Latest / Financial Survival Network / The Profit Cycle: How to Build Extreme Wealth with Mike Merrigan and Bo Kort #6005

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The Profit Cycle: How to Build Extreme Wealth with Mike Merrigan and Bo Kort #6005 · Financial Survival Network

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When we really got heavy into real estate was in light industrial and commercial in
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the Texas market. Our local community wasn't really known for commercial or being a
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lot of great deals out there, or even the top side was not as
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high as what if. We flew to Houston, and Mike's brother lives out
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in Houston, so we chased after light industrial and commercial buildings. And the
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way that we did it is we went and knocked on doors of little guys
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at owned buildings. You were listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, where
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you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else to thrive in today's trying
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times. You need the Financial Survival Network now more than ever. Go to
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Financial Survivalnetwork dot com and get your free newsletter and gift. Financial Survival Network
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now more than ever. And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
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Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Leutz. Well, Hey, you
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know, they say those who can do those who can't teach, And as
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my sister used to say, those who can't teach teach teachers. So Mike
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and Bo real estate guys, guys who are actually doing it have done it,
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built built projects, they're into multifamily storage and guys, welcome to the
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show. It's great to have you on. So you've been best friends for
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thirty years and business partners. That's quite an accomplishment. Absolutely, yep.
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Yeah, Like what's the key to staying friends? Because you know, like
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money is on the line, stuff happens. It's not unusual for friendships to
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break up over money, is it? No? Exactly real common right.
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Honestly, we grew up in the same community. Mike's a couple years older
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than me. Actually knew of Mike because when he was like nineteen years old,
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eighteen nineteen years old, he was actually in the Rotary Club with my
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dad, So he was in the Old Cats, and he was a young
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young buck that was in there just trying to network and figure things out because
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he had the entrepreneurial spirit and just didn't know what to do with it.
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So I knew we love Mike went to Mike's got two other brothers that I
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grew up with, one of them another one and older one that's a business
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partner of ours as well. But that's how we were actually best friends for
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a long time before we ever did any business together. Yeah. Absolutely,
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Okay, so you kind of knew what to expect, right, Yeah,
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well exactly in any partner we get in, because we do. We have
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forty three different companies. We have multiple partners. So we make sure we
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partner with like minded people with the same morals that we have and the same
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brother goes from health, spiritual, whatever it is. Just it's got You
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got to be with good people in order for any relationship, a marriage or
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anything to stay together. So you make sure you know the person that you're
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going into business with and you have the like minded goals. And we did.
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We were aligned. We talked for years before we ever did one business
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deal. Yeah, we're just in a small community. So we both had
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businesses, but it does times it really didn't make sense to necessarily be partners
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in them. Mike was in retail, furnitures, video stores, laundry,
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mats, car washes. I was in red distribution, construction, pool construction,
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and then once him and his brother started to do a little bit of
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real estate stuff and then there was room for partnership and it made sense for
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us to become partners. We jumped on that training probably back in twenty fifteen,
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and that's when everything kind of scaled and took off for us. Wow,
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that's pretty cool. So so you've been in this a while, what
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do you think the key to your success is? My thing is is not
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chasing all the fads and realizing, you know, I grew up in the
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eighties and the eighties he had the late night commercials that get rich quick scheme,
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and honestly, I ended up buying a couple of those courses, and
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then I knew I didn't need Tony Robbins because no one needed to tell me
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to give me more energy or more motivation. So that wasn't it. So
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I already had all the motivation. I just needed direction, you know,
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so not chasing. And I had a couple good old guys that were either
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landlords from my video stores that I got to know and just listen to reason,
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you know, like this is going to be a long haul, this
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is a marathon, so it's not gonna happen quick. And I didn't lose
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one penny in bitcoin because I didn't put one dollar in it. You know,
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we tested the market market in verbos. Realize we're in a transient area,
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we'd be seasonal, so there's no money in that. So just staying
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into the long term. And O eight, we didn't come out and start
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flipping houses in Vegas that's ninety miles away, because everyone talked to now they
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flipped all those homes. If they would have kept half of them, they
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wouldn't be talking to us ask them for advice, and now they are.
