Transcript

Clay: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast Episode 249.
Announcer: This is The Stock Trading Reality Podcast where you get to see the realistic side of our trader’s journey. Get inspired and stay motivated by everyday normal people who are currently on their journey to trading success. This is your host, he gets made fun of for loving cheese pizza, ClayTrader.
Clay: Who doesn’t like some cheese pizza? I mean, come on. Come on, I realized that maybe it makes me seem like I’m in the third grade. If you’re honest with yourself, I think deep down you probably like cheese pizza also. I mean, maybe not all the time. It’s worth it every once in a while. Recently, I had a couple of hangouts and part of the activity was somebody ordered some cheese I don’t know who even ordered the pizza and made the decisions but somebody made a great decision. Bless their heart. They decided to order some cheese. I saw the cheese and I went for it and yes my other buddies were giving me a hard time about it, but others stood up and were like, “No, cheese is great.”
Clay: Just know that if you are a fan of cheese pizza also, then I have your back hopefully you have mine but you’re not alone out there. There are other cheese pizza stewards. You’re not alone, you don’t have to feel that you have to hide. I mean, you can just let people say with faith, “Hey, I love myself a pizza. Cheese pizza every now and then.” Plenty of protein, right? You got all that cheese. You’re building muscle as you eat that thing with all the protein from all the cheese. Yeah, I’m a 4G cheese pizza even though once in a while, it’ll get me some grief.
Clay: For today’s episode I’m going to be flying solo again. I realized that did a solo episode a couple weeks ago. This one is just because of I want calendar contacts because it’s I want to take their approach of as we’re getting ready to start a new year. Here are some things that maybe you want to think about trying and put it into motion for 2020 and based on the title of podcast, as I’m sure you saw, I want to take the approach of let’s just say you’re starting out 2020 with zero dollars. Because this is a trading podcast, and this could be applied to anything in life, but we’ll just say, zero dollars and you want to get into trading, you want to start trading, how would I go about that? If I was back to the start at zero dollars, how would I approach that, and just start to build capital so that I could get into trading.
Clay: I’ll give a background about where this all came about from the idea point of view. Like I said, when this airs the first time, it’ll be just before 2020. Even if you’re watching this past 2020, the whole idea, the whole concept is going to be there. Unfortunately, it’ll probably always stay here. This is not something where it’s only going to work for 2020. I think, like I said, unfortunately, I’ll explain it’ll make more sense the unfortunate thing, but I’m pretty sure the opportunity will remain even if you’re watching or listening to this a couple years from now.
Clay: Let’s just start with the whole context of you don’t have anything, what do you want to do? Where this idea came into play was my wife and I, we’ve purchased a cottage/investment property. Part of that is it’s a little bit further away, and it’s on a nice little lake there and good stuff, but it needs some work. Long story short, usually, I would not do what I did, because this sounds bad, but it’ll make more sense. It’s just not worth my time to do it. I would rather pay someone else to do it to free up my time so I can do other things. In this situation was a little bit different because there was things that I don’t know, did we want to keep that or did we want to throw it away? Should we hold on to that or should we get rid of it?
Clay: My wife and I needed to be involved so we made the trek up there and luckily had some help from my brother-in-law, father-in-law, nephew. We had to order a big dumpster, big old thing. 30 yarder you can fit a lot of stuff in that. We had to go out there and clean some stuff up from the property. As we are doing that, it’s fun, it feels like, it feels good to get outside, you’re doing a little bit of manual labor. You’re lifting stuff, you’re breaking stuff apart, you’re thrown into the dumpster. Then the more I did it, and the more I did it, I’m like, “This is miserable. This is not fun anymore.” The Law of diminishing returns, fully kicked in. Yeah, the first couple you know yet chuck it over and then you hear it crashing the dumpster that’s fine at first. You got the adrenaline going. At least for me that wore off pretty fast. Quite frankly, it was not very fun at all. Dare I say it was a little bit miserable.
Clay: I mean, we push through we got it done. As I was doing it though I was thinking, “You know, because this is so miserable, because this is so just, it’s mindless. You don’t have to think about anything you just pick stuff up, you exert a little bit of force and muscle and you’re throwing stuff away. It’s just mindless, numbing.” I don’t want to say painful, not in the sense of like, “I’m going to die.” You’re lifting heavy stuff, you get your muscles burning a little bit. Maybe you’re breathing heavy every now and then. I mean, so it’s not pleasant from a mind perspective, because it’s just mindless, you’re not thinking about anything, but it’s also it mixes in it’s not necessarily ideal from a physical perspective.
Clay: As I’m going through all this, the way my mind works is especially if it’s mindless, something well, why not think about the content or just the business or really anything I thought, “You know what, this would probably make a good podcast. This would probably make… and I’ve done a YouTube video on it too. This would be solid, this is what I would actually do if I had nothing.” It comes about based off the fact of, “Well, this is miserable.” This is just this is not fun. That’s the key, this is why if it were me, my business model would be all about dumpsters.
Clay: Now hear me out, I’m not saying dumpsters. I’m not saying you start a company where you start delivering dumpsters. I’m not saying that, I’m saying all you do is fill the dumpster. That’s what I would do, fill the dumpster. Your product, your service is your time and labor. That’s it. You just fill up dumpsters, you just fill that thing up so that somebody else doesn’t have to. I can speak and like I said, this is not fairy. This is why this is what I would do, because I actually do, do it currently as a real estate investor. There are people out there that it sounds bad, but it is not worth their time to fill up a dumpster.
