So the big question is this how are real estate investors who don't have a ton of free time, don't have access to off-market deals and didn't start life on third base, how do we grow a real estate business conservatively to support our families, finally leave the corporate rat race and build a legacy? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Ed Matthews and this is Real Estate Underground. This is the Real Estate Underground Podcast Show number 85. Greetings and salutations, real Estate Undergrounders. It's Ed Matthews with the Real Estate Underground Podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. Today, I'm really excited about talking with the gentleman Scott Royle Smith of Royal Legal Solutions. I am very fired up about this because not only does he work with family offices, but his wheelhouse is asset protection and keeping the empires that we're all building safe from the likelihood of lawsuits and all of those other sundry things. So, scott, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us and I'm really excited and looking forward to this conversation. Welcome.
Scott Royal SmithYeah, thank you guys. It's really great to be here. I'm a book and book, and I'm always notorious for the guy that gives me all the secrets for free, of everything I've learned and know, so I'm happy to share today.
Ed MathewsRight on. Yeah, I always tell people I'm a cheap date. I'll tell you everything I know for over 30 minutes and a cup of coffee, and most of the time I'll buy the coffee. So why not, right that's?
Scott Royal Smithpretty sweet, I'll go on that date.
Ed MathewsYeah, cool man. All right, we're on it. So, scott, for those of us, I've been paying attention to you on LinkedIn mostly, but I know you're active on social media throughout. For the folks out there that don't know who you are, why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do for a living?
Scott Royal SmithYeah, so I'm an attorney and real estate investor and entrepreneur and I actually started when I was in law school. I bought my first transmission on auto repair shop for $10,000 in back taxes Wow, I helped the business and the building to be able to graduate from law school without debt. Wow, I was suing insurance companies as a litigator after I graduated from law school, but I kept buying real estate and I was actually making more money in real estate than I was law. So I left law, just built real estate, and I was on the dream that everybody was on, which was, if I could create this passive income, then I would finally have the life that I wanted. I realize now in my reflection, the game I was really playing was can I get the outside world situated in such a way that people will tell me that I'll finally feel okay on inside, I'll feel safe, I can go live the life I want, I'll feel excited about things like this dream lifestyle that I kept hearing about. And what I found out was nope, it's not just the money, because after I got the money in from the real estate, then I had to figure out okay, well, how do I protect it from lawsuits? How do I maybe could so to you and to make sure this is going to get passed to my family if anything happens to me appropriately. How do I save money on the taxes? What am I going to do for my future deals?
Scott Royal SmithBecause the more properties I was acquiring, well, it took a ton of time to acquire new properties and it took a ton of time to be able to manage all those properties, even when I had property managers that were in place. So I was like I'm really just in a place of golden handcuffs. So I took a full year and just studied into, like how do these types of wealth companies work, right, like which are people call family offices, but I can't hire a family office. I don't have $50 million to be able to be in the right bracket for that, and my net worth at that time was about, you know, $500,000 to $750,000. So I was like, great, let's just go ahead then and I'll just start to build one. So you know, I was an attorney. So I was like great, I can learn all the asset protection pieces, and then here's the tax pieces, and I slowly built a team and that's when I finally created it for myself.
Scott Royal SmithI was like great. I have a team now that manages all of the pieces for me, and inside of building that team, other real estate investors started to ask me for help because they have the same thing I did, so that's great. I need help with all of the back end. I know how to acquire properties, but what about all the other stuff? And how do I hold assets anonymously and protect them and the whole gamut down. And that's what Royal Legal Solutions is built on. We're a team of about 30 people CPAs, mbas, attorneys, investment advisors work with investors in all 50 states and just help people with soup to nuts either on like one part of what they might need. And some people want to say that when I come in and say, no, I really just want everything done for me because I want to spend more time with my family, pursue hobbies or whatever the case may be, and that's what we're able to deliver for them.
Ed MathewsSo you're basically in the business of creating family offices for investors, Is that? Am I hearing that correctly?
Scott Royal SmithYeah, you could think of like at its maximum utility if you used everything that we did. Essentially it would be something I'd call like a fractional family office. Okay, so we can actually do everything for you. It's amazing. You have to manage all of your corporate structuring. That needs to be all of the tax strategy filing the tax returns. What are new syndication investments that are going to pay you great returns and great tax benefits? What kinds of deals do you need to get into to reach the cash flow and net worth goals that you have and set aside? And ultimately, our clients that come in for the full boat of things that we do get down to a life where money only takes about an hour a month of their time and so they just show up for one one hour meeting a month and the rest of the time they're just living. And it's wild to see what happens when you get that much time and that low stress. Right.
