Are you grinding every day, still trying to grow your business, and not getting anywhere? If this applies to you, then Ivan Barratt is here this week to help you get over that massive hill. 👉👉Learn About Our New Waymaker Fund - https://www.vonfinch.com/waymakerfund Growing a business is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. That’s why it’s important that you know how to do it effectively, efficiently and know what mistakes to avoid. It’s easy for us to be too precious and resist passing off big responsibilities to other people or just wanting to do the work ourselves because it’s “quicker and easier”. By doing this though, you’ll never grow into what you could be, or even worse, could’ve been. This week my guest, Ivan Barratt, has successfully built a big real estate business from scratch… so what better person to take our advice from, right! Ivan gives us his advice on the best ways to grow a business, how to hire effectively and how not to get stuck in the mud. Ivan Barratt is a multifamily unit owner and syndicator who specializes in FHA and Agency-financed projects. Since 2015, Ivan Barratt has raised nearly $60 million in equity, acquired over 2,500 units and grown Barratt Asset Management (BAM) to a best-in-class; vertically integrated, asset and property management firm. Today, Ivan focuses his time on equity finance, acquisitions and company strategy. Currently, his companies manage well over $250 million in assets, comprising nearly 3,500 units. Hit the subscribe button to join our community and let us know in the comments below: How did you grow your business?
Are you grinding every day, still trying to grow your business, and not getting anywhere? If this applies to you, then Ivan Barratt is here this week to help you get over that massive hill.
👉👉Learn About Our New Waymaker Fund - https://www.vonfinch.com/waymakerfund
Growing a business is one of the hardest things you’ll ever do. That’s why it’s important that you know how to do it effectively, efficiently and know what mistakes to avoid. It’s easy for us to be too precious and resist passing off big responsibilities to other people or just wanting to do the work ourselves because it’s “quicker and easier”. By doing this though, you’ll never grow into what you could be, or even worse, could’ve been. This week my guest, Ivan Barratt, has successfully built a big real estate business from scratch… so what better person to take our advice from, right! Ivan gives us his advice on the best ways to grow a business, how to hire effectively and how not to get stuck in the mud.
Ivan Barratt is a multifamily unit owner and syndicator who specializes in FHA and Agency-financed projects. Since 2015, Ivan Barratt has raised nearly $60 million in equity, acquired over 2,500 units and grown Barratt Asset Management (BAM) to a best-in-class; vertically integrated, asset and property management firm. Today, Ivan focuses his time on equity finance, acquisitions and company strategy. Currently, his companies manage well over $250 million in assets, comprising nearly 3,500 units.
Hit the subscribe button to join our community and let us know in the comments below: How did you grow your business?
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. You have to let people make mistakes, it’s the only way to grow.
2. Don’t always take the proverbial ball and run with it… let others have responsibility.
3. Growing a business is a trial and error process and TAKES TIME.
4. People and employees will be the most challenging part of growing your business.
5. You have to let go of control in order to grow.
6. Have a plan and make sure you’re working at your best everyday.
7. Don’t just give up.
8. Personality tests can help you make great hires.
9. You WILL hire someone who doesn’t fit. Move on.
LINKS
https://www.facebook.com/barrattassetmanagement/
https://www.instagram.com/ivanbarratt/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivanbarratt
Steven: [00:00:01] We all know the adage, consistency is core to success and today's guest is a perfect example of what consistent action will end up leading to. We're going to be diving into exactly some of the mindset, some of the strategy and some of the tips that ended up leading him to developing relationships, to raise over $100 million in equity and acquire over 4000 units. You're not going to want to miss this episode. Let's get to it.
INTRO: [00:00:29] This is The Investor Mindset Podcasts and I'm Steven Pesavento. For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with understanding how we can think better, how we can be better, and how we can do better. And each episode we explore lessons on motivation and mindset from the most successful real estate investors and entrepreneurs in the nation. If you're someone who's interested in investing in institutional quality multifamily opportunities then I highly encourage you to listen up. We're very excited to announce that we've partnered with one of the top tier institutional operators in the country who has over a million units under management, over $1 billion of assets under management and this team is coming together with a specific purpose to buy units across nine different cities, within the Sunbelt region from Charlotte to Denver, and from Dallas to Nashville, and multiple cities in between. They have a proprietary business plan to be able to go purchase these high quality B class assets, reposition them, and roll them up over the hold period to actually turning this into the first faith-driven read in history, which means they are actually going to exit this by selling this as a read. And it's an incredible opportunity to not only make a phenomenal income, but to be able to make an impact by driving real change within communities by being able to help build stronger apartment communities. One of the biggest problems that we're seeing in our country today is an epidemic of loneliness, over 75% of men and women are feeling lonely, often are always in their life right now and over 54% of people in apartment complexes don't have any friends that are within their complex. But the group that is a part of this organization is a specialist in building real quality communities and ends up having those numbers go from 54% not having any friends within the community to 75% of people having friends within their community and ends up leading to significantly better business outcomes, as well as better communities and better lives for the residents. So if this sounds like something that you're interested in investing in and you're an accredited investor, I encourage you to learn more by going over to Vonfinch.com/way maker. And you can find out a lot more and you can have an opportunity to request access to this opportunity. And I look forward to being able to serve you and continue to serve all the people we're gonna make an impact on through this investment.
