of the LLC, or actually have ownership of the project, and then we move it forward, reposition it and sell it and everybody gets paid. Everybody makes money. So good deal.
Richard Matthews 14:36
Does a transaction like that when you actually bring the investor the outside investor in as an equity partner? Does that keep you out of the SEC regulations that are required when you start doing the, I can remember the name that you used a minute ago, the syndication?
Terry Hale 14:53
Yeah. Because at this point, you have a relationship with this individual. They must be an accredited investor, which means that they need a rule; these 100 million dollars in net worth or over 200,000 in income. If anybody wants to know more about that you can google the three in one rule for accredited investors. But, you have a relationship with that person. And they’re coming in as a limited partner. So, it gets away from that big scary syndication stuff that maybe you guys have heard some of the buzz going on. But it’s definitely not a space that I’m comfortable in, nor I would ever want to be in. This is about working with individual people for mutual benefit. This isn’t some pie in the sky, big – of future value. Here, let’s get in on it. Now, it’s going to be worth so much more money. It’s not what we’re doing. It’s how we’re doing, Richard, we’re buying on the as-is value today, and understanding exactly what the projection of your 1-2-3-4-5 looks like. But since we’re purchasing it so aggressively, we can get in on these deals for the right price, and we do have a value add scenario.
Richard Matthews 15:54
Absolutely. So curious question just in light of everything that’s going on. How has your strategy changed your business from being in a booming economy to now being in what is essentially a shutdown economy and most likely over the next few months of recession, even if it’s a minor recession. How does that change your strategy in real estate or has it changed at all?
Terry Hale 16:11
It absolutely has changed. And that’s the thing if it doesn’t change, then, you know, your BS detector might go off. “Because it’s like, What do you mean, nothing changes in business, you’re not doing anything different?” Everyone’s going to do something different in business, whether it’s going to be the tone that you use, or the message that you give somebody or a strategy, like in my business. So before this happened. Typically, the way it works is 70% of my business is to building a portfolio long term goal. And then 30% was wholesaling. Now, it’s 70%, wholesaling, 30% portfolio hold. So, it just flip-flopped, and that’s just kind of a rough average of how we’re on a percentage basis of how we’re doing this business. But, see I’m also working with different property types as well. There’s a lot of people out there in the commercial space that is talking about multifamily on how great multifamily is not a great investment. Because when people are just living off that stimulus check, which is very small, by the way, they need to add zeros to that check. But you know, they’re living off of that check or they’re being affected in a positive light from that check. Chances are they’re not going to be paying their bill right to live in the house or apartment. So, what I find is that properties like self-storage, where you’re only talking about, you know, a $35 $60 $100 bill to keep all of their stuff, especially if they happen to downsize during the downturn recession. Self Storage is a very profitable property type and it is recessionary proof, along with several others. If you look at it, there are also mobile home parks, there are some recessionary proof because it’s more affordable housing, then apartments, and there’s also RV parks. For anybody who’s ever stayed in an RV park, it’s not a big expense to pay a bill and be able to live in that space as long as you have your mobile unit. So, there are all kinds of benefits to it for the right property type.
Richard Matthews 18:15
It’s actually kind of interesting because we travel full time in my audience all knows that. And when they put all the states on sort of shelter in place, and lockout and whatnot, we’ve picked a park in Paradise and just paid for the month and stayed. Because it’s inexpensive, and it’s a good way to just stop and not travel while everything is sort of going crazy. So the property types you’ve been working in, during this sort of crisis have been self-storage, RV parks, and what was the last one?
Terry Hale 18:45
Mobile home parks.
Richard Matthews 18:46
Mobile home parks, I’m guessing. So, that’s really interesting to like, sort of hear a little bit about how your business works. What I want to talk a little bit about is we talked about this all the time is that the flip side of your superpower is your fatal flaw. Right? So just like Superman has his Kryptonite, or Batman is not actually a superhero, he’s just a ninja. What is something that you have struggled with in growing your business that you’ve had to work on yourself? That’s held you back a little bit? I think more importantly, how have you worked on it? So someone who’s listening who might struggle from something similar might learn a little bit from you.
