Real Estate Investing Made E.A.S.Y.

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Looking for an effective and efficient way to raise capital Marcin Drozdz joins us today to talk about the system that secured him 9 figures of private investment capital for several business ventures An active investor with a several hundred unit real estate portfolio Marcin developed the E A S Y system and he breaks it down for us in this episode He also shares the inspiring story of his family as immigrants in the United States and the mindset and values that led him to his current success 00 01 – 04 54 Getting in the Game Early Jumping into real estate in his mid-20s Transitioning from employee to entrepreneur A lesson he learned early on Find out if you re a finder a minder or a grinder 04 55 – 11 12 E A S Y System to Raise Capital Building and maintaining rapport with your contacts Make them understand what s exciting and unique about the opportunity Talk to a lot of people Generate scarcity through demand Know the amount they re considering 11 13 – 19 36 There is No Plan B Bring people along for the journey Have a This is going to work mindset Remove self-doubt and believe in your own worth and capabilities Look for the right inspiration and the right next step for you 19 37 – 21 07 Closing Segment Reach out to Marcin Check out the free E A S Y System Mini Course Final Words Tweetable Quotes Find your inspiration the guy that s out there killing it at a level that you re just like that s godly That s God-like Sure But then bring that back to Earth and find that next peg on the ladder That s somebody that can help you you know actually more directly – Marcin Drozdz Never lie Always use real numbers Don t say things that aren t consistent because it s a small sandbox If you start making up stories it s not going to work – Marcin Drozdz If you don t put yourself in a position where you can speak with some authority on what you re doing if you don t buy into and you don t believe what you re doing you know it s a really difficult thing to sell – Marcin Drozdz —————————————————————————– Connect with Marcin Learn more about him and the E A S Y System by going to his website and downloading the free E A S Y System Mini Course Connect with me I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns Facebook LinkedIn Like subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts or whatever platform you listen on Thank you for tuning in Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below Marcin Drozdz 00 00 Find your inspiration the guy that s out there killing it at a level that you re just like that s godly That s God-like Sure But then bring that back to Earth and find that next peg on the ladder That s somebody that can help you you know actually more directly Intro 00 14 Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show Whether you are an active or passive investor we ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big Sam Wilson 00 26 Marcin Drozdz is the managing partner of M1 Real Capital where he and his team focused on acquiring value add multifamily properties throughout the southeast Marcin welcome to the show Marcin Drozdz 00 36 Thank you sir That s quite an introduction I appreciate I m all excited now Love it Sam Wilson 00 41 Great man I m looking forward to it There s three questions I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90 seconds or less can you tell me where did you start Where are you now And how did you get there Marcin Drozdz 00 49 Sure I started out reading Rich Dad Poor Dad probably like millions of other people thought it was a good idea that I could figure it out started buying houses while I was in college got recruited into private equity on the real estate side Probably brought me in a little young but I m glad they did got to immediately go from you know looking at single-family homes to multifamily land assemblies commercial recreation just all kinds of stuff So seeing that for a couple of years was tremendous A couple of years after that broke out on my own sort of putting together my own LPs trusts structures And fast forward today we focus on value ad today primarily in the south and southeast Sam Wilson 01 32 But what a great way to get your early education in real estate Marcin Drozdz 01 37 Drinking from a firehose literally Sam Wilson 01 39 I m sure it was but it didn t take you long I mean a couple of years is not a long time really to spend under somebody else s tutelage and then just go out and do it on your own What were some of the things that finally pushed you over the edge and said hey I can repeat this Marcin Drozdz 01 52 Well you know what it was the firm that I worked for was family-owned good people well-intentioned but I knew that I would never be anything more than just a well-paid piece of the puzzle here a cog in the machine And you know being young enough maybe naive enough in my mid-20s at that point I was like You know what I can do this So you know went out on my own very quickly realized the things that I didn t know as I left that space because everything was kind of in and around what you do there s a ton of things that happened for you that I didn t really understand at that point And then you know a couple of million dollars later with my own money a bunch of mistakes later I finally realized maybe I m not as you know well-versed you know as I initially thought but again you know you take your bumps along the way you know 37 now so you know a lot of experience a few gray hairs and all things considered I m glad I did it when I did Sam Wilson 02 43 What were some of the things just you know top of your mind that you say Man those were some of the early mistakes I made that somebody else could be spared from Marcin Drozdz 02 51 You know the biggest thing is you got to recognize if you re better there s three types of people there s finders there s minders and there s grinders So that s probably the best way I m able to articulate it And you know finders typically the front of the business whether it s the deal side the money side it s the person that goes out and makes things happen The minders are the operations the ongoing maintenance the making sure the buses run on time so to speak and everything happens the way it s supposed to And then the grinders are the people that are typically just happy with the nine to five or nine and nine or whatever it is and they have a very specific role within an organization And they re