Steven: [00:03:10] Alright guys, welcome back to the Investor Mindset Podcast. I'm Steven Pesavento, your host and today I'm very excited, I got Ivan Barrett in the studio. How you doing today Ivan?
Ivan: [00:03:19] Steven, I'm just excited to be here man, I've been looking forward to this on my calendar now for a little while.
Steven: [00:03:24] Yeah, I'm looking forward to it as well. And for you guys who don't know, Ivan is a multifamily owner, manager, syndicator, who specializes in large apartment communities in the Midwest. And since 2015, him and his firm have raised over $100 million in equity, have acquired over 4000 units and really have been on an incredible growth streak. And so for being somebody who started out working in the traditional smaller multifamily space and has been able to grow and really scale into something much larger. I'd love to just start out by diving in, as you were kind of up and coming and you're figuring out the steps and processes to be able to become the operator you are. What was that point that you remember where it clicked, where that moment that you realize, like, Okay, this is the direction and I feel like I'm heading in? I'm sure there were challenges along the way but I'd love to know what that moment was.
Ivan: [00:04:19] Yeah, that's a great question. Again, thanks for having me, Steven. It's good to be here. You actually got me thinking, it really didn't feel like everything started clicking until about a year ago. We've really hit another level of vibration as far as what we execute and what the company is able to achieve. And a lot of the credit these days goes to the team. I'm lucky I grew up with entrepreneurial parents, a lot of early exposure to real estate. I had an uncle that owned some apartments, another uncle that owned a commercial. My dad had some rental properties but never really graduated pass duplex. Maybe he had 10 at his peak. He was in the S quadrant as "Rich Dad" would call it right and I always wanted to get these big deals. And it finally clicked really in 2007, and eight, somewhere around there in the crash and I was seeing my own real estate landscape change. And I'm wanting to start a business. And I finally checked my ego at the door and said, something my dad always said to me "was the journey of 10,000 miles starts with one step" . And I would blow that off as a kid and kind of roll my eyes and then one day it clicked on me, you can replace miles with units, "the journey to 10,000 units, begins with the next deal". And I just decided to focus more on, how do I get that next duplex? How do we get that next income property, however small it is, as long as it's more than one unit and it slowly but steadily compounds from there. And that's a term I go back to a lot is that slow compounding, but in a daily ritualistic way, that over a period of time produces a lot of great results. And I try to apply that as much as I can.
Steven: [00:06:13] Yeah, it's such a big concept and people forget about the importance of compounding, and really how something grows, even when it's so small. And when you look at something in the smallest segment, one compounding to two, two to four, in the very smallest, even as small as a human hair, it doesn't seem like much, you don't really feel like you're making progress. But all of a sudden, after 19 times of compounding, you go on to 20 and now you're at a million. And so it's that daily practice that ends up really making a difference. So for you, in your business, obviously--I just want to point out to the listeners, this is somebody who has 4000 units raised over 100 million in equity, is running an extremely well oiled machine and he doesn't feel like it clicked until just now. And so for all of you guys who are kind of wondering when am I going to get there, it's a journey, and that goalposts continue to get moved. So for you, what was it that clicked? What was it that made you feel like oh, yeah, now we're really cooking with gas?
Ivan: [00:07:12] Oh, man, it's a lot more fun these days. We've been through a lot together as a team and as we've grown, we certainly hit this inflection point a couple years ago. Really, right after we hit a wall, which I saw our executive team and my partner just simply trying to work harder. And we figured out ways to work, work smarter and grow our leaders, because just working harder at some point becomes unsustainable, Steven. In getting it, it's absolutely necessary, you have to have that wake up and grind mentality. Well, certainly well, another thing that comes to mind is what got you here, won't get you there. And so we got to this point where we needed to find new tools, new methodologies, new ways of thinking about things to keep growing. Read a book called Traction, immediately deployed EOS, very, very popular in the entrepreneur world that helped get our leadership team developed and further started developing leaders under them. And at that point, it started to get more fun and I could focus a lot more on strategy, key hires and getting more people.
