Podcast 150. The Road to 100 Streams of Income with Dearrone Bethea

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni, and today's guest is Dearrone Bethea. Dearrone, I am super excited to talk with you. Had a good time the other day at your bowling charity event. The things that you're doing and just in the community and just with your businesses and how you give back is just amazing. I'm super excited to have you on this show and share what you're doing. So thanks for joining me.

Dearrone Bethea:
0:23

Oh man. Thanks, Mike.

Average Joe Finances:
0:24

Yeah, absolutely. Hey, I'm gonna kick this thing off the same way I kick off every episode, and we wanna have the listeners learn more about you. So if you could share a little bit about yourself, share your story. Who is the Dearrone Bethea?

Dearrone Bethea:
0:36

All right. I don't want to go too deep because it is a long conversation. But Dearrone Bethea born in infield, North Carolina got us one of those guys. Just like anybody come from that small town, not a lot of resources. At my conference I gave a little bit about infield being poised town in the state of North Carolina, and that's based on Ford Magazine, but that's where I come from small town American, got a second chance in life. Trouble kid coming up, just, wrong place, wrong timing, or wrong crowds, whatever the case may be but I got a second chance. I left my hometown and joined the military where I left 2000 And deployed to Korea with my first de leaving home. Never rode a plane. And I joined the United States Army at the age of 19. By the time I landed in Korea, I was turning 20. I got there actually two days before my birthday. And, that's like how I got started went through the military. I'm currently right now transitioning out the military. I got a beautiful family, four girls and a boy. Me and my wife went door military, no, chief warrant officers. I started out, as a en enlisted, I switched over I was a drill sergeant. Then right after I came out the trail as a drill sergeant, I became a a warrant officer. And at that time, both as an enlisted soldier in United States Army. I deployed to Iraq to Galveston also as a warrant officer did deployment. And, during those deployments, man, it's pretty much, when you deployed and something happened that I saw was that, I had a good friend that, he did 20 years, 22 years in the military. And just like most people in the military, you know what they do, it was my same business plan. What I had, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna, get out the military, go get a GS job and, land some GS 12, GS 13 job, a government contracting job, and go get more money and retire and get everything else right. But I had his friend in my last deploy and he just retired. And I, you know what? He didn't make it home. And the reason he didn't make it home, because he ended up retiring, came in as a I believe he was a contractor deployed to Iraq and he just didn't make it back. He was there six months. And, at that point that light bulb came off in my head was, you know what? I got to do something different. I don't want to change my plan. And that's when I came up with my own thing and I created my own investment group called Band of Brothers Investment Group and didn't know what the hell I was doing. And I just pretty much, was reading books or whatever the case may be. Only thing I knew that is, I didn't wanna continued and do the same thing that I saw everybody else do I want to do something different? And at that point, even back then I was I was in tune with investing. I was self-taught, I started investing, my whole, almost my whole military career because I had a mentor that kind of pulled me to the side, which was a command saw major been in the army. I was only in the army probably in career. Less than a year. I was find myself in trouble again and I thought I was gonna get put out the military and and I had got a second, my other opportunity was in the military where I got a second chance. Got into a issue downtown and, got pretty bad. And I went to the side major. And then I pretty much asked him, he was like, Hey, do you know why should I keep you in my army? And I told her, I said, put, kick me out. I'm gonna go back to. This small town and this was, this was my surroundings or whatever the case may be. And instead, he said, you know what I'm gonna do to you? I said, yes, you're gonna put me out. He's no, you see that office just walked through. That's gonna be your office. You are gonna come work for me. Whatever the case may be. So that's how I got my mentor. I stayed working from him, from E two all the way up to E six. He promoted me, took me, when he left, every deployment that I went on, I actually went and deployed with him. And that's like how I got started and, on that last deployment, I decided that I was gonna, start my own business and that's what I did. So once I started that again, I didn't. Exactly, you know what to do. So I started reading books and I started writing, pros, cons, and, all these things. So I said, you know what, I'm gonna create an investment group. And I came up with a name, Band of Brothers Investment Group, and I just like the movie I'm used to be on HBO or the series that just come on. And I really like that. And I say, all right, I'm don't beat Band of brothers investment group. So I got just like anybody else, everybody want to bring their closest friends or who they know and trust and could talk a little bit about that later, but everybody can't go, but, I presented it, got back from deployment. We went to St. Lucius, we brought the Ys and all that, and I had this PowerPoint. I pretty much create a PowerPoint presentation and say, Hey, this is what we