Remember when I wrote that post about will gardening give me a new ATM placement for my ATM business?

I’ve been talking to the business owner, a really nice guy actually. He owns several businesses and I think his businesses and my ATM business are going to be good friends lol

We’re meeting so I can place an ATM in one of his restaurant/bars (the bar is the key money maker here!) Plus, he wants me to place another ATM of mine in a restaurant/bar that he will be opening up soon (right next to the original sub-shop where I started talking about my atm business that started this all.) Can you see what I mean when I say my ATM business doesn’t stop growing…..and it’s like I can’t even stop my ATM business from growing if I wanted to (but of course I don’t want it to stop growing!)

Networking and my ATM Business

My ATM business is a heck of a lot like my real estate business whereas if I’m not opening my mouth telling people about it well then they don’t know I’m in the ATM business at all. Folks, how many times have I said to open your mouth about your real estate business? or your ATM business? A big key to my ATM business and real estate business and I’m sure you will find in your atm business or real estate business is just talking to other people about what you do. Networking. Even if you’re standing in line somewhere shooting the shit!

I’m telling you just talking about your ATM business and what you do or talking about your real estate business and what you do will get you results!

I am going to have 2 new ATM locations and possibly more all because I asked one little question to a lady that took my cheesesteak order. This is not rocket science! You can have a successful ATM business too….all you have to do is….ummm order a cheesesteak? hehehe just teasin’ You can actually be well on your way to having a successful ATM business just by signing up below for my free ATM business training videos!

P.S. Get your free ATM training videos here and learn how you can start your own ATM business and create cashflow for life!

I mentioned the Diva Money Club a month or so ago and I’ve been involved as a member, or Diva, since they opened their virtual doors. Anyway, the gist of the Diva Money Club is they want to help all Diva’s and Divo’s (yes, men you are allowed to join too) get out of their jobs within 12 months and they do it in 2 ways; real estate and online marketing. Basically they will help you replace a $50,000 a year salary with one or both of those methods within 12 months. (Ok so if you make more than $50k a year…don’t worry, I’m sure they will help you make that happen too!)

Who are the Diva’s? Well a few of them you may be familiar with as they are friends of mine that you’ve seen on this blog before. The other ladies I’ve come to really like and have become friends with as well. Here is the breakdown for you:

Steph Davis – you may know her from FlipThisWholesaler.net She’s the blogging and wholesaling diva.

Shae Bynes – you may know her from GoodFaithInvesting.com She’s the real estate Diva and online diva as well (Plus she’s quickly becoming the private money diva because of all of the private money she’s been getting lately.)

Julie Broad – you may know her from RevNYou.com She’s the real estate and online marketing Diva. She’s from Canada, eh? hehehe I love doing that with Candian folks.

Susan Lassiter-Lyons – you may know her from well a lot of things and most likely theinvestorinsights.com Susan has done it all. She’s the Diva of Diva’s. She’s made loads of money in online marketing, loads of money in commercial real estate, loads of money syndicating real estate deals and she’s raised over $26 million in private money (oh and yes, I said million!)

As you can see there are some real heavy hitters running the show at the Diva Money Club.

Now, what do I think of it? Well if you know me and I’d like to think that you do after spending this much time with me thus far, you know that I’m not about b.s. I don’t care for it, I don’t have time for it and I don’t think you deserve it. So I’ll never hold back what I feel (sometimes that’s good, sometimes uhh not so good )

Anyway, here is the scoop: I have learned so much from just Susan alone these past couple of months that she alone is worth it. You all know that I’m launching my ATM course, well a lot of questions that I have I ask Susan to help me with because she’s launched tons of courses online. Actually, all of the Diva’s have launched some type of course online. I think Susan may have the most, but Julie has a lot too. Anywho, I don’t just get Susan’s feedback…I get everyones. Plus, I get the feedback of the other members of the DMC.

It’s kind of cool….we’ve all became a tight nit bunch and we’re constantly trying to help one another out; whether it’s critiquing websites or sales pages or helping with wholesaling contracts or investor friendly title companies we’re ALL there to lend a hand.

Are they teaching some stuff that I already know? Of course. But that’s ok, not everyone else knows it. I just don’t spend time on that stuff. I spend time on the forum in the sections that I want to learn more about and I spend time watching the video modules that I want to learn about. Oh yeah I forgot to mention, not only is there a forum but there are video modules for real estate investing and video modules for online marketing. It’s awesome!

Plus, they have extra bonus they’re always adding and they have something called Deep Dive Trainings. They are just extra video trainings that they share. It’s really great stuff!

So bottom line….I give it 2 thumbs up. If you’re looking to eventually leave your job or even if you love your job but you’re looking for some extra income then you have to check out their 3-part free video training at the Diva Money Club.

