[00:00:00] Zachary Beach
I can directly connect hundreds of thousands dollars today and millions of dollars of future revenue to one mastermind that I'm currently a part of because it is the people in the network that I'm a part of that is generating business and is making it that much easier for revenue to come into our company.
[00:00:17] Podcast Intro
You are working professional but struggling to balance the workload of your career, family obligations, and preparing for your financial future. If so, this podcast is for you. You've spent years learning your craft, and now it's time to focus on your financial future. This podcast will teach you what you need to retire wealthy and happy. Let's dive in.
[00:00:40] Ben Waller
Have you thought about getting into real estate investing but have no idea where to start? On today's episode, we get to learn from Zachary Beach, who helps begin a real estate. Investors get started on the right foot. Let's jump in so that you can learn all of his secrets.
[00:00:56] Earl Cline
Welcome to the Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. We've created this podcast to provide financial tips and tricks to help build your passive income and also provide methods you can use to protect your wealth. So you can plan a better future for yourself and your family. We're grateful to have this podcast sponsored by Monument Real Estate Capital Monument Real Estate Capital, helping you retire 10 years early through real estate investments.
[00:01:21] Ben Waller
On today's episode, we're excited to have Zachary Beach with us. A quick background about Zack. He is the CEO at Smart Real Estate Coach. He is a three-time best-selling author. He has personally completed hundreds of real estate transactions and has mentored many others to do the same. He enjoys spending time outdoors with his wife and two kids. A little overview of what will be covered in today's episode, we're gonna talk about what smart real estate coach is, why real estate is like running a business. And third, how to be happy while working on personal achievement. Zachary, thanks for being on the show today.
[00:01:56] Zachary Beach
Hey, uh, Ben Earl, excited to be on. I think we're gonna have a good time here today. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much, man.
[00:02:03] Ben Waller
We appreciate you being here. So Zach, will you take a few moments and just share a little bit more about your background and how you ended up where you are today?
[00:02:09] Zachary Beach
Well, I'm glad you asked. Yeah. Let's kind start at the beginning there. I was, I grew up with a single mother. I like to always say I was a poor kid growing up in a rich town. So it's kinda. The reason why I consistently have a chip on my shoulder and what constantly drives me towards wanting to achieve as much as I could possibly achieve. When I was about to go to college, the only reason why I actually went is cuz my teachers told me I couldn't. So I had really no direction going into school. So I did what anybody would do after they get a college degree is they then become a bartender. So I started bartending there for about four years. Also personal trained. And then there was a point in time where I got really burnt out. As you can imagine, I was burned the kennel on both ends.
[00:02:50]
I was staying up really late. Serving drinks. And then I was waking up really early training people in the morning. So what I do is I actually approached my partner, who's also my father-in-law and I'm, I get the question all the time, how do you work with your in-laws? We could cover that if you wanna talk about family business here today as well. I approached him. I knew he was reinventing his real estate business at the time. He got crushed in 2008. So now he was reinventing his business through what we know as creative financing now today, or buying and selling on terms. So I approached him and said, Hey, I don't know if I'm gonna like real estate. I got zero real estate experience. But it's gonna be better. Then what I'm currently doing, and it took me about three to four months, ended up burning the boats and then just jumped full fledged into real estate investing. And you know, eight years later here it is. And it sounds like you've been doing really well for yourself.
[00:03:32] Ben Waller
Can you tell us and our listeners, what is like your main focus as a real estate investor?
[00:03:37] Zachary Beach
I would say the successors, like in the eye of the beholder, right? I get on many shows and spend, uh, a lot of time with people that are light years ahead of me. But when it comes to being able to find a systematic approach to constantly doing real estate deals. Yes, I, I think I found it. And it consistently are growing it. Well, the main focus when I first got started was to make sure that I had had food on the table because I, I kind of burned the ships. As I started doing more and more real estate deals, then it's been about providing a different lifestyle to my family. As I said, I grew up with a single mother and a father that was estranged. So, um, I was really just looking for a better lifestyle than what I currently had, and that's really what came about with real estate investing and now kind of shifted gears. As we built the portfolio and now we're helping people across the country build their own portfolio. So now my focus is more towards showing and sharing people through our community and our investment strategies on how to actually help people build their own real estate business at this stage.
[00:04:37] Ben Waller
Absolutely. And we love that you're doing that. That's why we had you on the show today. Now, this is, uh, kind of a broad question, but I wanna ask it to you. You've had a lot of real estate experience. Are you willing to share either like a favorite deal you did or one that didn't go so well? So we can just to learn a little bit more about Zack and his real estate experience.
[00:04:54] Zachary Beach
Oh, I mean, I could share with you, I've, I can probably write an entire book on what not to do at this stage, and that's the reason why our agreements at this point in time are much longer than we originally first started. Cause each and every learning lesson is built into the agreement to protect us a little bit further. I'll start my first deal and my first real estate deal, it took me about three or four months. My two partners, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, they both have extensive real estate experience. Way beyond the years of me. I had them in the office next to me, and it still took me six months to get my first real estate transaction done. It just shows you like how far I needed to come, and during that process, I eventually ended up getting a transaction. It was a subject to deals, what it's known as. And really what that just means is that you, I went and acquired a property and kept the existing loan on it so that the title transfers and the existing loan remains attached to the seller and attached to the seller's credit.
