How to Overcome Seller Objections to Close More Deals! | Justin Munk

In this episode, Dalyn Hazell sits down with Justin Munk and they discuss tips in overcoming seller objections, strategies on how to stay in control in a conversation with the seller, sales processes and a lot more!

Justin Munk is a husband and father to 4 kids in Utah. He is currently a partner and the Director of Sales for one of Utah's largest solar installation companies. For the past 2 years, he has been investing in Real Estate using the BRRRR method both locally and in Ohio. He hosts the Money Maven Project Podcast where he interviews thought leaders on success, mindset, real estate, and building a life that you want. Justin believes that our minds are often our most limiting factor and if we can control our mindset we can control our outcomes. 

Key takeaways from this episode:

-How real estate helps build wealth

-How to be a good negotiator salesperson

-Different types of deals and how to overcome rejections

-The most important skills to develop as a real estate investor

-Two questions that will change your ability to handle objections

-The secret to remaining in control of the conversation during a deal

-The two parts of the sales process

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Website: Www.Themoneymavenproject.com

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dhazell24/

Email: dalyndhazell@gmail.com

Transcript

Introduction  0:00  

This is the real estate investing for Freedom podcast, where we bring on the experts to teach you the golden nuggets of real estate investing, so you can escape the rat race and start living life on your terms. Now, here's your host, Dalyn Hazell.

Dalyn Hazell  0:18  

Hey, everyone, and thank you for tuning back into another episode of the show. I have been a little bit MIA lately, I have been doing a lot of closings, we had three homes that we bought this week. And so there's a lot going on with the financing and the raising of capital and the contractors, and just everything that goes along with buying and selling. And so I am back at it, going to be releasing episodes weekly now. And so today's episode, I sit down with Justin Munk, he's a husband and father to four kids in Utah. And he's currently a partner and the Director of Sales for one of Utah's largest solar installation companies. That's on his W two job side. But on his real estate side, he has been investing in real estate using the BRRRR method, both locally and in Ohio. He hosts the money Maven project podcast, make sure you check it out, where he interviews thought leaders on success mindset, real estate and building the life that you want kind of like what we do here. Justin believes that our minds are often our most limiting factor. And if we can control our mindset, we can control our outcomes. I can't agree more with that. And with that being said, Here's today's golden nugget of the day. Today's golden nugget is to understand your market's cycle. And that just means understanding when it's easier to sell a home. And when it's easier to not sell a home. For example, right now, in my market, it's one of the worst times to sell a home in my opinion, because we're going into the holidays. And generally speaking, the time between November, December, January, is a really slow time in real estate. And not a lot of homes are sold nearly as much as during the summer. And so let's say you're planning on flipping properties, maybe plan on holding that property for an extra 30 days instead of getting an offer on day one. So understand your market cycle theory. And you need to know when to invest in this certain phase. So talk to your agent about this who's helping you with your transactions to know Hey, should I hold on to this property should I sell? I think that's the beautiful part about being a buy and hold investor too, if you can rent out a property for a few months or a few years. And then when it's the perfect time to sell, then you can sell and get top dollar. And during the time you know that you're renting it, you're still getting the cash flow and equity build up. And so that's the really great part about being a bio investor rather than just a fix and flipper. And so market cycle theory is something I'm really interested in. And then,  on a grand scale, when you think about market cycles, as far as the Grand economy, there's going to be a dip in the economy every this amount of years. And so you can study that and really get lost in it. But specifically, today I'm talking about the seasonal market cycles of your market. So make sure you know that you study that and factor that in when you're going to rent out or sell a property. So with all that being said, Here's my interview with Justin Munk, enjoy. Welcome to the show, Justin, how's it going?

Justin Munk  3:23  

It's going good, man. Good to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Dalyn Hazell  3:26  

Yeah, you bet. So, Justin, I know a lot of people start off,  shows like this, asking how you got started and all that. And we can get to that. But I want to pose the question a little bit differently. When was your aha moment that you got into real estate investing?

Justin Munk  3:41  

Okay, yeah. So early on, when I first got married, we purchased a townhome to live in, and we lived in it for a few years. And then we moved out, we bought a different home. And we rented that townhome out and I'm like, well, that's a that makes perfect sense. I like this cash flow thing. But even before that, I knew that real estate had incredible potential for building wealth. I had an uncle who sold who built a company outside of the real estate, just another service company, and sold that company for lots of money, millions of dollars. And he once told me that he made more money in real estate after selling that company than he ever made inside of the company. And I'm like, wow, that,  he worked his tail off for X million when he sold the company and then made more money with that money. In real estate afterward. I'm like, Okay, that was kind of the first like the sense of what the power of real estate was to generate wealth. And so I knew all along that I needed to have some kind of a finger in that world. And so like I said, we rented out that townhome initially and the cash flow was great. It was super, I mean, it was a newer property. So there was very little maintenance. It was awesome. And what we quickly realized is that that's If you have one, but more is better. And I realized that if I had to come up with a third 25-30% down for each property, I was going to run out of capital very quickly. So that's where I did more digging,  discovered biggerpockets.com, and their podcast and a lot of the books and discovered the bur strategy, which is what we mainly focus on now, which allows for our capital to go a lot farther. We invest out of state, mostly in Ohio, I live in Utah, and we use that for strategy over and over and over again. So that's kind of my entrance into the investing world, just always kind of knowing that there was more to generating wealth than just having a good,  w-two job.

