Hey, what's up everybody? Joe McCall, REI In Your Car podcast. What's going on? A beautiful day to day, even though it's overcast and 50 degrees, which is pretty cold. Anyway, I'm going to talk about the power of networking on this episode. You ready to go? Let's do it. 

So the power of networking. I just had a really, really good breakfast with a friend of mine from church and he's got a real successful business and you know, just kind of wants to grow it and he wants to help other people, so we just had a real good time talking about how he could maybe help other people grow businesses similar to what he's done. And I'd just love to see what he's done with his business and how he's grown it and we just had a great time talking and bantered back and forth, a lot of ideas. And one of the things I was thinking about after talking to him and while I was talking to him was just the power of network. He was asking me a lot questions about kind of maybe how I got to where I am and I have all these ideas and stuff like that. 

Well, you know, I started thinking about that when I was working in my cubic hell as I call it. And he can relate, he used to have a cubic hell job and couldn't stand it. But he was asking me like, how did you get to kind of where you are because it's funny, he said, you don't seem to me like the guy who grew up with a lot of money behind you. And I was like, no, I grew up pretty poor. 

My dad was the hardest working man I know, is the hardest working man I know, and he was a janitor pretty much his whole working life, but he owned a lot of businesses and he was just a really extremely hard worker and I'm super proud of my dad building the businesses that he has, right? But yeah, we didn't have a lot and I didn't know, I never knew we grew up poor and I still don't think we did, but you know we grew up in a trailer. We, my dad was very frugal and you didn't have probably any debt. I don't know that stuff, I should, I should talk to him about it, but my dad is awesome. But I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, you know, like my dad, my parents didn't pay for college. 

I couldn't get my driver's license because my dad told me I had to pay for the increase in his insurance premiums if I wanted to get my license, right? Which is fair and my son just turned 16 and I told him the same thing, you know, once you get your license, you're going to have to pay me. It's actually, I checked it out, it's a hundred extra dollars a month I have to pay. $1,200 a year I have to pay. I sound like my dad. I have to pay an extra hundred dollars a month for my son just to get his license. And that's with a good student discount and an accident-free discount. So anyway, my son's paying that. He wants his license bad enough and he's got the money for it, but all right. So anyway, my point in all that is, yeah, we grew kind of poor. I didn't think I, I didn't feel like I was poor, but yeah, we did. I lived in a trailer park in a trailer. 

So anyway, we also had a nice apartment and then later we did buy a house. So I just don't wanna make it sound like I grew up really bad, but okay. Anyway, fast forward, it's like, you know, how did I get a successful business? How did I start making as much money as I am without growing up into that kind of money? 

So there's a difference between people, and I see this today, who have really wealthy parents and have successful businesses. And what you don't see, and this is the honest truth, if you were to pull back the curtain and look at their businesses. What you don't see is the tremendous amount of debt that those people have. And sometimes when you grow up or when you have a lot, you don't appreciate cutting your expenses and looking at your budget and managing your overhead and thinking about taxes and stuff like that. Cause when you got a lot of money behind you, you just, you're not as frugal with your decisions. You're not as wise with your purchasing stuff, right? Like you'll just go in and get in a lot of debt and you get a big fat office and you start hiring more people than you really need and really that money is either a loan from a parent or you know, they have access to money and capital that you're just not going to spend it wisely. So I'd encourage all of y'all to not go into debt to start your business. I mean, I think it's one of the biggest foolish things you could ever do: go into debt to start a business. 

Alright. So anyway, I started explaining to him the power of networking. And one of the big reasons why I think I've had any success that I've had is because I've hung out with people that were smarter than me and I hung out with people that had the businesses that I wanted to have, that were doing the kind of deals I wanted to do. And, you know, it's just pretty fortunate, I think to build a network. 

You know, they say your network determines your net worth and there's a lot of truth to that, but I also don't think that, you know, you should stop hanging out with broke people because they're broke. Like, that's not what Jesus did, you know? And he was probably, not probably, he was the greatest leader that world has ever seen, right? So we should still be friends with broke people. So don't take what I'm saying here is like an excuse to not hang out with anybody who is poor. 