Clay: That’s twofold. First off, it’s mindless work, but second, it’s just not fun. I’ll just insert myself into the process. As a real estate investor, I can pay someone else to fill up a dumpster to clean stuff out. Because I mean, do I really need to spend 4, 5, 6, 7 hours of my time filling up a dumpster when I can pay somebody else a certain amount of money? Where it’s probably worth their time, but not necessarily mine. Once again, I realized that sounds arrogant, but this is where I want all of you to be, I want you to get to the point where you put yourself in the position where like, “Yeah, I’m in full control where I need to really start to delegate my time out wisely. I need to make sure that I’m not spending my time doing stuff where I could actually be doing other things with my time that result in a higher return.” I mean, that’s just good old fashioned opportunity cost. I can tell you this, I would gladly pay somebody well above minimum wage to fill up a dumpster.
Clay: Let’s think about how the numbers would actually workout and the way that I would go about this. Again, who are you going to be targeting? What you’re going to be targeting? You could target anybody but like I said, for me, what I would do is I would target real estate investors and later on, I’ll get into how you would target real estate investors. Real estate investors, you have a couple kinds of them, you’re going to have the landlords, right? They have rentals and stuff like that. Every now and then if they have to take back a property from eviction or something like that, unfortunately, people can leave behind big messes people can leave behind just nasty situations, where before the real estate investor can run it out to somebody else, well, stuff needs to be cleaned, stuff needs to be taken out of place.
Clay: Once again, in fact, on the YouTube channel, I had to take back a house was a couple years ago, the video is on the channel, but basically I gave a tour. The whole idea was real estate investing is great, don’t get me wrong, but there’s always the other side of real estate investor, which is the nasty which is the annoying side. I had to take back a property from somebody, and they left a lot of stuff behind. I did find a cool machete of help. Unfortunately, I don’t know where that machete went, but I took you through the tour on the video. Usually there is stuff all over the place. Then also in that video, there’s a little video montage of it being cleaned up. It wasn’t me cleaning it up, it was somebody else. Somebody else offered me the service, “Hey, do you have a bunch of junk that you want moved out? Do you have a bunch of junk that you need cleaned up? Hire us.” “Yeah, absolutely.” I hired them and they cleaned out the house for me. Why? Because, I could be on my computer trading. I could be spending my time trading the markets to in order to fund somebody else to do that plus having money leftover.
Clay: In other words, my time would be more valuable trading to make money to pay for the dumpster plus have extra money even leftover because I made more than what I had to pay them. Now, from their perspective, who knows, maybe there’s somebody that are just looking to get money to trade. From their perspective, it is worth their time because they’re just flat out trying to get money to trading. Good for them, that’s awesome. Hustle grind. I have nothing but respect for that. I don’t remember off top my head, but I know I paid at least $1,000 to get all that stuff cleared away. Now, it was a lot of stuff, but it was done in the day. No, I take that back. I paid 1000 and that was very great. This will be the second part of the business model that I would encourage you to do. That was just their labor charge. I also had to pay for the dumpsters themselves, which was separate.
Clay: That’s where I like it from a risk perspective meaning I’m not saying you have to go in there and take the risk of buying a dumpster and then you have to buy delivery truck. When all of a sudden you’re in the dumpster businesses in the sense of you want to deliver dumpsters. I mean, then that means you have to go and buy a dumpster in a truck. If you had zero that’s going to be really hard to do but if you just start to network and learn about who the dumpster companies are around you, then you just work with the real estate investor and say, “Hey, I’ll clean up the dumpster or I’ll fill up the dumpster, but it’s on you, you have to pay for the dumpster, and you provide the dumpster.”
Clay: Now, if you want to add another layer of value to your business, you should not network with people, the dumpster companies, and you say, “Hey, this is who I’d recommend, or this is who I’d recommend.” You start to do that enough, and then the dumpster companies they’re going to appreciate you because you keep bringing them so much business. Then all of a sudden, you might be able to say, you know what, use this dumpster salt company because I can get you a discount because I use them so much, but they’ll actually give you a discount. Now think about it, now that real estate investor really likes you because you’re giving them a discount on dumpsters for this stuff, and what do you think they’re going to do? Well, they’re going to start telling their real estate friends, “Hey, use this person because, not only do they do a good job, but they are they’re also getting you a discount.” There’s just little things you can do in there.
Clay: Now, I should have probably started off and in my mind, it’s a safe assumption. Just to be clear, this whole business model assumes you are a good worker, it assumes you are ready to work hard and do a good job. Because if you don’t do a good job, then none of this is going to work, right? Because people will just, they won’t hire you. Or they’ll just say, “Get off my property.” I really hope that goes without saying, but this does all assume that you plan on actually doing a good job and working hard, and you’re going to want to work hard. Then here’s why, because this segues perfectly into it. Here’s how it can really work, if someone were to say and this is how you approach it, you would reach out to these real estate investors, which again, I’ll get to in a little bit, and you’ll you’ll go to their property. \
Clay: Let’s just say it was a property where they’ve had to evict somebody, and there’s a bunch of junk in there, and you got it and at the beginning, it’ll be a guess. You’ll just have to give it your best guess. That’s also the fun part about building the business, but you’ll have to give it some guess. You’re going to have to think, all right. The question becomes how long do I believe it’ll take me? Now you don’t tell the investor this, but that’s where you need to be asking. How long do I think it’s going to take me? How long do I think it’s going to take me? Let’s just say to keep the math easy, you think it’s going to take you 10 hours, you think it will take you 10 hours to clean up and fill up that dumpster, clean out the house.
