Robert Leonard  02:53

Yeah, I really, I hope this podcast, our episode, and just the podcast in general can really be that light bulb for everyone listening as well. And I had the exact same thought as you when I first got into real estate. We were talking about this before the show is, you know, I thought that you had to be super wealthy and I didn’t come from a wealthy family either. I didn’t have a ton of money. I was a college student when I first started. And I thought you had you know, I thought this strategy was only for the rich. And then you know, I started studying it more I realized that it wasn’t and I could do it too. So yeah, real estate such a great thing. I’m excited for what we’re about to talk about throughout this episode. When you were first getting started and making the transition from that nonprofit work to the real estate space, what resources did you use to learn about real estate investing?

Ellis Hammond  03:31

I learned how to do my first deal listening to podcast. I mean, I just everywhere I went, I had real estate podcasts in my ears because I was amazed at how much information these people were giving away, you know, for free. And I was listening to people’s stories and people talking about deals and the type of deals they were doing. And you know, and I would like listen to one podcast and somebody would advertise about a different podcast, I would go listen to that one. And I would just binge listen. And so podcasts were massive for me, there’s so much good education.

Ellis Hammond  04:00

Then I got into books and Robert Kiyosaki and you know, just a bunch of different real estate books, Bigger Pockets became a platform for me. So kind of the typical things, different podcasts, books, websites, like Bigger Pockets. And then to do my first deal the thing that probably really big at some point, you got to take action. That was my thing, like I was learning all this stuff and just kept hearing like hey, you got to do your first deal you got to do your first deal. And probably the best advice I ever got was someone said, “Go find a mentor, like go find someone who has done what you want to do.”

Ellis Hammond  04:30

In order to find a mentor you just got to be telling everybody like what you want to do and so literally I just started telling every single person I knew that hey, what are you up to you know as a habit you know, I already got my I’m trying to buy real estate you know, anybody like I’m trying to buy multifamily duplex, at that time I was buying duplexes. I was like, you know, anybody, we just want to buy a piece of real estate in events that said that enough times or someone was like, “Hey, I think I know somebody” and it was a guy who helped us actually find our first deal here in San Diego. Really nice guy with several apartment complexes in San Diego and man, I’m so thankful for that guy.

Ellis Hammond  05:04

Because I would have never, well, I would have never would have got to where we are today, I think I would have figured out eventually, but I would have made a ton more mistakes and probably wouldn’t have happened as quick. And so to anybody who’s listening, if you’re trying to do this, like, start being an evangelist for what you want to do, start telling everybody what you want to do, you’ll find that mentor, and people are hungry and willing to give back once they’ve, you know, they’ve accomplished things themselves. So that was massive for me.

Robert Leonard  05:31

And I get a lot of people in the audience that asked about how to find a mentor, because they’re either struggling or they just don’t even know where to start. So how did you find your mentor?

Ellis Hammond  05:39

Just tell everybody, like, I don’t know how to tell you, except just tell everybody until you find someone that you want to work with. I mean, for me, it was the landlord of somebody that I was working with. And he said, “Hey, I think my landlord does what you want to do.” And I called him on the phone, and said “Hey, can I meet you?” And I went and drove to one of his places. And it took a couple times for us to build a relationship to where he was comfortable enough to be, you know, or at least I don’t know, maybe he just felt pity on me because I wouldn’t leave him alone.

Ellis Hammond  06:05

Or I like I didn’t know what I was doing, I was sending him deals, and he was sending me back his feedback. And I don’t really, I can’t make sense of this. And so eventually, he just like, let me show you this deal that I’m looking at, maybe you’ll want to be a part of it. And so, man, just, I think, you just got to be an evangelist for what you want to do. Like, you got to be passionate, you got to, you can’t stop. And literally when I said I told everybody, like that was the first thing that came out of my mouth when someone asked me how I was doing, “Hey, do you know anybody who wants to buy real estate?”