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So we just we put the slow and controlled and buy undervalued, keep them
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long term, and we don't buy anything that doesn't cash flow. So you
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don't believe in flipping it. It hasn't worked out for us because every building
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we have sold, buy a couple hundred pieces of property, even end up
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selling one to someone you're leasing to or selling one for whatever reason. But
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we've never sold a building that we don't wish we own today. So when
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that happens to you, so option face a couple of times, you go,
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why don't we just keep them all? And so that's what we did,
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all right, that's so cool. Like you know, I hate it,
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I like I like you guys at itud hate. So you've done a
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lot of deals. What's the biggest mistake you guys have made in your thirty
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years? Not building the back office staff fast enough For me, I'd say,
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just no, recognizing that value, I didn't realize. No, we
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didn't. We work, we're not college educated, left high school and our
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last jobs. Well, plus we're eighteen years old, so you learned it
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all all on as you've moved on. And I opened up my first video
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store when as nineteen, made more money in the second day than we thought
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we're going to make in three years. But I didn't have anybody in an
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office to open the mail, pay the bills nine forty one, teach me
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about taxes. So I spent a few years trying to play catch up after
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that. So my thing is, if you're going to be if you're fortunate
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enough to get successful, make sure you got a staff behind you to take
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care of the things that need to be taken because you need to be chasing
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the money you need. Value of time. Yeah right, No, No,
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I totally get you. Guys. Do you either of you regret not
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having gone to college? Not really. You know, I spent three years
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in school, and only because I was going for sports to play basketball in
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college, so that's why I was actually going. I always had the assumption
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that I was going to possibly be an educator. And then also just so
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I could do some coaching and then still be able to do business on the
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side. But I realized that my true passion was being an entrepreneur and chasing
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the money, and so the life lessons that we learned that I think paid
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tenfield what a college education would have done for us and the traditional school.
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You know, I struggled getting seized to get out of high school, so
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I knew there wasn't a line for me at the local college. So I
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always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur. I was been hustling since
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I was six, selling stuff door to door, bake sales at school.
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Just always always had some kind of side thing going on, so I knew
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which direction I was going. Yeah. Interesting, interesting, So all right,
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yeah, so college is not for everybody, and I don't see it
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as being a must either, right, I said, my boys to school,
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so as I don't have anything against it. You know, I got
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three adult children that I've put into college, and I got my eighteen year
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olds of freshmen. We'll see if he makes it all the way through.
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But I don't have If you don't have some if you don't have a direction
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where you know you want to go, when you get out of school,
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it's a great time to figure it out. I suppose I never did it,
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but I already had a direction. I just needed to point my jets
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in the right direction in all ass interesting. Interesting. So so somebody's starting
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out now, what do you tell them? What would you what advice would
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you give if they were in a position that you were in when you started
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out thirty years ago. Well, my thing is is I feel jealous because
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all the information that is available today seems like a cheat sheet. If I
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would have had YouTube, I wouldn't have had half the problems I had.
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So I didn't put enough value into connecting with the right people soon enough.
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So again, surround your out by the people you wanted to become. And
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if you don't do that, you're going to become the people you're already hanging
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out with. So if you want to level up and have a better life,
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you literally need to even if you have to pay money to get around
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somebody. You know, I didn't believe in that stuff soon enough to realize.
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Guess what you could buy yourself into this club or this situation where you
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can be around the people you want to be with, and there's a value
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into that. Yeah, well, I wish I would have realized that I
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need to surround myself with people that I'm trying to become. If I'm an
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actor and I have a chance to pay ten grand to go hang out with
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Brad Pitt for weekend an acting school, why would you do it? You
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know? And I just put it up value into that type of thing,
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and I wish I would have sooner. I love it so paching people ourselves.