Clay: All right. How much per hour, what I like to make? Let’s just say you know what, the minimum wage is, what is it like 750? Let’s just call it eight bucks. Well, the minimum wage is eight bucks. I’d like to make above the minimum wage for my time, $10. I think I’d like to make $10 per hour. All right, well, you know that your estimated time is 10 hours. What is 10 hours and you’d like to make $10 per hour? That’s 100 bucks. I can tell you, you are way, way, way undercutting yourself. I would in a heartbeat without even thinking. In fact, I’d probably think you’re trying to scam me if you’re like, “Yeah, I’ll clean up this entire house for 100 bucks.” There you go. What does that tell you? That tells you, all right, you’re under your way underpricing your services.
Clay: What happens if I want to make $20 an hour? Well, you want to make $20 an hour. If you estimate it to be 10 hours, well, now you would charge in the real estate investor, you would charge me $200. Again, no brainer, “You’re only going to charge me 200 bucks to clean it? Deal.” All right, so that’s still much. You know what, I want to make 400 or I want to make $40 an hour, right? Well, $40 an hour and you think it’s going to take you 10 hours. Then you would tell me, “Hey, I’ll charge you $400.” Now again, you’re not telling them, “I’m going to charge you $40 per hour.” That’s not what you’re saying. I’m just telling you how to arrive at the number that you would charge the real estate investor. You would tell me $400 because in your mind you’re thinking, “I think I gave this sucker done in 10 hours.” Yeah, $40 400. For me, deal.
Clay: Now at some point and this is where it’s always going to be different. The “some point” it’s going to reach the area where it’s like, “No, that’s not worth my time.” For example, if you’re like, “I want to make $300 an hour.” You come to me and say, “I’m going to charge $3,000 to fill up the dumpster.” I’m going to say, “No, thank you.” At this point, it is probably worth my time to at least search around for other people or just do it myself if it’s going to cost me $3,000. There is that point and I like said, it’s not an exact science, but there’s that point out there, where it does cross into the realm of it is actually going to be worth that person’s time to do it, if that’s what you’re requiring. Offer up a little bit more context about this per hour thing.
Clay: Like I said, I did a video on this already on YouTube. One of the people, left a comment and they do this. From their numbers, it breaks down to right around $65 an hour. Which I fully believe because again, I could see even things on some projects potentially being up to 100 bucks an hour, it depends on what it is. Let’s say I don’t believe that person they’re lying. Okay, fine. Let’s say they’re lying by 50%. Fine, we’ll call it $30 an hour, 30 bucks an hour is a whole lot more than some part-time minimum wage job. I have nothing against the part-time minimum wage job at least you’re out there hustling grinding, but I mean $30 compared to $8 or whatever the minimum wage is, that’s quite a bit more quite a bit different for the same amount of time.
Clay: Again, like I said, $30 that’s… like I said, if you were to charge a job at 10 hours, and you’re only charging me 300 bucks, that is a no brainer. Of course, I will hire you. Absolutely. That’s why I say I fully believe this person is not exaggerating when they said the $65. Then here’s the kicker, and here’s the other parts where things can get really interesting from the business perspective. As you’re filling up the dumpster keep your eye out. I take no credit, I should have mentioned this in my video, but the person that was explaining this was like, “Well, the other thing you can do is just keep your eye out for any scrap metal that you can recycle. That you can take into a place and they’ll give you money.” They said, “That’s another great way where I pad my revenue where I get even more revenue.” Because I’m just not going to throw away the scrap metal, I’m going to set that aside and then I’m going to take that to the nearest place that I can give it to them and they’ll give me money back and those prices are always fluctuating.
Clay: That’s just more money, that’s just essentially free money that’s sitting there that you can add even more money to your per hour rate. Sure, maybe only charge a person let’s just call it $400 but I mean, what happens if you can get another 100 bucks and scrap metal? For slightly more time because of course you would take it to the place, but you’re getting yourself an extra $100? I mean, that seems like a no brainer decision me. Then the next thing that you could potentially do and to preface this, you would want to make sure you ask your client. In our little example, in our little story here, you’d want to make sure that ask the real estate investor, “Hey, did you see anything that you wanted to keep? Do you mind if I take this, that and the other?”
Clay: Let’s just say you find a lawn mower, don’t just take the lawn mower. Make sure you ask like, “Hey, would you mind if I took this or did you want it?” I’d say probably nine out of 10 times I’ve had people ask, “Yeah, go for it.” “Can I take the fridge?” “Yeah, sure. Go for it.” As long as the fridge is out of the house, that’s all I care about. What you do with it after that, whether you throw it in the dumpster or whether you take it with you to scrap it out or who knows do what with it. I don’t care I’m paying you to just remove the fridge but thank you for asking and making sure.
Clay: Just make sure you ask, who knows the amount of knickknacks and stuff that will sell on eBay? At this one, I suppose Facebook marketplace is getting more and more popular, but you could find a knickknack or something that could also result in even more money. Because I get it right now the whole drop shipping things very popular the whole, “Hey, go to a discount stores find something and then mark it up and sell it on Amazon or all that.” That’s great. I’m just saying this is basically a way for you to get even more inventory for that business. This could be a spin off business from the dumpster business is you being able to sell knickknacks and stuff on eBay or I like said Facebook marketplace or Amazon and all that thing. You have really the core filling it up, but then you could branch out into those other areas, but it’s all coming from the same exact thing. The money can add up quite quickly, and it will add up quite quickly when you factor in just how much people are willing to pay.
