Today’s guest is Jay Helms.
Jay Helms is a financial freedom achiever, a real estate investor living a nomadic slow-travel lifestyle with his family of 5, founder of the W2 Capitalist and Amazon #1 Best Selling Author.
Show summary:
In this podcast episode, Jay Helms emphasizes the importance of having “growth friends” who are also focused on real estate investing, and making daily calls to expand this network. He also discusses the evolution of his W-2 Capitalist community, which now includes a hard money lending solution. Jay highlights the importance of strong partnerships in real estate investing and shares his criteria for selecting partners.
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The Growth Trends Exercise ([00:03:33])
Changing Who You’re Talking To ([00:07:12])
The Impact of the Exercise ([00:09:07])
The W-2 Capitalist Community ([00:10:03])
The Importance of Consistent Networking ([00:11:52])
Partner Criteria and Building Partnerships ([00:16:43])
The W-2 Capitalist Community Growth ([00:20:28])
Listening to Community Members’ Needs ([00:21:26])
Importance of Solid Partnerships ([00:27:30])
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Connect with Jay:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jay.helms1
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayhelms/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jay_helms
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/W2Capitalist
Phone: 205-249-0248
Connect with Sam:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Jay Helms ([00:00:00]) – So the easy trick to doubling or just growing your portfolio is changing who you’re talking to. Now, I’m not saying that you should go out and tell your mom, hey. Or your, you know, your your brother or sister saying, hey, I’m not talking to you anymore, right? I’m not saying do that. I’m just saying take. Make two phone calls a day, right? Most people, if they’re working a W2, they get a lunch hour. This is not going to take you 30 minutes to do. You’re going to call somebody. You’re going to talk to about those things that are where we’re focused on growth.
Intro ([00:00:32]) – Welcome to the how to Scale commercial real estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we’ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson ([00:00:45]) – Jay Helms is a financial freedom achiever, a real estate investor living a nomadic, slow travel lifestyle with his family and family of five. He’s a founder of the W-2 capitalist, and he’s an Amazon number one best selling author.
Sam Wilson ([00:00:58]) – Jay, welcome to the show.
Jay Helms ([00:01:00]) – Sam. Thank you. Man, that was. Man, I don’t I don’t want to say this wrong. This is going to come out wrong. But you got a voice for radio. I got to be careful not to say. Somebody told me once you got a face for radio, I think what it was, I was like, I.
Sam Wilson ([00:01:13]) – Probably got that too, man. You. You can hurt my feelings. It’s all.
Jay Helms ([00:01:16]) – Good. It’s awesome. Thank you for having me.
Sam Wilson ([00:01:20]) – Absolutely. The pleasure’s mine. Jay. There are three questions. However. I ask every guest who comes on the show in 90s or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?
Jay Helms ([00:01:30]) – Yeah. So where I started, uh, like most people who I put in the sophomore level, we started with a single family. Uh, buy and hold, just one, one bedroom, one bath rental property my wife and I bought with a homemaker line of credit.
Jay Helms ([00:01:43]) – And we have scaled up from there. We’ve we’ve done almost anything and everything that does not involve wholesaling and flipping, although we’ve lived in a couple of living flips and burned a couple of properties. We’ve joint venture GG LPs. Uh, we’re still in a lot of those deals together. That’s kind of where we’re going to stay, and that’s in the small to medium sized multifamily space. And, uh, we’ve transitioned into lending and hard money lending. Um, and that’s kind of where we’re at today, even though we’ve got our portfolio, we’ve kind of focused on hopefully I see it as a graduation. So we’re just, you know, we’re lending to people, um, and we’re earning a lot higher interest rates. We’re not getting to tap into the equity, uh, unless someone a joint venture piece or a GP, uh, or LP deal, but with a lending piece, it’s just it’s so much more passive than, you know, other stuff. It’s just it’s incredible. But, uh, how we got there and we’re going to talk about this is really through partnerships, right.
Jay Helms ([00:02:43]) – And getting to know folks and really, uh, learning some, some lessons along the way, uh, about what a great partnership would look like. And, and, uh, you know, I hate that old saying that the only ship doesn’t sell as a partnership because it’s simply not true. Um, doesn’t mean you’re going to have some rough seas. Possibly. But, uh, one of the things that I’ve figured out along the way is not only with investing, do you have to have investing criteria and stick to those investing criteria. You also have to have partnership criteria, and you got to stick to those partnership criteria when an opportunity presents itself.
