Have you ever considered putting yourself in the shoes of investors, brokers, sellers, or clients? According to Antony Vicino, it is an essential part of the syndication journey. Anthony is an author, investor, and small business operator who has helped build several successful companies. He’s found success by designing systems at scale by implementing value-based content marketing strategies and by delivering an exceptional end-user experience.
In 2019, Anthony joined forces with Dan Krueger to create Invictus Capital, raise $1 million in capital, and execute their first syndication. In this episode, we talk about Anthony’s superpower – creative problem solving, and how it has helped him grow his business. We discuss the importance of documenting your process and delegating tasks to interns and VAs, consistent content creation, and engaging with your audience, as well as some tips for engaging with potential clients or investors. For more on the end-user experience and how Anthony has coupled hyper-focus with habit for success in his business, tune in today!
- Anthony tells us how he got into the syndication business and founded Invictus Capital.
- Anthony shares his superpower – creative problem solving, substituting “can’t” with “how”.
- The systems that have helped Anthony scale his business; documenting processes and delegating tasks.
- How documenting your process can help you improve it, observing it from a bird’s-eye view.
- Why Anthony thinks that marketing and consistent content creation is the most difficult part.
- Where Anthony and Dan find virtual assistants through online platforms and seek out interns.
- How Anthony and Dan train interns and the simple tasks that they allocate them.
- Tips for starting a conversation with a potential investor or client by doing a bit of research.
- Improving the end-user experience by giving users a platform to engage and talk on.
- How Anthony wishes he had built the business differently, by hiring sooner rather than later.
- The hardest part of the syndication journey for Anthony; putting himself in the shoes of others.
- Anthony’s best source for finding new investors is through giving them educational content.
- How coupling hyper-focus with habit has contributed to Anthony’s success.
- How Anthony likes to give back through education and working with people towards their goal.
[bctt tweet=”What you’re doing is you’re putting people and characters into interesting situations and then trying to figure out how to get them out of it. That mental process is really helpful when you’re talking about businesses, and real estate in particular, because you’re going to have a lot of issues… that you can’t always solve in a straightforward manner. — @AnthonyVicino” username=”whitney_sewell”]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Multifamily Investing Made Simple Podcast
About Anthony Vicino
Anthony Vicino is a serial entrepreneur who has helped build multiple multi-million dollar companies from the ground up by creating efficient systems that scale, utilizing value-based content marketing strategies, and always focusing on providing exceptional end-user experiences. He is a Best-Selling Author, Investor, and Small Business Owner who successfully managed his own personal portfolio of multifamily assets spread across the country before joining forces with Dan Krueger in 2019 to create Invictus Capital. Together, Anthony and Dan, are driven to help people achieve financial security by providing solid multifamily-based investment opportunities in an environment of trust, transparency, and clarity. Anthony graduated from Augsburg University with degrees in Psychology, English, and Religion. He specializes in Marketing, Operations, and Investor Relations.
Full Transcript
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:00.0] ANNOUNCER Welcome to the Real Estate Syndication Show. Whether you are a seasoned investor or building a new real estate business, this is the show for you. Whitney Sewell talks to top experts in the business. Our goal is to help you master real estate syndication.
And now your host, Whitney Sewell.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:00:24.4] WS: This is your daily Real Estate Syndication Show. I’m your host, Whitney Sewell. Today, our guest is Anthony Vicino. Thanks for being on the show Anthony.
[0:00:33.4] AV: I’m excited to be here Whitney, I’ve been listening to your show for a long time so it’s pretty cool to be here.
[0:00:38.2] WS: Awesome, I’m grateful that you listen as well and that you’ve come to be a guest and add value to all the other listeners and myself, Anthony, grateful for that. A little about Anthony, he’s an author, investor, and small business operator who has helped build several successful companies.
He’s found success by designing systems at scale by implementing value based content marketing strategies and by delivering exceptional end user experience and that’s what all of us are working every day towards so I’m looking forward to this conversation. In 2019, Anthony joined forces with Dan Cruger who is a previous guest, just not too long ago actually.
Correct me Anthony, is the name of the business, pronounce it for me.
[0:01:22.2] AV: Invictus Capital.
[0:01:23.0] WS: Invictus Capital, and syndicate their first multi-family property.
Anthony, thank you again for your time, give us a little bit about your background, how you got to the syndication business, and why, and then let’s jump in to your super power.