Dalyn Hazell  5:44  

Yeah, I love that story about your uncle, because,  starting a company from scratch,  I think of these tech companies as high risk, high reward,  and it's cool that,  he went back to real estate, which is something, any average Joe, the person who has no creativity, no,  no degrees that they can get into as well. So that's a really good reminder for us all. So you're doing the townhome thing, and then you've obviously scaled up from there because the bur has allowed you to re-reuse that capital. And we're not going to go into that strategy now. Because we have other podcasts that discuss that. Yeah. Today's show is all about,  sales, because I know, in your W two job you're in a sales type environment, and then you go to real estate, whether you're an agent or an investor, you're met with sales, and how do you be a good negotiator salesperson, while creating those Win-Win relationships? Because as we know, it's all about networking, negotiating and finding deals. So how does a person who maybe doesn't have a background in sales, get the same success that a person with that background can have?

Justin Munk  6:49  

Yeah, I mean, I definitely learned sales skills, I mean, that they, whether you're in real estate, or whatever you're doing, whether you're raising money for a nonprofit sales skills in the sense of understanding people's hesitancy and their objections and help and knowing how to overcome objections. That is a priceless skill regardless, so I don't. It doesn't matter who you learn from whether it's Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, Grant Cardone is my personal favorite, but as also the Wolf of Wall Street, what's his name? Jordan Belfort, I think is his name. There's a lot of trainers out there. Grant Cardone, I think, is the best personal opinion there. But you can get a lot of really good education, they all have platforms to learn from. So I definitely would dive into that and try and learn that. If you're, if you can get a job in sales that provides training,  a lot of the door to door pest control companies, they're really good at training their guys, anywhere, right? And I actually started it 1012 years ago, I went door to door selling pest control in California. So that's where my sales expertise or my sales experience started. So just do whatever you can to learn it because it's going to be a game changer. As far as you understand how to negotiate and communicate with sellers. At the end of the day, right? We all deals usually come in the form of off market, talking direct with seller, whether you're wholesaling, or just trying to pick up a property for the birth strategy, it doesn't matter, you're going to encounter some resistance or some objections, and being able to overcome that it's going to be huge.

Dalyn Hazell  8:30  

Yeah, you mentioned a couple of good things. But I also wanted to say,  there's a reason that sales there's, there's no degree for it. I mean, there can be but generally, there's no degree because it requires more experience. And it can be taught, but it can't at the same time,  you can learn it from books, but also it just takes getting out there. And that's why I recommend you probably recommend people get started in some capacity of sales,  knock on doors, work for a pest control company, be a real estate agent, whatever you can do to scratch that itch, because my background, especially being an accounting, I mean, I was in an office all day, I had no opportunity to exercise my sales skills. That was I thought,  that's, that's the partner's job. They're the ones driving the business, I'm just doing the books and whatever. And that keeps you really keeps you small because the people that drive the business drive the sales are the ones that make the most money. Yeah. So what is the number one sales skill to develop as a real estate investor, if you could pin it down? I mean, I'm talking about the ability to find the best deals, the ability to network the best, what's the most important sales skill to develop?

Justin Munk  9:39  

Assuming that you already have a lead and you have,  let's just say you've got somebody that responded to a direct mail piece or your text campaign or your phone calls. And you've got somebody that's interested in talking to you about selling their property, an owner, right. What's going to separate you from the other people that are trying to buy that place is going to be your communication skills. Your ability to overcome their objections, I think anyway, because right, they're going to have well,  why would I sell to you, I should go list it, they're gonna have all kinds of things as far as objections. And I think if you can understand the process of handling those objections is going to allow you to communicate better, provide more benefits, more value to that seller, and hopefully close the deal. I think the most common mistake in sales is that when you hear an objection, you think that's the real objection. And that's the only objection. What I have learned in sales is that 95% of the time, if not more, a stated objection, usually as a smokescreen, usually it's a distraction. And usually, it's not the only one, or it's not the real one. And so your ability to push through that, and using a script and we can kind of go through some different scripting, of how to push through that, to find the real reason that they're hesitant to sell you that property, that's going to be the number one skill for you to get these deals in lieu of somebody else getting it.

