Today, we are joined by Carlos Salguero to talk about scaling beyond themselves. In just 12 months, he moved from being a novice investor to owning more than a thousand multifamily doors. And as a successful business owner, he wants to expand his businesses.
[00:01] – [08:21] Scaling the Business: Assets Vs Liabilities
- Carlos defines “scale” as the ability to grow a business larger than what was initially planned or imagined
- Why it’s sometimes difficult to make the investment to grow as a business
- As his company expanded, Carlos was forced to recruit successors for himself. He eventually discovered how to scale his enterprise by hiring professionals to help him grow
[08:22] – [12:02] How Investment Brings Jobs and Growth to the Area
- Carlos discusses his investment in a mixed use community in Tennessee, which is already at 90% occupancy
- Carlos shares about the importance of location
- How being close to major investments will benefit the property
[12:03] – [19:37] The Leasing Process
- Carlos shares how he started leasing some vacant space and increased its value by $9 million in seven months
- How he found a unicorn deal in Tennessee and underwrote it for $40 million
- Why we should always build your network
[19:38] – [20:36] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Carlos!
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- Links Below
- Final Words
Tweetable Quotes
“I think that’s one of the things that entrepreneurs and business owners sometimes don’t do. Well. You gotta find yourself a replacement in certain things, and if you don’t, you’ll be stuck there. ” – Carlos Salguero
“Always be building your network. Always be meeting people” – Carlos Salguero
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Connect with Carlos! Follow Carlos Salguero on LinkedIn. Website: https://iamcarlos10x.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamcarlos10x/?hl=en. Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamcarlos10x
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I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
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Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
[00:00:00] Carlos Salguero: Cause when we go to school, what do they tell us? Don’t call pee. Right? Don’t collaborate. Be independent. Be individual. So in the business world, man, I’d rather go after people that have already done it. See if they wanna share that success with me. See if they want to gimme some tips, pay for their thoughts. If I need to, because one thing they tell you could just take you in a whole different direction, and that’s really where my business took off.
[00:00:37] Sam Wilson: Carlos del Guro in 12 months went from being a novice investor to now owning over a thousand multifamily doors. That’s incredible growth in a very short period of time. Carlos, welcome to the show.
[00:00:49] Carlos Salguero: Thank you, Sam. Appreciate you having me here. I’m excited.
[00:00:52] Sam Wilson: Absolutely. The pleasure is mine, Carlos, here are three questions I ask every guest who comes from the show in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me where did you start, where are you now, and how did you get there?
[00:01:01] Carlos Salguero: Oh man, it’s a short time, but I started in South America. I was born in Kitto, Ecuador. Came to this country at 17 years old without money. No friends, no family. First ever in my family. Went to college, graduated, went to work for corporate America for five years. I just was not meant to be an employee, so I started my own business. I started an e-commerce business that over the years grew to multimillion dollar, Then I started a logistics company. Same thing with that, grew it to a multimillion dollar business still on it today. And that led me to real estate. I bought my first commercial building because I needed a warehouse for my logistics business. And that is how I started in the real estate arena. And then I became a hobby real estate investor for the better part of 15 years where I bought single family homes, duplexes, track clicks, Airbnbs, and I just kind of saw the limitations of scaling small property. So that led me to a big multi-family, which is what we do now. And like you said, over the last 12 months, we’ve scaled from seven units that I had about a year and a half ago to now over a thousand units in with an amazing, beautiful deal under contract right now that we’re gonna close in January.
[00:02:19] Sam Wilson: That is incredible. Tell me, I mean, you know, the questions I think anybody would have in that is how? I mean, that’s the only question I’ll ask, How ?
[00:02:29] Carlos Salguero: For Sure. I think for me, I always wanted to be successful. I knew that there was a vehicle that could take me there. I knew that I needed to get better. I needed to improve myself. I had parents that were business owners and entrepreneurs, they never learned to scale big. You know, they became successful because of their perseverance, their commitment, their discipline. But they were never able to scale beyond themselves. They were solopreneurs. They had a small team, but if they were missing, the business couldn’t run. So I always looked at them and said, man, I wanna be a successful business owner, but I don’t wanna get stuck where my parents got stuck. So I learned how to scale businesses, and that was one of the big things that I focused on along the way, because every time I felt stuck, I was like, man, I’m doing what my parents did. I need to go back and correct this and learn how to scale, delegate, and put great management in place so that I could go onto the next level and continue to grow.
[00:03:29] Sam Wilson: Felt stuck. I think that’s a very poignant way of putting that. Cause I think a lot of people feel that they hit a certain threshold and it’s like they just can’t seem to push beyond that. How did you define the right things to push on in order to kind of break through to the next level?