Sam Wilson ([00:03:17]) – Man. That’s great. That’s absolutely great. There’s a lot of questions I have probably about kind of that story that you told us, you know, from doing single family residents live in flips, uh, you know, small to medium sized multifamily. And there’s a lot of management, I think that goes into that. Maybe we’ll get to that partnership side of things.
Sam Wilson ([00:03:33]) – One of the things that, you know, you and I talked about obviously before, uh, kicking off this show was really talking about a growth trends exercise, which you kind of find is something that I think it’s been instrumental in how you’ve gotten to where you are now. So before we cover those, you know, finer points in your story, maybe we can start there on that growth trends exercise and just tell our listeners what it is and how it applies to them in you.
Jay Helms ([00:03:59]) – Yeah. And so for clarity, let’s give credit where credit is due. I did not create this. I stole this from Hal Elrod, who we, uh, most of us probably know is the author of the Miracle Morning, uh, series. And, uh, so how does this thing where, um, and I heard it from a third party. It doesn’t matter where it heard from. I heard from somebody else. It wasn’t strictly from Hal, but basically, you take out a piece of paper, right? It doesn’t matter how big.
Jay Helms ([00:04:24]) – Eight and a half by 11. And you draw, uh, two columns on it, right? The left hand column, you’re going to label this growth friends and the right hand column you’re going to label as maintenance relationships. And I do this exercise with almost everybody who comes to me and says, Jay, I’m having trouble growing. I don’t know what what’s going on. I’m doing the things like all the all the stuff that people in the podcast say to do. I’m doing this things I’m not growing. But I bet you’re not doing this. So here’s, here’s the exercise is you get out your phone. Right. You got your sheet of paper, you got growth friends and maintenance relationships. For this exercise we’re going to label. We’re going to define what those two categories are right. Um, growth friends are people who talk about investing in real estate, building wealth, having a better financial future for for yourself and your family. How do you how do you grow your net worth? You’re you’re talking about growth, right? And the things that are important to you, in this case, real estate investing.
Jay Helms ([00:05:20]) – Everybody else for the sake of this conversation falls into a maintenance relationship category. Okay? I don’t care if it’s your mom, your dad, your brother or sister. Everybody else falls into that maintenance relationship category. Okay? Now and I don’t know where my phone is, but I was going to show it, like, grab your phone, right. Grab your phone, you scroll to your most recent phone calls. Right. And you’re going to go through the top 25, maybe 30 most recent phone calls. And you’re going to put folks based on those definitions we just talked about in one of those two columns. Just write down their first name or their initials basically. Once you’ve done that, now you’re going to go to your text message. Because if you’re like me, most of your most your conversations or a lot of your conversations are happening over text. Um, I was playing Halo with my son last night, and I’m getting a text from one of my partners. Hey, I found this 12 unit, and so my son and I, we’re we’re swapping the controller, we’re taking turns in Halo and and, uh, while he’s doing his turn, I’m sitting here trying to write a property on my phone, you know, as we’re doing it.
Jay Helms ([00:06:21]) – And so. But go through your text messages and you do the same thing, right? Go for maybe the top 2530 text messages. If it’s about growing your real estate portfolio, it’s about building wealth. Uh, how to, you know, better secure your future financial future for your family. Then those folks or those messages that you’re talking to are going to go in the Growth Friends column. Again, everybody else maintenance relationships, even if it’s a funny meme that makes you laugh and it’s entertainment, it’s going to go into the Maintenance Relationships column. And here’s what happens when I when I have this conversation with a lot of people. When we go through this exercise, we get to the end of that exercise and in there complaining about, hey, I haven’t grown, I don’t know what to do. And I was like, look, and you don’t even show me your piece of paper. I know what it looks like. You’re really heavy on maintenance relationships, right? Like you may have a handful of growth friends.