Ed MathewsI wouldn't even know what to do. That's the thing.
Scott Royal SmithThen what's left is living Right. Living alone is actually like a whole another puzzle of like. What is it that I really like to do? It's an adventure.
Ed MathewsYeah, it's interesting. I had a conversation with a close friend of mine not that long ago and he was asking you know, hey, at what point are you going to retire? I said retire. Why would I retire? I enjoy what I'm doing. I like going to the office, I like doing deals, I like, you know, working with people and but you know the life you just described one hour a month, you know, that's a whole lot of golfing and fishing and hanging out with people.
Scott Royal SmithYou don't have to stop working either, though.
Right, you know that's an interesting point, right, and it was something we were talking about right before we hit record. So let's talk about that a little bit and unpack it. You know when you're talking about. You know I'm always espousing. I'm a guy who got out of the rat race at, you know, 47, 48 years old and I've been living the life of freedom for, you know, the past five years and it's wonderful. I love the fact that I don't have a boss and I can go to my daughter's softball game or go see my daughter my oldest daughter in Philly, or you know something like that. But the but there is something enticing. I'm, you know, from a balanced perspective. You know I work way more than I play.
Scott Royal SmithYeah.
Ed MathewsSo let's talk about it.
Scott Royal SmithYeah, the deal is, is that, like, just because you're free doesn't mean you have to go do anything Right? Like true freedom is just deciding and doesn't matter what you decide Right? What matters is your deciding Right? We might decide to continue to work, to build your companies, to do those things. It's not important what we do in life. What's important is the place we do it from, because it could be that whatever is the most desirous thing for you that brings you the most enjoy and fulfillment in your life.
Scott Royal SmithWhen you wake up in the morning and you make that decision of what do I want to experience today could be working and making money. I know guys that do this. They just love running the businesses, they love the scoreboard of making money in the game of it and how that all works. For the vast majority of us, though, what we're really looking at is saying, well, money actually represents pain. It represents pain of going to a job, the pain of having to find new deals, the pain of thinking what's the right corporate structure, the pain of thinking about taxes. It turns into this huge pain center for us.
Scott Royal SmithI've created really I created this whole company for myself, because I wanted to be able to get to this place of just saying can I wake up in the morning and then I make decisions about what is it that I want to experience today? It's a wild difference in lifestyle once you get there, and now I get the pleasure of being able to come on podcasts to be able to say listen, I built this. You can actually have it, too, and, in fact, we'll make you the CEO of a wealth building company that we build and manage for you and that you oversee, in one hour a month, and that's all you have to do and, from there, just make decisions. If you want to make more money, that's fantastic. I'd love to talk to you about how you can go make more money and go take over the world and build an empire.
Scott Royal SmithIf it's like, hey, I want to build this life with my family or fun and adventure, or I want to build more of my charitable giving into those things, great, awesome. I want to talk about that, because that's what my people are doing, the people that come to our weekly group coaching. This is the life that they've been able to set themselves on. Everybody's a different place. You don't get there snapping your fingers for most people, but there's an appropriate place to start for everybody. That's the beginning, yeah.
Ed MathewsSo I'm curious what does your first level customer or client? What does that person look like in terms of investment experience, in terms of assets, in terms of companies and all that?
Scott Royal SmithYeah, the important piece to remember is that this is a journey. You're on a journey right now and there's no quick fixes to the journey, but there is a huge difference between knowing that you're on a path that somebody else has walked before myself, that's built a company around it and now has successfully walked a bunch of other people through this path. What that means is that, wherever you're at like cool, I got my first single family home, you know. And now I'm thinking okay, do I need asset protection? Do I need an LLC? Should I have an estate plan? Is there some things I should be doing for my tax, all the way from somebody that has just their one property, their single family home, or their one four unit apartment or their first apartment complex they're at the very beginning of this path, right, and to all the people that are at the end, they're accredited investors, and high level accredited investors.
Scott Royal SmithAnd the thing that happens is we say, great, come in. We have a full vault where I have all the educational materials 80 books, hundreds of hours of videos, all organized by topic. Get direct access to the staff by becoming, by entering in that vault. You pay nothing for it. Get in with my team, my team, will walk you through like here's how we actually can give you a look under the hood of exactly what we would do, all the way from the diagrams of the asset protection to here's what you should expect, with like a 90% accuracy of how much money you should save on taxes, the types of investments you could be getting into through syndications that will help you place money safely, make it great returns, great tax benefits, that off of them, and then, holistically, this is how you manage everything. I'll get it all out for you.
