Introduction 0:03
Welcome to the Elevate Your Equity podcast where we, as married busy professionals, leverage real estate investing to unlock the three plus one degrees of freedom, health, location, time and financial.

Derek Clifford 0:16
Today we are joined by no other than Abel Pacheco, Abel. How are you today, man?

Abel Pacheco 0:22
I’m doing good, man. Thanks so much for having me, Derek. I really appreciate it, brother. I’m excited.

Derek Clifford 0:27
Absolutely. Me too, man, this is gonna be really great. And for those who don’t know, Abel, Abel is a real estate investor and Texas native. He’s got experience in acquiring distressed properties, renovations private capital management of multifamily investment properties. April, his wife and his children have lived in San Antonio in Texas since 1928. And they’ve invested owned and operated income producing properties since 2008, which must have been an interesting time, April’s general partner and a principal on over 150 million of commercial real estate assets. And that actually might be out of date across 17 syndications and over 1500 doors. He’s also working on developing 156 door, multifamily property and a 98 unit built to rent community. He served as commercial loan broker, his wife, Leslie is also invested in her own 500 Plus doors of commercial real estate. And then prior to real estate investing. Abel was a Senior Technology sales executive. And he’s got 20 years of progressively complex sales execution and sales management experience first computer software cloud management workforce IT enterprise software, you’ve done it all, man, welcome to the show, dude.

Abel Pacheco 1:41
What a mouthful, man, dude. Thank you for the warm introduction. It’s like all of my greatest hits. I don’t I don’t know if I can say anything else. That’s who I am. That’s what I do. Thanks.

Derek Clifford 1:52
Hey, well, we’ll get to it, man. It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright. So, you know, what we like to do to start up with all of our guests is why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got interested in real estate. And if you can remember what that one spark was? It’s like, oh, man, I got to do that. But otherwise, just tell us how you got into real estate. Want to hear that story?

Abel Pacheco 2:11
Yeah, absolutely. And first, you know, also, thank you for having me on your show. Derek, I know how much time, effort energy goes into running a podcast, getting it out there. So just for your listeners and and your network. Putting that educational content out for them is amazing. So I’m sure there’s a bunch of people that haven’t said, Thank you. What are our learning every single week that you put out shows and I’ll say on behalf of the man good work, dude. Good work.

Derek Clifford 2:37
Thanks, brother. I appreciate that, man. Thank you. Yeah.

Abel Pacheco 2:41
So yeah, my name is Abel Pacheco. As you know, the question is like, how, what was the spark that will guide us in a real estate? And how do we get started? I can think back to the earliest memories. And my father was a he was the first gen or maybe second gen real estate investor, if you want to call it my grandmother, was they they owned a two bedroom house. And they had like seven or eight brothers and sisters all in the same house. And I can remember those stories of my dad talking about their house. So I was like, wow, one room for mom and dad and some of the little little ones, and then one room for the bigger kids. And anyways, that was the first thought of a house. People lived in it. Okay, I don’t, they weren’t investors. This just was the house. My dad was an investor. He bought his first house. It was a two bedroom house that me and my family. I have two older sisters. And the five of us lived in a two bedroom house. So we have the same thing going on. But when my dad earned enough to finally pull out some extra equity, he had some money in his hands, working hard job, you know, turned around and was able to invest in the second home that we lived in. And it was a big jump. It was like two bedroom or three bedroom. Oh, the sisters got their room. And I got my own room since I was the boy. And my parents had theirs. And you know that that was the house that we grew up in all of the years during that time. My dad never sold that first two bedroom house. He rented it out. And back then there was there was not any renters warehouse. There wasn’t a third party management tool. There wasn’t a piece of software like fully that you could take and manage renters through it. So we would go to the house and pick up a check. And sometimes the renters would mail it and sometimes it was a hey, can you pick it up and we would show up there on a Saturday and we would talk to them my dad would inspect the house, see what’s going on. And I remember him taking a check. And I associated that Saturday afternoon like get in the car are going out there be you know, being very appreciative, humble if he would give me the little lesson, hey, somebody else is paying the rent for us or paying off our house, we need to treat them with respect, dignity, they live here, this is their home. But, you know, at the same time, this is an investment for all of us. And we can go and inspect here and there and look around. And then after that little lesson, you know, my dad would take me in, we’d have like a burger and fries, and maybe a Sunday ice cream ice cream cone or either McDonald’s and I was like, there was like that little bit of spark that was like, Hey, this is pretty freakin cool. Yeah, like this. Thanks for the time, dad. And, you know, he was the he was the first generation investor in our family. And, you know, we turned out to be the second so that was that was that original spark?

