Kent Ritter

Full-time real estate investor and real estate agent from Fort Worth, Texas. Max began his real estate career wholesaling, completing fix and flip rehabs, and acquiring rentals. After completing over 100 deals in multiple states, he looked for a better way to more easily scale his real estate business and started writing lead generation books.

Max, a best-selling author of multiple books, travels the U.S. teaching people the advantages of using books to enhance their lead generation and lead conversion. Max is a member of multiple masterminds and some of his titles include consultant, teacher, investor, real estate agent, author, speaker, and expert panelist.

Max earned his BBA in Finance from the University of Texas in Austin and his MA in teaching from Louisiana College. He has over 15 years of experience in real estate, finance, and teaching.

Key Points From The Episode:

• How Max Keller started investing in real estate from being a math teacher.
• Having a niche market is important.
• Understanding your goals as an investor.
• The power of trust in making deals happen.
• Educating people is the best way to get clients.
• Knowing whether the investment matches what you want and what’s right for you.
• Evaluating a person is important for private lenders.
• How building a connection is more important than immediately closing a deal.
• Don’t get hung up on the asset class.
• Authenticity and trusting your instincts.
• Nothing is passive. Everything is work.
• Knowing your backup plan when Plan A doesn’t work.
• Having a bigger purpose in life and business.
• The joy of helping people is more fulfilling than just making money.

Books mentioned:

1. It Takes What It Takes by Andy Staples and Trevor Moawad
2. Essentialism by Greg Mckeown
3. Deep Work by Cal Newport

Transcript: 

[00:00] MK:

You know, if you’re investing in your own deals it takes a team got to have team members that are worth a damn and can make it happen.

[00:00:07] KR: Intro

Welcome to Ritter on Real Estate, the show about how to passively invest like a pro. On each episode, I interview real estate experts who give their top investing advice, strategies, and tools that break down the insights into practical steps to avoid the pitfalls and make better investments. I want to help you passively invest like a pro. This is Ritter on Real Estate, and I’m your host, Kent Ritter.

Hello fellow investors Welcome to another episode of ritter or on real estate where we teach you how to passively invest like a pro. Today, my guest is Max Keller and Max is a real estate investor, best-selling author and he’s a highly sought-after consultant speaker and expert panelist on the topic of lead generation and marketing for real estate investors, a topic that is definitely near and dear to my heart and just a few short years maximum from being a full-time high school math teacher to flipping over 100 houses and Max’s unique marketing approach landed him on stage with Robert Kiyosaki being presented with the 2019 industry Innovator of the Year award. Well, Max, congrats and happy to have you here today.

[00:01:11] MK:

Yeah, glad to be here. Let’s go.

[00:01:14] KR:

Yeah, well, let’s start at the top, you know, let people know a little bit more about who you are and how you got to be where you are today.

[00:01:24] MK:

Yeah, it’s a it was kind of a, you know, overnight success lifetime in the making, you know, the more I practice, the luckier I get. I mean, this business is about work and, you know, if you’re investing in your own deals, it takes a team got to have team members that are worth a damn and can make it happen and then the same thing, when you’re looking at investing in deals, you know, like good deals don’t just magically come to you and so, nothing does. So, what I did was pretty, I had just worked as business jobs didn’t know what I was doing, became a math teacher loved, it felt like I was making a difference. The only problem was, is my pay was kind of low, and it was locked in. So, I wanted to increase my income. So, I was just gonna passively invest in real estate my plan, because I was saving money and my plan was just to keep collecting those 20% down payments, and then just get like a rental a year. That way, when I got done teaching, you know, I’d have a little bit of a nest egg, you know, 10,15 rentals, wasn’t trying to like, you know, take down the whole world, I was just trying to add a little bit, then I started doing deals, this was 2015 and I found that real estate can be a great way to not only increase your passive income, but also your active income and so, you know, I’m doing these deals, and I’m wholesaling properties in Dallas Fort Worth, you know, I’m making four months, five months, 10 months of my teacher pay in one deal. I sound like okay; I need to just do this. This is what’s best for my family. I think we all go through different stages in life. You know, it’s like, when I was younger, I just had a couple little kids. No, like, oh, kids are so expensive. You know, I have now I have six and I loved them and we have a we have five girls and a boy and we had the boy at the end. He’s just turned three. So, you know, never give up guys number, whatever it is you’re trying to get.

