Joe Bell  0:00  

Making 20 phone calls a day like, basically, if you just, you know, 20 contacts, whatever that number is, if you just focus on that, that will carry you out of whatever challenge you’re experiencing. And it’s it’s very obvious in the real estate industry, but I think it applies in many other industries as well, right? You’re, you’re technically only one conversation away from completely changing your trajectory of where you are to where you potentially want to be by focusing on context conversations, and, you know, bringing into life. Within those conversations, what opportunities lie that neither party is able to see right here right now in front of them.

Announcer  0:42  

Welcome to CRE PN Radio for influential commercial real estate professionals who work with investors, buyers and sellers of commercial real estate coast to coast whether you’re an investor, broker, lender, property manager, attorney or accountant, we are here to learn from experts.

J Darrin Gross  1:01  

Welcome to commercial real estate pro networks, CRE PN Radio. Thanks for joining us. My name is J. Darrin Gross. This is the podcast focused on commercial real estate, investment and risk management strategies. Weekly, we have conversations with commercial real estate investors and professionals who provide their experience and insight to help you grow your real estate portfolio. 

Today, my guest is Joe Bell. Joe is a real estate and wealth expert coach. He’s been featured as one of Alaska’s 30 nines. He’s top 40 under 40. And Joe Bell is an expert in helping real estate professionals build legacy, retirement and wealth. He’s the founder of Legacy Beyond Listings, and the author of Assets, Acquisitions and Abundance. And in just a minute, we’re going to speak with Joe about how to focus on your market, build your team, and create real wealth and freedom in your real estate business. 

But first, a quick reminder, if you like our show, CRE PN Radio, there are a couple things you can do. You can like, share and subscribe. And as always, we encourage you to leave a comment we’d love to hear from our listeners. Also, if you’d like to see how handsome our guests are, be sure to check out our YouTube channel. And you can find us on youtube at commercial real estate pro network. While you’re there, please hit the subscribe button. And it really helps us out helps the algorithms and allows more people to find us. With that I want to welcome my guest, Joe, welcome to CRE PN Radio.

Joe Bell  2:47  

there and I appreciate I’m giggling over here because mom always said I had a face for radio so.

J Darrin Gross  2:54  

So it’s funny, the you’ll be just fine. Trust me, trust me. If you got a face, it works for YouTube as well. So

Joe Bell  3:03  

thank you. 

J Darrin Gross  3:03  

But hey, Joe, I want to say again, welcome. And looking forward to our talk. Before we get started, if you could take just a minute and share a little about your background.

Joe Bell  3:17  

Yeah, for sure. I came out of the sports world I was I was supposed to be a professional baseball player. At least that’s what I had in my mind. Until running into the hard truth that I was not going to be that in that game in my early 20s and didn’t really know what to do. I fell back on a, you know, just a natural characteristic of myself of coaching and through coaching, ended up running into a old dinosaur in the real estate industry at the time, you know, I’d spent 25 years in commercial real estate and I just kind of kept poking and prodding at him saying, Hey, get me in real estate, get me into real estate, get me into real estate. And finally He’s like, Alright, I’ll let you in real estate. But first, I need you to open this bar for me. Now as I Oh, well as a young 20s That’s right up my alley. You know, kind of like every guy’s dream and their young 20s or so I thought eight months later that that dream had crashed. And I realized it was not what I wanted to be doing. We were able to have some fun, make some money, but ultimately counting money at 3:34am in the morning and then waking up to receive shipment at 9am. It was a grind that was not worth it for me at that time. So I dragged my my tail between my legs back to the office and said all right, give me a real estate. So off I went he gave me a phonebook. He’s paper a pencil and said alright, start making some dials. So now this was back in. Oh 607. So I grew up in a very challenging market, you know, because we ran into Oh 809 and it proved To be very beneficial, I didn’t realize how hard it was at the time, I was just figuring out how to make money. And through doing so when the tide ended up, rising, once again, it took my boat with it. And all of a sudden, I ran into, you know, some success there. In 2009, I was about 29, I was a little bit of a late bloomer in regards to actually making money. And once I had, once I had a taste of some of that success, and saw how quickly it could grow. I just jumped in, you know, both feet and really ran hard at it. We purchased our first investment property in oh nine, which was also doubling as our primary home, we saw the ability to increase value, and again, was just another glaring opportunity of, you know, an area that we could thrive in. And so we ran out the investment side of the business now that we had a little bit of change in our pockets work with and from there met an investor, they took us under their wing, kind of for me, poking, prodding, pushing, and, and we ended up building a company with them that flips homes. That was, let’s see around 2014. And then for the past five years, we’ve been working at doing that and have become investors along the way. So there you go. There’s my, my long and short.