Robert Leonard  06:33

And what I think is so important about that is I think a lot of people think of building a mentorship or finding a mentor as just like a transaction, and not necessarily the relationship. Whereas what you just explained was, you didn’t necessarily know that this guy was gonna turn into your mentor, if he was even interested in you just started building a relationship, and it flourished into what it was.

Ellis Hammond  06:52

Yeah, I mean, that’s the best kind of relationships. Like this guy is a great friend of ours. Now, you know, we have more for Dara, I tell him I pay him and wine and dinner, you know, cuz like, he does so much for us, man. And I’m like it, just, you know, I don’t really pay him anything. And I will just cook for you, we’ll buy you wine. And he loves that. He just he’s looking for friends and folks that he can pour into and so yeah, man, I mean, definitely, that’s the best type of relationships is it’s not transactional.

Ellis Hammond  07:16

I think we’ve had a really good time learning from him. And I would also say, though, like, he was our first mentor, but he is not the mentor that I need to go to the next level of my business. And so you’re always looking for mentors, you’re always looking for folks who can help you go to the next level. And so I have new mentors in my life now, because he’s not really doing what I want to be doing in the future. And so, you know, I found other mentors. Hey, now I want to buy an apartment complex, who do I know that can help me buy an apartment complex. So you know, that grows.

Ellis Hammond  07:43

But it’s the same principle, man, you just tell everybody what you want to be doing, and go find those who are already doing it. It’s actually not that hard now with podcasts. And here’s an here’s a great example. And I’ll be happy to get my contact information to anybody who’s listening.

Ellis Hammond  07:55

One of the what I did early on, I’d be listening to shows, and most of the guests would leave their contact information at the end of the show. And so I would just follow up with them. “Hey, I heard you on the podcast show. Can we talk?” And most of them would say yes, it’s actually how we did our first deal, we heard a guy on a podcast show, reached out to him, got to know him, build a relationship. Nine to ten months later, we’re we’re doing our first $10 million deal with a guy that we met from a podcast show.

Robert Leonard  08:20

Yeah, and I found that in the real estate space, a lot of people are really willing to help. And yeah, it just seems like investors that have been successful in real estate, they want to teach younger investors, they want to teach newer investors just everything they’ve done. And they want them to be where they are. And they understand that there’s, you know, enough to go around as an abundance mindset. If they help other people, it’s not taking away from them.

Robert Leonard  08:39

And then the other component of a mentorship that I think is so interesting, and you touched on it is you don’t even necessarily need a one on one mentor. If you just listen to podcasts, or even read books, or just even follow somebody on social media, if they’re putting out great content frequently, you can be mentored from someone like that without being one on one with them. So there’s really no excuse for not being able to find a mentor that’s doing what you want to do and being able to learn from them.

Ellis Hammond  09:02

Yeah, 100%. 100%. I mean, I do think as you get into, like, you need somebody you can call and ask direct questions to, you know, so you either go find that or you pay for it. And don’t be scared to pay for coaching or mentoring either once you kind of know what you want to do. Because the most successful guys I interviewed on my podcast, they’re spending six figures in mentorship and coaching, and they’re doing seven or eight, like even the big guys invest in coaching and mentoring. So if they need the help, so do most of the people on this show.

Ellis Hammond  09:31

The only caveat to that I would say is don’t spend the money right away. Like most people don’t know what they want to do in real estate yet. They don’t they don’t even know enough about real estate investing to be able to invest the money in coaching your mentor because you’re not quite sure what your path is. That’s probably one of the earlier mistakes I made is I kind of bought a couple of different things that I never really used because I kind of got into rows. This is actually not what I want to do. And so once you figure that out, don’t be scared to invest in yourself like that’s how you that’s how you grow and grow fast.

Robert Leonard  10:02

And if you’re going to start reaching out to people to mentor you, you need to have some sort of foundation at least, right? You need to be able to hold that conversation with them to show them that you’re serious. You don’t need to know everything you need, you know, obviously, that’s why you have a mentor, you want to learn from them, ask them questions, but you need to show that you’re interested, you’ve put in the work, and you’re not just kind of sitting back expecting them to do everything for you, you need to be able to show that you have the work ethic and drive and you’re willing to put in the work yourself.