[00:03:07] KR:

I’m not quite as far on you. I’ve got two girls and a boy. My last is a boy as well and he just talked to so I’m only halfway to where you are. But you know,

[00:03:16] MK:

yeah, well, it gets easier. Actually. That’s a real myth. People who have two kids was I don’t know how you do. It’s like, well, actually, it gets easier because the big kids do a lot of stuff and all that. But uh, but yeah, I just started doing active and then I left my job, just went full time and then basically, I was just I was out, you know, I had an office, a couple people helping me buy, we’re trying to scale it up and what was happening for us is, you know, by 20,17 deals, were starting to get harder to come by. I’m sure you’ve noticed this in the apartment world, too. You know, I’m mostly in single family. I’ve done some mobile home stuff. But it doesn’t really matter what the asset class is. I mean, there’s just like, underlying fundamentals that you want to look for, if you’re to know it’s a good deal, and then know you’re working with the right borrower. I’ve actually written a book on this recently. So, we’ll dive into that, you know, as we have time later on in the show, but the bottom line is I was doing deals, it was getting harder to find deals and so, here’s what I did and this is just something that maybe can help y’all is you tell him from Texas because I say y’all is I just made a list of the type of deals that I actually wanted to do. Like I so, was I had this mindset for a while, like I was trying to take down every deal that had a discount and what I found that works a lot better, and the people I invest with because I passively invest for my IRA, the people who have like a niche or like a pretty specific strategy really dialed in. That is way better than just me. I’ll take whatever is a good deal. You know what I mean? And so that’s what I did. I just made a list of what was important to me and for me what was important, and my best customers in the single-family world were seniors. Yeah, they were they single-family had these homes that were in good shape. Structurally, they Just had some, you know, a little bit of cosmetic stuff. They were super nice people to work with and so, I wanted to work with more of them. Also, another thing in my market, I don’t know, if you’re experiencing this is like people are paying crazy money for these deals and my mindset used to be, I got to be the highest price. But then I’m looking back at these deals, and I’m working with the seniors on the acquisition side offers 5,10 grand less than other people’s offers. These are $130,000 houses, that’s a lot of money. It’s not, you know, a million-dollar property, but they’re still taking my deal and so, I’m asking them why I’m like, I go back call one of my old sellers, like, did you get 10 grand more from somebody else? But you didn’t take it? No, like, yeah and I’m like, Well, I’m glad. But like, why is that? And they said, you know, it’s because we trusted you. You know, like the other people were pressuring us to return to us all these hard closing techniques and we just felt comfortable with you and that’s, that was more important. So, I started to learn about the power of trust and as right around this time, I started sourcing more private money from ideals. I saw the same thing with my private money lenders, they weren’t sure a lot of them were in the stock market and but they didn’t want to be there. But they didn’t want to just jump right into real estate, because it’s like, well, how do you pick a good deal? How do you pick a good person? How do you know this money’s even safe; you hear all