Terry Hale 19:20
So, admitting you know, a negative, that’s fine. I get it. It’s humbling. So where has it – struggle? Where is it? I mean, when I’m nailing deals like I’ve nailed the last 30 days, it’s hard for me to say that I have some immediate flaws.
Richard Matthews 19:38
You’re like, “I’m rocking it, now.”
Terry Hale 19:40
I’m rocking it. But I think that the growth of delegating and finding the right people can be a struggle. And, fortunately Richard, I found you to help out with a lot of my marketing stuff and internet stuff. And when you find somebody good, you want to hold on to those people. And it’s really important that you actually connect with people that can actually do things and do things the right way. Because if there’s a bunch of things that have holes in them, and they’re broken, and then you sit there and you’re gonna throw money or timeout because time is money, so it doesn’t matter if you’re setting up marketing funnels, and you’re throwing money at them, or you’re like me, and we’re setting up a way a good look and feel and showing credibility in what we do, and if the message isn’t right, or like I said, if the call to action is wrong, or sense of urgency is wrong, it’s all got to be the right flow. So I would say that the biggest challenge is just connecting and finding all those right people and delegating responsibility and staying on top of them. And, like I said, my power is to identify. So I have, basically six steps in my business model, which find deals, pre-screen them, evaluate the structure, negotiate, facilitate, and that’s what brings in the money for me. So I can’t do everything right. Even though I have superpowers, I can’t do everything. So you have to delegate. So I would say finding all the right people for all the right jobs it’s probably one of the most difficult things in business. And I think that’s hand in hand for it.
Richard Matthews 21:08
I know that was a big struggle for me for years. I ran my business by myself. And it was, you realize that you can’t wear all the hats, right? You can’t do all of the things yourself. Because you’ll never grow. It’ll keep you held back. And when you do find the right people, you can grow your business significantly. Which is a cool place to be in your business. So, my next question for you is something I call your common enemy. So this is if you could remove one thing from your client’s life that you think is holding them back. And I think for the purpose of this discussion, let’s talk about the people that you work with to educate them about commercial real estate, something that you sort of run into all the time with people who are trying to get into this space, mindsets that are holding them back that if you could just wave your magic wand your students would get better results quicker, faster, because they’ve changed that thing, what is that common enemy that you sort of bang your head against the wall all the time with?
Terry Hale 22:01
So we’re constantly doing that. So we look at the deal flow three times a week. We do it on Mondays. And when we do Mondays we call it like the open session. So, we look at all the deal flow that people have brought in over the weekend. And sometimes it could be 100 deals in the pipeline or something as little less, maybe a couple dozen. And then, what we do is we go through those projects, we categorize them, and then we have something called, Whack It, Wednesday, and if it doesn’t make the cut, it gets whacked, right? And then we have Fabulous Friday. And fabulous Friday is when we’ve already gone through the week and we’ve made the calls, we’ve done our due diligence, and at that point, we’re negotiating projects and putting them together for the next week. So, it’s extremely efficient, but I’ll use my little whiteboard behind me really quick if I may. Can you see the whiteboard okay?
Richard Matthews 22:47
Yes, I can.
Terry Hale 22:48
Part of what I do when I’m looking at a property, by the way, all commercial real estate in my world is just a box. That’s all it really is. A house is a box, a multifamily just a bunch of houses inside a big box. Self-storage is a bunch of stuff small boxes. It’s like apartments without the people, but they’re all just a box. And every one of my clients when they come through, what they want to look at is the upside of income. So, now when they see that the properties fill, then obviously there’s more money. Pretty basic, right? But what they don’t realize that buying it here, dollar amount we’re buying it filled up all the way that there’s no room for upside, it’s lack of upside. So, what I’m trying to teach all my clients is that we need to buy amongst this threshold of anywhere between 30 to say 40%. And if we can buy a 30 to 40%. Now we realize all of this upside to make them up. And I just have a lot of clients that want it to happen so fast, and they follow my guidance because money like speed, and I like speed, we just said building generational wealth. But if I could change the mindset of every one of my clients, it would be to focus on the problematic properties people have to sell, not just want to sell. Everybody wants to sell and get a payday. There’s no, there’s no hidden agenda there. Everybody wants a payday, right, and every business but if we have problematic ones that it’s apparent that hey, there is an upside and we can make money if I could change that mindset, all my clients then together we could build exponential wealth, amazing, amazing generational wealth together.
