Discovering Your Niche With Andrew Schlag

How perfect life would be with the freedom we have to do what we want without stressing over the things we should do! But how can you create an abundant life while providing your family? In this episode, Andrew Schlag, a bestselling author, suggests three things in discovering your niche and so you can live in abundance for life. To step into the path of abundance, making small changes in our daily actions and aligns it to our goals is in utmost importance. Andrew also provides insights to the upcoming event, Automated Millionaire Summit. Hear more by tuning in to this episode today. fullerwalletmedia.com/AMS fullerwalletmedia.com/hope fullerwalletmedia.com/Youtube fullerwalletmedia.com/Podcast fullerwalletmedia.com/facebook

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Discovering Your Niche With Andrew Schlag

I am very excited because not only do we have a special guest, but this guest carries a lot of accolades and experience. A few of them to mention is his name to fame was at the age of 22, he bought 50 houses in 52 weeks. In 2022, the top real estate magazine for the top 100 professionals in real estate, he was the top 100 in 2022 as part of that as well. He coached thousands of students and is a best-selling author. I’m so excited to have you here, Andrew Schlag. Welcome to the show with me and my co-host, Melanie. We’re so honored to have you. Julie, it is awesome to be here. How are you? I am good. How are you? I am awesome. It’s good to see your smiling face always. When you asked me to be on here, I was pumped to get to share some cool stuff. Anytime I get to hang out with you is a pleasure. We’re pumped to have you. Before we dive in, I got to jump in. For our readers that may not be familiar with you or know about you, can you tell a little bit about your background, where you came from in a sky overview, and what you’re doing? I was born and raised in a little bitty town called Belle Rive, Illinois. It is a town of 400 people in southern Illinois. That was where I lived all my life until I was 21. I was raised on a farm. It was a pig farm. The first time I met you, I would’ve never guessed that.  Thank you or I’m sorry. I don’t know. That’s awesome. I learned so much cool stuff that I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I have been able to do the family construction business growing up. We built new houses and did cool stuff. I had a lot of education there that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Fast forwarding, at 21 years old, I found real estate and encountered some health challenges, long story short. I started doing deals. I started wholesaling and then refused to give up. I started making a path for myself. Living my purpose and helping others is what I wanted to do. Real estate has been that tool for me. I have expanded far beyond real estate. I own multiple businesses and multiple facets, but real estate was the base that built my cashflow and got me started. Was there any person or any influence that got you into real estate? Was it a late-night infomercial and you saw something? Was it a book or somebody that you heard on a podcast? How did you even wake up and be like, “I want to do real estate.” I had been googling how to buy rental houses. We, in our construction business, had worked on a couple of flip houses. I’d seen it from that side and was like, “I wonder what it would be like to be on the other side.” My wheels were spinning. What is it they say when the student is ready? The teacher will appear. I’m listening to TalkRadio one day in the truck on a job site. I hear the radio and it’s Ron LeGrand, who’s been a dear friend of mine for many years. It was a little 30-second ad. It was like, “Call for a free book and CD. You can buy a household with no money and no credit. I’ve been doing it for 35 years,” etc. I called. That was in February. In April, I found myself in downtown Atlanta at a four-day seminar that rocked my world. I have a feeling you remember the very moment, sitting in that truck, what that truck smelled like and looked like or what you were looking at. In those pivotal moments in life, you don’t realize. When you look back, you’re like, “Wow.” That one 30-second commercial changed your life. I often wonder what it would’ve been like had I not heard that ad. It’s amazing how little things can make a massive impact. Look at where you’re at. You’re friends with Ron LeGrand. He is a dear friend, for sure. You’re a dear friend of Ron LeGrand. You’re doing some incredible things on the other side. What are some of those things? Tell us. I have done over 500 deals. I mainly buy terms deals by owner financing and sell-on-lease option. The only reason I ventured that is because it didn’t require money or credit and I didn’t have either. I was a broke kid. When I started doing that, it worked. I always ask myself for ventures I do, “Are they duplicatable?” I’d love to be an entertainer and a beautiful singer, but I don’t have the voice of Michael Jackson and I’m sure as heck not the dance moves. While some of that is practice, there is some of it that’s talent. Real estate is a business that is duplicatable. Anybody who is willing to read a freaking script and get on the phone with some sellers can do deals. That is what jumped out at me. It’s one of those businesses that’s always been stable for me. I do multiple deals still every single month. It’s addicting. I have a team of three who runs that entire company for us. It’s phenomenal. That’s an exciting business that I have. What drives me is helping others. I’ve been mentoring and showing others how to do it since 2017. That’s been a passion of mine along with some others I know we’ll get to later. You went from teaching and now