Bryan Ellis is the host of Self Directed Investor Talk, a very popular podcast and radio show. Bryan has a vast background in real estate investing and currently serves as a manager of a real estate-focused private equity fund operating in Northern California. Bryan served as publisher of the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter and is a contributor to Forbes, TheStreet.com, and Entrepreneur.com. He also published a magazine called Self-directed Investor and they are about to launch a new magazine called Accredited Investor magazine that has a slightly different focus than the other one.
Bryan got into the real estate world a little bit over 20 years ago. He was a software engineer at the time. When his first daughter was born, he realized that he didn’t want to work 90 hours a week anymore and had to find some other way to make some money. He then landed in single-family real estate. He admits that he was really bad at it to start with, but ultimately kind of figured that out and built an email list to support that business. Out of that grew a really fairly large following. He had several 100,000 people on the email list at the time. Through the years, he ended up learning what people really need to know about investment opportunities, what accredited or affluent investors, what they really need to know, in order to make a good decision about participating in an investment opportunity or not.
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Raising Millions in Capital in 30 days with Bryan Ellis
Brett Swarts:
I’m excited about our next guest. He is the host of Self-directed Investor Talk, a very popular podcast and radio show. He has a vast background in real estate investing and currently serves as manager of a real estate-focused private equity fund operating in Northern California. He’s served as a publisher of the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter and is a contributor to Forbes, TheStreet.com, and Entrepreneur.com. He has a ton of knowledge to share with us today. Please welcome to the show with me, Bryan Ellis. Hey, Bryan, how are you doing?
Bryan Ellis:
I am great, Brett, how are you? Sir?
Brett Swarts:
I’m doing well. We’re gonna be talking about raising millions in capital in 30 days with Bryan Ellis and diving into all the secrets with that. And Bryan. Bryan’s gonna be sharing with us. But in the meantime, or before we go there. Would you give our listeners getting to know you for the first time a little bit more about your story and current focus?
Bryan Ellis:
Sure, Brett. So I got my start in the real estate world a little bit over 20 years ago and really was, at the time, I was a software engineer, and was doing very, very well from it. And my first daughter was born and realized I didn’t want to work 90 hours a week anymore and had to find some other way to make some money because I just didn’t want to do that anymore. And kind of real estate was where I landed single-family real estate at the time. And I was really bad at it to start with, but ultimately kind of figured that out and built an email list to support that business. And out of that grew a really fairly large following. We had several 100,000 people on the email list at the time. And that sort of thing along the way. It turned out that a lot of the people who were my subscribers were interested in hearing about investment opportunities. And so we would occasionally put some of those in front of them. And through the years, I ended up learning what people really need to know about investment opportunities, what accredited or affluent investors, what they really need to know, in order to make a good decision about participating in an investment opportunity or not. And that’s really where I am right now, Brett, we do a lot of things, I publish a magazine called Self-directed Investor magazine. We are about to launch a new magazine called Accredited Investor magazine that has a slightly different focus than the other one. But really, most of what I do today, Brett is is that people whenever they need sponsors for syndications and other big investment projects, whenever they need to raise a bunch of money, what they’ll do is call me up ideally at the beginning of their project, but most of them the first time they work with me, they wait until they’re about two weeks before their drop-dead date, whenever they really have to have money or they’re going to, you know, the project’s not going to happen. That’s when they call me I write to them, write them a script, I write them a presentation, and generally try to save the day. So that’s what I do these days.
Brett Swarts:
Beautiful. And, you know, I think we’ve all been given certain gifts, Bryan, and these gifts have been given to us to be a blessing and help to others. So I want you to maybe go back to transform, transport yourself back to the high school days, maybe the university days. And I want you to think about maybe a strength or a gift that you believe you were given. And maybe what are one or two that you’ve been given you believe and how does that help how you help bless people today?