Clay: Now the one thing here that I probably should have started with, but one dynamic that you’re going to need. Because like I said, assuming you have zero dollars, you might need to pick up a part-time job first, because you’re going to pick up that part-time job. Because like said, I’m taking this at a very literal sense. You’re either going to need to pay for some training, so you’re going to need some fuel for your car, right? Because, you’ve got to get to these places. You might need to pick up a part-time job at first, as a means to start to give yourself some capital so that you can go and give somebody a bid when you go to their property or whatever. Part of the process may very well be just picking up a part-time job. Even if it’s just 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week, that’s fine, because you’re going to know that at other parts in your schedule, you’re going to be out there filling up dumpsters, and just making it happen that way.
Clay: This brings up the question, “Well, it sounds like hard work, Clay. I mean, isn’t there… I don’t want to. Do I have to?” That’s the opportunity. The opportunity and why this would work is because it is hard work. It is unpleasant. It is not fun. It’s not really easy. Not that a minimum wage job is “easy,” but there’s a reason why McDonald’s or places like that don’t need to offer up $30 an hour. Why? Because, there’s plenty of people that know. Of course, I do over 30, but I’ll also just do it for eight bucks or whatever. Because, I mean, why not? Because there’s a whole lot more people that would want to do that job compared to having to fill up dumpsters and get dirty, and get some scratches and pokes and just have to hustle and grind. That’s the beauty and that’s what spot is like. This is miserable, but it puts you in that spot where it’s miserable enough where someone like me, I don’t want to do it, because not only is it miserable, it’s not even worth my time.
Clay: It’s also good because it is miserable, that a lot of other people who maybe are in your exact same situation where they have zero, well, they just don’t want it as bad as you so that they’re not going to do it or they’re going to do something else. Not that they can’t get to where you want to go to, you’re just going to get through that much quicker because again, same amount of time, one hour versus one hour, but if you can work it, like I said, the $65/hour like that one guy or just 30 or $40 an hour, you’re just going to have the money show up that much quicker.
Clay: For me, I want it to happen now. If I’m going to do something, I want to do it smart, but I also want to be smoked it and I want to be as efficient as possible. If that means I’m going to have to suffer a little bit, if that means I’m going to have to do something. That’s, do I really I have to? That’s opportunity and that’s the question. That’s really the thought. I’m not saying it’s got to necessarily be dumpsters for me it would be. I’ll explain even more here with a recent article and why this is structured for 2020. Ask yourself, what are some measurable things out there that most people just don’t want to do? I assure you filling up dumpsters, I mean, you’re going to have some nasty clothes that you might find yet. Who knows what you could find in some of those things? I mean, you could find some great things for your eBay little store. There’s going to be some nastiness to but nastiness is a good thing because that means not a lot of people want to do it.
Clay: Supply and demand, if not a lot of people want do something that means there’s low supply. There’s low supply of what will a low supply of labor right a low supply people that actually want to do it, but the demand is there. As I’ll show you here in a little bit with the statistics, the demand is really, really there. When the demand is really, really there but there’s a low supply of people actually willing to do it, guess what happens? You can charge that much more money. Now if a whole bunch of people start doing it well, and yeah, that’s just supply and demand. Prices might come down but this line of work filling up dumpsters, let’s be real. I am pretty confident that several people maybe even the majority of people have already turned this off because they’re probably idea was is he going to give me some? Fill up dumpsters and that’s stupid, but good.
Clay: If you’re still listening, that just proves my point. That’s more opportunity for you. Because, I would wager to get some vast majority of people have already turned this off. Just realize if you’re still listening right now, you are putting yourself in a league where you’re going to be able to go out there I’m not going to say have zero competition, because this whole idea is nothing new. I mean, yes, there are junk removal companies, there are situations where people will fill up your dumpsters but not that many. Especially if you do what I’m going to tell you, you can really put yourself in a great spot from multiple angles here.
Clay: Let’s move on, because that puts us all right, well, where do you find real estate investors at Clay? Do I just put an ad out on like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace? How exactly does that work? Well, one way you can really do it and like I said, this is where that original part-time job will come into play. In your local newspaper, just to put out some ad. I don’t know what those ads are, but let’s just call it 100 bucks for a couple weeks or 100 bucks for a week. Now I’m not saying you do it in the New York Times or some massive newspaper but just in the local. For us, and what do we have there? The Observer, I think here in Coopersville. Coopersville, Michigan, I think it’s called the Observer, just a small little local thing. You have all the local dentist and real estate agents and the contractors, “Hey, if you need a new roof.” Stuff like that. I don’t know the price, not down my head, but it can’t be that much.
Clay: Really, you don’t even need to do that. You don’t need to spend any money on marketing. If you want to, try to ignite this a little bit that much quicker. By using that part-time job, some of that money can be used for marketing, but let’s just assume, “No, I don’t want to spend any money on marketing.” Then this is what you do. Well, I guess if you have zero, you need to be able to get to the library so you could use their internet. If we want to take this very literally that you have absolutely nothing, nothing. You can go to the library and on Google, this is what you’re going to be looking for Real Estate Investment Associations, or in real estate lingo REIAs, real being R for real, E for the estate, R for the… See, this is bad real estate and then the I for Investment, and then the A for Association, there we go. Real Estate Investment Associations, REIAs or in other words Real Estate Clubs and just get can get creative on Google.
Clay: Type in your city. For me, it would be… or really your state, I guess however far you’re willing to travel, but for me it could be Michigan Real Estate Investment Clubs, or just Michigan R-E-I-A for REIAs. Google is smart enough with the algorithm, it’ll start the plug in and figure out what you’re trying to type in there. That’s the key search term is your city or your county or your municipality, whatever it is, like I said, get creative with it. Just type in either Real Estate Investment Club, Real Estate Investors, Real Estate Association, and any big city are going to have real estate investing clubs. They’re going to have real estate investment associations where people come together and a lot of times they’ll have presenters to bring people in and these presenters, maybe they’re trying to sell a product.