Steven: [00:08:29] So you really were able to build the business into actually operating like a business, actually being at the point where you could start to have processes and systems in place that would free you up to make sure that you're actually moving forward and people are not just grinding. What advice would you have to people who are maybe in that point, because in real estate when you're a young operator, young, inexperienced, not in age, but when you're kind of coming up, you're really taught, you're really bred to believe that it's all about that hustle, it's all about that grind, it's about working 120 hours a week, and sometimes that is the answer. But what point is that no longer the answer, and how does somebody know when they're at the point where they can really start to put those systems into place?
Ivan: [00:09:14] I would say yesterday is the best time to do it and today would be the second best time. It's kind of like buying real estate, if I had a time machine, I would have gotten a virtual assistant or some sort of admin much sooner, and would have handed off more of those administrative duties to somebody else. It's different for everyone but it goes back to that saying again, what got you here won't get you there. Right. It's that insanity quote from doing the same thing over and over again expecting something to change. As an entrepreneur I would highly recommend looking inward a lot and in trying to discover which is not easy, what my blind spots are as an entrepreneur, where I am weak. Tim Ferriss talks about focusing on your strengths and in all noting your weaknesses. And to a great extent, it sounds pretty simple, it's not easy to pull off but the more you can work on that and slowly compound that, then your returns become exponential, to where today the management of the the companies, the properties, the decisions that are being made at most levels don't run through me, they run through capable leaders who are accountable to their decisions and have autonomy in their departments in their respective lanes within the operating companies and within the the properties themselves. And that's how I've been able to scale. And that doesn't happen overnight, it's a lot of trial and error. One of the things I really want to drive home is, I made the decision myself or came to the realization and said, "okay, figuring out people is going to make real estate and property look easy, it's going to be the hardest, freaking thing I've ever done but that's the only way forward". And so moving forward with that realization, getting hit in the mouth, hiring crappy people, firing people, going through people trying to find golden nuggets out there of A-players, it's hard, man, it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of attention. But the fruit on the other side, the pot of gold on the other side of that Rainbow is so worth it.
Steven: [00:11:28] Yeah, it's well worth it because once you have a system in place, then you have a real business. When I was operating in the single family space, I didn't go look at individual properties, I lived in Colorado, and we were flipping in Raleigh in Minnesota, like I had to have that team. So it was by a necessity and without that there's no way we would have been able to flip 200 houses in three years, because it just wasn't physically possible. But there's a lot of lessons you learn once you start executing, and you start hiring people and you're following traction, and you've got your clear vision and your rocks and your goals and you're putting all these pieces into place. What has been the biggest challenge that you've experienced as you've been putting those systems and processes in place? Just to kind of be vulnerable and share a little bit so other listeners can kind of understand what goes into that process.
Ivan: [00:12:18] Externally the biggest challenge is people, no question. The other side of that coin, though, maybe even to a larger extent is myself transforming from a lone wolf to a small business, right to a leader, CEO. That is a hard process in itself and it takes a lot of uncovering blind spots, it takes a lot of honesty with yourself, it takes evolution, there's a lot of times you get hit in the mouth, you fall on your face, you make mistakes, and you get up and you try again. And I can't stress it enough, as long as you keep getting up to figure it out, that would be my one A and one B for my greatest challenges.
Steven: [00:13:04] Yeah, because sometimes when you're a leader, and you're driven and you want things to happen, you're going out there, you're making them happen, you're creating this opportunity and it's hard to let go of that. But in order to grow, you've got to let go of that control by enabling other successful smart people. But it can be scary because sometimes you let people run with the ball who are not capable of moving it down the path and you know, I could have done this so much faster myself, I should just take it back.
Ivan: [00:13:33] Constant challenge, constant challenge.
Steven: [00:13:36] How do you overcome that by not just taking the ball back and running with it and taking--scoring the touchdown, as they say, and letting that team make those mistakes to grow so they can be their own people.