It’s free training! It can’t hurt to give it a listen, can it? I promise you’ll be blown away. Check out the training videos for the Diva Money Club here. And then I would love for you to come back here and let me know what you think!

This guy is so slimy and lacks so much integrity that it’s not even funny. With each email he wrote me he pulled something different out of his ass! His last email is where I thought I was going to explode and get all Philly on him! (Even tho I live in the ‘burbs with the cows and the Amish now…don’t get it twisted…I was born and raised in Philly and will always be a Philly girl at heart lol)

Anyway, I held back one more time and was just stern on my final email to him. He talked a bunch of shit again and then finally agreed to the price. So our lawyer, who I’m digging, is drawing up an agreement and bill of sale, because obviously I don’t trust this jerk to “switch things over as soon as your check clears!”

Pffft! I wish your ethics and integrity were as good as my damn checks are! Anywho……..will be happening soon and then we will only have 1 ATM via a partnership with him.

ATM Business Blueprint: Your Guide To A Profitable ATM Business And Lifetime Of Passive Income is coming along nicely and is going to rock your world! (Well ok so it may not rock your world but it will surely help you rock your bank account!)

Lastly…I don’t know if ya’ll know about the Diva Money Club but my buds Shae, Steph Davis, Julie Broad and Susan Lassiter-Lyons launched this club and it’s geared towards helping you replace your current salary within 12 months. I gotta tell you it totally kicks butt! (Why do I say ass in the beginning of the post and butt now…i dunno?)

I mean when you have the likes of all of these ladies, especially Susan…how can you go wrong? And the price, you can’t beat it with a stick…..so if you haven’t already, go check it out: Diva Money Club (oh and guys, you are called DIVOS and you can join as well…….)

I knew I was asking the right crowd to help name the course. You all definitely had your creative juices flowing that’s for sure!

Kathy and I will be going over the ATM course name entries this weekend…so be on the lookout soon to see if you are the winner!

By the way, I’ve been a lil M.I.A. lately because I’ve been busy shooting videos and working on getting the ATM course together for you guys. I promise once this is all finished up that we’ll be back to normal around here!

P.S. On the ATM Placement front, Kathy and I installed a new ATM in a gas station on Thursday and we just received the paperwork on Thursday from our newest private money lender. Both of these things that transpired were by referral. So remember what I told you folks….OPEN YOUR MOUTH and tell people what you do!

If you haven’t been there yet please take a moment to go there now and you will be able to get all of the cool stuff that happens over there

Also, I have a new contest coming veryyyyyyyy shortly in order for you to win my upcoming ATM Passive Income course. There’s already been one contest so far to win the course, but I haven’t picked the winner yet……..that will be coming in the new year!

Goin’ Flippin’ Crazy is up and going on Twitter too! I’m http://www.twitter.com/FlippinCrazy_PA there. I will admit that I’m still learning the whole Twitter thang tho….if you have any twitter pointers I’d be more than happy to hear them lol

Kathy and I will be finished painting it this weekend and then next week we’ll be having carpet installed.

Ok so we installed the ATM in a roller rink last friday. That’s the machine we’re partnering with someone. Remember, it’s his 1st ATM deal and we’re showing him how to do things.

Plus, we ordered the machine for the gas station that my best friend referred us to. So we should be installing that machine before the end of this month.

And remember our private money lender that loaned us the money on our 2 cash only ice cream stores? Where they used their self-directed IRA to do so? Well they just referred me to a friend of theirs who has their own self-directed IRA who may want to get into the ATM business as well from a private money standpoint and perhaps even from an ATM business owner standpoint at some time in the future.

Pretty cool, huh? So as I’m sure you heard me say before in my posts and in some of my videos just make sure you ALWAYS do what you say you’re gonna do, pay the people who lend you money when you agree to and be easy to do business with and people will refer you business!

No matter what business you’re in…it’s really a people business! Even when we’re dealing with ATMs. There’s no tenants or toilets involved with our ATMs…they are just machines, but guess what? Prior to getting the ok to place that machine in the location….we were involved 100% in the people business! We have to interact with the business owner and get them to like us, trust us and want to do business with us.

Even after the ok….we still are in the people business when dealing with the business owners. We talk to them, inquire about business and really just care about them and their business.

And believe it or not, even if you operate websites from your home, you’re still in the people business. Because you want PEOPLE to read your website, right?

That’s the last thought I’d like to leave you with today….make it easy for folks to want to do business with you!

P.S. Woohoooo! Our router is fixed and I’m back online at home!

