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when i started out the year i said you know i'd like to close you know probably like two deals a month right if i can close two deals a month you know with my other obligations my other businesses i'm like i'd be doing pretty good you know it'd be a nice because i'm in this for the long haul you know so um and i'll be honest with you i'm gonna pull that away i think i've got uh about nine or ten deals pending right now um i've already closed i think four i think this month so yeah it's um you know yeah so it's it's really uh i think i'm gonna have to uh revisit my goal that i set you know kind of going into the year um because i think it's too uh too attainable [Music] that's a good problem to have there are just too many commercial home brokers that don't have a damn clue of what they're doing all we're trying to do here is better the industry for everybody at the end of the day you can make great money in this industry but in the end it's all about helping people you know people always say chris how can i be a successful broker it's two words hard work and dedication if you don't like talking to people you probably shouldn't be in this business hey everybody welcome back to entrepreneurs and finance my name is chris fergulari ceo of commercial capital training group and this is where we explore the daily lives of uh graduates in our training lenders and everybody else in between even employees at that so um before i begin i just want to make sure everybody subscribes to our youtube channel to catch the latest episodes on what's going on here and interesting things that we're doing and and more interviews like this so uh this episode i am uh very intrigued to interview jim wellington of level up capital hey jim hey chris how are you i'm doing well how about yourself i'm doing very well thanks for asking all right well this is a this is a an interesting and cool one for me they're they're always interesting but i always enjoy uh getting to talk personally with graduates who attended virtual trainings right uh you weren't here in person so it's it's it's it's good for me to kind of uh uh peel back the layers and kind of get an idea of of who you are etc so i again appreciate you um taking the time out of your busy day to do this yeah absolutely no i appreciate the opportunity and thanks for uh thanks for the invitation all right yeah absolutely um so jim tell me about i i understand you attended in uh april of 2021 is that correct right that's correct uh you did purchase the gold package and but before we get into kind of your experience having been out now for a little bit tell me about what you did prior to attending cctg and what what ultimately led you to cctj yeah so my kind of my background and my experiences is i've been a real estate investor for for quite a long time i've been an active real estate agent with a specific focus uh on being an investor that's always been kind of something that that i've enjoyed and been very passionate about but i've also you know always been very passionate about numbers and math and finance and and certainly when you're a real estate investor financing is a big part of the equation that can really uh help you you know grow your business um and you know leverage is something that's very critical for real estate investors so when you combine those things that's kind of what led me to you know i want to learn more about this and learn different avenues that will not only help me grow my business but i also like helping other people grow their business because um having been able to generate passive income in my life um has made it a very positive effect on my my personal life and that's something that i also want to help other people with sure okay all right and so but so how did you find cctg like how did it how do you remember even how how it came up yeah i was uh actually sitting on the couch just kind of like googling and i'm real big into internet searches and learning and and and i'd always been interested in like finding ways to become a lender but i don't i didn't want to be an employee i like being you know i want to be a business owner i want to be you know self-employed and and i think i found it on um maybe like one of those buy a biz websites or something like that yeah yeah and i clicked on i said huh this is kind of what i've been searching for for a while and um you know i started you know researching the website and made some contacts and stuff like that and yeah watch some youtube videos and i said man this this sounds like exactly what i've kind of been searching for for a little while yeah you know what's interesting is you know people um people stumble on some stumble upon us by mistake so it doesn't surprise me but it turns out you were kind of searching for something like this yeah yeah absolutely um well all right so you you got on our website you you obviously spoke to people and and uh our head of enrollment mike geisler and and so when you decided to take the plunge obviously you attended uh before we resorted back to a live uh class and now we have a hybrid model but tell me about that virtual training i mean how was it was it was it what you expected was it you know more than you expected last expected i mean sitting in front of a computer for all day every day yeah so uh yeah i can definitely speak to that um the training was great um and i think i told you that when we were in class back then i i did really enjoy it um your your team and yourself do a very good job of presenting the information thank you um you know i would prefer to have been in person sure that's kind of my style i i prefer to sit across the table from somebody and and and communicate but you know given the circumstances that we were in um i still think you guys did a very good job of keeping it interactive and keeping us interested i know i was interested from the time we