Bryan Ellis:
You know, that is a great question and framed very differently than I’ve ever heard it framed before. And I actually wholly endorse and acknowledge the blessing aspect of this. I would point to two things. One of them is that even from a young age, while I was in junior high in high school, I had a certain clarity about being able to write well. I understood both the structure of how a lot of words ought to be put together but also how individual sentences need to be put together and how those words actually impact the listener or the reader. And so that was a gift in a talent that I was blessed with. And another one was understanding the cause and effect nature of the universe, I have this not so crazy, the pretty intellectually well-founded belief that we live in a world of order our world was created with order, and it and order happen to be a fundamental characteristic of the way that I do that I create my presentations today because what I’ve seen over time, is that there that you can take a certain group of words and say them and they are accurate and truthful and honest. And you get a certain result, we wish you can take the same meaning. But you can say the same thing in a slightly different way and get a completely different response from your audience when you say it. And that is an indication of the fact that our brains are ordered to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways. And if we simply take a moment, and this is one of the gifts that I think I’ve been given is that if you simply observe the way that people respond to the way you speak to them, and through the way you write to them, what you’ll realize is that even conveying the same information, if you do it in a way that is compatible with the way that they think, and process information, you’re going to get a lot farther, a lot faster. And so those two things, the ability to write well, and the understanding of real cause and effect relationships as it occurs in the mind. Those have been the real, real key differences for me.
Brett Swarts:
Amazing. Yeah. So clarity to write well, and then to structure words well, to see order, understanding cause, and effect, and then to be able to customize that or the EQ to be able to say how somebody’s going to receive that. Is that a fair summary, Bryan?
Bryan Ellis:
Yeah, it is. It really is.
Brett Swarts:
Awesome. So let’s dive right into raising millions and capital in 30 days, right? So you get the call, Bryan, I’ve got this $50 million, $20 million, $30 million projects I’ve raised and I’ve tapped out of the folks that I’ve connected with, would you please help me? What is step number one, Bryan go?
Bryan Ellis:
So step number one Brett is that basically, I have my client who has given me this call, usually, they call me with a couple of weeks left, they’re under the gun they have, they’re gonna lose this deal if they don’t raise the money. And so maybe it’s a $50 million project, or $10 million short, and they got to do it quickly. And they are also convinced that their database is all tapped out, they’ve already gotten all the money out of it they possibly can. So what I did is I use the skills that I mentioned just a moment ago, the ability to write well, and the ability to see cause and effect very clearly. And I asked them a million questions about their project so that I understand their project, its strengths, its weaknesses, everything that to them represents good about it, and everything that to them represents risk about it. And I do a little bit of additional research as well, too, so that I have all the bases covered. But then I use that writing and logical thinking background, to create a new presentation, like a new PowerPoint, slideshow, and also a word for word script, that’s the important part. We create an entirely new presentation for them, we record that presentation. And then I also write some emails for them to send to their database to get people to watch this webinar. And invariably, Brett, what we find out is that not only was their database not tapped out but that there’s more than enough money in that database to fund the rest of their deal because we invariably raised the rest of the money that they need. Now, that works, because I take the information that they give me, and I restructure it in such a way and present it to their clients in such a way as to make it where their mind doesn’t really have to process it. So much, it fundamentally makes sense to them. And so what we’ve seen over and over again, is that the client comes to us and says my database has tapped out and three days later, they’ve, they’ve raised all the money they need from their database because of a presentation that we’ve created for them.
Brett Swarts:
Love it. And by the way, you can learn more about Bryan Ellis by just texting him at 678-888-4000. So they have a big problem. They’re going to lose the project, their tap, they feel they’re tapped out of their current list their contacts, you’re coming in, like the capital doctor, right and or the project doctor, you’re asking a million questions, to understand their project and do some research and I’m going to try to you know, squeeze the juice out of the deal. And then also squeeze the juice out of folks. Not by squeeze probably not a good word. But attract and unlock the stuff of the deal of the capital raising. Is that a fair summary so far?
Bryan Ellis:
it certainly is.
Brett Swarts:
That leads me to this question right here. Okay. So you said a million questions. Can we narrow that down? Right? Because I think this is key here asking the right questions, right, perhaps even in the right order. But what are the three maybe most overlooked best questions that you ask your clients to help unlock more of the opportunity?