Clay: The point being they are magnets, they’re drawing in real estate investors. Here’s the even better part is they’re just bringing in people from all other walks, meaning they’re going to bring in Real Estate Attorneys, right? Because, well, if a real estate attorney who is their client, real estate investors for different reasons, right? Well, they want to help, “Hey, you need to evict somebody? Let me be your lawyer that walks you through the legal process.” Your part would be just, “Hey, you had to evict somebody, I’ll clean out the house.” You’re going to have accountants or you’re going to have CPAs, “Hey, I get it, your taxes can be pretty, a little bit more complicated. I specialize in helping real estate investors.” You’re going to have accountants there, you’re going to have other business owners, you’re going to have people that to go back to, “Hey I do roofs, if you need a new roof, consider me. I like to work through real estate investors. I’ll give you a discount.” You’re going to have those people they’re known as vendor. You’re going to have real estate investors and then the vendors, and that’s all it’s just one big thing of networking.
Clay: Now you very well could be thinking, “That sounds scary. I’m going to a place. What am I supposed to do?” Well, your vendor, you’re selling your service your product. Again, your What is your service? What is your product? My labor. Basically, you’re saying, “Hey, I’m just looking to do manual labor.” That is what you’re selling. “I’m looking to fill up a dumpster, I’m looking to help just clean up, I’m looking to help do whatever needs to be done.” You know what? This is how things work. This is and this is not theory, this is just how it works. Because again, I don’t like saying this stuff because it makes me sound arrogant, but I’m just there. This is where I sit and I’ll speak for other people where I sit too, we respect nothing more than somebody else that used to be where we were, and that is looking to hustle and grind. Meaning if you were to show up at one of these meetings, which let’s first off it, and this is one of these just life lessons this is would be a benefit that’s going to help you just be better in life, is it’s probably going to be uncomfortable.
Clay: Now, if you’re one of these people that you can go into a situation just talk with people, no problem. For someone like me that’s shy and for people that maybe I mean, I can talk with people, but that sounds really bad. You just show up and you have to start to talk to people. “What am I doing?” You know what? Put yourself out of your comfort zone. One of the best things that I could have ever done for myself is start this podcast as somebody that’s shy. I talk to strangers and I’ve been doing it I don’t know what’s it been like four years now? I don’t know I’ve lost track and this is episode 240 something. I’ve talked with well over 200 strangers, but you know what, it’s made me better just in life not that I’m perfect and but just do stuff that makes you uncomfortable.
Clay: If you’re thinking right now, “That sounds really scary.” I mean, in order to make all this work, I’m not to put myself in that situation. It seems awkward. It seems pretty scary, doesn’t it? Beautiful. Because you know what just happened? If you’re still listening, there are more people that just turned this off. “Wait a second Clay. I’m all for manual labor, I can do that. You’re telling me I have to go to these real estate investment clubs and talk with strangers and offer up my services? I mean, what happens if they say no?” No, that’s too much click off. We just think about what just happened, a whole bunch of… I don’t know about a whole bunch, but there were some more people that just got eliminated that stop listening to the podcast. If you’re still here, you just proved why you can get those rates higher and higher per hour. Because the more I go in, and think about it, there’s no more physical labor needed. It’s just a mental thing. It’s the “I don’t like that uncomfortable situation.” If you can get over that.
Clay: Once again, not only is it making you a better person, you’re putting yourself in a spot that most people would not do. Again, from where I sit, where I am now as a real estate investor and where other people sit. If I saw somebody doing that, I would overpay them anyways, just out of pure respect, I’ll be like, “Wow, good for you. That is awesome. You are truly trying to hustle and grind.” Like I said, I will speak with authority and with confidence for 95% of other business owners. For other real estate investors that at one point were where you were at, and now they’re on the other side of the fence. People want to help each other out, but people also don’t want to just give away free handouts, right? If you are there, who cares?
Clay: If somebody was talking to me, and they’re stumbling over their words, and I see they’re sweating bullets, and I see there’s extremely nervous. They’ll probably get even more money from me because I’m like, “Wow, this person is super nervous right now, but they’re putting themselves out there, good for them.” Also, “You’re only going to charge me that?” I mean, I might take it but I’d probably throw in a tip and the tip would probably more. I assure you, us people, whoever threw some people out their pain is like evil. No, we are, I mean, especially in a face to face, people are willing to help you out, people are willing to give you opportunities. The other cool thing about this is you may show it, show up. Again, you can approach it as, “I’m here to help fill out, dumpsters remove junk, do whatever you want.” You can also just sell it as, “I’m just going to offer a manual labor. Anybody that needs something done that just require something cleaned up or thrown away.”
Clay: Because you’re going to have like I said, let’s just go with the roofing example. A roofer might approach and be like, part of roofing is you got to tear off the old roof. If you’re looking to make some extra money, we need dumpsters filled up because we throw our scraps on the ground and stuff like that and this is actually what I did in college. Again, no theory here, that’s all part of what I did on college summer when I come home for the summer. I worked for good old Ohio roofing and Toledo, Ohio. I think they’re still in business, but that’s what I did. I certainly made more money than minimum wage doing it. Was it easy? No. Did I get poked by a bunch of nails? Yeah. Should I probably have gotten some tetanus shots? Maybe. It paid well, and it helped out. It’s there. You just got to put yourself out there.