Derek Clifford 5:44
That is so cool, man. And this must have been like, Was this before your teenage years?

Abel Pacheco 5:49
I was I was literally probably 567 10 growing up. So somewhere in those years, this is a great drive and get the check.

Derek Clifford 5:58
Yeah, this is a great story. And it must have been I mean, I don’t know how old you know, your your your father is today. But man, this is way before bigger pockets. This was way before this was even a thing like there. There’s a specific mindset that go

Abel Pacheco 6:10
No internet yet, who knows a lot of information. Yeah. The other literally.

Derek Clifford 6:15
No ebooks out there. No lead magnets, none of that stuff. Right. So let me ask you, then, you know, I wasn’t I wasn’t planning on asking this question. But now that I’ve heard the story, like, is there anything else that maybe you’ve picked up from your family that’s helped you throughout your real estate investing career? I mean, obviously, that made a big impression of you. Because honestly, I can’t remember anything before the age of eight, right? Yeah. And you’ve remembered the story at age five or six. And so what can you tell us about what your parents have taught you about real estate investing? And then we’ll talk about your scaling how you were able to grow so fast?

Abel Pacheco 6:46
Yeah, well, more than a few things, right. But I can I can focus on and kind of the central theme behind us and our family has really been faith driven, to be just, you know, fully transparent, right. It’s like my grandmother, and grandparents were the hard working immigrants. They came from, you know, Mexico, and they were the first generation that lived here in the US, and my grandmother until she was like, in her 70s. Until she passed later years, she was the person getting the crates of fruit and vegetables, from, you know, the grocery stores, loading them up on an 18 wheeler truck and then going to deliver it to the areas or the, I guess those nonprofits that would donate and distribute food. And they would do that through her church. And so it was always like, ingrained. Like, there’s church faith, and there’s hard work and service. And my grandmother was like that. So the hard working part has always been a part of our family. Like my dad always ingrained in me, like you got to I mean, hard work, you got to work hard, you got to work hard, you got to work hard. My grandma there was there. My father was there. My father was a sales guy. So I’m second generation on commissioned, sales, Johnny’s right. It’s like, I can remember my dad giving me numbers and tools when I was younger. And he sold beauty products, I think when he was younger, and he would, like come home, and be like, I sold three crates today, or three boxes, or whatever he would measure. And he goes, You know, I had to talk to like seven people or 10 people, and only 20%, or I don’t think I remember percentage, but he’s only two people bought. So I had to, you know, I had to pitch these things to seven times. And it really, I had to ask for 20 people, you know, to go in their stores, because it was I think it was business to business, literally walking in each business back then. And asking entrepreneurs if they wanted to, like sell their stuff and their whatever it was, right? And I can remember those things like, oh, shoot, you mean it. If I asked one person, one person is not going to move forward on whatever I’m selling, or now as an investment. You got to talk to a lot of people and there’s a cycles and so that was what my dad’s like numbers, metrics, close rates and the amount of people that will tell you no, and to kind of like shake it off. So I was like, okay, faith, hard work, perseverance. And then my dad and still is like, you’re gonna have to talk to a lot of folks.

Derek Clifford 9:17
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome stuff, man. And I can definitely tell and we’re gonna get into this in a little bit that this is something that you’ve taken to heart and is basically the central piece of your of who you are as a business person. And so we’re gonna get into that in just a little bit. But before we do that, thank you for explaining that very personal set of stories and where you got all of these these great traits from from from your family. Why don’t you talk to us real quick, I know that I ran through your bio really quickly because there’s a lot there. But why don’t you tell us a little bit about your scaling up I knew for a matter of fact, because I think I may have accidentally called you or something or you have accidentally called me and you were driving around with your daughter. Looking at flips right back in Yeah, a couple of days before we before we started working together. Let me ask you, what is your what was your journey like scaling up? I know there was flipping in the beginning. You were working full time job and tell us a little bit about like, how you got to where you are right now.