Scott Royal SmithHere's how it works, and if it all makes sense, then you can pay us to go build all of it right and do it. So the deal is, I say people. I was like it doesn't matter where you're at, just get around the people that have whatever, whatever it is you want, get around the people that already have what you want, that are teaching on it, and have a community of people that are saying this is successful. That's the way you show, that's the way you show up confidence, and whatever it is you want to achieve in life is find those people. I just happen to be that guy for wealth.
Ed MathewsRight and your network is your net worth right. I mean, how many times have you heard that?
Scott Royal SmithSo 100% right, right, and what you have to do is copy the people that have already done it. Like life can't be any more simple than that.
Ed MathewsRight, and legend has it, steve Jobs. So I'm a retired techie, right? Or a former techie, I don't know that I'm retired. And legend has it that Steve Jobs had a post-it note on his mirror every morning that asked the same question, which was are you excited about what you're going to do today? And what you're talking about here is exactly that right, having that freedom, true freedom, right? I mean, if I didn't come into the office today, my business would still work right, but I don't know that I could take a year off without paying attention to it more than an hour a week.
So the interesting part is, you wake up in the morning, you challenge yourself and are you excited about what you're about to go do, as you're brushing your teeth or shaving or whatever? And most days I say absolutely. There are days where I'm like, oh, I wish I didn't have to go to the office today, but those are very, in all honesty, but those are very few and far between, fortunately, but at some point that may not be the case. And so when you talk about, it sounds like almost a menu of items that you can provide to an investor and, like you said, it's a journey. So how do you know where that vault seems enormous, voluminous and potentially overwhelming. So let's use me for instance, right? So I have a portfolio of properties in excess of 100 units and we've been cashflow positive for several years now and I'm hypothetically looking to dial it back a little bit in terms of my day-to-day direct management and I want to focus on growing the portfolio, not necessarily running the business. So how would you approach somebody like me?
Scott Royal SmithYeah. So, like, take the hypotheticals like, how do we get ed down to like one hour a month? Right, because it's like, hey, I totally want to do something totally different. Sign me up, brother. How do we do it? Right? So here's the basis that we're doing. So the vault has access to all the materials, right, it's all publicly accessible.
Scott Royal SmithBut the first thing you do is you need to talk to somebody that tells you, like, what is the things you actually need to study? Because there's so much stuff to study out there. Like, how many times do we listen to like podcasts and webinars and all this? And we're like, okay, I got like a nugget here and there. The first step we do is saying, no, no, this is the stuff you need to study. You need to learn about how the asset protection structures work, what the LLCs, how do they tree up, why does that provide you protection and what do you need to do? You've got to save money by protecting yourself from lawsuits, because lawsuits in this country, if you're, it's a start over button. You know that can happen anytime and everybody lies, so there's no way to protect yourself. Besides, use legal shields like in place, right. And so then I was like, great, now it's protected from lawsuits, now we need to protect you from taxes. So we look at it and say, cool, what's the most aggressive we can be between our CPAs and tax attorneys coming and say, how aggressive can we be on any of these write offs, that we have right deductions? And then we say, great, after the deductions then we're looking to say, well, what kind of tax shelter vehicles can we use? Can we save like 30% from taxes by just using private foundations, the Augusta rule and we use other pieces that are like that, these tax legal tax shelter vehicles that wealthy people know how to use, that we help people use. And what that does is it says, great, now we've protected as much money as we can, we got all the write offs in, we got all the money protected in the appropriate tax shelter vehicles. I still have this amount of tax liability. It's probably about a two thirds of what it was before, just because of the work we did. So we've already saved a bunch of money on taxes from there.
Scott Royal SmithAnd then we look at it and say, well, great, our last ditch effort for tax savings is why we love real estate and why we love like different types of machinery investments, because whether you're a W2 earner or 1099, it doesn't matter, there's appropriate investments out there. You can take depreciation, apply it against your income and that's how we drive that tax level down to zero or close to zero as we can get. And so then now we've played the game right. We played the game of we've saved. We've saved a lot of money on taxes. We have the appropriate investments that give us high returns and that those investments are also going to give us tax benefits to drive into single digit tax numbers in almost all cases, and over time we can usually get that number down to zero.