the bad stories you don’t hear is made the good ones? And so, I was like, how do I serve both of these people better. So, what happened was I was out of home, motivated sellers house, I helped the soul bought the dad’s house and helped him move into an assisted living facility and the kids were like, all in their 50s 60s the adult children and they’re like, you know, you’ve helped us out a ton. They were like crying. I mean, you know, there’s a lot going on. It’s So, upsetting, you know, going there’s, you know, selling the family home, but it had to be done and this lady goes, you know, you know a lot about this, you tell I was a teacher, you help you taught us a lot of stuff, you should write a book about this and, you know, I’m dyslexic, and I was a math teacher, not an English teacher. So, at first, I was kind of like, yeah, thank you, that’s a great idea. But I’m thinking myself, that’s never gonna happen. But then the more I thought about it, I was like, yeah, that’s actually a pretty good idea, I could take the four-hour Q&A that I’m having with the seniors in their living rooms, and just write all those answers in a book and give it to them, the book would be 99% about them, and what they care about and 1% about me, so I did that. It took a long time. But at the end, it was done. So home, the home the step by step, senior housing guide, and workbook was my first book and it really changed everything from a marketing perspective. I would, it made all of my existing marketing better, but then it also opened up some other doors and so, I just start passing it out, you know, giving away as my business card and people really liked it. You know, they felt like the guy who wrote the book, like that’s really, like this person is taking their business pretty seriously. They were passing it around to their friends and so, once I started having success with the motivated seller book that I wrote this book, private lender blueprint, because I have private money lenders, they had four hours’ worth of questions, too and you should, because if you’ve worked 30,40 years to create a nest egg, you don’t want to just hand it all over to some smooth-talking salesman, and you know, and so, watch your money run out the door and so, it was just like the same thing. My formula is really not complicated. I was like, what are all the questions that these private lenders have? And then we just created content around it and so, I just sign it, and I give it to people, and they use it. But here’s the deal. I can’t take down every single-family home in America and I don’t want to, and I can’t, I don’t need to work with every private lender in the world, either. So, my real estate friends, hey, you’re not using your book in Florida, you’re not using in California, can we use it? And I was like, I don’t know, I don’t, I don’t know what you mean and then I started to figure out how to do a licensing model. So now we take our content, we change 5% of it, it takes our authors about which are real estate investors, usually about, you know, one to two hours of their time and in less than 30 days, instead of spending a lot of money or a lot of time writing a book, they’ve got one of our books, and they can pass them out to people and educate and so, because we found that educating people, is the best way to get a new customer client, whatever you call them. So that’s our strategy and our marketing is we just, we share what we’re doing with people, whether it’s sellers, or whether it’s lenders, and then we attract the people to us that, you know, raise their hand and want to work with us and it’s, it works really well.