Dalyn Hazell  11:07  

I love that you mentioned this skill to overcome objections, because, yeah, there's very little chance that the seller will have no objections. I mean, they have to be completely laid down. Just they wanted to sell it yesterday, totally motivated to have no objections to just sign the dotted line and wait for their check to come. Generally, you're gonna have a ton of objections. So you can mention some of those. But I also wanted to mention, I mean, some of those and in my personal business has been, well, I want to talk to my attorney first. So, for example, on that, I say, Well, is there something I didn't make clear? In the agreement? Is there something I didn't mention? Let's walk through that before, because I don't want you to have to pay $300 an hour to your attorney, things like that. You could obviously position a little better than I did. But those are kind of overcoming objections. That's what you're talking about there. Right. So can you mention a few of those that you encounter in your day today?

Justin Munk  12:00  

Yeah, I mean, whether I'm selling solar, or I'm trying to get a deal under contract,  there's always those those those stall objections, which oftentimes are, I want to talk to my attorney, I want to talk to my wife, I want to talk to my partner, which really, most of the time, they're just actually I just want some more time to think about, I don't really need to talk to anybody, I just don't want to make a decision right now. And so being able to push through that. And so for me,  kind of step one is like, Okay, I agree with you, I totally understand that I hear you,  completely agree with him, we always want to agree with the client. And then step two would be just trying to validate or excuse me, trying to isolate that to be the only objection. So I say, Okay, other than wanting to talk to your attorney, or wanting to talk to your wife, is there any other reason why we would do this deal right now. And so now they're having to say, okay, the two answers, right? No, that's the only thing or no, there's this. And they might say something else? Well, yeah, I want to talk to my attorney. But I also want to talk to a real estate agent and make sure I'm getting a fair deal, or whatever, right. And so Okay, now, this is different. This is a different problem than an attorney right? Now. It's really more about what they want to talk about at this age. Okay. Well, other than talking to a real estate agent to make sure you're getting a fair deal, is there any other reason why you would do this today or whatever, right? And you just keep asking that till they run out of reasons. And hopefully, by the time you get to the last reason, that's the real one. And now we can actually address it. So let's just say, the last one they give us is,  they want to say it's a probate deal or something, and they want to run it by the members of the family. Yeah, the process here and the deal. And so Okay, so to really validate that this is the right objection, and the only one you say something like, okay, so if the family says yes, that this is a good deal, we want to move forward. Or is that all we need is like, would we be ready to move forward? If they are, if they're all onboard? And if they say Well, no, then there's still something else, right? They say yes, then now you find the wrong the right thread objection, and now we can start addressing it. Okay, well, let's just do this. Let's just make the contract contingent on your family's saying everything's good right now we can try and close the deal. In whatever process we have to make it contingent on whatever they want to find out. But just that, just those steps other than that, is there any other reason why we would do this today? And then, if that is taken care of, like an if-then statement, if that is taken care of, would we be signing up today, or would we be doing this deal today? Those two questions have definitely changed my ability to handle objections, whether it's solar that I'm selling or talking to sellers or dealing negotiating with contractors, like whatever it is, that process of,  agreeing with them, isolating that it's the only one and then validating that it's the real issue. That's been a pretty powerful process for me.

Unknown Speaker  14:59  

Yeah, I agree. And it's pretty unbelievable sometimes how. And we're talking about off-market, sellers hear it mainly in the single family realm, at least that's where I'm at. I think that's where you're at Jason and a lot of our listeners, but they're, they're not reasonable sometimes. So I recently had a deal where I made the offer. And the seller said, I'm gonna pass on your offer, but best wishes to you. And I called her and I said, Well, what was wrong? And she was like, I need more time to get my stuff out of the house. Yeah, she passed, she was gonna dismiss the entire relationship, because she needed more stuff, well, I can just simply change that in the contract. And you'd be surprised that if we can just get them to sign the agreement, you'd be surprised,  that will lead to a most likely lead to closing. So we have to eliminate those distractions and adjust the agreement accordingly. Because I would hate to have that. Let the deal fall out of my hands. I mean, sure, I'll give you another 15 days, they get your stuff out. 

Unknown Speaker  15:56  

I don't care. Yeah, it's so funny. Sometimes they're just totally easy things to handle. They just don't know what the options are when it comes to making the transaction. And so the more you can communicate, the more you can understand asking those probing questions like, hey,  just so I know, like, what kept you from, from doing this deal with me, and I just had just too much pressure, I needed some time to get out,  whatever it is, that's like, as a great example of how to, once you identified the real reason, it was easier to address and you're able to close that deal up?

Dalyn Hazell  16:26  

Yeah. So do you have any tactics or maybe secret phrases that you say to keep in control of that conversation? Because once you start losing control of the conversation, it gets ugly, pretty quick, as an investor. So how do you stay in control of those conversations?