gonna do, I already did the homework research. We gonna be able to save. Everybody gonna save x amount of money every month until we retire 2022. All right that was the plan. Save what ain't gonna do. Now we're gonna work with 2022, get here, which is this year right now. Cause this is the year. And then I'm transitioning out to the military. We gonna go in business, we're gonna open this business and blah, blah, blah, la. All right, what happened was that, stepped outside and went out and opened my business way ahead of time, and I, and my guys, they wasn't ready because at that time, everybody didn't had the funds. But again, I started investing with Start Market. I was self-taught and I just started investing at a young age. So I had the capital to actually go open up my first business, and I opened up my first business and it got an opportunity, oh, by the way, my first business was horrible, it was a terrible thing and we can talk about that later. But, I kept on moving. I got a second chance as I was burning money in the red, I doubled down right and opened up a second location because if you going to, if you gonna lose, you might as well lose big. And at this time, I brought my guys that was on the sideline and say, guys, I need your help now. We can't wait till 2022. Let's get in a fight. You know what I'm saying? I have the money. Let's go ahead and get this thing started and I need to stop the burn. The only way I can stop the burn. When you burning that type of money in business, you got to figure out another business that you can open up that's gonna generate those, that type of losses that I was taking, I was losing anywhere from 8,000, $10,000 a month. What I did was I pretty much doubled down and we started the business plan that I created on that PowerPoint about eight years ago. And that second location became the number one franchise, anytime Fitness in the state of North Carolina. And we just kept on building. We've been building about two locations per year. And we now, you fast forward that, we are the top operators in that business. And just been a phenomenal thing. But that's on the business side. Also, as on the real estate side, I started real estate. That was part of the things of the books that I was reading, a lot of those books that I was reading. That talked about, just know, just talked about, I was reading books and talking about investing and a lot of those stuff that I was talking about investing, I started reading stuff, talking about business. But everything that I read, they always said real estate. Real estate. So at that point, I knew that I had all these stuffers, streams of income, I had the investment, the dividends, and I said, you know what? I need to get some rental income. I need to get, I already got, certain other types of income. So I just want every stream of income. That's out there. I wanted a piece of it. I went out and started, buying taxing properties, foreclosed properties, fixing those up and owning them, holding them. And, and what I was doing, I was doing things that was in my comfort zone, you know what I'm saying? I was buying properties in Enfield, North Carolina. 8,000, 10, $13,000 because that's what I was comfortable with. Now I was getting good money because I was able to cash flow it. You renting out four, five,$600 and you only up paying 10 grand, 12 grand, 20 grand. That was good cash flow. So that's how I started. And after I continued to do a couple of those and I started buying bigger properties and you fast forward and let's give you an example where I'm at today, I got a 60 plus million dollar portfolio of that portfolio. We, just single felling houses. Probably got somewhere around maybe 18, 20. I have to go look at my pfs. I've been doing really well, man. You started, with a house that cost me,$13,000, then the next house of 50,000 and the next house a 100 thousand. Then the next house was 200. And to this day, I don't buy nothing. If it don't cost nowhere, somewhere in, in a range of a million dollars, because those are assets that I like to help in my portfolio, that's what I pretty much do. I hold and buy bigger. Assets, class A assets were a guy like me that come from a Class D neighborhood. That's what I was, that's what I was, I was just used to that, and with that, yeah, you do have pain with a Class D property. You got the good cash flow, but you're gonna head a headaches of the tenants. But you know what, I like Class A. That's where I'm at in my life. I am building wealth for my kids, for my family, my trust on nice income producing assets that, eventually we'll own all of. And everything in the mainland that I got is paid for cash. I don't, I have every single deed and everything I got in Hawaii. I have a note, but I have a lot of property out in Hawaii, which is here in Ko Olina. I've been buying just this year alone, seem like I've been buying a property every year. Even though rates going up, I don't care because in my head I know I just wanna secure the asset rates gonna continue to go up. I let those guys over there talking about 6% is expensive. They need to go check the historical rates and I'm still gonna so I'm gonna continue to hold and continue to buy and when people turn ahead on, on buying deals on. I'm getting some good stuff going and that's on that part. And when you having a business and you generate the type of income that you know, we're, we are getting, through our business, you got to find somewhere to deploy that money. If you don't find a way to deploy the money, you'll have a, what we call a tax problem and you. One of the things that we do with, and I did very young, as soon as that money started coming, we never took a dollar. Our business, we always took