Ryan Narus - Co-Founder of Archimedes Group

Ryan Narus, co-founder of Archimedes Group, talks about some of the things he went through while building his business from scratch.

Ryan tells about the catastrophe he had to deal with after he decided to go with "The Craigslist Guy" for a major renovation instead of the trusted name brand. The misstep ended up costing him upward of $60,000 at a time when $600 was hard to come by.

Ryan Narus is the Co-Founder of Archimedes Group and a graduate of Wake Forest University and holds undergraduate degrees in both Psychology & Statistics as well as an MBA.

He's a self made real estate entrepreneur who owns and operates 10 Mobile Home Parks spanning ~1,245 units.

But here's the thing: He started with nothing. No money. No experience. No network. He was a 20 something with way more student loan debt than actual capital to invest in deals. He's just a normal dude who refused to quit, and was willing to sacrifice while takin bold action. Ryan found creative ways to make money while he scaled his business up.

"I was stuck in Corporate America. I escaped. And I want to help others too."

Connect with Ryan
Archimedes Group
LinkedIn
Ryan is also the host of the podcast "Mobile Home Parks in Real Life"

Connect with KFEKFE SolutionsKFE BlogInstagramLinkedInFacebook
Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. This is in the trenches with Michael King where we talk with business owners, leaders, and executives about the lessons they've learned while fighting in the trenches of the business battlefield. I am Michael King. One of the situations that I find myself facing time and time again in business is something comes up and I need to hire outside help to get it resolved.

[00:00:21] And so there's normally two different . Has that you can think through on how to hire somebody. The first path is to go find the reputable firm or agency that comes normally at a higher price point, or you can decide to go the Upwork or Craigslist route and hire somebody typically at a lower price point.

[00:00:40] But maybe they don't have the certifications experience or a credibility that the larger firms or service providers might have. Obviously, there's benefits and drawbacks to either one. The reputable firms typically cost a little bit more, but. Again, they are reputable. A lot of times people on Upwork or Craigslist don't have the reputation.

[00:01:02] They don't have the, just those things that kind of make you feel confident that it's going to be a home run, no brainer decision to go with them, but they typically come at a. A significantly lower price point. So today I'm going to talk with Ryan Narus. Ryan is the cofounder of the Archimedes group.

[00:01:20] The Archimedes group invest in purchases, manages and upgrades, trailer parks all around the Southern portion of the United States. Brian is going to tell us a story about how early on in Archimedes group's history, how they needed a pretty large amount of HVAC work done on their properties, and they decided to go the Craigslist route.

[00:01:41] And because they didn't go with,  one of the more reputable firms in their areas, they ended up losing. Upwards of $60,000 at a time in their business when they really didn't have $60,000 to spare. So, Ryan and I are going to talk through a little bit about the background of that story.  what happened, what went wrong, and then we're going to give you some tips and thought processes on how to decide for you and your business if it makes more sense to go with.

[00:02:08] The reputable firm or somebody that's maybe more of a freelancer on Upwork or on Craigslist. So, without further ado, here is my interview with Ryan

[00:02:28] Ryan, what's up, man? 

[00:02:30] Ryan: [00:02:30] I'm excited to be here. 

[00:02:32] Mike: [00:02:32] I'm excited to have you. I told you as soon as we first connected that I absolutely loved the idea of investing in trailer parks. I've been talking about investing in trailer parks for. A year and a half, two years now. And you, you applied to be on the show. And I said, this guy's in, regardless of what he has to say, I want to learn about from somebody that's done it about investing in trailer parks.

[00:02:54] So Ryan, today we're going to talk about how early on in your entrepreneurial endeavors with trailer park investments, how you tried to cut some corners. It costs you North of maybe $50,000. And, and we're going to tell that story to our listeners so they can understand what you did and hopefully how to avoid it.

[00:03:13] Before we get into that, tell everybody a little bit about who you are and how we got to be here today. 

[00:03:19] Ryan: [00:03:19] Sure. So, I'm going to crunch this for a minute because when you say that number out loud recorded, it doesn't feel so great. So, we'll let listeners please take my cringy awful feeling moment right now and learn from it.

[00:03:33]  that's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. I want to help people not,  make a big time. Mistakes. Look, everyone's going to make mistakes, but,  if you can, if you learn a little bit from me, that's why I'm here. I'm not selling anything. I'm not raising the funds. I just want to help people. So,   a little bit about me.

[00:03:49]  wake forest university, double grad. We just got a, we're taking on PA,   Michigan state up in New York city, the Yankee stadiums. I'm rapping my Alma mater. I. Was a psych major undergrad graduate. How did the, the wonderful timing of graduating in 2009 undergrad. So, I really wanted to go into business as business sales, and no one had any interest in hiring someone with without a Rolodex who could be immediately effective.

[00:04:18] So I wanted and sold cars because I, well, it's like, look, there's what, what am I going to do? Sit around and feel sorry for myself, or am I going to go and 

[00:04:27] Mike: [00:04:27] do you think it's because it was 2009 or because it was wake. 

[00:04:30] Ryan: [00:04:30] Oh, I see where you're getting at here. This is a little zinger. Yeah. My wife went to Duke and her, she likes to do stuff like, Hey, is Duke going to be good at basketball this year?