Justin Munk  16:42  

Yeah, that's a hard one, right? Because you don't mean you want to stay in control, but you don't want to be controlling. So for me, asking questions can usually bring it back around, like, let's just say it's spinning out of control on me. And I say, hey, you know what, let me just, let's just step back for a second, let me ask a couple of questions. So I more fruitfully understand other than this objection, is there anything else,  going right into my script?  how to handle those objections? So I think questions are probably the most powerful way to step back and just try and get back onto the common ground. I mean, obviously, it depends on what, where it's going out of control. But questions, so having good questions,  learned and memorized, have what? Good probing questions to better understand the client situation. That's going to be huge. And again, these situations can be different every time, right? I mean, it might be if it's a probate deal, if it's foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, like these questions, and these scenarios are going to be different every time. So you've got to have quite the Rolodex, I guess, or the book of good questions to step back. Hey, let me just think we're going a little bit fast here. Let me step back. Let me ask just a couple of questions to make sure I'm on the right page. And then just go back into some good probing questions, making sure that you understand. And then just agreeing with the client all the time, every rule number one, right is to agree with the client. If they say some crazy outlandish objection, pay, I totally understand and totally agree with you. Other than that, is there any other reason why we wouldn't do this deal? And just go back to your script?

Dalyn Hazell  18:17  

Yeah, yeah. And I would just add that to not only agree with the client at all times but then follow up with the question, which I think you alluded to. So one of the questions that came to my mind that I got off another podcast, I don't know, is,  what's your plan? B, if you don't sell this home to me, what's your plan B? And if they say, well, well, I might just sell it,  I might sell it to somebody else,  tell me who else you're talking to,  what do they offer? What're their offers look like? compared to mine? So really getting down to that ground level? And not just depending on those laydowns in our businesses?

Justin Munk  18:54  

Yeah, yeah, a lot of those questions can be answered even before the negotiating starts,  you're sitting down for coffee, and you're like, hey,  what, what have you already?  What research have you already done? When it comes to selling your house? What options have you already explored? What do you like about the options that you've explored? What do you not like about the options you've explored?  Just asking all these discovery questions way before you start giving them a price and a purchase agreement, like understanding what's really going on, where they're at, what they like, what they don't like, that's going to help you close the deal down the road. And ultimately, that's in the business we're in. Like, we want to make sure this is a win-win deal, right? We want to make sure we help them and we can't help them if we haven't discovered where their pain points are. So those discovery questions we call them way before the actual selling part happens. Those are going to be very valuable. So you're exactly right.

Dalyn Hazell  19:50  

Yeah, really, you're just trying to pigeonhole them into thinking that you're the only solution for them.  if they say well, I'll just rent the property. Well, Mister seller You told me earlier in our conversation that you're tired of being a landlord,  well, I'll just list it, well, you're gonna have to stage it, it's supposed to look like this is gonna take X number of days to sell. So you're just trying to, guide them into that sales funnel to the very end where you are the good guy on their side of their table. And you have that solution.

Justin Munk  20:19  

Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, if you ask lots of questions and good questions, usually the seller will give you the ammunition you need to close the deal to solve their problem and close the deal. Based on what they don't want to do.  they've already tried to list it, but it didn't work or whatever you need. It's amazing what they'll disclose if you ask the right questions.

Dalyn Hazell  20:41  

Yeah, that's all great stuff. Thanks for mentioning that. This next part of our show, I wanted to mention, like getting the leads. So maybe we should have talked about that first, but getting the leads into our system, because there are two parts of the sales process. It's driving the business and then closing the business. So how are you and your company driving that business in 2021? When the markets are so hot, and investors are driving the price up?

Justin Munk  21:07  

Yeah, I'm probably, I don't know, I may not be the best example of filling a pipeline full of leads. But because right now all I do, I just again, with the full time job,  I'm working whatever it is eight to six, selling solar. So it's morning and evenings for me as far as analyzing deals and trying to acquire deals. So it's more for me, it's about, I've got a local agent out there, that's helping me find deals, I'm looking on the MLS every morning,  checking things out there. That's honestly where I find most of my deals, surprisingly. But I'm also on a dozen wholesaler lists for the markets that I want to be in. And so I spend my time talking with those teammates, I guess, or,  team members, I guess, what they're sending me. I'm analyzing the deals. For me. That's where I spend most of my time. And I think that's a great strategy. But I'm also a buy-and-hold investor using the bur strategy. If I was wholesaling, that obviously wouldn't work, I would need to be putting in direct mail, texting campaigns, phone calls, I mean, having to push it way harder to find those deals. So I've done some of that. I've done the direct mail thing, had a VA doing some phone calls. For me, it's all very good. It's all very effective. Don't ever think that it's saturated, or it's not going to work? I think there's always a level of dedication and expertise that you can differentiate yourself with. So yeah, one way or another, we got to find these deals, we got to find these opportunities, and then we need to use our skills or sales skills to get the deals done.