J Darrin Gross  6:21  

That’s awesome. You know, you mentioned the getting getting the keys to the bar at 20 years thinking, you know, quickly you realize that that’s that’s a tough, that’s tough go i i i’m glad that I had the the restaurant bar experience in my youth, but I can’t imagine doing that, you know, later on now. But cool. So you, you sought out a real estate mentor, he is that kind of guy that you could coach you along the way that

Joe Bell  6:53  

I did? Yeah. So the the pieces that I don’t really highlight in that story are a lot of the failed attempts along the way. Right? I failed in baseball, I failed at running a bar I failed. So many in between. And so what I’ve learned over the years is what I lacked in talent I make up for with persistence. And this was one of those scenarios where I knew this particular investor worked with a particular licensee agent in our market. But I had a direct insight to him because my girlfriend at the time, it was her boss. And so naturally, we just started building relationship. And you know, I kept just, you know, kind of hammering him going, I want to invest I want to become an investor and slowly but surely, I think he started to see a piece of his younger self in me in my girlfriend and I and finally he gave me a call. late in the evening, right around Christmas. I think it was oh 809 somewhere in there. Oh, nine. Oh, 10. Doesn’t really matter. But uh, yeah, at about nine o’clock, I showed up but a Frozen Four Plex. told me to bring some boots I’ve put my boots on we tromped into this crawl space that was filled with liquid. At the time, I didn’t realize it was part human sewage, along with frozen pipes. And, you know, I kind of took a step back, standing amongst the sewage gone. Yeah, this is exactly what I want to be right. Like, this is where I want to be right now. And from there, you know, we just, we, we created a synergy that made sense, because he had wisdom and resources. And I had energy and desire. And you know, it was rocket fuel one of those scenarios. And it just worked. And we we ran forward.

J Darrin Gross  8:45  

Sweet. Now it’s nice to have some of the missing pieces appear that can help you get to the next step there. So that’s cool. So you started out? You said he gave you kind of the phone book and said, Do you get calling? Were you calling on commercial real estate where you’re calling on homeowners where Who are you calling?

Joe Bell  9:07  

I didn’t know what I was doing. To be honest. I had no idea right? I was I was just calling to try and talk to somebody about real estate. And at the time, I was more focused on commercial real estate. You know, one of the one of the beauties about that, that entry into the industry. Being commercial focus, I had always this this dream of my first investment property being a 20 unit plus complex. And so because I didn’t have any business, I filled my time with learning. And I mean, I’d stay up till like two 3am in the morning, just finding properties and then breaking them down financially and analyzing to figure out cap rates, for whatever reason, like the numbers just made sense in my brain and it was fun for me and I was able to pick up on the language, of real estate of commercial real estate space. Typically, and that helped me set myself apart. Because at the time there was, there was a group of younger folks that were getting into commercial otherwise, you had the old dogs that have been there been doing it for a long time. So to have some fresh blood come along the path and be able to speak the language, it created an opportunity for conversation further than just the initial cold call, right. So it was a, you know, this is Joe Bell with blank, blank real estate, calling on your commercial building that you have just wanted to see if you have thoughts about, you know, potentially utilizing some of the equity that you had to purchase another property or, you know, if there were thoughts about selling in the future, I mean, you know, real, really easy real casual conversation, and then go right into, you know, exposing that you have a have an idea about what you’re talking about, you know, at your current cap rate, you know, does it make sense to potentially sell that one off, and, you know, get something new or utilize some of the equity in it. So, we just, we just spun it into a conversation any way we could at that point.