[00:09:31] KR:

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a really good way to approach it. Right. You’re so, leading with education, through the education, you’re building trust, and you’re attracting folks. Right. So. So what are some of the things in your book probably, especially about the so, one that’s more targeted to so, the investor side, what are some of the things that that that you teach folks, I mean, give it walk us through some of the some of the highlights?

[00:09:55] MK:

Yeah, so I’ll tell you some kind of interesting sometimes, you know, my background, single family, and sometimes people get a little hung up. Oh, I do storage deals. Oh, that won’t work for me. I do apartments. I’m like, ah, okay, hold on just a minute like, so my friends, a charter member family office club, you know, an incredible experience. So we went to New York, and he brought me along, I felt pretty out of place. But it was amazing that two billionaires, it was amazing and so, we’re with these families that, you know, they have hundreds of millions of dollars and it’s like the who’s who of Wall Street is doing these panels, and there’s no bathroom breaks, it’s just all day, we’re at this hotel in Manhattan and they’re talking about, you know, buying office complexes, you know, building the family of sitting next to us build the Hilton in Miami and it was all cash, you know, like from their family, right? They’re from Brazil and so, it was amazing stuff. But here’s what was so funny and instructional, I think for y’all is I’m listening to these people talk about these deals, and the Wall Street guys are up there and the hedge fund people are up there and they’re talking about how they evaluate deals, how they evaluate the borrower, how they collateralize the deal and I’m thinking I turn to my so, friend, Dr. Brock, who invited me and I was like, Hunter, Brian, like 99% of how they’re describing how they evaluate these huge deals, is the exact same thing that our private lenders do for a little $150,000 house in Haltom City and it’s really not that there’s nuances with each asset class, but the overall general stuff that you got to get right, is, is does the investment really match what you’re trying to do? You know, from a time perspective, from a risk reward perspective, you know, is, is what you’re looking at really a good deal? Like, do you know how to evaluate a deal? And know, you know, that it’s good? And then, you know, is the bar that you’re working with? Like somebody you really want to work with? Like, have you done your research? Have you asked some questions? So, in the book, that’s what it goes over? It’s like the question, I get people to book and I say, Here’s, you don’t want to get hooked up with a with the wrong borrower. I’m not saying I’m the perfect borrower, for you. Okay. I have some questions that you can ask, and whoever you’re interviewing asked them to me to and but it’s super important that you get this right and so, I find that people really kind of appreciate, you know, they really appreciate that approach, because I’m not just trying to sell them to many investors make the mistake of just trying to sell their deal, sell their deal, sell their deals, that’s not people don’t like that it makes some pendulum theory, it makes people swing the other direction. We just say, hey, this is one possibility. These are some other possibilities, if you ever looked at those, and then so just explore, I’m here to answer your questions and if these one make sense, just let me know, you know, in a couple of weeks, and if not, I’ll connect you to somebody who is doing what you want to do. That’s just a way better way to really build a reputation and get referrals and like I said, from the private lender perspective, it’s not really that complicated, if anybody will put by a link to my contact info and for the first, you know, 10 or 15 people, we can’t do this all day. But for folks who want a copy of the private lender blueprint, and they’re in that situation, I’m more than happy to give them a copy of it, even if it’s digital, whatever. Because it’s super important. But yeah, that’s one of the people looking for. It’s don’t get hung up on the asset class. Do you know how to evaluate that asset class? Do you understand if that asset class is something that matches your goals, but and then a lot of that comes down to the borrower and its character and its capacity? You know, people don’t pay people back for one of two reasons. They don’t want to, or they can’t and most of the time when somebody can’t pay people back, it’s not because they don’t want to those people are out there, for sure. I’ve had a few close misses investing in people and then I didn’t invest with them anymore.

It does happen. Okay, but I’m not above the law and I’m not perfect and everybody, you know, when everybody says, I’m so honest, I’m so wonderful. It’s usually when somebody has to signal that that’s actually usually a red flag that something’s not right. You know, I remember I called my plumber one time, and I’m Christian, whatever book you like, is fine. No judgment. But I remember, I call my plumber, and we were trying to get a relationship going private lending wise, and I just happen to mention that I was Christian and he said, Oh, not good. Mike. Really? He’s like, well, yeah, I mean, I play in my Christian band at church, but I’ll tell you what, Max 35 years of experience, nothing can really nothing can override experience, check the experience of the person who you’re giving money, too. He goes, you know, 35 years, I’d say nine out of 10 people who start telling me that they end up ripping me off and that might just be his example and I’m not saying that’s the way it is for everybody. But the more you start studying human psychology, that’s what con artists do is they is they well project an over project this really positive image to try to let your guard down and they swoop in so when you guys started your instincts, look, this book can help people. There are other books about how to be a good private lender. That are great to check those out if you don’t get a copy of this one, but get one of them. But always trust your instincts, the most powerful thing there is that we have to help us navigate the world of life is the things that our feelings, we can’t explain them. Because that’s our that’s our subconscious. That’s, you know, 1000s of years of evolution keeping us safe. So, if you get a bad feeling about somebody, don’t go with them. That’d be like my number one tip.

