Robert Plank  0:00  
Now welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast. We are here with Dr John Crutchfield from grab the map LLC, and we are going to be talking about John and his real estate business, where he acquires and manages single family and multi family properties. He helps other investors find projects to invest in. And before we get started, there was a post from John a few minutes ago that says, if you look very close, real, unforced, authentic connections are all around you. Tap into them and worry less about those Forced Connections that never profit you anyway. Wanted to drop it in there. They get started on the right foot. John, how the heck you doing? Man,

Johnoson Crutchfield  0:42  
Robert, I'm doing so good. It's fantastic day, and I'm glad, I'm glad we're getting to do this. This is, this is pretty good, yeah.

Robert Plank  0:50  
And we're here to talk you up and to kind of talk about the various facets of your life, because there are so many people out there that they don't promote themselves enough, they don't market themselves enough. They're maybe too humble, too shy, not doing the right thing. So we have different kind of angles we can attack with this, because you do real estate, but you also do a lot of promoting of yourself, and you also have a lot of kind of life philosophy. So if I were to ask you Who the heck you are, what makes you unique and special? What would you say to me? And

Johnoson Crutchfield  1:23  
I feel like you're you're describing me like this. This whole social media like marketing thing is fairly new, because I'm that guy like that was raised to be taught, like to be humble and don't draw too much attention to yourself. And now I'm trying to like do that so that my business can grow. So I'm John Crutchfield. I own a company called grab the map properties. We buy real estate. We help people invest in houses and apartments. We try to provide safe, clean and affordable housing. And I try to help other people that are getting started do some mentoring and coaching and that sort of thing. So that's what grab the map. Does the lifestyle and philosophy type quotes, a lot of times are me in that inner voice with myself trying to motivate myself and encourage myself to to keep going, because it's, it's, it's tough sometimes. So anyways, I'm, I'm, you know, a real estate investor. I'm a father. Been married for 15 years. I've got a nine year old and an eight year old, but nine year old and seven year old that kind of absorbed my world, and they get all the attention. So today, it's the last day of school, and we're having a party in the background. So if you hear any noise, that's, that's what's going on,

Robert Plank  2:47  
the noise is making time for what's important, and also maybe multitasking and also paying the bills. And so I like that a lot. Yeah, the whole whole concept of, well, you need to have the kind of the inner drive to keep you going and deal with the frustrations and the problems and having a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And so as far as you and your real estate business, it seems like everyone has like a take on real estate, right? Some people are all about like the rehabbing or the flipping or the renting. And so what is your unique stick with real estate. What is your personal kind of favorite, tried and true strategy,

Johnoson Crutchfield  3:24  
absolutely like real estate, I always say, has changed my life, what it what it did, which actually goes along with my strategy? Is it allowed somebody with absolutely no money and poor credit to become a multi millionaire, right? And it I never would have thought that possible. I'm a former teacher, former principal of a school, and I kind of had this vision that there would be, like, 30 years of a career, and then maybe I'd have, you know, half a million dollars saved in some retirement, and I'd get a check from the government every month, and that would be a good accomplishment, and so made some good connections, got on some good education, and have been able to constantly, like, buy properties that are distressed. This is the strategy. I buy properties that are distressed. They look horrible. Nobody else wants to buy them. I hire people to fix those properties up, and then I go to the bank and I say, Hey, look at this shiny new well taken care of property. I borrow all of the money that it took to fix that property up and set up a payment with that bank over time. And then I go and take that money that I borrowed and go do another one. And I like doing that over and over again. And what it does, very slowly, is just allows, you know, that 100 or $200 a month in cash flow to happen over and over again, across multiple properties. And at the same time, we're building communities like the. Houses that you don't want on your street, or the houses that you don't want in your neighborhood, that you wish somebody would just fix, like we're fixing those properties. And I like to think at this point I'm providing jobs for contractors in the community. I'm providing jobs and business to other businesses that need people that are doing what I'm doing, and I'm just trying to be generally a good person, a good boss, a good contributor to society. And then, because I like teaching, I still don't mind sharing everything I learned through various social media outlets, through the website, through marketing materials, whatever, because I'm trying to share what I'm learning so that there'll be other people also coming behind me doing a similar thing. So that's that's the strategy. You might find it out there if you Google b, r, r, r, r, which I'm not always sure exactly what all the R's are for, but you want to buy the property, renovate the property, re you know you want to refinance after you renovate the property, and you want to repeat that over and over again. So there's, there's a bunch of Rs there. Fantastic,