[00:05:46]
This deal. The reason why this actually transpired is this particular seller was a teacher and he was going through a divorce, and this property had zero equity in the deal. He was about to start becoming behind on payment, so he didn't really have many options. This particular seller either could sell to somebody like me. In my family, or he could go try to sell in the traditional market and have to come out of pocket in order to pay a realtor commission. So the option ended becoming us. So when I went ahead and we acquired this, I believe we bought for roughly like 185,000. This is a old 17 hundreds house in central Massachusetts. So after we acquired it, we placed what we would call a tenant buyer in the house. So the way we exit our deals is also through creative, when we tend to do it through rent to own, or really a program that helps people that can't qualify for loans then be able to qualify for loan. So during that process, we placed a tenant buyer in the house.
[00:06:41]
We collected a non-refundable deposit, which is typically how we get paid at the beginning, and then we start collecting cash flow. But during that timeframe, the seller, I mean the, uh, the buyer started looking around the property and she said that she noticed that there was lead paint in the house. So then she went and get a self-test. So then she self-test that property. As you could probably know where I'm going here, we ended up needing to go ahead and DeLeT that entire property and not only DeLeT the entire property, but then also housed that particular tenant buyer for about a couple weeks while we did that. Now this particular lead job was $30,000 in order to do the entire property. So as you can imagine, picture this. So I am the sudden law that's coming into the family business to start buying some real estate deals. The first deal I get, it cost the family $30,000. It was a good but terrible experience At the same time, we learned a a lot of lessons during that timeframe. Luckily, because we buy creatively, there was a happy ending.
[00:07:39]
I would say, at least for the real estate investor, us. Which was eventually that buyer ended up defaulting, which is really unfortunate, but it just didn't seem like it was gonna be a great fit at the end of the time. So we ended up selling it through traditional means. It ended up being a net positive about $75,000 on that deal. But it was a lot of, a lot of lessons learned. So that was one of the toughest deals, not only because it was my first, but because we had so many, you know, challenging situations that popped up during it with a default, which is. Rare for us, we get about nine outta 10 people to the finish line. But also I just learned a lot of different lessons learned in most cases, that that could have cost me my real estate investment career. Because usually we use that first deal as like a launching pad and that that had some setbacks. So it was, it took a lot of mental fortitude to make it through that deal.
[00:08:28] Ben Waller
Well, and it sounds like your family must really like you if you're still working with ' em after that one.
[00:08:31] Zachary Beach
I, I've known my in-law since I was about 12 years old. That's when I actually started dating my wife. So we've been together for like 20 years now. That's awesome. That's a great story in itself.
[00:08:41] Ben Waller
You were talking to many different real estate investing strategies with your first deal there, seller financing, rent to own option, lot of great things that we'll probably go into on some other future episodes. You've also made a couple comments about working with your family, and I wrote this question down, maybe it's not necessary, but was it easy for you to get started working since it was a family business? I've done some research on you, so I think I know the answer to this question, but I wanna hear from you like, was it easy or hard to get started with working with your family?
[00:09:10] Zachary Beach
Depends on the day. More like, was it handed to you, Zach? Yeah, no, I know, I, I'm just thinking the best way to put this. I'm lucky that I had a family that was in a real Smith investment business, but it also makes it that much harder because the expectations were that much higher when you first get started because we didn't get any real estate deals handed to us. We all like ate what we killed. Uh, so we had to go out there. And, and really put in the work in order to get deals done, especially when me and my wife at the same time actually came on board as we left our bartending careers at that point in time, it brought a lot of strain to everyone. Like as I was saying, my father-in-law was just revamping his business. My brother-in-law just joined him the year prior from his real estate agent career. Uh, he was in it for eight years and then all of a sudden me and my wife are now coming over. So we had a, a huge amount of pressure, I think, on everybody from my father-in-law to my brother-in-law, to myself and my wife in order to really make this work and mean when I tell people my real estate career started with.
[00:10:14]
Cold calling 40 to 60 hours a week in order to generate enough leads so our family could go do these real estate deals. It was a lot of pressure, I think, right at the beginning, and I think it also, it molded us together as a team, and I think that's why we ended up lasting, because that pressure was either gonna separate everyone or it was gonna bring everyone together. And at that point in time, we really got the link arms and we ended up doing about four to 10 deals per month. After about first, uh, six to eight months and really started picking up steam, entered into multiple different markets and eventually became successful in that and right. But it was tough and it still is challenging at, at times.
[00:10:49] Ben Waller
The reason I ask you that question, Zach, is because anybody, if they're willing to put the time in, can be successful in real estate. But it takes a lot of work as you're demonstrating with your stories there, like it's challenging and people sometimes think it's easy. They just show up, do a real estate deal to make millions of dollars. It doesn't go down like that. And I'm grateful to hear your personal experience and that you were willing to put it in the hard work and you've done well for yourself. So we're grateful to have you on the show today to learn more from you.
[00:11:15] Earl Cline
We wanna switch gears for just a second. I understand that you guys have started a coaching program of some kind. Is that correct?
[00:11:21] Zachary Beach
Yeah, the coaching business now, Smart Real Estate Coach College, been about eight years now in the works.