Ellis Hammond  10:26

Oh, yeah. 100%. I mean, that’s all like, I would just send this guy’s deals. And I was, you know, that’s I think of it you I said, Well, let’s meet, let me show you some stuff I’m working on. Because I think you realize, like, you’re hungry, but you have no idea what you’re doing.

Robert Leonard  10:38

You know, hunger and hard work will get you a lot of places. So it’s gotten me a lot of places, it’s one of the things I believe in the most is just pure hard work. So you mentioned earlier in the episode that you knew that you needed to take action. And I’ve heard from a lot of listeners that they just don’t know when they’re, quote unquote, ready, you know, when they know enough to make that first investment. So at what point did you know that you were ready?

Ellis Hammond  11:01

To do your first deal, you’re not going to be ready, like you don’t know enough. It’s your first deal. That’s the point. That’s why the biggest barrier is that first deal, because you’re always questioning like, “Am I ready?” So you mean, just find a mentor and get started? Right like, and, you know, we’re talking to folks who want to be real estate entrepreneurs. That’s kind of our whole conversation. Just remember, there’s a ton of ways to invest in real estate and you don’t have to become a real estate entrepreneur, that’s the world I’m in now is the world of syndication.

Ellis Hammond  11:29

So don’t feel like in order to get started in real estate, or to do a big deal, you have to do everything yourself, like find a mentor or find partners or other experts that you can come alongside of any, either provide money, provide some type of support, and learn from them in a very low risk way.

Ellis Hammond  11:48

And so for me, I’m more of the active kind of hands on guys, like we went and bought a duplex, but I have a lot of business owners in my network that you know that they don’t really want to do the whole active role. So they invest passively in our deals. And they’re able to learn about real estate and how the things happen and the benefits of owning it by essentially just coming alongside of us in investing paths. So those are kind of two different ways.

Robert Leonard  12:10

So once you were ready, where did you start? What strategy did you use and which type of property did you get first?

Ellis Hammond  12:17

So we knew we wanted units. So we started with a duplex here in San Diego, that we thought we were just going to buy kind of outright as a rental property and then lease it out. But learned that the strategy of kind of house hacking where you essentially move into a property, you can get better financing, that way, you don’t have to put as much money down and you can kind of create equity in the house while you’re living in it and fixing it up. And that’s essentially what we did, we bought a duplex.

Ellis Hammond  12:39

And so we you know moved out one of the tenants in that duplex so that we can move in, we did some renovations. And then we rented out the front unit. It’s still San Diego though, that was a half a million dollar property. So it wasn’t a small property, we actually had a family investor come in to deal with us and actually put up some some capital to be able to help us close.

Ellis Hammond  12:57

And you know, we put the sweat equity and we did the we did the rehab, we use some of our money to pay for the renovations. In about 11 months, we created about $150,000 in equity. And so we were able to pull some of that cash back and pay back our family investor. And we still have that duplex man, we’re crushing it. So it’s short term rental now in San Diego, and you can find it on Airbnb, if you might want to come stay. So it’s a great place man where we love that we’re not doing that any longer. But it was a great start and is still doing really well for us.

Robert Leonard  13:26

How were you able to get that family investor to join you on your first deal?

Ellis Hammond  13:31

Just relational capital. I mean, she knew that we were trustworthy and savvy and hungry and we explained to her like, “Hey, this is this is why this is a good asset. This is why this makes sense.” Kind of here’s our plan, we had a business model and we had a mentor, like, “Hey, this guy is going to help us in this process.” Here’s everything that he’s done.

Ellis Hammond  13:50

And so you know, going back to finding a mentor, being able to use that credibility of others. I mean, in our world right now, that’s what we do. We raise capital for real estate. And we have enough experience probably now that we can kind of vouch for ourselves. But we’re also just, you know, I’m using the experience and credibility of others to really leverage that for our own brand. And so I did that for my first deal. And I’ve done that for my second deal. And we’re continuing to do that.