[00:15:26] KR:

Yeah, no, I think that’s all-great advice and just, you covered a lot there. So just to highlight a couple of those things. I mean, I love the idea about, like starting with your goals, as an investor, understand what your goals are, and making sure that the type of investment that you’re going to look for matches those goals, right, are you? Are you seeking cash flow? Are you seeking appreciation? Are you seeking tax benefits? Or is it shorter term hold, right? You want something that’s longer term, right? So really understanding those things, and then aligning the investment with that, I think that that’s a great place to start, then you mentioned, you know, evaluating the sponsor, right, or the person that you would be giving money to whether you’re lending money and its debt, or whether you’re going in its equity, right? It’s really a same principle, evaluate the person that you’re lending money to it? It does, it all starts with that person, no matter how killer, amazing their deal is, they’re not a good person. That’s not a good investment. Right? It’s, I love how you started there and then you get down to, you know, evaluating the deal and like I said, don’t get caught up on asset class, I think each asset class has its unique, unique fundamentals and its entity pieces, but at the end of the day, there are common things that you need to understand, right, you need to know how to evaluate a market, how to evaluate the sub market, the neighborhood, right? And then how to evaluate the deal? And what are, what are the things that are going to make and break your deal, and you’re in a particular type of deal you’re looking at, and those things will be different. But, you know, is there job growth? Is there poverty? Is there population growth, right? Are there is it in an area that people want to be right? Those are some places to start, but sounds like you’re hitting on all those things in the book and so, I just wanted to call those out, folks as some highlights.

[00:17:14] MK:

And I didn’t, I didn’t properly I don’t think, dive into this enough. So just for 30 seconds, most I might have already said it, but that’s okay, repetition, that’s good. That’s how we learn, you know, seven times to remember it and so, if so, somebody doesn’t pay, which is obviously what we want to avoid, when we’re working on a deal, and not getting our money back, we want return of on our on our principal, but we want return of principal to and so if it’s because somebody doesn’t want to pay or because they don’t have the capacity. The reason that most people don’t pay is capacity. It’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they get something changes in the deal. Something you know, when any, anytime something goes wrong, one of two things happen. Either Something happened, that we didn’t expect, or something that we expected to happen, didn’t happen. That’s it, there’s only two things and so, so the why that’s important for a private lender is about making sure that the it’s a good deal, there’s enough room, there’s enough margin, so that the so, borrower, the sponsor, is putting the odds in your favor. You know, one of the things that we do, I think a good job of is we put you know, backup strategies, backup exits, for our property deals and I think talking that way from the very beginning about what happens if something goes sideways, is super important. Because I mean, it just that’s like just a fact of life and it’s so, an investment for a reason and so, you know, I don’t I don’t know a way to make something 100% safe and secure. Those are words that the SEC would you know, not want you to say anyways, even with a PPM, you just can’t say that kind of stuff. Because I mean, you’re not you can’t I don’t know what you can guarantee in life. I mean, things happen. But I’m all about just putting the odds and in, in our people’s favor and you can do that as a private lender, by just educating yourself and getting up on this stuff and, and knowing what questions to ask and that’ll help that’ll go a long way. It’s like anything else, you just you get what you put in and that’s one of the that’s one of the dangers of this word. Passive. People think its people go out and gurus sell mailbox money. That’s crap. That’s not true. Everything is work. Is it? Is it a very high effort to return ratio per hours to lend money or participate in a deal? Absolutely. But it still takes oversight. It still takes some management, it’s not just you know, I’ll just put your feet up and everything’s gonna be fine. You got to stay with the deal and track it. So just keep that in mind too, because that a lot of times the easy button gets thrown around and I think it it’s a real disservice to the people that are affected by it.

[00:19:55] KR:

What is what’s the one question If you only had one question that folks should be asking that to sponsor,