you’re more in a role where you’re more passionate about the way that you’re approaching teaching and working with people. I got to ask. Coming from your town population, what was it? Was it 462? It was over 400. That was counting the dogs. Looking back, I’m sure you didn’t envision where you would be, but I have to ask. Was there anyone that stuck out or any specific person or role model that played a role and impacted your life to go the direction it went? Yeah. I always give accolades to my incredible parents. They are very hardworking people. I was in a very small town. Growing up, I thought if somebody was making over $60,000 a year, they were rich people. That was the mindset I grew up with. Except, they always planted in us seeds of greatness and the ability that, “Whatever you want to be, you can. Whatever you want to do, you can.” While we didn’t know rich people, we didn’t know the way to build wealth, we knew how to find opportunity. That’s more important. The thing is to know how to find the thing. That’s huge, having an opportunity to be able to figure out how to find it. That will serve you in any segment. If you know how to communicate and create relationships, you can do any business. Relationships speak volumes and go beyond measures that people don’t even fathom or think of. Mel, what do you think? Do you have any questions for Andrew? Yeah. How old are you? I’m 31. I wanted to ask that for a purpose because at 31 years old, that’s quite a bit of accomplishment.  I’m very grateful every day. The reason I started in real estate was I wanted to be able to help my family, ultimately, and be able to give more, do more, and give back. At first, I thought you had to be passionate about buying houses to do it. It’s not that at all. It’s a tool. I enjoy buying houses. It’s fun. It makes money. Frankly, at the first hundred, the second hundred, or the third hundred, it starts to get monotonous, but it empowers you to live your dream. Sometimes, I’ll call one of my partners, who also happens to be one of my best friends. I’ll say, “Let’s go to Hawaii next week.” It is being able to live an impromptu life and having freedom. It is real freedom. That’s exactly right. That’s what’s exciting to me. That’s different. Sometimes, people get confused. They think freedom is working hard, getting their retirement, getting that money in, and relying on that money. They look at it as the time freedom. They don’t have to get up and go to work every day and this and that. I’m thinking at a higher level that people limit themselves to thinking, “There’s no way I could ever be able to wake up and be like, “Let’s go to Hawaii next week,” but it is possible,  I’m grateful every day because it’s not about me. It’s about the fact that it’s duplicatable. I’m helping the people around me. The people who choose to be a part of my extended family, my mastermind, and the various things that we’ve created, the fact that they are able to duplicate a similar business and get similar results, that’s what excites me. That is exciting. It’s a lot of fun. If I’m going too fast or I’m missing anything, tell me. I love it. Keep talking. Tell us. Fill us in. I want to mention again that the purpose of all of this is to be able to create communities. Coming out of COVID, there was so much human connection that was missed. I don’t care whether you think you’re a people person or you’re not, you need people. We need somebody to give us a hug or say, “Hello,” or shake our hand. Being separated in such a way became so detrimental to so many people. They have depression, anxiety, and problems. For me, it’s all about creating that community and giving people the ability to create community and human connection. We’re getting ready because a whole team is flying out to San Francisco. It will be a lot of fun. We’re packing 25,000 meals to feed the kids of Ukraine. We are partnering with Kids Against Hunger. We are donating thousands of dollars, packing that with our own hands, and getting the privilege of making an impact. There are several other things we’re doing I could talk about to help youth and young people through opportunity and donating. I mentioned this only because if you’re doing something to do it, you probably won’t get far. If you’re doing it, though, for the greater purpose of living your mission, helping those in need, helping your family, or helping give yourself the life of your dreams, nothing can stop you. I got to ask. If somebody was starting out or approached you and was like, “I want to live an abundant lifestyle and be able to provide for my family,” what would be your suggestions to someone starting out? What would you say to someone that is very green or new? There are three things. Decide what you want. Some people want $5,000 a month and they’re happy. Some people, they’ll want $150,000 a month and they’re happy. Others couldn’t fathom living on that little. Decide what you want and go for that. Number one, decide what you want. Number two, find someone who is further along that path than you are and get around them. That’s why you tune in to this show. That’s why, Julie, you create it. You give so much value. You help people shortcut the path to success. I would’ve never bought 50 houses in a year at 22. I wouldn’t have been on house number one at 22 had I not gone to that seminar and learned I could ask three simple questions, “What’s the least you’ll take on price? What’s the least you’ll take in a month?” Usually, we bow at nothing down. People started saying yes. I’m like, “This works.” It’s amazing what works. Don’t be afraid to try. 1) Decide what you want. 2) Surround yourself with people who are closer there than you are. Number three, take daily action steps. They can be even small. I lost 45 pounds.

