Terry: My name's Terry Nation.
I'm from Columbia South Carolina.
It's been between three and four years since the first real estate transaction I did.
I don't remember the exact dates.
But just from reading Joe's newsletter I was able to do my first deal and what I did is
I just put out 'We Buy Houses' signs.
From those signs, I picked up a lease option deal which I explained in another video.
A guy's son responded to me, and I ended up having to talk to his dad.
His dad was interested.
His house had been on the market for 8 months if I recall correctly.
They were barely showing the house and he had gotten frustrated with them, and had gotten
rid of his realtor and wanted to know if I could help him.
Within two weeks I had sold the house and had a tenant buyer in the property.
It was very easy work.
Terry: I think I put out 8 to 10 signs on that one house.
And what had happened is that I put them out one week and then the next week I got a call
from the police and they said that I needed to pick my signs up.
So I called the police back and said, 'Look, I'm out of town.
I can't pick them up right now.'
So the officer said, 'As long as they're up by the weekend, I don't come back in until
Monday so if they're up by Monday, everything will be fine.'
I actually sold that house that weekend before I picked them up.
On that first day I made $3,000.
I probably spent 2 hours on it.
Terry: I found out about Joe's program just by searching 'real estate investors' or 'real
estate investing' through Google.
I got involved with him.
First of all, he seemed a little more sincere.
He didn't seem like the other gurus out there.
Don't get me wrong - I had been through a few courses of the other gurus but there was
just something different about Joe.
And I do recall I was searching for no money down real estate investing because I didn't
have a penny to put into real estate and I guess something just struck a chord with Joe,
so I signed up for his newsletter at that point.
Interviewer: What techniques do you use?
Terry: I use everything.
I'm using stuff right now that Joe doesn't even teach.
I'm trying to think of all the things that I do.
We have the auto responders.
I've got greeting cards that I actually send to owners and buyers when I buy and sell the
houses, just for the marketing.
I've had an app built, and in fact me and Joe were just talking about that.
Within the last 60 to 75 days, I've had 600 people download my app.
We're using QR codes to do virtual tours of the houses.
If you go through the house, you can actually scan our QR code on our sign and walk through
the house whenever you go into it -- everything that gets the buyer one step further without
us being involved.
I mean, we are doing everything.
I actually have an internet marketing mentor as well that I just paid dividends on the
real estate side.
Terry: I've got so many things going on.
Last year I did right around a half a million, but it isn't just from Joe's stuff.
Because of the leads we're receiving, we're building houses, I'm doing wholesales, and
I'm doing lease options, so there's so many things going on.
But it all started from just doing rent-to-owns, and then just building from there.
Interviewer: What are your ultimate goals as an investor?
Terry: To find more things to do.
This is what I love.
Residential real estate has always been my passion so it's just a matter of growing more
of what I'm doing now.
Terry: I can't even put into words the impact this had.
I've spoken in the past about this.
I had an ill son.
That was my first video.
My son just had a double lung transplant six months ago.
I'm able to spend all the time in the world with him.
We're doing everything we've never been able to do and we're doing that as a family.
That right there is the biggest impact in and of itself.
So doing what you want to do when you want to do it is very gratifying.
Terry: Somebody asked me that the other day and I said, 'Well, what do you mean by full
time?'
Is this what I do for a living?
Because with all of the automation, I don't really do anything full time.
But if that's what you consider a job, then that's what I do.
But it's not full time by any means.
Terry: I've got so many irons in the fire now.
Joe talked about building pillars for your business.
And I'm working on 4 or 5 different pillars right now.
I'm trying to grow my building side and I'm into video marketing a lot so I'm building
a video series on different things with building properties.
Everything I do now is video based, mainly because Google loves videos and anything that
will get me up in the search engines, I'm doing.
So I'm building a big video series on building custom homes and how to build them and what
you would do if you didn't have a builder to do it.
Ultimately that's to bring in folks who are interested in building to where I can build
a rapport with them.
I want to do that will all my businesses.
So I'm building pillars for my businesses.
Terry: The advice that I would give anybody that wants to do this is to get a mentor.
Hands down -- my mentors that I've hired for any part of my businesses is what has paid
off.
You need someone that can guide you along the way until you can learn what you need
to learn to move forward and then hire other mentors to get you over the next hump.
Mentorship is very important to building any business in my opinion.
Interviewer: How's your son doing?
Terry: My son?
I tell everybody -- he's got me playing tennis 3 or 4 times a week, so within 6 months of
a lung transplant...
Interviewer: Seriously?
How old is he?
Terry: He turns 21 next month.
Interviewer: Wow, that's incredible.
That's a great story.
Terry: It's been great, yes.