Abel Pacheco 10:19
Yeah, as short as summer as I can. We worked in sales in various capacities. I sold cars, I sold furniture, I sold phones, not in that specific order. My biggest longest run when I was in college was I sold knives at Cutco. I had enough to run an office, they asked me to run my own business open up a new location. I did that all the way through college. And then I landed an IT tech professional jobs probably my most professional sales job, legitimate, you know, large company, a startup tech company. And I worked there for 10 years, it went from 600 employees to 6000 from 100 or $200 million company to $2 billion company before exited. And I was on that run. And we basically went from individual lead generation via chat to sales to lead generation manager to, you know, to a sales manager to a director to a senior sales leader at the company, etc. And all through that run. The one thing that never changed was I was commissioned only if your commission commission commission if you don’t sell something you don’t eat. And that was pretty much all the way through Cutco. And when I got to my professional job, I go, Oh man, there’s a base salary, they pay me some of this money. But 50% of your pay is at risk every month. So if you don’t hit it, you’re 50% Lighter that month. So that was my 10 years through the run. And what what I realized is like man, the more hard work you put into it, you know, taking my grandmother’s like, I saw what she did and then seeing what will my dad did. Neither one of my grandpa either my grandparents or my father, my father still works today. He’s in his 70s So does my mom and that part you know, in the family legacy never went to hey, how to take money and how to invest it for general either number one cashflow for financial freedom for one family and much less generational cashflow. And I think that part of you know, my story was that was the big flip because I invested in single family since 2008. So for 10 years, we looked at our our our personal financial statement the first time we did it, I was like man, I’m not even a millionaire. And around me like I was the person who had all the houses so everyone would ask real estate questions to me at work, my social network the people my family’s like, what about this or that real estate blah, blah, blah, because I had 10 or so houses at that time. And but not a net net worth personal financial state saving millionaire and I go man, something’s gotta be you know, something’s wrong, what am I doing wrong? And that’s when we switched over to apartment complexes syndications, etc, etc. So I know, bigger conversation, but maybe that I mean, that was my run from sales to investing and, and then switching over from single family real estate, to commercial.

Derek Clifford 13:30
Yeah, and, you know, thank you for the story. And I know that like there’s, there’s a big mindset shift that happens when you go from single family to multifamily, especially what you’re doing today, which is the syndications. You know, maybe you’re doing some small multifamily is here and there joint ventures, but was there any like, you know, just as a quick aside here, before we move on, is Was there any like, like transition ground? Or what did that transition look like when you were going from single family to multifamily? Because I get this all the time. able people always like, Hey, man, how did you go from like, you know, buying the single family house is that it’s easy to get your hands wrapped around, right? Yeah, but now you’re buying these multifamily. Like, what was that like for you?

Abel Pacheco 14:10
Yes. So the biggest portion of move from or shift or switch the paradigm was that it was a mental hurdle that I had to cross first. At the beginning, I was signing the loan on my first home with a $5,000 payment because it was a first time homeowners I was like you need 5% on $96,000 house or something. So I put 5000 That was a big shift because I had to sign all these docs and say I’m an in this thing at 30 years. The second one was a little of the same was like okay, I save money, buy a house. That’s where the old thoughts of my dad saying, you know, they’re going to pay your rent. I said, Okay, that’s right. Let’s do that twice. 3456789 10 times. So me and my wife would save all that money and you Basically, as a senior level salesperson, manager director, I would drive like pretty, you know, I wouldn’t say rough cars, I was had nice cars, but it felt like my sales guys under me always had nicer cars. They were cars. Mercedes is really nice. I was like, Man, that’s a nice watch, bro. Like, how did you get that? And how did and then like I, the commission check, don’t you make more than me. And it was the fact that I did. However, we would literally push to save everything we could have, like 40 to $50,000 to buy the next deal. And that’s in the beginning, it took us from 2008 to 2010 or 12. It took me you know, two to four years to buy the second one. And it took us another two to four years to buy the third one. And then it took us another like one year we finally were making more, we bought number four, five. And then in my last several years, when I was a senior executive, I finally made like, finally crossed this 150 barrier, making 200 I was like, Okay, we could buy two houses this year. And so what we would do is buy him hold them rent them. So every time I signed, signed a loan, it was like, my mind would stretch in of itself. Like, Oh, we did another one, we could do another one, we could do another one. And that is the mental hurdles that it took me to cross his various across because the first multifamily deal is I signed as a guarantor was $7 million. And I go, Holy smokes, we’re gonna do this. And I think it’s just like a number of reps. It took you some repetitions to get up there to the mental hurdle was probably the biggest the biggest one. But then it was also it was it was, you know, a little bit of emotion. That fear, that worry, the inadequacy, the insecurity, all of those things. When I’m talking about the mental blocks, like the voice that says Abel, you can’t do this dude, you’re not the right person. You You know, the math, you don’t have enough money, you don’t have enough capital, you don’t have enough experience, all these things start flooding through your through my head, and they did for years. But well, the moment we said, You know what, I’m just going to if I gotta change, I’m going to do it. Because if we don’t do it, then it’s it’s always going to be the same.