[00:11:28] Earl Cline
Yep. Just for uh, perspective, when I got out of college, I went right into, I did an internship and worked full-time for, uh, a couple property management, a couple development companies, but at some point I came back to start up my own business and one of the things I did to supplement my income, Started working for a couple of coaching companies and so I actually worked for, uh, Carleton Sheets group. You guys are doing seller financing. Uh, you probably somewhere, either you or your father-in-law has a Carleton Sheets book in his, uh, bookshelf. I'm pretty sure I coached for Robert Kiyosaki. Bob Allen. I then have worked for several other people. I have a little background in coaching. I know how, how much fun it can be. I also know how it can be quite challenging at sometimes too. The frustration of trying to find that button to push. To get people to the idea Ben talked about. Right? Oh, it's just easy. I'm just gonna give you a little bit of money and we're gonna, and we're gonna get started and you're gonna do it all for me. And talk a little bit about the challenges of, uh, coaching program.
[00:12:26] Zachary Beach
Yeah. We face many challenges consistently, and the challenge more comes with the individual as as you were speaking. And that's why our mission for smart real estate coaches. To be known as the community that transforms dedicated people into wicked smart real estate investors. The two main words that come in there is to transform, cuz most of us, especially I have gone through a massive transformation in order to, in order to reach any type of level of success. And we know that our successful students have to do the exact same thing. They have to be willing and able to transform. But the the second major piece is the dedication. It's gonna be dedicated people. We can't transform everyone. We could transform dedicated people because as, uh, you were alluding to Ben and that is real estate can be simple, but it's not easy. It's not easy. It's gonna take time, effort, perseverance, work.
[00:13:14]
It's, you're now becoming, in most cases an entrepreneur. I know, I'm sure you've interviewed plenty of people on here that are specifically doing this for, say, lifestyle, which is, you know, they're doing passive income. They're not really becoming entrepreneurs. They're in invest, they're taking. The money in which they've earned from their W2 or other companies and are now investing in real estate. Primarily people in our world that come into our community and invest in themselves are really looking to transform from a W2 employee to a say sole opener and then a sole opener to a C E O. And that's really where. Perseverance and challenge is really gonna determine whether or not that person's gonna be successful because our systems with creative financing have been proven, have been proven for well over eight years just with us, and we've seen hundreds of deals come through our community and the people that become successful in their own right. Are the ones that stick to it and consistently improve upon themselves a small percent day in and day out, and then never give up.
[00:14:14] Earl Cline
Interesting. You know, I worked in corporate real estate for a number of years, and I was quite successful at a reasonably good career. At one point, I was the regional VP of a publicly traded reit. I spent a lot of time in the corporate world when I decided to give up my corporate career and go off on my own. For me, the idea, Hey, I've just come here and I've been so successful at this, this is gonna be easy, right? I know all of this stuff, and even today I go to Theria clubs and I'm like, uh, here it goes again. They're talking about stuff I've known for years and years, but the honest truth is the business for me really started to take off when I said I have to go back to the basics. And do those things that, that I thought I was too good to do and that's when it really took off for me.
[00:15:02] Zachary Beach
So I can totally relate. We've had a couple businesses that we've grown, you know, outside of, or I'd say more or less sister companies. Yeah, it's really easy to let your ego say, oh, well I don't have to go back and do all this stuff again. But the truth is, anytime we start something new, we gotta start right at ground level. Either we do or we need to train somebody to go ahead and start at ground level. And if you have, of course, the capital able to do that, you're gonna tend to grow faster. But it's always interesting because as the CEO now of the company, I've become more and more removed from the day-to-day of our students doing deals. And what I always love to do is I like to step back in and sit on some of our coaching calls and stuff because it brings back the basics so that way me, as the CEO, can now look at and see how do we get the right resources. Two our students consistently now that we have more reach, so that way our students can do deals a little bit more quickly.
[00:15:55] Earl Cline
Perfect. I know most of it's probably around seller financing and creative strategies and that type of thing. Does the coaching program talk about other things or is it mostly creative real estate?
[00:16:03] Zachary Beach
Yeah, so we focus on three main acquisition strategies. We got seller financing, so buying properties with the sellers of the bank. That's where you're able to get these deals with say, 0% interest. I've done plenty of those deals. We have as a community as well, you have your subject two deals, which is probably the most misunderstood way of buying real estate, but maybe one of the most prevalent ways of buying real estate that niche in today's market. And that's when you acquire a property with the loan remains attached to seller's credit, and then you have lease options or lease purchases. Where it's really just the ability to control an asset at a specific price for a certain period of time and then be able to sell it. So those are three ways that we buy and then we always exit, uh, either rent to own or really helping buyers qualify for loans.
[00:16:51]
And then also on seller financing as well. So once we have title, we have a long-term deal, we can actually now become the bank as well. So those are the strategies that we stick with. We don't teach anything other than that. This originally started, and I'm sure you have my partner at some point in time, but this originally started as a necessity and now it's a choice, right? It's like when you don't have cash and you don't have credit and you can't go to a bank to get a piece of property. Creative financing is the way to go, but then once you have credit and you can go to a bank, now it's. Do I actually wanna personally be liable for any of these properties when I already have proven that I don't have to? So now that's where you see a lot of that transformation where we are today, which is we're just gonna keep buying and selling real estate the way we've always done it, because now we're in a very risk averse position. The market is right for these types of creative strategies. And now it's just about growing our portfolio over the next three to five years while the market is in transition. And that's gonna set not only us up, but our students up for two decades worth of wealth.
[00:17:53] Earl Cline
We've all seen the last, what, eight, nine months interest rates have spiked way, way high. How has that affected, uh, your creative financing? Is it more opportunities now, do you think? Or does it curtail some of those opportunities?