J Darrin Gross  11:09  

I’m curious, you know, I’m a fan of cold calling, I’ve done it all my life. And well, no, I say a fan of it. Because I know that when when I’ve needed to, it’s, it’s the one thing that kind of reconnects me with prospects, you know, if you’re, if you are in a waiting mode, for people to call, a lot of times the people that call are worth, I mean, they’re not worth the effort kind of thing. It’s like, I found that some of my best opportunities have come from me reaching out, as opposed to the the inbound thing. And I know it’s not always true, I don’t want to make a call to business that’s come to me has not been worth doing. But it seems like that, that when I’m in the, in the outbound thing, you know, trying to generate some sort of rapport, you’ve got that one little window there. And if they listen to you, and they stay on the phone, and you find out there’s an opportunity there. Sometimes it can it can be a pretty sweet deal but i i’ve I know it’s it’s it’s exhausting. I’ll say that and I’ve learned since that too fired out a lot of the the outbound calls just to keep keep me fresh when I am talking to people that are looking to buy but

Joe Bell  12:22  

but it’s it’s one of those things. Yeah, it is, it is challenging, and you have to find a way to create you know, vigor around it some some life within it, have some fun with it. And it’s it’s harder and harder, because people just look at telemarketers, right as trash. And they’re very, very mean very short, very quick. So you do have to figure out a different approach in that sense. But one of my mentors, one of my really good friends, Jennifer tumour, she used to quote, somebody that she had heard it from, but it was something along the lines of there’s no financial challenge that you can’t solve it in making 20 phone calls a day, like, basically, if you just you know, 20 contacts, whatever that number is, if you just focus on that, that will carry you out of whatever challenge you’re experiencing. And it’s it’s very obvious in the real estate industry, but I think it applies in many other industries as well, right? You’re, you’re technically only one conversation away from completely changing your trajectory of where you got to where you potentially want to be by focusing on context conversations, and, you know, bringing into life within those conversations, what opportunities lie that neither party is able to see right here right now in front of them.

J Darrin Gross  13:44  

Right, right. And I think there’s, there’s definitely ways to be more productive than just complete random, you know, strangers, I think that one of the things I remember when I when I last time I actively did, it was just the kind of kind of honed the, you know, the message or whatever it is to where it’s a little bit more inviting for response, as opposed to getting rejected. And just, to me, there was some sort of building to it. And like, you know, said the, in the numbers, all of sales numbers, and the more opportunities you you know, the more doors you knock on, the more opportunities you’re going to receive kind of thing. So, but no, I I’m just a fan of learning that way, too. I have talked to many people. In fact, like you were saying today, most people kind of screen their calls, I found that the few people that do answer their phones are almost surprised if you have something legitimate as opposed to some sort of recording about, you know, you’ve one of your friends or family recommended that I call you know about something. But

Joe Bell  14:45  

Right, right, if you if you can’t hear the chatter of other callers in the background, right, or it’s a voice message, right, you kind of go away, but it sounds like a

J Darrin Gross  14:57  

real person. Yeah, that’s good. So let’s continue here. So you you got kinda You mean you got rain and you got a mentor, you got some a little bit of training, you got some you were learning the lingo, which I think is a big part of, you know, creating credibility with commercial real estate investors. So were you having success that that? Were you listing property selling priorities, leasing properties? What was your, your Yeah,

Joe Bell  15:29  

so this was this was more on the sales side, the transactional side. And yeah, I was having some success, I wasn’t having a lot to be honest. And there was one transaction that actually kicked me out of commercial real estate. I had been working on this transaction for six months, we got legitimately to the table to sign and buyer walked. Right. So seller got their earnest money of $10,000. And I watched my commission of 38,000, I think it was just gone, 

J Darrin Gross  16:04  

go out the door, the seller, or the buyer?

Joe Bell  16:06  

Yeah, it was. That one was a tough one. At that time, I hadn’t been making a lot of money, I’ve been learning the ropes of real estate. My girlfriend was at the time paying for my portion of rent in any given month, and it was, it was a really hard thing to go through. And I’m glad I went through it because it, it helped me focus, it helped me see, you know, the path of more on the residential side, because that’s what it did. It was like, Oh, crap, I have to figure out how to make money as quick as possible here, and residential just turned a little quicker. So I jumped over into that side of it. And I found that it paid more often more frequent, not as big a, you know, slice of pie. But it was something that was I could see, okay, here, this, this one’s 3045 days down the line. And here are the specific activities. Because there’s a lot more homes than there are commercial properties. And that somehow delineated a lot of competition in my brain, it was like, oh, wow, I can run after so many of these. Whereas I’m facing, you know, the 25 year old, or the 25. Year, that’s in the business over on these commercial properties at the time. I mean, I know I look like a baby now. But I really look like a baby, right going and talking to somebody about the security of their, their future retirement was a little bit more of a challenge. So the houses were easy, the residential side was easier. And I just found a natural groove as I moved over to that side of it. And and then it was, you know, it’s almost like the matrix coming together where the market hit, I started seeing a different income increased and from there was okay, now’s the opportunity to go in and start, excuse me, start personally investing.