Tell us more about that really quickly. My partner who I mentioned is a dear friend of mine, we were at an event together. I’ve had some health challenges and some heart problems and stuff. I’d allowed those to stop me from taking control of my health like I wanted it to. I realized that even if I couldn’t go to the gym and do as hard of a workout as somebody else, I could do something. I could still walk a little bit. I could still eat a little healthier. Comparison is the thief of joy. I decided instead of steak and dessert every night, six nights a week, because I love steak and dessert, I would do it one night a week. 5 or 6 nights a week is chicken or salmon, which I love, and vegetables, which is also good. I love those two. You feel better, don’t you? I feel so much better. 5 to 6 days a week, I do some sort of exercise. I dropped the weight. I feel fantastic. Everything changes when we make small changes. I didn’t go to the gym one day and then the next day, I’m like, “This is my dream weight.” It took a few weeks. It took about 90 days, which is quite fast. About 90 days later, I wake up and I’m 40 to 45 pounds lighter. I’m going, “This is working.” Everything changes when we make small changes. Click To Tweet Congratulations on that. Thank you so much. That’s a huge accomplishment. You should be proud of that. A lot of entrepreneurs get lost in that. It’s either all their focus is in the business or all their focus is here. It’s hard to manage. I don’t know. I’m still working on it myself to be an entrepreneur that has the perfect life and family balance, the perfect work balance, and the perfect personal time balance. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. When you draw all that in, it’s amazing when you build the lifestyle around the lifestyle you want like you’re doing how it’s a completely different perspective. It’s sustainable. It’s so simple, and I’d made it hard in my mind. Losing weight, I’d made it hard in my mind. I had made real estate harder in my mind than it was. I see so many people doing that. It’s like, “Buying houses? How do you even start?” It is deciding that you’re going to make that change. We have a two-day free event that we’ll talk about shortly. It is a free virtual event. What we created in the mastermind that we’ve built is people who want to use real estate as a tool to live their freedom life or their balanced life to take care of their health and fitness. For years, I believed I had to dial in and solely focus on money or I would get left behind. I realize money’s a tool. When you realize that rather than it’s the thing you want so badly, you begin to live with balance. Money is this tool to get you where you want to go next. That could be your health and fitness, to give you time freedom, to travel, or your spirituality. I built a gym in my backyard. I love that. I went through a similar thing where I lost a little over 30 pounds. It changed my life that I built a gym in my backyard. I live in the middle of nowhere, too, but my population’s about 862. We do have one stop light, though. That is a big city. I get deals all the time and I live in the middle of nowhere. It’s all old-school marketing methods. It’s all relationships, being out there, having relationships, and communicating with people. It is all the tools and things that you shared.  That’s powerful. I trust with this show, somebody gets a takeaway to go, “I’m going to watch one more training. I’m going to go to one more event and I’m going to go home and implement one thing I learned there.” I always tell people, “Make five seller calls a day if you’re doing real estate. If you talk to five sellers a day, it’s not a lot. That’s on average.” My calls are five minutes. That’s 25 minutes a day. Twenty-five minutes a day, though, even if you suck on the phone and your leads are horrible, a few months down the road, something’s bound to happen. Who knows? You may get one in the first week like I did. What would be one of your top recommended books that you would recommend somebody to read? This is good. I got to know this. There’s a great one I finished. It’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. I love that book. It is so powerful. It is about becoming the leaders that we are as business owners, podcast hosts, and trainers. Many of the audience are leaders in their own perspectives, whether it be locally or in whatever aspects. That’s a huge one. I must say though, there’s another book I read by Gino Wickman called Traction. I feel like getting that book took my business to a new level of learning how to run meetings and build the team.