[00:18:05] Zachary Beach
Uh, I'm glad you brought this up cuz it's actually increased more opportunities. So anytime there's a transition in the market, especially uncertainty. Creative Financ becomes a really great opportunity because when there's a lot of certainty in the market, everyone can go the traditional route, go get a realtor, then go ahead and list it on the market because the market's appreciated. And now you collect your spread and you go ahead and, and then you move on to your next deal. When there's uncertainty, people are unclear about what the next couple months are gonna be. So now they may be forcefully trying to sell, uh, in some circumstances, but maybe peel back a little bit. So the two types of sellers, let's say on the acquisition side, that we tend to help.
[00:18:42]
Are those that have real estate problems. So somebody that's in good financial standing, they have debt free houses, maybe second home, maybe inherited a property. So that piece of real estate has now become a liability to them cause they're taking care of it, but they don't necessarily need the money. So that's one rep. The other person that we tend to help is somebody that's in a financial chunk. So these are people that are behind on payments in arrears. Have no equity in the deal could be upside down in some circumstances. So when we saw the market shift, those, both, those two opportunities were starting to to skyrocket because people that now had debt free houses, although they're in good financial standing, they're being most, are being persuaded by this fear factor that the media tends to generate, which is even though they are in good financial standings, They now feel as though they need to sell.
[00:19:32]
So now we have an opportunity to help them get their price and sell. And then you also have the people that, with the interest rates rising now, uh, can no longer sell their property at the price that they originally wanted because buyers cannot qualify for those loans or tend to not be able to qualify for those loans anymore because they're debt to income ratio. The and the interest rates. And then also everything that was happening from the Covid wave right now, which is all of these people that are behind on payments. Or when the market actually went down in some areas by a significant percentage, they have no equity in the deal. So now they have no ability to sell unless they want to come out of pocket in order to sell. Don't care how wealthy you are, you never wanna lose money on a real estate deal. So now we can help people at least break even in walk away. So we saw the seller side dramatically increased cuz there's more at bats for us. One of our main lead sources is expired listings. So expired listings started to.
[00:20:27]
Go back up again. So now our students and our investors had more opportunities. And then we look on the buyer side. The buyer side, with rising interest rates, not only the normal buyers that we help, which are buyers that have bad credit scores that need time in order to qualify for loans. Self-employed people, people that need 24 months worth of seasoning in order to become bankable. But now you also have everyone that could qualify for loan. 12, 18 months ago at a low interest rate, two, three, 4%. Now we're unable to qualify, you know, at the 7, 6, 7 and 8% range now. So now our buyer pool, in our seller pool, were growing at the same time and we just, we don't foresee that changing at any point in time.
[00:21:09] Earl Cline
Very cool. If one of our listeners said, Hey, I really want to get started in real estate today. What do you think? Would you recommend they go hire a coach immediately? Would you recommend they try to figure out a way to do this on their own? What do you think is the best way for somebody to get started doing what you're doing?
[00:21:24] Zachary Beach
That's a great question and this is the exact approach I would always take once I found a niche that I wanna be a part of, cuz let's say they don't wanna necessarily be a part of creative finding. Once I have a niche that I wanna be a part of and I foresee that I know I could be successful in being, I align with that niche. Secondly, then I would be looking for a coach or community of people that are doing deals actively today and that have been doing it significantly, I'd say for the past 5, 10, 15 years, meaning they're way ahead of, from a skillset and a knowledge perspective than I am. And then lastly, I'd put the blinders on because the world that we live in, You could listen to me today, talk about creative financing, and then you could have somebody else tell you about creative financing tomorrow.
[00:22:07]
And really at the end of the day, it's about do align with say, my values versus the others or my systems and procedures versus the others. And can you be successful in that and think that you can dedicate the next, at least three to five years to this business. Because it's not gonna be easy. It's gonna take time in order to develop the skill sets, the systems, and the mindset surrounding it so you can be successful. That's the exact thing that I do consistently when I go look to improve upon any portion of my life. So at any given time, I have multiple coaches or I'm a part of multiple masterminds, although that may seem like a lot. What I really do is I hone in on where I'm trying to go from a goal set, and then I just find out who's already accomplished that, and then I go surround myself with that person.
[00:22:51]
Because it's interesting that while we were taught in school, right, so you're taught in school that if you collaborate or if you say copy somebody's work, that it's cheating. But once you become an entrepreneur, it's like the golden ticket to become successful. It's like you now go find people to collaborate with and you find somebody that already has the answers. That way you can implement the answers that much more quickly. I'm sure people have said this, or we've heard people say something similar to this, and that is like, you can either. Take the long road or the toll road because the information and the community and the map, it's gonna cost you an investment in yourself, but you're gonna be able to get there significantly faster. Or you can go out there and try to do it on your own and make every single mistake that we've already made and we can stop you from doing it, and then it'll take you much longer to be, to reach that success or that goal of yours. So I would always recommend. The coaching route, assuming again, this is the big asterisk, assuming you pick the right coach and community that'll lead you to success.
[00:23:50] Ben Waller
This is a little outta line, but I really like what he just said, so I wanna comment on it. You're talking about the system, teaching people to stay in their lane and not copy people. Obviously we learned that at school for our listeners, if you didn't catch that in order to be successful, collaboration is extremely important. There's obviously people like Zach and his coaching program. There's other programs you can look into if you wanna be successful in this world. Don't do what they taught you in school and keep your blinders on. You need to build your network and find other people that you can learn from so you can truly be successful.
