Part 4: How This Passionate Entrepreneur Struggled with Failure

On this Chasing Financial Freedom Podcast episode, I continue with part 4 of my journey, struggling with failure. I discuss how I struggle with raising capital for our real estate investment company and taking it personally when a potential investor says no. I have failed many times on this journey, but I have never given up, and my passion and purpose drive me to raise the $750,000 that will fully fund the first phase of our Bayard Park Development Project.

Transcript

Part 4: How This Passionate Entrepreneur Struggled with Failure

 Hey guys. Ryan DeMent. Hope you guys are having a great day. It's after Thanksgiving. I hope you enjoyed it. Got to spend it with friends, family, loved ones, all the shebang. You're full of all that. tryptophan from Turkey, and now we're at it. We're in a sprint. To the end of 2022, and we're on to 2023 this week.

It's just me, guys. I pre-recorded this, but I wanted to share some of the things that were going on in my world. But also work through a continuation of the other three parts that I've been working on as my entrepreneurial journey that I've been sharing with you. And in some social media posts I've talked about, we've received 75% of our funding for our Bayard Park project.

We're working on the other 25%. We should have that locked up in the month of December. And then, I'm onto the next phase of that building, so that'll take care of five houses right outta the chute. And then we were gonna start working on the next six, and then that'll get us to 11, and then the last four, which will get us to the whole workout.

My goal is to have those funded and completely ready to go before we even break ground on these first houses. Is it a tall task? And here's where my story comes in. I hate sales and marketing. Just say it straight up. Sales and marketing. I think I suck at it. I'm not afraid to ask, but I feel like I'm bothering people and it's been a huge challenge.

I've had majority of my professional business life and. Asking people for their hard earned money to invest in something we're doing is hard. And I still will chicken out on some things. When I say chicken out is in, I'll back out. I won't ask, and I'm afraid that if I ask people think I'm spamming them or something to that extent, and something that I've.

Started my mantra on several months back cuz I have a goal of raising $750,000 from private investors. That doesn't include the 385,000 that we got from the city. So all, so all in, you're talking 1.3 million, $1.4 million. But at the end of the day, good deals always find money and I'm doing something I love.

I'm passionate about it. We're building brand new homes for families that otherwise could not afford one. They don't have to be stuck renting the rest of their lives, and we're giving them an opportunity for themselves to grow. Mentally, physically and spiritually. Financially, however you wanna say it, because once you have a roof over your head that you know is yours, it changes everything.

You're not dictated by what your landlord tells you to do. You can't decorate, you can't do this, you can't do that. It just becomes too much. And when you own that house, It changes your world, and that's an asset that now you can own and pay off over time and even turn it into a investment somewhere down the road.

You want to turn it into a rental, God bless you, do it. That's what we want to teach people and show them that they can do these things, but to get there, the struggle is on the front end. For me, it's the ask for money and being able to go out and put myself out there on a daily basis to ask for. It's hard.

I don't know about you. Maybe you struggle with something else or maybe you struggle with something like this. I have no training in sales. It's just comes from my background in collections. Collections I heard no all day, but that was totally different. I'm not asking somebody for money. They're past due on a.

I gotta bring 'em current. That's my goal. Now I'm coming to somebody saying, Hey, I want to take your hard earned money and I want to put it into my investment. I don't know why I differentiate between those two, but a lot of people tell me they're the same. You're asking people for their hard earned money.

Yeah. But when you're calling somebody for collections, they're past due, like I said earlier. And they need to be brought current. That's just the name of the game, unfortunately. But when raising capital I, the struggle really comes down to is I take it personally. And when I say personally is when the person tells me no.

Cause I think everybody should say yes to me, just for the simple fact of it's a great deal, one and two, you're making an impact. It's bigger than you. And that's where I get into this whole process. If you say no, you're missing out on a journey that otherwise could have been very great. You could have shared it across social media.

You you could have shared it with your friends and bragged about how you're impacting neighborhoods. Half acro halfway across the United States when you live in a different part of the states. And I've been really working on this aspect. And the aspect is, Good deals. Find money, like I said earlier.

But the second piece of it is it's a journey that you're on and we're asking and allowing investors to come on the journey with us. If you choose to miss out on this journey and have a great time and impact families, God bless you. Move on. I'm getting there guys. I still struggle with. I'm still having problems, but every single day as I ask more, I put myself out there.

There's more social media posts that I'm putting out. I'm sharing more and more on a daily basis. It builds my confidence up. Have I heard no A lot? Yes. Do I have a lot of people that are potentially interested and I say potentially cuz no one's executed on that aspect yet. Yes. Do I have people that are wanting to do it, they just haven't done it because of the holidays and they feel like they're gonna wait to see what happens with the Fed and interest rates?