If I had another one, and this is probably a prejudice of mine because Ron’s a dear friend of mine, he wrote a book titled The Less I Do, The More I Make. I love that book. It was all about how, frankly, in real estate, if you are making a few calls, you can hire VAs for phone answering. For a couple of hundred bucks a month, you outsourced 80% of the business. In 25 to 60 minutes a day, you can run an entire business. That book changed my life in the early stages. That’s what I’m going to have to check out. I have known Ron for a long time and I haven’t read that book. Tell us more about your upcoming event. I know you briefly touched that you have an event. For our audience that has been reading so far, we’re going to discuss what Andrew’s doing at his two-day summit. For more information on that on what we’re going to dive into, it’s going to be at FullerWalletMedia.com/AMS. Before we dive in, why don’t you tell us what is the two-day summit about and what is involved? Yeah. AMS is not for my name. My initial is Andrew Mark Schlag. It’s for the Automated Millionaire Summit. The Automated Millionaire Summit is meant to do three things for you. The first one is on day one, we start out about how to get a check fast. We start out with wholesaling, and then we move immediately into how to buy houses on terms. We then move into how to turn the assets. If you know how to acquire assets with no money and no credit, you got to figure out how to make them the most profitable. It’s how to turn them into that. We had a booking start in one of our properties. It’s a $33,000 midterm rental booking. Don’t take very many of those until your life begins to change. The cool part is that’s not just happening for me. You should see the results my mastermind students are getting with their short-term rentals, midterm rentals, and lease options. It’s incredible. That’s part one, how to get a check fast. Part two is how to build real wealth. When I started, I needed $3,000 or $5,000. My first $3,000 check was life-changing. Soon after, you want to start getting off the hamster wheel, so to speak. For the first few months there, I was so grateful to make $3,000 or $10,000 grand. I had to work as many hours as it took. A few months in, I’m going “I need to start building cashflow.” Part two is building your cashflow and your wealth, which is taking you to your freedom life. Number one, get a check fast. Number two, build wealth and cashflow doing short-term rentals, midterm rentals, lease options, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. The third and final part, which is probably my favorite part, is day two. That’s where we start talking about living your freedom life through automation. AI is on the buzz. Frankly, AI can run so many cool things for you. The phone systems can run so many cool things for you. There is still a piece of human interaction needed to run your company. I’ve done hundreds of deals. I can show you how to close deals. I frankly don’t know a better creative closer than me. I have fun with it. What we delve into is how you duplicate yourself or me, for example, how you duplicate my process with your team. Maybe somebody is at the scale and they want ten employees. God bless them, but that’s not me. I run a sniper-like team of three amazing people that run my entire estate business. We do multiple deals every month. You like it that way small, too. I love it that way. Everybody has to be vague. Many people get caught up in the, “I have to do 100 deals a year. I got to do 300 deals a year. I got to do this and grow. I need more salesmen and this.” Many people that keep it simple are making probably as much. It may be more. You’re correct. They probably are making as much or more and having less stress and enjoying their life. They are in better health because they’re not stressed. They get good sleep at night. It’s a complete 360. That’s where we shine. It is showing people how to attract that team member, whether it’s a joint venture partner or a small payroll of a few hundred bucks a month plus bonuses. If you’re duplicating my team exactly with those correct three people, over the next 6 to 12 months, you get to build your automated real estate investing business, build your dream life around that, and take them with you. Something Ron LeGrand told me in 2014 when I first met him was, “It’s boring to get rich alone. Take as many people with you as you can.” That’s good advice. I love that. That’s one thing I never forgot. My whole objective is for everyone around me to be lifted up and be given massive opportunities. For all of my mastermind members and all of the attendees of the virtual summit, the Automated Millionaire Summit, I want everybody to have that mindset of going, “Doing deals is cool, but how do I create a community of people around me and we’ll all rise together?” Mel, I thought you were going to ask him. You look like you were going to ask something there for a minute. One of the things I wanted to know is what made you even think to automate your process. It’s the Law of 26. Something happened to me in 2015. I went crazy buying houses. I bought 50 houses in 52 weeks at 22 years old. Twenty-six of those properties were acquired in a very short period of time, like a few weeks. There’s this little