Derek Clifford 17:25
You’re gonna have the same thing you’ve always got. Yep, yeah,

Abel Pacheco 17:28
Yeah. And it was easy to do the math after I had 10 houses because I go, I’m I’m, I’m doing well, I’m gonna frickin knock this thing out of the park. The first time I filled out the personal financial statement, I was like, this is like just 250k of net worth maybe maybe 300. ago, this 700k away from being a millionaire. And if I did the math the other way and said, Well, how much cash flow does it take to me to replace my income? That was like 30 houses? Yeah, for me. And I go, it took me 10 years to buy 10 That’s going to be another 20 years and I’ll be old and grand. Doesn’t matter. I might as well work to work that anyways, you know,

Derek Clifford 18:05
Yeah, that was it. So did you did you find a mentor? Or did you start working with people like, you know, how did you get how’d you get into like the multifamily side and earnest there?

Abel Pacheco 18:05
Sometimes I’m for both. So you’ll have to keep keep. The part of this is as as short a summary concise as I could get is, we paid for education. I start I hired a mentor, I hired a coach, I joined two or three educational programs. And I implemented everything they told me to do for the next, you know, five, six years ish, I think we’re on now. And it started with my sister, who got a free weekend from real estate package. And she’s like, I got this extra ticket. I paid the money 2000 bucks for the weekend. And they gave me an extra ticket would you like to come? And I said yes. So I skipped to work. And I went to the program. And they were telling me about all these terms that I had never heard before. And I was mister real estate in my head. I had 10 houses and they were telling me about wholesale and creative financing and seller find a seller notes and and also how to raise capital and syndications and all this world that I’d never even heard of before. I had never heard of bigger pockets. I didn’t go to YouTube for education, I thought I was doing it the right way, etc, etc. And that was what spurred the activity. I ended up joining the program. So on a on a whim, I’m like, Dude, I’m doing it wrong, clearly 10 years, I have to pay for education. So somebody can show me how to fast track and shortcut the process. So I spent 20 G’s and what they did was show me how to do it. And I implemented that for a year we bought. We did 10 deals in one year after paying for education. So I was like, there was Something to this whole education love. That’s there’s something to it, somebody knows more, let’s just implicit pay for it, get the shortcut fast track, hit the button. And let’s keep going. And that’s kind of what we did. And, yeah, I did that again for multifamily. And I did it again and again and again and again. And we just implemented

Derek Clifford 20:18
Yeah, the one thing, the one thing I’m noticing through your throughout your entire story, Abel is action taking, right? Like you’re you’re constantly going through your limiting beliefs, like you’re taking the limiting beliefs, the fears that you had, and you’re busting through them, and you’re just like, steamrolling through it, you’re just like, act, you’re taking action through everything. Now, what I wanted to ask you was how this related to the skill set that you learn from your father and your grandfather through sales and hard work and everything? And how did you use your W two skills to leverage into the explosive success that you have now? A days? Right, like, what skills have you been learning, like kind of culminating and has become like the core of who you are? What’s that common thread that you’ve been able to use? From your web to and from your personality to do what you do now?