Jay Helms ([00:07:12]) – Everybody else is in maintenance relationships. Yep. Yes, that’s exactly it. So the easy trick to doubling or just growing your portfolio is changing who you’re talking to. Now, I’m not saying that you should go out and tell your mom hey. Or your, you know, your your brother or sister say, hey, I’m not talking to you anymore, right? I’m not saying do that. I’m just saying take. Make two phone calls a day, right? Most people, if they’re working a W-2, they get a lunch hour. This is not going to take you 30 minutes to do. You’re going to call somebody. You’re going to talk to about those things that are where we’re focused on growth. At the end of that phone call, you’re going to ask them, hey, who else do you know that likes to talk about this stuff? Right? And you keep building it and you’re just making two phone calls every day. Mhm. And you do that for six months and then you do that growth uh growth maintenance exercise again.
Jay Helms ([00:08:09]) – And it’s going to be switched. It’s going to flop and your portfolio is going to look different. Your mindset is going to be a lot different. And it’s just it’s amazing what that little exercise can do and that commitment to making those two phone calls a day. It’s incredible.
Sam Wilson ([00:08:25]) – I love that that’s that is brilliant. And it’s it you. Of course, I’m sitting here thinking through it while you’re talking about it. I’m like, man, I wonder. I mean, because because that even because even and I’m thinking through maybe the last 20 phone calls in my phone, it’s I mean, it’s everybody from, uh, lenders to distributors to I mean, the list just goes on, but none of those would be classified necessarily as great.
Jay Helms ([00:08:52]) – Yeah, yeah.
Sam Wilson ([00:08:53]) – Yeah, yeah. You’re a supplier. Okay. That’s still not a growth phone call. Yeah, it’s work, but it’s not like it’s. It’s a maintenance relationship. That’s, uh. It is that’s convicting because you got to look back at that and you go, oh, like, man, I need to work more on my growth.
Sam Wilson ([00:09:07]) – Uh, my growth, um, phone calls every day. So I love that. What what why was there? How was this impactful? May I ask a leading question here? You can be like, well, that’s a stupid question, Sam, but like, how was this impactful for you? And obviously, you know, like you’re saying this can have, you know, wild impacts for everyone else, but what did it do for you implementing this?
Jay Helms ([00:09:27]) – So the the reason why I started this W2 right is I fell into this category of I didn’t grow up in a family of investors. I didn’t have friends who were investors or didn’t work with. A lot of people, um, didn’t work with anybody who was investing, you know, investing in real estate. And we had bought a few. My wife and I, we had bought three properties and, uh, we’re like, all right, we’re on to something. We’re seeing, you know, income come in. And I’m using passive and air quotes passively, even though we were self managing and um, like we’re on to something.
Jay Helms ([00:10:03]) – But I just we’ve kind of tapped out our resources. Right. Like if we want to grow past this, I’ve got to get comfortable with partnering with folks. And how do I do that? So I started reaching out to folks and I started, you know, changing the conversation. And come to find out, there was a lot of people just like me who fell in the same boat, right? They didn’t have friends or family who were interested in investing. Matter of fact, they looked at them like they were crazy, you know, like, uh, you know, and it was like, hey, let’s start having these phone calls frequently, like, I want to talk to you, Jay. And I was like, I want to talk to you because I’m getting excited just having this conversation. And, uh, and so that just kind of kept steamrolling into what we now know as the W-2 capitalist community. And, you know, you’re talking about I get challenged on this sometimes when I, when I ask people to go through this exercise, like, all right, let’s go through your phone, mister.
Jay Helms ([00:10:54]) – You know, Mister hotshot, you know, like, I was like, all right, let’s go through my phone. I have no problem. And I’ll go through it. And it’s like, mastermind member, community member, uh, banker, you know, and it’s all these things. And I can go through every almost every one of the conversations is about, uh, growth and about how we can grow our portfolio. Matter of fact. So we’re we’re, um. Uh, we’re recording this at 130. I got up around 630 this morning. Had about an hour to myself. I had about 30 minutes to lunch. And I’ve been. We homeschool our kids. Everybody’s home. Um, and so I’ve had about 30 minutes of interacting with them as I go to the bathroom or whatever. Take a water break, whatever. And so there’s there’s a couple of hours where, uh, was that? About three hours or so since I got up roughly. And, and the rest of the time it’s been on the phone with partners, it’s been on with, uh, with, with other, uh, investors who are looking to grow and just, just constantly and I get more out of that.