[00:24:23] Zachary Beach
No, Ben, I can directly connect hundreds of thousands of dollars today and millions of dollars of future revenue to one mastermind that I'm currently a part of because it is the people in the network that I'm a part of that is generating business consistently and is making it that much easier for revenue to come into our company. So that is like if you could take away anything from this podcast here today, and that is like get yourself a part of a network and I wanna poo poo like Ria. Cause I speak at a lot of RIAs, I speak at a lot of meetups. But make sure you are surrounding with people that are actually doing the deals, not just there to learn. Cuz I go into so many of those, those types of environments and there's like, who's doing real estate deals? And it's like three people raise their hand and you're like, whoa. Guys, we gotta get into a room where there's more than just three people doing real estate deals. And I think a lot of that comes from what you're talking about with shiny object and things of that sort. So I digress.
[00:25:18] Earl Cline
No problem. Last thing I wanted to touch, at least on this topic, talk a little bit about the transformation in the coaching industry, so to speak, and what are you seeing out there as far as differences in coaching programs? Like I said, I've been involved in several of them. Some of 'em I thought were really, really good. And some of them I thought you paid a lot of money for something that you could get online. So to speak. And then how does somebody find the go about finding the right coach?
[00:25:42] Zachary Beach
I think especially the last, I wanna say the, I think since Covid, in my opinion, COVID sped up the information like coaching world. Because every single person that was doing some sort of real estate, and I'm just gonna stick to real estate investing cuz you could really taking this to any other industry as well with information marketing. And really that's kind of where it starts. I think it sped up the process because a lot of real estate investors were looking for new ways in order to create revenue for their family to live and be virtual cuz there was no other option. So you saw a lot of people that necessarily didn't have the credentials teaching people, and that's really where you're starting with a faulty foundation. So if you're learning information from somebody that's like three to five deals, And they haven't been through a lot of different real estate transactions.
[00:26:31]
Then the information they're giving you could be correct in some circumstances, but could be very faulty in other circumstances, which then, as you can imagine, leads to more challenges down the road with people that are actively trying to buy and sell real estate. So I'd say that is one thing that we've seen a lot of, which is just unqualified people now becoming coaches. And they're able to do so in such a way because of the social media world that we live in, which is they can put on a really good front to say, Hey, I'm doing all these awesome stuff. I can rent the plane. I can take pictures in front of it. I can say I've done all these things. But when it actually comes down to coaching, uh, now coaching is different than mentorship in my opinion. Mentorship or advisory is like, you call me, you tell me what problems you have, I give you advice. Coaching. This is what I learned from that book. A Trillion Dollar Coach That Talks from Bill Campbell, who is the the coach for like Google and all those huge high tech companies and coaching is about sharing and locking arms and showing people their blind spots consistently so they can evolve more quickly.
[00:27:33]
That's just one component of it. So when we look at our coaching world, What we have found to be successful is that we literally lock arms with people and we structure it in such a way that everybody is revenue sharing on the real estate deal. So now it incentivizes the coach, say, our team, to go out there and help you find deals, execute deals, and then make sure that deals are profitable throughout the course of the time, uh, of the actual transaction versus just telling you to go do something. So that's, that's why we've seen a lot of success is one of the. One of the main reasons why people have come to our community is because they felt, well, there was a lack of support. That's where we found success. So what we found the opposite is because everybody, or there's large groups of people out there selling information into, uh, say, large group coaching programs where they're now selling a course and then a, a group, uh, mentorship where they show up once a month.
[00:28:32]
There's a massive amount of information that's happening with not a large amount of execution, and that's where we're starting to see a major disconnect when it comes to people saying, Hey, coaching doesn't work. And that's like, yes, coaching does work. If you're able to execute on the information that the coach is telling you, so that way you can now bypass a lot of the challenges that are faced.
[00:28:55] Earl Cline
So how do you go about finding the right coach then?
[00:28:56] Zachary Beach
I actually did this on another podcast. I have a coach of ours that actually has a podcast and he asked me this exact question. That is number one. I do a lot of research. Um, so if, if I'm gonna go look for a coach, I wanna, number one, determine again, which niche should I wanna be a part of, and then I'm gonna start looking for what mastermind or coach. Is actively doing the thing that I want them to do or that I wanna do, and they've been doing it for a while or a long time and have proven track record. So I do research, research. I start looking at, um, I usually pick up about three to four particular coaches in that industry. And then what I do is I actually set up sales calls with them and, and I understand sales calls cuz we do sales calls.
[00:29:38]
So I let them, then I walk through their pitch. I, I wanna hear their pitch to me on what their main differences between everyone else to make sure that they have the strength. That's my weakness. Right? It's like, Because we could come to real estate investing and if my strength is being able to make phone calls and my scripts are really good, which is the foundation of, at least in our world, real estate investing, then I don't need a coach that has fundamentally built everything around scripts. No, I may need him to be fundamentally strong and deal structuring. That's, that's what I wanna have them bring to the table. So I go through those pitches, and once I go through all those pitches, then I'll kind of lay out all the information and say, all right, which one's gonna be the the best fit for me?