started you know from day one right he did a great job of keeping us engaged well i mean you know you did invest a lot of money so i mean one would hope that you would be you know you'd want to get the most out of your investment and stay in front of that computer for you know eight hours a day but um you know so that um so they're good good good yeah i know sometimes it's a challenge where um you know you don't feel like you're part of the group but we try to we try to emulate that as best possible with cameras and you know so um but good i'm i'm glad you you enjoyed that aspect of it tell me about that first week now let's fast forward you're done with the training and and what was that first week like yeah absolutely so you know you know completed training and you know kind of got all my you know marketing materials from the finance group finance marketing group that does all that stuff and the website and all that stuff yeah and from there once i got all that stuff uh all that information i just started like i said i've been um i've been in real estate for a long time and i've been an investor so i just started reaching out to some of my my sphere of influence right that's kind of where i went to first and said hey this is you know this is something i'm doing now this is a new business that i started and you know because i've already been involved in that that arena it was like oh and i find myself having to explain what an asset based lender does for real estate transactions i don't think a lot of people knew you know what that was but um initially i just kind of reached out to my fear of end phones you know i know a lot of investors i know a lot of real estate agents um and that's why i focus specifically the only deals arena that i've worked in up to this point is real estate because that's what i know and that's what i'm comfortable with and that's also what i'm passionate about so right you know i reached out to those folks networked and you know attended a lot of um investor meetings you know in your geographic area there's you know every area has you know real estate investment meetings i attend some of those in the evening um join facebook groups there's tons of facebook groups you know use you know the website and all those things to have conversations with people online and that's you know that's really what i use to get going and get started wow so okay yeah and we kind of talked about that in class you know a little bit about how to go out and you know obviously network with your spheres of influence um uh tell me about your first deal yeah yeah so my first deal was a referral from a traditional mortgage rep that i've known for a long time and and um he said hey you know i know you told me about what you do i'm not sure i fully understand it but he's like but i've got this client who's been a client of mine for a long time and they've now got a four unit apartment complex that they're looking to purchase and you know because two of the members of the corporation are self-employed i can't get him approved you know i can't get them alone he's like do you have something that that that could work for them right i said yeah absolutely i said we're not going to ask for the tax returns and pay stubs and w-2s we're going to look at credit worthiness and the asset itself and does that that service coverage ratio score makes sense is this a good investment for them and for the lender so we absolutely have something for them yeah that's awesome that's awesome so that was your first transaction what was the what was the dollar amount of that yeah so the purchase price on that was uh about 350 000 and so they put uh i believe they did 20 down so it's about 2700 200 270 000. cool okay and you don't mind you mind saying what you made on that no what'd you take off um i made on that one i charged um i charged one point so it was like 27 2800 bucks okay all right but still you got one in i mean hey it all counts and that that was your first one did you feel like a sigh of relief like almost like you know your because everybody's goal when they leave is close that first transaction it doesn't matter if it's a small deal big deal real estate business loan but did like did you have a little sense of accomplishment and relief when that first one went through the door it was a great feeling man it really was uh you know because i mean i i knew i would do it i i i knew it wasn't a matter of if i could do it just a matter of when when right right but when you're relying uh because i did the gold package and initially i was relying on my sphere of influence sure you know you start telling everybody that you're doing this but they're like well i want to see you know i want to see right right i want to see you close a deal so um you know being able to do that and that feeling of also you know accomplishment and then also knowing that i helped i i generally helped these this this group um you know i helped their business you know because they were at a standstill like we don't know what to do or where to go anymore we can't get any more spending and isn't that such a great feeling oh it's awesome yeah yeah um you know and so obviously what was now let's kind of you close your first deal and and now you're kind of off to the races for 2020 the rest of 2021 talk to me about the rest of 2021 yeah absolutely and so yeah uh in 2021 um that same group i end up doing a follow-up deal um on a six-unit uh portfolio purchase so they got kind of a taste of what we can do and they said hey we're we're off the races now so we did a um and just not be real quick that's an important thing right because i tell people all the time this is not a one and done type business with a client i mean once you come through with a client it's a client for life so long as you did a good job right oh yeah absolutely i couldn't agree with that statement more because you know they very quickly were like hey