Jay Helms ([00:11:52]) – And a lot of them don’t understand this, but I get more out of folks when they call and complain and say, hey, I’m having trouble growing. You know, we kind of walk through it. I get more out of those conversations. They probably they probably do, and they don’t understand that. But it’s just regurgitating and reciprocating what we’ve learned in the past. And it’s also serves as a reminder because. I started this process a long time ago and I drifted from it, right? Life got busy, I still had a W2 and we kind of get stuck in this spot where we’re like, hmm. I’m not really growing. And it took a mastermind member who came in his and, uh, he was getting really excited. It had a lot of momentum. I was like, how do you what are you doing to get this momentum? What are you doing, man? I’m making two phone calls every day at lunch because it’s something you taught me a couple of years ago. I was like, oh yeah, I did okay.
Jay Helms ([00:12:39]) – So I was like, so I drifted from it, right? And we all do that from time to time. And it was a good reminder that it really comes down to who you’re talking to and who you’re spending your time with. Now, I don’t mean that. You know, you again, you don’t you don’t kick the family to the curb, but you just change your conversations that you’re having.
Sam Wilson ([00:12:58]) – Yep. No, I love it. That’s fantastic. Uh, fantastic insight. And it’s it’s it’s. Easily implemented, but difficult to do. Is that the right way to say what?
Jay Helms ([00:13:10]) – Yeah. You’re correct. It’s the the discipline to do it. And even even today, like, I know uh, like I have time blocks on my calendars to make sure I connect with a certain amount of people a day. There are days when that reminder goes off. Hey, you got to make 2 or 3 phone calls. I’m like, ah, I’m just not feeling it. I’m not. I’m not feeling it.
Jay Helms ([00:13:30]) – And that some days I’ll skip it and then some days I’m reminded of, um, this line from um, oh man, I can picture his face. Extreme ownership guy, Jocko willing. Uh, is that he’s asked, you know, on days where you don’t feel like going to work out, what do you do? And he goes, well, I go anyway because at least I’m going to go through the motions, you know? And and so I, um, I am not perfect in making my phone calls and doing my reach out, but I am consistent enough where it is producing an incredible result. Right? And incredible enough for me to come on here with such passion, energy to make sure your audience is doing the same thing, because it really is the key to to grow and otherwise, you know, rewind back to where we just had those three properties and we were. We were buying about one property every year, maybe. And, uh, there’s no way we could have grown the way we have, um, with just because basically what we’re doing is we’re taking the, the, the earnings from those properties, putting them into an account, taking some savings from my W2, combining all that up till we had enough for another down payment, going and buying another one.
Jay Helms ([00:14:42]) – So it took us about a year right to do it. And um, and there’s just there’s just no way there’s no way we would have been able to get to where we are doing that.
Sam Wilson ([00:14:52]) – Tell me about your business. Like what? What is your business look like today?
Jay Helms ([00:14:56]) – Yeah. So that’s that’s an open ended question. Right. So which business W2 Coppolas the real estate. Our portfolio. Like which which one.
Sam Wilson ([00:15:04]) – Whichever one you want to talk about or both.
Jay Helms ([00:15:07]) – Yeah. So um the our portfolio we’ve got a mix. We’ve got a little mix of, we’ve got my wife and I, we’ve got a fourplex ourselves. We got a short term rental ourself. Uh, and then the rest of the stuff we’re in is through partnerships, either through joint ventures or limited partners. We’re not a general partner on anything right now. Um, so joint ventures, limited partners. And then we also do some hard money lending on the side. Uh, and so all kind of real estate focused and then the W2 cap is what feeds a lot of that.
Jay Helms ([00:15:41]) – So a lot of our partnerships came from the W2 cap. Because back to that investing or partnership criteria is one of the things that I do is I’ve got to know you got to know you not for just six. You know, I use a rule of six months, and I can’t remember if I read that in a book somewhere, or if it’s like the SEC guideline for raising money or taking money from somebody, um, uh, to invest in one of your deals. I shouldn’t say taken, but having a partner invest with you in your deal. But I use that rule for, you know, six months. Uh, I got to get to know somebody. And, um, it’s just it’s one of those things where it’s not like, you know, Sam, you and I are going to have a phone call today. Six months from today. We have another phone call, and I checked that box. It’s. That’s not what I’m talking about. Right? You got to get to know, really know somebody and just helps me filter out a lot of folks from, um, uh, tactics essentially, because, like, like you probably your social media probably gets inundated with, hey, Sam, I got this deal.