[0:01:37.5] AV: Yeah, for me, I got my start back in 2014 passively investing with a friend. She was buying just triplexes and quads, so it’s kind of a joint venture. I was really passive, didn’t do anything to stage the money so that he was running the operations, and at that point in my career, I didn’t really have any interest in real estate per se. It was just an opportunity a friend came with and so, yeah, let’s do that, that sounds great.
Fast forward a couple of years later, I’m living in Minnesota and the story as I tell it, who knows, I don’t know if it’s actually true story, but I have a firm memory, but I don’t know if this is the moment that it clicked in my head. I was driving down the freeway and I was looking up at the Minneapolis skyline, looking at the skyscrapers, and started to wonder, what it takes to actually acquire a skyscraper, what’s that look like logistically. I had no clue at that point, it was just a big crazy question to try and answer.
I started working backwards from that crazy far off end state to the place where I was at that moment which was an ignorant fool who didn’t know anything. I said, “Okay, what’s the next step that I can take to maybe get myself to that place? What would be the next small step?” That was go and educating myself, learning, reading books, as many as I could get my hands on, listening to as many podcasts as I could, and just immersing myself in the industry to learn what I didn’t necessarily even know I didn’t know.
And then, at a certain point, you get to this tipping point where you know enough but you’re still unsure if you know enough, it’s really hard to know when you’re in that moment, if you’re actually ready to go.
[0:03:05.3] WS: It’s hard to know what you don’t know.
[0:03:06.3] AV: Exactly, yeah. I decided to start small. I went in and house hacked a triplex, did an FHA loan. House hacked a triplex so that I can learn the systems, how to deal with tenants, learn how to deal with the city, learn how to operate a small business, because that’s really what these properties are. They’re just small, isolated business, and I wanted to learn that process and then start scaling up.
Always knowing that the next step was multi-family and probably syndication in the future, but I wanted to be really confident that I understood what I was doing in a micro level before I expanded it up to the macro. And then, fast forward to last year, I met my partner Dan Kruger at a networking event here in the Twin Cities, and we just struck up a friendship. A couple of months later, became very clear that we had a lot of synergy, a lot of complementary skills. He was good at things that I don’t enjoy so much, like spreadsheets and numbers and financial stuff, whereas I’m a little bit better at things that he doesn’t enjoy.
There was this really good synergy and we said okay, how can we work together? We decided to syndicate our first property, we closed on that in January of just last year. We formed Invictus Capital with the mindset that okay, moving forward, we want to scale on syndication, because this is a really amazing vehicle, not only for ourselves but also for our passive investors, and friends and families, and people that we can bring in and help them expand their investment opportunities, and kind of broaden their horizon so what all is out there.
Right now, that’s what we’re doing, we’re working to expand here in the Twin Cities.
[0:04:31.6] WS: Congratulations on the deal in January. The first one’s always the most difficult, right?
[0:04:37.0] AV: That’s what they say, we’ll see about the next couple. We’ll see how they go but unfortunately, it was interesting because we closed in January and then a couple of months later, COVID happens, right? The whole world happened. That’s a really tumultuous time that happened to a big deal like that and so, you learn as you go and luckily we’re really well capitalized so we were not in any kind of concern there but yeah, interesting time for sure.
[0:05:00.2] WS: Great, well, I’d love to dive into your superpower a little bit and just some of the system stuff that you know, as you’re part of the business and how you all have scaled and how you’ve helped even business scale that we can apply to our businesses as well.
Let’s just jump in a little bit and you lead us a little bit to things we should know or things you’ve learned about scaling, and maybe some systems, even through the partnership. I know partnering, it’s a big step and you know, you all made that decision, maybe you can highlight – was there a process there, how you all said, “Okay, you know, I know this is a good option or this is a good – you know, we should partner because we’ve done these due diligence on each other,” or maybe it just felt right, I don’t know, I’ve heard every story you could think of.
How did you all know that you all should partner and then let’s jump in to some of your skills as far as the systems?
[0:05:50.4] AV: Okay, as far as the super power goes, I think for me, maybe creativity and being able to look at problems from alternative angles. Before this, for the last decade, I’ve been a professional science fiction and fantasy author. I’ve written a bunch of novels and really, the process there is you know, trying to create a world and create characters and tell a story that’s captivating and engaging and bringing it all full circle.