Dalyn Hazell  22:46  

Yeah, absolutely. And, and there's nothing wrong with depending on the MLS or other wholesalers. That's a way to leverage I mean, you have all these people working for you that you're not really paying. I mean, in the end, you might pay a little more because it's more competitive, but you're leveraging yourself, you're able to do other things and have a job to do this and that. And so people are just bringing deals to you. And that's, that's phenomenal.

Justin Munk  23:09  

Yeah. For me, it has to be as passive as possible. So that's why I just pay other people to do that kind of stuff. I'll hire those people, the bird dogs, right, the deal finders, that's who I want to bring onto my team.

Dalyn Hazell  23:24  

Yeah, yeah. So the next part I wanted to discuss, you know the importance of a CRM, do you have a CRM that you keep up with to keep track of your leads or people you've met in advance or whatever. And what is that software you use?

Justin Munk  23:37  

It's a combination of a few different things. HubSpot provides a pretty decent free version of their CRM. Initially, when I started, I would actually put my leads into the hub into HubSpot. And I had a VA, I would just put the address in and then a VA would grab that they would go find the tax,  the tax assessments or the tax amount, they would go pull rent comps, from Rentometer, or wherever they would put all of that missing data in for me, and then they would let me know when that's completed, then I would come back and I would analyze the deal because I have all the data, I didn't want to spend the time getting the data. So HubSpot was very free. And so that was very easy to use, it's super customizable, you can move all the fields around, you can definitely go a long way with that free version. So I have that when it comes to once a lead has been analyzed, and it might actually be a deal. I'm kind of just going off of using BiggerPockets comm for their calculators, their birth strategy calculator. So if it's in there and saved as a report, then I'm just looking in there. I can archive them once they're not a deal or once I don't want to look at him anymore. And I'll have like the best dozen deals that I'm sorry to have done I'm looking at there'll be right there. So it's kind of like leads that I need to process and see if there actually deals, deals move into the bigger pockets thing. And then once they're once I own the property, it moves into stessa, which is a property management tool, right? Its accounting is tracking all my expenses for each property, allocating those expenses to each property depending on what was spent on. And so those are kind of the three tools that I use as a CRM, I guess, depending on where they're at the stage of the process.

Dalyn Hazell  25:27  

Yeah, that's a cool flow. And I think it's nice that you have different programs if someone's promising an all-in-one solution. It's usually too good to be true. And it's pretty clunky. So you need to have systems that work together. That's awesome.

Justin Munk  25:41  

Yeah. And there may be one out there, but it's probably expensive, right, I want to, I want to keep as much cash flow as I can. So I only want to pay for things that I have bigger pockets like, I think it's like 30 or 40 bucks a month, that's probably the only one I really pay for stessa is free. So that's pretty nice. Especially when you get started, you want to keep your expenses as low as possible. So you can spend money where you actually have a good return. And so yeah, that's kind of the combination I use, it's probably not perfect, but it definitely works pretty well for us right now.

Dalyn Hazell  26:13  

Yeah, I mean, the checks in real estate are pretty big. So it's easy to justify, like spending money on this and that, but you have to stay controlled and keep more of your cash flow but it's tempting.

Justin Munk  26:24  

Yeah, you got to be careful, because you can spend right through it. Yeah, exactly. Right.

Dalyn Hazell  26:28  

Yeah. So talk about the portfolio you're building right now with a burr method. Talk about that a little bit.

Justin Munk  26:35  

Yeah, so it's, it's, we really just focus on single family, usually three bed, one bath, they're usually renting for the reason I like Ohio is because we're able to pick these properties up for 30 $40,000, as it's starting to get more expensive now might be 50,000. We put in 15, or $20,000, in rehab, and they use the appraised for whatever it is 75 to 95,000. And we are able to,  as  the bur method, right, do a cash out refinance, pull our capital out and do it again, that's been kind of our process out there. I like Ohio, because it beats the 1% rule, right, they're renting for 950. But there were 75 or 80,000, sometimes. So we have good cash flow, good cash on cash, this has been a good mark, it's been a good entry market, because I'm able to get these deals for cash or using private money. They're not $200,000 per deal. So it's a little bit more, it's a little easier to get that kind of private money for those smaller deals. So it's been good to us. We're currently in contract on another property right now. Going through the inspection process and getting contracts,  getting bids and things like that. But we have a pretty good team out there. I've never actually been out there and haven't seen any of these properties in person, which a lot of people think is just crazy. But between the contractor, the agent, the property management company, and the home inspector, kind of my team members, they really are my eyes and ears. So as long as they're working together and checking on each other's work, it's been a pretty good process.