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All right, So tell me about your deals? How do you find
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them? How do you make them come to fruition? How does it work?
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A lot of it? Well, I would say we owned real estate,
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but when we really got heading into real estate was in light industrial and
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commercial in the Texas market. Our local community wasn't really known for commercial or
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being a lot of great deals out there, or even the top side was
9:03
not as high as what if we flew to Houston and Mike's brother lives out
9:07
in Houston. So we chased after light industrial and commercial buildings. And the
9:11
way that we did it is we went and knocked on doors of little guys
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that owned buildings, or we found dilapidated buildings that are down around the oil
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refineries. Mike's brother lives down in Texas City area, but bought a bunch
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of light industrial buildings that were close to the refineries, and the subcontractors needed
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a place a building within a proximity of the refinery, and so we bought
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those old buildings, fixed them up, and then leased those out. So
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our initial way of scaling was just by not necessarily looking our loop net or
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prexy or or getting the local realtor, it would actually be you know,
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we developed relationship with a lot of the local realtors, the top rialators in
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those in those communities, but we actually a lot of it was just boots
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on the ground, staying up till twelve o'clock, two o'clock in the morning,
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driving through the old shitty communities and looking for buildings, writing them down
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on a notepad, going back to the office the next morning, look it
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up, seeing the contact information, what the rents were in that area.
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We just coached ourselves up on what we knew and started buying those. And
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then the lessons that we learned over the years of buying a bunch of light
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industrial buildings, we scaled that into multi family. Bought a shit little multi
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family jumped into In twenty seventeen, we jumped into self storage, and now
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we own over forty three different cell storage facilities, but the majority of them
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we're all with that same approach of knocking on the door, finding out who
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the owner of the property is and then develop a relationship and if you don't
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didn't buy it that day, within the next five to ten years, we're
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going to own it. Yeah, And that's what it is. Just there's
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so many old guys out there, and if it's not the old guy,
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it's the kids, because we knew this. The old guy passed and now
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we're buying it from the kids who don't put it as much emotional value into
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it. But a lot of those old guys, they'll just hang on to
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old shit, whether it's an old car in the garage, just because it's
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easier to keep it then it is. The everyon wants to deal with the
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hassles of getting rid of something. So when we knock on doors so many
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times, they just they're done with their mechanic shop or their transmissionhop or their
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valve shop, and they'll let them sit because they don't even know, you
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know, they made enough money. It's not about the money anymore. Now
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it's just about get rid of the property. And so a lot of them
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are abandoned properties, well, the ones that the weeds grow up on.
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A lot of we give guys an opportunity to retire. We knock they ady
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ready to retire yet, but we are real pay, build a relationship,
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get back to them every six months. Three years later they sell it to
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us. I think a lot of it is with our you know, starting
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out just owning small businesses, and we're all about providing huge, great value,
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best buying experience that you can, customer services, everything, and developing
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relationships with our clientele and our customers and all of our businesses. We took
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that same approach to real estate. To real estate, so we develop relationships
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with these old cats that own these buildings, and eventually, at some point
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in time, you're gonna end up being able to purchase them. A bunch
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of years, go buy a guy that's eighty. A guy that's eighty turns
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ninety. Now it's time to sell. So you never know where someone's at,
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but you just be patient and realize that they love their property and they're
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not ready to sell it. We've never taken no for an answer, ever,
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you just come back again. Distance, persistence pays off. Right,
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Consistence and discipline two things you have to have. You don't have any one
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of those. Hang it up, go work for TSA. We need to
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see skuys. Everybody wants to do that, right. And to tell you,
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Daddy, when I grow up, I want to be a TSA agent,
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right you neil it? You have to play a lot fortnite? Yeah,
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well that'll work too, right yep? All right? So I so
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as far as your kids go, uh, you going to encourage them to
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get into the business. I encourage from my three boys. I courage them
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to take any direction that's going to make them happy, because that's the that's
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the best path in life, right, Get something that's going to make you
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happy. I don't really wish my path on anyone, because both were grinders.