What you’re doing is you’re putting people and characters into interesting situations and then trying to figure out how to get them out of it. That mental process is really helpful when you’re talking about businesses, and real estate in particular, because you’re going to have a lot of issues, a lot of problems that you can’t always solve in a straightforward manner. Being able to come at it creatively, whether that’s, you know, trying to close a deal with a seller and think of some creative financial solutions or, hey, you have some problems and some tenants, what are some creative ways that we can bridge this gap so that we can meet on equal terms here?
I think that’s one of my super powers is just being able to look at a problem set and say, “What are the different directions we could attack this from?”
[0:06:53.1] WS: Some to that I think goes back to the mindset too, right? Just believing that there’s options before you tell yourself there’s not.
[0:07:01.3] AV: Yeah, it goes back to Rich Dad, Poor Dad, right? There’s a scene in there where he’s talking about walking along the beach with his rich dad and it’s something about the conversation was, “Some people say I can’t do this, and other people say how can I do this?” Really changing that mindset and shifting to a position of – there is a solution here, it’s just a matter of how deep we’re going to dig to find it, how creative we’re going to be to excavate it but it is there if you’re looking for it.
Really, take the can’t out of your equation and substitute how and I think that’s a really powerful mental shift.
[0:07:32.5] WS: It’s harder than it seems, right? It seems so simple, you say that but it’s hard to change that mindset but it’s so powerful. Let’s jump in a little bit to your all’s, some systems that you all put in place or tell me a little bit about these types of systems it’s been so productive or helped you all to move forward?
[0:07:49.0] AV: Yeah, for us, right now, because the deal flow kind of dried up and the last couple of months. Everybody kind of put on the brakes and was waiting and so we’ve been working very diligently in the last couple of months to build out our educational thought leadership platform, so we can put out content that’s valuable to people, passive investors, or other active investors and forge those relationships. One of the things that I’ve learned the hard way in past business operations is you need to start from the beginning with the end in mind, and start building from the very beginning that the desired end state.
What I see a lot, and I’ve done this myself, is you start building the business and you do everything yourself and you’re not systematizing it, you’re not writing it down and trying to improve on it, you just know the ways that you do the thing. That could be, “Hey, I start a podcast and I’m going to do all the editing, I’m going to do all the cleanup and the posting and all of the advertising, pushing it out into the world.”
Well, that only scales so far and then what you end up doing at some point is you get to this tipping point where, “Okay, we’re big enough where this isn’t a good use of my time anymore. Now I need to pass it off to somebody else,” but you find yourself with the difficulty of – I don’t actually know what all I do, because I’ve never really thought and sat down and thought about it or written it out. I have nothing to hand somebody else and say, “Here you go, follow these directions and you can do XY and Z.” Across the business, whether we’re talking about the marketing side or the deal flow side or any aspect of it, you really need to be starting with the end in mind and saying, “I don’t want to be in this seat doing this thing forever.”
That presumes at some point, we’re going to hire somebody, we’re going to put somebody into that seat and said, enable them to succeed and win at their job, it’s going to be really helpful if from day one, know what the rules are and how to execute it well. That’s what we’re building from in everything that we do. And then you can use a lot of technology and systems to help improve but really, at the foundation of it is, it’s never too soon to start documenting what you’re doing. That way, you can really look at that and say, “Okay, of these things, what’s the highest and best use of my time?”
Because, when you first started the business, you’re doing everything, you’re not even realizing that a lot of it is actually a really poor use of your unique skills and abilities and it’s a little bit of a drain. Just even writing it out and saying, “This is everything that I’m responsible for, this is everything Dan’s responsible for. What of these things do we not actually need to be doing? What could we outsource, what could we push on to a VA or maybe onto an intern? Who do we need to hire to do this thing who is maybe even better at it than we are?”
[0:10:16.9] WS: I loved how you said it too, just never too soon to start documenting your systems, and documenting what you’re doing, and how you do things, I could not agree more but tell me, that’s the difficult step for a lot of people, it’s like, well, I don’t want to train somebody or they’re not going to work for me very long and I’ve just wasted all that time. You know, I hear stuff like that all the time and I had to go through that personally myself.
What was that like for you, have you all hired people or have you all brought people on to take over different tasks?
[0:10:42.8] AV: Yeah, we’re heavily utilizing VA’s right now and interns. We have an intern, Ethan who is helping us out in a lot of different aspects. One of my other ventures that I participate in is a light manufacturing company and that’s a lot of labor loot. You know, 15 employees and we’re trying to produce widgets that go out the door, and what we failed to do there from the very beginning was build something that was going to scale really easily.