Dalyn Hazell  28:12  

Yeah, and you've got your cell phone, your laptop, there's really no reason to physically be out there. I'm sure. Yeah. It's interesting that you said that about your market, because I'm in southwest Missouri. And people always think Missouri has no high cash flow. And it is. But the values are so high right now that I'm looking at about a point 8% rule, essentially, so below the 1% rule, but it's still cash flowing. And the appraisals have been so good with the bur method, that it really kind of eliminated any concern of mine. But it is interesting how, at least here, investors are selling houses for so much, driving up prices. And so yeah, I was pretty amazed to hear that you could get a nice three bedroom for 75 to 90,000 in Ohio.

Justin Munk  28:57  

Yeah. It's crazy, man. It's crazy. I mean, the cash flows are getting pinched, just like everywhere. I mean, values are going up, just like you said, the property values are going up faster than rents are going up. So that 1% Rule gets squeezed a little bit here and there. But for right now it's still maintaining pretty good ratios.

Dalyn Hazell  29:17  

Awesome. Good to hear that about your growing portfolio. So can you touch on? I know you're a big Grant Cardone's fan. In the background. You've got the 10x posters. And so what's your take on on his philosophy in terms of sales in real estate? How do you I'm sure you use his advice. So what does that look like?

Justin Munk  29:38  

Yeah, I mean, we talked about the value of sales skills and being in the real estate world. I think some of his most profound advice for me is just his strategy of maximizing because it works for me right? Not everybody is in my position. But for me, I have a W two. So his strategy maximizes your W two-income maximize your main gig make as much money as you can there live on less than you make me I think he says like, it's crazy numbers but like 40 or 50% take that and put it aside he doesn't say put it in savings. He says to store it, which is basically savings, right? Store it and then buy cash flowing assets with it. That's like some of his most profound advice I believe. I mean, it's a similar thing to Robert Kiyosaki just getting cash flowing assets under management. So his strategy is to make money, store it, then by cash flowing assets. So you have passive income, that to me, is the best, most sure way to wealth. Getting in utilizing those steps, I think that's probably been the biggest help for me is okay, all right, now, I've got a good income. Now what I do, okay, let's figure out how to I think we take like 40% every paycheck, 40% of it goes straight to storage savings, right? And then we're using that capital to build up our retirement, build up our portfolio, and, and those kinds of things. So now we continue to build up out the amount of passive income where we were getting to hopefully one day, eventually that will slip right, I'll have more passive income coming in than my active income, and then boom,  we're, we're financially free, quote, unquote,

Dalyn Hazell  31:20  

Yeah, so do you have a date in mind for that? Or is it far off or what's going on.

Justin Munk  31:26  

I'm not gonna really have a date, just know that that's the ultimate goal. With the company that I work for, I'm a part owner. So for me, it's kind of like, it's a good gig, it's great, it's good money. So I'll hold that out, as long as I need to, obviously, the sale of the company would be a good exit for that, I would have a bunch of money to put glue up, we'll go put into real estate. So I'm not in a hurry to leave there. But I do want to keep positioning myself and keep working on the cash flowing assets so that when the time comes, that that company sells or I move away from that, that I can just walk into a financially free passive income, sustained life where I don't have to go find another job after that, that's that's the plan.

Dalyn Hazell  32:10  

That's really interesting, because everyone talks about quitting your job fast. But if you're a part owner, in a company,  that can be a stream of passive income. And,  like you said, if they sell out, that could be a big chunk of change that you wouldn't get as an employee. So can you briefly touch on?  Do you? I mean, how do you recommend somebody tries to go and be a part owner? Or how did you even get into that?

Justin Munk  32:36  

Yeah, no, I think, I mean, everybody's got a different path. So I mean, I definitely am an advocate. Like if I was to start over and I was leaving college, I would have got my sales experience knocking doors, and then I would have gone right into real estate, I would have avoided I would have, cuz I've been doing the solar thing for 12 years. Now. That's a long time, I bet. I bet 12 years of real estate investing, I would be in a different world right now financially. So I still think if you can avoid if you can get ran into real estate, just start building you, your holdings, I think that's probably the best way the fastest way to what we all call financial freedom, right, not having a W two, nine to five job, I think that's, that's great. But in the sense that I sold this company for a while, I obviously did a good job. So they wanted me to come on as a partner. So I'm in a different position, I'm like, well, it doesn't make sense for me to walk away from a potentially big payout in this company and a very good income to go try and figure it out on the passive income side. So to me, it's like, I gotta balance that I've got to make all I can out of the W two things. It built up my real estate on the side. If you're in a crappy job, if you're in a job that you don't like, then by all means, let's get you out of there as fast as possible. But because I have the vision that I have, and the income that I have, I'm just not in a big hurry, because I still believe that my income is still one of the most, one of the most valuable tools in acquiring more capital to invest passively, to invest to acquire more properties to build up my retirement accounts. I still think that's a very valuable tool. So I think every path is a little bit different. And you kind of have to take each scenario differently. Because again, yeah, if you're working, you're lifting bags of cheese at some cheese factory, and you just, that's not your thing, and you're not feeling passionate about it and you're not being compensated well. And there's no future for you there, then let's get you out of there as fast as possible. Let's jump into some wholesaling, get some kind of money, then we'll build up our reserves, and we'll buy some,  some properties to hold whatever it is, I think every scenario is different. But for me, it just doesn't make sense to run away from it very quickly.