[00:30:19]
Ideally, I'd try to get some proof of concept as well, if you can, you know, I'd get to try to speak with some of their students. Or former business partners or something like that, or, uh, worst case now, just make sure that I'm really diving into their reviews and all that in order before I go ahead and make that, make that, uh, purchase or that investment. And once I do, though, this is the most important part of the entire thing. Once I do, then I gotta, then I commit. Now I'm dedicated to their system and their process. I don't go look for four other coaches anymore. I now set a timeframe and a goal that I'm now focused on with this coach. Try to keep away that shiny object as much as possible. Yeah, we're all guilty of it, but I try to keep away as much as possible, so now I can let their process and procedures guide me before I now make any assumptions on whether it's working or not. That makes sense.
[00:31:07] Earl Cline
When I first got started and people were always, I can't believe I just spent, you know, $8, 10 thou, whatever the do the figure was, right? I can't believe that, uh, Kiyosaki took this and now I don't have any money to invest. And in the beginning I was like, oh, I feel so bad for these people, and so on and so forth. And as the time went on, I finally learned to, and I really believe this, they did you such a favor. Because if they took every dime that you have to invest, you have no choice now, but to go in and, and, and, uh, learn to do this correctly, right? You have to go in and network and get business partners. And you have to do it correctly because a little bit of money that you spent for a coach was gonna evaporate pretty quickly anyway. So I believe wholeheartedly in the idea of getting coaches, and I think most people will get much, much further ahead by doing that.
[00:31:57] Zachary Beach
So we had a recent student that came to us. He was a government contractor and he was approaching his retirement. And he did not foresee his retirement to look very pretty. And this is guy that's worked for the government for 30 years. So he came and he invested in one of our top level programs and he did it in stages. We have a couple different ways in order to get involved. He did it in stages and then now he is at the highest level. The guy now has done all creative finance deals, so he is not, he didn't go to a bank. He didn't put down large down payments. He didn't go personally guarantee any debt. He's done five deals, each of them worth over a hundred thousand dollars a piece. So, These types of transactions. So seller financing where you're getting seller to be your bank or or taking over current, existing loans that are in the low percentages that nobody else can get access to. It's all about learning the skillset and the systems and executing on those cuz now, This gentleman, even if he left our community today, would know exactly how to do those types of transactions for the rest of his life, which means that not only his retirement is being built now, he just actually retired in Corless in May.
[00:33:02]
He just retired about two weeks ago Now he controls his destiny for the, the rest of his life because he is now learned these skill sets has the systems that opportunities to play. So when somebody comes to invest in like a, a real coaching program that has proven results, It's about the long-term results. Cause you completely, dramatically change the perspective on how now you can generate wealth and money consistently. It's not just about the six months or the 24 months or whatever. You're a part of a program. It's about what you can do and then and after it dramatically changes people's lives.
[00:33:36] Ben Waller
Zach, you're providing a ton of value for our listeners. And one of the things that we talk about on this podcast is ways that people can create passive income for their selves to retire wealthy and happy. And the reason I'm bringing that up right now is because your, uh, coaching program sounds amazing. And it's focusing on certain types of real estate investing strategies. And I wanna point out to our listeners, and I'm asking this as a question, Zach, I would consider what you are teaching as active real estate investing strategies. Would you agree with that statement?
[00:34:05] Zachary Beach
A hundred percent agree that the beginning when you're starting a creative financing business, this is an active business model that events you can transition into a passive. But yes, definitely more active than passive.
[00:34:19] Ben Waller
How much time should somebody be expecting to put in actively with your real estate investing strategies to be successful? How long does it take?
[00:34:25] Zachary Beach
I can give you some averages, but know this and that is anytime you're starting any business is two things are gonna happen. Either you have the time you're gonna put into the business, or you're gonna put money into the business. So we tend to train our students first and foremost on how to put their time into the business. Learning the skillsets, learning the knowledge, setting up the systems and procedures so that way eventually they can fund the business with their real estate transactions and grow up their portfolio and move from Solepreneur to CEO, if that makes sense. When a new student comes in, specifically one that has zero real estate experience, which is most, they're gonna put in around 10 to 12 hours a week into the business. Each week in order to eventually generate about a deal a month.
[00:35:12] Ben Waller
So if somebody right now was a W2 employee and they wanted to do your real estate investing strategies, would you recommend that they do it cold Turkey or should they transition slowly, like keep their w2, start working with you, build up some projects, and then eventually leave their W2?
[00:35:28] Zachary Beach
Yeah, the latter. We primarily will train people to say, all right, you, you got your normal lifestyle, right? You're coming. Most are approaching us because they're either looking to, they wanna eliminate their W2 cause they don't love it, right? Or looking to to create a different lifestyle. So it's like, first let's get you to a point where you can eclipse your salary. So let's start setting some goals and some timelines where we can teach how to buy and sell real estate to a point where you can eventually eclipse your salary. Then once you do that, now we'll create a game plan in order to have you execute and make the leap. Now some, we've helped people retire in nine months. Others, it's taken 3, 4, 5 years. It's all gonna depend upon tolerance level, right to risk. Um, and also your current overhead and then the amount of deals that you can generate during that timeframe.
[00:36:17] Ben Waller
A lot of great points there, and what I'm taking from this, Zach, is that regardless of what real estate investing strategy somebody wants to do, it sounds like they should be having a solid plan if they want to be an active real estate investor. If they have a job right now, they should. Look for a coach or a mentor in the specific niche that they want to do, they should put together a plan. They should have goals, they should do it structured so that they don't jump off of their W2 and end up financially broke in a couple months. Right? Is that what you're saying?