Scott Royal SmithAnd then the game comes in to say, well, what about my next investment? That's the thing that steals our time, right. So you're always going to have or I should say, if you're an elite investor, you're always going to be able to make more money by managing and finding your own deals, because you understand the marketing aspect that it takes to be able to find truly exceptional deals. Exactly. So a few people are in that bracket, right. Most people get much better returns. Average client comes in and tells me that they're looking for returns of 10 to 12.
Scott Royal SmithWe're usually able to get people in the 20 plus percent returns, with tax benefits on top of that through the syndication offerings that we have. So then it's like great, here's the menu of syndication offerings between oil and gas, investments, real estate, et cetera. And all we have to do then is say Ed, what kind of lifestyle and net worth do you want? How do you? How much cash flow do you need? How much, okay, how do you want your net worth to appreciate over time? And then we look at what the syndication deals that we have are and say how much money do we need in each of these different deals that kick us off certain net worth goals, cash flow goals and tax goals? And then it's just crunching numbers on the page. But the team does all of that crunching after you tell us the objectives.
Scott Royal SmithSo when you show up into the next monthly meeting, say here's the recommendations. You can either do this or you can do this. If you want a higher lifestyle now, you'll do this. If you want more security because you want higher net worth and more lifestyle later, then you do this, and both of these are going to drive to the tax advantages that we want. And then you just simply make decisions and you say great, I want to review it and then we'll place it next month. So we have a continual deal pipeline so that as any deal exits, like after it has a four or five-year exit time, then all of a sudden we already have new deals coming in.
Scott Royal SmithBut, by the way, you're never not on top of it because you've already put in the hour each month to review whatever the next deals are. You meet once a year with your attorney to ensure all of your estate planning and other things are handled for you Inside of that hour-long monthly meeting. You're also talking about any tax things are coming up. So now your tax and investing is constantly covered and if you have any questions at any time, you simply email into our paralegal team, which escalates it up to the appropriate person. 95% of the questions they already know the answers to and you get next day responses. So you're now in this ecosystem where your life is. I have continual support within 24 hours. I have scheduled meetings to make sure everything in my life is running correctly on an annual basis and on a monthly basis. I know that I'm on top of every possible tax advantage and investment advantage I could be taking, and it only takes me an hour a month. That comes into it. Now you're free.
I am blown away by how simple it is. I know it's, how straightforward it is. I know it's not simple. So, in terms of, you use the term fractional family office, so can you tell me a little bit more about that? In terms of you know, I'm intrigued to the point where we're going to have a conversation after we're done recording. Let's say, I'm at a portfolio value of 10 million bucks and I need I don't know $20,000 a month to live hypothetically and I'm looking to go to I'm at again hypothetically 120 units and I'm looking to go to 1,000 units by the end of 2025. And I've got this much capital and this much equity to go make that happen. So, you know, where do how do we engage? Like, where do you and I have that conversation first?
Scott Royal SmithYeah. So the big pieces of the supporting member is the why, right? So I had conversations with billionaires, and the conversations I had with billionaires about their money back I don't know 12 years ago into it was that I was asking them. I was like, well, what is this actually? Like, you know, it must be amazing being a billionaire, right, you just get to do it.
Scott Royal SmithEveryone at the time they're like no man, it takes me 20 hours a week to manage all the nonprofit stuff that I'm doing. What's all happening with all my attorneys and tax advisors? And I was like, oh right, because you have a bunch of stuff you're responsible for now and now you're having to self-manage all of these things. Right, that come into it. Right, there's nobody that's actually streamlining everything for you. You don't have a quarterback that screens you Like CEOs. They have COOs, right, and the COOs screen out all of the stuff, so they get CEOs just make decisions, right, the COO is the one that gets hammered. So the billionaires are like trying to figure it out. These people that have full-blown net family offices that's what everybody's trying to create is who can streamline all of the things so that way I can just be a CEO. So that's the big difference, right? When I say it's a fractional family office, it's because we can serve people that are at the very beginning of the journey and at our appropriate place, typically around the time that they're making over $200,000 a year, over a million plus net worth, then it makes sense to say cool, I actually want you to take over all of these things for me, scott, and make this whole thing happen, right? So it's not at any huge net worth levels anymore that it's dollar justified. You'll actually make more money in almost all cases by using the efficiencies of a pre-built team where everything is already done in-house. It's just efficiencies. Everything else is just inefficient on time and money because of how the economics of things work.