[00:03:47] Carlos Salguero: Yes. You know, when I felt this way. I saw myself doing activities that were not conducive to my bigger plan. That we’re more operational, that we’re more working in the business, not on the business. Whenever you’re not working on growth strategy, you know, scale, you’re invariably working in operations, right? Taking care of customers or handling fires or, you know, just going in a million directions because you’re the last man of responsibility. Whenever I felt like in that place, I just, you know, kicked and screamed and did whatever it could to find myself out of there and find somebody that could replace me. And I think that’s one of the things that entrepreneurs and business owners sometimes don’t do well. You gotta find yourself a replacement in certain things, and if you don’t, you’ll be stuck there.
[00:04:44] Sam Wilson: How did you select, because it seems like anytime there is building a team, anytime you’re growing, there’s always that question of, if we bring this person on, how do we then turn them into an asset and not just a liability inside of the company? So at what point in time did you figure out what seats to put on the bus and at what time?
[00:05:05] Carlos Salguero: You know, that’s a great question. In the beginning , it was reactive, not proactive. Like I think most entrepreneurs, it was like, man, I’m doing way too much myself. I am my own bottle neck of growth. I just don’t have enough hours in the day. And you know, we as entrepreneurs, we’re like twenty four seven, three hundred and sixty five, right? Until our energy, it just completely depletes our mental capacity. I found myself in these situations many times over my journey. And eventually I started discerning. I said, you know what? I picked up a few books about business scale. I picked up a few books about, you know, Nod Beam, just a solopreneur about scaling big in the beginning it was like reactive. I was like, oh, you know what? I need an accountant. I need a sales guy. I need a manager. because I was doing it all myself and I saw kind of the pieces just falling and me picking them up, right? But eventually, when I learned how to scale properly, I was able to look ahead and say, you know what? At this rate of growth, the trend that we’re going, we’re gonna need an operations manager, we’re gonna need a regional manager. We’re gonna need a logistics guy, a sales guy, an accountant. Right. And then it became more proactive so that when the growth hit that point, I already was prepared. I had to make investments. And that’s, I think one of the struggles in every entrepreneur’s journey is we sometimes don’t make the investment for growth to happen. Right. And then we stop that, right? We grade friction in growth and momentum, right?
[00:06:49] Sam Wilson: Yeah. And maybe I’m wrong, I think so. I’m wrong a lot, so possibly, but I don’t think there’s any way to really scale and grow without building a team. That’s what I’m hearing you say.
[00:07:01] Carlos Salguero: 100%. There’s no way if you’re gonna build something large, and when I say large, beyond just a couple million dollars of revenue a year, you have to build a team and you have to build that highly qualified team, you know, in this era. Virtual assistants and people overseas and all that stuff, that’s good because it helps you take some stuff, all off the plate, but you’re gonna need people just as smart as you, if not smarter than you to do certain things because your superpower is very well defined and you shouldn’t know what your superpower is. Right? For me, my superpower was strategy, growth, and vision for the business. I didn’t wanna be an accountant, I didn’t wanna be my own cpa. I didn’t wanna be my own sales guy or my only sales guy, which is what most entrepreneurs are. They’re their own sales guys. And I didn’t wanna be my own operations manager because even though I can proficiently do those things, they are not my superpower, my core strengths. So I better find somebody really good at this, that loves that and put that person and pay them well so that they can help me grow and do what I can do.
[00:08:01]7] Sam Wilson: Talk to me about the deal that you guys are working if you can. I don’t know if we can talk about specifics on that or not here on the show. Sometimes there’s some people that can’t necessarily share, you know, pertinent details. Either it’s not live or it’s a five O 6 billion. They can’t talk about it on air. So if you can, you’re working on a $40 million deal, I think, which we talked about this off air. You said, you know, kind of pinch myself. I can’t believe that it’s actually me doing this. Tell me about that.