Robert Leonard  14:14

During that first deal that you did, what was something that caught you off guard, or what was something that you learned during that deal that you weren’t necessarily expecting or that might not have been, you know, talk to you in a book or podcast that you just really can’t learn until you’re actually doing that first deal?

Ellis Hammond  14:28

I’m not as hands on, I don’t like the hands on as much as I thought I did. But I don’t want to do all this on my own. Because when you buy small stuff, you’re typically investing on your own. So you’re in charge of everything, you’re in charge of the renovations and you’re in charge of being a landlord and you know, you have to get out there and dig dirt sometimes.

Ellis Hammond  14:44

And I just realized really quickly man like that’s not the role that I want to play. Like I’m not a fixin flipper. I don’t know that I can’t go swinging a hammer but every time I pick it up, I just end up breaking something else. It’s I just learned like that’s not my role. I don’t I don’t want to do that. And so I learned pretty quickly this whole duplex routes not gonna work.

Ellis Hammond  15:00

We need to build a bigger, you know, we simply need to go after bigger stuff so that we can bring more people onto our team so that I can focus on the things that I’m really good at, and essentially be able to hire other people to do or hire or partner with other people who are good at the things that I don’t like

Ellis Hammond  15:15

So that was probably my biggest, I’m so thankful we did that deal, because it got me started on bigger apartment complexes a lot earlier than most because I mean, honestly, man, I, I don’t want to call it lazy. But also just like, I don’t like that I don’t, I don’t, you know, want to be working in the yard or turning over units or even being a landlord, just because I’m too nice. And you have to ask people for more money. And you know, and I just, I just don’t like being that guy. So I’d rather give that to somebody else.

Robert Leonard  15:41

That’s good that you’re able to learn so early on that you can delegate, I think that’s one of the things that makes a huge difference in people’s businesses. But it sometimes takes people a long time to learn that. So that’s awesome that you’re able to learn that so early.

Ellis Hammond  15:53

I mean, you can’t delegate though, if you’re going if you’re going small, right? Because you have to do it all. So most people, even in their businesses is they can’t delegate because their business is too small, or they’re thinking too small, or they’re not bringing enough revenue. So they’re having to do it all on their own. And so you can create a great passive income stream for yourself in a great portfolio by doing a couple deals a year on your own, you first sure can do that. But it just wasn’t for us. And we wanted to scale a lot faster.

Ellis Hammond  16:19

So yeah, I mean, it was more of a like, I don’t know, if I’m a great delegator, it was more of just like my hand was forced. And I realize this is not how I want to build well.

Robert Leonard  16:27

So let’s talk about where you went from there. After that first deal, where’d you go, what did your next few deals look like?

Ellis Hammond  16:32

We bought that duplex, and then just kind of tell you where it ends, or where the next thing and I’ll walk back to the store, we bought 144 units. So it was a $500,000 deal-ish. And then our next deal was nine and a half million dollar deal in about nine months later.

Ellis Hammond  16:47

And this is like the principle of all principles, like, know what you’re good at, know what your superpower is, and partner with those who have other superpowers or other unique abilities that you don’t have. And that’s what I learned in this process. So kind of in that nine months, where I realized, hey, you know, I like real estate, like this is an incredible asset to build wealth in, I just don’t like doing all the work. What else is there, it’s where I learned about the world of syndication.

Ellis Hammond  17:15

And what syndication essentially allows you to do is partner with other people to do bigger deals. And so you’re going to have two sides of the equation in syndication, you have the limited partner side, which is the group of investors who put up the capital to purchase the deal. So some of your listeners might fall into that category where they just have a good business, and they just want to invest in real estate and take advantage of the benefits.

Ellis Hammond  17:37

Or you have the the general partner or the active side of the deal. And those are the operators, the managers, those who are putting the deals together, those who were actually building the relationships with the investors to raise the money. And because I didn’t have any money to invest, I knew I had to be on this side, right to start putting the deal together. And my superpower man is just building relationships and raising money. I’ve been doing that in our nonprofit for six years.