happy just to grind it out They don t want to have to go outside of their parameters So for me I thought everybody thought like me when I left the PE space And I very quickly realized that was not the case Sam Wilson 03 44 Which of those three do you put yourself in Marcin Drozdz 03 48 Well when you start a business you re all three my friend as you very well know I m definitely a finder I love to find opportunity find talent find the right people around me and execute on a vision But you definitely need to be aware of the fact that you need the minders and you need the grinders to actually execute things And that was probably for me that was my biggest lesson in my 20s Sam Wilson 04 11 Yeah that s a tough one You re absolutely right And I m just a slow learner altogether And so this is something that I ve been actually researching quite a bit because you re right I ve made the same assumption many over the years like everybody thinks like me like no and goes back to the whole like visionary integrator And then there s just like you re saying so like I would put the visionary is the finder or the integrator is the minder and then kind of the employee person that just wants to be an employee as the grinder And yeah the idea of being just an employee not just being an employee and just kind of being happy with you know the way that things go like I don t understand that And so because I can t relate to that myself Like I assume everyone s me that just wants to go you know go nuts and go find stuff and take deals Yeah that s just not the case One of the things you re known for is the system you call the E A S Y System to Raise Capital for real estate deals Can you break that down for us Marcin Drozdz 05 03 Sure easy stands for Exclusive Abundant Scarce and Your allocation So essentially the system is part of a much larger process of how to find nurture maintain contacts and eventually get the commitment in a way where you don t you know you don t come across pushy don t come across sales-y It s very consultative very process-driven And ultimately as you very well know just because somebody isn t a fit for a deal today doesn t mean that they won t be a fit in three months or three years for that matter So how you approach that situation how you maintain that rapport with that person is I mean it s everything it really is you know everything I m at 16 years now and you end up getting a compounding benefit for all the work you do early on And if you do it in you know if you always approach things from I m here for a long time not just a good time perspective then you ll have that flow So the E the exclusive is your deal So in other words so many people when they tie up the deal they totally undersell it when they re explaining it to somebody else or they focus on the wrong things that most people don t understand So I can t tell you how many of our students or some of my partners are like yeah like going in cap rate is X and we re going to come out at Y and the replacement costs is Zed and here s why that matters And I m just like dude honestly I understand But the business owner that s trying to give you 250 grand is just gonna stare at you and go Oh okay And a confused mind doesn t buy right So exclusive is you know break it down to a level of what would have got you excited about the opportunity If you didn t understand real estate for example is it on Main Main Is it one of the last remaining buildings before the codes change Is it of a certain size a certain stature Is there certain finish within the units Are there certain opportunities for you to do things to add value that is unique in your market in your city in your state whatever it is Like focus on the things that the everyday person can understand Like if you tell me hey the rents in this area are 800 And if we just put new counters down the guy down the streets renting for 1200 I can understand that you can tell me that the cap rate is going to go from X to Y but I m just going to stare at you and go okay So that s exclusive Abundant is make sure you have a ton of people to talk to So in other words just because you don t have a deal doesn t mean you shouldn t be talking to investors about past deals things you re looking at Because when you do have that deal and you can call somebody and say Listen you know I have this deal It s exclusive because of these reasons I have X amount of people that I need to talk to But I know you told me you want to hear about this So here we are And then S for scarcity is so we re only looking for 2 million Our average investment is you know let s just say 150 000 So we re probably looking for another eight or so investors in the opportunity And then the Y So scarcity got to create you know if you re doing a great deal and it s exclusive and you ve got tons of people to talk to there s natural scarcity both within the amount of allocation somebody can take and the amount of room you have for people because of the size of the deal So then you know you ll obviously have a conversation back and forth to that person And when you think it s appropriate you can say Look I know you still got to do your due diligence I got to send you the package you gotta review everything But if everything does check out what amount would you potentially consider investing like ask for some kind of a soft So again I m oversimplifying all this Sam But all of this breaks down to a process that has helped me secure well into nine figures in capital And whether you re raising 50 000 500 000 or commitment for 5 million it really is the same process Sam Wilson 08 44 I love that It s not playing mind games I don t want to use that word but it is a process And it s getting used to even some of your phrasing there I think is really unique Just you know where it s like hey you know what we re only asking for two and a half million dollars That s all the raise is average investment would you say 150 grand is your example Marcin Drozdz 09 02 Yeah I mean whatever it is for you right It s 25 It s 25 It s 50 It s 50 It s 250 or whatever it makes it real for you By the way never lie Never BS Always use real numbers Don t say things that aren t consistent because it s a small sandbox as you and I both know Sam and you know if you start making up stories it s not going to work Sam Wilson 09 22 What was the Y in the E A S Y Marcin Drozdz 09 25 The Y I ll tell you why I created two but the Y is your allocation So in other words it s asking for some kind of