Jay Helms ([00:16:43]) – I want to partner with you on it, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like. And I said, hey, look, I’ll take a look with you. Uh, but you just you need to know I have this rule. I got to get to know you before I’m going to partner with you. Um, and nine times out of ten, here’s how the conversation goes. It’s like. Absolutely, I respect that. We’d love your feedback on this. And I was like, great, let’s schedule a call. Just want to reconfirm, you know, I’m not looking to partner, but I’ll take a look at this and and poke holes in what you may be thinking, like you asked me to. And nine times out of ten, that’s the end of the conversation. There’s no follow up from them. Um, they tell me they’re okay with that guideline that I’ve given them, and they just. They don’t do it. Uh, the ones that do, uh, we’ve had a really solid run, right? They they ultimately end up joining the deputy capitalist community because they know there are other investors in there like me.
Jay Helms ([00:17:38]) – And there’s just been so much wealth and so many partnerships have been developed through that. It’s just incredible. So it’s kind of this whole circle. It’s it’s it’s where the earn invest repeat tagline comes from. Right?
Intro ([00:17:51]) – Right, right.
Sam Wilson ([00:17:53]) – Now that makes sense. So if I, if I get the picture correctly, you’re the proceeds from what you guys do in the W-2 capitalist. You then feed that back into your current real estate business. How did you start? Tell me about the W2 capitalist community, how you started it. Like how did you get that off the ground? Because that’s kind of I mean, it seems like a massive undertaking.
Sam Wilson ([00:18:17]) – And.
Jay Helms ([00:18:17]) – It is. And, you know, we have three kids who are nine, six and four. And so when we launched that, it was just a little over five years ago, um, you know, so they were were three and I can’t even do the math. Right. Three one and not maybe not even on the way yet.
Sam Wilson ([00:18:36]) – And, um, years ago, would you say that was.
Jay Helms ([00:18:39]) – Five years ago?
Sam Wilson ([00:18:40]) – Got it. Okay.
Jay Helms ([00:18:41]) – So. So, yeah. For for one and not on the way yet. And, um, we started with one. It was me and a couple of guys we started. It was one phone call week. We did it over zoom, and I think we originally connected on, um. Some Facebook group. Matter of fact. And so and it really just started from there and it was just, hey, let’s get together, let’s talk. There’s no agenda. You know, um, I kind of found myself in the space. I know what we were. We were pregnant with number three in. My wife had had some complications along the way with each of them. And so we had a local ria. Um, I don’t like going to in-person meetings. I’m growing it. Being an entrepreneur has pushed me out of my introverted personality. It’s pushing me out of that. But, you know, five years ago, I didn’t want to be in a room full of people I didn’t know.
Jay Helms ([00:19:38]) – And and so, um, the good thing is I’ve been working from home for about a decade prior to that. Right? So I was extremely comfortable. I was zooming before zooming was was cool. And I know that ages me, but I’m okay with that. Um, but it was, you know, it’s one of those things where I was like, all right, I had joined a virtual mastermind. It wasn’t dealing with investing. It was more of a how to become a better father and how to be, you know, a better husband kind of thing. And, uh, because I was new at it, you know, new husband, new father. I was like, we got another one on the way. What do I got to do to to to do this right. Had a lot of perfectionism in me at that point in time. And, uh, and so I joined this group and they were already doing it. And a lot of what I did, I just mimicked off of what they were doing, um, and just kind of created my own.
Jay Helms ([00:20:28]) – So but it was a massive undertaking. It started with one phone call a week is on Tuesday nights that went for about an hour, an hour and a half, uh, sometimes. And now we’re up to over 20 calls a month, uh, that sometimes go to three hours, uh, with I think we’ve got 60 members at the moment and, uh, it’s it’s incredible. We focus a lot on the various niches. Most of it is buy and hold and, um, and that’s. Yeah, it has it’s taken. It didn’t happen overnight.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:03]) – Right. No, I can’t, I can’t imagine that, uh, that it did. And I think you know what you’ve done. It sounds very organic, though, in its own right. Yeah, it kind of just. I mean, we, like you set out to build it this way.
Jay Helms ([00:21:17]) – It didn’t. And, you know, one of the things, um, you know, the heart I mentioned hard money lending that came out of listening to members in the community.