Ellis Hammond  17:59

And so I learned by listening to podcasts and being on bigger pockets, that there was this thing called syndication. And that again, I didn’t have to have my own money to buy the deal. I just had to go raise that from other people show them I was a worthy investment to take their capital invested into a real estate project, and we could do a deal together. And so I borrowed the credibility of somebody else who had the experience in this space. And then I leveraged my strength of raising money. We partnered together and we close our next deal in half a million dollars.

Robert Leonard  18:30

So how are you finding these people to invest with you? I know it’s probably networking and relationships, but give us a little more granular tactical? How can somebody listening to the show go find those people? And then once they maybe find a few people that are potential prospects or potential investors, how do they talk to them? What are they saying? What does that conversation look like?

Ellis Hammond  18:49

Take out your phone, open up your contacts, and just start at a like, honestly, man, like you, we have so much power and influence on our phones. So not that you would call everybody your phones, I don’t know if I know everybody on my phone, right? But if you have 1000, 5000 contacts, you start going to your contacts and saying “hey, would this person might be interested in something like this,” I bet you there’s a couple hundred people on that list that you could begin to reach out to and say, “Hey, this is what I’m doing now, I’m looking at doing a deal.”

Ellis Hammond  19:13

That would be the best start and just call them. In probably by the time you get to 10 or 20, like don’t even create anything yet. Just call the first 10 and figure out what their push backs are what they’re probably going to say no because you don’t have any experience and you don’t know you’re talking about but that’s okay. Listen to what their pushback is listening to why they say no, develop that figure out a better way to pitch it or go create, go figure out the answers to their questions, and then call the next 10. Right?

Ellis Hammond  19:39

Like you have nothing to lose because you have no money right now to invest in your deal. So you might as well call 10 people and just learn from them. That’s the best way to do that or pay for mentorship, pay for a coaching program that can help you learn how to raise money and do real estate deals. There’s so many good ones out there.

Robert Leonard  19:55

So when you’re calling these people, what exactly are you saying to them? I know you’re telling them about what you’re doing but are there specific words you’re saying, you know, “are you interested in investing in with me?” Or like, what does that verbiage sound like?

Ellis Hammond  20:06

Now, see, man now like the best, I have people calling me now, which is so much easier because it’s really, really hard to educate people on the benefits of investing in real estate, they don’t have real estate investing experience like, or they don’t know anything about real estate.

Ellis Hammond  20:19

So if you’re calling somebody cold, they’re like, you know, it’s not that, first of all, you’re breaking the barrier, like them trusting you with their money. But then you’re also trying to help them realize, like, why they should be in real estate. And so the easiest people are going to be those who have already done some type of real estate transaction, or they’ve already invested in real estate.

Ellis Hammond  20:34

So maybe that first question, say, “Hey, I would just ask, Do you have any experience investing in real estate?” And then, you know, hear what they say? And then you could tell them, “Hey, we’re looking to do our first deal. We’re looking to know, is there anybody that might be interested in partnering with us? Either financially, or an experience?” That would be a really great question. Do you have any experience in real estate? Yes or no? Okay, great. If they do, would you be interested in this? Or if not, do you know anybody that would be interested in partnering with us, either financially, or in experience? Those are two great questions to get started.

Robert Leonard  21:06

And so if you’re reaching out to these people, does, you know kind of cold or even just through social media, maybe does this break any laws in terms of the SEC, because I know they’re strict about who you can solicit investor money from specifically. So how does that work in terms of the SEC regulations?

Ellis Hammond  21:25

We’re not talking about bigger deals, man. So this is not an issue and people aren’t reaching out to, I imagine these calls are two people that you know, so as long as you have a relationship with them, then no, it’s not, they’re, you’re not breaking any rules.

