Tony Alvarez and Mike Cantu Join Bruce Norris on the Real Estate Radio Show #380

Norris Bruce

Bruce Norris is an active investor, hard money lender, and real estate educator with over 30 years experience. Bruce has been involved in over 2,000 real estate transactions as a buyer, seller, builder and money partner.

Norris Bruce
May 2, 2014

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Bruce Norris is joined this week by real estate entrepreneur, property manager, wholesaler, builder, teacher and mentor Mike Cantu. He has purchased a huge number of homes at a discount from people he talks to over the phone and rarely meets. Also on today’s show is Tony Alvarez, who is a real estate entrepreneur, property manager, teacher, and mentor who mostly buys properties by creating relationships with agents who control lots of inventory.

They had just touched on the subject of raising families where real estate really wasn’t part of the equation. This included being entrepreneurial in a sense of working for yourself. You had to do something very different. Bruce asked if this change was mostly due to determination will or habit change that took a long process instead of being an instant change. Tony said his was desperation. In essence, it was a definite need. This happened when he first decided to do real estate. By the time he left home, his dad bought and owned rentals already and Tony hated being involved in it. They used to use his brothers and himself to do the work, and he could not wait to get away from it because he did not like to get his hands dirty.

It was not until he was sitting in the house, broke and no prospects, that he got a wakeup call when someone was on tv and detailed real estate and helped Tony relate to it. Even if you don’t have a high school diploma, any money, or your credit is horrific you could still become wealthy in real estate. This got Tony so fired up, and he had a need for a way out of what he saw as an unresolvable situation since he was working at the factory at the time. Many times he said to himself his dad was right and he should have done one thing as opposed to another. His initial motivation was all about need, and it was not about wanting to become wealthy. This came later and once he realized it was possible for him to do something.

After Bruce was fired five times in a row, it was hard for him to look for a job for which to apply. He was one day away from starting a job at the steel case factory. The only reason he was really able to apply for the job was because his wife’s dad worked there and tried to help the son who was always getting fired find stable employment. It was the Monday he applied for the hardware store job and met the first mentor he ever had.

In the last segment Mike Cantu talked about his dad putting his dream on hold. To him, everything changed in literally half an hour. This change came in the form of a late night infomercial. He had been channel surfing when he came upon the infomercial. It was ironic he even watched it because he recognized the backdrop as being taken from the ocean looking at the beach. He recognized it as Mission Beach where his friend Chuck lived. He wondered what they were doing with a kid on a surf board. He went on to explain that the previous year he was broke and unemployed, and a year later he was worth a million dollars. He believed every single word out of the guy’s mouth and fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

He remembered when he woke up the next morning there was a free class in Long Beach where he had to go for a 2-3 hour presentation. As soon as his eyes opened up, he was right back in the infomercial and could not fall back asleep. He was so wound up by it the next morning that he had to make plans to get to that freebie. Once he got to this, it was an upsell for a $500 weekend class, which was all that mattered in the entire world to him. Once he got into the business he was exposed to people who pulled off everything he was dreaming about. For several of them, one being Mick Blackwell, he held himself in very high regard. The comment he kept saying to himself was if they pulled it off and he could not, he was going to be really embarrassed. He used other people as his motivation who were normal people like him and had accomplished so much. Mike tries to be a bubbling optimist, and he is grateful for this since he has other friends who tend to gravitate to the negative side. Because of this, he believed every word of it and never doubted it for one minute. The only complaint was he tried to take so many shortcuts, so it took him longer to get there than it should have.

Mike explained that there are laws of the universe that apply to everybody, including himself. The decision to go was a very short period of time. He was five minutes into the infomercial when he said this was him and he was all over it. Mike made the decision, but the destination was a ways away because there were some changes that he thought needed to take place. He thought he needed to take some shortcuts before he realized differently. Looking back, this was one of the big lessons he learned. One of these things was time. Time takes time and is something you cannot rush. Everything he tried to do to speed up the timing he realized he could not do. One thing that does hurt a lot of people is impatience, especially after a downturn.