we've also got this six unit portfolio that we've been we you know we've been looking to purchase and we've got other deals that we want to do because we have people that want to sell to us that are looking to exit you know the rental arena um so the next one with them was a uh was a six unit portfolio purchase um that one the purchase price was uh 540 000 uh was the purchase price um and i think i charged a point and a half on that one so a little bit a little bit bigger commission there um i also did a fix and flip one with another borrower um on a property in lake orient michigan um where the purchase price in that one i believe was 150 and roughly about a thousand dollar rehab budget on that one and uh that was another great deal because she was a real estate agent who wanted to get into investing and she never bought a fix and flip property and never bought an investment property and she's like i don't know like how do i go about doing this like where am i going to get the money you know the first time yeah yeah yeah so first time uh first time through and um said hey we we can do we can do this we can make this work for you yeah and uh he had found a great deal on a property she's like okay what do i do now i'm like well you gotta get your financing you know right right um so jim tell me about um you know you mentioned your real estate investor prior to attending cctg and you know i imagine you're currently a real estate investor tell me about what value that brings to the table when talking with real estate investors because it's like you're one of them you can identify what they're going through but now now that you know the financing part which to me is the most important part in real estate investing you bring that whole power and dynamic to your clients talk to me about that yeah i'll be honest with you it's a huge advantage because i know the trials and tribulations that they've been through whether it's if they're buying a rental property or they're rehabbing a property i've done it i've been there um you know so i understand you know the challenges that they face whether it's dealing with tenants or you know dealing with collecting rent or or even currently with the covid uh situations where in some some places in the country they didn't have to pay rent right i understand all that i know all that i know how to analyze a deal whether it's a rental property or some something that somebody's buying as a fix and flip i also know how to look at properties and just by walking through i can give you a pretty darn good idea what it's going to cost you to rehab it so if it's somebody in my local area that needs a hand i can walk in and be like look i know what it costs to do this because i've done it and i've done a lot of them um so it helps out a lot for people that don't know you do you do you um do you make sure that you say that to them at some point in the conversation like so they say they kind of identify you uh identify with you a little more absolutely it's a it's a great way for them to kind of put yourself on the same level so that they feel feel a commonality a common ground with you and it helps you build that rapport and also hey look i understand where you're coming from because i've been through similar situations sure okay okay yeah i'd imagine you use that to your benefit and that only can uh that only can help you um what's your turn what's your current you know what's your largest deal that you're working on you've only been asking about months six seven months so yeah so my largest deal is uh currently it looks like we're going to close close it out uh in a couple weeks here is i have an eight property portfolio refinance that that i'm doing for a client who has eight rental properties um that we're gonna pull some more cash out refinance into a a new loan and the idea behind it is he's going to be able to pull out a significant chunk of cash so that he can continue to grow his his rental portfolio um and that one we're expected to close in the next couple weeks how big is that roughly uh that one will be almost a million dollars million bucks okay awesome awesome that's gotta feel good congratulations yeah yeah that'll be my biggest one uh thus far so uh most of the deals i've done you know are kind of in the smaller uh dollar amount you know being in metro detroit um which is where the vast majority of of my deals have come from we don't have the the real high dollar amount deals like say california yeah right right just said that the values are lower um and i heard through the grapevine that you're that i think you're going to be in the next issue a deal maker yeah i am i'm really excited about that i'm really excited about that so here we go oh nice awesome yes that's awesome i'm looking forward to getting a copy of that yeah no congratulations that's a that's a good thing you believe it or not i'll tell you this when uh and those of you that don't know we have um i'll do a little self-promotion but deal maker magazine uh is a publication that i started uh through the association i own and uh there's it's a it's a cool publication that highlights lenders and brokers and it's it's really one of the industry's only trade publications for our industry um and if you made it into dealmaker that means you're doing good things so congratulations jim thank you i will tell you that you will get deals from this uh believe it or not you're going to get a lot of action because when you're in here this goes out to probably 15 000 people or so nice maybe up to 20 000 both physically and digitally um but you're going to get play you're going to get lenders calling you for business and you may get other brokers say hey man you know i got to steal want to co-broker it so uh you know congratulations on that thank you yeah i welcome all of those yeah yeah absolutely um so tell me what's your plans for 2022 we have kind of goals and aspirations yeah