So your network determines your net worth and if you want a business that is wholesaling 10 deals a month, right? Start hanging out with people that are wholesaling 20 deals a month. Go to the network meetings, the masterminds. You may have to pay something to get in those kinds of meetings, into those groups. But you need to do whatever you can to start hanging out with people that are smarter than you, that have the businesses that you want to do. 

And here's the cool thing, and this is one of the things I was telling my friend I was meeting with this morning is the way businesses are run today and with the internet and stuff like that, it is so easy to see what someone else is doing and duplicate it. Especially, you start hanging out with mastermind groups and, you know, higher-level coaching programs and whatnot. You can talk to these people and they're willing to share with you what works. It's just amazing. You know, it hasn't always been like that. 

You know, 30 years ago you could never do that, for the most part, maybe you could. But like it seems like today with the YouTube videos that are out there and the podcasts and the vault, the number of masterminds and coaching programs with high level people that are willing to share with you what they're doing, it's astonishing why there aren't more successful people out there in business, right? 

Because you can go to Facebook and see the ads that people are running for their businesses, right? Like you can go see the ads that people are running on their Facebook pages and you could go through their funnel and go through and watch, okay, they're selling me this thing and then they're selling this thing after that and then there's something that thing, and then they get on their email list and they're sending me these emails. 

Like you can go through competitors' funnels, as it were, pretend to be a customer or actually be a customer, right? And just see what they're doing. And here's the crazy thing, this is the gold nugget here, right? Model what they're doing, not copy it. Maybe there is some copying that you can do that's okay, right? But like ethically steal what they're doing, right? Model it. That's not that hard. If you want to be successful in business, model somebody else who's doing what you want to do, okay? It's not that complicated.

So as I was talking to my friend here, I was thinking about that. Like that's kind of I think one of the main reasons I got the hard work ethic from my dad. And sometimes I still feel like I'm lazy. I'm not as hard of a worker as he is. Uh uh. My brother had got my dad's hard work genes. I'm more lazy. But anyway, like I totally get it now. Like the reason why I got into real estate and started doing a lot of deals is because I tried hanging out with people that were doing a lot of deals and I started doing what they're doing. 

I started copying what they were doing. I bought courses, I bought programs and coaching and masterminds, started doing what I saw other people doing. It's like not that complicated, right? When I started a publishing business and started publishing podcasts and books and videos and things like that, I saw other people in other industries that were doing what I wanted to do, that were making the kind of money I wanted to make and I just started copying what they were doing, you know, not copying but modeling. 

In fact, there has been a few times when somebody wrote like a really good letter or sales page or something and I actually contacted them and I said, “Hey, that was brilliant. Can I copy it?” And because I was friends with them, they said, “yeah, sure, go ahead.” So there have been times when I copied, but I've always tried to give credit where credit is due. And anyway, that's the secret to having successful business guys, start hanging out with people that are smarter than you and just do what they do. Cool? 

Okay. So I got one more thing to say and then I'll wrap it up. The good ole boys network. Have you ever heard of the good ole boys network? Well it's real and it exists whether you like it or not. And I know a lot of people that don't like it and I understand why, right? But it's there and there's nothing you can do about it, right? And it may not be fair, you may not think it's fair, but I'm telling you, it's not that hard to get in it. It's not that hard to get in the good ole boys club. No matter what the business is that you're in, there's a good ole boys club out there, you know. 

There's people out there that also understand what I'm talking about and they understand like your network determines your net worth and they're hanging out together. And when you're in that good ole boys club, then you get certain perks, right? One of the perks is you get to talk to these guys and pick their brains and say, “Hey,” you know, “how do you do this?” But to get into the good ole boys club is really actually not that hard and it's easy and this is what you need to do. You need to give more value than you're getting out of the group. If you have this mentality “I'm going to give more value than I'm asking or taking,” you can get into any good ole boy network that you want. It doesn't matter if you're not maybe at their level, but you've got something inside of you, some kind of knowledge, some kind of passion, something inside of you that could be of value to other people in that good ole boys group that you can start giving. 