Scott Royal SmithBut what we would do, ed, is like in your case right, we're going to sit down. What's the list of all the assets? What is our cash flow needs, net worth needs? And let's look at your prior two years tax returns. See what you're currently paying in taxes. If anything right that comes into it. That's where you're at now. Where do you want to get to? Okay, I want it to work like this.
Scott Royal SmithAnd he says great, what do you have inside of your current portfolio? How's that working for you? And we make a plan that says do you want to keep managing all and self-managing all that? Do you already have existing teams and your own COO that runs all that for you? To protect you from your time you might want to keep that.
Scott Royal SmithIt might be one of those things that say ah, there's 50% of my portfolio that's dogs. It takes up a bunch of my time, right? So I'm going to exit that stuff and then put it into syndications, which will take none of your time, right? But syndication deals where we're getting in pooled investments with tons of people at one time so we're able to negotiate much better rates than just a retail investor. Coming into it that we have high level investors of a number of people before any deal gets entered into. So you have this thing called like pooled underwriting. That happens because of investor club.
Scott Royal SmithMy team and myself are looking over the investments. We're placing our own money into these deals as well too, so there's personal buy-in that happens inside of whatever's happening here. So we're always trying to instill levels of confidence into where is money actually safe and performing well and how do we get there. So that's like the nuts and bolts of it, right? You typically, if you're already kind of built out, like you are, you don't just like burn everything to the ground and then be like, cool, we're going to do all of this inside of six weeks. Right, there's my keys, scott.
Ed MathewsIt's all yours Right.
Scott Royal SmithWe just go cool, what makes sense for us to chunk in over time? Because, honestly, there's this other thing that happens, which is we emotionally have to move ourselves into a different place. Because now we're saying, like, ed has been responsible for Ed and Ed probably believes inside of himself everything works okay, if I'm looking at it and then I know all of it. So now Ed has to say, how do I get to a place where I can trust what's happening? Because with the trust I can have time, freedom, emotional freedom in space, mental space. Yep, I go into it.
Scott Royal SmithWithout trust, my mind is constantly going to be worried, right? So then we have to work on like, this type of like relationship, regardless of how good it is, how well can we transition over? And that's why I say it's a journey. We're talking about financial journeys, you're talking about asset journeys, you're talking about personal journeys of shifting. But on the other side of that journey is the utopia of like. What is life really can be like into it? And that's why I created this company for myself. It's because I was like, I'm obsessed with that life, whatever that life is, and it doesn't look like anybody else is able to get there. So I have to go create a company to get it for myself.
Ed MathewsYou know, it's the most successful entrepreneurs that I've met over the years. You know technology and here in real estate and elsewhere, I'd say that the huge majority of them come from a place that you just described, and that is I. As a business person have a problem. I don't see out in the landscape a solution, so I'm going to create a solution. And then you create the solution and all the systems go with it and the team to run it and everything else, and then you realize, hmm, I'm not the only person that needs this. And then you start to to, you know, allow other people into the ecosystem and pretty soon you've got another business that you never even really expected, which is, you know, offering the solution that you built for yourself to other people.
Scott Royal SmithRight, yeah, I mean, that's right, right. All these are essentially like individual things, like some people come in and say, hey, I just asked for protection, I just want tax, I just want estate planning. Yeah Right, that's where they're at in the journey, right, but I think it's beautiful to be able to have a place that you can come to. It's a single point of contact. Everything's in house, has all the education there. Get to interact with them for free, help, you get educated and then you just chunk through the journey in the appropriate way on a path that you know has this kind of endpoint. Yeah Right, because I haven't heard anybody else out there ever say that this other endpoints possible into it. I don't know of any other company or any other CEO or any other person out there that says you can actually and there's a way to get here and I've done it, yeah.
Ed MathewsAnd here is the map, right here yeah.
Scott Royal SmithAll you gotta do is start getting educated. Just come and start getting educated and you'll develop the trust and the confidence of like okay, what's possible.
Yeah, and you know the interesting part about it. The really interesting part that I'm kind of fixated on is you know your service, your capability, is a bunch of levers, right, and you turn them on, turn them off as you need them, right, and now it's putting them on when you need them. And you know it doesn't have to be an all or nothing, it can be very. You know you can start with I've got one problem and it's, you know, asset management and I need to make sure that I've got my. You know that I'm doing it right. And estate planning. You know that I've got it protected and you know what ifs are all handled and all that. So this is, I'm fascinated by you and your company. It's really impressive. So let me ask you something. You know along the way and, as you said, it's a journey, you know I'm sure you've had mentors and you know coaches and folks that have given you advice, and so I'm curious you know what is the best advice you've ever gotten and who gave it to you?