In year’s three, four, when we started scaling really aggressively, we started to feel the growing pains and we said, “Okay, well, if we can go back and do this again, we would have built this with the end better in mind.” What Dan and I are doing is learning from that lesson and being really proactive and getting ahead of that. To your point, yeah, people get – I find they get kind of deer-in-headlights when you say, “Hey, document your systems.”
They go, “I don’t have a system, I don’t know what that means,” and it can just be a simple as hey, every day, I check my emails and this is how I do it. This is how I respond to people, or this is what flags I put on them, and how I intend to get back to them. Start small, it doesn’t have to be a really big crazy system, it could just be as simple as step one, this. Step two, this. Step three, this. The simplest checklist, boom, you’re ready to go.
Start small, you’ll get better at it over time, and you got to disconnect yourself from this idea of like, this is a waste of my time because at minimum, let’s say, you do hire somebody and it’s awful. You decide no, I need to do this myself. Well, by documenting your process, one of the really interesting things that occurs is you start to notice what you could improve.
Because by putting it down on the paper, or into a document format, you could observe the whole thing from the bird’s-eye, which is very hard to do when you’re actually in the moment and in the micro moment of doing the thing. You don’t notice a lot of the inefficiencies and so when you put it all down, you go, actually, maybe there’s a better way I could do, I could bundle all of these tasks together and it’s more efficient way.
In minimum, you just become better at the thing, rather than worrying about bringing somebody else to take over that task.
[0:12:36.7] WS: I’m taking notes.
[0:12:38.7] AV: No, that’s good. I like it.
[0:12:39.6] WS: Yeah, it’s good stuff. I was just you know, want to document some of the stuff because you’re saying, you just said, you don’t notice the inefficiencies if you don’t document it, if you’re not writing it down, or you can have that bird’s eye view on the process. I think that’s very well said.
What were some of the first systems that you started to document or maybe some things that we should be thinking about documenting? That you know you were probably very inefficient with or certain processes.
[0:13:05.4] AV: Yeah, I think marketing is a big one, building out a thought leadership platform and putting out content consistently. That’s the big challenge for people, is putting out content but doing it consistently, because it takes a lot of time to be creative and generate an article, or a podcast, or a video.
Then, disseminating it to the world consistently in an effective manner is very difficult a lot of times. What Dan and I did from the very beginning was we took a step back and really tried to say, “Okay, how can we create the most amount of content with the least amount of work possible?” The solution that you inevitably come to is okay, let’s make macro content that then we could splice into micro content from there. Maybe that we do an hour long podcast or a video and then we can splice into smaller bits, and then we can offshoot this little phrase, and create some infographics, and this bit we could make an article about.
You can generate hundreds of pieces of content form that one macro pillar piece of content, but then, utilizing the technology to be consistently putting it out there. That could be a social media auto-poster or having a VA who helps go in there every day and like make the post and engage with the content.
That’s the hardest part I think is, from a social media standpoint, to get the most traction, you have to view social media marketing as this social thing, right? There’s people that you’re inviting over to dinner, you’re putting a plate of food in front of them and then you’re leaving the room, that’s a really weird thing to do, right? Don’t think about putting your content out there in the world in the same way. You have to put the food down on the table then you have to sit down and engage in a conversation with people.
When somebody says, “Hey, the spaghetti was great!” You don’t just go thumbs up, have a conversation. Hey, I appreciate that a lot, what did you find helpful about it or what are your thoughts on this aspect, right? The conversation. People like that, by and large, because that’s what they’re there to do on social media.
Those are the things that you can’t really – they don’t scale well. It’s like hand to hand combat, you have to be in the trenches doing that stuff, but recognize that, to actual disseminating and creating content can be done in a more efficient macro way. That’s what Dan and I, from the very beginning, have kind of set up is saying, “How do we minimize how much time per week we have to spend on this task while getting the most bang for our buck?”
[0:15:17.2] WS: Great advice and I wanted to ask you too, you had mentioned you all are using VA’s and interns. Where are you finding them? You know, I’ve used VA’s a long time but never used an intern, I would say we’ve had one but ultimately haven’t sought out people as interns. How have you all found VA’s and interns?
