and done.
Reflection ~
Surprise, surprise!
The most significant interview I did overall was with Pete Slaugh.
Pete Slaugh is a true, living-breathing entrepreneur. Like many, after a lifetime in his chosen career, his final feat was to share his wisdom with others. About a week ago, I sat down with him to learn a little more about his experiences. Now I want to discuss the major take-aways from our meeting, and reflect on their meaning to me as a young entrepreneur following in his footsteps. Ill choose my favorite questions to keep this manageable in length.
I always love to ask about people’s challenges. That being said, my first question was: what is the biggest challenge you have with your specific role right now, and how are you going to overcome it? Pete’s response included concerns over health and work-life balance. He mentioned in particular his battle with diet, exercise and, long story short, bad doctors. The part about the doctors is totally on par with the current state of affairs in America. It seems as though many people are fed up with big Pharma, including Pete; he expressed his feelings about how at a certain point in recent years he felt like it was time to take his health into his own hands. He mentioned researching his own symptoms often.
Every part of his response to this question resonated with me on so many levels. At this very moment in time, a work-life balance is a struggle of my own, so I could totally relate. The fact that he actually brought this up as a challenge of his own made it clear to me that this is most likely something that everyone struggles with. The advice he gave me was to start now in creating good habits about exercising, eating and making time for myself. While that is easier said than done, hearing it from him certainly made me consider my own life management more thoroughly. It’s like, I know what I should be doing, but it can be hard to always do the right thing. I feel this is especially true when you feel as though external factors of your life that were intended to help you, are actually hindering you.
There is no debate it is vital to stay on top of your health. One of my other questions asked how do you continue to learn in order to stay on top of thing within your role? Pete’s response was short, sweet and to the point. He said he keeps up with the Populist and listens more than he talks. I thought that was ironic because listening more than speaking is something I try to do with great intention every single time I meet with a client. Along these same lines, I also asked Pete what he’s researching right now related to his role. Here come the secrets!
A great way to learn new things is to listen more than talk, but researching is also a solid avenue to new information! The response I got about research topics was straight up awesome. Like a true entrepreneur, he said he is looking into new streams of income for Homesale Realty. Originally the company began as just a real estate brokerage. Overtime he added title, mortgage and insurance services so that all of them could work together on deals and provide a one-stop-shop, if you will, for consumers. He’d kill me for saying this—but his focus right now is on storage units and stuff! Something that is becoming very popular in the real estate industry is storage pods. Almost all of my clients use them now. As a full time agent, I can totally imagine the value it would bring our company if we had inhouse storage options!
The last question I want to discuss is, what do you look for in a business partner? This response included insight about his worst business partners, his best business partners, and his strategy for picking partners. Key points were made about honesty, credit history and lifestyle. Pete said what made certain partners the best was the fact that they “never dropped the ball.” He stressed the importance of a partner who has a good work ethic; most people have had an experience with partners or group work in which someone does not even come close to doing their part. A good indicator of reliability, he said, is looking at someone’s lifestyle. By this he meant, like, do they party? Drink? Use drugs? Also, he said it’s always important to thoroughly understand a potential partner’s financial profile. He likes to know things like, do they pay their bills on time? Do they have a history of successful businesses, or have they filed bankruptcy many times? He likes to know where they bank, who their account and lawyer are and who they have partnered with in the past.
All of these things have become top of mind for me in my own ventures moving forward. I find it very hard to come across business partners because of my age, and I feel like with this information I am less intimidated by the thought of partnering with someone much older than myself. Just having an idea of what questions to ask, what to listen for in responses and understanding certain red flags has given me more confidence in approaching others about business ideas I have. One thing real estate taught me, for sure, is that you cannot do everything on your own. We are all limited by ourselves individually when it comes to business; meaning, we can achieve so much more with a team. However, the team you surround yourself will make or break your success. Further, the right team can significantly influence your ability to obtain financing, which… is really important.
A huge goal of mine is to expand my real estate business. I also want to get a few other business ventures of mine off the ground, but they will require some capital. If I learned anything in the entrepreneurship minor, its that you should always use someone else’s money! However, like I said, this is highly dependent on your ability to sell yourself and your ideas to a would-be lender. My biggest struggle is finding someone who I feel is a good representation of myself and my ideas. I hope to use some of Pete’s insight to practice vetting different people I bump into. Because I’m so young, I’m thinking that the most important thing I could do for myself is develop the relationships I have with people and make them as strong and true as possible. There are so many things I want to do, but I know that I’m just eager and rushing for no real reason. I’m naturally hungry and ambitious, so it is unnatural for me to slow things down. It almost feels like I have to force myself to slow down because it is totally against my will if I’m being honest.
Another thing I took away from my meeting with Pete, was that life is not a race. He always tells me to slow down… but that’s just not my style. When he was talking about his experience with partners, though, the advice about slowing down made a little more sense. Ultimately from everything Pete and I talked about, it became obvious to me that you cannot rush a quality connection. The best deals come together when you least expect them, and that is also true for things like relationships, friendships and you know, life events in general.
I am starting to see, now, that delayed gratification has it’s perks. Letting time pass gives you an opportunity to observe certain thing about people and industries. Time gives you more perspective, and you can never have enough perspective. At the end of our meeting, Pete gave me two pieces of advice. I asked what he would tell the 21 year old version of himself, he said: focus on wealth accumulation, paying off your first home completely and whatever I do, make sure it cash flows. Not only do I agree with each of these, but they mean so much more coming from one of the only decent role models I’ve had in life.
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