Abel Pacheco 21:07
Yeah, well, I will tell you that I am not the sharpest tool in the shed. I am not the most, you know, financially apt. Not the most eloquent speaker all the time, I am not all of these things. What I have been over the years has been a very hard worker, I have been presser you know persevered through a lot of obstacles and challenges. And as they keep coming, no, no, no objection and pitfall obstacle challenge, you realize that when you hear some of these very, extremely successful entrepreneurs, examples of our time and age, you know, the names, they’re all over. And they’re like, they failed again. And again. And again. And again, the differentiator between the the names that we know, as the most successful of our time, have just had the same obstacles, but they just kept going, they never stopped. And so that was that’s been a principle for ours is like, just keep going, like you’re, you are gonna fall on your face, you are gonna get kicked in the teeth, you are gonna get, you know, knocked down, those things will happen. But you got to get up, and you got to keep going. And the more you do it, the more you’re going to learn, because you don’t know what it feels like to get punched in the face, hit the canvas and get back up unless you’ve actually had it happened. Now that it has happened, you know what to expect for the next round. And you get up and go again, right. And so I think that hard work is probably, you know, the key factor for our, you know, ongoing, you know, transaction deal after deal after deal, if you want to call it right. So that learning is one part is like just gotta keep going, no matter what, right. The other part is like learning from your mistakes, learning from the the issues or learning from somebody else’s, you know, because if you don’t, you know, take time to orient yourself to what happened. And then make a decision and do it again and take the next action, you’re gonna get stopped, and you’ll stop and one of your failures, and then you can be a failure. You stopped, right? So that’s kind of on this hard work reputation action taking however you want to call it right. The other part is like absolutely networking. So there was the there was the phrase that I heard in my it sales career, your network, is your net worth, right. And I heard it, but I really didn’t understand it. Same until I got to this round. I’m like, Oh, this round of my life, this next phase, right? It’s like, I was like, Oh, the network is your network? Yeah, go connect on LinkedIn, go reach out to this, you know, the, the senior vice president asked me to make a decision. And I connected it to closing a deal. Because we could map a strategic sales process and find out who was the key decision maker and who are the different stakeholders and who has the you know, who’s gonna benefit from who’s gonna be the on the opposite end. It’s a whole political thing on a corporate sale for a $20 million purchase. There’s a lot of stakeholders, and I can map this thing out, but I never equated that to, like, oh, all of these people are in my network. And if I leverage that a little differently outside of w two, they actually actually partner with them, work with them, engage with them, like more than just a sales process at a W two job. So I think that has unlocked massive education, learning, understanding and comprehension. Wisdom, are the shortcuts. The Fast Tracks are the things that we want to like we want I want success. Well, we can go talk to somebody who’s already doing what you’re doing maybe somebody two or three steps above, where you’re at, and maybe somebody that’s like 30 steps ahead. And you can start to ask, you know, the bigger high level questions, get a response, engage, and then have somebody in your level a couple of steps ahead, Hey, what are the problems? What are the issues? And, you know, and or, you know, find great partnerships that unlock, you know, the ability to go from $200,000 purchase on your own me and my wife to a $7 million first transaction to a 20 million on a two $50 million deal.

Derek Clifford 25:31
Yeah. So well said, I think you know, what comes to mind, a couple of things that I have to mention here. The first thing that comes to mind is, you know, when I first met Abel, right, we were we were talking through LinkedIn, you know, it was the pandemic like or was starting to pick up steam, at least the pandemic season, right, like everyone was on Zoom. And that was one way for you to get your networking itch. And right, like, I remember, we talked about that before. And I’m like, huh, that is a really interesting way to look at it. Because my mentality coming up as an engineer. And as like a person who tends to work solitary a lot was it was very interesting to me, which is really cool. But to your point about working hard and mindset, right? I remember when we first started, you started talking about fun to funds model, you know, and I remember when we first start, I think I got a phone call from you at like, 9pm. And this was this was Pacific Time, and you’re in Central. And I’m like, I’m like, when does this guy go to sleep? Right. And I remember another time, which was not long after that able, I think it was like a month or two after that. When we said we were going to try to do something. We were spent. I think we spent like four hours poring over a spreadsheet building the spreadsheet together when it was like 3am your time?

Abel Pacheco 26:48
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It’s like some late nights, bro. That’s right. It was it was awesome. Working with him.

Derek Clifford 26:54
Yeah, for sure.

Abel Pacheco 26:55
I love him, man, I love him.

Derek Clifford 26:56
Yeah, and it’s not I don’t think it’s over to like, we’re going to be continuing to work on more stuff. But but you know, that work ethic is what really like, it was really inspiring to me, because I knew how busy you are, I know you have like a bunch of investors or things like that happening. But you’re like, you’re just used to working super hard. And what’s also impressive is that your family is behind you on the supporting you too. That’s the other thing because you’ve like that’s, that’s in your culture. And that’s all part of what you guys do. So basically, all the things that you said, you know, hard work, getting a mentor, you know, busting through limiting beliefs and just working at it, or time over time, because you only fail if you stop, right. I think that that’s very well suited for what you have set up with Rubin and with Devin with these apartment educator system that we’ll get into a little bit later on. But I just want to plug that because, you know, if people are looking for a one stop shop, to have access to be able to talk to you and other people that are doing this and have this type of mindset. This is where you got to go, right? And you heard it from able himself, spend 20 grand get yourself into a tribe. And you can shortcut a lot of these things, get inspired, find other people that are doing what you’re doing, and then get there. So I just want to make sure that I get that into into this year. But I want to move on, because you’ll have the chance to plug it a little bit more later on. But I want to talk about networks, relationships. I know these are super, super important to you, right? Can you tell us how important networks are to you? I want to drive this home to the audience so that they really listen to this.