the money, redeploy the money, but I was redeploying the money into. Real assets, assets that, real estate. Very, early in two business I became a LP where we was taking money, becoming a limited partner to help, offset some of that income so that we can get some tax losses and things like that. Pretty much did that kinda. But one day I always knew that I wanted to be a GP cause I was always heavily in real estate. And I didn't know how strong I was probably until maybe three or four years when when I pretty much started my own real estate company. It's called Banson Brothers Real Estate Group. But what happened was, I end up leaving that group and my group that I own, I end up finding tri-City who was with Vance and Duke and I really met Duke first. I met Duke before he even started Tri-City. We was actually, At a meetup, me and him. And and I'll never forget that day he was in there and he was all energy last, ah, man, we, we should start our own, real estate company. And, he was just, had a lot of energy and I was, and I had a lot of energy too as well about the business. And I'm like, yeah man, we should do this man. And a lot of people was kinda like in tune what we were talking about. And we end up leaving in part ways. Guess what, he, within 12 months I see him popping up. He, him and Vince started. So I end up reaching out to them. We talk and we realized that when you come together sometimes as a team you get more fire power. It was a good match made joining me. I stopped mine, Banza Brothers Real Estate group, and I brought my guy, my partner Barb Folson on with me over to Tri-City. And we really me coming on that team I was able to help bring them, five, six years into the future due to my net worth, my liquidity, my resources, people, I know, things like that and vice versa, you know what I'm saying? Me coming onto that team was able for me to move quicker, you know what I'm saying? And since then it's been a great partnership. Great partnerships, great team. Everybody that's on Tri City Equity Group that, you know what I'm saying, that on partners with, we all work really hard. It's just like everybody know exactly what they do. We go out and knock down targets. But since then, man, just as a GP partner, man, and, I serve, as the KP the key principal, the, acquisition director. Majority of the time. I raised the most. On the team and it just, again, I could have did my own thing, but going over there and you having the guys like you, Vince, who is a phenomenal operator and remind me a whole lot of myself on how I, how I do my business with Band and brothers. And it's just a been just a phenomenal partnership. And like I said, I just, every, it seemed like, shoot, man. I think I can't count, man. I think this year we probably closed two or. Three units, two or three multi-family. And last year I probably did five or six, so the year before then it was more I've been growing pretty fast. We got over right now, I think I have about a little over a thousand units. Just hit that mark. Just, what was that last week? We just closed on a deal in South Dallas. In fact, within six days we had two deals in Dallas. And that's and I know, run that department the acquisitions and I'm flying out next week and we working on something bigger and better. I wanna do new development, so I'm meeting developers in San Antonio and hopefully that's gonna be a great meeting when we go down there and, hopefully we can get into new development. Yo, so that's a little bit, do a lot, I know you. You know what? You want to talk or whatever. Man I honestly had to step back and. God bless me. You know what I mean? There's nothing that I don't do. I do it all, I honestly self-taught entrepreneur business, real estate, multifamily, flips lean, invest in stock market. Whatever man, people ask how I made my money and made my money off stops and trading options, and all that stuff was self-talk. So I'm really good in that. Like I just told you I was doing my taxes and I'm really, I love numbers. I love numbers, I understand it. I pay my fair share taxes, but I don't pay anything to the IRS outside of my fair share taxes. I understand how that works. And when you, in business, when you, and a lot of people don't understand like for me, my goal, you probably say I wanna get a hundred sources of that income. And I'm, I don't know, I'm probably somewhere around 50 and six. I've been so busy this year, I got to go back and add them all up. But my goal is a hundred streams of income and that's gonna be probably within the next couple of years. That's just the first point, right? But what people don't understand and why people get more wealthy is because they understand the tax code. They'll understand that entrepreneurs are forced. To continue to open more business, cause there's a benefit in there. It's either that I'm gonna make$300,000 or 200,000 for every entity I got and then pay 40% taxes on it. Or I'm gonna take the money and go open up something else and do a hundred percent bonus depreciation and continue to do that. Oh by the way, it's money and continue to make more money. Money. I'm buying more multifamily too as well, so you know. But yeah, man, so that's me, man. Like you mentioned earlier, man, like we got a nonprofit, I believe in giving back we've been doing that. That was our first fundraising. Me and my wife, we actually been for years, we just been funding that through through our businesses pressing accounts. And that was our first fundraiser, which was a blast. And I appreciate you and your team for coming out there and kicking everybody, but , you know what I'm saying? Yeah, but no man, that's, that's a little about me. I know. It's a lot, man. Whatever you got ask. Yeah. Cool.