Robert Leonard  21:39

And so is that you mentioned the size of the deal. So if it’s just three units, four units, maybe even five, ten units? Is that not as much of an issue? Could you put something out on say, LinkedIn or social media? If you have a big following, can you say, oh, we’re looking for a partner to deal deal with us on a 10 unit property and XYZ that we’re looking to buy, can you try and raise money that way?

Ellis Hammond  21:58

If you’re only doing like a small deal, you’re probably not going to do a syndication type structure, simply looking for a JV partner, someone who’s going to be 5050 with you in this deal. So 100%, like if they’re coming in, and they’re, you know, they’re going to be a partner with you in the deal, they’re active in the the transaction itself.

Ellis Hammond  22:15

The only reason like what you’re talking about you get in trouble is if you’re providing essentially what they call security. And so if you’re soliciting, like, “Hey, you’re going to give me 100 pay, I’m gonna give you this share in this real estate deal like that.” So you’re essentially selling a security at that point, right. And so because they’re not really active in the project, and you’re just taking their money and giving them a return on something, that’s technically selling a security.

Ellis Hammond  22:38

But you’re saying is, you’re just looking for a partner to come in, and either partner with you by providing equity and having some type of role in the deal. And you’re not going to do a syndication, you’re going to just split, you’re going to give them 50%, you’re taking 50% of the deal and your partner together. So as long as you structure like that, sure, you can reach out to anybody you want. But I would just say you don’t have to worry about that. If you’re, if you’re just getting started, which is who I think you’re speaking to, start in your contact phone, right, like your family members, you know, your high school friends, your college friends, that’s where I would start.

Robert Leonard  22:39

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about more of like a joint venture, not doing a syndication more of like a smaller scale property, because there’s a lot of people that I know have reached out to me that are in the audience, and they want to get started. But they don’t have the money to start buying it themselves, or they want to do another deal. And they’ve already exhausted all their capital, they’re not looking to go do a single education, they’re just maybe you want to buy a duplex or triplex and they want to use somebody else’s money.

Ellis Hammond  23:31

And then like meetups, like go to meetup.com, go to your local meetups and find people talk to people, especially if you’re good at finding deals and you have connections, you can leverage that, especially there’s people at meetups that have money, private lenders.

Ellis Hammond  23:44

Actually, I learned of a great resource, it’s called privatelenders.com, I just learned about this, you could literally find private lenders, hard money all over the country. And so that’s a great list for people, if you’re just looking to, I mean, you’re gonna have to pay for that money in the sense of like, hard money, that it’s kind of more debt than a partnership. But I don’t know, you could also reach out to them as hey, I’m not really looking for debt, I’m looking for a partner in this, would you be interested, and they might take more than the equity in that deal. But if you’re just getting started, you don’t have any money, you’re gonna have to give up a lot more of the property anyway, so that’d be a good way.

Robert Leonard  24:16

And so now I want to talk about generating business or networking for people’s real estate business. And I know more and more people are turning to LinkedIn these days as a social media platform. It’s quickly becoming, you know, more popular, and not just, you know, what it used to be a quote unquote, professional network. I know you’ve been using it a lot to effectively grow your real estate business. So talk to us a little bit about how you’re doing that.

Ellis Hammond  24:39

LinkedIn is an incredible platform, if you’re not there, like go create a professional looking profile. And the best way to get anything on LinkedIn, I mean, it really pays to be a content creator right now on LinkedIn, there’s so much organic growth, organic reach on that platform to just create good content that people want to read. People want to watch, you know, find your niche whatever that is. and just start creating good content there.

Ellis Hammond  25:01

If you struggle with that, then the second best step is just interact with people in your industry. So if we’re talking about real estate here, there are a ton of good content creators. I’m one of them on LinkedIn that are in the real estate space. And so you can search for hashtags and LinkedIn in the search bar. So hashtag real estate investing, hashtag multifamily, hashtag, apartment investing, hashtag, whatever it is, right fix and flip. And then you’ll see pretty much all the and then you create, you know, you select, you can filter, and then you would just select content, and just begin to interact with people who are putting out good content on that.