Bruce gave the scenario of someone who lost $2 million and needed to hurry and get it back. When you are first starting out of the gate, you do not have $2 million; you don’t even have two cents. Tony bought all the books and the tapes, and he read the first couple chapters out of one book. He immediately shot out to look for a house, and the first thing he did was talk to a local real estate agent. Next thing he knew, he was looking at a house. These things happened within days of each other, not a year later. Similar to Mike, he went to his parents for financing. His dad was like the Romans, thumbs down, but his mom was all over it. She walked the first house with him and told the agent he was trying to rip them off. When they first opened the door, pigeons flew out the windows. It was a little 2 bedroom, one bathroom that was built in the 1930s right next door to an asphalt driveway in the commercial property. Right next to that is a Neptune Society with a smoke stack coming out the top. Talk about location, and this was the first house he bought for $78,000.

There were a lot of things that happened, including the agent telling him he needed to hurry up and buy it. They tried to anchor him as sales people do, and the only thing it did for him was make him realize he did not know whether it was a good deal or not. If Tony did not buy the house, then the agent would not get paid. He was not thinking in terms of millions of dollars. He was thinking about the next thing that would come along. Mike is right in that there is a set of laws that govern everything in this life. Whether you think of them internally or externally, your ability to get your decisions and actions in line with those laws delivers you. It is like a leaf floating down the river that eventually gets to the ocean. You cannot change this, and there will be a change that takes place. Unfortunately, when he was in it and was not aware of this change. Years later and two bankruptcies later, Bruce told him how much he had accomplished and asked him if he minded doing a presentation at the Millionaire Maker.

It was not until this moment that he ever questioned what he did. Never did he sit down and analyze his own behavior. He just went from one step to the other, and the crash and burn was the teacher. Bruce said it is interesting and does not know if it is a cultural thing, but his good friend Alex in Florida would not be able to teach a sales class but is a best salesman he knows. When talking about a direction change, we all have seen the people leave the seminar completely committed. Bruce said he does not like mentoring because they did it for a short period of time, and he took on meeting with people who said they were ready to commit. They would meet for the first time, and he would ask them what they needed to accomplish and tell them what they needed to do in the next thirty days. Thirty days later, they came in and told him they did not do anything. This is hard to take; you will look at one guy who got diverted and did not make any habit changes.

There are two pieces to this. When you spend a lot of time teaching, you look out at the audience and have a lot of people at the end of the day who are really excited. A good question is what the people had in common who succeeded. Mike said he thought a person’s success had a lot to do with persistence, personality, and their determination. Being self-employed, he has always been of the mindset that almost is never going to cut it. Almost getting the check or almost buying a house just doesn’t work. You are going to have obstacles all day long, and you have to overcome these things every single day. You go over, under, and around but you keep on going.

Mike said he remembered the first realtor he ever met with had almost $1,000 saved. He introduced himself, and she asked him how much he had to work with. He figured he better round up and told her it was about $2500. She stepped back, put her hands on her hips, and said he was not looking for a house, but rather for shelter. This took the wind out of his sales until he got to the parking lot and he was infuriated. He almost marched back in and told her about shelter and what he thought of her attitude. Going forward twenty years, he has gone full circle and is on the court house steps bidding on a condo at Upland Hills Country Club. This same lady shows up because it was her condo. He did not ask her if she would be in the market for some shelter after the sale. You have to be persistent, determined, and you cannot get derailed by the little things. All day long things come up and you have to take it in stride.

He has always said that his number one job title is problem-solver. When he goes into the office with this attitude, he is prepared for this. If he goes in with the attitude that his life is perfect and there are no ripples of any kind, if a problem comes up he will probably get irritated and upset over it. If he has the problem solver hat on, then he will be more prepared to solve the problem. It really comes down to attitude. Bruce said it seems like the reason to pursue beyond what would be reasonable is missing for the people who don’t do it. There is no why to the goal. Being self-employed, you really get to know who you are. Mike has analyzed himself several times, and he realized he has a lot of confidence in a lot of areas but also still thinks he is one of the most insecure people he knows. Mike said this is what keeps him marching forward to know what enough is. Until he feels secure with it, he is probably going to keep adding to it.

Tony is now sure about the “how much is enough” rule because he has bridged this gap for himself in these last few years. Amassing a certain amount of wealth is one thing, but protecting it is another. Going back to Bruce’s original question, Tony asked him what he sees in people’s character. Is it in their actions, their character, or something else that is not even tangible? Tony thinks it is a mixture of all these things, but it stems from the fact that at some point in time you say to yourself that you have either had enough of one thing and cannot do it anymore. Or, you say to yourself you want another thing really badly out of some really deep need. You then start marching in that direction. All of these things add up. When you are at a seminar or class and meet a lot of people who you have a conversation with and realize you have a lot in common, you realize you can do this too.