[00:36:45] Zachary Beach
Yeah, a hundred percent. We give what we call free strategy calls as well, so. As you start communicating with us, potentially at the podcast, we'll have, we'll, you can book a free strategy call where we can actually walk you through, you can tell us about where you see where you wanna be, how much money you wanna generate, and we could create a, a specific game plan and really point you towards the resources that'd be most likely to help you get there.
[00:37:07] Earl Cline
I think my very first coaching students put, got put in my schedule. I opened it up. The guy literally said to me, I just paid the money. He says, I've gotta pay my rent in like three days. I need you to help me find a deal. I said, well, you have, I don't have any money. I don't, you know, he was totally, totally unprepared and just quit my job, ready to start doing real estate full-time, and it was hard to not smile a little bit. I think it was one It got so bad early on. Robert Kiyosaki actually wrote a book while I was coaching for him that was entitled Before You Quit Your Job, because so many people got so excited about the coaching program that, Hey, I'm just gonna quit my job. I'm gonna go get out of the rat race. So it's really, really important that you put together a plan before you do that.
[00:37:52] Ben Waller
So on today's episode, we're talking with Zach about his real estate coaching program called Smart Real Estate Coach. We're talking about, uh, what needs to be done if you wanna be an active real estate investor and putting together a plan. And I also wanna talk to Zach because I know he's got some thoughts on this about how to be happy while working on personal achievement. Because what we're talking about building up retirement, working for yourself, there's a lot of things that would drive you to do that. So Zach, the question I wanna ask you is, why does somebody need to understand who they are today before they can decide who they wanna become?
[00:38:24] Zachary Beach
No, it makes total sense. I mean, this is like the whole thing and, and I say this because me personally, as I've gone through, you know, being a business owner, Uh, real estate investor. It's all been self-discovery, the whole thing. Because each and every challenge in which I've faced, I now have to look in the mirror and say, how do I make this decision? And sometimes, like, how do I not completely like fall apart? Because a lot of this comes with self-induced pressure, right? But also as you're growing and growing a business, but also you have other things going on in your life, like I have a wife, I have two young kids.
[00:39:03]
Under the age of six. Um, there's a lot of, you know, a lot of people count on you. So when you're making these decisions and trying to, uh, improve your lifestyle, there's, there's a lot, you know, a lot of pressure that comes with it as well. Um, and anybody that's listening to this, I'm sure they kinda understand that, whether you have a W2 or your real estate investor. Um, so it's all discovery and I think what what comes about is that as you go through self discovery, at least this has been for me, And I've gotten to know myself better. I know how to make better decisions because I now understand on how I believe I should make those decisions because I've made say, similar or hard decisions in the past and they've given me a certain result, good or bad, right?
[00:39:47]
Here's the challenge that happened. Here's the decision I made. Um, and here's a result I got. Now if that was a bad decision, it's all right. That was a challenge I faced. That's a lesson learned. How do I apply that to the next challenge that pops up? Or, Hey, I got good results. Let me try to test that that again, and now if I get another similar results, well now that's a principle I can live by. So it just, that whole entire self-discovery is what then allows you to build that foundation and then you get to build to the next. I always like to do this though, and that is, and this is something that's been taught to me for mentors, and that is. Although I'm discovering myself now, I am acting as if I'm the person who I want to become because we're all in training.
[00:40:31]
So if, say, if I wanna be a billionaire, I need to start making decisions now as if I'm a billionaire. Because then it becomes inevitable that I get there. But if I'm making decisions today as if I make a hundred thousand dollars a month or a hundred thousand dollars a year, and I'm expecting to get these massive results in the next 10 years, 20 years, then those don't add up. Um, so the self-discovery eventually leads to, you know, you now having the confidence to start acting as if you're the next person or the person you want to become. Because once we become that person, that's when we start attracting the things as if, you know, that person gets. And, uh, if you study a lot like quantum physics and things of that sort, uh, we only attract the things that we are, we don't attract the things that we want. Uh, so we gotta get where we are at that level of frequency that those things that we truly want come to us.
[00:41:24] Ben Waller
Zach, you have a ton of value that you're providing to myself and to our listeners. I wish we had more time, cuz I've got a bunch of other questions I'd love to be asking you. Um, what, what I'm taking away from today, Zach, is that. You have a lot of passion for what you're doing, which is probably why you make a great coach. It sounds like your program could be really helpful for people if they wanna get started as an active real estate investor, specifically with creative real estate investing strategies. So we're gonna have a lot of, um, links and stuff in the show notes for our listeners if they wanna check out your coaching program. Uh, I want you to give a quick shout out. You've written a couple books. Will you tell us about your books real quick?
[00:41:57] Zachary Beach
Yeah, so we've written a couple books. I've co-authored them with, uh, my two partners. Uh, Real Estate On Your Terms was our first Amazon bestselling book. That is, that's really the one that, so today I'll make sure that everybody gets a copy of that. We'll actually ship it out to you for free. That's the one that really goes in depth into our business model, our stores, and our business model with a bunch of case studies and all that as well. Uh, but we also wrote a book, which was a collaborative effort with a lot of other real estate coaches called The New Rules of Real Estate Investing.