Jay Helms ([00:21:26]) – So, um, two years ago, I started, I kept hearing, you know, we had members in our community. They didn’t know how to navigate hard money. They didn’t know they didn’t have connections to private money. And quite frankly, I didn’t either. I’ve never used either one of them. And, and but I just kept hearing folks like, man, I got this really good deal. Like, all right, let’s let’s underwrite, let’s see how good this deal is. And we’d underwrite together. I was like. Are you sure that’s. That’s a good deal, you know. And so and so many deals would fall through because they couldn’t find short term financing for them. Right. And so after about a year of hearing that, um, well, I’d say after about six months of hearing that, I set out to, okay, let’s bring a hard money solution to the community. And, um, about six months later, launched it with a few guys who were among the original founders in the community.
Jay Helms ([00:22:19]) – So I’ve gotten to know these guys, you know, by this time for years. And, um, and, and we just we just passed. We incorporated in June of 22, did our first loan in September of 22. And this past September, you know, at our our year anniversary mark, with past 4 million in loan originations for fixed and flippers. So it’s it’s just it’s just a constant kind of art listening to those folks. What do you need? All right, let’s go out and find it or let’s figure it out right now. Uh, what we can do for that. So it’s it has grown a lot more organically. We’ve spent I’ve spent a lot of money on ads, and it just never works. And so I’ve completely abandoned that for now.
Sam Wilson ([00:23:04]) – Right, right. It’s funny. Funny you say that. I’ve got a, uh. Yeah. We’re back. When we were doing single family and doing a lot of fixing flip. There’s a guy here in Memphis that I borrowed, you know, quite a bit of money from.
Sam Wilson ([00:23:15]) – We always tell me he’s like, don’t tell anybody that I do hard money lending. That was kind of his thing. He’s like, I loan to you in about five other people and otherwise keep it quiet. I’m like.
Jay Helms ([00:23:23]) – Yeah.
Sam Wilson ([00:23:24]) – I’ll do that. So, you know, it kind of. But at the same, at the same token, I think you know, when you’re when you’re in the hard money lending space, like you really have to know who you’re working with and. Yeah, yeah. Which is funny because I went back to him here recently for something that, uh, we had, like you said, you know, very short term, like 90 day, 90 day deals. And it was like, I need money. That’s really short term. The price is kind of irrelevant. So I went back to him and said, hey, man, you know, let’s let’s look at this. He’s like, yeah, absolutely. So it’s helpful. I mean, incredibly helpful when you have opportunities like that, you just can’t pass up.
Sam Wilson ([00:23:57]) – Like, you know, there’s quick, quick turns on stuff that has huge upside. You might as well, uh, take advantage of it. So that’s really cool. J we’re about out of time here. But I do have one, you know, as you’ve, as you’ve done all these different things, as you’ve done the, you know, the variety of real estate investments as you’ve grown your W-2 capitalist, what are some things maybe over your real estate investing career or otherwise, if you wish to share on that front that maybe you would do differently? That was, you know, some things you said, man, this was either a misstep or something. I had to learn the lesson the hard way.
Jay Helms ([00:24:28]) – Yeah. So, you know, while we’re called the W2, it was because I had a W2, right. And I was, I was whatever wages we were living off that and then um taking part of our savings and whatnot investing um, you know I would encourage and I got laid off during Covid, right.
Jay Helms ([00:24:46]) – I was running the sales team and we got I got laid off. And at that moment I just it was the most fearful but best kick in the pants I ever received. And I envy people who can make that decision on their own. Right. And it takes you know, it took me a while, like I got the call from my boss, and, you know, I’m. I’m sweating bullets over here. Got cold sweat. I finally collect myself. I got my wife because that time we had.
Sam Wilson ([00:25:12]) – A.
Jay Helms ([00:25:13]) – Five, three and a one year old. Right. And I’m like. All right. And so I go to her and I tell her, hey, there’s this guy, here’s what’s going on. And she says, great, now we can go travel like we’ve been wanting to do. And I’m like, time out. Like I gotta absorb, you know, the six figure income that just evaporated. Like, we gotta we gotta figure out what we’re doing here. And.