Bryan Ellis:
You know, that’s a really good question, Brett. But what I find is that the problem is not that they don’t have the information that they need to have. Or, nor is it that I asked them questions that lead them to realize things that they didn’t know, it’s that they don’t understand the value of the information that they have, and when it should be presented correctly. So to give you a quick example of what I’m talking about. If you look back in history, what you see is that all of the really famous stories, or the really famous events where a person is telling somebody else something pretty much all of them are stories. Like they’re all fairy tales. They’re, you know, there’s Jesus with the Sermon on the Mount. There are all kinds of stories. Well, why? Well, it’s because people remember stories, they remember narrative, what they don’t remember is the details of what their professor lectured to them 30 years ago, all right. They don’t remember specific, narrow things like that. What they remember is the big picture, where were we going with this idea? You know, what? What were they trying to get me to accomplish with this idea? Or what did this fairy tell me? Well, so that’s what I do with my clients, is I take the information that they already know. And restructure it, and reorder it, so that it’s helpful and not contradictory to their goals. And so, one way we do that is just about everybody, whenever they’re doing a capital pitch presentation, they start that they’ve got one thing in mind, that’s basically correct. In that thing, that thing that they’ve got in mind is that nobody’s going to invest in this project without trusting me as the syndicator as a sponsor. That’s true. That is absolutely true. However, they don’t care one little bit about you as a syndicator. If they didn’t know you previously, okay, if they knew you previously, then your relationship is the currency. But if you’re dealing with a new audience, they don’t care about you at all, until such time as they know that this deal is worth caring about. Well, despite that, what most syndicators and most project sponsors do is they start the presentation with a picture of all of them, the general partners of the project all the people at the top of it, and they give a paragraph or sometimes more background about each individual person running the project. Well, you know what, that’s a great way to spend the first five to 10 minutes of the presentation on something that nobody cares about yet. So what do you do instead? Well, you reorganize your pitch as a narrative. This is what it is, this is what it’s all about. This is what the vision is that this is why we’re going to be able to do something with it that nobody else has been able to do. This is where the scary parts are. And oh, by the way, while you’re expressing that narrative, what happens is that the people who are the general partners, that people who are running the show, they tend to pop up in relevant spots. So if somebody on the general partner list is a product that is a property manager, they’re going to be running the property. Well, when we get to the part about why the people who ran them manage the property before it does a terrible job, and why that leaves all kinds of opportunities for us now. Well, that’s a natural place to take 30 seconds, say something about the person who’s in the general partnership role, and their expertise in that area, because now it matters. Now, it’s relevant. But at the beginning of the show, that was just a wasted time and nobody cares. That’s just one example. But there are many, many more like that, where people just do everything out of order and, and they think that they are doing cause and effect like I mentioned that they think the premise is that, you know, the syndicator or the project manager is really important, and that’s correct, but they apply that information in the wrong way. So all I do, shift everything around and make it make sense to your brain.
Brett Swarts:
It’s making sense to my brain, and you’re doing a great job of breaking that down even right now. So understanding the value of the information they have, and presenting it well, in the right order, taking the big picture of the story, right? Nobody really cares about it. I mean, they’re gonna have to find out that you’re a trustworthy person. Sure, and they’ll figure that out. But they don’t even want to figure that out unless the deal is even attractive. Is that a fair summary?
Raising Millions in Capital in 30 days: “You must learn that selling is not selling; it is providing and the key to providing is knowing in advance what to provide.” Todd Duncan
Bryan Ellis:
Absolutely not like, remember, at the core of it, everybody’s asking what’s in it for me. And that is exactly what they should be asking for in an investment opportunity. And what’s in it for them, ultimately, is not that you’re in it. So that’s not where you start.
Brett Swarts:
Excellent. So that’s step one and step two. And then step three is delivering this presentation. And what’s maybe the best-kept secret to now you get that interest you get folks that are, you know, now excited about the deal. Now with maybe focus on conversion, and or, you know, because you gotta you got to do this, and, you know, 14 days, 30 days, so what’s the best-kept secret there, Bryan?