Abel Pacheco 28:33
Networking, plugging into groups, or this tribe us you said, right. The most important thing for me in real estate investing and my success has been to join a group of people that are already doing exactly what I want to do. And some that are extremely successful so that I can learn as much as possible from them. That group that I’m joining here is like how important is that to you? The the groups that I’ve joined are so important. I’ve literally spent about $150,000 Plus, in adjoining many multiple different groups or tribes in a very short period of time, the last six or seven years. The first one was 20, a second one’s 15. And the other one was seven, I think I got out cheap. Other ones are 20 or more. And every single time I have joined the new network I’ve paid for networking ability. I’ve either gotten new investors, new partners, or new deals in every single area I have joined or group that I’ve joined. And so I you know, would love to say it’s all about this education and action, that it’s true like you have to learn and then you have to improve Man, but you also have to have people around you that are doing what you’re doing. And they also have to have like access. If I can just get in the room, I think I’m gonna have people that will, you know, appreciate me my story, my investment journey, my deals, my opportunities, but man, the room is what I was not in for all the years. So I didn’t know any, I didn’t even think about raising capital, I just said, I don’t have 50k, this is all I could buy. So once it was in the room, and I paid for access, or my sister paid for access, I kept paying for the rest of the year for access was was that I was like, Oh, I’m gonna hang around with other people that already know how to do it, they’re gonna give me the shortcut, or they’re gonna give me the education, they’re gonna tell me how to do it, I gotta pay for access, small price to pay for that next level that next step up the room that you want to be in. That’s why people have VIP tickets.

Derek Clifford 30:58
That’s right, I love it. Man, that’s totally true. You are the average of the five people that you hang around the most. And I think if you’re surrounding yourselves around people that are step above you are at your peer level, and even some people that are below you that you see potential in, I think, you know, being surrounded by those great people that have some mindset traits that you admire, or have done things that you admire, you’re just gonna, you’re gonna pull the best from all these different things. And you’re gonna learn even though you have the basic vocabulary down, if you get educated, there’s a nuance to it, right. And that’s what I picked the word vocabulary for a specific reason. But there’s nuances that someone can do something that you’re like, oh, my gosh, I never thought of it that way before you can do that. And it’s like, of course, you can write. And it all it takes is that one meeting with the person, oftentimes in our lives able, like, we meet one person and our lives change, right completely. And so a lot of people equate that to the romantic side, or you know, you know, marriage and stuff like that, or, you know, a really inspirational friend. But it can also happen in business. And here’s the cool thing is that it spills out into everything to once you’re in business, if you become true friends, then it starts spilling out into other areas as well. So thank you for for that. And now that we’ve talked about how important networks are, which seems to be almost everything, can you give us some advice, for those who desire to build up their network, right, but don’t have any experience, or they’re scared of doing it, because you have experienced in sales, I want to hear how an expert networker or an expert connector can help advise other people to maybe follow in your footsteps there. Yeah.

Abel Pacheco 32:40
Early in my days, it was a numbers thing I thought to get I’m taking the lesson my dad gave, hey, if you want to hang out or these top 10 people, you’re going to need to reach out to 100. Or if you want 100 investors, you’re going to have to talk to 1000 people. And so I took that mentality. And I still, it’s hard for me to just let go of it right. Today’s approach is a little more strategic, which is who are the people that if you were just hanging out with every day, and around every day, you know, your life would change. It’s make a list of those people, make a list of them, target them. And when I say target them, you have to write them down. Set to set a SMART goal Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic time driven on how many of those people you’re going to introduce yourself to meet serve, give back help. And I would lead with Well number one, you have to either pick up the phone and have a LinkedIn send an email, ask for a referral ask somebody to give you a warm intro you have to make the you have to take the action they’re just not going to magically show up in your you know on your on your phone, you have to take those actions and you have to probably take them seven 810 15 however many times it’s going to take because they’re they’re one of your most strategic life changing moments type of people then you better keep you know paying in one way or the other. So that’s one take the action number two is you’re trying to project into their world for a minute and find out what do they need at this time in their lives? What do they want what what what gives them inspiration or motivation to keep going Is it them helping other people or is it them? You know receiving something or a service that you want to provide? One of my friends is great at this I’m not certain gifts though, like like oh meaningful gift. This was really I know he likes cigars if it was it listening Oh, I’m gonna get him a cigar I’m horrible at this myself. But those things are like matter just you know, people are like, Oh man, like We go do that or lead with that. And all sudden, you got a new friendship, a new connection and there with this like super targeted list that you feel would change your life as opposed to, I’m gonna talk to 1000 on my hope there’s 10 in here that will change my life.