[0:15:34.2] AV: So the VA’s we’re using Fiverr and Upwork and there’s so many sites that you can find good VA’s. The trick is – the hardest part of any business that I have always found is people. Communicating clear expectations and accountabilities and how you win at your job. You think that you are being very clear but very often it is not getting across and that’s, I find, the biggest struggle regardless. That’s always going to be there.
And recognize when you are working with a VA that’s the same thing. So the more that defined you have the tasks and more narrow that you can make it, the person can understand and execute it up to your expectations. That’s hard to do in general so just be patient with them and with yourself. It might take a while until you find somebody that you really click with but once you do they’re gold. You’ll look on and say, “I don’t know how I ever did this without this person, they’re so great.”
Interns are a different story. Interns have usually typically sought us out. So they might be college students who are interested in getting into real estate at some point and they’ll reach out and say, “We like to learn from you.” There is – this it’s a more reciprocal relationship than with a VA where we’re our goal is to – how do we educate this person and make them as competent in this industry as possible, so that they can move forward to be successful?
And so their goal is to try and be helpful to us and so we’re not necessarily grading their efforts based off of how effective they are in that way. We are using it more as like how much value are we adding to each other. Are we being effective in growing this person? Are they effective and learning? And so, we have a little bit more patience with interns in general than with a VA where it is a little bit more transactional but, by and large, I find maybe something about this younger generation.
I don’t know, they seem hungry and they seem really outgoing.Our generation too I think but maybe I just lived it, so I don’t have the same perspective but we’ve been approached by a lot of kids coming out of college that are interested in learning more and so I find that’s a great avenue.
[0:17:32.9] WS: What kind of task are you giving them and how are you training them?
[0:17:36.9] AV: So the simple task is possible and that could be, “Hey, we have this video” or last night we did a webinar. So we do a weekly round table. We want you to take that hour long piece of content, watch it and learn whatever that topic is that we are talking about that night but then splice it up into one little minute sections, right? So take a note, this little section was really helpful, this section is really helpful and that is helpful for us because then we don’t have to listen to it.
We ought to give it to a VA who maybe doesn’t have industry context and so they really might have a hard time of knowing what pieces of information are actually useful and which ones aren’t. You know, the intern, many they will come up with 15 pieces of content out of that hour that we can then recycle in one minute clips on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube and maybe some of those won’t be very good.
But then you have a conversation and say, “Okay, this is the audience that we are targeting and this is what we are looking for and this is why this one won’t work.” Whereas you can’t really have that conversation so easily with the VA I find, just because you know they are very good at, “give me a very specific task and I will execute it with a narrow parameter.” So with the interns we keep them on that type of task. That is very helpful for us or outreach and saying: “Hey, we like to talk to this guest on this podcast. Can you go reach out to them and have a conversation and let them know that we’d love to have them?” or maybe just go get their contact information, field that stuff for us so that we can do the reach out ourselves and we can just be more effective when we do so.
So we keep them on low level simple tasks of that nature that then we can – we are building their competency and tasks that are always helpful, right? Which is like how do you go collect the data, the information on this person, how do you outreach to them effectively, and not just in a creepy weird way so that you are adding value to them? It sounds easy but I think we have all been on LinkedIn long enough and we have enough of those emails from people just spamming and saying, “Here is my services. Here is my services, do you want to buy?” We all know it’s like, yeah, don’t be that person but it is hard to know the alternative and what that looks like without training.
[0:19:34.7] WS: Yeah, I spend no time on those messages whatsoever.
[0:19:38.8] AV: No, if you spend no time getting to know me and what I am doing then I am not going to jump right into learning about you. It’s just human nature.
[0:19:47.9] WS: So what are a couple of tips though to start that conversation with somebody or around that?
[0:19:53.7] AV: Well, I think you need to go into it and understand, like, again with anything is understand what’s your desired end state. When I reach out to this person what do I really want to happen? And maybe it is a sell but if that is the place that you’re starting from then you are going to have a really shallow empty relationship. So take a step back from that. Do a little bit of research, just take a second to look at their profile, have moments of look at it in a way that says what can I do of high value to this person?
Where do I see the commonalities? Why am I reaching out to this person? Why would they want to have a conversation with me? And I think if you approach it from that perspective of why should they want to have a conversation with mem and not just, “Hey, if you want to talk to me because I am going to make you money,” like that’s wrong, right? Nobody believes that right off the bat. So you need to come at it from a more authentic way.