Scott Royal SmithThe best advice I ever got is the one that I gave earlier, which is is from my godfather. He actually built this company called Frames Direct and it was the very first eyeglass company online ever. Okay, right, and the advice they gave me which was funny right at the time because he's in a total blue water space with the internet just coming available, whatever but he always hammer with. He's like it doesn't matter, whatever you want in life, just find the people that already have it. Go hang out with them and listen, yep, and just tell you how to get there and just do whatever they say Don't. Once you can master everything that they told you about what to do. Then you can start to be creative, right, and tell you master it. Just do exactly what they tell you to do.
Scott Royal SmithAnd I've wasted millions of dollars and years of my life thinking I was smarter than other people. Same, it's a humbling place to be, to be like okay, I'm just going to live this principle now, living in that principle. For me, what it's done is actually makes life smooth. Imagine how much like if you ever go on like vacation for a student period of time and then you realize that all the stuff that I'm doing back home. I actually just didn't need to do it all. It's just about where it was going to be anyway and I was able to. Just kind of right, If you've ever had this experience. To me, what I want to reflect on my experience actually means like oh, most of the stuff I'm thinking I need to do or say to people, or emails I need to write, or whatever just actually doesn't need to happen at all, right.
Ed MathewsBut it's already handled because somebody else picked up the ball.
Scott Royal SmithSome other way it was going to get resolved right, besides me needing to go do more right. And what I'm a continual advocate for is like right. This is why it makes sense is because if I just do what other people told me to do, that I've already walked the path and they already have the thing that is I want, and they've already helped other people be able to get there already then what that means is is now I don't have to go do a bunch of stuff, right. That means, like, the things I think I need to do just don't need to happen Right. Like I don't have to do them. They might need to happen, but somebody else is going to take care of it.
Scott Royal SmithSo what does this mean? It means now you just have a ton of free time, right, and a ton of free mental space, and with that, this is when living starts. Like. I can't emphasize that. This is when living starts. Until then, we're not living. No, all we're doing is running from one thing to the next thing to keep our minds busy, because we're afraid of what's going to happen if we stop.
Ed MathewsSo true, so true. So you know you're obviously. I have this theory that leaders are readers, right, and you know, you're obviously highly accomplished and I suspect, given your background in law, that you're a reader. So you know. I'm curious, you know, but reading these days doesn't necessarily mean you know a tactile book, right, it's not. You know, picking up a book and reading it. It can be audio books, it can be podcasts, it can be videos on YouTube or wherever else. You know, I'm curious, you know, how do you take in information that you use in your day to day? And also, I'm really curious about who you're paying attention to these days.
Scott Royal SmithYeah, so it's super varied. Right, I'm gonna be listening to you. It depends upon what I'm doing at the time. So if I'm really deep into a particular project like, hey, I want to, I wanna learn like a new sales process, cause maybe my beliefs just shifted about what sales should be Like. Currently, my belief around sales is that the marketing end of what we should do should be educating people about what a new opportunity is like this. Are you interested in like what this kind of journey is like? Are you interested in what kind of free education materials we have? And then great, that's the part where people come to the place that says I might consider doing something now, and to me, that's when a sales process would start Sure, sales process. What I'm actually doing is I'm trying to help you, clarify anything you might have misunderstood and then help you through the emotional hurdles that you have inside of yourself to be able to do something different. And that's what I was like cool. I now have a different belief about like what sales is, and now I have to go find books or find people. That I say is that this thing is possible, cause I feel inside of myself that that's actually true. Right, I agree.
Scott Royal SmithSo some parts of my life are trying to really focus on. Can I find out what I really believe is true? And that comes from any types of things Like it come from meditation, journaling, reading spiritual books, sitting alone it, hiking in nature. It's getting still enough to say what do I think is really true here and then, after I find a site, I think this is what I think is true about this area of my life and business is your life right? It is extension of you. There is no difference between life and business. It's all just life. It's life in a different expression. So if this is what's true for me about how I'm gonna help people hear through the sales process, then I wanna go out there and find, okay, what's the technical ways in which people that have this kind of belief have already created a process to have that kind of conversation in the right kind of way, and I just mimic what they do.