Dalyn Hazell  34:52  

Yeah, everyone's scenarios are so different. I was definitely in the camp that I was not happy where I was. So I went full time six weeks ago. Yeah, real estate and I, I chose wholesaling and flipping. And so those provide the large active checks. And then I just cherry-pick those best deals to BRRRR. And so I've been plugging along. And I really think like that, that dichotomy of wholesaling. And then rental property investing is just, it's so powerful. I can't believe it. And so I know I won't be wholesaling and flipping for too much longer. I mean, years and years, because it's just going to get to the point where I have so many rental properties, because I get the best ones and get the best deals that it overtakes the active income. So that's a reasonable thing.

Justin Munk  35:34  

It's a great model. Yeah. You're on. You're on a great path. Yeah, I agree.

Dalyn Hazell  35:39  

Thank you. Well, in this last portion of our show, Justin is called the triple threat. And we asked the same three questions to each guest. And so what's that resource tool app? That's been the greatest, biggest game changer for your business?

Justin Munk  35:55  

I would say the bigger pockets. Yeah, the bigger pockets of membership that I have. I don't know. I don't know how your listeners are aware of bigger pockets but bigger pockets is a great forum. It's a great website. It's all I mean, you can go I mean, I have found my agents through there. I found my property management through bigger pockets. I go read the forums. I get educated that their podcasts are phenomenal, following in the footsteps of like Brandon Turner and David Green, like it's just a ton of information. And it's all a lot of the information is free if you want to use the calculators, which have calculators for wholesaling for the birth for a flip for just a normal rental property for and for small multifamily. And they can. I think they even have a rehab calculator on there. So I'm like, I'm not smart enough to go make my own Excel spreadsheet. So I'm like, I'm just gonna use this 40 bucks a month, they have access to that, plus all the networking tools. That's been probably the biggest thing for me. Because every time I know, I coach somebody on the bur method. And they're like, Well, how do I run the math? I'm like, Well, you got to, we need a calculator. And BiggerPockets provides a great one. So that's probably one. I mean, I'm in that every day. And it's probably the best 40 bucks a month that I spent. I'm sure I could go make one on Excel. But I probably screwed up the equation somewhere. And I probably have the wrong number. So I just lean on this. I just lean on the tool. It's already been built for me.

Dalyn Hazell  37:21  

Yeah, good recommendation. Number two, what has been your biggest learning lesson in the last year.

Justin Munk  37:28  

Man 2021 has been different from 2020. And it's been way harder to get deals. I don't know if it's been the same for you. But man, finding stuff to BRRRR and buying holds. It's been tough, we probably made 30 offers to get this last deal. Because people are just there's investors out there that can tie up more capital than I'm willing to tie up on each deal. So they can offer higher than I can. Or they have better financing or whatever. So what the lesson was, everything was groovy in 2020. And I'm like, Man, I can just we're gonna ramp up so fast and 2021. And then all of a sudden, like it just tweaked a little bit, prices went up,  Ohio got more popular all of a sudden, like holy crap, like, I used to be making offers for 40,000 now make an offer for 55,000. We're squeezing the 1% rule. And I'm just like holy crap like this is it got so competitive so quickly. And it took me way too long to come to terms that, hey, I'm going to have to leave 10 grand in these burr deals, I didn't want to leave any money in the deals. And so I'm like, okay, like, if I want to play the game, I got to get okay to leave some money in these deals, I've got to go more aggressive on my numbers. And so it took the lesson learned that I should have taken that data and what I was seeing, and then made some shifts and made some adjustments to my strategy, rather than spending four or five months just wondering why I wasn't getting any deals, and not making any adjustments. So the lesson is, whatever it is, whatever the current scenario is, it's not going to be that way for very long, it's going to change. So make sure that your strategy, you're always you're always looking at the data, and you're adjusting and pivoting to what needs to happen. So for you to continue to grow your portfolio, and it just took I was too slow in 2021. And so it's gonna cost me. I'm not gonna get as many deals in 2021 as I wanted to for sure. So just Yeah, being able to adjust with the market was a slow learning curve for me.

Dalyn Hazell  39:26  

Yeah, definitely. I mean, there's probably, if we looked at it, there might be fewer deals out there in 2021. But at least in my market, and more homes are for sale now than there were,  any part the rest of the year. So, I mean, more has been sold, we are going into a slow season, though, with selling, but I have at least in the off market, you have to be much more quick, quick speed to lead is a lot more important because they're the offers start to pile up pretty fast, and you need to get the agreement signed a lot faster. But that's the biggest shift. I've seen with me and I know it is kind of an ego hit sometimes when you leave money in the deal with the bur but then you have to really think about it. I mean in five years, are you going to care that you left five grand in the deal now?