Ellis Hammond  25:34

And you’ll find even in those comments, who’s interacting with those people in those comments, connect with them and start building relationships with them. I think people are doing this best are really using LinkedIn, a lot like Facebook, it’s a relational type thing. I mean, I have built really good friendships on LinkedIn, where I’m connecting with them, we’re you know, we’re essentially just kind of going back and forth in the comments, you know, we might jump on a call at some point into that relationship, quote, unquote.

Ellis Hammond  25:59

And then what’s really cool is I see them at a conference, because we might go to the same conference that “hey, I’m going to this conference, anybody coming?” They sign up. You know, the first thing is that we do we see each other, we hug, right? Like, Hey, man, so good to see you. You know, every time I’ve heard feels like I already know you. That happens all the time.

Ellis Hammond  26:18

And for me as a capital raiser, I do not want when someone gets on the phone with me who’s interested in investing in our deal for them to say, “So tell me more about yourself.” I’m much rather than say, [inaudible]. He did have this one guy, he’s like, “Well, what other questions should I ask you?” I’m like, “Well, you know, you haven’t really asked anything about me. Would you like to know anything about me?” He’s like, “No, I feel like I already know you,” okay. Well done Atlas, well done on the brand side of things that people can literally get to know it.

Ellis Hammond  26:46

Because I have hours of content on my podcast, I have videos, they can watch, you know, come on podcast shows like yours. And I share that type of content. And I post that on LinkedIn. And we have small clips of things that I’m saying.

Ellis Hammond  26:56

So you just got to get started. But you know, the easiest way is just to interact inside of your industry, start connecting with people trying to set up phone calls with those people, and then slowly begin to create your own content and become a thought leader in your own space, create a lot of content, if it sucks, LinkedIn won’t show it. So don’t worry about it. People were like, I don’t want to create anything. Like if it sucks and nobody interacts with it, you won’t get any views anyways. Right? So just start creating stuff and see what works.

Robert Leonard  27:22

Yeah, I’m a big content creator on LinkedIn myself. And I agree with everything you said. And I think one of the big things to mention is that you need to remember that you’re not putting out content in a transactional way, you’re not putting calls to action to raise money on every single post or sell something on every single post, you’re trying to really provide value. And then that value leads to those relationships that are going to drive everything else you have for a goal.

Ellis Hammond  27:47

Really asked for anything on LinkedIn, I can count on probably a couple of hands how many times I’ve done that now. Because here’s why. Because in my profile, if they like my content enough to go click on my profile, then you’re getting pitched, right, you’re gonna go on my bio, you’re gonna read about my story and just gonna say, “Hey, if you’re a Christian real estate entrepreneur, and you’re looking for a community to be a part of our mastermind, here’s the link,” or, “Hey, if you’re passive, and if you’re a business owner, you’re looking to invest passively in real estate. Here’s my calendar, let’s schedule a call,” right?

Ellis Hammond  28:12

Because I’ve already grabbed their attention enough where they clicked on my profile, and it’s not like I’ve pitched them, they’ve come to me, they’re looking for something, they like my content. And then they read my bio. And here it is, like, it’s the soft pitch, right. And so I think you should definitely have that in your bio. But if you have good content you’re interacting with people people are, it’s just so it’s so easy to click on your profile, see what you do.

Ellis Hammond  28:35

So make sure you have a good bio. It’s compelling. It’s you, it’s inviting, and it has an action step that you actually want people to do. That’s the the ninja secret right there.

Robert Leonard  28:45

Yeah, that’s a great piece of advice. And as we wrap up the show, what would be the number one piece of advice that you’d give to a new real estate investor?

Ellis Hammond  28:54

I would say take your time. There’s a lot of ways to make money in real estate. Figure out what you like, and what you can really do for a long time. And then go all in. And don’t be, don’t be afraid to invest in yourself, once you figure out what that is. But remember, the first part of that advice, take your time, learn a lot, figure out what other people are doing in this industry, there are a lot of ways to make money in real estate. So don’t let somebody say, “hey, this is the only way or the best way to invest in real estate”, and then go all in.