[00:08:47] Carlos Salguero: So the deals in your backyard, Sam, right there in Lakeland, Tennessee Sure is. Beautiful property, uh, great town that is, that is growing right now. Uh, it’s, it’s a beautiful mixed use community built in 2021 already at 90% plus. Occupied. It has eight commercial suites on the first floor. Mexican restaurants, port, bar and grill, a gym, a nail salon, a bakery and an insurance company already tenants at the property. So beautiful, beautiful asset. We had one vacancy for commercial space. And what that does is just gives this 138 residential units on top of the commercial a community feel. So, you know, if somebody needs a coffee, just walk downstairs and they have their own Starbucks down in the courtyard. So it’s super exciting. Close to everything. 25 minutes away from the 5.6 billion investment that Ford is making in the area for the ev uh, vehicle plant. You know, they’re gonna make the F150 light. I mean, they’re super excited. I’m sure you’re excited about your property values close to that if you have any. Right. And of course, you know, this community of Lakeland is one very affluent community. It’s $187,000 household income, one mile radius of the property. I mean very high income area. Price point for entry is $550,000 for a home in that community. We’re buying the units for $245,000 a unit. So, you know, great gap there. And we feel that rents are, you know, pretty, pretty under market still for what’s gonna happen in the next couple years and the 6,000 jobs that Ford’s gonna have in the area, plus all the extra stuff that happens, right? I’ve talked to other people that have been in communities where a big automotive company came and built a multi-billion dollar plant, and they say, man, it just gets transformed, right? I have a buddy from Chattanooga, Tennessee, who is one of my students, and he saw the Volkswagen plant being built there seven years ago. He said, Carlos, everything doubled here. Right? Home values double. Retail popped up like crazy. And, uh, that plant is not even half the size of what Ford is building in, um, in the Memphis area.
[00:11:12] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. That’s gonna be a big boon, I think, uh, for the area that’s, uh, that’s, that’s for certain it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating both to watch it from the air. I’m a private pilot and I’ve flown over those developments and it’s like, oh my gosh, this is. Massive. And then you, then you, you just, you see the, even the, even the, um, not a, I’m not, I don’t know anything about electricity, but there’s the giant power lines and, you know, the, the utility runs that they’re clearing, you know, through the countrysides. Like, okay, this is actually gonna be humongous.
[00:11:41] Carlos Salguero: Oh my god, 3,800 acres, Sam, 3,800 acres. It’s, it’s even hard to fathom.
[00:11:47] Sam Wilson: It really is. It really is. Until you get in the air and you look down, you see all the earth movers and earth where you’re like going. Holy smoke. This is the biggest thing that happened to West Tennessee in a long time, probably ever. So a very, very cool project. How did you locate, underwrite and decide to buy this asset in Lakeland? I mean, it’s kind of, unless you’re from the area, somewhat obscure. So tell me about that process.
[00:12:11] Carlos Salguero: So we looked in to see Sam. We, uh, we made an investment in Tennessee earlier this year. We bought a mixed use community in Murphy’s World, Tennessee. Beautiful property right in front. St. Thomas Ruthford Hospital, very similar to this one. Uh, a little bit smaller. That one has 84 luxury apartment units and 37,000 square feet of commercial space. And um, you know, when we closed on that deal, the rents went up $400, right off the jump, right? They had under market rents. We started leasing some vacant space that the previous owner had just not really pushed too. And, uh, we in seven months increased the value of that asset by 9 million. That’s how quickly the growth was for that property. So, you know, we, we thought, man, we found a unicorn. Is there anymore like this? So we’ve been scouring Tennessee left and right for the last six months, and I have a team that all, all they do is underwrite deals, buy deals, located deals, visit proper. We went through probably a couple hundred deals. We underwrote it, and when we found this, it was through a broker that we had had communications before. I called this broker, and that’s why I always recommend guys, keep those relationships alive. I called this broker about nine months ago for another property, for a property in Arkansas that I was interested in buying a 50 unit deal in Arkansas, close to a hospital. It didn’t work. You know, I stayed on his email list. I stayed in contact, and then my team also stayed in contact and, uh, they just sent us this deal. It was, it was almost like, uh, hey, you know, check this out. Maybe you’re interested. And, uh, we started underwriting it. We had a team there the day after I had partners that live in Tennessee. You know, they drove from Nashville to Lakeland, three hours away. They landed there. It’s like, Carlos, this looks like other deal also. Excuse. Same thing. You know, when we started digging deeper, we just started finding, you know, great things about it. The fort activity in the area, the growth of Lakeland Lakeland just built a brand new high school in middle school, literally three minutes away from the property, right? Couple 1% school district in the. In Lakeland. I dunno if, if you knew that, but you know, we’ve dug up so much Intel now that you, every time we find something cool, we’re like, man, this is a good move. And then we underwrote the deal conservative like we always do, you know, our strategies to cash flow right away after we buy our properties and that we saw, man, this is, this is an amazing cash flowing deal. And here’s the thing, in this time of high interest rates, One of the best things about this deal is we’re assuming a 10 year interest only loan that is only 4.35%.