[00:20:05] MK:

you’re the number one question is, what happens if something goes wrong? I know that we have a plan, but plans change, because plans are actually worthless. This is what Eisenhower said, pretty smart guy. But planning is invaluable. So great. We’ve done planning, what happens if plans change? what’s its Plan B? What’s Plan C? Just see what they say. If they have no clue what you just said, that’s a big problem and if they’re like, okay, we’re going to do this, then we do this and we do that, then we’ve kind of vetted out, okay, this is a person who’s either been there before, they’ve really thought through this. So, when something changes, because it always does, you’re going to have a little extra layer of protection. The normal questions are fine, too. You know, how many deals What have you done. But you know, there’s people who’ve done a lot of deals that are scum, and there’s people who on their first deal, and they’re just absolute superstars, when I was in the teaching world, there’s people there, no offense, they were there 20,30 years, they were doing a disservice to the kids, it’s just to hire hard to fire people, it’s a shame to cry and then people like me, who took it real seriously, I was up there to 11 you know, when the janitors were kicking me out, that’s the kind of person you want on your deals, and you can kind of figure those out, if they’re signaling Lambos, and all of this garbage crap. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a lot of fake Hocus Pocus, you look. Just feel the authenticity, feel the intentions and because you can tell when somebody is being authentic. That’s how you want to work with because if someone’s not being authentic, you can’t tell if what they’re saying is true or not, you don’t want to work with somebody like that. So just look for authenticity. Because character doesn’t change, skills change, people can go get extra consultants on their team to shore up some stuff. But somebody’s character is pretty much locked in at some point. So, check that out and that’s one of the sections in our book. It’s really important.

[00:21:54] KR:

Yeah, 100% agree. Awesome. Well, Max, what are you most proud of in your career? Oh,

[00:22:04] MK:

well, I think elevating the mission above me, which was a very tough step. You know, I grew up reading the business page, Dallas Morning News. I wish I had a little briefcase like I wanted to be like Charlie Sheen in the movie, Wall Street. I wanted to be a stockbroker and but it was all about me for a long, long time and I was a matcher 100%. I mean, I’m, I thought it was like a badge of honor. I was like, so calculating, and so strategic, and you know, that helps in the business world. But people, people don’t want to work with those folks and it’s because there’s three kinds of people, there’s takers, there’s matchers, and there’s givers and so, a taker takes stuff from you, they don’t give a crap about you, it matters. Like I’ll do this, if you do that and that’s what most people are, right? And then give her just gives and they don’t, they don’t want anything in return and so, what so, I’m most proud of professionally, is when I wasn’t happy doing business, I made the leap. My wife’s a teacher, I became a teacher changed my whole life. Because I was working with these kids who they were two years behind, they didn’t have food in their fridge, they needed somebody to help them and so, my mindset was just how do I help these kids? How do I help these kids, if I wasn’t thinking about myself, and when I got as much, and so when i when i so that really changed, like the way I feel about everything and when I got into real estate, creating that book, seeing the need, because like, if you’re if you’re listening to this show, you have assets, you probably have a CPA, you probably have an attorney. But there’s all most people out there, you know, Mavis, who drives a bus and in a school district in our area, she’s got a little teacher, a little bus, you know, school district pension to live off of, she’s got a social security and that’s it and they don’t, these folks don’t have all of these resources, and they need help and so, I felt really good about taking what we do, was making a lot of money just doing normal investing. But when we elevated the mission and said, we want to get our senior housing book, to a million seniors and their families, even if we don’t do business with them, and really focused on like having a bigger purpose than just us. That’s when the real success came in and so, if anybody isn’t where they want to be in whatever part of life, I would encourage you to do that. It seems counterintuitive. You’re like, Okay, I’m gonna get more stuff by focusing on me less. Yeah. Because when I was just like, hey, who wants to help max get rich. The line was pretty short. But I was like, he wants to help us educate a million senior homeowners so that they don’t sell their house to a scoundrel. A lot of people, we have over 100 people that licensed our content, and they’re in living rooms right now and their local market, my workbook and they’re teaching a family who’s going through a tough time. So that’s by far the because helping people is way more important than making money by far if you haven’t, you’ve never taken the journey of helping people. It’s just has always been about you. I just say, just try it before you die, dip your toes in, because it feels it feels amazing. I just think we’re, we’re here for more than just ourselves and that’s what I would encourage people to consider.