Robert Plank  6:13  
that the BRR strategy. Who knows how many R's are in there, but,

Johnoson Crutchfield  6:18  
but there's an extra R. And I'm like, well, there's probably another word that I'm missing, but, you know that's we're all learning every day,

Robert Plank  6:27  
yeah. And it's like, well, who cares if you have it all exactly in the right order, and everything you do it, you put it in practice it works for you. So I mean, you're, I think you're allowed to have an extra R or less are in there. And so, so, yeah, that's cool. So you take, you go and find those properties that people don't want, that are a distress, that need. The the rehabbing. You fix it up, you take the pictures, you take it to the bank, and you say, can you? Can you then finance my next project? And then meanwhile, you rent out that property that you fixed up. And you just kind of continue and rinse and repeat. And so if someone were to, if they found you and they took your advice and they embarked on this journey to do this, is there, like, one or two really common mistakes that first time a real estate entrepreneurs do with this? Because it seems like with anything, it's easy to, like, say, here's the napkin instructions, right? Here's the four or five steps, and someone goes out and does it. But then there's always, like, just one or two, like, really easily fixable, but common mistakes. Does anything come to mind with that? As far as someone applying the strategy, any just common mistakes that just you see all the time? Absolutely,

Johnoson Crutchfield  7:37  
it depends on what stage of the real estate cycle that we're in. So in a lot of places in the US right now, like real estate is very hot commodity. It's something that people are really trading at higher and higher values every month. So I would say, like the top mistake that people are making. They get excited, they get ready to jump in, they want to do a deal, because they've got this knowledge. And they buy too high. They purchase the property for too much money. And if you don't buy the property at a cheap price, or a price, that's a discount, I like to use a just a fair rule of somewhere around 50% of what you think is going to be worth. If you buy too high, you don't leave room for the mistakes that are inevitable. You know the contractors that may not tell the truth and may take some money that they didn't earn. Or you know the mistakes you make, where you want to put a wall in and then you want to take the wall out, just all these different mistakes that you could make later on that you should really build in on that buy side. The second mistake, I would probably say, is more of a mindset mistake, which is just thinking things are going to go perfect, like thinking that things are going to go perfect, you can have this master plan and things are still not going to go exactly. According to that, I bought a property today. We're going to do this brrr strategy on the property. I've got a timeline for all of my contractors to work. And today it rained right the roof is the first thing we wanted to put on, and it rained pretty much all day. So if I'm not thinking like, hey, this could happen, it's probably gonna rain tomorrow, and I'm gonna just be smiling tomorrow as well, then you know, I'm not really taking into account just the reality that things will happen, right? So those are the two things, mainly buying too high and then, just from a mindset perspective, thinking that you won't make any mistakes.

Robert Plank  9:44  
I like that. And like those. Those two kind of go together, right? Like the purpose of the getting a discount is to leave room for the money mistakes. But then there's also the category of, I don't know, maybe you still call them mistakes, but they're like, the the. Unpredictable. So there's the mistakes and the unpredictables, and still you can't, you can almost count on yourself making one or two mistakes. So that's just good life advice in general. And the whole like, hoping for the best, planning for the worst, kind of just mindset. And so speaking of mindset, and speaking of some of your like, your personal like, motivators, and some of your like self help, personal development kind of thought process, when you were getting this, this plan rocking and rolling, right when you were figuring out the cash flowing and the income streams, I'm sure that at some point you got stuck. You had a little bit of a hang up, a roadblock, whatever you want to call it. So can you tell us about that? Can you tell us, at some point along this journey, where'd you get stuck and how'd you get out of it?

Johnoson Crutchfield  10:45  
Hey, look, I'm an entrepreneur, so I feel like it's like a roller coaster. Some days are great, like, I'm on top of the world days, usually that coincides with my bank account. But, you know, some days are, like, really tough days that you just got to grit and grind it out. And those stuck days are days where I really, really rely on my faith number one, but also I rely on my network. And it's kind of going towards that quote you mentioned earlier from today, like really drawing support from those people that are behind you 100% those people that have more experience than you do and want you to do well, really surrounding yourself with people that have accomplished more or accomplished what it is you're trying to accomplish, and drawing support from them. There's been so many days that I've gotten like, bogged down with a relationship with a inspector or a contractor or an employee, and I call somebody who's been doing this for 30 years, and the problem to them is so itty bitty and small, and they just say, hey, look, it's going to be worth it, right? And I've started asking that question, like, Hey, before I tell you what's going on, is it worth it? And inevitably, the answer is always yes, it's worth it. And so I can describe the issue, the stuck issue, and I'm getting some real, valuable advice that I can implement. But I really think it's about that network of support in the faith that allows you to kind of keep pushing through.