Derek Clifford 35:15
So if you had to do it over April, right from the beginning, would you still follow the like, you know, I’m gonna throw a bunch of stuff up against the wall and see and see what sticks first? And then, or would you be more strategic about if you had to go back in time?

Abel Pacheco 35:30
I would split my time. So it’s a good question. I don’t think anybody’s asked me this specific. Normally, it’s like, if you had to do it again, would you invest in single family and all this stuff. And I’m like, Man, I needed to go through what I needed to go through to even be able to get here. But I will tell you this on the networking side, I would definitely split my time, I would have done probably less of one too many. And I would just tad a percentage more on the strategic list. If I had a strategic list, maybe 7030. And I probably would spend 70% of my time on the strategic and still do about 30% of this broadcasting networking thing. I love doing both I love being out there. I love big groups of people. My wife is great at having a conversation with like one person or one individual for like, 45 minutes and like learning more. And I like how you’re really great at that for me. I’m like, oh, five minutes, five minutes, five minutes. That’s not what builds relationships, right? Is that deep, meaningful conversation?

Derek Clifford 36:31
That’s great, man, dude, love it. Thank you for the advice. Okay. So last question. Before we hadn’t the Rapid Round, I want to be respectful of your time here. Three things, you got mindset. You’ve got knowledge, like rote knowledge about commercial real estate investing, and then you have networking. If someone is just now starting out, where do you think you should prioritize these? I know you’re going to do all three at once. But like, where do you think someone should put their emphasis? First of those three, you have network, you have knowledge. And then you have the network knowledge and

Abel Pacheco 37:12
Network knowledge and mindset

Derek Clifford 37:14
And mindset.

Abel Pacheco 37:17
You’re good. So this network knowledge and mindset of the three, I agree with you, I think they’re all extremely important. And almost like the three legged stool, right? You don’t have one there, you can’t sit down, which one would I focus on first, if I’m coming in new on this on that, I would absolutely still think network. There’s these mindset hurdles that need to be crossed, you can’t see yourself doing it, you’re never going to do it. If you don’t have the education, you’re going to miss the tactical part you’re going to miss, you’re going to lose over and over and over again. And just you know, keep hitting the ground and never get back up in the success what you do to keep going right? So that networking, though, when you start to hang around with others that are actually doing what you think you want to do, and then seeing them that they’re normal people just like you and me that they’re having success as well. Then they can help your mindset just watching their cycles. And you’re gonna pick up the education on like, what to do tactically and strategy. I think networking is the absolute most important because you’re with some people doing that. It’s just the law. It’s like a principle of, you know, Osmosis is like, Oh, you’re hanging out there doing this? This is what everybody does, we’re gonna do the same, like, why wouldn’t we do this, everybody else is doing around me, I need to go do that. And I think there’s, there’s something to be said of, like just being in the right room.

Derek Clifford 38:48
100%, man. So for the listeners out there, this is gold. If I had this from the beginning, I would have probably three or four times my business by now, at this point, because I did the exact opposite as well, because I was more comfortable going into the knowledge and going into the mindset piece, which eventually led me to the network. But by the time I got into the network, I was already doing jayvees. And I have a feeling that if I had started with the network, I probably would have gone a little bit further I would have selected different markets, things would have ended differently, right? Or things would have would have moved in a different direction. And so that’s my listening to you talk that’s one of my my biggest learning lessons from this. And I’m not gonna say regret because you know, life is a journey and LSV Yeah, I would say that it’s a learning lesson. And so for those of you out there who are listening to Abel, and I talk, please take this to heart, I agree 100% with Abel, that getting yourself in a network. And finding something like what Abel is offering with DEP educators is going to help get you down that path a little bit quicker, because it’ll get you all three of those things at once with a strong emphasis on the network. So I know I gotta be respectful of your time, but we have one last segment of the show. It’s called our Rapid Round and it’s five questions that we ask it Every one of our guests so they’re meant to be answered really quickly about 30 seconds each. So I’m going to rapidly ask them to if you’re ready to go, Yes, sir. All right, number one, even if you’re not a big reader, what book has had the biggest impact on you and why? And we ask that it not be Rich Dad, Poor Dad or the Bible, because we get those two out every time.