Richard Matthews 24:26
Awesome. I think that’s actually a really good tie into the flip side of that question, right. So if you’re fighting against this misunderstanding of where you want to buy your properties, that’s the common enemy that you fight against. Your driving forces the thing that you fight for, right? So just like Spider-Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or, Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you guys fight for? In your real estate education company?
Terry Hale 24:52
What do we fight for? Like, what’s our mission? Our main goal, what’s our mission statement? Our mission statement is to join forces. And by joining forces, we create synergy. Because with a business that we do one on one does not equal two, it equals three. And by the power of numbers and working together me duplicating myself, it’s not just about one pie, it’s about me getting a piece of the pie and everybody getting a piece of the pie, and everybody eats, and we grow and scale. And that’s the one thing we fight for is constant growth.
Richard Matthews 25:28
Awesome. So when it comes to that, I’m sort of getting a picture from the way you’re talking here that when you bring in students to teach them how to do this, you’re actually not bringing them in and just teaching them and throwing them off on their own. You’re, teaching them and having them sort of become part of your, I don’t know if the organization is the right word, but you’re helping, you’re having them, helping them close and find and negotiate these deals and doing them together.
Terry Hale 25:55
Right. So again, there’s six steps of my process. It’s to find, pre-screen, evaluate. So, we stop right there. So when a client comes in and they actually learn the business, you speak the same language, we teach them how to find, how to pre-screen, and how to evaluate. Then myself, my team, we structure, we structure the deal, we put it together, then we negotiate the deal. And then we move it forward. And we actually facilitate it and bring in the team. So, the team runs it, we delegate, we don’t do management, we have an asset management company, but that just oversees the actual little foot soldiers that are on the ground running around actually managing the property. So we’re able to do everything virtual from your home, from your computer, from your phone. You don’t have to jump on a sticky airplane and go fly around and look at a property. And the way my structure works is it’s a three entity tier structure. There’s three actual LLCs, there’s a holding LLC that’s in state-specific where the property is located. And then, if you become a client, that’s you, and then this would be me and my team. The way it works is if you’re a client, we’re all connected to the mothership that owns the property in the state-specific and then you get 50% and then we get 50% on Turkey LP, which stands for a Limited Partnership, very seamless flow, very easy to understand, very simple structure. So now they eat, we eat, everybody eats. And that’s how we grow. We scale and we get away from that crazy syndication stuff. I provide all the heavy lifting, I bring in the capital, I bring in the asset management team, we complete the due diligence, we help negotiate the project, we do it all. So what the client’s job or their work would be is to learn it. Speak the same language and actually source the projects and together that’s great. That’s that synergy. That’s that one plus one equals three. That’s the synergy that we bring and we can scale and grow together
Richard Matthews 27:43
Awesome. And that gives you an ability to create like an army of property finders who are creating, you’re doing all these deals together all over the place. That’s really cool.
Terry Hale 27:57
So well respected army -. About integrity very well – appreciated, a clientele base.
Richard Matthews 28:06
Absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about some practical things. So we call this our heroes tool belt, right? Maybe you got a big magical hammer, like Thor. A bulletproof vest, like your neighborhood police officer? What are some of the tools you use in your business that you couldn’t do what you do without them? So maybe this is something like everything from using Zoom for calls, your cell phone, or something that you do with client management, what are some of the tools, the practical tools that sort of make your real estate business run?