[00:04:41] Like, okay, I see where we're going. I see where we're going here. Awake hasn't been good for like a decade.  so, so anyway, I, my old karate instructor was a sales manager at the hunt, the store in Charlotte where I'm from. And long story short, I went, look, did I go to wake forest university to be a car salesman?

[00:05:02] No, but I'm not going to sit back and feel sorry for myself. I'm going to go out and get it. Look, life isn't going to give you all green lights. You're going to hit roadblocks and speed bumps and red lights and all sorts of stuff. The question is, do you have the grit and perseverance to go, I don't care.

[00:05:18] I'm going to go get what I want, and even if it's not exactly what I thought I want, I'll along that journey, you'll discover. That what you thought you originally wanted isn't necessarily what you really ever wanted to be end with. And it's through that journey of not of going through red lights and whatnot, where you really discover who you are and who you're meant to be if and only if you're paying attention to that because it's really easy to be like, Hey, I know myself.

[00:05:45] I know who I am and what I like, and I don't like lemon. Tell you something. As a guy with a degree in psychology who spent the better part of a decade, asked me myself basically every day, who am I and what do I like and who do I want to be when I grow up? I still am today at 32 years old. Discovering things about myself.

[00:06:03] I had no idea where it was was who I am. And the reason why that's important is because what I went through that we're going to talk about hopefully a little bit today is. Like a 10 plus year process of self-discovery and active perseverance, trying to figure out what I was meant to do in my life.

[00:06:23]  I mean, it took me the better part of a decade too, and a lot of sunk costs and a lot of brutal conversations with myself to figure out that, believe it or not, mobile home parks are the perfect fit 

[00:06:33] Mike: [00:06:33] for me. Well, let's, let's tell the story a little bit more detailed. So, you're working for. An automotive chain in Charlotte.

[00:06:40] I'm guessing that somewhere along the way you said, this isn't my, my big why, this isn't my calling. 

[00:06:46] Ryan: [00:06:46] Sure. So, I remember I was playing basketball. I love playing basketball, and I sprained my ankle and I was sitting at home with ice on my ankle and I realized in that moment I was not going to make money that day.

[00:06:59] And because, and you kill what you eat at the car dealership, right? It's, it's commission only. So, I went out and got crutches and I was back at the dealership the next day. And I, and  you hobble under as the cool story, right? All hobbling around sound cars on and crutches,  like, Oh, look at this.

[00:07:17] This is grit. This is what you do. Like when you get beyond the hype story and the mode and like the rah, you're like, no, that's actually really sad because in your 20s you can sprain your ankle and hobble around on crushes. When you're 65 forget it. Do you really want to, do you really want to be doing that?

[00:07:33] When your kids growing up, do you really want to be like, is that your dream? So,  every nail you hammer in, you get paid and that's it. Or do you want passive income? I think the answer is we all want passive income. We all want the ability to step away,  and still have that money coming in to.

[00:07:48] And for me, I realized that pretty early on. And I also realized at the car dealership too. When I was sitting down with my general manager at the time, and he was trying to tell me why Megan, what $300,000 a year or whatever it is as a general manager is, that's the dream I should have. And so, I was asking him questions like, what do you see your kids?

[00:08:11] Well, I really don't. Okay. Well, do you regret that? Yes, I do, but they have a better life for me. But excuse, but this but that, but it was all worth it because blah. I'm sitting here and I'm like, I don't like, maybe this makes sense for him, but it doesn't make sense for me. I don't want to work for 2030 years to finally become a general manager one day to make a quarter million dollars plus a year.

[00:08:31] But I never saw my kids grow up and  maybe you have all this money, but like I do, I do I want money at the end of the day or do I want to be there when my son's growing up?  do I want to have it? Do I want to be worth 20 million bucks and not know my kid?  like those are questions that you really need to ask a be, especially in this Instagram society that we have today, where it's really easy to be like, Oh, that's what I want, that that's going to give you happiness.

[00:08:55] Well, you really need to ask that. And so,  going to the car dealership and learning how to sell and negotiate market conduct operations, and more importantly, seeing what I didn't want. And being really brutally honest with myself was everything I needed. And so, it was at the dealership Phi to pick one moment.

[00:09:14] It was probably in that moment where I realized, you know what, I am probably meant to own my own business. And so, I picked up every book I could pick up and I looked at probably over a hundred businesses and then I couldn't find anything. I started three businesses. None of them went anywhere. Then it went on.

[00:09:30]  so I started, I wrote a book, my best friend and I, we were going to start a, like a marketing company. This is going to sound ridiculous, but we called it a bros guide to Charlotte. In retrospect, I'm glad that didn't go anywhere. I'm glad for you. And then, and then my wife is a, is OCD germaphobe like.

[00:09:52] That's a bit of a hyperbole. She's not diagnosed or anything, but it's, it's, she's one of those neat freaks because she was, she worked in the NICU in the hospital. So, she, she took microbiology and you can't untag microbiology. So, she's a neat for a and a cleanly person. And so, she realized, Hey, there's an underserved market in grocery stores for clean.

[00:10:14] Grocery baskets. She's like, why did I basically create a little thing that we can sell to neat freaks like me who can take with them or whatever. And we that went nowhere too. So, I left. So, we were closed on those three businesses, actually getting going. I actually did write a book and I made a little bit of money.