[00:25:13] KR:

Yeah, I love that. No, it’s, it’s interesting. I mean, I just have to share I went through a really similar journey. It’s like it starts out about how do you apartments were a great way to make a lot of money, right and then what I realized, just going through this process for the past four years is, you know, that that’s, that is all well and good, but it but it is, it is hollow to a certain extent and what I really got started about excited about was, and I realized that not only can I make a lot of money, but I can make a lot of money for people around me too, that, like you said, you know, a lot of people don’t have those opportunities, and to be able to bring that to my network and kind of bring everybody along. I mean, that was, that was exciting and that’s why I do the podcast and these things, too. It’s kind of that, that way to get back now and I agree with you, it feels great. It’s much more personally satisfying, you know, when, you when you get those letters, those emails from folks like, oh, man, you know, I learned this and was able to avoid that love. It’s, that’s awesome. So, I get it and that is, that’s awesome and that’s, yeah, I commend you for that for helping so many folks. So, I know we’ve talked a lot about So, your book, and you’ve got several books. But if there was one book, you’d recommend people read what book is that?

[00:26:29] MK:

Um, well, I don’t know. That’s a good question. It kind of depends on your goals I read real strategically. Here’s one book that I just finished recently that I love a lot. It’s called, it takes what it takes. Have you read this one? It’s amazing. Yeah, Russell Wilson writes the foreword and it’s how to think neutrally and gain control of your life and I thought that a lot of these mindset books was kind of mumbo jumbo, until COVID hit and I was realizing that I was trying to just like, in my life, I was able to get everything I kind of wanted by effort, you know, because a lot of people they talk the game, but they’re not doing the work and so, I just do the work, do the work, do the work. But then when COVID came in the deal, flow kind of slowed down a little bit, you know, compared to what I was used to, I was like, you know, there’s something else at play here. Because we have great dialed in systems, but I’m not getting, you know, the so, level of production that I expected and when I read this book, I was like, there’s another piece and it was the mental piece and so, this book does an amazing job of teaching people how to stay in a neutral mindset, which allows us to really, you know, handle adversity a lot better, because it’s going to come up in deals, it’s going to come up in anything and so that’s a really good one. I mean, the one thing is a really good book, obviously, essentialism for busy people, that’s an amazing book, deep work used to be my favorite book by Cal Newport and that’s so if you’re, that’s an amazing one. But um, I read a lot and I think it’s super, super valuable and, and but those are some that come to mind. Yeah,

[00:27:59] KR:

awesome. No great books to share and then lastly, Max, what is your number one key to success.

[00:28:07] MK:

just helping people because folks don’t want a sales pitch. They don’t care about your what, you know, negotiation camp you just went to and what all of your sales techniques, they just want somebody who’s really looking out for them, too and so, the, that’s really the key to success, I don’t try to work with everybody and I don’t do it. Like, in an arrogant way. I’m just like, you know, these are the people that are good for our different businesses, these people aren’t a good fit and then, um, I’ll tell you what I get, I’ll give you an example. I had a guy Call Me Maybe two days ago, he had saw some of our training, and he just, he wasn’t qualified for what we’re doing. It was just totally not a fit. But I’m like, you know, and it was almost like, so not a fit. I was almost thinking, you know, it’s almost kind of rude for you to like, fill out this application and like, even waste my time, I felt a little bit like my time was wasted. But then I was like, Max, my wife always says don’t think worst case. Think best case. I’m like, Okay, so I’m like, Okay, this guy, you know, he’s a real person, you know, the people on our list. It’s not just a number, it’s a real person. So, I just tell them, hey, I don’t think you’re a fit for what we’re doing. But I really do appreciate you, you know, calling and, and giving me some feedback on that and here’s my email address and when you check out our book, you know, I’d love your feedback. So, I feel like it’s about not judging other people and just what helps me is just So, trying to look at each person as a person equal, right, and just listen to them and try to help them because I think if you help enough people get what they want, you’ll get what you want.