J Darrin Gross  18:02  

Got it. So you mentioned that there was an investor that came along in the sun, like you guys partnered and we’re doing flips. Yep. Tell me about what, are you still doing the flips?

Joe Bell  18:16  

Yeah, at this point, we’ve now taking part in almost each sort of investment opportunity that has come across our desk. We’re heavy into a development now currently. So flipping Homes is, is almost second nature. It’s just part of what we do it, I would say it’s probably more of our bread and butter, because we’ve done so many now. And we’re comfortable with them. So but yeah, the at the time, these individuals, so is it was a couple they were shoot, I want to say they were in their mid mid to late 60s at that point. And here we were, we were in our, you know, late 20s, early 30s. And, again, they just kind of took us under our, under their wing, and they have the resources. We have the energy we had the vision and the analysis that they were looking for, in doing flips in doing these projects. And is it just married? Well, you know, and it took a little bit of coercing, but you know, after after really building the relationship, getting to know them. They became very important people in our lives. They’re now the godparents of my daughter, I it This was just a conversation that I kept persisting with, and it turned into something be very beautiful, very amazing. And they’ve now since retired, they sold off all of their assets here this last year and they moved down to Washington and are in retirement mode.

J Darrin Gross  19:48  

Catch. Well, the, again, you know, you you learned you kind of grinded you, you you found a teammate. If you Well, your your investor partner there sounds like you guys did quite a few homes. So So let’s talk about where you found in the success that followed, I guess you know, the thing that I read for the the introduction there is about blowing up, you’re not blowing up but the focusing on your market and you know, building out your team and creating real wealth. To this point, it sounds like you’re really kind of focused on a particular market. Based on I’m assuming is all of this happened in the same same market? Yeah, your experience it,

Joe Bell  20:44  

I’m born and raised in my market. So I have a little bit of a competitive advantage in that regard. Even though I never really paid attention to real estate, or homes or buildings growing up. But yeah, now that I’m, you know, a seasoned vet of 15 years in this market, I know it’s inside now, for the most part, and it’s very easy for me to analyze it. So there’s my there’s my competitive advantage, right. But more it’s time on task, time on task has allowed me to set myself apart in in the investment side, and being able to analyze and understanding the numbers, understanding the cost, understanding timeframes, and how to put all the pieces together, that’s been pure time on task over time, has now, you know, allowed us to become just a different, a little bit of a different machine in that regard. Because we we know what we’re doing, we can do a very quick, and, you know, it’s just something that we’ve, we’ve learned over the years. So part of that is in building the team. So I wrote a book, it’s assets, acquisitions and abundance, it’s on Amazon, there’s my little pitch for to get it out of the way. In that what we do is I talk about assets and highlighting what your personal assets are not in what you own, not a business, not a piece of property, but what your strengths are right in defining those strengths. And understanding those strengths and focusing on utilizing those strengths. And then where you can look for assistance and leverage and, and helping in your market in your network specifically. So we talked about understanding your assets in order to go find the assets and acquire those assets, through utilization of not only your strengths, but other strengths as well. And it’s been very surprising to understand how how many different resources we have in our immediate network. And it’s just a matter of, you know, becoming a resource yourself, so that you create this attraction towards the real estate investing, you know, side of your world. And as a result, people start raising their hands going, Hey, yeah, I have a construction background, I’ve wanted to get into flipping. Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of resources, I want to, you know, do some investing, because the stock market scares the crap out of me right now, you know, and you just you don’t understand until you ask the question, and you start digging into some of these conversations more, what sort of opportunity there is, who, who you have in your network, the resources that are available, and you know, ultimately, then it all comes back to, you know, dealing with your your market and being a part of your market in order to create that attraction.