[00:15:03] Sam Wilson: That’s fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. I love that strategy. I mean, if you, one having boots on the ground, I think’s impaired it. Yes. Uh, but also having the ability to underwrite a deal of that size. What’s it been like for you? I’m going back to the beginning of your story here where you said, Hey, it’s from Ecuador 17. No money. And one now doing deals like this, but then also talk to ’em about the capital raising side of things. I mean, that’s, that’s a whole new skill set to develop in, especially when you’re taking down a $40 million deal. So you talk about both of those points, please.
[00:15:37] Carlos Salguero: Yes. You know, I always recommend, always be building your network. Always be meeting people, right. Uh, Sam, I’ve had several business. In the beginning, I didn’t understand this. I, I saw my dad do it a little bit. He traveled to Germany in the US for conferences and things like that. And I, and I knew he was talking to other folks, but he never sat me down and said, Hey son, you gotta learn how to network, right? You gotta learn how to connect with successful people. I wish he had, man. Uh, and that would’ve been on my success book right away. But, you know, as I, as I grew my little business in eCommerce, back when I started in the early 2000, This feeling of getting stuck also came about and loneliness. Oh, do you know, man? I’m, I’m pretty successful now. We’re making some money. I’m the most successful guy I know, right? And that didn’t feel right. So I started seeking other people that were successful in my industry. I started going to conferences. I paid for mentorships. I paid for my first mastermind in e-commerce was $25,000. I went and met a group of people that were already making seven, eight figures online. That level me up big time. Then I paid for another big one, right? A hundred thousand dollars. I didn’t even tell my wife I was making this investment cause I was scared of what she would say. But you know what? That room led me to a much higher level and caliber of people, and there is where things started just taking it to the next level because I started learning the mindset And, uh, rubbing shoulders with his guys that had already done it. In Sam, it’s a lot easier to copy success, right, than to create it on your own. Right? If we reinvent the wheel, it can take us decades, and that’s why a lot of startups fail because they’re trying to reinvent everything and they have to set up every single system, every single process, instead of just following a proven success path that you can. But we like to fight our schooling on this, right? Cause when we go to school, what do they tell us? Don’t call, right? Don’t collaborate. Be independent. Be individual. So in the business world, man, I’d rather go after people that have already done it, see if they wanna share that success with me, see if they want to gimme some tips, pay for their time if I need to, because one thing they tell you could just take you in a whole different direction. And that’s really where my business took. So it was mentorship, it was me copying success falling blueprints already existed. And, um, you know, I, I’ve started businesses from scratch when I found multi-family, real estate, big multi-family real estate. One of the beautiful things I saw there was like, man, I’m buying an already existing cash flowing deal that I just need to take over, optimize and run well. And I don’t have to reinvent this thing. I don’t have to build it from the. It’s already there. It’s already making money. Right.
[00:18:36] Sam Wilson:That’s brilliant. I love it. Carlos, I’ve really enjoyed hearing your story. I always, I, and I’m probably not the right way to say this, but the immigrant story is always probably one of my favorite ones because it’s there. There, this is one of the few countries in the world where we can still do that. Where you can come here with no money and. I don’t know how old you are, but however much time has passed, you’re now taking down 40 million real estate deals. You’re running multiple companies, and I just love, I love, love, love anyone who has the, uh, passion and the willingness to go out and hustle.And clearly that has paid huge dividends for you. So thanks for sharing that story today.
[00:19:14] Carlos Salguero: I love this country just, just as a sign note. This country has given me everything that I ever wanted. It’s the land of opportunity, man. The American dream is so alive and well in, for people that decided like, grab the opportunity and run with it and take massive action.There, it’s unlimited. It’s truly unlimited. Right.
[00:19:34] Sam Wilson: That’s a great word, Carlos. Certainly appreciate that. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
[00:19:45] Carlos Salguero: Thank you for having me, Sam. Best way to contact me is through Instagram, TikTok, or my website. The handles are, I am Carlos 10 x and on the website is I am Carlos, 10 x dot comly. Hopely we can get in touch.
[00:15:24] Sam Wilson: Right. I eove that. That’s absolutely great. Before we sign off here, rich, I want to hear about your latest book. Can you tell me, uh, the name of it and then, you know, there’s a lot of financial books out there. Can you tell me why is yours different?
[00:15:39] Carlos Salguero: Yeah, there are a lot of great financial books in, I just got this two days. It’s called a Wise Investor. This is my hard cover. I just finally got, it’s the real deal.That’s awesome. I’ve been waiting for a while. Supply chain issues. Right. I had to wait seven months for this book to get printed because the paper mills are so shy on paper.
[00:19:59] Sam Wilson: Absolutely. I will make sure we include all of those there in the show notes. Carlos, thank you again. Have a great rest of your day.
[00:20:04] Carlos Salguero: Thank you, Sam.