Abel Pacheco 40:20
There you go, the Bible. Mine is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie really solid books, probably the interrelations personal relationships, how to work with people like 101, 20, 130, 1, all the way to the expert level.

Derek Clifford 40:40
I agree. And I agree everyone wants to be treated like a human and we’re in a people business. That’s what real estate is. So the better you can work with people, the better your business is going to be. Love that. Number two, if people wanted to emulate your success, what do you think is the first actionable thing that they could do right now, to follow in your footsteps?

Abel Pacheco 41:00
If they wanted to emulate my success, I would say go to social, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, look at all of our posts, look at everything that we’re putting out there. And start with getting some exposure. Start with putting yourself out there, scroll back to all of my older stuff from three, four years ago, and you’ll get an idea, like, just put something out there and say, This is what I was doing. The first bit of exposure was like, I’m buying houses if anybody’s interested in selling their house, let me know. And I didn’t have enough money to buy another house at that time. So anyways, exposure.

Derek Clifford 41:35
I love that math. Are those your old Cutco days coming out? Man I love number three, what is one tool process or hack in the last three to six months that has helped save you time and or effort and this can be personal or business related?

Abel Pacheco 41:50
Definitely using project management or tracking software’s the old to do lists, then a little bit more elaborate Excel, kind of, you know, is a little antiquated, right? What do you have a project management software tool? You’re like, oh, man, how did I ever keep track of the 100 things that I need to do before today? So I would say that, yeah, good, good.

Derek Clifford 42:14
Good stuff. Good stuff. So if the people that you know this is question four had to describe you with one word, what word would that be?

Abel Pacheco 42:22
Wow. I would say for the majority of people that know me, I would say fun loving. Yeah, I agree. I would agree with you two words. Two words. I guess. I’d love it. But that’s that’s about it. There. Yeah, man.

Derek Clifford 42:38
When I when I see you, every time that I meet you in person, I’m reminded that life is good. That’s what that’s what comes to mind.

Abel Pacheco 42:46
How do you put that in one word?

Derek Clifford 42:47
I don’t know. Yeah. Fun. Loving is good. Number five. What is one small thing that most people don’t know about you?

Abel Pacheco 42:58
That I am a red belt in Wing Chun kung fu.

Derek Clifford 43:02
That is awesome. Man. I love that. That’s so cool.

Abel Pacheco 43:06
I didn’t quite get the black belt. But I would I went to majority of the years. And at some point when my kids get older, they’re gonna come with me, and I’ll knock out my black belt and get them started to

Derek Clifford 43:16
That’s awesome. Have you watched IP Man, the series?

Abel Pacheco 43:20
I have. I’ve seen a couple of those couple of the shows and movies.

Derek Clifford 43:24
And yep, that’s awesome. And my wife and I are huge fans. You’re way further along in Kung Fu than I will ever be. So I’m just just just admiration about some awesome some Wing Chun. That’s right, man. You can watch the movies and probably like point oh, yeah, I know that one I did. Your ad to go? Well, hey, April, I’ve had a blast having you on the show. Thanks for coming on. I want to be respectful of your time. But before you go, once you let everyone in the audience know how they can find out more about you and what’s going on in your world. And anything you want to talk about?

Abel Pacheco 43:57
Yeah, absolutely. Anybody wants to connect, go to www dot five, the number five talents, dot capital five talents dot capital. You can go get a bunch of downloads, ebooks, or podcasts and education, some information. If you’re looking to invest in some Texas multifamily. Let us know we’re launching our third fund. And we’ll be diversification over Texas multifamily deals for the next year. So we’re excited to have anybody who’s interested and we’re looking for some education, let me know happy to help.

Derek Clifford 44:31
Absolutely. And for those of you who are on the fence about doing it, just do it, April’s got some great stuff. He also has an awesome podcast as well. So go check that out. He’s got tons of ways for you to find out more about what’s going on in his world. So please do do that. And we’ll link to all the places you can find him in the show notes. So please do check that out. And I also want to thank you, dear listener for getting all the way to this point in the podcast. So wherever you’re listening or watching this, please do interact with us. Thumbs up, like, subscribe, type something in the comments, let us know because we want to appease those algorithm Gods so that that way we get more and more exposure to more people and can bring on more incredible guests just like Abel here. So, Abel, man, thank you so much for your time. I had a blast having you on the show.

Abel Pacheco 45:17
Thank you, brother. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Derek.

Derek Clifford 45:19
All right. This is Derek. I’m signing off. See you guys next week. Take care!