[00:10:33] I made like 27 bucks selling my book. Hey, I mean, it's not nothing, but come on. That's 

[00:10:39] Mike: [00:10:39] kind of nothing. 

[00:10:40] Ryan: [00:10:40] It's effectively nothing.  actually I think the web, I think there's a net loss as a website. It was like 200 bucks. But,  yeah. So, I mean, look, I looked at probably over a hundred businesses and I went, you know what?

[00:10:52] I don't have any confidence in my ability to be a businessperson. So, I went back and get my MBA, and it was while I was getting my MBA that I bumped into a childhood friend who had read all the same books and it was regurgitating the same motivation hype. Pitch that we all read and all these self-help books and we're like, oh my gosh, we are perfect to be business partners.

[00:11:14] What it's, it's a question of what we're going to start, what business and what are the first ideas he threw out was mobile home parks. And I said, if it is anything like the show trailer park boys. Sign me up. That's awesome. And so, then we just, then I just that summer, it was a, in between my first semester, my first year in the second year of my MBA,  I was working fleet deployment for corporate at carnival cruise lines in Miami, Florida.

[00:11:41] And for the last bit of my internship and my spare time, I just crushed anything I could in terms of learning about mobile home parks. And the more I got into it, the more I just absolutely fell in love with it. So. For listeners, it took me probably the better part of five years to realize, Hey, I need to own my own business.

[00:12:00] Great. Now I'm full time in my business. And even then, like I had a ton of luck and I put a ton of effort into it and I lost a lot of money up until being able to go full time. So, it's, it's not something like you're going to quit your job tomorrow, it's going to take a long time. 

[00:12:16] Mike: [00:12:16] What kind of capital does it take to get started in the world of mobile, home park ownership and management?

[00:12:22] Ryan: [00:12:22] Believe it or not, if you're not picky, it takes literally $0 million. I started with nothing and I mean nothing. I had more student loan debt than I had cash to invest in deals, and basically, I realized there were three parts to any real estate deal. If find a person who is willing to sell you their property, so willing seller, you find money.

[00:12:42] Because that person's going to want their money, and then you have to operate these things. So, any, it's like a three-legged stool. Any of those three are missing. And you don't have a deal. And what I realized about mobile home parks is everyone wants to do the acquisition. They want to go out and do a horse and pony show and get investors really excited.

[00:13:03] They want to convince bankers to give them better debt terms. They want to do like the fun finance part, but then they don't want to actually be there talking to little miss Janice. It's what I realized is you make money. Where there's something where someone either can't do it or they won't do it. So, I realized I could monetize things like property management, acquisition fees, I could basically fee all sorts of different aspects to basically quit my job and go full time and live on a shoestring salary.

[00:13:37] But get started, go full time, quit my job, and then it as scared. And the funny thing of it is.

[00:13:47] Mike: [00:13:47] So you realize the money is in doing the work that other people don't want to do. Most people aren't wanting to do the management side of it. Is that right? So, you still had to have capital though to make the purchase because like you said, the guy, the seller wants his money. Where did you come up with that?

[00:14:03] Is that through loans or did you raise money through friends and family 

[00:14:06] Ryan: [00:14:06] presence. Family belts out of network. 

[00:14:09] Mike: [00:14:09] Okay, cool. Cool. What does it take to operate, to do the management side of a mobile home? 

[00:14:15] Ryan: [00:14:15] park? A lot of patients, a lot of emotional intelligence, a lot of organization, and just an ability to just take a beating and negotiate.

[00:14:28] I negotiate almost every single day and that's like one of those things where you probably wouldn't do like property management negotiation. What are you talking about every day? Hey, I haven't, I can I pay my rent on the 19th. Hey, can I move in and then put 500 bucks down every day? There's someone trying to do something and you need to have the emotional intelligence to discern between whether they're lying to you, whether they're hustling you, or whether there's a legitimate request, like you need to be able to sniff that stuff out and it's not a complicated business.

[00:15:01] Property management. It does require a lot of people skills. And like I told my wife, who's starting to help out with it, she's just a natural at it. And as I was talking to her, I was like, why do you think you're a natural at this? And she's like, because I was a NICU nurse, I know what stress does to people.

[00:15:18] And I know that like the fundamental attribution error, I, you can't. There are shades of gray with everything and people are going to, it's easier to paint a broad brush and say, this person is a jerk, or this person is nice. It is harder to go in this moment. This person is acting rude, but here's why, because it's stressful.

[00:15:37] So most people don't want to do that. And mobile home parks. The interesting thing about them is they've been ignored for so long that the market hasn't really been smart to it until the last few years. Now, cap rates are just compressed basically to a couple basis points higher than apartments. So, the pricing is now appropriate, but for the longest time it wasn't.

[00:15:58] And for anyone who's a finance junkie. To be able to go somewhere and just, I'll just hire out operations, whatever they're going to pay their rent, whatever, right? But go all, look, let's go geek out over the IRS and do all this crazy fancy financial analysis. Like it's really fun because in theory, if you can get them for crazy cheap prices relative to the yields, you can get elsewhere.