Bryan Ellis:
So that one is very clear. The key to that is your positioning as someone raising capital, what I have observed over and over again, is that my clients, they’ll be raising $5. $10, $20, $50 million, whatever. And particularly the people who are a little bit newer at this, they do so almost apologetically, like, you know, I, I’m, we’re we’ve got to raise $20 million. And by the way, the minimum is $100,000 per person. And sometimes we’ll accept $50,000 per person, depending on the situation. But we’ve got to raise a million or $20 million. And we’re, you know, we’ve only got 10 of it, we’re, we’re still 10 short, and we’ve got to close this out by two weeks from now. So if you are interested, go ahead and respond by doing whatever. Well, that’s roughly the way that most people do it. I do it very, very differently, what I do is try to make the numbers very relatable and very urgency-inducing, for example, somebody is raising $20 million, they’re still $10 million short. And the minimum is $100,000. Just like in the last scenario, well, to me what I think is they’ve raised 10, they need 10 10 million more 10 million divided by 100,000. That’s 100. Okay, so I need 100 investors, I don’t need $10 million. I need 100 investors. And so what I would how I describe that difference is I would say, ladies and gentlemen, this is a project that has a budget of only $20 million. Now, you probably recognize that, if you compare that to many, many other projects, these days that actually have multi-billion dollar budget levels, what we’re talking about here is a real is a really very small amount of money. Furthermore, one-half of the available spaces for this project have already been taken. We only have room for about another 100 people now, some people come to me and say, Bryan, I know the project minimum is $100,000. Could I invest more in this project? And the answer is maybe I cannot guarantee that you can because that is decided on a case by case basis, sometimes we will accept more than $100,000 standard investment from certain individuals. But that’s case by case, I cannot promise that to you. What I can tell you is that we have only about 100 spots left. And right now there are 300 people on this webinar. So my encouragement to us that you take this very seriously and respond right away by visiting the URL on your screen to set up an appointment with a member of the team to talk it through and make sure it’s a good fit for you. So, Brett, you can probably see in those two renditions of the same information that one of them is going to be far more powerful driving people to make the next move right away.
Brett Swarts:
Hey, I’m ready to sign up. Bryan, I think you’re absolutely right. By the way, you can learn more about Bryan Ellis by texting 678-888-4000 that’s 678-888-4000. So let me see if I have a capsulate what you just said as best I can. Right so thinking like a maybe I would say a passive stance or apologetic stance or kind of a nervous stance, right of Hey, you know, we’ve only got so much time and we’ve got to raise so much. So if you want to invest in you know, just kind of go here versus Hey, no, this is actually a great opportunity. And in fact, we only have a budget of 20 which in context is, you know, raising big funds, big deals millions, billions of dollars, like it’s not actually that big if you consider that of which already half of its already been raised and there are about 100 spots left and you know, 100,000 is our minimum, we may have an opportunity for some to invest more but not sure you have to be on a case by case basis. And right now there are about 300. You’re creating some urgency on this webinar. So I would encourage you to go here right now. Is that a fair summary?
Bryan Ellis:
That’s very, very impressively done, Brett. Thanks. Yeah.
Brett Swarts:
So all right. So now you’ve raised the capital. And we have, you know, investors are happy, your clients are happy, you’re happy? What’s the most rewarding part of what you do, Bryan?