Terry Hale 28:33
All right now, I consider myself one of my superpowers, my superhero powers that I forgot about is that I’m a little artistic. So being that, and I’m systematic, I’ve put together something so amazing, I call it the property pre-screening form. And this property pre-screening form gives me all the detailed information that we need to know and then once you have the trained eye for it, again, the positive mindset with the trained eye because you’ve harnessed that knowledge. You can literally look at these property pre-screening sheets. And within literally minutes, I’m not talking 60 minutes or 120 minutes, I’m talking within a timeframe of say, 5 minutes to 10 minutes. Look at all the detailed information which is simple to get, because these brokers are salespeople, and sellers are salespeople. So they want to give you that information. So, you can make a conscious educated decision whether you’re going to pass or play on the deal. So, once we get that information, what we do is we put it on the property pre-screening form. And that is one of the tools that we use and have a second tool that’s super powerful, as well. You see everything that we do has this seamless flow from when we gather the information on the pre-screening form to when we are on the phone now because we have the intel to make an intelligent conversation. We simply, casually discuss the opportunity with the seller. Now, that conversation, we take detailed notes and that conversation goes and gets put onto something called a letter of intent. And that is actually all offer that’s our blueprint for the contract. So two things. One is the pre property pre-screening form. And the second thing is the letter of intent. I have over a dozen letters of intent that span across every tactic and every situation from wholesaling to long term holds to seller financing, to the escalation of interest clauses, to subordination, to release a land clauses when we deal with land, all different types, and I could keep going. So these tools are put down into a simple form. And that definitely superheroes stuff in the tool belt. I tell you, Richard.
Richard Matthews 30:34
Absolutely. I remember the first time you explained subordination to me, I think my mind might have exploded because I didn’t know you could even do things like that.
Terry Hale 30:42
You’re like, (sound).
Richard Matthews 30:44
it’s like, “Oh, wow, that was really cool. So we’re – seconds and that kind of stuff. So my next question for you has to do with your own personal heroes, right. So just like Frodo has Gandalf or Luke has Obi-Wan Kenobi and Robert Kiyosaki has Rich Dad. Who were some of your heroes? Were they real-life mentors? Peers who were a couple of years ahead of you? Or speakers, authors? And how important are they to what you’ve accomplished so far in your real estate business?
Terry Hale 31:09
Well, I’d say my number one hero would be my father who recently just passed away. And, it was one of those things where he taught me lessons possibly without even knowing that he was teaching me a lesson. And it’s super great too as I mentioned before, to be intuitive, and to understand that I remember when I was doing construction one time and I picked up a 70-pound jackhammer, and I walked over to it, and this is when I was 15 years old. I probably weighed about 120 pounds wet, and I picked up the 70-pound jackhammer and I hit the button on it and – will be back and I landed right flat on my back. And my father walked over and he picked up the jackhammer, held it with one hand, and he didn’t pull it back up with two hands dropping one hand hit it breaking up all this concrete. And he said to me, he goes, “See, you don’t know.” And I said, “I don’t know what?” He said, “How to work the tool.” You should always learn how to work the tool or the tool will work for you. And that’s really important to me these kinds of life lessons and understanding that by the way, I never went back to construction. After that, I went back to pushing a pen across paper. But, my point being is that little lessons like that where it’s like, Okay, so I need to learn it before I can do it. That’s really powerful. So, I’d say my first hero was my father. Second, to that, I’ve been following the likes of Mr. Warren Buffett for many years, and Warren made his money later in life if any of you know that, but I quote a lot of Buffettisms and Mr. Warren Buffett uses very profound words, like, we look for seven-inch bars to step over, not seven-foot bars to jump over. And that makes a lot of sense because you could easily get into a problematic situation, or you can get into a situation with speed and ease. And so I would call him a life hero, as well. I’m not following any stock advice at this time because I’m doing the commercial real estate thing, as all of you should as well. I encourage you to, but there it is.
Richard Matthews 33:04
Absolutely. And I always found it interesting too, how often the people who have successful careers in wherever it is they’re doing, they always have a mentor or two who taught them life lessons. And I always like to bring that up. It’s like, you probably, those people don’t even know that they’re heroes to you and your dad might or might have when he was around, but it’s the people that you’re in your life that are heroes to you, but don’t always know, right? And that’s why I know you hold integrity and the ability to you know, lift up the people in your life as a very high value. And there’s probably a lot of people that look up to you as a hero as well, which is cool. So I’ve always found that sort of like the expedition really fascinating that we all have heroes.