[00:16:21] Like,  it makes sense why there's a bunch of finance people overly excited and not a lot of operations people. Property management are very excited. Oh, really excited. Cause your lot rents to 200 bucks a month and you're charging a 5% operations fee. Like this. Dude, that's just not that much money, right?

[00:16:39] It's like 10 bucks a month per home to go and deal with.  most people are great.  but I'll give you a good, for a funny example.  my business partner, Ian, was just at one of our recently acquired properties and a woman came out screaming at the top of her lungs. Adam. And he's like, okay, well what's going on here?

[00:16:58] And she was like, they're drug dealers and prostitutes that come into my home, use my spoons to heat up their heroin, burn the bottoms of my spoons, and then they put the spoons back into my house in the drawer. So, they're ruining my spoons. 

[00:17:13] Mike: [00:17:13] What? 

[00:17:14] Ryan: [00:17:14] So you have to disable your life properties. This happened a few hours ago.

[00:17:18] Yes. 

[00:17:18] Mike: [00:17:18] Oh, this is like today or something. Literally 

[00:17:21] Ryan: [00:17:21] a few hours ago. Yeah. Yeah. Every now and then you're going to deal with someone who says something just utterly ridiculous. So,  I get why most people wouldn't want to deal with that. And cause objective. I've had my life threatened before. I like, it's, that's just the name of the game.

[00:17:39] You get yelled at; you get cussed out. It's just like being in customer service. But here's the thing, if you have no money and no experience and no network like I did starting out, you have no choice. Or you could just, I don't know, just somehow live for free and not pay yourself any money, but you've got to find a way to monetize that.

[00:17:56] And let me tell you something. If it's something that no one else wants to do. That is an easy in for you to make money and quit your job and go and chase your dream. 

[00:18:05] Mike: [00:18:05] Let's, let's back up a little bit. We didn't talk about going over this today, but I think it's worth drilling into. I remember back 10 years ago or so;  I grew up poor.

[00:18:16] I grew up in a trailer park actually, and I had always equated success with a certain income level. And  just to be honest, I always thought if I could make $100,000 a year. I will have arrived right there. There is no more, right? $1 million in 100,000 to me were the same amount a year. Right. And I remember about 10 years ago, I hit, I had my first payday, so I got a raise.

[00:18:43] This was before I owned my own company, but  I had a raise and that raise took me from just under the, just over six figures. And I remember,  I got, it was on a Friday because I got paid every other Friday. And so, I was at home that Friday night after this 

[00:18:59] Ryan: [00:18:59] first 

[00:19:00] Mike: [00:19:00] massive paycheck had arrived. And I'm sitting on the couch and I'm getting ready to watch a couple of backup episodes of game of Thrones.

[00:19:08] I remember it like it was yesterday, so maybe it wasn't quite 10 years ago. It was about that though. So anyway, though, I'm sitting on the couch,  I'm having a drink and I'm thinking about it and what I, what I caught myself doing, Ryan was thinking. If I ever made 110,000 if I could get it to 120,000 and I realized that I had already started dangling a carrot for myself, and it occurred to me that I would never catch the carrot because I see,  once I hit one 20 I'm going to think one 50 then 200 but the problem for me, Ryan, is I hit, I hit, equated this with success.

[00:19:44] And similar to you. My background is nothing to do with what I do for my undergraduates in nuclear engineering. And now I do consulting in the, in the financial world. But as an analytical guy, I recognize quickly that my definition of success meant that I would never achieve it, and that really screwed with my head.

[00:20:04] I said, so am I just never going to be successful? And I started to get pretty upset. And I said, so I just, I guess I can't be successful. But that didn't add up because I knew people personally that I thought were successful. And as I thought about them, I recognized none of them made $100,000 a year. And so, I, and, and I'm like, I'm kind of drinking heavily at this point.

[00:20:29] Like this night I was sitting there drinking, I've turned to the off and I'm sitting there thinking. Well if, if those people are successful and none of them had this particular income level, what about them in my eyes makes them successful and I, I started kind of writing out for each of them what different things about them I thought made them successful.

[00:20:48] And the common denominator, Ryan, was that all three of them? Again, this is, this is my definition, all three of them. And made other people better for having known them. And I said, okay, cool mate, that sounds a whole lot like a whole lot more like success than a hundred thousand or 120 or $150,000 a year.

[00:21:06] Great. I can make other people better for having known me. This is awesome. I can be successful again. But then the light bulb comes on. What the hell about me? It's going to make other people better for having known me. And so, I was like up and then right back down again because what's my secret sauce?

[00:21:25] And so it was a journey for me in, in w,  over the course of the next few days, I realized I can take really complex topics like. Finance and accounting, like nuclear engineering, and I can explain them to anybody. All right. I can, I can kind of through stories and anecdotes and analogies, I can take these complex topics and explain them to people.

[00:21:45] And that's eventually how I got into what I do now is I recognize there's a lot of business owners that don't understand anything about finance and accounting. And so, there's the ignore it and then their businesses go out. So, it's interesting that you talked about your journey to figuring out. What your calling was and what was success for you?