Average Joe Finances:
15:20

All good, man. Catch your breath. Catch your breath. But listen so for my listeners right now, tho those of you that just heard Dearrone's story and hearing about his background, this is just tip of the iceberg, right? So I, I had the opportunity to listen to him speak at the Hawaii Millionaire Mindset Conference. And I got to tell you, I've known Dearrone for a little while now, but when he tells his story. And now he's sitting down right now, right on this zoom call. But when he's up on stage telling the story with how animated he gets and how you could see the passion and the drive right, of what he's really gone through he hasn't gotten too descriptive, about his background and everything. But I can tell you and I told people that went to this charity bowling tournament with me too, that, I said, when I look at Dearrone, I look at one of those true come up stories, right? Somebody that came from nothing to get to where they are today and that your ears might have been ringing that day. I don't know, man, but I was talking all about you. All good things, I promise. Maybe mostly all good things. No, I'm kidding. But, it's really amazing when you see what determination and drive will get you cause right now I can tell you he's never given. And he always kept going. Dearrone, your story's amazing. That's why I'm so honored to have you on this show as a guest. Just watching the things that you're doing being in two deals with you myself I, it's just, it's awesome, man. Just what Band of Brothers have done, what Tri-Cities done, you come in as the key principle for those guys. Now they can go tackle like bigger deals. It's. Really amazing stuff, man. So I generally appreciate your story. Now I want to just get into what you're working on right now. Cause I know your goal is a hundred businesses and a hundred streams of income. And I know you said you're somewhere in the fifties right now. Let's talk about that a little bit, right? So you started off with investing in the stock market, right? The thrift savings plan and all that stuff while you were a young e nothing. Now you are a chief warrant officer getting ready to retire and transition out. I'm in the middle of transitioning out myself right now, too. Also a prior enlisted Mustang, so it's, to see what you've. And, and comparison is the thief of joy, right? But I see what you've done, and then I'll take myself and say, I feel like I'm doing really big things, and then I look at you and I'm just like, damn, . You know what I'm saying? So it's it just goes to show that. Anybody can shatter their limiting beliefs if you work at it, right?

Dearrone Bethea:
17:27

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
17:28

And that's the biggest thing I wanna point out. So you started off absolutely with investing, you thrift savings plan, you had a really good mentor. Thank goodness for that, right? Because yeah. Unfortunately a lot of people young people in the military don't get that good mentorship, right? And they wind up slipping through the cracks and they'll get out., go back to old habits but you didn't. And you built up from there. So what did that look like? So you built up the, you had this capital now, right? Because you were investing and then you got into your first business. What was that process like.

Dearrone Bethea:
17:52

As far as the the first business or building up to it?

Average Joe Finances:
17:55

Yeah building up to it, I think we got that cause you were investing right. In the stock market and everything. Actually how aggressive were you being when it came to your investments?

