3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 106 - Community Building to Accelerate Clarity, Trust, and Results with Jim Pfeifer

August 03, 2022 Derek Clifford Season 2 Episode 106
3 Degrees of Freedom
Ep 106 - Community Building to Accelerate Clarity, Trust, and Results with Jim Pfeifer
Show Notes Transcript

Today, we have a wonderful guest on Elevate Your Equity podcast, Jim Pfeifer. He's one of the founders of Left Field Investors and the host of the Passive Investing from Left Field podcast. On this show, he shared:

• How he left the path from the one-path-fits-all approach of the standard financial services industry to real cash flow.
• Why is community essential for both passive and active investors.
• The essential tools and skills to use when building communities.


More about Jim and his business. Left Field Investors is a group dedicated to educating and assisting like-minded investors negotiate the nuances of the passive investing landscape and world of syndications. Jim is a former financial advisor who became frustrated with the one-path-fits-all approach of the standard financial services industry. Jim now concentrates on investing in real assets that produce cash flow and is committed to sharing his knowledge with others who are interested in learning a different way to grow wealth.

Thanks a bunch Jim Pfeifer for coming on the show!

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5 Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!


If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Introduction:

Welcome to the Elevate Your Equity podcast where we, as married busy professionals leverage real estate investing to unlock the three plus one degrees of freedom, health, location, time and financial.

Derek Clifford:

Today, we've got a fantastic guest on the show Mr. Jim Pfeiffer. Jim is one of the founders of Left Field Investors and the host of the passive investing from Left Field Podcast. Left Field Investors is a group dedicated to educating and assisting like minded investors to negotiate the nuances of passive investing landscape. And the world of syndications. Jim here is a former financial adviser who became frustrated with the one-path-fits-all approach to the standard financial services industry, man do I know that's all too well, Jim, and now concentrates on investing in real assets that produce cash flow, and is committed to sharing his knowledge with others who are interested in learning a different way to grow wealth. Jim, it's an honor to have you on the show. How are you today, sir?

Jim Pfeifer:

I'm great. Thank you very much for having me.

Derek Clifford:

Absolutely. So let's start where we always start, which is at the beginning, can you tell us how you found out about the magic of real estate investing and how it gets you excited to make it your career?

Jim Pfeifer:

Yeah, I was an accidental landlord. That's, you know, in 2008, we outgrew our home, we had a third child, and we needed to get a bigger place. So we built a house. And by the time that house was done and ready to go, the housing market crashed. And we ended up not being able to sell our other home. And so we rented it out. And I was the property manager, I did that for five years, I absolutely hated it, you know, getting a call to fix the toilet or something. I'm not a handyman. I don't know how to do stuff. But so then after about five years, I'm like, I'm done with this, the market had come back, let's sell the house, talk to my realtor. And he said, Well, hey, I know you have that house paid off. How about this, I'll manage that tenant for you. And let's go buy a couple more. And I thought, Oh, well, that's interesting. Okay, let's try that. And so we did that. And that's where the real estate bug hit me, because I turned one dead asset that was not doing anything for me, right, because then you get 0% return on your equity in your home all the time. And I turned that into three cash flowing properties with leverage. And I was just off to the races, I at the same time, I was looking into becoming a financial advisor. And so I was doing a lot of training, learning about money. And the more I learned about money, the more I found out that my previous life, which was all stock market mutual funds, you know, I was a big investor in the stock market. Now, that didn't make sense, these paper assets and real estate where you have a cash flowing asset was where I wanted to be. And so that led me down the path of buying more rentals, being an active investor, you know, you buy one rental, right? You're getting one income from one door, what makes sense? Why don't you go buy a 22 unit and get, you know, 22 times that cash flow. So that's what I did, I bought a 22 unit, an eight unit, a four unit, and I was off to the races in, in real estate.

Derek Clifford:

Let's explore this just a little bit more. Before we move on to the superpower discussion. I wanted to get a little bit more insight from the AHA that you got being in the financial services industry and realizing that that hard asset or these assets are really better investments than investing in paper. When did that? When did that spark hit you?