So that could be maybe doing a little bit of research and saying, “Hey, I see you have a podcast. That is really cool. I just listened to this episode. I really enjoyed this questions that you asked.” So show the person that you are engaged and that you have already taken that step and they’re going to go, “Whoa that is really cool,” because I find it rare on social media these days. Like people don’t take the time to really get to know the person.
And so just try to treat it as not a transaction that you are trying to build a relationship because real estate is by and large a we game not a me game and the more that you can put the other person first in any engagement, and this goes back to one of the things I’m really passionate about, is never losing sight of that end user experience. Yhe end user is the person that you are talking to like, what are they experiencing right now? Are they learning or is this good for them or is this all about me? If it is all about me then that’s the wrong angle to come at it from.
[0:21:29.8] WS: Give us a couple of ways that you’ve recently improved that end user experience or how you got there, help us get there?
[0:21:37.2] AV: Yeah, I think that is a really interesting one. Right now, one of the things that we can do is, because we are putting out a lot of educational content, and specifically the form of podcasting and videoing, we are able to give other people a platform to engage and talk on. Content creation is always difficult, and I think this is one of the reasons that people don’t do it consistently. One of the things that we are trying to look at through the lens if we are reaching out to another active investor, which isn’t really our target market if you think about it. We ideally want passive investors and brokers and people that can get deals and lenders but if you go directly really hard at that then you have your way of just scaring them away.
What we like to do is just say, “Hey, come and have a conversation, let us learn from you.” In the meantime what we’ll do then is we’ll create this content together that you can use on your platforms and we’ll do the work to spice it up and give you some sound bytes and whatnot that you can use on your YouTube, on your Facebook, your LinkedIn and then people go, “Okay, cool. I don’t have to do anything but show up and have a conversation with you. That sounds cool, I can do that.”
[0:22:36.7] WS: How do you wish you had built the business differently, having the end in mind, like we have been discussing?
[0:22:42.5] AV: I think the hardest part is knowing when to hire. I think that is by and large something people struggle with a lot. I have struggled with it within the past, thinking, “I am not ready. We don’t have the cash flow to support this, or there is not enough tasks. I can do it myself,” and that is always a really difficult one. I think yes, standardizing the process but there comes a point where you just have to pull the trigger and say, “We’re bring that person in.”
By and large, I find it is better to hire sooner than later because when you hire sooner, you don’t know how much you have for that person or how much they can add to the process until they’re actually in the seat and you go, “Oh wow that was worth it.” Now with that said, hiring is also very difficult and it is really hard to find somebody that is going to hit it out of the park on day one. A lot of patience and training and understanding goes a long way.
So like this person is new to your organization. Don’t expect the moon out of them on day one. How do you coach and train them so that they understand what it looks like to win at their job and that just goes back to the standardizing of processes and saying, “This is the process. If you execute this, you’re going to rock. If you can improve this process even better. That’s awesome.”
[0:23:49.0] WS: Hiring sooner, yeah I cannot agree more and so what about – Anthony what has been the hardest part of the syndication journey for you?
[0:23:57.8] AV: Well that is a great question. Right now the deal flow is a little light. It is starting to come back on the market. We have a couple of opportunities in the pipeline. I think that is tricky but I would say, by and large, again, with business in general it is always people. People are hard and understanding that everybody has a unique perspective and a unique want and unique desire. Whether you’re dealing with investors, you’re dealing with brokers, you’re dealing with sellers, try to put yourself in their position, and understand the world from their perspective as much as possible.
Is always – I find I am not naturally that person. Some people are really, really good at it naturally and they’re just gifted at it. I am not so I have to work really hard at putting myself in the other person’s shoes and seeing the world through their eyes but, by and large, if you want it I think to succeed in syndication you have to develop that skill because everything that you do is going to be an extension of how well you can work with and through other people.
[0:24:53.0] WS: Extension of how well you can work with and through other people, that is very well spoken. So, what is your best source right now for finding new investors?
[0:25:03.0] AV: Yeah so that’s interesting actually. We put out a lot of content across all social media platforms. The podcast we started a couple of months ago, and that’s gained good traction. That’s been great but the thing is that Dan and I don’t look at trying to find people per se, but we just try, we look at it from the perspective of how can we put out as much value into the universe trusting that it will somehow come back.
For us that is putting out educational content consistently, that doesn’t come with any strings attached or any expectations of saying, “Hey, do you want to learn more about this? Here is some information about it. Take it at your own speed.” That’s been really effective for us in getting investors and our first deal and moving forward, we had a lot of people who reach out now just based on that because we don’t want to convince people, we don’t want to sell people.