i'll be honest with you i do um you know when i started out the year i i think i set my goal a little bit too low to be honest with you but uh i i when i started out the year i said you know i'd like to close you know probably like two deals a month right if i can close two deals a month you know with my other obligations my other businesses i'm like i'd be doing pretty good you know it'd be a nice because i'm in this for the long haul you know so um and i'll be honest with you i'm gonna blow that away i think i've got uh about nine or ten deals pending right now um i've already closed i think four i think this month so yeah it's um you know yeah so it's it's really uh i think i'm gonna have to uh revisit my goal that i set you know kind of going into the year um because i think it's too uh too attainable [Music] that's a good problem to have right right awesome um have you brought anybody on to your model or is it just you still it's just me still i'm just running it myself okay and um you know i definitely look at expanding in the future yeah right now um i'm a workhorse i'll be honest with you i love to work i love what i'm doing so um you know right now everything's working good the way it is and do you uh do you work from home or you have an office i have an office already because my my real estate business so it's okay it kind of fits right in there sure sure and and how is how's uh how's uh you know i assume do you have a family uh i have a wife yeah and uh we have a bunch of animals a bunch of animals okay well i'm sure the animals don't mind but what about your wife how what does she think about this what did she think prior to you getting here was she like uh i don't know you're gonna get she's totally supportive and and my second question is how does she feel now so tell me about how she initially yeah so um like a lot of things i've done over over the course of our uh our marriage and uh you know time before then she uh uh she always looks at it like uh what you know and i'm like trust me trust me it'll work she's like it sounds like another scam you know and i'm like no it's not and um so she always looks at it a little more uh she you know she scrutinizes things a little bit differently you know she's a little bit more less of a risk taker and uh and uh than i am so i said no you know um you know i've done a lot of research you know i've talked to a lot of people i talked to you know mike and mike geisler and and i had asked him for some some contact informations of people uh that people had gone through the program and i reached out to several of them and had nice long conversations with them um and i said no this is this is legit and she'll she'll say that but she always she's very supportive you know she's very supportive uh but she won't you know she she definitely lets it know that like just i think it's her kind of like her uh disclaimer in case something goes wrong like then she can always go back and say well i told you so yeah but now in the position you're in do you do you occasionally walk past her and say i told you oh yeah oh yeah okay and now she sees and she's like you know when i mean you know come home and we talk and things like that she's like how's your you know how was your day and stuff like that i'm like home got another deal in the works closing another one and now she's like huh all right of course of course i very humbly told her that uh about you know being in deal maker magazine and being on the show today and she's like wow like i guess it's i guess it's really going well and i'm like yes it is yeah it is it is that's awesome yeah that's that's really good sometimes it's the hardest hurdle to get over to convince your partner that you're doing the right thing you know but um oh yeah absolutely you know absolutely yeah well um that's awesome so let me ask you a couple of uh just to get to know you a little bit uh better here even for myself um if you weren't let's say if you weren't in real estate investing and you were in finance like you are now uh what do you think you'd be doing like if you could if you could have like a dream job and just get placed anywhere and start doing it without any experience or training what would you be doing what would you you know i'd have to say chris that that that's a an easy question and a hard question for me because there's not you know other than being a professional baseball player from the time i was young this is what i wanted to do awesome okay so i don't know yeah i've always envisioned myself from even being a young teenager i'm like i'm going to be involved in real estate and i love math and i love numbers you're living it you're living yeah math was always always my strongest you know class yeah and i think that i enjoyed the most yeah i'm living my dream i guess i guess the only thing i would say differently is maybe bigger deals and and things like that um but i'm doing what i i set out to do so okay that's a great answer that's a that's a really great answer um being that now you're living your dream right now right you but right what's one thing that you don't like about this business yeah what's easy brokerage business yeah that's that's easy um you know they they serve a uh a necessary uh purpose but uh underwriters appraisers you know those guys can be uh they can really throw some wrenches into some deals you know sure sure yeah okay i've got a couple of those going right now where appraisals came back low or an underwriter wants something you know a little you know on our end we think well that's kind of uh unnecessary but you know it's part of the deal but uh if i could get rid of one part of it it'd probably those type of situations copy that yeah yeah just uh abolish all underwriters and appraisers i'm not sure how good that would be but i mean it would help me right you for sure right hopefully it'll help you um tell me a little bit about you what do you like to do