Jim Pfeifer:

I think it was just as I started getting more and more real estate, I started comparing the two things. And I realized that I was putting more money into real estate than I wasn't the paper assets that I was selling to my clients. And that made me very uncomfortable. Because I was always very proud that I invested in the same things that I put my clients in, you know, and when I wasn't doing that I had to evaluate and think about that. And what I realized was, if you're investing in a paper asset, like a stock or a mutual fund, you are buying a piece of paper, and then you are hoping that it will increase in value. And then later you will sell it to somebody else for more money. Right? You may get a little small dividend along the way. But basically, you're hoping you find somebody else to pay more for it later. And let's say it's apple, let's say Apple has the best year they've ever had. They're making money hand over fist. Well, if the market crashes, 30% Apple's going down too. So you don't have any control. And then I looked at my real estate and I realized, I put money into this into this asset, it cash flows. And if I want to, I can invest more in this asset, whether it's a single family or multifamily and forced the equity forced the value to go up. And it's not as market contingent, especially when you get into commercial stuff. Obviously a single family home is but even if the market drops, real estate market drops, your asset is still cash flowing, and the cash flow doesn't immediately drop rents might drop a little bit, but what I realized was paper assets. It's speculation, right? You are hoping you can find someone else to pay more for something and you're not doing anything to change that asset, where real estate that's investing, I am putting money, I'm buying a real asset, it's providing me with cash flow, I can put more money into it, which will increase my cash flow and increase my appreciation potential. And that's investing. And so once I finally figured out that speculation and investing, there's a place for both of those in your investing portfolio, your strategy, but most people are 95%, speculation 5%, you know, maybe they might be investing. So I flipped that I went all in for the investing. And I do I still do speculation because it's fun. But it's a very small portion of what I do, most of what I do is very boring, not exciting. And it makes me money. And they're real assets produce cash flow, which is what I want to do. And then when I want to have a little bit of fun, I take some money, and I invest in the pre IPO or some other crazy thing, but it's a small portion of my assets. And so when I figured all that out, I realized I can't be a financial advisor anymore. Because I can't put my clients in real estate for a couple of reasons. One, I don't get paid for it. And two, I'm not licensed for it. So, you know, it just didn't make any sense to continue being a financial advisor. And at that time, I also realized that I thought I was a passive investor by investing in apartments and single family homes and having a property manager manage it for me, but I was active, but I thought I was passive. And those don't mix. And I wasn't doing very well as a my assets weren't cash flowing like they were supposed to. And so then I found syndications, and I realized, you know what, I'm gonna hire an asset manager, who will manage the asset, they will manage the property manager, once I send in the money, I just sit there, collect checks and read reports. And that's where I wanted to be. And that's when I made my transition to full time passive investor in real estate syndications.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, excellent. Thank you for sharing your story. So let's go ahead and start shifting. And by the way, it was very powerful and very visceral for me, for you to have to leave your career that you've built most likely many, many years building towards to try to become the advisor, just to leave it behind once you realize that it's something that you don't really fully believe in, given this new alternative of asset investing in real estate. Right. So I think that's a very cool, and I think it's very admirable to leave all that behind.

Jim Pfeifer:

Yeah, it was, to be honest, it was it was kind of a struggle. But it was also kind of easy, because I really enjoy helping people. And especially with finance, I wasn't a financial advisor my whole life, I had a couple other careers. But it's always been teaching, educating and helping others that has been kind of my passion. And although as a financial advisor, I really enjoyed helping people because I knew I could, I knew I could improve their lives financially by doing certain things. I did not like the sales aspect. I did not like having to convince people that they should do this, because it was a little bit unconventional. Some of the things that approaches we had, I like this much better where now, you know, I have this community, and I still am helping people. But I was really ready to be done with financial advising. So when this opportunity came to go full time as a passive investor, it was an easy, it was easier than it otherwise would have been, I think.

Derek Clifford:

Of course, yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, let's go ahead and start shifting focus now. Because I want to start talking about your superpower, which is the power of community. And I think that that's a super important aspect of investing in real estate, whether you're active or whether you're passive. Maybe if you could just take a minute and explain to us what exactly you mean by the power of community, and why it's essential for both active and passive investors?

Jim Pfeifer:

Well, the community is, I think it's easiest to explain on the passive side, and then I'll jump back to the active but for passive investing, right? How do you find a sponsor? Well, I don't know how most people start out, the first thing I did was I went to a conference, I met some sponsors, and I had a self directed 401 K. And I thought, Okay, this money I don't need for a while, I'm going to take some chances with it. So I basically went to the conference, started meeting people and started saying, Hey, can I give you money? That's not the best way to go about it. But that is, that's how I did it first. And then I found podcasts and books. And so I would listen to a podcast and then I contact these the syndicator. That was in the podcast, I'd have a 30 minute, maybe they'd give me an hour conversation with them, then they'd send me a deal. And then I have to make a decision. Do I want to send them a wire for $50,000? And be locked up in this investment with them for five, seven or 10 years? That's really scary and difficult, right? So what community does is it gives you a head start, it's a shortcut, because now instead of just listening to a podcast and saying, Hey, I'm going to invest with the syndicator, I can go to my community and see who they're investing with. So now when I look for a sponsor, I only invest with sponsors that are referred to me by people that I know like and trust, who have already invested with that sponsor. So there I and I still do all the same due diligence, had the same conversations, I do everything else. But this makes a huge difference because it's a big shortcut. So on the passive side, that's, that's just one example of the power of community. And it doesn't mean I have to be in a committee To deal with a bunch of experts who know more than me, right? It could be someone who's new to this. And they just happened on a sponsor who does a great job. They recommend them to me. I screen them. I'm like, oh, yeah, wow, this is great. And I have confirmation that they've already done a deal with somebody that's actually worked. So that's the power now for active. You know, I also started when I was an active investor, all these communities start selfishly, for me, like, I walk out my front door to my neighbor's, Hey, who wants to talk about real estate? You know, they'll talk about the value of their homes. But that's it. Nobody, nobody understands real estate, they certainly don't understand syndications. When I was an active investor, I started a community of active investors. And we'd meet once a month at a restaurant, you know, it grew pretty big. And I did business with a ton of people in that community, they all did business with together. And I was just shocked. I could not believe it. There were actually, you know, millions of dollars being transacted in this community. It was a great we had made friends it was it was just awesome. And so when I decided I wasn't very good at active investing, I was saved by appreciation, right, the cat, they didn't cashflow how they're supposed to. But the market, any idiot can make money the last 10 years, and I did. But then when I switched to passive, I wanted to do the same thing I wanted to community. So I decided I'd start a dinner club, you know, like 12 of us, I wanted to a place we'd go for free. And that's the largest free room I could find in Columbus, Ohio was 12 people. So we had our first meeting was supposed to be March 18 2020. And pandemic stop that we never met, we still haven't all met. But that allowed our group to grow. We got on Zoom, which meant we got a lot of quality speakers who'd come chat with us for an hour. And then our community took off. But the real thing is, I selfishly wanted to talk to other people about passive investing. So I didn't know anybody. And one more thing I will say is the first person that was part of our group are one of the first people. He's now one of the founders of left field investor, Steve Sue, he and I were talking and I cannot tell you this, this is community, your I cannot tell you the sense of relief when he said, Hey, I'm investing in this sponsor, and I said, Oh, wow, me too. Now, here's a smart guy. He's a doctor, you know, he knows what he's doing. And he's invested the same sponsors mean, it's just a huge sense of relief, like, Okay, I'm not in this like, weird scam that I don't know about. I wired money to real people not to not out in the ether somewhere. Because sending a wire is always scary. It still is. But knowing that I met somebody who's doing the same stuff as I was was just a huge sense of relief. And that is the power of community, right? It's just okay, there's other people like me, that's what we say like minded. We don't mean everybody thinks exactly the same thing. But we're all looking to build wealth for our families, and help others in our community. And that's what we found. And that's, that's the power of community to me.

Derek Clifford:

Excellent. So we just talked about why it's essential for passive and active investors. Can you tell us a little bit about how you were able to build this community online? Because I mean, I can only imagine in my head, you try to go to this restaurant, and then everything shuts down and COVID Literally, I think, the 20th, where you mentioned, of March, I think that was the actual day that the federal government or at least when I was living in California, that's when we shut down the state. And so that was a very interesting day for me. But can you talk a little bit about how you decided to build this platform online? Basically, how did it start? And how did it grow to what you guys have now?

Jim Pfeifer:

Yeah, well, I think it's amusing. You think I made a decision? I certainly did not. And, you know, the, the unofficial model that we probably should stop telling people about so we have five founders of our left field investors. And our unofficial motto is we're just five guys trying to figure stuff out. That's the truth. What I did was I said, Look, we can't meet because in Ohio, I think we shut down on the 16th or 17th. And our meeting was supposed to be the 18th. So like we can't meet, let's just do a zoom call. And we'll just chat. And so I think the first one was maybe 10, or 12 of us just having a conversation. And then I don't even remember how it happened. But we realized, look, we can do this once a month. But we can also invite people from anywhere, right? We wanted to keep it small, because our thought was a mastermind. And again, selfishly, we're like, let's keep it small, let's keep it tight. But there was a few other people, you know, ex financial advising colleagues that were interested and lived out of state. And so now they could come. And then we just talked to a few different sponsors, and was like, Hey, do you want to come chat with 15 people on a Zoom meeting, and you know, pandemic, nobody was doing anything. Anyway, they were happy to do that. And so we got some pretty high profile guests. And it just kind of grew. And then so we'd have these zoom meetings. And at the end, I'd say thank you, everybody, see you later. And there were like five or six people that would would not get off the call. And they would just wait. And I didn't want to end it while they were. So those people ended up we end, the meeting would go on for 30 minutes an hour longer, because people just wanted to talk about passive investing. And so it slowly grew. And then we realized that this group could be the kind of the core of our membership group. So we have a free part and a paid part and they were the people that are really into it. We started talking more to them and then we started thinking, Okay, let's develop some tools because we're like, Well, how do you analyze the deal. I don't know, well, let's read some books we did. And then we put together an Excel tool for that, like, well, let's share this with our community. And then we started thinking, well, we need a brand, right? Because we are called the Columbus passive investing group, which is see pig, not the greatest name. So we talked about a name with a few of the people that who became the founders. And, you know, my, all of my former financial advising colleagues always told me, I was in left field for doing this crazy alternative investing. So we're like, okay, we're left field investors. And then, you know, it just happened, we decided, hey, we need a website, because we have a brand. And now we have some tools, we want to put them on the website. And so we built the tools, we built the website, and it just kind of kept rolling. And more and more people got interested by hearing from friends or referrals, or however, and so we slowly kind of said, Okay, well, we'll allow more and more people in, and then the community just grew. And then I think it really took off when I was a guest on somebody else's podcast. And we I started getting emails and phone calls. And like, what, why are people calling me I don't know anything. And then it just, it just grew from there. And it really took off. And as you mentioned, you know, now we have our own podcast, and we have a membership group and a free group and a full website. And, and it's really grown into, into in a really a great community. Of course, I'm biased. What I always say is, I think our community is great. But if you're passive investing in real estate is a team sport. And you should have the support of a community, it does not have to be our community. It should be a community where their culture, that community fits your personality. And you can be in more than one, I'm in three. And I recommend to all of our all the people that join our group, hey, check us out. If you'd like us, come on in. If you go to another community, that's fine, too. But you need a community, a group, a network to help you navigate all of this.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, thank you. For all that Jim's is great advice for people that are both active and passive. Because I can see here, that it kind of spills over into both those groups very, very easily. It's just about knowledge set, you know, sharing experiences, and just and tapping into the wisdom of the collective right, rather than just trying to do everything yourself, because that's so outdated nowadays. Yeah, even with all the information being out there, tapping into the best resources by leveraging other people's experience, who have maybe asked the same question that you have and figured out the answer. You might as well do that. Right.

Jim Pfeifer:

Yes, just real quick. I wanted to say that the thing that shocks me continues to shock me about real estate in general and passive investing, for sure is the people want to collaborate and they want to help you. And it's not always that they're looking to make money off of you. Sometimes they are, and that's okay. Sometimes they're just helping and even in the active groups. People weren't competitors. They were collaborators. Hey, what are you doing on this property? It's the same with two syndicators. They can be in the same room, and they don't have to be like fighting for customers. And so it's really a collaborative, industry or group. And that's the thing I really like. It's not people fighting against each other as people fighting with each other to build everybody's wealth.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, very well said there. Let's shift a little bit here. I want to ask you, what can you tell people who were interested in building a community themselves? You know, where would they start? And why would they consider doing something like this?

Jim Pfeifer:

That's a great question. I think it almost has to start out a little bit selfishly, where you're trying to gain knowledge for yourself, right? Or you're trying to share and you're trying to share knowledge, I knew I didn't know everything, for sure. I still don't. But I also wanted to share what I did know with others. And what happened was, the more I shared, the more I get back, and people say that all the time. And it sounds ridiculous, but it is absolutely true. So if you wanted to start a community, first, you have to have interest or passion about that topic. If it's not important to you, you're not going to be successful. But if it's something you're really excited about and into, you can start a community, right. Like when I was doing active investing, I was really into it. So I started a community, but I didn't start a community of financial advisors, right, because I liked it a little bit. But it was also not really my favorite thing. So why, you know, that wouldn't have been successful. So the first thing I think, is you really have to be passionate about what you're doing. And then as far as how do you start it? And how do you find people to join is, if you're talking and you're passionate about something people can tell. So you have to be don't be quiet about it. And don't be obnoxious. Don't go on all the social media and do capital letters, hey, I'm starting a community. I'm a genius. Come join me. But, you know, you can quietly or loudly depending on your personality, let people know, hey, you know, this is what I'm into. This is what I'm doing. If you have the passion, people will be attracted to that. And it will just slowly grow and you don't need to grow it quickly. Right. I mean, we went through the first year, and we didn't I think we had 40 members the first year and we thought that was awesome. You know, and over the following year, we had, you know, we went almost 20 times that so it's just you have to pay Shouldn't don't force it, and just let your passion show in find some other people too, that can help you. Right. So we have five founders, I'm the only one that's full time, the other four had a W two job. So they participate, they help a ton, but they don't do the day to day. But without them, this will not be successful, I could not have done this on my own. So also don't think that you have to be everything to the community, you know, I am right now the face of the community. And we're going to get the rest of the founders out and share that as well. But you know, you also have, we have people working in the background, they're doing a fantastic job, and they don't need to be out front. So it's okay to have, you know, a bus driver. And then and then some others that aren't necessarily out out in front. So I think, find your passion and decide to go forward and then find some people that will join you along the way. And if it's something that's of interest to enough people, it'll just, it'll just grow and you'll you'll find your people. Right.

Derek Clifford:

Excellent, very cool. Good advice, I think I'm going to be taking that to my, for my own practice, and for my own business, as well. So thank you for that. What platform or tools do you recommend that people use to build their communities?

Jim Pfeifer:

That's been a struggle, right? I mean, because if you're starting a community like ours, how we started, you have no money, right? We went out of pocket for all of this, we paid for our own website. So, you know, as we were talking before the podcast, you know, I used Upwork, and VAs and bas are great, but we did everything as cheaply as we could. And you could tell, right, but people were okay with that, because we were authentic. And we're like, Hey, we're paying for this out of our pocket, you know, so it's not going to be the greatest at first. But you know, slowly as the as the community grew, we got more members, we started figuring out how to charge people and, and then we could improve. And so our website started out as me kind of just doing it all by myself and trying to figure it out. Not very good. Then I went to the cheapest VA, I could find much better, but still not very good. Until today. Now we're just in the middle of another website update, because we went with a very professional firm, who can do like real stuff, and not that the VAs can't, some of them are awesome, but it's really hard to find those that that are really quality. And, and so again, I used my network in my community, and I knew somebody else who had a business and a website was pretty awesome. And I asked them, and they said, Oh, hey, here's this company. So again, I shortcut that you that's the power of community, you can shortcut that for anything for an accountant for financial advisor for an attorney for a website builder, right. And so that's what we did. So as far as the platform, there are some really nice community based websites. But by the time we got our own website, we were kind of down a path. And that's where we landed. So I'm not sure if that completely answers your question. But I think you just have to be willing to do it, and take steps and realize, hey, the first launch of whatever platform, however, you're going to present yourself to the world, it's probably going to be pretty crappy day one. And it'll be much better every day after and you can't wait for perfection, you have to just take the leap, put it out there and improve as you go. And if you're authentic, and you're talking to your community and sharing with them, they will understand because they are getting value in other ways. They're not looking for the best ever website, right? They're looking for you to be authentic and have information you can share with them. And then as you grow your your platform can grow with you.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, I love that. That's great advice. And I think that when a lot of people starting out, they get discouraged because they're thinking about all the things that they need to do to organize or get prepared and just present this perfect facade going forward. And maybe that's just me talking from, you know, a perfectionist point of view, because I tend to have that type of thing. And I want to be organized and prepared and you know, polished. But you know, I've been finding recently that most people don't really care about that, as a matter of fact, they want to see the real you. They don't want to see you on a facade. They want to see who you actually are. And so I think that's really, really great advice there. Now, I wanted to shift here really quick about execution. How do you foster community communication and collaboration, especially in the beginning, when you're trying to get the engagement up, right? Or did you ever have that problem by just engaging with the right people in the community and letting those people in? Can you talk a little bit about that?