Jay Helms ([00:25:37]) – And so it took her, like, really planting that in me and saying, and you know, and it took me about a year to warm up the idea and to realize, okay, we’re going to be okay financially. Like, I, you know, I’m um, um, getting outside of my comfort zone doing, you know, traveling, getting out of being a homebody. It’s it’s really, you know, and I say all that to say it took her and her her, um. She’s so solid in her, the way she views things and whatnot, and I’m extremely lucky to have her. And that, you know, I look at her as my best and most valuable partner. One of the things that frustrates me about her, though, is, is I’ll be grinding on an issue for like weeks. And I’ll go to her and explain it to her. And like instantly she gives me the most brilliant answer. I’m learning like that time period to go to shortening, but I have trouble asking for help, like, I guess most men.
Jay Helms ([00:26:34]) – But, um, you know, the thing that I would say is who whoever’s listening to this is your partnership is not only with your spouse, but with, you know, potential real estate partners has to be solid, right? It has to be solid. There’s no need to rush into a deal. Don’t get hyped up or get caught up in the hype of how amazing a, um, a return is going to be. And there’s a lot of people right now that I talked to who, when they sit down and they absorb kind of how they got in the situation they’re at, they’re like, I rushed into it. I didn’t really know this person a lot. And I’m not just talking about marriage, but I’m talking about, um, investing as well. And so, um, so yeah, I would, you know, focus on creating that partnership criteria. Um, and here’s just to kind of give you some guidelines on what mine looks like is a, uh, you’ve had to do at least one deal before of some, you know, certain size.
Jay Helms ([00:27:30]) – Uh, I’ve got to know you for six months. And kind of the kicker amongst all that is, uh, you can’t be divorced more than twice. Um, uh, I believe that everybody has, you know, the right to make a mistake and to correct that mistake or whatnot. But if you’re on your third spouse, right, there’s there’s one of two things are happening. Number one, either a, you don’t know how to treat people or B, you don’t really you don’t know how to make important decisions.
Sam Wilson ([00:27:58]) – Yeah.
Jay Helms ([00:27:58]) – And and there’s plenty of other people I can partner with. And I know those are my criteria. And I know that there’s probably going to make a couple of people mad, but, um, I want to provide that as a guideline. You know, as you’re sitting down thinking about your partnership criteria and what that should look for, you know, it could be very, very similar, uh, or something along those lines.
Sam Wilson ([00:28:19]) – I love it, man. And that’s, that’s hard truth right there that you’re sharing.
Sam Wilson ([00:28:23]) – And so, you know, if you’re listening to this and you just got, you just got, uh, got upset by that statement, you know what? It’s it’s reality. And sometimes, you know, hard truths or they just are what they are. They got to speak for themselves. I had a friend of the family growing up and and this is he always told me, he said, Sam, if you want to, uh, really know somebody, he said, look at the way they treat these three things. He said, look at how they treat food. Look at how they treat sex, and look at how they treat money. And he goes, and once you have a, you know, a clear picture on those three things, you pretty much know the man.
Sam Wilson ([00:28:56]) – That’s good. That’s I like it. Interesting food, sex and money.
Sam Wilson ([00:29:00]) – Just look at those. Yeah I’m like.
Sam Wilson ([00:29:02]) – All right, what is.
Jay Helms ([00:29:04]) – Which is almost all of, uh, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or at least the baseline.
Jay Helms ([00:29:09]) – Right. That’s that’s interesting.
Sam Wilson ([00:29:11]) – Anyway, yeah. So it was it was an equal equally as like, you know, the statement you had to think about for me like, okay, Morton divorce. Yeah. Well, I guess that makes sense because. Yeah. Anyway, on all that front, that’s a good time. I’ve really enjoyed you coming on the show today. Certainly appreciate your insights. And, uh, what you shared with us today. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
Jay Helms ([00:29:32]) – So the best way to do it, I, I offer my cell phone. Now, this is this is my phone number. And so if anybody because very few people take me up on it and the ones who do, uh, I think enjoy it or whatnot, but just text me, don’t call me because I have my phone set up that if you’re not stored in my contacts, you’re going to go directly to voicemail and it’s probably full.
Jay Helms ([00:29:52]) – So just text me and it’s (205) 249-0248.
Sam Wilson ([00:29:57]) – Perfect. We’ll include that there in the show notes. Jay, thank you again for coming on the show today. I certainly appreciate it.
Jay Helms ([00:30:03]) – Thanks for having me, Sam.
Sam Wilson ([00:30:04]) – Appreciate it. Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.