Terry Hale 33:48
I actually had a guy not that long ago, his name’s Leslie mentioned that I was his hero. And I helped him with all my trainings and he watched a lot of my webinars because I host live webinars every week. And he was able to move forward and actually close a project and make over $300,000, which actually saved his situation. Because he was out of work and had a young family and he was able to learn what I was teaching and grasp it and be able to take some action. And he had the confidence, probably because it was backed into a corner. And just mustered up the confidence and went out there and started punching until he became a superhero himself. And he actually said, “Hey, I’m looking up to you. You’re my hero.” And I thought that was pretty cool.
Richard Matthews 34:34
That’s awesome. It’s always cool when you get a confirmation because not everyone gets that. So, I want to bring it home for our listeners and talk a little bit about your guiding principles, right top one or two principles or actions that you put into place every day in your business that you think to contribute to the success and influence that you enjoy today. Maybe something you wish you’d known when you started out 15 years ago in the real estate space.
Terry Hale 34:52
So, I always say I’ve always coined the phrase of take action, and just keep up because action causes a reaction. I just wish that I had that somebody to inspire me not just never give up, but really to get out there and to take the necessary action. And it’s one thing to be doing something. But if something’s not actually producing results, then then, it’s really worthless. Like, “Hey, if no one was around, and a tree fell in the forest at the tree fall in the forest approach, right? So if you were doing something, and there are no results, and you’re sitting in the office all day long, and there’s nothing that actually transpired, you didn’t make any headway? Are you really doing the best for yourself or your family? And so if someone gave you that advice early on, I would have loved to take that principle and be able to have it because you know, I’m turning 47 this year. I know I don’t look it but turning 47. I always say that I’m an overnight success. It only took me 20 years to get here. But, if I have any young listeners on the phone younger or whatever, have you, your future self will thank you for the seeds that you plant today. And that’s just where it’s at, get out there and do something that’s going to produce really. And that’s something we practice day in and day out. It’s part of our principles while we’re here, and we’re transacting here. So actually one of my clients, they love this so much, they actually brought this already. And she says absolutely no admittance transaction years only beyond this point. When you walk into my office, it’s up on the glass wall, because I always talk about being a transactioner. And what that does is it takes me away from wasting my time doing things that I’m overqualified to do and a lot of your clients and listeners here, Richard, maybe they’re overqualified. And they need to understand how to delegate responsibility out so they focus on what they do best. And that’s something that’s a principle value here that we practice is just focus on being transactioners and let the due diligence people do that with the management team do that. Let everybody else do what they’re supposed to do, focus on what we do best.
Richard Matthews 36:49
Absolutely. And I know one of the things that fascinated me because I know I’ve helped you go through some of your training, we’ve done some of your challenge stuff together is like when you talk about taking action in commercial real estate space. We’re not talking like storming the beaches of Normandy – here we’re talking like picking up the phone and calling a broker who wants to talk to you. It’s not like the scariest stuff in the world. But for whatever reason, there’s a lot of businesses that have more difficult actions to take. But for whatever reason, real estate seems to be something that people are scared of the action that it takes in real estate, I think probably because the numbers are big and scary. So they’re like, the little actions that lead to those big numbers are, are scary as well?
Terry Hale 37:30
I think three things. The first thing is commercial real estate. So you gotta be this big mogul to be able to get into commercial real estate. That’s just the way media is portrayed.
Richard Matthews 37:41
Imposter syndrome.
Terry Hale 37:43
Exactly. And then, the second thing is credit. You think you have that personal credit, perfect credit just for the record. So everybody understands. I’ve only personally guaranteed one commercial property my entire life and it was an $8 million-plus deal that was a little larger, and I’ll tell you what, I didn’t sleep so good. At night, just noting that I was on the hook for that I bought I sold that property, so it’s no longer in my portfolio, but ever since then, and this was very early on in my career when that happened, I’m just several years into it, I vowed that I’m never going to give a personal guarantee again. So everything that I do is called a non-recourse basis which does not require your personal credit. So, regardless of where your credits are, you do not need to have any credit to do this business because everything is done on a non-recourse basis. And then, so it’s big and scary, the credit thing and then the money thing and getting money in this day and age. I always say I got deep pockets but I got short arms, but because it’s right nobody likes a hypocrite so I practice what I preach, but the fact is, there’s zero shortage of money even in a time like now people are hoarding their money, they’re keeping it real close and, and commercial real estate is one of those things where you can touch it, see it, sometimes smell it. And the fact is, if you have your hands on the gears and you’re controlling it, there’s really no better place to put your money. As long as you’re taking control of that, and that’s, that’s something really important. So I have something called the Buyers Club and if anybody’s interested they can check that on my website too. There’s a link there and they can see that they can join my Buyers Club there’s zero cost for it and you can take a look at deals that we have when they come up. And you know, it’s there for you to deploy your capital and take advantage of huge discounts and seller finance terms from time to time and huge upside to create your portfolio get started.