Jim Pfeifer:

Yeah, it was a struggle at first, right? Because we were just doing zoom meetings once a month, and that's the only contact you had, and then maybe I'd send out an email, but it was really, you know, could only send 100 emails or something at Gmail until they don't let you anymore. And so then you have to buy services, right? You have to buy a newsletter service or whatever. Initially, it was just a monthly Zoom meeting, basically. And that was really the only communication and then we started, you know, with the website, we started growing and we got a forum on there for the paid members. Also on our meetings, we decided we're going to do the Zoom breakout rooms and do a little networking after each meeting. So that's kind of fostering the collaboration and communication and then that kept growing in the Your Forum has been awesome, like people are, you're talking about asset classes, investment strategies, all kinds of great stuff. And so people are starting to get to know each other. But 2022, we decided that would be the year of networking, because the way our community works is, most people, not most, a lot of the people, when they sign up, they schedule a call with me. And I talk to just about the group and about investments, whatever. And I'm happy to do that. So I get to talk to almost everybody. So everybody knows me, because I'm always talking at the meetings. But what I wanted was everybody else to know everybody. So we did these two new things this year to increase well three actually increase networking one, instead of zoom for the networking. Afterwards, you go to this app called wonder me. And you can put all these little rooms and you can move your little icon around and bounce from room to room so you can talk to different people. It's awesome. So we do that. The other thing we do is we use this app called intros, which basically people sign up in our communities, just our community. And every Monday you get an email saying, Do you want to participate? Yes or No? If you say no, you're done. You say yes, they match you up with one other person in our community. And they set up a time to chat and you just have a one on one networking session conversation, which is fantastic. And then the other thing we did that we do for everybody, the other thing is just for the members of the infield, we call it our membership group. We do what we call mound visits. It's baseball themed. We don't like baseball, but we picked left field. So now everything's baseball related, called mound visits where one of the other four founders, not me, because I talked to everybody, one of the other four founders hosts a meeting on clubhouse, which is an audio app for an hour, we have one a week with a different founder. And it's usually no agenda, maybe one agenda item, and we have four to 20 people participate, and they just talk investing. The way I know this is working is this collaboration that I see is we have our monthly meetings, the fourth Monday of every month, the last one I had, I started the zoom, and then I had to go do something to get ready. But I had the headphones on. So I was hearing the people talking as the end I screen turned off my camera and muted it and all the people that were joining like, Oh, hey, Steve, Hey, Paul, how you doing? Like they were they were greeting each other, like there were long lost friends. And so when I came back on, I was like, how do you guys know each other, like, oh, we had some intros calls. And you know, we were out in mound visit together. And, and so now our community is made up of people that know each other, and then also on the forum right there on the forum. So now, there's three or four or five ways that everybody gets to know each other in our community. And man, that just changes everything. Because when people get to know each other, they really start sharing information in different ways. And, you know, I always thought when first way back when I started my career in business, you know, we had to take people out to lunch and get to know him and then do business with him. And I always thought, That's stupid, it's a waste of money. Why don't we need to get to know him, let's just do the business. And as I've grown and learned, getting to know someone really helps with getting down to business, it helps with trust and understanding. And so this networking because we're all now that we're we can go out in the world again and be together, our community still can't do that. Because we're in all 50 states and even countries. You know, there's people in China who have breakfast when we're having our dinner during the meeting. So that I think I've rambled a lot about collaboration, but it's just it's amazing how things change when people really get to know each other inside of your community.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, that's great. This is this is good insight. And for those people who are looking to build communities, all this is just complete gold, right? Because this is the end product or something that you want to get. But I love the fact that we talked about what would drive you through it, which is doing it from a passionate place and just allowing that attraction to just come in. Right. So I think that's a beautiful thing. And we're going full cycle here. Just a couple of things to wrap up. Before we head into the wraparound. I have two questions left for you. The first one is can you tell us a story about maybe something that your community unlocked for either you or one of its members? That would not have been possible otherwise?

Jim Pfeifer:

Yeah, I think again, I sound like a broken record. But I think it's really how we find sponsors. And now that we have this community that collaborates and can learn from each other, we are not only getting each other into better deals better sponsors, and everyone's more comfortable. We are also collaborating about sponsors that aren't performing or aren't doing what they should do or aren't doing what they used to do. So we're slowly the whole group, the whole community is moving from these maybe investments that weren't as good or syndicators that weren't doing what they should do to people that are doing all the stuff that fits what we think is the optimal way to operate. So that's not a specific example. But it really is. It's amazing. We've built this community and now we have a financial advisor that people can go to because he's trusted in our community. We have an accountant, a CPA, that everyone says, Hey, go talk to this guy because not only does he do a great job on your taxes, he's cheaper than everybody else because he lives in Tulum. Miss Ohio, right? Or we have these partners on for sponsors that are the ones that we don't say, Who's your favorite sponsor? Right? We say Who have you invested with multiple times? Because that is your favorite sponsor. So that's the thing we're looking at. And so we're trying to figure out within our community, who's the favorite sponsor of the community? Well, it's wherever everyone's putting their money. So we try to track that anonymously, obviously. So I don't think I answered your question to a specific instance. But it's just the whole community working together. It's like a hive of bees, you know, they they get the job done, because they're all doing working in the same direction.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me. And thank you very much for the reiteration I want the listeners to fully understand that. It's not just about a specific single topic, you have to remember these are individuals that have their own experiences. I've been in masterminds before or communities gym, where even the question of where should I go on vacation? I want to surprise my wife. And this is a whole bunch of like syndicators, right that are on this thing. And you as you should see the like, the incredible number of like ideas and support and all these incredible things that can come up just because someone has answered that question before. Right? I've asked the question answered it. So that power of community to shortcut any question that you could possibly ask is right, as all right there, of course, it's with the expectation that you have to give back to because you do need to be a part of the community can't just take you should also be giving. And generally, as a general rule, being a human being, the more you give, the more you're going to get. That's just the overall rule that I've found.