Bryan Ellis:
Oh, well, there are a couple of them. One of them. And I gotta be honest, this is just a good stroke for my ego every time it happens, but it happens just about every time and that is the short turnaround like, you know, I’ll get a call one day. And the next day or the day after that, at worst, I’m spending the day working with that client. And then a day or two after that, we already have the webinar done and ready to and turned around. And that day, like, the nature of the clothes that I give, is such that people respond right away. I recall there’s one client that I work with, out in Dallas, work with him several times now, actually. And I happened to be on-site, this was pre-COVID. And I delivered their presentation live because they were on such a tight timeframe that we didn’t have time to record it in advance. I delivered their presentation live. I closed a presentation that was about 40-50 minutes long, something like that. And I was the only one in that room delivering it. But the room next to me was a conference room where basically all the management team was sitting. And I immediately heard, like just uproarious applause. And well, I didn’t know what was going on. Because I had no idea. Well, I talked to them, you know, I got up out of the room and went next door, and they were just up in arms. And it turns out that there was one of their upper management folks who weren’t in the room and who didn’t know what was going on had called in and said, Guys, our appointment scheduling system has been hacked. Hey, have you seen all the appointments that have come in in the last 15 minutes? And this was not a joke, the guy really thought that it happened. So that’s pretty gratifying. I’ll admit.
Brett Swarts:
That is really fun. So you’re giving a presentation, we got to do notes, what’s happening and then he keeps the whole system’s crashing because so many people are trying to book appointments. I think there’s a room like Rainmaker. Right. I think of like, who’s you know, what are they? What are they say? What’s that? What’s that movie white men can’t jump right where, you know, Wesley Snipes is on the basketball court. And they’re like, Who’s Who do you pick? You know, and, and, and it’s Woody Harrelson. He’s kind of walking out like the combat guy over there. They’re not thinking much of it. Nothing. They’re not thinking much of you, Bryan. But then he comes in, and then they just, you know, they beat everybody. And it happens pretty fast. So that’s really, really cool. And I could see, I could see, especially if you’re meeting someone for the first time, right? And always even think of it as an emergency doctor, too, right? It’s like, it’s happening. And we got to bring in the specialists, we got to fly in the specialist, right? Who’s got this emergency surgery, right? Or this deal is gonna die. And then you get to bring it back to life. Is that a fair summary, Bryan?
Bryan Ellis:
That’s a very fair summary. Most of the projects that I work on would not have otherwise closed without what we did.
Brett Swarts:
Yeah. Beautiful. I love it. I love it. Love it. So now let’s talk about cost. Bryan. So when you’re coming in there, what does it take to get a Bryan Ellis to help them, and maybe it’s the case by a case basis, of course. But what does that kind of generally look like right?
Bryan Ellis:
Now, there’s no case by case to it, it’s 25 grand for one day, if this is generally a one-day project, for me, I spend, typically, two to five hours in the morning. Speaking with a person about their project, learning everything, there is no about their project, then I spend the entire entirety of the rest of the afternoon and evening, writing their presentation and creating their project. And then we get back on, if I’m in person with them, then we meet if we’re doing it remotely, then we get back together first thing the next morning, and I show them the presentation that I have made for them. And we go over every word because every single word is scripted. And at that point, my client gets to decide how they feel about what I have done for them. And if they feel good about it, then good we go ahead and either record it or present it live. If they don’t feel good about it, I give them their money back, shake their hands and go the other way. And that pretty much never happens. But yeah, it’s 25 grand to do this. It’s a very, very quick turnaround. And it’s been pretty consistently successful.
Brett Swarts:
Awesome. Now that’s worth every penny. If you’re raising help people raise, you know, 100 grand, a million-dollar dollars, right, that investor and what when and closes the deal? I mean, yeah, that’s fantastic.
Bryan Ellis:
For the people that contact me they’re not looking to raise 100 grand, they’re like a and in fact, a million is kind of on the low end, like I do some of those, but most of them are looking at,
Brett Swarts:
Like, even just raising 100 grand to imagine that was raised, right? To me, that would pay for it because that 100 grand, especially if it’s leveraged, is going to be able to help purchase you know, purchase the deal, right or, or that investor. I mean, there are so many ways to get an ROI on that. Not that you would just do it for hundred a million 2,3,4, 5, I mean, yeah, exactly. So that’s fantastic. Okay, great. So that’s the cost.
Bryan Ellis:
It’s not it’s, that is the per day fee, but it’s very rare that this takes more than one day. Like it’s not going to cost them 100 grand it’s gonna cost them 25 grand.
Brett Swarts:
Got it. Right, I’m perfect. With all that being said we’re running out of time, are you ready for the lightning round?