Dearrone Bethea:
18:04

I was two things, man. I didn't share. Number one is I was very aggressive I was. I never had anything, so you never had anything and you understand and start reading and start coming a little knowledgeable saying, listen, hey, you young, it is okay for you to, take a little bit more risk and have no bigger risk coming towards. And, I did that. And one thing that I didn't mention and I think I mentioned at the conference that a lot of people didn't know is, you have to me and my wife, you know what I mean? We are a great team and you have to tighten up your household where if if even if you're single, tighten up yourself. But me and my wife, we lived off one paycheck. We've been living off one paycheck since. Shoot 2000 and I think eight, nine or something like that. But, just living off one paycheck, investing that whole entire paycheck into the start market. IRA, Matts and I both, IRAs both TSPs changing our pay to once a month and things like that. We was pretty, pretty aggressive. Until this day, I'm still aggressive. I have not yet. Change anything as far as my allocations or anything like that. In fact, I have increased more with the market now. Just been, and I, and you know what? I'm gonna tell you something. I'm share this with you. Actually. I should pray to God that this will happen. I said, man, I'm getting ready to retire. And I was thanking five years. Cause I'm always, that's what we do. We always thinking five years ago I was thinking, I'm like, now I'm beaconing at the Army in 2022, and what else I'm thinking about? I said, man, we, I think I need to have a crash. If the market could crash right around the year I retired, it'll work out for me. And guess what? The market crash. And and I've been ready for it. This we've been bond. I've been having capital on the side, as we have some dispositions and things like that. So it's just been great, man to see that. This has actually a perfect timing for me because we know if we do this crash, and that's why may be another 10 years at that time, is when I will change my allocations. But right now I'm a hundred percent in the market.

Average Joe Finances:
19:54

Fantastic. Okay, so when you made that, when you decided to open a business, right? so you had, now you had some capital to play with, right? So cash out some stocks and everything and open up a business. Now, that first business you opened up, was that all, was that the franchise? Was that the first?

Dearrone Bethea:
20:08

No, my first business was a it's called So fresh, so clean barbershop.

Average Joe Finances:
20:12

That's right.

Dearrone Bethea:
20:13

Yeah. Besides the barbershop I purchased and I told no, it was a friend of mines became a friend of mine. He used cut my hair and he owned the barbershop. But again, people, Limited belief. He believed that if his wife got on orders and they was gonna leave Fort Hood, Texas Right, right outside of Austin and go to San Antonio, she was gonna be her first sergeant. He he just believed that the business was gonna succeed unless he was in it. And I was like, I never wanted to run no business where I'm in the business whatsoever. So I try to give him the. That, if I was in his shoes, what I would do, but he didn't take the advice and I ended up finding that that location. I made my money back within 10 months and I sold it for four times. What I paid for it.

Average Joe Finances:
20:51

Yeah. That's awesome, man. So that's a great first start. But I also wanna talk about some of the bumps and scrapes and bruises that you got along the way. And you of talked about it when you were talk, sharing your backstory, but I know about it a little bit more intimately from from when you spoke at the conference, but if you could share with us what was that like when you had your first I wouldn't call it a business failure, but your first learning experience.

Dearrone Bethea:
21:12

It was a business failure. In Business man Everybody, I tell people that everybody think that, they can do business because maybe they see someone else or whatever the case may be. My first business failure was my location out in Texas. I thought I was doing the right thing by investing in a strong market, but I didn't do the market analysis like I thought I did, and I didn't know the things that I knew now. And I ended up purchasing. Went into a center and it's all about location. The location was., but within that location, as you peel back as you peel back everything, the layers, what happened was that number one, we was just in a, in an endcap or endcap building at the endcap of the building, we had another building like blocking us. So we didn't have no visibility from the street. That's number one. Number two When you, we didn't do a deep dive analysis of the, and it was one of the most easiest things, but it hurt me so bad. We didn't do a deep dive analysis of, we saw the demographics, but we didn't, we looked over the age, and find out that we was in a baby boomer community, heavily baby boomer community. And when you have, Selling gym memberships. They have things for seniors like Silver Sneakers and, all these other things that they have at a discounted rate that they get through their insurance company. If you sign a $10,000 a month lease,$6, a membership's not gonna go well for you and your business plan. So I really messed that up. I messed the location of the side of the building. And then probably one of the most important things, of this is you got to know your partners. I think that, you may think you never know how someone is once money come involved. Some people come from different walks of life. I come from nothing. My partner came from money. And for him and his family, it was just a, it was easy. It may have been a easy, shit, we can write this off taxes cause we make enough money. Anyway. I didn't have that. I didn't have access. I didn't have no, you know what I'm saying? I didn't have nobody and that kind of. It was more disappointed than anything. You know what I'm saying? He pretty much left me with the business. And just to let you know, I still own the business to this day. But he still, he left me with that business and I think we lost about half a million dollars total in that business. And, long story now is, things change. I think I told you how I was able to change it around by investing in that second one, bringing my team on, setting my own rules and things like that, KPIs. So all the mistakes that I learned from the first. I put it in my second and then I came back and implemented it again. Yeah, tho And so those are the, some of the things that, just, like you said, man, it wasn't, I would never probably change it, day in my life. It cost me half a million. I never went to college. So I tell people that's my college education is a half a million dollars in business and there's no professor or those guys can't teach that type of experience. I value that.