And there's different levels of good ole boys clubs, right? Like so, you know, maybe you can't get into the billionaires' good ole boys club, like I couldn't go out and start hanging out with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet and their good ole boys club, right? But there's some groups below that that I could. How would I do that? Well, I would just start becoming friends. Like I would start talking to people and say. “Hey, listen, how's it going? What's going on in your business? Is there anything I can do to help you grow your business?” That you can start connecting them, right? If they're looking for a certain resource or certain buddy, somebody that can help them with something, you can give them stuff without asking or expecting anything in return. Right? 

This is such a powerful principle that I hope you're understanding and listening to this, what I'm talking about here, and this is people that have kind of become friends with me or people that I've become friends with that are, you know, bigger than I am. It's always from this usually, it's always just like, “hey, listen, I want to help you. What can I do to help you?” 

And then start talking to them about their business, give them ideas or connect them with people that I know is going to help them a lot and I don't ask for or expect anything in return. One of the great reasons to have a podcast, by the way is like, if there's somebody that I want to talk to and get some coaching advice from, sometimes I'll just ask them, “hey, can I get you on my podcast and interview you?” And I'm not gonna ask them for reciprocal podcasts. I'm not gonna ask them, “hey, like, if I let you on my podcast, can I be on your podcast?” or “if you promote my book or my stuff, I'll promote your book” or “if you sell my deal to your buyers, I'll sell one of your deals to my buyers.” No, I'm just like, “here I got something that will help you, will help your audience. Here, it's free. I'm not asking for anything in return. Here it is. Take it, use it and make a lot of money. Right? And that's it. They're gonna remember you. 

And then next time they get together with their good ole boys club, they might invite you to it. Right? Do you see what I'm saying? So if you want to build a network of people that are doing more deals than you, be a giver. I think that book ‘Go-Giver' is such a good book. It talks about this kind of stuff, right? Be a giver, be generous, and it will always come back to you. If you help people…what's that saying? You know, how does it go? Like if you always are first helping other people get what they want first, then you will always get what you want. It just always, always comes back. So be generous. Be a giver. 

And one more thing I'll say, I keep on saying one more thing, but this is it, this is the one more one more thing. Okay. If you want to join, you want to be a part of a mastermind, you don't know of one that you can be a part of, start one! I've done this a couple of times in my local real estate, in my local market here, right? I've started a mastermind of other wholesalers and it's been fantastic and not huge. I get 8-10, 12 people sometimes, but monthly we meet, we haven't done it actually in a year or two, but yeah, we use, like we would wholesale deals to each other. 

Somebody would have a deal and would not have a buyer, but somebody else would have a buyer and not have a deal. So we'd call wholesale deals. We lent money to each other on deals. We, you know, somebody was looking for a good recommendation for a contractor or a title company, insurance agent, or contractor or whatever. Right? So like people would be willing to share this stuff. And we also, it was crazy, we would have conversations of like what marketing is working best and what isn't. And it was insane. People would be sharing things, and then saying, I can't believe I'm sharing this with all you guys, but you know, we just got to help each other out. 

Don't look at your competition as competitors, look at them as potential partners, collaborators, people that you could work with and network with and help each other grow. So when you go into these masterminds that you start or that you participate in, come into it with more of a “how can I give you, how can I help you grow your business?” and it'll come around. 

Alright. That's all I got. Let me tell you something super cool. My book called ‘REI Secrets' just came out and you can get it for free. And in that book I do a lot of 2-3 page chapters, they're small chapters, about a hundred of them where you can just read in one sitting, read real quickly and digest it and get some really good, gold inspirational nuggets of wisdom that can help you get more leads, close more deals, and the book is completely free. You can get it at REISecrets.com, REISecrets.com. Just pay a little bit of shipping and handling, I'll send it out to you and I've got a few other gifts that I'm going to give to you as well. Cool. So go to REISecrets.com to get that book and we'll talk to you guys later. Bye.