Clay: My point is, you’re going to have people from all different walks that could very well… and think about it, who knows? I’m not saying this will happen, but I could see it. Maybe there is some real estate attorney there or somebody that’s more “white collar” meaning they do some desks job, and they’re like, “Wow, this, I’m impressed by this individual.” Who knows, maybe they offer you something that doesn’t require any manual labor at all, but they’re just impressed that you’re there. Like I said, the possibilities are endless, because here’s the thing, most people are not going to do what I’m talking about. Most people would never, even if they never, most people are not even going to think to do all this and that’s fine. A lot of people have no idea that there’s real estate investment associations that you go to. Like that a lot of people have already turned this off, because “Wait, it requires me to go and talk with people?”
Clay: You would be I don’t want to say in the league totally of your own, but you would be in a situation where you’re going to catch people off guard like, “Wow, okay.” This is regardless of age. I couldn’t care less if it’s some 20 year old, 18 year old kid there or somebody in their ’50s saying, “Hey.” Whatever your reason is, maybe you’ve gone through some rough times, whatever. If somebody’s there, and they’re willing to work once again, this all under the presumption that you are going to work hard, that you’re going to deliver results. Because if you’re terrible, then guess what people like me will still pay you but see you later. Not anymore. If you do, do good work, then we’ll be looking at bend over backwards and help out in any way we can.
Clay: Then here’s the most valuable thing about all of this. Let’s think back to who would you be surrounded with real estate Attorneys, accountants, business owners, just other real estate investors. Just listen to how these people talk iron sharpens iron, and there’s nothing worse that somebody could do than surround yourself and always be surrounded by a bunch of bombs by a bunch of, “Whoa it’s me. I can get ahead. The system’s rigged against me.” All that talk over and over and over again. Now I realize in some situations, you may not necessarily be able to get away from it. There are situations where you can get away from it temporarily and put yourself in situations where you are surrounded by people that are either making it happen or have already made it happen. Of course, those people are just continuing to make it happen, iron sharpens iron, you’re going to be around people that have wisdom and knowledge and probably horror stories of what not to do.
Clay: First off, you just listen. Then when you start to build relationships, when you start to actually do work, if somebody for me again, build up a dumpster, and then I was going to pay him and I said, “Hey, do you have a moment for a couple questions?” “Well, absolutely.” They could ask me anything. “I’d like to maybe get into real estate investing.” In this situation, I mean, you have any recommendations and you just ask them questions. Again, I will speak with full authority. 95% of other people in my position or other positions are going to probably tell you more than you want to know. They will be more than happy to probably like I said, not only overpay you but just give you free knowledge, just give you experience because we respect that we used to be that, we were seeking knowledge, we were hungry to make something happen in life.
Clay: If I can offer you just a little bit of wisdom and help you answer a question of why wouldn’t I? Of course, but again, offer a value. This is why I keep hammering home, I mean, this doesn’t all assume that you’re going to do a good job. This doesn’t assume that you’re going to work hard. This doesn’t assume that you’re going to show up on time. “Yeah, I’ll be there at 10:00 AM to fill up the dumpster.” You’re there at 9:55 or 9:50. Better yet. That’s assuming you do a good job, then the amount of knowledge and stuff you can learn from just not only listening, but then beginning to ask questions from these people in the long haul will really, really pay off for you.
Clay: There’s so much knowledge that can come from all of this, but you just got to be willing to put yourself out there. You’ve got to be willing to step into an awkward situation where you’re not going to know anybody, people might have some fancy clothes on, but just let people know why are there, what your services. “My service is manual labor. Ideally, if you need an eviction cleaned out, or you need some scraps cleaned out, or you just need something cleaned up, or really just anything done. I’m here to make some money, and, and I’m here to just offer up my labor.” You can keep it as broad as you want or if you really want to build the niche of you get the dumpster and I’m going to fill the dumpster. You know what? If you do it well enough, and you really go, then all of a sudden your friends, “Where did you get all that money so fast?” “Hey, come along, let’s be a team.” All sudden you have people and you have a team, you have people that are working for you, and you could build an entire company.
Clay: Like said the idea, the premise behind this story was, “Well, I want to get money to be able to trade.” Who knows? Maybe like, “Actually, no, I don’t want to trade anymore. I’m building the business. This is great. I want to do this.” Maybe that’s where you want to go, but all this was coming from an article that it’s not brand new, but let’s see when was it? December 4, and the title sounds deceiving, but like said, it’s the opportunity for this. Not that, I mean, this would work pretty much anytime. Because even when real estate markets go down, I mean, honestly that’s when that’s when that many more investors flock in because then you have average, things become more affordable and all that.
Clay: Really, this is a recession proof business model to because there’s always going to be people, there’s always going to be real estate deals going on. In this situation, you may be able to work with other different people and I’ll get here in a second. The title next year, so next year 2020 will be hard on the housing market, especially in these big cities. Now, I’m not going to read the whole article. On a nutshell level, not a nutshell level. I don’t think that’s the right word. On a broad level is basically saying that the housing market sales are going to go down, but the reason sales are going down is because there’s just simply not enough for people to buy.
Clay: In other words, the supply of houses is so low relative to the demand that there’s just not as many houses that can sell. Therefore, sales are going to contract, which is a bad problem to have from the buyer’s perspective, right? When you want to buy but there’s just simply not enough out there to choose from and you put in an offer, and then you’re competing against all the others offers. In other words, it’s a seller’s market right now, it is strictly just, wow, sales are going down because there’s not enough supply out there. That brings up the question. Well, how do you fix the problem? Because, we have a problem here. There’s not enough supply. There’s plenty of people that want to buy, but it’s a little shaky from the supply standpoint.