Average Joe Finances:
23:51

Yeah. And that's why I was saying like, I wouldn't really call it like a business failure, but it was an educational experience. And that's usually what it is, when you can recover from that, but you put yourself in a good place where you were able to bounce back and recover and you opened up that second location. You said, okay, I learned what not to do. This first time. We're gonna make sure we get the second one right. Put it in the right place, get the right team on board and you did that and went out there and just started crushing it.

Dearrone Bethea:
24:17

Oh yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
24:17

So can you tell me the difference between that first one that you opened and the second one besides what I just described, right? Yeah. What were some things that you noticed that were different that, that led to your success?

Dearrone Bethea:
24:29

Yeah, definitely know, I knew not to be at the endcap. I knew visibility was more important. I knew that marketing was more important. I knew that you have to spend money like on your digital marketing, on your direct mail. We just put our best foot forward and, you already working in the red when you open a business and sometimes people like, man, I'm already in the red. You need to put more money out, you need to burn more so you can get . We just took a different playbook and, and we was at the other location. We said, all right, we're gonna have a $1,500 at the first location. We're gonna do $1,500 in marketing. This time go around, we did $10,000 in marketing and we broke even during pre-sales, the store was in open. We broke even, we opened that store up with about, I think it was about 400 members when we opened in the first location. I probably had. 50 members or something.

Average Joe Finances:
25:13

And like 48 of them were silver sneakers

Dearrone Bethea:
25:16

Oh my God. Yeah. PTSD man.

Average Joe Finances:
25:18

No Dearrone, it's amazing, just when you look at this and what you've learned and accomplished since then and then besides the franchises, besides those businesses, then you got, you got yourself involved in real estate, right? I know you were buying some of those properties back in North Carolina and everything, and then you started getting to bigger stuff, right?, including like buying these properties out here in Hawaii, right? So you're focusing now, I know your goal is to be like the largest private owner in Ko Olina. You're probably really close to being that, if not already there. Yeah, man. So can you talk about that a little bit? What was that transition like when you decided to I know you're still opening businesses, right? And you're still wearing those, but what was it like when you decided, I'm gonna go ahead and start like buying more real estate?

Dearrone Bethea:
25:58

Yeah, no, good question. Real estate, you look at that first property that I purchased that was like 13,000. I still own that property and that property, never ever it's always been a plus, right? So what really made me, was you look at business is great. It's great. You can have it, you can pass it down to your kids. But again, your kids may not want to be in that business. But on the real estate side, you know when you start buying luxury, a class, something that you can pass off, there's nowhere that ever been in luxury errors, class A errors where that properties will always continue to appreciate. So it is easy for my kids to, have them properties located in Class A areas so I can be able to pass that off to them, their trust, and really they can be as passive and hands off as they want, but you know what I'm saying, have them some strengths and income. If I leave them with the business, they got to be in it. They got to be, they got to want to be in it. And then if they pass and say, you know what, we're gonna hire a CEO and run this business, they can run that business down, but it's hard for them to mess up, you know what I'm saying? Great assets and things like that. I, as I look at my portfolio what really made me. I think about it was, I think it was two years ago I was looking at my tax returns and, I'm like, man, I got all this stuff going on. And I said, you know what? Let me look at my tax returns and let me focus and let me die deep in my tax returns. And what I did was I focused on what are making me the money? Like what is making me the money? And it stuck out like a sore thought. And it was business was number. You know what I'm saying? Vacation rentals was number two, multi-family was number three, and then my stock portfolio was number four. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna continue to focus on building more business, doing more real estate, doing bigger multi-family properties, and increasing my portfolio, doing this down market.

Average Joe Finances:
27:46

Yeah. That's awesome. And that was the top four out of everything you had going on too. And that's including your military income and all that?