Robert Plank  12:25  
I like that a lot, that the faith in, you know, whatever, however, that that represents itself for for any individual person, it's like there's the the higher power or something that's larger than you. Because if it's all you, it's it's easy to doubt yourself, right? And it's easy to to think less of yourself. That just seems to be like, it's, it's easier to do that than not to do that right, and then to kind of find the strength to to go through it anyway. And the the strength to to, you know, like, go power through those hard days. It like, takes more than than just yourself, and that also includes that that support system. So that's like a really good reminder of getting that perspective, getting that kind of outside, just just thoughts and ideas and and sorts of feedback. And so you, you have this real estate strategy, you have all these kind of life strategies, you you are implementing these things, like having the support system, the circle of friends, the people that you can rely on to do the work for you. Now. How are things going for you moving forward? What's next for you in this real estate investing venture?

Johnoson Crutchfield  13:33  
Hey, I've got a goal this year. My portfolio is growing. We've got tons of projects going on, doing rehabs and flips of single family properties. We're doing rehabs and flips of multifamily properties, large multifamily apartment type deals, helping lots of investors put their money to work. So that's going on, but this year, the goal that I'm primarily focused on right now is helping 2000 people get started. That's the goal, is to help 2000 people get started in investing. So we've got a social media group on Facebook called wealth in real estate. If you just type in wealth in real estate, you can find our group. We're adding members every week, and the goal of this group, there is not any marketing, there's not any sales going on. The goal of the group is to help people get started. You can ask your questions. There other people are getting their experience and and truly providing value, so that if you have questions, you have a group, a community that you feel like you're a part of, that you can share, your questions, your comments, your successes with. So working with Robert, because Robert has been very he's one of those people that I was describing that's been very encouraging, very encouraging. I'm going to. Keep using that word and working with him to help us promote that that goal a lot better and a lot bigger, because we want to help people, and we need to get out there so more people know what we're doing. So grab the map. Have an excellent team based out of Tupelo, Mississippi. The ladies in the office there are just fantastic at helping people invest their funds, helping people manage their their investments, and just having a fantastic, fantastic year. And we're going to keep doing that. So if you need some help, if you need some help investing your money, if you need some help managing a rehab, if you need some help getting started in real estate, investing, whatever that looks like for you, we want to be a place where you can reach out and get that assistance. And we want to see you grow like as we grow. We want to see us all doing bigger and bigger things together, whether that be from a lifestyle perspective or from a business and money perspective,

Robert Plank  16:03  
fantastic. So that is the the wealth in real estate group on Facebook. Is that right? That's right. And and grab the map llc.com, is the website grab the map all over social media, and you have a grab the map podcast too, since they're podcast listeners, so they want to listen to other podcasts. You go into all kinds of different varied topics. And yeah, I think that you're doing something wonderful here, and I agree with you completely that if anyone out there is looking to have that that positivity, to be around the people that will lift you up who are not just your circle of friends, who may be people you went to high school, with college, with coworkers, relatives, those are all great, but sometimes they can be so negative, especially if you are pursuing your dreams and you're trying to tap into something greater, and they want to keep you where you're at, why not have John at your disposal and his wonderful community, the wealth in real Estate, Facebook group, grab the map llc.com, and as we wrap up wind down here, John, is there any like huge, life changing, profound life advice that you want, you want to share with us, or a really powerful quilt, or just something that has stuck with you, that you think we all need to be sitting up and paying attention to? Anything come to mind? Hey,

Johnoson Crutchfield  17:20  
look, I appreciate you for asking me for something so profound, but really like we need to grab the map, right? The name of this company really centers around us, not just living like living outside of ourselves. Us really taking advantage of this one life that we have, right? So I say, don't just look at it, grab the map, because I really, truly believe that you can watch life pass you by and not ever take advantage of it, or you can take advantage of it. We never have regrets about things that we did not do, that we wanted to do, right? We always have regrets about those things we wanted to do and did not do. So why not just try it? Grab the map. Don't just look at it right? Grab the map. Right?