J Darrin Gross  23:34  

No market familiarity and expertise is, you know, will pay spades. I mean, as far as the dividends, right, you know, I’m just having that that carnal knowledge or let me ask you, though, about the team members in, in the way you’re doing it. Who are some of the key members of your team? And what do they do?

Joe Bell  24:01  

Yeah, so I’m, I’m more on the acquisition and negotiation side, I love negotiating. That’s, it’s my favorite part of the, you know, it’s, it’s almost the art of the deal, right? It’s the chase. That for me is, is the, that’s my, that’s my area, that’s where I, you know, kind of control everything else. I can find leverage points in that regard. So, you know, we’ve been working with the same contractor for for quite a while and we’re starting to open and open up to other contractors as we continue moving forward to create a bigger part of the team. And when you do find that, you know, that general if you if you can find that individual, then you create a you know, a form of leverage for all the subs in handling different specifics of the flip itself. So, you know, and continuing to search, continuing to have conversations and highlight who’s great at The construction contracting side of the world as a, that’s a really big part of it, and that doesn’t come very easy. It, that’s another time on task ritual, where you just have to continue having the conversations and top grading, you know, when you when you come across some of those, those hire talented individuals. So that’s a really big, really big chunk of what we do the resources, so a lot of our investors, you know, because for me, I don’t have to, I don’t have to have the biggest piece of the pie, I don’t have to have all the pie, I just want a piece of the PI, in order to, you know, again, going back to the title of my book, aswhat assets, acquisitions and abundance, this is where the abundance play comes in. And it’s really grabbing folks that are interested grabbing folks that have special strengths that I don’t, and bringing them along with us, and most of the time actually grabbing on to their coattails and going along for the ride and the trajectory that they’re already on. So in finding resources, you know, the investor network is a big part of what we’ve been able to build over the years. And, you know, I can’t even say that it’s not over the years, it is in the last probably 24 months 24 to 30 months, since we close shop on our investment flipping business. And we’ve now carried this on our own forward, really being able to understand and know where your funds are, give you a different error confidence when going out and looking at acquisition. So. So on the repair side, you have, you know, a party or parties that can handle that piece. And on the resource side, you have the financial ability and confidence to know that, you know, ultimately you can go and find the money, if the deals good enough to you know, go and squeeze it.

J Darrin Gross  26:57  

Got it? You’re talking about the money, what? How are how are you structured as far as your capital.

Joe Bell  27:05  

So, it, it all depends, it depends on where we’re at. So we’ve got a development going, and we’ve got, you know, roughly about $600,000 in that development. And, you know, we have another, we have another actually two flips that are coming up. And we’re just utilizing different private resources, we haven’t really gotten to a bank, we don’t do any home equity line of credits, or a line of credit or two or 3k loans or anything along those lines, we are working with folks that come out of our network and are interested in participating. And we offer them, you know, a couple of different structures, and one of my favorite is to guarantee a certain percent of return on their money as much as you can guarantee on an investment right and a risk. And then beyond that we split profits. So you know, it makes them feel comfortable with knowing that bare minimum, we’re working towards their return. And if we do what we say we’re good at and we know how to do, then we’re going to participate in those profits on the back end as well. So it just kind of depends on the on the project and how we structure it and what the what the party is looking for that we’re working with. Yeah, that what you were asking?

J Darrin Gross  28:23  

Yeah, no, absolutely. Just, you know, the, the money, there’s always a little somebody who’s got the money in the deal there. I mean, those Right, right, you get it. But one things I love about real estate is, you know, to you can be as creative as the parties that are involved or willing to be so that’s good, right? So you mentioned basically, you’re on acquisition, you’ve got a contractor, is there any bid and then the investors Is there anybody else that that you you rely on to help you get out the word and find opportunities. And,

Unknown Speaker  28:59  

you know, I mean, social media has been really, really good for us. Every now and again, we’ll put on a little, you know, investment seminar, I mean, we’ve done enough now with social media that folks know that we are in the acquisition game, we are in the investment game. And so once in a while, we’ll just say hey, we’re we’re holding the very, you know, private meeting, where we’ll present what we do and if you’re interested in participating, come and join us. And those have been very successful in highlighting the who we can participate with in some of these and most of the time, most of the time, it’s it’s purely just financial that comes out of that we haven’t really found, you know, a level of talent in regards to any of the construction side or, you know, special knowledge side of things. But it does create the opportunity to continue building out that network and creating another resource, you know, to scale to expand if we wanted to really push on it?