Richard Matthews 39:32
Awesome. So that basically wraps up our interview. Thank you so much for coming on. I got one last thing we do on the show. Every time we call it the Hero’s Challenge feels really simple. And it’s basically this you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story. Who are they? First names or finding Why do you think they should come on The Hero Show and share their story with our audience?
Terry Hale 39:50
Cool. So I do have a guy. His name is Jeff. and what Jeff has done something different than what I have done and he has wholesaled land. And I think that he’s got superhero powers because he has the ability to take something that’s not income producing, and being able to have a way to take it and turn it and make money. And I think that is really cool.
Richard Matthews 40:17
Awesome. So we’ll reach out later so we can get him on the show as well get him to share his story. The last thing we want to do Terry is find out where can people find you if they’re interested in learning your process, your six-step process and maybe becoming part of that army and doing some deals with you? Where can they find out about that? If they’re interested, maybe they have cash now, and they’re getting real estate, but they want to maybe put those into some of the deals that you guys are doing with your people? Where can they find all that information? And who are the right types of people to reach out?
Terry Hale 40:42
Got it. So I’ll cover the first part and then I’ll let them know where they can find me. The right person is someone who’s got an invest-in-myself mindset. Like I said, we’re not just talking capital, it’s also time. And one of these things it’s like they always have this old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. Maybe you can do everything that you can possible, encourage somebody to do something, but you can’t make them do it. They have to have the relentlessness for success, they have to have the willingness. And that’s somebody that really is a good fit for us. We work with people that are decisive people that want to go ahead and move at a fast pace. People that are comfortable at their own home, just working with a phone and a computer that can see themselves locating a project pre-screening it doing the evaluation, speaking the same language, getting it to us, and then working with the team got to be a team player. And for that, if that’s you, great. You can go to Terry Hale. That’s T-E-R-R-Y-H-A-L-E.com. And there’s some great webinar training that’s at no cost. Just invest your time in that. Check it out and we’ll see if you’re fit and if so, we jump on a call together and have a casual chat. So, I appreciate being here, Richard, and thank you so much for having me on. As you can see, I am a superhero. So look forward to turning your –
Richard Matthews 41:55
Did you have superhero glasses still? You should show it to the audience your superhero glasses.
Terry Hale 42:01
Signing off. I’m gonna be flying in. Hang on here I go.
Richard Matthews 42:07
There you go.
Terry Hale 42:11
Right on.
Richard Matthews 42:12
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Terry, really appreciate it. You have any final words of wisdom for the audience here before we hit that stop record button?
Terry Hale 42:20
I do. You know what? Right now, there’s going to be more multimillionaires made from this recession that’s upon us. So, I highly encourage you to take action today. Do something today that your future self will thank you for it starts with a little bit of action. Go to https://terryhale.com/ and get started. Come and check us out. I appreciate all of you. Take care and be safe. Thanks again. Richard. I appreciate being here.
Richard Matthews 42:43
Awesome. Thank you for coming on Terry. I really appreciate your time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Richard Matthews
Would You Like To Have A Content Marketing Machine Like “The HERO Show” For Your Business?
The HERO Show is produced and managed by PushButtonPodcasts a done-for-you service that will help get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger after you’ve pushed that “stop record” button.
They handle everything else: uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research, graphics, publication, & promotion.
All done by real humans who know, understand, and care about YOUR brand… almost as much as you do.
Empowered by our their proprietary technology their team will let you get back to doing what you love while we they handle the rest.
Check out PushButtonPodcasts.com/hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with them and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving awareness, attention, & authority in your niche without you having to life more a finger to push that “stop record” button.
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