for fun like outside of real estate investing and finance i mean are you into anything uh what's that and that's a follow-up the follow-up question to that is tell me something interesting that i normally wouldn't realize about you despite so that's kind of a you know outside of work um we live on a lake over here in uh in tinkler shores and uh you know in the summer and when it's warm out when it's not seven degrees like it is today um and the ice isn't frozen we like to be out on our boat and you know hang out in our backyard with our neighbors and our friends and uh pool and you know we like to go out on the lake and cruise around and do all that kind of stuff so um if you didn't know me that's also something that you wouldn't know about me is that's you know that's what i love to do and uh in the summer that's that's pretty much what we're doing uh as much as we can it's michigan life right yeah that's that's it i i call it trying to live the lake life that's what i try to like yeah yeah okay um last question uh what you know if you could if you could sit down and talk with somebody uh either living present day or had passed on in any point in history uh who would it be yeah so you know that's an interesting question too because uh i think one of the people that i would definitely love to have sat down and met with is uh this might sound kind of uh quirky but uh ronald reagan um and uh the reason being is i just loved his economic policies you know i'm a big believer in um you know i came from a humble means and i'm a big believer and you know you you get out of life what you put into it and you know having lower taxes and and those type of things give you the opportunity to climb the ladder and to to build you know a successful business and a good life and also distributing that that you know and some would say that that that uh gets uh distributed in its own ways to you know other people through job creation and everything else absolutely absolutely and then uh the other one would be as i mentioned before i'm a big baseball fan so um i'd love to sit down with kirk gibson um former detroit tiger um you know very talented uh very talented athlete but more importantly the thing that i admired most about him is when he was on the field he always gave 110 you know he was the guy that if you know if he was the guy that if you were the catcher and you were standing on the plate he was going to run you over and it didn't matter and uh that's just something that i try to do in my life i try to emulate in my life is if i do something i give it 110 110 right and that's just something i always respected and appreciated about him that's awesome that's awesome well uh listen jim i i really appreciate it it was my pleasure and and interviewing you you um um you know again it's always good to kind of peel the the the uh hear the layers away into people that you know i haven't formally met here in person so i really appreciate you taking the time to kind of discuss uh what life is like you know yeah yeah no i just want to say i you know i sincerely appreciate you guys inviting me on here today and uh you know i'm very thankful that i came across your program um you guys do a very nice job of teaching the program um and and teaching the class but i'd like to say as a follow-up to that um you know everything that i was told when i was kind of thinking about you know coming to class kind of came to fruition and even you know after the fact like i can call mac anytime and he always answers he's always there to help you know and um i just think that that just speaks volumes about the company and and the things that you guys put out there that you guys promise you'll do they've come through so and you know what i'll ask you know that this spawns another question you know what what would you what would you say to people that are thinking about possibly taking this um in terms of what it takes to be successful yeah so you got gotta get out there you know this this you gotta get out there um you've gotta generate that circle and you gotta you gotta talk to people because that's how you're gonna get you know that's how you're gonna get deals and you know i'm i'm on the real estate side so i focus on those things right um but you got to get out there and you got to talk to people you got to go to the real estate investor meetings if you want to be in this category you gotta you got to get on facebook and get into a lot of the groups out there bigger pockets and all those you got to get in those groups you got to talk to real estate agents you got to talk to mortgage people you got to talk to investors you got to talk to those people and you got to get out there and i mean this is a this is very much a you know you got to go get it type position you know sure you know deals aren't just gonna fall into your lap you gotta go out there and make connections you gotta talk to a lot of people um i didn't do a ton of deals to close out 2021 but i talk to a lot of people and a lot of those deals because the cycle of real estate takes time right a lot of those deals are coming to fruition now and that's why i've got a nice pipeline built up and i'm looking forward to big things in 2022 so and we talk about that in class right remember remember when i sat there and i said look it's like gardening you know do you want to be you want to be a hobby gardener or do you want to be an industrial farm you know and it takes more work to build the industrial farm you got to plant a lot more seeds and but at the end of the day you know the more you plant the more it comes to harvest and you know it looks like you're experiencing that now for kind of the hard work you put in the first six months absolutely i would agree with that a thousand percent yeah awesome okay oh actually you know what i forgot but is there any one question that you're burning to ask me and it could be anything it could be anything it