We just want to naturally attract them because they like our message. They like how we say it and that is really I think the best kind of marketing, by and large, is trying to reach out to people that enjoy the way that you communicate. Just keep bringing them value and you can’t go wrong.
[0:26:03.7] WS: What’s the number one thing that’s contributed to your success?
[0:26:06.6] AV: So I would say hyper-focus. I have ADHD and so the thing with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is – it’s not that you have the ability to focus. It’s that when you get focused on something, you can go into this hyper-focused state. You don’t always have a say over what that thing is going to be that you are really focused on in that moment.
For me it’s been about creating systems and routines and habits that make it more likely that when I go into a hyper focused state it is going to be on something beneficial like writing an article or writing a book or doing a podcast rather than watching the paint dry. So that hyper focused state coupled with habits has been really, really helpful.
[0:26:44.8] WS: And how do you like to give back?
[0:26:46.4] AV: I really like education and working with people on – towards their goal. So I am very much a one-on-one type of person. Too, that I think there is four spheres of influence for us to work on as individuals. That is mindset, health, wealth, and communication. I’d like to help people whether they’re regardless of which place that they’re in. If that’s mindset and getting your mind focused in the right direction because that is the lens that we see the world through, right?
And if your lens is scratched or scuffed then it is going to affect how you move through the world, the same with health, right? Your body is the vehicle carrying you through. So you need to take care of that, you eat right and you exercise right. Wealth is also critical because if you don’t have money, well money doesn’t solve all problems but solves all money problems. Getting to a baseline of financial security or literacy is critical and then communication is well, we all want to be understood.
We all want to be accepted and again, feel like we matter, and a big part of that is being able to effectively communicate your wants and desires to the people around you, and also to reciprocate that. Over 50% of communications just listening to the other person and understanding their message. So those are the aspects that I try to focus on a lot and I have a blog, The Hyperfocused Mind, that I work with people through to develop those areas.
[0:28:01.3] WS: Nice, yeah mindset, health, wealth, communication, you get those things down. You are doing okay, are you?
[0:28:07.7] AV: Yeah, well everything falls together after that you know? And it is not complicated. It is very simple things. It’s just difficult to execute but you know consistent small daily actions goes a really long way.
[0:28:20.5] WS: That’s for sure. That is like The Compound Effect, right? I don’t know if you read that book or not.
[0:28:25.0] AV: Yeah, Darren Hardy. Yeah.
[0:28:26.4] WS: Yeah, there you go. Well Anthony, I am grateful for your time, grateful for you just being on the show and for the things that you have listed out, things you have told us about. I mean, how you all scaled different systems, and how you’re hiring interns and VAs, and where you found them, how you are training them, and hiring sooner. We need to be hiring sooner, right? And so just grateful for you sharing your expertise. Tell the listeners how they can get in touch with you and learn more about you.
[0:28:51.9] AV: Yes, so if you want to go over and check us out we are invictuscapitalventures.com. Right now we have a 20 page guide called The Quickstart Guide to Passive Investing and Multi-family. So if you are interested whether you’re active or you’re passive, you’re interested in learning more about how to have conversations with passive investors or if you’re a passive investor who wanted to learn what is this all about that is going to be a really great resource.
You can check us out on LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube. Just go and search for Invictus Capital or Multi-family Investing Made Simple is the podcast.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:29:22.2] WS: Don’t go yet, thank you for listening to today’s episode. I would love it if you would go to iTunes right now and leave a rating and written review. I want to hear your feedback. It makes a big difference in getting the podcast out there. You can also go to the Real Estate Syndication Show on Facebook so you can connect with me and we can also receive feedback and your questions there that you want me to answer on the show.
Subscribe too so you can get the latest episodes. Lastly, I want to keep you updated so head over to LifeBridgeCapital.com and sign up for the newsletter. If you are interested in partnering with me, sign up on the contact us page so you can talk to me directly. Have a blessed day and I will talk to you tomorrow.
[OUTRO]
[0:30:02.6] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Real Estate Syndication Show, brought to you by Life Bridge Capital. Life Bridge Capital works with investors nationwide to invest in real estate while also donating 50% of its profits to assist parents who are committing to adoption. Life Bridge Capital, making a difference one investor and one child at a time. Connect online at www.LifeBridgeCapital.com for free material and videos to further your success.
[END]