J Darrin Gross  30:02  

Gotcha. So, for the listeners that are considering, either they’re in an Anna market or looking at greater success in their market, what are some tips that you could provide or share that would help them? You know, grow and and help create more real estate wealth?

Joe Bell  30:26  

Yeah, so there’s, there’s really two things that I like to focus on when I get this question. And the first one is just becoming the resource. So if you’re, if you’re new, if you don’t have a lot, you know, under your belt, then becoming the resource really allows you to create an attraction, right? So, so a couple of steps, go find, you know, five podcasts like yours, go find five blogs, go find five websites, go find just information resources, and then share that with your community. And by doing so, you’re you’re doing two things, one, you’re showing that you can be a resource for really great content, and two, you’re supporting somebody else’s efforts, right, and the energy that they’re putting in, so you’re organically growing, you know, that side of the universe. And by doing so, if you do enough of really strong content sharing, then ultimately you’ll start to create this attraction back towards you. And it’s just a very simplistic approach to becoming the source. So when people think about real estate investing, they go, Oh, you know, what, Darrin? Does real estate invest? Oh, wait, he has a podcast, right? And so they think of you because everything that you do should be focused around, how do you carve a percentage of their mind for you, and u becoming that one that they think of? When it comes to real estate specific, right. So that’s, that’s one real easy way to go about it. And the second is just to have conversations, you know, just, uh, you know, if I was, if I was looking to learn or looking to connect with, you know, high talent, or folks that have done investing or, you know, gain a level of knowledge I don’t have, then I would give you a call there. And I would say, hey, Darren, I’m really focused on real estate investing, you have anybody like a top three that I would potentially be able to reach out to, to talk to him about real estate investing. Right, and I just shut up at that point, and see what your responses, this is a high contact sport, you have to either be, you know, focusing on contacts with individuals that can join your network can help find different opportunities, or know somebody that might have an opportunity. And, and that’s really all this is, right? It’s just continuing to have the conversation, because you never know where a conversation is going to lead you.

J Darrin Gross  32:59  

Yeah, no, I love that. And I think the thing that I would add just in, in thinking about it is, is that the, the conversation doesn’t necessarily have to have an end point, like, you know, you’re trying to get them to investor or whatever. But just having those conversations and asking questions and listening, I was amazed by the, and I’ve been guilty of this too. So I don’t wanna make it sound like a part of it. But, but the lack of success when when I’m so trying to, you know, get somebody to or I’m putting I’m giving them all this information, and I haven’t found out, you know, might they be interested? going before I’m giving them all this information? So I think that’s, that’s, that’s great stuff. I appreciate that. Want to ask you a quick about financial freedom? Yep. How do you define it? And how do you when you when you’re working with others? What are your how do you how do you measure that?

Joe Bell  34:03  

Yeah. So right, this is this is almost the same question of what is success to you, right? Because success is different for everybody. Financial Freedom is different for everybody. And so financial freedom to me is being able to make the choices that you want to make when you want to make them is really what it comes down to. Now, we don’t I can be very, very transparent here and say that we don’t always get to make those choices based on some of the other decisions we’ve made in regards to financial decisions and investment decisions. Right. This is a it’s an ebb and flow on our way to get to that point where you have total complete financial freedom, right to make the choice that you want to make when you want to make it but there are times where you go, you know what, I’m going to sink this chunk of money because I see See the opportunity. And as a result, I’ve got to go and make up. Alright, it’s almost like a lot of business owners out there where you know, they have a successful business, but talk to him about a cash flow or talk to him about getting a loan through a bank. Right? There’s a lot of challenges that I run into, in those conversations with folks that, you know, they’re, they’re really producing, but they’re not quite to the level where financial freedom has has graced their presence. Right? So when we’re, when we’re talking with folks, it is more a matter of stripping down the layers to go, really what do you want, you know, and at the at the base level, I run into folks just really want to be of value, they want to figure out their value, and they want to be of value. So where can we help them live in a world that they feel like they are a value in offering value, whether that’s financial freedom, right, or whether that is really hitting their groove of, you know, finding joy in their life, because they are of value and are able to spread that value, you know, amongst their, their resources and network, I should say,