Ed MathewsYou just model it right Exactly. You know. It's interesting Cause I and I think the internet played a huge role in this right, in that if you go buy a car and or you wanna buy a car and your first move I don't know anybody that you know the next move is go to the dealership and drive a car, right. The next move is talking to their friends about you know the dealerships in the area, getting on the internet and doing homework and you know watching videos and you know, basically, doing your shopping. The sales process is really a marketing process and by the time I get to the dealership, I already know what car I want, what color it's gonna be, how much I wanna pay for it and yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll talk to you and I'll listen, but this is the deal I want, right, and I'm fully formed when I'm walking in the door of that dealership. And I wholeheartedly agree that.
Ed MathewsYou know sales process these days is all about education. Right, it's all about. You know. This is where this is the journey I was on. This is how I got here. Here are the intricate pieces of strategy that I used. Here are the tactics underneath those strategies. If they resonate, give me a call and I'll share everything with you, right 100%.
Scott Royal SmithThat's everything we do now is geared towards get educated inside of, like the vault. Talk to us, we'll help you get point-pointed when you need to get educated. Then our sales process is here's a look under the hood. Here's how everything will work. That's all the technical execution of whatever you learned about how it's gonna apply to your situation and how do we go through like that that kind of a hood piece of it.
Yeah, right on. I mean, and it's you know, the fact that somebody could go in and look at it and go I can do this myself. Well, maybe not, probably not, but it's the do it myself versus done for you model right, and a lot of service providers sell both. The fact that you've provided the research and all the blocking and tackling and what needs to happen is really I think it's amazing, and I think it's you know you're gonna. I'm sure you've helped a whole lot of people figure out what the next stage of their life looks like by doing this. So congratulations for that. Thanks, ed. Yeah, I mean, that's amazing. So let me ask you, now you're 15 years or so into this journey for yourself if you had to start over, what would you do different?
Scott Royal SmithI wouldn't just stick to the basics. Yeah, like of everything, right, I thought that life was going to get better if I was super creative and worked really hard. Like I was going to like whatever. What I didn't realize until I got years into it was that really all you have to do to be amazing, right, to create a. One of a kind thing is you don't have to reinvent any one wheel, right, evan? That's not how you really win. How you really win in life is finding out what is exactly you want.
Scott Royal SmithThis is hard. Most of us struggle with really getting something. Really true. I will say what do you want?
Scott Royal SmithAnd it's a reflex of like, well, I want to be a billionaire. Like what the hell does that even mean? Right, you don't even know what that even like means. You have no idea how much a billion dollars is. You have no idea what it's like to manage a billion dollars. You just heard billionaires are cool and you say you want that now, right, no, like, get still with what it is you really want, right.
Scott Royal SmithAnd then, once you find out what it is that you really want, then it's just do the basic building blocks. It's going to be a system of things you have to do to be able to get there. And if you just get really good at all of like, okay, cool, here's all the building blocks for us, like it's wealth, right. So I need to know the asset protection and you know the estate planning and you know the tax and you know the investment strategy, and then I need a team to be able to manage it, because what I really want is ultimate time and freedom in a bulletproof way that says, once I'm free, I never go back into. Whatever is the matrix of that game, right, because once you're out, you're never going to want to go back. You're going to be like this is like this is a crazy place I used to live and I can't believe I used to do it right, and do it because life is so much better now.
Scott Royal SmithAnd if you just get really good, like, just do it best practices, right, just best practices in each area, then you find out how they all work together. Now you have a super product or you have a super service, or you have a super leverage in your life, and it doesn't take you having to be anything exceptional. Best practices only means you're in the top 10%. Well, holy smokes, how many times in your life if you put your mind to something that you couldn't get to the top 10% of whatever that field of study was into it.
Scott Royal SmithSo you can either spend the time, like I did, to have to learn all of the disciplines and then figure out how they all have to work together and all of the spreadsheets and the diagramming, the teams and how all that has to happen. Anybody is able to do that. All I'm offering is to say, like that's what I wish I would have known earlier on in life, that that's all I had to do. I didn't have to do anything. Truly like I'm going to be an Olympic gold medalist in this one discipline and that's how I'm going to win, because that's really hard and not very many people can do it, but everybody can do this thing.
Ed MathewsIt's one of the things that I always appreciated about my past life in the software and consulting world, and it's the same thing with a book. Any book you read nonfiction that is is basically boiling down the last five to 10 years of that author's life and all the things that went right and all the mistakes that they made and how they fixed it. The goal of most nonfiction books is to compress that time to the time it takes you to read the book, to skip those 10 years and land at the other end of those 10 years. I think what you're talking about is exactly the same thing, right? The service provider, the consultant, the person who runs a fractional family office offering they're compressing time so you can leapfrog all of the things that they already learned.