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Missed a lot of weddings, funerals and all the other things you're supposed
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attend to build our business. And now we're able to do whatever we want
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whenever we want. But that's a tough grind, and you gotta be ready
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for I think if you're going to grind that way, you're hardwired from the
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beginning. You know, I really do think that there's some of that any
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I don't recognize any of that in my kids. But one's entrepreneur, order,
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the other one's uh, firefighter, and the other one just went off
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to college. And we'll see where that goes. But I'm welcome to help
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anybody, but I don't try to push it on anybody, because it's a
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we take our business. We have a blast doing it, but we're trying
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to do go as fast as we can, as hard as we can.
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Like Mike said, we will wish it on everybody. I mean, we
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recognize the value of it. I think we just enjoy it and so much
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on it that but we've realized that you get older in years and you realize
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it's not for everybody. But if you are into it, we know how
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to help you to scale it and acquire the things that we have. We've
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we've written the script, we we've we've made all the mistakes, so we
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know how to direct people. That crystal ball that we say is so cloudy.
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When you're a young entrepreneur, business guy, to real estate investor,
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whatever you want to call it, that crystal ball gets clearer and clear the
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older and the more experience that you have. Right. All right, so
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you got a crystal ball, huh? Fell in the crystal ball. Huh.
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It's still a little funny. Yeah. We started with one of those
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eight balls that you shake and then you look at it tells you what to
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day. How does that work? The eight ball method of I haven't I
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haven't tried it lately. But sometimes you got to make a decision, and
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you know, sometimes you just do the eight ball routine. Right. Well,
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our routine around here at are saying is even on the back of some
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of the shirts we have is take action and figure the f out because so
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many times when we coach people, they're a fear. There's fear that's stopping
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them from doing what they really want to do, and they think by reading
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these books, you're going to figure it out. Well, I have nothing
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against reading the every business book that's out there, but we me people that
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read so many books, you just go, when are you going to put
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down the tire pree gat and you know you're never going to have all the
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answers. So a lot of people are waiting for the exact map, blueprint
15:09
how to get to that success. Well, it's just a long path and
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it's different for everybody. So we can show you the direction, but you've
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got to figure out your own path, right Yeah. I think you're correct.
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Everybody's got to find their own way through life. And whatever happened to
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you happened to you, and you know you move on, right Amen.
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Yeah, that's saying. So how do we find you guys? How do
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we connect with you guys on the web? I w I say, best
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ways fired through Instagram. I said, if you look up Mike and Bo
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on Instagram and then dm us that's probably the best way. Also to reach
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out. Another way it's real simple, is just to shoot us a text.
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You can text us at nine two eight, six oh five four three
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three five. We'll get right back to you and kind of let you know
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what we have that's out there. As far as coaching on a weekly basis,
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we have a consulting packages and stuff where we can sell people in development
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work. Because of real estate, we've done quite a bit of development stuff
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to just everyday small business guys that are just looking to have a mentor there
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to help them coach them through and take a look at their blueprint and make
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corrections that we see from our experiences. We've got a huge network of people
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behind us, like Mike sev from from CEOs to CFOs to controllers and another
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thing we haven't spoken on yet but business partners. We got a lot of
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different We have a lot of different businesses too. Yeah, we own a
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Houston Motorsports so we own five different Houston Motorsports dealerships, Glara's can am Yamaha
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golf Cart. Just a bunch of different businesses like that that are out there
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that we have really valuable partners that jump on. And if it's in a
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sector that we're not super versed in, we've got a partner in some business
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that we're involved in that that is going to bring value. All right,
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Hey, appreciate you guys coming on. And you's got a question for myself
16:56
from Mike Combo, shoot me an email, k el Carrie look dot com
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and the link to their Instagram and other info will be at the show.
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That's this interview on Financial Survival Network dot com. Make sure you sign up
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I don't think you care. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to carry
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Letz's Financial Survival Network your solution to today's trying times. For the latest,
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