part of the script that Ron had taught me. Believe me. I do it religiously. When it comes down to closing the deal, we’re buying the house and paying all. We are closing out of our pockets usually or it is the buyer or the private lender, depending on the situation of the deal. We’re buying the house and the interest is paid in arrears. We always ask the seller when we’re taking over debt or making payments for the payment with some sort of exception where it’s in foreclosure and there’s massive equity, it’s a big rehab and we get more time, or whatever. The standard rule is our payment as the buyer begins in the third month after close. For example, I buy a house from you in May. August 1st is my first payment. You owe June because you owned it in May anyway. The interest is paid in arrears. I’m only asking the seller to make one extra payment. It’s a 30-second conversation to have with every seller. Believe me. You want to have that conversation. It takes the gun from your head to go, “I’ve got 26 empty houses with payments.” I didn’t do that. I was 22 years old and I hated to ask people to make that extra payment. I didn’t want to explain it. A 22-year-old broke kid has 26 mortgage payments due on month one. I said, “I don’t know much, but I know I can’t sell 26 houses alone and keep buying. I don’t want to quit buying because I got leads coming in.” I went to church with a guy and said, “You used to sell cars, didn’t you?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “How would you like to sell houses?” He said, “I can try. I’m driving a truck. I’ll make calls from the truck.” Long story short, in his first six months, he brought in over $300,000 if you’re familiar with lease options and non-refundable option deposits on lease options. The rest is history. I realized that I like automation. Automation is the way to go. You have to have automation. I wouldn’t have thought of it with real estate. It’s something that, to me, is out there for real estate because it involves people so much more than anything else. We have bots to run our Facebook Marketplace and Messenger. We have all that cool crap, but there’s still that piece of human touch. When that happens, it’s either going to be you as the business owner in the beginning. It probably is going to be the business owner, but as soon as possible, if you can get what I call an acquisitionist who’s buying houses and selling houses on behalf of your company and they’re getting paid beautifully for doing it, the sky is the limit. That’s the Law of 26. For our audience, everything that we’ve been discussing with Andrew, you can find more information at FullerWalletMedia.com/AMS. Is there anything else you want to share or say before we close out with our audience? My dream, mission, and purpose is to help inspire as many people to live their missions, dreams, and purpose as possible. If someone can get one takeaway, whether you show up for my Automated Millionaire Summit and get a takeaway there that you implement, whether we meet somewhere down the line, or whatever it may be, if I’ve inspired you in any way to take an action every day toward your dream, then I will consider this to have been a success. That’s my desire for all of you. You’re tuning in to this show because like people attract like people. You’re here because you have a desire to continue to grow and help others. My desire is to feed that passion with some encouragement and inspiration to take actions that lead you to live your complete mission and purpose. Feed your passion with encouragement and inspiration to take actions that lead you to live your complete mission and purpose. Click To Tweet That was amazing. What a great closing. I couldn’t agree with you more. Thank you so much. It’s been an honor and pleasure having you on the show. It is so good being with you, Julie. Thank you. We’re so honored.

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About Andrew Schlag

30-year-old Andrew Schlag is a business owner, best selling author, and has been an entrepreneur since a very early age and a real estate entrepreneur since 2014. Do to his fortitude, success, and love for helping others succeed, He was chosen as Top 100 real estate professionals by “The Top 100 Magazine” Having bought 50 houses in 52 weeks at 22 years old, became a millionaire in single family and small commercial real estate at 23 and went on to build a multimillion-dollar portfolio by age 25. Andrew’s creativity and tenacity forged an ideal for providing practical and profitable solutions to both buyers and sellers. Having obtained a master’s degree in reinvesting from Financial Freedom Academy, Andrew wanted to share his experience and knowledge of real estate. As a result, RELU was born, then creating a partnership with Social Media Star and marketing genuis, Leo Valentino they developed the Automated business owner community and mastermind with Real Estate training systems where people come to see life changing results. The innovative coaching business introduces investors to the world of real estate automation and propels them to the next level. In fact, he has been mentoring and coaching for legendary real estate entrepreneur, Ron LeGrand, since 2017. Now he helps guide students all over the US and Canada to achieve their goals