Justin Munk  40:09  

Yeah, I mean, I was like, my cash on cash was like 30 or 40% I'm like, Man, I can't find that anywhere else like why would I even hesitate put in 10 grand and in any investment that's gonna make me 40% Like it just took me a second for the lights to come on. And is to start making more aggressive offers.

Dalyn Hazell  40:26  

Yeah, and when and really puts it into perspective when you win that 30 percent not even counting tax breaks or appreciation right?

Justin Munk  40:35  

Did I love a real estate man for that very reason? It's just so good. So good to us.

Dalyn Hazell  40:41  

Question three, our podcast is all about helping others achieve freedom with real estate investing, whether it's financial lifestyle, or otherwise. So what does freedom mean to you?

Justin Munk  40:53  

Yeah, I love this question. I think everybody has a little bit of a different definition of it. And I think people that come into the Instagram world of financial freedom and fire them sometimes I think they sometimes misinterpret it as I want to retire early and sit on the beach and  drink a latte or whatever. I don't drink lattes, but whatever right did like not do anything and I don't think that's what we're talking about when we When investors or whoever, when we talk about financial independence, retiring early, it's just more about being able to do what we want to do on our own schedule. For me, life is about being able to slow down and enjoy the moments, but also being able to fit in as many moments as I can. And those moments don't really happen at my w-two job. So I want to spend less and less time there. And more and more time with my family. I love the outdoors. I love exploring, I love traveling. So I want to do things that are bringing more value and more joy to me in my life. And so time is what I need, the more I can shift my life to where it's more passive income, less required work each day, the more I can fit that time into the things that I actually want. And whether that I mean, down the road, maybe working for a nonprofit, maybe doing some volunteer work, I think I have aspirations of all that down the road. So to me, it's just being able to do just being able to live your own schedule, and not being like, oh, it's Monday, I've got to go to work, or I don't get a paycheck. That's what I don't want, I want to be able to say, hey,  whatever. My daughter's got a play Friday afternoon at school, I want to be able to just go and not worry about what might be going on at my w two. So, for me, that's what it's about, and trying to get to that position is definitely the goal.

Dalyn Hazell  42:42  

Yeah, I love what you said at the beginning of that, too, as you said, it's not just about making the most of each moment, it's about fitting more moments into our life. Because, let's be honest, if you're working about a third of your life, then you can't be having those amazing moments during that time. So you're restricted to the other third of your life as you're sleeping for a third. And so naturally, if you're financially free, you can just have more of those moments. And certainly, if you have more money, you can have more exhilarating moments. So not not not always the case. But that's yeah, that's a good response for sure.

Justin Munk  43:25  

I think it's the way I look at it is like flow so here this will be an example so this bottle right here, so your audio listeners won't see this but this bottle right here, like there's a couple of different ways I view life right now we're trained as a society that we fill this bottle our life with work like that's, we feel like that's the top priority that's what we spend all of our time. We fill it up with sand or work right and then so there's no room for the important things right like family like adventure like experiencing the world and so for me it's about I want to fill my life with the important things first and then fit work in around my life I'll always work I'll always be hustling deals always be doing stuff to create value in the economy and in the world. So to me it's not about never not you know not working anymore it's just about I want to fit work in around my life and not fit my life in around work anymore. That's the biggest rub for me I hate like oh I like I can go on I can go hike in the mountains but only after five o'clock on Friday. And I don't want to go in the morning. I want to watch the sunrise so I want to fit in after that. And not the other way around. That's been the big shift in my mindset. I want to fit in. I want to fit work in around my life not life and around work.

Dalyn Hazell  44:48  

Yeah, definitely. That's a good analogy or illustration, you know putting in the bigger objects and then the sand the work around it and it fits together nicely. Yep. Great. Justin working the listeners gets a hold of you to learn more.

Justin Munk  45:06  

Yeah, I'm best places Instagram at the money Maven project. That's probably the best place to message me there. I pretty much respond to everybody. Just takes me a day or two but I respond to everybody. So hit me there with a DM if you want to chat or have some questions, that's probably the best place to follow me. We do have a podcast. The money Maven project podcast is also a good place to just learn about what we do. Probably the best two places to follow us. We have a little presence on YouTube also. And then our website, the money Maven project calmed down also. But yeah, those are the best places to reach out to me. For sure.

Dalyn Hazell  45:43  

Awesome. Well, it was an absolute pleasure having you on the show and sharing your knowledge with the listeners.

Justin Munk  45:48  

Yeah, appreciate the opportunity, man.

Outro  45:51  

Thank you. Thank you for listening to the real estate investing for Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review and tune in next week for the next episode.