Dearrone Bethea:
27:52

My military income is, I would say it paid for my taxes, but I don't pay taxes. That's paid. That's why I was, you know what, and a lot of people told me, this one thing too, like for the military people, man, lot of people, man, when did you stay? Why did you stay in the military? I was like, I know number one I don't like to start nothing. Don't finish. And I didn't never wanna have a regrets. And then I also knew, no matter all these streams of income, that income will never, ever, ever stop. And then, I always thought that, man, one day, I'm be able to have this income, but God has something else that I've never thought about that I'm getting out and like most people, I'm probably gonna have some disability or whatever the case may be but right now, just talking to my, my, my attorney as I transition out military, I'm looking at not. To pay no taxes on either my retirement check or my disability check. I'm a chief warrant officer. Say I'm getting 8,000 a month or whatever the case may be. I think with my dependents and everything, that's tax free. You know what I'm saying? That's and my wife, you know what I'm saying? We both, you talking four checks coming in the house, 16 grand, all tax free. I can now, I can pay. that's amount through my business and I'm being, you know what I'm saying, I could have been a $200,000 from earned income and then pay myself another 200. Now I got 400, but I can still make$400,000 by paying myself only 200,000, even though 400 coming in, cause half of that's gonna be tax free.

Average Joe Finances:
29:11

That's a, it's a thing. And beauty that's one of the things I like about and one of the reasons why I stayed in Hawaii too. Excuse me. Because they don't charge taxes on my pension. Hey Dearrone this has been awesome, man. I wanna transition this into something that we call the final round. It's where I'm gonna ask you four questions for the same questions I ask everybody that comes on this show. And they're hard-hitting questions, but if you're ready to go, we'll we'll get that party started.

Dearrone Bethea:
29:30

Ah, yeah, let's go ahead and get it.

Average Joe Finances:
29:32

All right, let's do it. So the very first question I'm gonna ask you, and I changed it up for you in particular but what's the biggest mistake you've ever made in business?

Dearrone Bethea:
29:40

The biggest mistake that ever made in business. Definitely not having a mentor. You got to have a mentor. That's the most important part in. Or, even multifamily real estate or just real estate develop, you want to find a mentor that's gonna save you tens of hundreds or not even millions of dollars.

Average Joe Finances:
30:01

Yeah. No that's huge. That's huge. Having a mentor. Or sometimes they even talk about it too, having a mentor or a coach, because and there's a difference between the two. People don't, a lot of times people don't realize that a mentor is somebody that you're gonna look up to and they're gonna help you and guide you and you ain't paying them though. A coach you're paying. So now a lot of times, one of the reasons why I like to use coaches for certain things is, it gives me that accountability man, I just paid this person. I better do something. You know what I'm saying?, right? But then mentors are huge, man, because they're the ones that are gonna show you like, no, this is the way, it makes me think about the Mandalorian, and you got the Mandalorian little gro group and he is this is the way. Yeah they just show you the way and you go and make magic happen, so I love that man.

Dearrone Bethea:
30:36

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
30:36

I had to get a Star Wars reference in, I had to , alright, cool. The next question I have ties into this but what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

Dearrone Bethea:
30:45

One thing that I learned that I wish I knew when I first started, so I think I'm. I'm really good at, right now it's marketing market analysis. I wish I would've was more in tune with some of the resources that's out there that you can use. But market analysis. I love it. I love watching CNBC. I know, anything in the states that I'm tar, like I'm focusing, I can tell you everything about the state, who's moving there, what is the unemployment rate, what is the household income, all those things. Man I really. I really like that part of business and multi-family is that's really just knowing the area and being able to do it from here. You know what I mean? You don't have to be there. In fact, living in Hawaii, I got businesses in North Carolina, Texas, Arkansas, and I never been where my business is at, never. This is the first time ever and it's like the two locations that I got here and I've been able to be successful by really diving deep and learning mar market analysis.

Average Joe Finances:
31:41

Right on. No I definitely appreciate that and I appreciate your transparency with your answers. This is all the real sauce.

Dearrone Bethea:
31:47

Yep.

Average Joe Finances:
31:47

All right. Cool. The next question I have, again, this all kind of ties into each other, and that is, do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started in business today?