[00:42:31]
And then we also came out, which we reached Amazon Bestseller in Marketing, uh, with a book called Sell with Authority for Real Estate Investors. So we've kind of covered the gamut. But if I'm listening to this podcast today, um, I would start with the basics, which would be what's creative financing? How do I incorporate into my investment strategy, or how do I use this investment strategy in order to get me to my end goals? Um, and that has tons of case studies in there, so it makes everything a lot more collaborative. I know we didn't even cover it today, but. We, we, when we exit our deals, we have a trademark three payday system. So you get paid three times on every deal, and that really is what helps people generate enough income in order to go ahead and make that leap.
[00:43:11] Ben Waller
That's a good, uh, hook to get people to come talk to you right there.
[00:43:13] Zachary Beach
Yeah. So why don't we give 'em the book if, uh, if you're good, which is all you gotta do, all you gotta do is go to wickedsmartbook.com/retirewealthy. That's Wicked Smart books.com/retire wealthy. It's absolutely free. We'll get you a nice little bundle, uh, package. Uh, ship it out to you, uh, at our cost, and that way you can start investing in real estate. That's very nice of you,
[00:43:35] Ben Waller
Zach. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, in respect of time, we're gonna, we got a couple questions we asked everybody and then we'll wrap up. Okay.
[00:43:45] Earl Cline
So we call this the Final Four. Gonna assume that you're gonna tell us that, uh, it's one of your own books, but we ask everybody what their favorite business book is.
[00:43:53] Zachary Beach
No, I, I keep prepared. I, I have two books that, um, that I wanted to share with. Now it's not, not myBooks, uh, Uh, the two books that I'm, I'm listening to right now that are very focused on business are number one as Masters, Masters of Scale, which is by Reid Hoffman. Uh, he's the one that, uh, uh, created LinkedIn and grew LinkedIn. It's a really good book. Uh, if you listen to an audible, like, has all the interviews with people, which is people that have scaled, uh, to a massive level, but then also a book that I, I live by, um, which is Master the Rockefeller Habits. Um, another great book by Vern, uh, Verne Harnish. Uh, and it's all about how to grow and scale your business as well. So get the right real estate investment strategy with the right business growth strategy. And now you can go ahead and, and create as big a portfolio as you want. Perfect.
[00:44:46] Earl Cline
Tell us a little bit about what brings you happiness.
[00:44:48] Zachary Beach
When I hear the word happiness, uh, there's a couple of things that come to mind, but the first word that actually comes after happiness for me is growth. I am a big fan of growing both personally, professionally, monetarily, um, and, and it's not necessarily because of accumulation, but more of because of what it's gonna, where it's gonna bring me really, and, and, and how big it's gonna stretch me in order to get there. Um, I would say my biggest, my biggest fear is, is not a failure. Uh, my biggest fear is that I won't live up to what I'm supposed to accomplish. Um, and the, I think, uh, Les Brown talks about a lot where he says, like, when you're on desk bed and you know all the ghosts of like your accomplishments, I could have been show up at your door. And they're like, why couldn't you have like, helped me become me? That's what drives me. So I'm happiest. When I'm growing both as again, a business owner, as a father, as a husband, Soph friends, constant improvement, uh, brings me happiness.
[00:45:53] Earl Cline
Results with, with this, uh, most of the people say, I don't think I'm going to retire. But tell us a little bit about what your, uh, what, what your retirement looks like to you. What's your ideal retirement?
[00:46:03] Zachary Beach
Yeah. I'm like, I'm in like my earning years right now. Too many things to accomplish here, but if I could, you know, snap my fingers, I would say that. I don't, not only a portfolio of real estate, but a portfolio of businesses that were dramatically impacting, uh, not only North America, but the world in a positive direction. Uh, if that's the case, then I'd be happy to retire.
[00:46:26] Earl Cline
Perfect. I, uh, uh, I, I'm, I'm getting a lot closer to you than, than you, I think, and, uh, and I could start to visualize it. I'm not a, uh, uh, spend my whole life on the beach, but I might spend my whole life on the back of a motorcycle. So anyway, uh, what do you think is the best way to give back?
[00:46:44] Zachary Beach
From my standpoint, it's. It's, uh, it's knowledge. I think if we can from a, from many different perspectives. So I, I, I know we only covered a small portion of my story, but if we can educate the, the younger generations, not only through, I'd say most importantly through entrepreneurship, I think they would make a dramatic change. And, uh, and not only are the United States, but I would say, you know, globally, cause I, I truly believe that entrepreneurship and. Small to mid-sized businesses are the ones that are gonna make a dramatic change in this world. So giving back would be through all my lessons learned specifically in, you know, business to give them, uh, give 'em to younger generations.
[00:47:25] Earl Cline
Ben's gonna put, uh, all your information on the, uh, on the show notes so that people know how they can, uh, uh, how they can find you online. Uh, we, we appreciate, uh, we appreciate you being here with us today. Uh, uh, great, great content. We, uh, uh, we think that our listeners will get a tremendous amount. Uh, from, from what you've shared with us today, we really, really appreciate your time. Ben?
[00:47:49] Ben Waller
Just as a quick summary for our listeners on today's episode, we talked about what is smart real estate coach and why you might be able to use it in your own investing strategy, why real estate is like running a business and what you need to be doing if you wanna be an active real estate investor. And we also talked about how to be happy while working on personal achievement. We wanna thank you for joining us on Retire Wealthy and Happy podcast. And we hope to see you next time. Thanks for being with us, Zach.
[00:48:12] Podcast Outro
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