When Bruce was teaching Alex the business, he was already a master salesman and had been dealing with cars. They had run an ad on which he had received the phone call, and the ad call was from a guy in a motor home. He was from Washington and was there to dump his last property. On an ad call, this is about as good as it gets. When Alex was writing down the person’s address, he messed it up and could not find the address. He and Bruce figured out where the address was but arrived 45 minutes late. Bruce was quite upset and had to go from friend to business owner at that point. He told him this was unacceptable since they were now out $25 grand. He said the house was going to be sold to an investor and to whoever is there when he shows up to the house.

To Alex’s credit, he drove to San Bernardio, brought a dinner, and at 2 in the morning was still in the man’s driveway. The guy pulled up in his motor home and they bought the house. This was the day Bruce knew Alex was going to be successful in the business since he did exactly what he would have done. He would have bought the house because he would not have gone away since he would not have been able to live with himself if he did. What Bruce likes about his upcoming event is it is not just about doing the mailers, but rather about being the person who answers the phone and is driven enough to get through all the nonsense to a yes answer often enough to change their life.

One thing that happened within Tony’s own office involved training his assistant Sabrina. He wanted her to learn to be a deal maker, not an assistant to someone who makes deals. He had to walk her through a lot. This time around since they came to the market in 2008, it came to a point where they were doing mailers and having to talk to sellers directly. She had a real issue with this. They were getting calls coming in, and Tony was even surprised himself. He asked if people were offering money in this letter right out of the gate just to call back. She would follow through the face-to-face communication with the people, but was dropping the ball. They had a deep conversation about it, and it had to do with her inability to believe she was bringing in anything to the table of value. This was a large awakening for her, and there is a lot of things involved in this.

There has to be a belief in yourself that this is possible for you as well as a belief that you are doing something worthwhile. You can believe you can do this, but that is like saying if you believe you can rip people off then great. But how long is this mindset going to last and where will it take you? It really is a combination of different things. The people Bruce envisions attending the event are people who are already in the business and are looking to up their game. However, a lot of people who come to it are tired of the box in which they have confined themselves. They may already be in the business, but they are only performing at a certain level and want to know how to accelerate and get out of the assigned box. All of us have had the experience of watching people give back fortunes.

Some of that is a mental reversion to the mean, and maybe it is because they have connected with themselves so much that when they escape it, there may be some discomfort from family members. Bruce has had some family members who say he is all about the money, and they don’t even know him. He laughs at this because it is their only explanation as to why they got to where they did. Sometimes people are given a script or a box that says something about money, and there is a false equilibrium. They psychologically think they have a need to which they need to return. However, it is only based on what they have known up to this point and only a comfort zone. People gravitate back to where they are comfortable.

Regarding Sabrina not feeling like she was bringing something to the table, Mike remembered a conversation he had with his daughter Jordyn about how when we are face-to-face with a seller, you have a job description. Your job description is a travel agent. The seller is at Point A and wants to get to Point B, and it is your job to get him there safely with a smile on his face. For this you will be paid well. The attitude is the most important part of the business and the way you look at things as well as the way you go about implementing things. It all stems back to the attitude, and every day Mike has the attitude that he will go out and make a deal.

The upcoming Millionaire Maker is unlike any Bruce has ever done because the conversation he will be having is about raising the level of understanding of the people attending. This is huge because this is where everything happens. It happens between your ears, and it has to happen there before it happens anywhere else. People talk in terms about putting their heart into it, but they are really talking about putting their mind into it. Something has to change inside of you to make you become someone new. The reason Bruce chose the speaker he did is because he watched a documentary where he cried four times in a row. Bruce is astonished by the amount of effort his co-worker Diana puts into something and self-wills her to a point where people who have worked with her are crying on the boat just amazed at what they heard.

Sometimes we use the word “try.” When you go take a black belt test, you probably do not want to hear the participant say he is going to “try” his best. This probably leaving yourself an out and is the one thing when you watch the documentary that you see the word “try” is so cheap compared to what you have witnessed. It is like saying someone’s failures, which they did 3 or 4 times before they actually made it were such smashing successes because you were looking at it and saying you never saw a human being put themselves through something like this willingly. Bruce said the next step for him is to realize that somewhere in there is a capability within all of us. Maybe some of us are done financially, and maybe we want to attack something else next.

This July Bruce will be presenting his newest Millionaire Maker talk. He will be putting together two awesome days, and when people leave they will be very happy.