Clay: Well, how about we increase the supply? How about we make more places for people to live? Who would that require? Well, that would require real estate investors, right? Either buy a dump, fix it up, make it livable again or that might just make the rental market that much stronger. Again, that’s just more real estate investing or you have just simply people that are builders, building companies that build new houses. All those people all the above, they need somebody that will work hard. They need people, they need manual labor. There are so many opportunities out there, when the only thing that’s going to continue to happen is more and more people are going to be like I said from the real estate investing standpoint, or who knows, maybe you go back to these real estate associations clubs. There’re very well could be new builders there, right? They’re looking for, “I have so much going on I need another roofer to add to my team or I need a plumber or I need this that the other.”
Clay: Well, excuse me, sir. Excuse me, madam. I mean, I know new constructions have lots of debris and lots of stuff that occurs. I can pick up that debris for you. I can make keep the job site is clean as possible. I can do something else for you, maybe there’s a carpenter there. Who knows, maybe you learn some real practical life, maybe you learn something about plumbing, maybe you learn some things about carpentry. Once again, this whole idea is built around the fact that you are willing to work, you are willing to work hard. I never said any of this was easy, as we’ve already discussed, but the opportunity is all over the place as far as the real estate market is concerned.
Clay: You boil that down if you just want to focus on filling up dumpsters, dumpsters are going to need to be filled because there is going to be all kinds of renovations and construction going on when you have these sorts of crazy, crazy numbers. Where literally which is crazy when you think about it. Values, sales are going down, just because there’s not enough supply out there. There’s not enough housing for people. I mean, it almost seems like it’s not possible but that’s what this article is saying. Real estate is very localized, but I haven’t talked to a single person that’s like, “No, nothing is going on here in my real estate market.” Am I saying that your real estate market locally is necessarily growing 20% for you? I’m not saying that, but that’s why get out Google search around there are people around you that are looking such as real estate investors and I would guess people in the trades people that just need manual labor.
Clay: Who knows maybe it more of is in you help people move. Well, you said junk removal. How about if I want stuff moved into a house? I mean, what do you do that? “Yeah, I’ll do that.” Same thing. How long do you think that would take? How much do I want to make per hour? Now I don’t I don’t think you could make as much. Because again, if you’re moving stuff in that’s going to be nice new stuff, right? That’s just going to be pieces for it, but when you have to clean stuff out, that’s where the nastiness factor comes in vendors, the perceived nastiness of stuff, it just piled everywhere and it looks really bad. I mean, it’s not bad, but it looks bad. When things look bad, you know what, people are going to pay much more for things that just look bad. You have the procedure, right?
Clay: I would think I could be wrong. I would think that you will get more per hour but once again, to really drive that home. You don’t charge people per hour. Don’t go up. Something like, “I’m going to charge you 50 bucks per hour.” To clean up? No. You just estimate how long you think it’s going to be and then you assign a price to it. Then that way, you just can’t give somebody a lump price and that way, who knows? Guess what, if it takes you eight hours and you thought 10, that’s even better. That’s why I say, work hard because it actually benefits you to work hard. Because it’s not like you’re being paid per hour in the sense of, “Well, if I just take my time and go as slow as possible, I make more money because it’s taking me longer.” No, you gave them a flat rate.
Clay: If it takes you eight hours, great, if it takes you 15 hours, bummer, because you’re still making the exact same amount of money. Like I said, if you work hard, you can potentially bump that number per hour up that much more. This is how I would do it, this is the exact way I would go about if I had zero. I would find other real estate investors, I would go and network and I would put myself out there and say, “Hey, I’m a beast, I will work hard. I will show up on time, and I will fill up that dumpster or if you have something else that you need done. I’m your guy. I’m going to show up. I’m not going to show up with alcohol on my breath. I’m just going to show up and I’m going to get it done. I’m going to do it and I’m going to listen. Whatever you need done, just let me know if I don’t know how to do it. I’ll tell you, I’ll be up front. You can either Teach me or if it’s not worth your time. That’s fine. I understand that. I mean, do you know anybody else that would potentially need me?”
Clay: I get it at first, those are all just words. As soon as you show up and you your actions match your words, which in my case, like I said, I can only speak for me, that’s going to happen. I’m going to show up, I’m going to beast mode it. I’m going to do it right. I’m going to do it the way you need it done. I’m going to do it ideally as fast as possible. Still, you want to do it the right way. You don’t want to rush through it, and then leave a bunch of stuff all around. I mean, you got to do it the right way. That’s rare, that’s not easy to find. People will gobble up all sorts of that type of labor. There’s so much potential out there and once more, I don’t want any of this to come across like I’m saying minimum wage jobs aren’t worth it. Again, that’s how I would do it. This is how I would approach it.
Clay: Maybe start with a minimum wage job, if I wanted to do some marketing or if I needed to get some gas, or if I needed to whatever. Even if you don’t have the internet, just go to the library, Google these places, get to these places and start networking. It’s amazing, not only the money that you can make, but keep in mind, what I would argue is the most valuable thing, the knowledge, just observing these people, talking with these people. Because, there’s going to be successful people there. There’s going to be business owners there.
Clay: Sure, maybe you don’t necessarily want to build a roofing business, but they have built a business, ask them questions, “Hey, what struggles have you gone through?” They’ll tell you, “Yeah, I’ve tried to grow too fast and I hired way too many people. Or at first I was paying way too much for supplies, but then I did this, that and the other thing and that brought my supply costs down, which helped my profit margins go up.” That is all good, good stuff, which you are into.