Jim Pfeifer:

So I think that's true. And you know, you don't even know that you're giving, like I have people all the time, who will call me or email me and say, Hey, I'd love to be part of your community. But I'm new, and I don't have anything to give. And so I can't do it. And I just say, Please join, ask questions. I know you'll think it's a stupid question, right? But you're going to ask a question that will get answered. And someone who's been in this for 10 years and is invested in 100 syndications is gonna go, oh, my gosh, I never thought of that. You're giving even if you don't know you are. And I think that that's kind of the mindset, you have to think going into this I'm going to give if and when I'm able, but even when I don't think I can be giving people are gonna learn something from me.

Derek Clifford:

The other thing too Jim on this is that there's probably someone else out there thinking the same thing as you. That's like, I don't want to ask this question, because I'm gonna sound stupid or whatever, right? But there's never any. There's never stupid questions, right?

Jim Pfeifer:

You're absolutely right. People will email me a question, hey, I wanted to ask this, but I was too embarrassed to put it on the forum. And I'll answer it, and then say, please put this on the forum. This was such a good question. And they will. And they'll be shocked by the people that oh, that's an awesome question. Let's figure this out together. And it's just, it's a great way to have the community help each other.

Derek Clifford:

Excellent. All right. Last question I have for you, Jim, before we head into the Rapid Round, is, if you had to do this all over again, what would you do differently listening to yourself speak?

Jim Pfeifer:

Oh, man, I honestly, I don't think I would do anything differently. Because we didn't do this on purpose, create this community, it was intentional to start something small, but to be where we are now to have a website, a podcast, a brand, all that was not intentional. And so I feel like if I changed anything, and thought ahead of time, hey, this is going to be big, let's grow this, this. And this way, I don't think it would have been as authentic or as interesting to people, because I would have had motivations of, we gotta get this go and go and go. And so we can make money off of it, we still haven't totally figured out how to make money off of our community, or not off of our community, but as a part of the community, and we need to because you can't sustain it without some income. And we have some and we're working on that. But I think if I would change anything, I think it might set us down a different path. And I really liked the path that we're on. We tried to just be transparent, and hey, we don't know everything. We've made mistakes. And guess what, we're going to make some more mistakes tomorrow. But let's learn from them and move on. So I know 100%, there are a lot of things that I could have done differently and probably should have done differently. But at this point, if I changed them, I would be fearful that we wouldn't end up in the same place. And I'm really satisfied with where our communities at.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, I love that emphasis on authenticity, because that's something that very much goes overlooked because people get caught up in the comparison trap. And sometimes that's where all of that starts to fall apart. So I appreciate you saying that.

Jim Pfeifer:

Well, thank you. But if you're gonna be in a community, I think the authenticity is has to be if you're going to especially if you're going to start one, you have to be willing to show your weaknesses and the things that you don't know. Because if people think that you know everything, they're not going to want to be part of your community. And you can see that with some of these communities who have different style of leaders. They get a different style of participant and I think think that that sometimes holds people back because they're afraid to show their own lack of knowledge or vulnerability, because whoever's running, the show doesn't show theirs. And then it just becomes a group that isn't as flexible.

Derek Clifford:

Very well said, Man, that's good stuff. That just means getting out there and being authentic with yourself and engaging with the community that you have passionate, I think it just comes down to that passion, and wanting to spread it right. And I think that that common denominator is really, really important. I'm going to be making sure to expand on that when my wife and I kind of take this away, because that's a huge, huge piece of it. So thank you very much. All right, let's head into the Rapid Round is the same questions that we asked every one of our guests, and we ask that these answers get answered in repetitive and very rapid fashion. So we'll ask that it gets answered about 32nd timeframe if possible. Okay. Okay. Number one, what book has had the biggest impact on you? And why? And we ask, could it not be Rich Dad or the Bible?