[00:22:02] And I talked to a lot of people that struggle with identifying this for themselves. What is it? What can I bring to the world that I get passionate about? How do I know what to start my business in because I don't know what I'm good at? I don't know what I'm passionate about. Would you share a little bit more details about how you went from selling cars for a large dealership chain to trailer park management and why you think that your calling was to do that and how do you make the world a better place through doing that?

[00:22:34] Ryan: [00:22:34] 100% we're the same person. We went through a very similar thing. So, I'll share with your kind of my similar moment was, so I was convinced I was meant to be a salesperson, just utterly convinced, because I have all, like in baseball you have the five tool prospects, right? So, for sales, I was intelligent enough, likable enough.

[00:22:57] Persistent enough,  just to have just, just absolutely love every, it just fascinated about persuading people. Just like I had basically all of the, the potential to be a really good salesman and I was drinking the Kool-Aid hard. I mean, rereading any sales book I get my hands on. Cornering my is asking him questions.

[00:23:18] I sold 240 cars my first full fiscal year at Honda. I hit their Honda gold award. I got shipped up to a five-star hotel in Washington, D C it was this whole saying and I, and it was even more flattering cause I was 24 years old and I was by far the youngest person there. And so, I was like, Oh my God, I'm in like the top 5% of the country or whatever.

[00:23:40] I'm the youngest one here, and this is my first year. I was like, oh my God, I am on paste. Just be just a killer salesperson. And that night at that event, I just got as close to blackout. I've probably got blackout drunk. I just got bombed, and at the moment I was like, some, there's a reason why I did that.

[00:24:03] I'm not in college anymore. I'm an adult. Like, why did I do that? And at the moment I didn't really understand why. Now it makes perfect sense to me. So, Jordan Peterson love him or hate him. He has a great lecture on why college kids get drunk and just go crazy. And in so many words, his argument, and obviously he's way more eloquent than I'm going to put it, is that if you don't have anything that is meaningful and impactful, that you can make the world a better place.

[00:24:30] That's really where true happiness comes from. And if you don't have that, and not only do you not have that, you also don't have any skills because when you're really, really good at something, when you hit what's called slow, Oh my gosh, it's the best thing in the world. It's literally liked a high, but it's, it's a, it's a good high, it's not a, it's not chasing instant gratification high.

[00:24:50] And so when you're missing those two things for meaning and purpose and the ability to hit flow, the way you get your high quote, unquote, is by literally getting high or drunk. Right. And so, I didn't realize that's exactly what I was experiencing. I had chased a dream that wasn't really my dream. I had convinced myself I was meant to be a full-time salesperson for the rest of my life, despite now in retrospect, very obvious, Larry obvious hypocrisy is, and, and, and I just, I just doubled down and tripled down.

[00:25:23] And, and then, then it gets to the point where you're in it for several years. It's just, it becomes a sunk cost to leave. And then you buy certain things and you have a mortgage and you're living the lifestyle and Instagram lifestyle where you're trying to keep up with others. And you don't stop to ask a really tough question of, does this really make me happy?

[00:25:39] What do I really define as success? And it was a, it was brutal. It was brutal. It was brutal for a long time asking myself a lot of really tough questions, but I am so glad I did. But imagine what, what you were just describing, because I think your listeners, if you're in this spy, you need to realize, I was in this spot and, and obviously Mike was in this spot where you see your paycheck and you're like, wow, I'm like, I hit a goal I've been trying to reach, and it's a financial goal, and you sit back and you take a drink of your beer and you're like.

[00:26:14] I feel nothing like that was so short lived. But then on top of that, you've got a wife and kids or a husband and kids, or  all, all this debt and all this and you, and it's like and all, and it just compounds. You've got like two cars and a house and it's like, Oh, if I just paid off my car, Oh, if I just had a little bit more money.

[00:26:34] And it's like you're chasing the wrong thing. It is really fun to make, to make money. But here's the thing. It is absolutely. Second, if not third, fourth or fifth to family, to friends, to building something that's bigger than you do. Helping others to making this world a better place. Like making money is fun.

[00:26:55]  but like when I have a bad day, I'm not, I don't sit back and go, oh man, I just have to Tufts this out, so I get a little bit more money. No, I'm going, if I toughed this out, I can build this company. I can help more people. I can find more Ms. Joyce's and, and write more acceptance letters for ours . Our scholarship that is by far to what you need to find what that is for you.

[00:27:15] Listeners, you need to find what that is for you. 

[00:27:18] Mike: [00:27:18] That's a great segue into my next question is if, if somebody listening to this right now, they're driving to work and they're saying to themselves, Oh God, it's Monday. Thank God it's Friday. I'm not passionate about what I'm doing. This isn't my calling. I don't know what is though.

[00:27:36] What advice would you give them on how to go through that journey of figuring out. What there, there why is, what is the thing? Cause I think you have to identify that first. Then you can kind of start figuring out the tactics of, okay, what's the vehicle by which I can apply that. So, for me it was figuring out like, okay, making people better for knowing me.

[00:27:57] How do I do that? Well, something that's special or unique about me is I can take these complex things and break them down. Okay. What's a way that I can do that? Well,  there's,  80% of businesses that fail is due to poor financial management. I kind of understand that because of my MBA and my professional experience, I'm going to go tell help small business owners understand their numbers so that they can stay in business and that it keeps the economy going.