J Darrin Gross  36:16  

Oh, that’s good stuff. Hey, Joe, if we could, I’d like to shift gears here for a second. By day, I’m an insurance broker. And I work with my clients to assess risk and determine what to do with the risk. And there’s, there’s typically three strategies I point to and asked my clients to consider. The first way is we ask, can we avoid the risk, if we can avoid it, then the risk doesn’t doesn’t affect us. If that’s not an option, then we look to see if we can minimize the risk, and what steps we can we can take. And if we’re not able to avoid nor minimize the risk, then we look to see if we can transfer the risk. And that’s what an insurance policy is. It’s a risk transfer vehicle. And I like to ask my guests, if they can look at their own situation. This could be your clients, investors, tenants, the market, it’s a blank slate, you get to define it. But if you could take a look at your situation, and identify what you consider to be the biggest risk. And, again, for clarification, I’m not necessarily looking for an insurance related answer. But if you’re willing, I’d like to ask you, Joe Bell, what is the biggest risk?

Joe Bell  37:43  

Yeah, well, an insurance related answers sometimes a really good step. But beyond that, right? Um, you know, the some of the biggest risk is, is when you you think you know it, all right, you get to that point where you reach the pinnacle. And as soon as you start to feel like you’re there is one of the biggest opportunities to actually get swept off the mountain. I think a lot of us out there, I know myself experienced that, when COVID hit, and we lost $900,000 in investment. It quite frankly, just caught a lot of people with their pants down, myself included. And I was I was to a point where I felt like, you know, I was doing pretty well. And I knew quite a bit of of what there was to know out there. But it was a humbling moment where I had to take a step back and go, No, we’re not even close. Right. So, you know, the biggest risk is to get to that point and stop learning, stop progressing, stop evolving, both as an investor and as a human. You know, so that that, to me is one of the biggest risks outside of all your general pitfalls that typical new investors run into and, you know, trying to trying to do stuff before they really know what they’re doing and that sense. So yeah, for me, it probably applies to a more seasoned individual that has been around the game for a little while, but there is there’s no Pinnacle. It’s a continual evolution and just focusing on that.

J Darrin Gross  39:30  

I think that’s, that’s some words of wisdom there. It gets

Joe Bell  39:35  

harder wisdom, I guess.

J Darrin Gross  39:38  

Yeah, school, Hard Knocks. I mean, you know, it’s, I remember growing up, my parents were poor, not. They didn’t hover. they’d let me make mistakes and, and, you know, they always said, Well, I could have told you that but then you wouldn’t learn so I was like, well, right.

Joe Bell  39:54  

Okay,

J Darrin Gross  39:55  

so I’ve got the battle scars.

Joe Bell  39:57  

Sage, that is sage advice, right?

J Darrin Gross  40:01  

But anyway, Joe, where can listeners go if they’d like to learn more or connect with you?

Joe Bell  40:08  

Yeah, so our website legacy beyond listings dot com legacy beyond listings was initially initially came about for real estate professionals specifically that, you know, I just wanted to drive the point home for them to focus on the real estate side of the world for themselves. Because I had a lot of conversations running a billion dollar brokerage in the mid 2014 2015. Where I didn’t find a lot of those individuals setting themselves up for wealth for the future. And so I put this this website together, and I realized this doesn’t just apply to real estate professionals. This is everyone. So legacy beyond listings dot com, I’ve got a link that folks can schedule some time with me, which is, which is purely just that, right. It’s purely just a conversation. I used to do the coaching thing, but really have progressed beyond not in a negative sense, but just as I just want to find a way to help people and if it’s a conversation then great, you know, sign up for a conversation right? In that regard. There’s also a case study that they can download there. Or if they want send me an email directly on Joe@JoeBell.life, l i f is in Frank, E.

Unknown Speaker  41:32  

J Darrin Gross  41:34  

Got it.  Joe, I can’t say thank you enough for taking the time to talk. I’ve enjoyed our conversation. learned a lot and I hope we can do it again soon.

Joe Bell  41:44  

Yeah, no worries. The pleasure is all mine. I really appreciate the opportunity, Darrin, so thank you.

J Darrin Gross  41:49  

All right. For our listeners. If you like this episode, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe. Remember, the more you know, the more you grow? That’s all we’ve got this week. Until next time, thanks for listening to Commercial Real Estate Pro Networks. CRE PN Radio.

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