Jim Pfeifer:

That's easy. The Hands-Off Investor by Brian Burke. Usually when I read a book, I get to chapter two, and I can't make it through I took 17 pages of notes and it's dog eared, read it a few times. It's great for anybody, no matter what your experience. It's a fantastic.

Derek Clifford:

Great, great book, we'll be putting that down for sure. Number two, if people wanted to emulate your success, what do you think is the first actionable thing that they could do to follow in your footsteps?

Jim Pfeifer:

I think you have to find something you're passionate about. You can't do something like run a community for two years with no compensation if you're not passionate about right and money's not everything. But you got to find something that you're into that you're excited about and you're passionate about. Otherwise, nothing else is gonna follow.

Derek Clifford:

I love it. Number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three months that's helped you save time and or effort?

Jim Pfeifer:

Well, I met this guy who I saw him in the seminar, and he told me how to better use Gmail. And that guy is you. So yeah, that's it, man. The seminar you gave on how to use Gmail, I have used maybe 10% of what you taught me. And it saved me probably hours. I can't even count the hours. It saved me. So thank you for that. That's that is it? For sure.

Derek Clifford:

Well, thank you, sir, for calling me out there. I really appreciate that. That's awesome. Number four, if the people you know, had to describe you with one word, what do you think that word would be?

Jim Pfeifer:

Oh, my goodness. I don't know. I think in this community, people would call me passionate. And maybe they wouldn't. And other things too, because I do get kind of fired up about certain things. So I guess my passion sometimes shines through.

Derek Clifford:

Excellent. And number five last question that we have. What small thing do most people not know about you?

Jim Pfeifer:

Ooh, small thing. I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. So that that might be it. That's kind of the other small thing maybe was I was in the Ohio State University marching band and dot of the eye, so maybe that's, the people in Ohio know that but outside of how they might not.

Derek Clifford:

That's super cool. I love that. Well, Jim, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been incredible to talk about building communities and you know what you have to be internally to be ready to build something like this and why and how important it is. This has just been gold. So thank you so much for coming on the show.

Jim Pfeifer:

Great. Well, thank you for having me. This has been awesome. You know, I do a lot of podcasts. And this is one of my favorites. So thank you very much for having me.

Derek Clifford:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And before we go, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit more about your community, how they can find you and everything that is going on in your world and maybe any investments or anything that you have coming up?

Jim Pfeifer:

Perfect! If you want to learn about our community, go to www.leftfieldinvestors.com, click Subscribe in the top right if you want to get our newsletter, there's also a free masterclass up at the top right, you can view if you want to connect with me, you can send me an email Jim@leftfieldinvestors.com or there's also like a Contact Us or a set up a call button on the website. And that'll that'll come to me as well. I love talking to new people. And so I'd be happy to chat with anybody. But that's the best way to find us. And we don't really have deals, we're just a network that helps people educate and provide a network for people that are interested in real estate syndication. So if that's of interest to you, come join us and see what we're about. And if our community isn't a fit for you, please find one because this is a team sport and community helps so much I can't overstate that.

Derek Clifford:

It's so true here. And you know, in the final words here, I do have to say that without having help from mastermind members, like fellow peers, and also mentors that provided mastermind groups, there would be no way that I could achieve what I've achieved in the last two years. Right.

Jim Pfeifer:

Absolutely.

Derek Clifford:

And I think the community building is so important. And it's really important for people to get that because once your network grows, so will your net worth it's just a matter of time and finding that right community is key. So Jim, thank you so much for being on the podcast. This is a lot of fun. And thank you for your time today.

Jim Pfeifer:

Thank you. I really enjoyed it.

Derek Clifford:

Me too. And for you listeners, we hope that you enjoyed this also. And if you like what you heard, or if you'd like what you watched because we're also on YouTube, please like subscribe and comment and get the name out there. Start telling your friends about the share the show with other people and start acting on it. Jim has got some great pearls of wisdom that we're going to be discussing in the next podcast episode that we're going to rehash again from a different perspective. So we're excited about that. But please like, subscribe, engage with us so that we can appease the algorithm gods and get exposure to more and more people so we can have even better guests and great guests just like Jim on the show. So this is Derek, I'm signing off. Take care, guys.