[00:28:22] Right? All those things. What would you say the process is for that? That gal or that guy that's in the car right now, or they're sitting in their office and they're miserable. How do they, how do they get. Back on track or on 

[00:28:33] Ryan: [00:28:33] track. First off, that is the perfect way to describe it is just miserable. I mean, I was, I'm generally speaking a happy guy.

[00:28:40] If, if like someone gives me like a fun sized snicker bar, I'm like,  like I am just the most easily excitable person. I love life and I was totally miserable. I have multiple jobs in my life and so in other words, you are not wrong, and you are definitely not alone. If you feel stuck, like you don't want to get promoted.

[00:29:01] Cause that's really just going to be more responsibility and more hours away from your family and stuff you love for not that much more money. I don't want to get promoted. I can't leave, can't leave because I got this lifestyle that I live that I can't really get rid of or I've got kids, or I've got this, or I've got that I can't leave.

[00:29:16] So I'm stuck. Like first and foremost, you are absolutely not alone. You have to understand that. You are 100% able to get yourself out of that. It is going to take years. It took me years. So if you read motivation by, I'm going to mispronounce her name,  I think it's Heidi Halverstadt, a Stanford professor wrote a great book about,  like literally the science of motivation and it's a really thick, hard to read book, but it's outstanding.

[00:29:45] And  the best lesson from that book is people who fail.  there are three ways to look at starting a journey. Oh, it's going to be easy. And then you started in your way. You're like, oh wait, this is not easy. I quit, or, Oh, this is going to be really, really hard. Okay. I'm not even going to get started. Or number three, which is, this is going to be really hard, but I'm going to do it.

[00:30:08] And so in other words, what you need to do is you need to find a way to get started to take action. You need to understand it's going to be really slow. It's going to take a long time; it's going to take a lot of effort. And that is why it is absolutely crucial to know what you absolutely love. That has to be step one, understanding who you are and understanding what you love.

[00:30:27] And the best way to do that is to rethink about your childhood. So, for me, I remember one of the biggest moments in my childhood, my happiest moments, was tutoring underprivileged kids. And I realized that as a son of a college professor, I have just an innate desire to teach people and help people.

[00:30:46] Mike: [00:30:46] Awesome. Thank you very much for sharing that. It's a, I know, it's a, it's a personal journey and everybody's is kind of different. So, thank you for sharing yours now. So, this is really what I wanted to get into today. I think what we just talked about is probably a little bit more meaningful, but I love talking dollars and cents.

[00:31:01] And you were telling me the other day that one of your first trailer parks,  you got into, well, I won't spoiler alert, but basically because of some bad decision making on your part.  you lost North of $50,000.  and that your, that, that's probably something that people could, could take something away from.

[00:31:19] So tell us a little bit about.  how did the,  what was the buildup? What went on and how did you lose 50 plus thousand dollars? 

[00:31:26] Ryan: [00:31:26]  so this was a huge property. It was 520 87 pads, and we had, I think it was 286 mobile homes onsite. I think it was 108 that we owned, or about a hundred that we owned.

[00:31:39] And it was just a nightmare. And they had. I think it's developed it out in the late eighty’s early nineties so, I mean, they had it for a long time and it was just, it was time,  it was time. And so, there's a lot of back do maintenance, and there's all, there's I, it was a heavy lift. It was,  40% occupied, 48% occupied, I think was the official number.

[00:32:02] And so with,  a 2030-year-old mobile home, you have a 2030-year-old ACAC and naturally you can only,  pump up the Freon to a certain degree before the thing's just dead. And I also think to a certain degree, they're like, well, we would probably get up a lot of time bombs that are about to go off.

[00:32:22] So let's go ahead and sell right.  maybe or maybe not, but  we didn't want to do window units cause the community was really nice. But anyway, if you know anything about HVHC, is there like five brands install new? So, I mean you're talking, you do 10 of those, that's 50 grand, but we have a hundred.  the homes that are ours and our rental units.

[00:32:41] So you're talking like half a million dollars to replace all of these. That's not an option. 

[00:32:45] Mike: [00:32:45] So 108,  each of these have the,  the traditional HVAC unit that you would expect to see on a concrete slab sitting next to the lot. And those are feeding and, and a lot of those, if not all of them, are somewhere in that.

[00:33:00] 20 to 30-year-old range, the HVAC units. And so, they're probably past the point that you can just keep pumping Freon into them. And so, you figure, all right, easy to replace is five grands.  that's a lot of capital. It's a lot of cash that you would need to do that, but something has to be done. So, one of the alternatives was,  maybe we just start window units.

[00:33:23] Well, we can't do that because this is a nicer community there. It's not a window unit kind of place. So, you're left with a couple of alternatives. One is replaced,  at 5,000 a pop or alternative. Two is bring HVAC repairman extraordinary in and see if he can't squeeze some more life out of 

[00:33:41] Ryan: [00:33:41] him.

[00:33:41] Yeah. So, we did a joint venture for this.  we partnered with,  an experience company and basically what the company kind of told us that we were partnering with told us. They were like, dude, do the math. It's not good. We've got to figure out a solution. Why not? We see if we can find like a former employee of an HVHC company who will come and.