I wanted to make this post sooner but I’ve been under the weather plus I wanted to put a video up first, but I’ve been having flip camera issues (I hate upgrading when the tell you to for this reason!)

Let me share with you the reason for this post. Last month, I had 3 networking appointments made with folks that either I knew personally from my past or that I met from the internet world. 2 of those appointments held up…the other one I’m going to have to re-schedule (she cancelled on me.)

Now what happened at these networking appointments? Well I’m glad you asked….I’ll share what happened with you now.

The first meeting I had with someone from the internet world. Dave Jacobs over at Llenrock Group agreed to meet with me to talk about commercial real estate. Well needless to say Dave and I hit it off! In our conversations though he asked me about ATMs since he’s read about that on my blog. Of course I told him about our ATM business and I even told him about how we just got a private lender for our ATM business and how that lender is using their self-directed IRA to invest with us.

Dave said “Hold on, hold on. Back up. What do you mean they are using their IRA?” So, I explained the whole truly self-directed IRA thang with Equity Trust and folks, etc. He then said “I have an IRA, I want to do that.” Dave and I spoke in great detail about partnering on his 1st couple of deals and now we’re just waiting on him to find some places to place machines.

2nd meeting was with a wholesaler buddy who I think we originally met in the internet world. We met specifically to talk about the ATM business. He was expecting a nice check for a wholesale deal that day and he wanted to partner on an ATM deal with some of the money. (Congrats! Btw, if you are reading Shannon as we now know that deal went through and you had a nice payday!)

Anyway, we worked out the details of the partnership and I’ve since sent him the paperwork for our partnership agreement and the paperwork for the business that he already secured! for the ATM.

Does it all make sense now? I mean why I said if you’re not networking that your are losing money! Get out there and network folks………I have very limited time now that I’m working full-time but I make it happen with the available time that I have. You can do it too! Make it a point to try to meet with maybe 1 person a week? or maybe 2 a month? or something…..anything.

By the way, Kathy’s been working it too. Tonight we have a meeting with Brandon (her 18 yr. old sons) best friends’ mom and her roommate. They want to talk about partnering on ATMs. However, we’re also going to talk about commercial deals with them too, because the roommate is a commercial real estate investor.

Network, network network. Learn to love that word….it’ll keep your pockets filled with moolah.

Well I read the paper again and found another gentleman who was willing to hold some financing. Sooo in the past week I’ve looked at 4 multi-unit properties. A duplex, a triplex, a quad and a 6-unit.

The 4-unit I really liked. Keep in mind that the duplex, triplex and quad were all owned by an Amish gentleman.

I gotta tell you that I pulled up to the property and I was looking for his

I mean there wasn’t any transportation near the property and you definitely needed it to get there (of course I was assuming he lived on a farm or something.) I even asked him “how did you get here?” He said his “assistant” lives around the corner and dropped him off.

I gotta tell you folks he was filthy. I mean his hands were nasty….soo dirty. And folks will tell you well it’s because the Amish are hard workers and you know what I’m not going to deny that they are hard workers on the farm, but he definitely is not a hard worker when it comes to his rental properties. They had TONS of deferred maintenance. Don’t get me wrong he was the nicest man….really nice, calm, well-mannered, etc. but when he asked me for a ride to his other properties I kinda didn’t want to give it to him because he smelled reallllly bad. I’m not even kidding. But I gave him a ride.

So I have to do the numbers on his triplex and quad, cuz I’m not interested in the duplex. Then today I looked at a 6 unit. Veryyyy well kept property in an area that is completely new to me (actually so was the Amish dudes properties.) The 6 unit is the guy willing to hold some financing. He claims he has someone else interested in it as well…but as we all know, “being interested” and making and offer and actually going to settlement are 2 different things, right?

I’m going to do the numbers and make him an offer too. Where will we get the money for any of these properties? Hey…maybe a private money lender who wants to earn a decent rate of return on their investment. Ever since I got private money for my last 2 atms (which are doing very well, by the way) I’ve been casually talking to folks about private money.

On to my current rental property….tomorrow I will be posting a Demand for Rent notice on the property and I’m 99.99999% sure I’m evicting this tenant this month. I’m not even going to tell you his excuses because I really didn’t listen as I didn’t care. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a very nice landlord, but I’m very firm as well. And I stick to my guns and start the process when you don’t pay (and especially when you don’t call and give me a heads up as to why you haven’t paid…not that I care to hear your excuse, but it’s just a courtesy thang with me I guess……ya know?)

Anyway, I really like these tenants and apparently the hubby is asking if his dad will bail him out (mind you, the tenant is a grown man, in his late 40′s or early 50′s.) I told him that if his dad or brother bails him out this time that I would be willing to sit down with him and his wife and go over their finances with them and help them come up with a budget. Basically, the guy has a spending problem….he buys crap and then has no money for the bills.