a call to action So in other words when you re talking to somebody can say Look I know you got to look through the package or lawyer or accountant whatever it is but if everything does check out what amount would you potentially be considering And that s you know soft commit I mean in PE it s a soft commit So in other words you know because you got to give them the opportunity to do their due diligence obviously to make sure they re qualified and make sure they can you know comply with the rules with your lawyers and everything else and make sure everything s done clean But if at all didn t checkout what amount would they be considering Because if someone isn t considering it they would tell you there you know but if they re already telling me I love it if it all checks out I d probably do 100-200 then that s a good indicator of at least somebody who s semi-serious Sam Wilson 10 14 Right I really liked that I mean that breaks it down into a very easy-to-understand step-by-step process for people who are out there raising capital It sounds like maybe this was developed for you just because you needed something that was repeatable Marcin Drozdz 10 29 So when I left PE again I started thinking that I could do things my own way And there were various forms that encouraged us to incorporate what I ve now coined as the E A S Y system But I had a property I personally had three properties that I was closing in a month And these were smaller properties I remember my investor in the last week or so decided to pull out And it was like you ever see the movie Jerry Maguire or buddy gets fired in the restaurant and he just doesn t know what to do next That was my Jerry Maguire moment So you know I sweated it out I figured it out But after that I swore and we closed on the properties But after that I swore to myself I would never put myself in a position like that again and at a sheer necessity created this thing Sam Wilson 11 11 Yeah absolutely I love that Tell me some other lessons you know that you would say that you ve incorporated I mean raising nine figures is no small amount of money Is there anything else that comes to top of mind You said Hey here s some other things I ve learned along the way Marcin Drozdz 11 24 Yeah I think the best way to sum it up is dig your well before you get thirsty And I forget where I heard that I didn t coin that I read that in a book somewhere in the author s The origin of that escaped me So for that I apologize But that saying to me it was always resonated true on the fundraising side So many people wait till they have a deal in hand before they start talking to people My whole thing is bring people along for your journey because you don t know if it s going to take someone three days three months or even three years to finally decide to engage with you So if you can share your journey and I mean you do it well other people you know some people attempt to do it well You add value do video walkthroughs I mean just the last property we were buying As we were doing some of the rentals I literally just FaceTimed with some of the investors some of the buddies of mine as guys were working on-site I was just walking through the site with a hard hat on and just like hey so here are the new units Here s this here s this buddy s not available that s fine crank out a two three-minute video And understand it s not very professional because they get the professional newsletters and the quarterly updates and things like this as well But on top of that they feel like they re part of the journey when you share that type of authentic you know here s what s going on with your money in this project So bring people along for the journey And again if you did that well before you re thirsty when you do have an opportunity those people that have responded favorably to past things it s a much easier transition because they re already engaged in your world to some extent Sam Wilson 12 52 Absolutely And that s something taking your advice to heart even I started a year and a half ago like I never had a regular newsletter right But it s been for a year now we ve sent out every single almost a year every single Friday 10 am my newsletter goes out And you know Marcin I haven t closed the deal since September of 2021 But we re constantly talking But now we ve got three deals under contract right And it s just like hang on like it s coming Here s the things we re working on And at times it feels like Gosh what do I talk about I mean really aren t doing a deal right Other than the deals we have you know in operation like we re not doing something actively But yeah keeping that lead warm because it s like Hey here s all the stuff we re actually still doing out here even though we re not presenting deals because there s nothing that made sense for us But then all of a sudden you know out of the blue and now we got three deals all at once And so you know having that prep ahead of time I think is just really absolutely key Talk to us a little bit about maybe your mindset You seem to indicate or at least I hear that there s a mindset Is that a true statement Marcin Drozdz 13 52 It is You know it s interesting because to me when I started in this business I knew that it was going to work I wasn t sure how I just in my mind I was already wired that this is happening this is going to work And that s probably due to the fact that I mean quick story about me I was born in communist Poland and my parents my dad got arrested for selling corn on the black market corn with a C those of you Sam Wilson 14 17 P as in Papa I m like okay Charlie corn Marcin Drozdz 14 21 C as in Charlie In Polish it s called kukurydza So the point is my dad was selling this stuff And during communist times you couldn t run a business So he got arrested they were going to send him to jail He didn t like that too much So he and my mom and I was a couple of months old at the time they ran off to East Germany and eventually migrated to North America Well when I finally got out of Poland it was because my grandpa snuck me out four years later so I didn t see my parents for four years They stuck me out literally drove me across the border you know quote unquote legally in the trunk And we came to North America settled down but my point is when we got here there was no plan B There was no safety net There was no relatives There was no family there was no friends So the language was foreign I mean I spoke Polish and German and now learn English right So