Overview

On this episode of Build Your Network, Host Travis Chappell interviews Cole Hatter, entrepreneur, investor, and award-winning speaker. Hatter is the founder of Thrive.

Topics Discussed:

• About Cole Hatter
  • His main event is the three-day Thrive Conference.
  • He has a wife and two precious girls he strives to leave a legacy for.
  • Has made the majority of his money in real-estate and other investing.
  • He’s invested in businesses and some bitcoin.
  • He’s lost a lot of money and has made more than he’s lost.
  • Invests in people and real-estate.
• How did you get into real estate investing?
  • He found it accidently
    • He was a firefighter and got in a bad accident that ended his career.
    • He learned how to walk again, he had to get out and practice.
    • His neighbors were in real-estate and had a lot of freedom.
  • Became a real estate agent
    • After three weeks, he became an investor to make profits instead of commissions.
    • He didn’t get bank loans, he worked with creative financing and got funded by wealthy people in exchange for 50% of the profits.
    • He found a gentleman at his church to help invest, as well as his dad.
    • Started developing their network with other lenders.
    • Started borrowing private money at a set interest rate.
    • Eventually he built relationships with lenders for interest where he kept all the profits.
    • Asset-based lending: looking at the deal and not the borrower. They were buying at 60% of the market value. When the deal has enough spread for profit, that’s the safety.
    • He spent all day every day scouring MLS, grinding it out.
    • Went to REIA groups.
    • The only reason people gave him money is because he spent months doing prep work and finding deals.
  • If you have $50,000 right now, but it’s not enough for your first investment, where should you put that money?
    • It depends on a person’s risk-tolerance and preference on liquidity.
    • The two questions a person should ask themselves are:
      • What’s your risk tolerance?
      • What’s your liquidity preference?
        • Real estate is one of the slowest assets to liquidate.
      • $50,000 is enough money to put down an EMD (earnest money deposit).
        • When you make an offer that gets accepted, you have to put down 3%, the $50k could be enough, then you need to find other financing.
      • Stocks have had a big upswing for a while, there could be a correction – watch out for them now.
      • Go get an education, understand stocks, bitcoin, real estate, etc.
        • S&P 500 betting has less risk – index funds do well.
      • Do you believe that what you know or who you know is more important than why?
        • Neither, it’s what you know with who you know that matters.
        • He knows someone who is worth hundreds of millions and has a reality TV show, but he also knows how to invest in real estate.
          • He’s not going to know how to profit from this person’s knowledge without knowing what he’s doing.
        • He can go down the list of friends and understand how the combo of what and who he knows makes him money.
        • The first seven years, it was just him and his dad grinding it out.
        • When you make money, your network changes.
      • How podcasting and Thrive has allowed him to build a fantastic inner-circle.
        • He shares content from Thrive in his current podcast.
        • His former podcast, where he interviewed people, and used that as an opportunity to pick experts brains.
          • This is a great way to move both ships forward.
          • He met John Lee Dumas through podcasting and then was introduced to a bunch of other friends.
          • He then created Thrive and that lit his network on fire.
            • The event gave him a lot of credibility and then each year it’s been better.
            • People are now reaching out to him to ask to speak at Thrive.
          • There was a timeline to the success, in 2012 no one knew him and now he has an insane network.
        • He and his wife are launching a new business and the contacts they need to make it happen are just a text message away.
        • Have patience, this takes years.
        • Offer a platform that creates value in people’s lives.
        • Say “not what can I get, but what can I give?”
      • Two tips:
        • Create win-win situations. People have to guard their time, so you have to provide them with something that’s valuable.
        • Be okay with hearing the word “no.”
          • No is a scary word for a lot of people. Put yourself in that scenario, if someone says “no” you’re in the same situation you were before.
          • If you get rejected, just get over it.
            • Persistence wears down resistance.
          • If you get a no, it’s like nothing’s changed almost always.
          • Don’t be afraid of no, you can’t personalize anything. You’ve got to take your wins with your losses.
          • If you get a no, a lot of times you’re talking to the wrong person.
            • Just talk to a new person, and sometimes that no will turn into a yes.
          • If you get a “no” you become less afraid to ask a new person.
        • How have 1-1 mentorships and masterminds allowed you to build your inner circle?
          • He has a mastermind and he pays to be a part of two others.
            • He personally spends $45k in the two masterminds he’s in 100% to make connections.
            • He’s picked up some things that have given him an ROI, but that’s not why he shows up.
            • He starts looking around for his next business partner, speaker for thrive, lender, etc.
            • He wants to create value in someone else’s life so they bring value to his.
            • The real point of a mastermind vs. reading a book or going to an event is to meet people and to network.
            • Say “not what can I get, but what can I give?”

The Random Round:

• What profession other than your own do you think it would be fun to attempt?
  • Professional skydiver
• If you could sit on a park bench for any hour with anyone past or present, who would it be?
  • His grandpa, he misses him and he died before he became an entrepreneur.
• How do you like to learn best, books, blogs, podcasts or video?
  • Coversations and picking people’s brains.
• Give us a glimpse of your morning routine:
  • Hang out with family, eat breakfast with daughters and wife, check emails, gym, grind until 6pm.
• What is your go-to pump up song:
  • Daiya New
• What are you not very good at?
  • Paying attention
• Can find her on her website: colehatter.com or thrive.com | @colehatter

Tweetable Quotes:

• Say “not what can I get, but what can I give?”

Resources Mentioned:

Buildyournetwork.com– Podcast website

Buildyournetwork.co/fb – Travis’s Facebook group

Colehatter.com – Cole’s website

Attendthrive.com – Cole’s conference

REIA groups – Real Estate Investor’s Association groups