Btw, he called me and said “Thank God I got your message before Maggie.” His wife has no idea what’s going on with their finances…he started whispering to me and said “I gotta go outside, Mags just got home.” Soooo, I told him that he needs to tell his wife what is going on and that she perhaps may even be the better person to handle the finances since he can’t do it…..I said she’s gonna know tomorrow when I put your notice on the door.

Soooo I hope that his dad can bail them out and I hope that they “fix” themselves but I’m fairly confident it’s not going to happen. I was chatting with my father tonite and he said “don’t worry, you won’t have any problem renting that place in this market.” Sooo I hope he’s right because I just did my personal budget with Kathy and paying my rental property mortgage is NOT in the budget lol

More on that in my next post. Btw, my hours are changing at the BMW job. I just asked the General Manager if I could work 9 to 6 on my early days and 10 to 7 on my late days. Reason being is that school started and I need to be here in the morning to get Joe off to school when Kathy is traveling, plus I want to get home at a relatively decent time to go over his homework with him and get him to bed at a decent time. The GM was fine with it.

P.S. I’m doing ok with my diet and exercise routine. Well I don’t want to call it a diet, it’s more of a lifestyle change where I start eating better………and I’m doing better on that aspect moreso than the exercise routine, but it’s cuz I’ve been so tired from working my tail off (work work and then atm’s.) This week will be better hopefully.

P.P.S. And yes, I’ve been losing weight. hehehehe

You may remember when I went to the Greater Philadelphia Apartment Associations Trade Show a few months back. While there I met a super nice lady who actually hires folks for property management companies. I advised her that I’m looking for a property management company to work with and that I’m actually not a property manager looking for more employees.

Now on to why you should network with property managers:

1) They know the areas. They know and understand which areas most folks are buying in, which area most folks are avoiding and which areas are up and coming. (Think this type of information is valuable?)

2) They know rental values in the area. They know which areas the rents are raising, which area the rents are being lowered, which areas rents are stabilized, etc. (Do you think you’d like to know this type of data when getting into multi-units and perhaps when getting into a new market?)

3) They have good contacts. They know great brokers to work with, they know great attorneys to work with, they know great contractors, and the list goes on and on. They KNOW people that can be important to your business!

4) They know costs. They know how much typical expenses will run for particular types of properties. (More information that would be helpful?)

5) They may send you deals. This is the reason I decided to write this post. I spoke to Mary in great length after receiving her email and we spoke a few times. After building some rapport with Mary I asked her to please let me know if any of her clients are looking to sell or if she hears of anyone that’s looking to sell. She said no problem. Then lo and behold just last week Mary send me an email telling me that this particular property is for sale and that she thought she’d send it to me to take a look at it! How about that folks? Now grant it, that property may not be a great deal, but that’s not the point. The point is Mary thought of me and sent me the information about an apartment building for sale. So if she did it once, don’t you think she’ll do it again the next time she hears of a place for sale? I certainly do. That is huge! I immediately emailed Mary and thanked her. Perhaps I should send her a lil thank you as well……what you think? I think that would be a good idea.

Can you see why one of the key people that you should definitely be networking with are property managers? They could be one of the most useful contacts you make in a day.

I networked yesterday and I didn’t even plan on it! Yesterday, Kathy and I were invited out boating with poker friends. We thought it would just be us and our poker friends, but turns out our poker friends brought some of their other friends. So a bunch of new people we didn’t know.

We had a lot of good potential people to network with, obviously, I didn’t know this when I first met them. After talking to folks or hearing folks talk it turns out we had in our presence:

* a real estate agent who sells million dollar properties
* a director of operations for a big medical equipment company
* a homicide detective
* a couple who own their own lucrative business

and other folks. Can you see some opportunity above? I did. So I started my networking. I spoke with the real estate agent the most. I talked to him about multi-family investing and partnering. He was interested! His significant other is the Dir. of Operations for the medical equipment company…..so I’m thinking that these 2 gentlemen have some money for investing. And they already own sfh rentals, so they understand the basics.

Now as far as the homicide detective…well I don’t know how much they really make? But I do know that she’s got a pretty nice house right on the water (we threw out the anchor out back of her house to swim) and she’s got a boat and a lot of doo-dads, if you will. I haven’t talked to her about investing with us, but I’m thinking if we could get a great deal going with either of the gentlemen or ladies above that she’d express some interest as long as she has some money to invest.

So the next time you have a holiday weekend or are spending time with some friends you haven’t seen in a while, don’t forget to take the opportunity to NETWORK. Because you never know who you will meet.