Scott Royal SmithYou take it from like 10 years to six weeks. Well, that's what.
Ed MathewsI'm saying Exactly right, yeah, right yeah, it's exactly right yeah.
Scott Royal SmithAnd then with the time compression you get money expansion right, because then you get to ask yourself a different question. It's like do I want more money now? Do I need more money now? And if I do, then I have all of this extra resource called time and energy that I can then convert into more money.
Ed MathewsOr want to.
Scott Royal SmithOr something else right, which is what I advocate, which is we probably actually already have enough money in most circumstances for most people. You find that like if my experience has been is that once we can get really clear on like what it is I want, then that gets translated to a dollar figure of how much money do I really need? Typically, that's actually just your current lifestyle, yep. And then it says great, how can we either? What's the investment portfolio that gets you there and what's your gap, if any? So we're mostly people we talk to, especially if they're like doctors or high ed W2 income earners, but it's in the order, credit investors. What we find is that, no, your timeline of freedom isn't 10 years, 12 years, 15 years, it's three years. And all you got to do is this Just keep it in the base, it's in life, and just be more strategic, because the efficiencies are there, right.
Ed MathewsYeah, right on, man. So it's amazing and so I'm curious. I'm always interested to know, you know, when you're not talking about real estate, and you know your world, your business world, you know, what do you like to do outside?
Scott Royal Smithof it. Yeah, man, for me that's not living, starts into it. So like this is where I love to invite people out to my homes, either like in Texas or Utah or Washington, especially people that are like investors, because like really all the people that I'm investors, that we're coming in for this kind of thinking, sure Everybody's kind of agreed. That says I'm really curious about what's the highest level of living I can get to. And then what I try to, what I enjoy doing, is curating experiences. So I first I'll find out like where are the places in the world I like to go to and can we bet in Utah and take them like cany nearing and hiking, going on boats and cany hams and be like this is actually what living can look like.
Scott Royal SmithAnd let's get in like do other stuff in the evening Like we could get into, like doing painting or drum circles or by the fire or being out on the desert or doing kind of like whatever is alive for the people in the group, because the reality is is like, in my mind that's actually what we were meant to do is to go out and have fun and be around people that are interested in saying how can I have the most, not like, like you know, cocaine and tequila fun in Vegas, but like just this, like wholesome togetherness of sharing of, like life experience. That's just beautiful, it's all around us, and so that's that's what I like to do. I like to go out and do all of that stuff, and then I like to pull people together and be like, hey, come do this with me, and then the business pays for all of it. Right, because the business, that's the purpose of the business. The purpose of the business is to make money so we can then go live together with the people we want to go live with.
Ed MathewsRight, that's amazing. I'm blown away. So, Scott, if if somebody wants to learn more about your practice or how to get in touch with you, you know what's the best way to do that.
Scott Royal SmithYeah, best is just go to Royal Legal Solutionscom. There's a video that we have right there on the homepage. The video takes about like 30 minutes to walk through, but it walks through the things in much more detail For those of you like how does how does it actually work Right? And then it steps in all of the processes and then show me the spreadsheets of where does all this savings happen and blah, blah, blah, like all that's going to happen there in the video and then and then schedule a time immediately to book with the team, because the team's going to help you figure out, okay, where's the gaps you have in the education and help you get into the vault, find out exactly what you need to study.
Scott Royal SmithAnd we never take any money from you to like just to be able to get that piece of it Right. The only money that we ever ask for is when you're actually asking us to build things Right For you. So the idea here is, say, just go to Royal Legal Solutionscom, connect with a team, start getting educated, figure out where you're at on the journey, what the next steps in the journey are going to be, like, like great, does it all make sense? If it all makes sense, then great, let's start on a process of dialing in an exact plan. You know so. It's just Royal Legal Solutionscom, and everything kicks off from there.
Ed MathewsAwesome. Well, Scott Smith, thank you so much for your time today. It was really a pleasure. I'm honestly blown away by both your perspective on life and also the service that you've created and, like I said as soon as I hit stop on the recording button, we're going to have a conversation.
Scott Royal SmithOne minute. Thanks for having me on.
Ed MathewsAppreciate it. All right. Thank you All right. This has been the Real Estate Underground podcast, a Clark Street Capital presentation. Thanks for joining us. If you're enjoying the show, please remember to subscribe and share it with your friends. If you'd like to learn more about Clark Street Capital and our upcoming projects, please join our investor club at clarkstcom. Slash join Until next time. Happy investing.