[00:29:41] KR:

Great advice and last, so Max, how can folks get ahold of you? If they want to learn more about that all it is that you’re doing?

[00:29:49] MK:

So, our brand is https://dealschasingyou.com/ and if you go to https://dealschasingyou.com/ritter, we’ll put a Link to, we have a new book that’s out, which is the real estate investors book writing checklist and it breaks down if somebody wants is you know in in, and it works for anything, it works for social media posts and e-book. If you’re a dentist or a doctor or a lawyer, you’re in a high margin industry like real estate, and you don’t have a book to position yourself as an expert. Even if it’s just an e-book, you’re basically not taking advantage of one of the biggest superpowers we have in marketing and so, this book will teach you whether you want to write a book, or an E book, or just have some social media articles that convert better. This is like the five-step process that we use for every book that we write every blog post that we write, because content is important in every business and so, you can check that out and then here’s what I’ll do to make it simple. When you download the book, you’ll get my email address and then if you want to get a copy of the private lender blueprint, then just email me. Okay, and then I’ll so, have my assistant get you a copy of it. That’s, that’s what I’ll do for your audience for the first you know, 10 or 15 people that do that okay.

[00:31:07] KR:

Awesome, good Yeah, that’s great, Max, appreciate you. Just continuing to give, and I know that people will take you up on that, I’ll have to check out that book myself. Because I don’t have a book sound like I need one.

[00:31:19] MK:

Well, that’s an option. I mean, here’s the thing. I don’t know, if you want if you’re answering people’s questions a lot, any time, here’s how I figure this out, I’ll go, I will go real quick. So, here’s one of those I taught algebra all day and I never learned more. I mean, it’s like going to the military, like it’s so structured, I have ADHD, you got to have structure to really be able help and it was a beautiful thing. I learned the power of organization and I taught kids in the morning algebra, that were ninth graders that were like two years behind, and they had no food in the fridge. You know, some of them had multiple kids, we had a lot in common and, and so those folks had huge educational gaps. Then in the afternoon, I taught the Pre-AP eighth graders that were going to Vanderbilt, and they were on the medical school track and the education gap there wasn’t as big and what I noticed was, is that when there’s huge education gaps, and there’s a huge knowledge gap, that’s a great opportunity, obviously, to educate and when you do, like my help the Pre-AP kids go from 90 to 98. There wasn’t a they were happy, but there wasn’t a ton of love. But when I helped the kid who never passed their So, star tests, their exit tests, and go and had no confidence on day one, and then they pass and one of our one of our people never passed for eight years and then in ninth grade she passed and was one question away from commended. She’s crying, like, you know, man, that person like I mean, we still see each other at the grocery store, she’s older now she’s in her 20s so when there’s a big gap like that, and you can come in and fill the education gap, the people really, really love you and they really, really want to work with you. So, if you’re in a business where your folks are asking a lot of questions and there’s big education gaps, a book is an incredible way to fill the gaps very efficiently, very scalable, but when you give somebody a book, they never throw it away. It’s not like a business card that goes in the trash and they book, look at you different they look at you as the expert the authority so it’s a real superpower in the in the in just positioning and the level of respect that you get with your clients it’s it just makes business easier to do so those are some of the many reasons that I like it.

[00:31:31] KR:

Awesome now it makes a ton of sense man I love that analogy as well. I think that really hits home max thank you so much for coming on today and book, creating so much value for our listeners It was a blast and wish you all the best success.

[00:33:45] MK:

We do by everybody commend you keep listen to the show. Very smart to do that. Next Keller signing off. Thanks.

[00:33:52] KR:

Thanks for listening to another great episode of Ritter on Real Estate. Hit the subscribe button to make sure you don’t miss out on the content that will make you a better investor. Also visit kentritter.com for articles, videos and tools curated just for passive investors from next time. This is Kent Ritter with Ritter on Real Estate and go out and invest like a pro.