Clay: I say that now because we are over 47 minutes into this thing, and if you’re still listening, then you are a piece of iron you’re ready to go. Everybody else would have long ago, turn this thing off. If you’re still here, then why wouldn’t you go and start to do this? If you are somebody that doesn’t necessarily have zero, but you want more money for your trading account, or again, more money for something else. “I wish I had more money to just get rid of that debt so that I could then focus on this.” I mean, why can’t you do this? Why can’t you go out there hustle and grind? I mean, this could be something where you do it on a weekend and people will respect that. “Hey, you need to clean out?” “Hey Clay, you have that dumpster there?” Because remember, you’re not taking on that risk. It’s not your dumpster. You have that dumpster delivered on Friday night or Friday afternoon. You could start, especially the summer when it stays light forever.
Clay: I mean, why can’t you? You have that there Friday afternoon. I’m going to be there Friday because I work a part-time job, but I’ll be there Friday at five and I’m going to work until probably 10, 11 until it gets dark. Then I’ll be back on Saturday to finish it up or depending on how big the job. I’ll be there all day. I don’t know, but the point is that there is power in weekends and scheduling and you just tell the investor, “When you need it there.” You just make it happen and you get it done. You can work on any schedule. I’m not saying this has to be a 40 hour week gig. I mean, if you could land 40 hours a week, why wouldn’t you if you’re making 50, 40, 65 bucks an hour? Trust me, you will have a big trading account in a very, very quick amount of time, but also you got to scale up. None of this is going to occur where all of a sudden you have 30 hours worth of work.
Clay: I mean, there is a little building process just like trading you got to figure out fine tune some things, right? You’re going to have to fine tune, what are people actually willing to pay. From there, then you can start to scale a little bit bigger, you’re going to start to get more and more familiar with the dumpster companies, they’re going to start to get more and more familiar with you, because you’re going to be recommending lots of work to them. Then all of a sudden, the hours are going to start to build up. At that point, I would keep going and now you can trade while you’re doing this, and this can help fund your trading account. This can help fund what I wouldn’t recommend investing into your learning, right? Investing into a course invest idea with me, but if not with somebody else, you want it, that’s fine.
Clay: You could have two things going on and that’s what I did back in college. I had my book selling business that was bringing in money. I was trading, I was going to class. Did I have much of a social life? No. Looking back, do I regret any of that? Absolutely not. I like where I sit right now. I don’t say that in an arrogant way, but I say it in a way of, did I have the most traditional college experience? No, I didn’t. Because, I was out there running a book business, learning how to trade, going to class and then my last year I was married. I had to figure out how to be a good husband type thing. I mean, there’s a lot of dynamics going on, not that I’m anything special. I’m just somebody that says, you know what? Frustration, annoyance? Yeah, I’ll do that stuff because that’s opportunity. That’s where everything lies in terms of the nastier something gets, the more you can go and make from it.
Clay: Hopefully, this helps at least even just one person. Please go out there, just Google figure out one of these real estate investment clubs. You know what, worst case. Worst case everybody says no. I mean, that won’t happen. You know what? Maybe they’ll say, “No, I don’t have anything right now.” People get your contact information, and just keep going to it. You’ve got to stay persistent. You know what, especially in this environment, people want… In fact, right now if you are in the West Michigan area, and again, don’t contact me, don’t reach out if you’re a slacker if you can’t show up on time. If you’re not willing to work hard, if you’re not willing to sweat. If you are willing to work hard, you’re willing to listen. You’re willing to show up on time, I can easily get you jobs above a minimum wage.
Clay: I know plenty of contractors, some of whom are my own family. My brother-in-law, he’s always looking for labor always, always. Now isn’t necessarily easy? No. He’s a carpenter. You’re going to have to learn, but he’s going to pay you above minimum wage. Now, is it going to be $65 an hour? No. That’s always a give and take. Remember, what I would do is you’re technically building a business for yourself, right? You are the business. Now what for somebody else, if you want to go and become an employee or work for somebody else, that’s fine, but within the trades, it’s still going to be more than above minimum wage. There’s always a given take. Because in that situation, well, my brother-in-law would go out and find work for you because he’s the business owner. When you’re the business owner and you have to go find the work, well, you get to cut out the middleman. You are finding the work also you happen to be doing the work, which is why your profit margins and why you can make that much more.
Clay: There’s always give and take. My point is that within the real estate market, within the trades, there is a lot of demand for manual labor, assuming the labor itself is of quality and that you’re going to do a good job. Like I said, even if there’s just one person, I hope this is going to can help one person. All it takes is just step out of your comfort zone, be willing to work hard, and there is a ton of opportunity out there. Not easy, but that’s why it’s the opportunity because it’s not easy, it’s annoying, it’s miserable. It’s not something that people want to do, but if you do, do it, then the results can be very, very beneficial. I shouldn’t use this word up front, but I’ll end cap it. All this is just temporary.
Clay: I am not saying that this should be your life goal forever to just fill up dumpsters. Like I said, I want you to get to where I am, where it becomes a situation where you learn like, “No, it’s no longer worth my time to fill up that dumpster.” I mean, we all start there, I started there. Like I said, I pushed in cars from a parking lot. I did roofing stuff. We all start there. I want you to get to the point where you’re not there. This is all just a temporary plan. This is a means to an end. This is how you go from point A to B, and C and so on and so forth. Temporary, keep that word in mind, too. This is not like I’m proposing you do this for the rest of your life. I’m just proposing this as a way to get more money, whether that be for trading or for anything else.
Clay: Give it some thought. If it can help you, great. I mean, let’s be honest, if you’re still listening, then it is for you. Why would you not do this? Step out of your comfort zone. Go out there, start to hustle and grind and make yourself some money.
Announcer: This has been The Stock Trading Reality Podcast, thanks for taking the time to hang out. To learn more about Clay and the ClayTrader community, including the trading team, premium training and more, visit claytrader.com.