Dearrone Bethea:
32:00

Tips and tricks. Tips and tricks? One. That you should do is I think it's maybe everybody that when they go into a business, they need do SWAT analysis no matter what it is. You know what I'm saying? That's, if you just knew in it, just do your SWAT analysis go from there. And also definitely make sure you are you find a mentor, especially in. The art of the deal in business is gonna be it's probably gonna be your lease agreement. If go on brick and mortar, that's gonna, if you get that wrong, you think about it, you going in, you sign a lease agreement anywhere for 5 years to 10 years and you doing a personal guarantee saying that, Hey, I personally guarantee my house, my car, my investments that I've been saving 20 years, that I'm gonna be able to pay you if it don't work out. That's what you tell the landlord. So just make sure be very aggressive during a when you are going back and forth trying to come up with a lease agreement or what we call a l o I little of tent. And again, find a mentor, have them look over. and don't sell for anything. Don't let the landlord bully you. Be aggressive and, ask for what you want and try to limit it. Limit it as much exposure to your personal finances.

Average Joe Finances:
33:06

Yeah, that's where you make the money right there in the beginning. When you start off with that first lease, the lower you can get it, the more cash flow you're gonna have, right? Like you said, be aggressive.

Dearrone Bethea:
33:15

Very aggressive, don't be scared to ask.

Average Joe Finances:
33:17

Yeah, I love it, man. All right, so the final question of the final round is do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Dearrone Bethea:
33:29

Okay. All right. So if you're gonna go into business, I'll give you a couple them actually, , if you're gonna have to go in business, if you trying to I'm trying to figure things out. I wanna go in business, maybe I don't wanna go in business. I wanna create a real estate group, or I want to create a business group or whatever. Investment group like myself. Definitely want to re -rocket fuel. And by Gino Wickman, and then he got the book. The second book that you read to go with that is Traction. All right, so Rocket Fuel is gonna definitely be for the, divisionary or the CEO or the founder of the company maybe. And then your right hand man or gal is probably gonna be the COO. And those two people definitely need to read that book. Rocket Fuel. And then, like I said, Traction. Everybody in my company at the headquarters level it's a requirement that they must and have to read traction everybody. So you know, that's really big. And then, As far as investing, depending on where you at and your level of investing, if, I think first, if you like me, come from nowhere, it's about the mindset, getting your mindset together first. And you just got to go with those Millionaire net store rich Dad Port, that those books right there to set your mindset. And then as far as a, podcast definitely Tri-City, the Cashflow Project. We do that too as well. So yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
34:42

All right. Right on. I appreciate that, Dearrone. Thank you. Now that is it for the final round, however, I have one more question for you and it is the most important question of all cause my listeners here they sat here, they listened to your background, your story, everything that you've gone through. We got to talk a little bit about your businesses, some mistakes that you've made, some successes that you've had into This guy's doing some things and I want to know more about him. I want to know more about his in investment groups any deals that he might have coming up, cause I want to get in with them. So where can people find that information about you? Do you have a website, social media, anything you can share with us?

Dearrone Bethea:
35:16

Yeah my website is bobinvestmentgroup.com. And as far as we also, you can find me on Instagram, Dearrone.bethea, so that's first name and last name. And also Band of Brothers Investment Group, both on IG and Facebook. So that's where you can find me. If you want to get. Still, or you need help. We do. Even, I know you got a lot of people in the military. I wanna definitely know, let you know that every Monday my team is out at the Career Skills Bridge, or we call it CSP program. I heard Skills bridge program. But we also do that. We actually have interns either do the entrepreneurship program, The multifamily program, The franchise program and entrepreneur vacation rentals. And that my wife she run that as we have 20 properties here on Ko Olina.

Average Joe Finances:
36:07

All right, awesome. Hey, I'm gonna make sure I have all those links in the show notes to make it easy for the listeners here, you could just go and click or copy and paste away. Just don't do it while you're driving. So hey, Dearrone, man this was awesome, brother. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today.

Dearrone Bethea:
36:21

Nah, man. Hey Mike, man I appreciate it. No, this is probably long overdue, man. And I thank you for having me. Thank your listeners and man, look forward to, maybe we continue to do more deals together.

Average Joe Finances:
36:31

Yeah, I appreciate it, brother. Hey, and to my listeners, thank you so much for joining me in our special guest Dearrone Bethea, on the Average Joe Finances podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Dearrone. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.