[00:34:07] Just,  you pay them a per hour rate, and we find a way to buy things in bulk and a lot of D DOB. And so, we were like, okay, we trust you guys,  let's rock and roll here. And so, we kind of look to them for guidance and everybody was at fault here. Like, I'm, I'm happy to take full responsibility for this.

[00:34:26] But really everybody was at fault. And so that's why,  nowadays we can kind of laugh about it because we kicked, bought on that property. This was ultimately was just an expensive speed bump. That we went through and now the property is just kicking butt. I think since we've sold out of our stake, it's, they've developed out like a hundred RV lots and so with,  it's just that property is just a winner.

[00:34:48] So it ended up having a good ending. But  at that moment, we were basically like, look, we, if you do the math, it's not good. I mean, are we going to stump a hunt or half a million dollars in the redoing all of these AC units? They were like, no, let's just hire a guy. Right? And so, we've, we find a guy. And we love him.

[00:35:06] Oh my God, he was great. 

[00:35:07] Mike: [00:35:07] Where'd you find them? 

[00:35:08] Ryan: [00:35:08] A Craigslist, Craigslist.   he comes in, he talks a good game, young kid, hungry, texting us at like 10:00 PM on a Sunday night. And in the Atlanta heat, just dude, outstanding customer service. Just a, just a guy. He owned his own company. Yeah. Everything checks out.

[00:35:27] I mean, response, text, attendance directly. I mean, it was just outstanding. We, I think we had them do, I don't know, 2030 homes. Repairing or replacing, and I mean, you're talking five grand to install a new one. This dude was charging us like three grand or less. So, I mean, you're talking big time savings and for, I don't know, a month or two, he just absolutely cleaned up.

[00:35:51] I mean, it was just great. 

[00:35:53] Mike: [00:35:53] What was he doing for 3000 he's installing new units, 

[00:35:56] Ryan: [00:35:56] brand new unit. Okay. Yeah. 

[00:35:58] Mike: [00:35:58] What? Where was the 5,000 so that's 5,000 if you had gone to the big HVAC company in town or something like that, it would have been 5,000 because they've got higher overhead and they've got to pay for their building and their utility trucks and all those kinds of things.

[00:36:11] This guy is a kind of a solarpreneur knew what he was doing, but didn't have that overhead, so he's able to, instead of 5,000 he's charged in 3000 he's super responsive. Everything's great. Something tells me this turned sideways somewhere. 

[00:36:24] Ryan: [00:36:24] Oh yeah. I know. If it sounds too, to give you truths because it was,  so it turns out, then we start getting calls back from people.

[00:36:33] Or like, watch, what do you mean? Okay, this is bro. All right, get, get him back out there. And he'd go back out there and then he would charge us to go back out there. 

[00:36:39] Mike: [00:36:39] The Brandy new unit is broken, 

[00:36:42] Ryan: [00:36:42] and then we're like, okay, well shouldn't you stand by your work? Like if you did it wrong, why are you charging me 600 bucks to go back out and redo something like that?

[00:36:50] Doesn't feel right. And then. Like before we could be like, okay, something's, why is Z charging us to go back out? You know? Then he, we get in this huge fight because he's like, you're not paying me enough. Here are all these invoices you haven't paid me. And so, we had to get our accountant in involved in our accounts.

[00:37:09] Like a dude, I can't make heads or tails of this guy. And so, we're going through. And so, it basically did an,  an accounting audit for the guy and found out we paid him too much. At which point in time he was like, ah, okay man, we're good. And then we just decided, you know what? We need to part ways with this guy.

[00:37:26] But not long after that did almost, I'm pretty, actually, it may have been every single home, every single home we went through about every single home. And they all ended up breaking. And I mean, people who didn't know anything about HVA CS were like, hey man, he doesn't have the little runoff here in the moisture's getting stuck in her at home.

[00:37:46] Like, I'm not an HVHC guy, but I know enough to know that that's not what you're supposed to do. So, it like in the, the sad thing was he was so good, he was able to put a band aid on things for so long that when it broke, it we it just all broke. So, it was just one of those things where he is, he kind of got out, right.

[00:38:06] I mean, we got scammed. I mean, it's effectively what happened. I mean, I don’t know if this was just a genius of a guy who just timed everything perfectly or, and it was premeditated or just kind of unfolded that way. But  I mean, that ended up being like 20 $30,000 and then I had to go back and fix every single one of those.

[00:38:26] So with the company we hired to begin with who ended up being outstanding and we just,  tried to save some money because we did the math and got scared. And the truth was no. Sometimes it makes sense to pay up for their company that has got overhead because you can trust them 

[00:38:43] Mike: [00:38:43] based on what we do.

[00:38:44] We see. Similar things like this a lot of times. So, you have a young company, a or a company that's moving into a new industry, or they need help from a new type of vendor and they realize that the, the capital that it's going to take to do that thing, we're from an established. From is $5,000 each, right?

[00:39:02] Or it's some high number. And so that becomes overwhelming and you say, boy, I don't know if I want to spend that much money. And so, you, you go to the Craigslist equivalent of whatever it is. So maybe it's Craigslist, maybe it's Upwork, maybe it's your uncle's brother's friend that he used to ride motorcycles with to try to save a buck.