Ellis Hammond  29:24

And remember, you don’t have to be a real estate entrepreneur in order to invest in real estate, you can invest passively. I think it’s part of knowing what your superpower is and what you’re good at. And then leveraging that to build wealth and create a future for you. So it’s more about what is your what is your lifestyle or the life type goals that you’re creating? And so I think that’s just the best start, like what is the life that you’re trying to build here and so to make sure those goals and kind of your activity lineup, so take your time, man, this is a long game.

Ellis Hammond  29:55

There’s so many you know, I really think this I kind of learned this coming out of the pastoral world on the island today. Like, you can build significant wealth in a decade, like I’ve seen, I’ve heard so many people like, it only takes a decade to really build significant wealth. And if you compound that by two and three and four decades, then it just gets filthy. But you can build significant wealth in a decade.

Ellis Hammond  30:16

And so if you’re young, especially on this show, take your time and learn a lot. And then once you figure that out, man, go full speed go all in, don’t be afraid to invest the money to invest in yourself your education. And if you’re on the fence, and you already know what it is, freakin do it like take action, like today’s the day go find a deal. It’s not about how much you’re gonna make on that first, it’s about getting in. And then you can say, hey, I did a deal. Like you can come on podcast shows, you can share that and you kind of get in the circle. It’s a lot of fun. So that was way more than one advice, but I just I love helping people who are just getting started.

Robert Leonard  30:48

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I really agree with everything you said. And a decade sounds like a long time, when you you just say invest for a decade. That sounds like a long time. But when you think about it in terms of you invest for 10 years, you do the right things for 10 years, and then you can live the next 40 years. Great.

Ellis Hammond  31:03

A decade is not a long time, if you think about that most people are trying to build wealth for 40 years, so that they can live the next 20 or 30 years, right, you’re doing it in a quarter of the time what most people think because of poor education is going to take them an entire lifetime, 40 or 50 years. And so you’re doing it in a fraction of the time. And that’s the benefit of good financial education, that a good vehicle that real estate can provide is that you, you can actually cut that time by 75-80%. So that you have a lot more life to be able to live to enjoy, and to create impact.

Robert Leonard  31:43

Yeah, I couldn’t have said it any better myself. I completely agree with you. And that’s why I think we’re both in the real estate game. Ellis, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate you coming on the show tonight. Where can the audience go to connect with you and learn more about all the things you got going on?

Ellis Hammond  31:57

kingdomcapitalists.co is the best way to get a part of our community, our group or at least to apply to see if it’s a good fit. Outside of that, if you’re looking to you know, just learn more about real estate or invest with me LinkedIn is a great channel man where you can message me you know, say that we’re on the show, be happy to jump on a call with you there, is a great way.

Ellis Hammond  32:15

Or if you know you’re ready to take action and invest in deals with us. ellishammond.com is where, you know, if you’re looking to invest passively, in any of our deals in the future, just go to ellishammond.com, I got some resources there. There’s a partnership form on my website, and actually got a couple of free resources for your audience as well to check out I just got a really cool checklist that you can use for your deals. If you’re a passive investor and you’re looking to invest in deals, and you’re asking the question, hey, what do I how do I know this is a good deal. I’ve literally put together a 40 point checklist for you to go get. So that’s at ellishammond.com.

Robert Leonard  32:51

I’ll be sure to put links to all the resources that Ellis just mentioned also put links to various books that are related to the topic that we just talked about in today’s episode, as well as anything else that we mentioned throughout the show. In the show notes below that you can check out your favorite podcast player, or you can go to the investors podcast.com and click on the real estate show and go to the show notes page and find all the resources there. Ellis, thanks so much. I really appreciate you coming on the show.

Ellis Hammond  33:12

Man, thanks for having me.

Robert Leonard  33:15

Alright guys, that’s all I had for this week’s episode of Real Estate Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro  33:21

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