I always grew up with no plan B And that forced me to whatever I m doing this is going to work And so mindset is so important for people Because if you don t put yourself in a position where you can speak with some authority on what you re doing if you don t buy into and you don t believe what you re doing you know it s a really difficult thing to sell especially for fundraising If you think about it you re not giving so like when somebody invests with you they re not getting a house they re not getting a car they re not getting anything tangible there that says that they own a piece of this apartment building or warehouse or trailer park or whatever it is And that s it So it s so important to make sure that you have the mindset that you feel like you re worthy you re capable you re competent And that element of self-doubt has to over a period of time leave the mind because I can tell you right now when I raised that first 5 000 I was more terrified when I was downtown New York getting a term sheet for 25 or 50 million like but the process is the same So what change Obviously my knowledge my competence created confidence which is something I say all the time but it s the mindset to know that you re worthy of that And consistency is what s going to give you that If you think that you know if you have feelings like why are people going to invest with me I can t find any deals Do I really know what I m doing What if I screw up Like if you go into conversations with those thoughts then you re already shooting yourself in the foot And that mindset piece is a starting point it is everything It really is Sam Wilson 16 44 That s an incredible story First of all and I love the comment there You said there s no Plan B it s the burning of the ships And it s like Well guys no option This is what you have to do What do you say to someone that you know is struggling with those things or you know maybe you know hasn t done enough deals to really be able to say hey you know what this is how I can confidently you know lead on this What do you do for those people Or how do they develop that Marcin Drozdz 17 13 So Sam look we re all struggling with things We re all in different scenarios where sometimes we feel like we re not equipped or prepared I mean I ll give you an example I was on the phone with a fund manager at in New York right before actually right when COVID hit And he s talking to me I m walking through where we re at where we re going and I m you know I m looking for equity right large checks He says to me he goes Well what s your asset size And I tell him and he goes Okay so look you re a little small For me I go really Like how much He goes well our smallest client is 1 billion And I just laughed I go okay So I actually said to him I go so what you re telling me is I m trying to get from the kids table to the grown-up table and you won t let me yet He just starts laughing right But the point is look whether you re at 100 000 a million 10 million 100 million there s always someone that s going to make you feel like you re at the kids table And my advice is to get that person or those people just a little bit ahead of you or maybe a little bit more ahead of you when you get to know these people you ll see that they re just like you and me we re the same And when you can see that it s attainable You get past those self-doubting components Because yeah if you see guys on Instagram or YouTube and buddy s buying Lamborghinis private jets whatever it is and he s billion dollars whatever it is And you re like dude I m just trying to buy you know a 10 Plex so that I can put my daughter through college there s a disconnect there It s such a huge disconnect that that s not your man I mean those are great people for like inspiration But that s not the next step for you The next step for you is the guy or girl that s already at 40-50 units and trying to get to 100 or something along those lines So find people that are just ahead of you or maybe slightly ahead of you to actually have some real connection to be able to engage in growth because otherwise you know there s nothing more you know okay I want to play in the NFL Great I m gonna go play with Brady Yeah right Come on right like the guys doing you know so I have people call me sometimes and they want to play and I go Look you know it sounds like you want to do algebra but I need you to learn how to count first like you got to work your way up Right So the best action item is to find people like yeah find your inspiration the guy that s out there killing it at a level that you re just like that s godly That s God-like sure But then bring that back to Earth and find that next peg on the ladder that somebody that can help you you know actually more directly I think Sam Wilson 19 37 I love it Marcin thanks for taking the time to come on today I certainly learned a lot I ve loved hearing your story All the things that you ve been involved in you know ideas on how to develop a system for raising capital just you know coming from the institutional side than just going out and doing it the idea that we don t need a plan B We just need a really good plan A and to go execute So I ve certainly enjoyed having you come on today If our listeners want to get in touch with you or learn more about you what is the best way to do that Marcin Drozdz 20 04 Best way to do that is my website marcindrozdz com And then for those of your listeners who want to pick up the E A S Y System or at least get introduced to it because there s a lot more to it than we talked about I ve got a free download there There s a mini-course there on the website It s free to anybody so they can go on my website marcindrozdz com Hopefully you can spell that in the show notes for them And they can download the E A S Y System It s a 15-20 minutes set of video tutorials that will walk them through the specifics of that Sam Wilson 20 31 Yep absolutely Yeah look for marcindrozdz com We will put the spelling exactly of that in the show notes Marcin thank you again for your time Certainly enjoyed it Marcin Drozdz 20 39 Really appreciate it Thanks Sam Sam Wilson 20 41 Hey thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts whatever platform it is you use to listen if you can do that for us that would be a fantastic help to the show It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories so appreciate you listening Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode Click here to visit this podcast episode