[00:39:21] But with any kind of behavior like that, there's a risk. And so, I think people have to be wise to, Hey, what's the risk with going with this cheaper alternative and am I willing to absorb that cost if things go wrong? So,  it's $3,000 times 108 units. What's the worst that could go wrong? Well. All of those units shipped themselves, and I have to put by pay that $3,000 and then I've got to go pay the $5,000 a unit.

[00:39:49] It would take it. Am I willing to take that on? And I'm willing to guess, Ryan, if, if you had known, Hey, that Hey, if this whole thing goes bad, it's going to end up costing you,  tens of thousands, many tens of thousands of dollars to not just do it the right way. Would you have done that? 

[00:40:06] Ryan: [00:40:06] Well, I, the rhetorical question, right?

[00:40:08] Of course not right.  I think you nailed it right there. We did not understand the downside risk and any rookie starting out is you're not going to know what mistakes that you're going to make because it's impossible. You can't just listen to podcasts and read books and talk to people. Dude, at a certain point in time, you've got to get on the bike and start paddling.

[00:40:30] And it's like, I used to drive a mountain bike when I was a kid. And the cool thing about the mountain bike is when you pedal it backwards, it would, because it was basically, they had a limited number of gears. They would actually break and were, whereas a racing bike, you can pedal backwards all day long and it doesn't do anything right.

[00:40:47] So in other words, like. You could read all you want, why listen, all the podcasts, a lot of DBA. But if you get on a bike and you start peddling backwards while you're going forward on the wrong bike, you're going to fly over the handlebars, right? So, and you have to do that. It's okay to make those mistakes.

[00:41:02] You just always have to be thinking, what's my risk? And that's exactly what I wasn't doing. So, spot on. 

[00:41:09] Mike: [00:41:09] Yeah. I think,  if you're looking at going to,  let's say it's a painting job. Right? And let's say the painting job to get the Craigslist guys 500 bucks to get the local painter that owns a big shop instead of 500 bucks, it's 2000, right?

[00:41:24] Even if you've got to have that painter, the big one, come back and redo it, you're out 500 bucks. So, the downside is pretty low, relatively speaking there. So maybe it makes sense to try to save. $1,500 because your, your downside is limited, right? But when you start getting into the tens and the hundreds of thousands of dollars, if you don't have that money.

[00:41:44] To redo the work, or  you can't afford that. Then hit pause. There's got to be some other, some other approach to take. So, I think the advice I would give people is consider the downside. For some things, it probably makes sense to save money by using the Craigslist or the Upwork equivalent. But for those, those bigger jobs that carry a lot more zeros at the end, make sure that you can afford the, the alternative if you have to, if everything goes to shit.

[00:42:09] So. Well. Cool. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us today. I appreciate you being here. This was insightful. 

[00:42:15] Ryan: [00:42:15] It was really fun. I hope I inspired the listeners. 

[00:42:18] Mike: [00:42:18] Where can people find out more about you and what you do if they want to? 

[00:42:23] Ryan: [00:42:23] Yes, so I, to my knowledge, I'm the only Ryan Narus in the world. It's N a R U S That’s N like Nancy.

[00:42:30] I am here. I'm big on LinkedIn. It's probably my favorite platform. I churn out all sorts of free material. How to. All sorts of stuff. And if you want to get into real estate, it's a great guy to connect with. If you don't, I don't care what you do. Some of the best lessons I've ever learned in my life have been folks that I never thought would ever be able to help me in any regard.

[00:42:53] And what that kind of taught me is to give. Give, give, give, give. If you have been inspired by the words that that I have spoken today, just reach out to me. I am an open door. You can reach out to me. We'll get on the phone. I don't care where you are in the world. If I can help you, even if you could never give something back to me, I don't care.

[00:43:11] I genuinely speaking, love helping people, and I have to tell you, if I can help you escape feeling stuck at your job. Reach out to me and I will do anything I can with within my, my, my limited time to help you connect you with someone, give you advice, whatever. I don't need a thing in return people, it is worth it to bet big on yourself and to escape feeling stuck and depressed and to get out there and make the world a better place.

[00:43:38] Mike: [00:43:38] Awesome. Ben? Ryan, if, if, if anybody out there is like me. And you've been interested in getting into the trailer parking world. You have a podcast, don't you? That talks,  all about the, the trailer park industry. I 

[00:43:51] Ryan: [00:43:51] do. So, my podcast is called mobile home parks in real life. And again, I am not selling anything.

[00:43:59] I am not raising any funds. I am literally just a guy who is just dedicated to helping people because my why is I want to leave this world a better place than when I got here. And the way I found that I can do that is by literally just sharing all of my secrets online. So, if you want to know. Anything about investing in mobile home parks, how to operate them, how to buy them, how to do it with nothing, how to do it with Don's money.

[00:44:23] How to, I have about any question that you could ask. I have answered in depth on my podcast and if I haven't answered a question and you've listened all my podcast episodes, please reach out to me because I was always starving for good ideas for it. 

[00:44:40] Mike: [00:44:40] Awesome. So, iTunes and Stitcher, you're looking for mobile home parks in real life.

[00:44:45] And you can find Ryan on LinkedIn,  searching for his name. Ryan. Naris NAR. U S again. Ryan, thank you so much for being here. Have a great afternoon.