could be what type of hair gel i use all the way [Applause] it uh be anything honestly yeah no uh i i appreciate that you know one of the things that's really intrigued me is um i look into the future and maybe some things that i want to get into is is i know one of your you know one of your arms is prime lending and um you know one of your companies and just like kind of how you went about starting that and you know what you did and how you did it i know that's a long question and it's a big question it's probably not something you can answer in a couple minutes but you know i've always been intrigued by that yeah i mean you know it is a long question but basically um if you're asking like how how did i become a direct lender or or is it more about how just prime started in general yeah how do you become a direct lender like that you know how do you go about i mean you're now able to fund deals that are you know large deals you know and you guys can do that and that's you know that's something that to me is very interesting you know it just you got to take baby steps i mean you just can't one day say hey i'm a direct lender i think number one it comes down to showing a track record and knowing what you're doing as a broker and you know then essentially what you know what i did is you know i went to in the beginning days a couple of investors right um to you know lend some capital because i originally started doing business loans short-term business loans originally and then that morphed into commercial real estate financing but you know it's all about track record so you take a little bit and prove that you know you know what you're doing and you can get a rate of return for somebody using somebody else's money and that you you know and and convincing that person that their money's safe meaning you're not you're not going to make bad decisions right right there's always loss ratio in lending but the thing is to keep it very small and then you leverage that more so then you go and you you get a little more money and say look here's what i did with this amount now i'm looking for this amount you kind of just build on that um to the point where um you know there's you know you can start dealing with family offices where you get into larger transactions and demonstrate trust uh you know that you know what you're doing based on your model so it i know that's an easy answer and it's it's it's easier said than done but you know it's it's getting somebody to believe in you in that first step right but you have to have the process down like you have to have you know when you're when you become a direct lender a lot of people don't realize but it's a different it's a game changer because you got to live with your decisions whereas a broker if a deal goes bad that you sent to a lender a year ago not that big of a deal right you're not dealing with it you're not you're not collecting and all that other stuff but you know it you have to start small show you have a good system uh and and and once that system is in place to you know to kind of prove that system with a little bit of money and then you just build upon there it's all about trust you know and then you can eventually there's a lot of options and then open up to you you know whether it's going to a bank and getting a bank line to re-lend out you know just there's there's several options when you get to a point of uh you know needing capital but um you know in order to lend out but i think it starts with the core you got to know what you're doing got to have the processes in place which i know you've only been at this game for you know seven eight months but you're already doing it i mean you're already doing it if that's indeed your goal you're already kind of on the path there meaning getting some deals on your getting some consistent deal flow as a broker and and and one of the things that you can do is let's say you start doing this for two three years as a broker you can go back to justify improve yourself you can go back to your lenders that you sent those deals to and say look you know i'm looking to become a direct lender can you give me how though give me a performance sheet on how those deals perform right um and say look and so then the lender comes back and says okay yeah you sent us 40 deals and and out of the 40 all are performing or they may say only you know maybe 38 are performing and two went bad which is still good but that gives you credibility now you can take to an investor or a family office or a bank and say look here's my model here's what i've been doing now i want to become a you know i want to become a direct lender here's my performance and you could leverage you can leverage that yeah absolutely no that's that's that's great that that's great information absolutely good good good good yeah well someday you'll you'll get there you just gotta stay the course which i have confidence in you thank you sir all right well um we talked about a lot jim again i appreciate it from level up capital i wish you much success in 2022 sounds like you're you're doing good things and um you know i appreciate you being on the show thanks for having me i appreciate it all right so that wraps it up for this episode with uh entrepreneurs in finance uh be sure again to subscribe to our youtube channel to see future episodes we're doing about two or three people a month at this point and uh so much more valuable content to come we'll catch you on the next one take care guys there are just too many commercial home brokers that don't have a damn clue of what they're doing all we're trying to do here is better the industry for everybody at the end of the day you can make great money in this industry but in the end it's all about helping people you know people always say chris how can i be a successful broker it's two words hard work and dedication [Music] if you don't like talking to people you probably [Music] you