Ivan: [00:13:48] Good news is it's not rocket science, it's simple. It's just not easy. One nugget that I would love to hopefully a couple of entrepreneurs listening to this pick up is learning to let little bad things happen, learning to let people fall on their face, make mistakes it can cost you money. But realizing that is part of the tuition and in people have to grow otherwise, you'll never be able to hand off the ball. You'll never be able to scale. And it's really hard as an entrepreneur doing everything yourself better, faster, stronger, right? Because you got to slow down and take the time to train other people and show them things and let them fall on their face. Let them cost you some money, let these little bad things happen. The good news is all it takes is practice, momentum and slow compounding to get better at it.
Steven: [00:14:42] Yeah, it goes back to that old adage of just slow and steady, do those actions over and over a day in and day out to be able to get there.
Ivan: [00:14:51] It's a daily thing. I still today have to look at myself, look inward and contemplate what am I doing right now that I shouldn't be doing? Right, what am I not handed off yet that I should. And this beautiful thing happens over time, all of a sudden, if you really focus on it and are intentional about it, you start getting more and more A-players. Today we've got a fantastic leadership team of A-players and they refuse to hire B-players underneath them. B-players don't last here because A-players don't want to play with B-players. And it's easy for me to say this now, but it's a hard, hard grind to get there. The only thing I can promise your audience is if you're really intentional about it, you stick with it, you slowly compound it, don't expect it to happen overnight or even over the course of the year, it takes longer than that. Your chances of success are high, most people just give up.
Steven: [00:15:49] Yeah, absolutely. And when it comes to going out and finding great people to work with, great team members, great talent, what's been some of those strategies that have really ended up working well for you?
Ivan: [00:16:02] Yeah, in the beginning, it's hard because you got a small business, you're just trying to get people in the door, networking, coffee meetings, asking around. One thing we started doing a few years ago is we run personality tests on everybody that comes through the door, back to being vulnerable. I'm pretty good at hiring a certain type of people for a certain role but for anything else, I'm actually pretty bad at hiring Steven, because I tend to hire people I like and that's not always a good fit. And so early on in the process, I found some key employees that really took hiring seriously, and really owned it, and I put that on them. And so somebody else might be really good at hiring operations, but not have the visionary side of the team, you've got to go out there and find that there. We could talk about this for hours. I think the really key point I want to drive home is it takes trial and error, it takes tinkering, everybody's different, everybody's in a different spot in their business, in their growth and their trajectory. And rather than giving you some process here off the cuff, I would say to your audience, keep tinkering, right, keep trying things, see what works. Keep meddling with the machine, taking off the parts that are useless, taking off the parts that don't work as well anymore. And keep remembering it's slow compounding and what got you here won't get you there.
Steven: [00:17:30] Well, and it's interesting, because really what you're saying the mindset piece of this is a belief that you're going to have to take action, you're going to have to move forward into some unknown, hire somebody, bring them on, and potentially have them not be the right fit. But you have to take that step in order to,
Ivan: [00:17:47] it's part of the journey, man, there's no way to avoid it, there's no way to be perfect if you sit there trying to figure out how to be perfect you'll never get started. Right?
Steven: [00:17:56] Yeah, yeah. And so you have to be willing to bring that person on so that you are willing to let that person go and now take that learning and not let that bring you down, not let that stop you, not let that have you recede from building the company that you're building into going back to being a single operator, so that you can actually get to that end place that you want to be.
Ivan: [00:18:16] Yeah, and it just dawned on me, it's probably a good thing to say continue growth and focus on expansion, and don't slow down. I'm a big believer in you're either going to stay small and be a one man show, maybe a couple of admins where you got to go big. The death ground is in the middle. It's like, if you're going to go to Chipotles you might as well own 10, own one or own 10 but don't own two, don't own three, it's not big enough to scale and you're just buying yourself a longer workweek.
Steven: [00:18:54] Yeah, that's a really big, big point. A lot of people jump into real estate on the entrepreneurial side, they decided to go down and become an operator, maybe they're flipping houses, maybe they're doing single families, maybe they're going down the syndication route. But one of the hardest things is that you've really bought yourself a job if you're flipping one or two houses a year. You don't have enough money coming in to do anything other than support your own income, and therefore you can't support other people's, and so until you get to a certain level of scale, it's not a profitable business, it's a job.
Ivan: [00:19:25] Yeah, property management was the path for me, managing a lot of multifamily even single family, townhomes, condos, wherever I could get my hands on early on. That was my recurring cash flow, to continue to reinvest in the business and scale it and for somebody else who might be flipping houses or selling real estate. But I think what your point is, it's really good, is that you can't. You can't sit there, you got a grow pass that somehow, some way you've got to figure it out.