Yes. So how am I gonna overcome all. One thing, keep doing it every single day. Whether I get a no or not, that old adage is every no that you get, you're getting closer to that next. Yes. And if I can share that intimate piece with you guys, and I say intimate cuz it's embarrassing. I feel like I'm a failure because I don't know how to raise.

and I can't just go put, my capital raising hat on and make it happen. It's tough. It's a struggle. I feel like I've let my company down. I let people down. I let myself down, I let my family down. It becomes a challenge to where it gets in your head. And it slows you down and even stops you.

And that's happened to me several times, and I've had to just sit back and think and say, what the heck are you doing, Ryan? All you're doing is slowing yourself down, causing yourself more trouble than it's worth. You just need to find the right message that resonates with you and then put it out there.

It's all about a. And these investors are on a journey, and I'm the guide. So what I'm trying to do is share some intimate information with them. When I say intimate, it's personal. It truly is because every single investor that comes in is not pulled into these large groups like they do for real estate.

Excuse me, for apartment complexes. This is, these are one. I say one-off is every house that's being built is funded by an investor, and that investor gets to know the family that's buying the property. So there is a lot of inter intertwining in communication between the two to where they get to know that the people behind it are not just a number or some big entity, it's an actual individual, or it could be a family that's funding the deal.

That's powerful. To me, that means the world. Can you keep doing that? And you scale? It gets difficult, but I think I've got some stops in there that can make that work. Cause ultimately I want to have 14 investors for 14 houses and call it a day and move on. And now we have the names behind it and now we can select the families that are gonna move in and buy them.

And now those families get introduced to those investors. That's. And that's what keeps me going on this journey. When I get told no consistently, or people say, unsubscribe me, or I don't like what your message is, okay, God bless you, move on. I gotta not take it. So personally, great English Ryan, great English.

I need to not take it so personally to where it stops me in my tracks and I say effort. Because that has happened and it just can't allow that to happen because how are you supposed to make progress in life if you're not out there trying? And of course you're gonna fail, but failure means you're trying and you're changing and you're moving forward.

And I don't know any other way to do it, but I would probably tell you this is the most difficult, daunting task. I struggle with on a daily basis is raising capital because I feel like I can dial it in and once I dial it in, it's just gonna be on auto repeat because now you're gonna have a bunch of investors and people bought into our program and what we're doing, and they're gonna wanna jump on the bandwagon every time we open up a new development.

Our new development that we're working on after this is for veterans. I'd love to be able to build a veteran only community. Where we have 25, 30, 50 houses depend on much land we can get and start being able to move veterans into their own homes and them having their own place, especially those that potentially have some injuries or some things going on in their life where we can help them to make that home even more comfortable for them to live on a daily basis and feel like they're part of a community, they're part of a tribe.

That's huge. And that's the whole piece of me raising capital for anything we do. I want people to feel like they're part of a tribe and they're part of a community to where it's bigger than any of us. And then we can share all of that love and support and guidance to others. And then it starts growing and then it starts building.

And then it starts becoming so much larger. It's not even just about the bigger than us, it's more about the communities. We can impact the states, we can impact the region that we can impact the United States. We can impact, but at the end of the day,

You have to be able to put yourself out there and make it happen. Cuz ultimately, if you don't, you can't change the world. You can't go after your passion. You're stuck in the same place. And that's where I struggle day in and day out. And I just have to remember, I just have to go do it. And get it over with.

It's muscle memory. It's like I go do it. I set time aside during the day and I just go do it. Whether it be calls, text, emails, all three of the above. I'm trying to find ways to connect with people, putting it out on social media, putting it out here on the podcast, whatever the case is. I'm gonna leave it, leave you guys with this.

This is gonna be a short one. This week is. If you're not out there pushing yourself to better yourself in some area that you struggle, how are you gonna ever achieve that life that you want, that you dream about? And there's one other piece, one other piece to that. Start being thankful or remembering the things that you're thankful today for, and not always being af going after the things that we don't.

Ultimately we lose focus. We lose grip on who we are. Be thankful for, food on the table. You can pay your bills, roof over your head, clothes on your back, your health, your family, your loved ones, whether it be boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, your children, your dogs, your cats, whatever the case is.

Wake up every single day with a attitude of being grateful for what you have. Be grateful that you woke up. Some people didn't wake up overnight, you did.

Don't forget where you're at and where you came from to where you're going. The biggest challenge that we have as humans is we are not. Tuned in to being grateful for what we have. We always think we're missing out on something, and it just doesn't work that way in life. Be grateful for what you have.

Move forward. Don't give up on your dreams and your passion. Keep fighting when you hear, no, it can be painful, but keep moving forward. Don't forget, failure is part of. It gets you there. You can't win every single time. I know that because I've been struggling with raising capital for many years and it's tough, but I will continue to do it.

I'll share more of my story with you guys. I hope you guys have a great one. We'll keep this one under 20 minutes so it's very short and brief. We'll have a guest back on next week. And I'll see you guys on the other side. Have a good one.