Bryan Ellis:
Let’s do it.
Brett Swarts:
All right. So knowing what you know now Bryan, if you go back to your 25-year-old self what’s the one Golden Nugget you would make sure to tell yourself to do?
Bryan Ellis:
Absolutely follow God and forget about everything else and make sure that my moral and spiritual compass is straight above all else.
Brett Swarts:
Beautiful love, I couldn’t agree more. Number one book you recommended or gift at the most in the past year.
Bryan Ellis:
It would be Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini. Great book.
Brett Swarts:
Best real estate deal you’ve ever done?
Bryan Ellis:
I guess I would point, you know what I’m doing one right now. And I’ll just tell you about it because it’s fresh on my mind. it’s a house deal. Actually, it’s just a house deal. But I’m getting it for just a little under 300 grand, it is right now worth conservatively, 700 and maybe 800. And it needs nothing. And it’s all because of a personal relationship. So I’m gonna buy that and then just resell it.
Brett Swarts:
Love those kinds of deals beautiful. The number one negotiation tip.
Bryan Ellis:
Honestly encourage me to have a steel span, be very, very clear and know what you absolutely must have, and don’t waver.
Brett Swarts:
Beautiful. What are you curious about right now?
Bryan Ellis:
Spirituality. Much more so than anything in business, I spend a lot of time trying to make myself better. And so that’s where my head is right now.
Brett Swarts:
Absolutely. And also, I couldn’t agree more, it’s given the state of the world, you know, we’re gonna feel like we’re in different times, for sure. The last question, so and then we’ll remind listeners where they can find you as well. So after all, your success, Bryan, helping people raise millions in capital in less than 30 days helping people to unlock deals that otherwise would have, you know, been? Maybe they’ve fallen apart? And how do you stay centered in your values? And how do you stay encouraged to reach for new heights?
Bryan Ellis:
I stay centered on my values. Because that very thing is a core component of every single day of my life. I mean, I start off every single day teaching my young boys who are five and six and seven, about what I believe to be true. And we spend a lot of time talking about that, and with my wife also, and like that’s a daily part of our lives. So you know, if I can accomplish that with them, and we can keep what’s most important front and center to us, then to me, that feels like a big win.
Brett Swarts:
It’s beautiful, I absolutely love it. And Bryan, for folks who want to get in touch with you, we remind them one last time where they can find you or connect with you.
Bryan Ellis:
the best way to do that just texts me at 678-888-4000, 678 888 4000. And I’ll be happy to respond to you and figure out what you need and point you more specifically from there.
Brett Swarts:
Excellent. And I want to thank you for being on the show, Bryan. I feel like I’m a better thinker now. And maybe hopefully the communicator just a little bit right, just a tad better. But I would encourage you to keep using the gift of clarity to write well write, copy and help people you know the structure, their communication, and their deals to unlock more deals. And that’s it. Thanks so much for your show. And also want to thank our listeners for listening to the episode of the capital gains tax solutions podcast. As always, we believe the highest net worth individuals and those who help them struggle to clarify their capital gains tax deferral options and not having a clear plan is the enemy, and using a proven tax deferral strategy such as the deferred sales trust is the best way for you to exit your highly appreciated business or real estate. Please go to capitalgainstaxsolutions.com if you want to learn more about that and or if you’re a business professional, commercial real estate syndicator operator. You can also go to experttaxsecrets.com and enter the deferred sales trust that can help you unlock capital as well for your next deal. Thanks so much for listening to the show. We appreciate you everyone out there. Bye
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About Bryan Ellis
Bryan Ellis is the host of Self Directed Investor Talk, a very popular podcast and radio show. Bryan has a vast background in real estate investing and currently serves as manager of a real estate-focused private equity fund operating in Northern California. Bryan served as publisher of the Bryan Ellis Investing Letter and is a contributor to Forbes, TheStreet.com, and Entrepreneur.com. His writing has been featured in print publications ranging from Personal Real Estate Investor and Think Realty to major online media outlets like FoxNews.com. Bryan studied Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