Steven: [00:19:52] Yeah, yeah. So tell me, how would you define success and what is success to you?
Ivan: [00:19:57] That's a great question. My Report Card now is spiritual, it's my marriage, it's my kids, it's my fitness, in business and money are really at the bottom because if I don't get all those other things, if I find a divorce, and my kids hate me, and I'm overweight, it doesn't matter how many zeros are in the bank. So success for me is much more of those other things and now it's just I'm like--Bam now is like my fourth kid. It's this living, breathing organism that does a lot on its own and I get to sort of sit back and look at the high level in the strategy and in the direction. But it's almost starting to take on a life of its own and I get to be sort of a proud parent. I definitely put that in the success column.
Steven: [00:20:49] Yeah, that's so huge. And what are some of those Keystone habits, those things you do on a daily or weekly basis that have led you to that foundation for success?
Ivan: [00:20:57] Yeah, well, I'm pretty lucky these days, I get to spend a lot of time thinking and reading. I work out just about every day, train really hard, I've got coaches in business life, marriage, spiritual, and absolutely physical as well. Some of the daily stuff, nutrition, hydration, 42, I've got to stretch quite a bit to keep the machine lubricated and really, what's most important and profitable in the business these days is me spending time reading and thinking.
Steven: [00:21:31] Yeah, taking some time for that thinking time to actually understand where that vision is, where those challenges are, and how you're gonna overcome them. So, so huge.
Ivan: [00:21:40] Yeah, you don't have time to slip into this reactive mode of whatever's in your face and I slip into that still, it's easy to slip into. But that goes back to that self reflection and watching out for my-- trying at least to watch out for my own blind spots and being mindful of my time, especially owning my morning.
Steven: [00:22:00] Yeah, that's really, really big. And what impact have mentors made on your life and how do you look at going out and finding great mentors?
Ivan: [00:22:07] You know mentors, I don't have a good system for finding them. I've had some great ones in my life. I'm a believer that when the student is ready, the teacher presents himself. If I had a time machine, I would certainly start with paid coaching and in masterminds earlier in my career, right now, I think I'm in four masterminds, including Entrepreneurs Organization, starting a new one in YPO, which is sort of a next level EO, spiritual one and then of course, some multifamily related ones too, I think that might be five now, got to cut one of those out soon. And I've got several coaches in any aspect of my life that I want to improve on business life, physical, spiritual, I've got paid coaches in all those categories. It truly is a way to bend your learning curve or I should say your growth curve upward, is to have constant accountability from people you're paying not to let you off the hook. And some people call it forums, some people call it a mastermind, being in a peer group where you're around other people with the same or similar mindset, maybe they're in a different business, I get a lot of value out of being in forums or masterminds that are all real estate related. It's more entrepreneurial. Those are some of my biggest advantages when it comes to the growth that we've had on spending well over six figures a year on my own personal coaching and education and mastermind attendance, and I'm getting at least a 10x ROI on that right now.
Steven: [00:23:46] Yeah, there you go, folks, for all those who have fear, I know I had a lot of fear at first from spending any money on coaching and now I couldn't imagine not doing it. It's huge. The ROI is super clear.
Ivan: [00:23:55] Yeah, yeah. Shorten the time frame and then respecting it'll pay dividends. Now, you have to be a good student too.
Steven: [00:24:04] You really do. And so finishing on this purpose, what drives you to live your best life every day?
Ivan: [00:24:09] Oh, man, that fire is burning pretty hot right now, I would say the number one thing is being an example to my three children. They don't do what I say, they do what I do.
Steven: [00:24:21] Yeah, that's such a good reminder. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find out more about you or potentially get in touch?
Ivan: [00:24:27] Let's see. I think I put it on here, bam cap groups.com, easy way to find me. My names on here too, on the recording. If you spell my last name correctly, or just google me, I should be pretty easy to find.
Steven: [00:24:39] We'll include that in the show notes. So thank you so much for joining us, definitely appreciate you sharing a little bit of that mindset. I'll leave you guys, as I always leave you with a reminder to go out and take action to put some of these ideas into practice in your own life and business and make some real change to inspire others. Thanks so much, Ivan.
Ivan: [00:24:55] Thanks for having me, Steven. It's been an honor man.
OUTRO: [00:25:00] Thank you for listening to the Investor Mindset Podcast. If you like what you heard, make sure to rate, review, subscribe and share with a friend. Head over to theinvestormindset.com to join the insider club, where we share tools and strategies from the top investors and entrepreneurs and how to take it to the next level.