Land development expert Cody Bjugan discusses how you can make 6-7 figures on your real estate deals.
Join Cody Bjugan, founder of VestRight and real-estate guru, and I as we discuss how to maximize profits in your real estate investments and how to make 6-7 figures every deal. Are you making marginal returns on your real estate investments and tired of having to work so hard for them every single time? Cody and I cover his strategies, why money isn't the end goal in his business, and how wholesaling and land development are different. For anyone wanting to take that next step in real estate investing and has the capital to do it, I highly encourage watching this podcast and learning how to beat the recession.
Cody Bjugan is a seasoned real estate developer and the founder of VestRight. VestRight is an educational and coaching company dedicated to transforming lives by teaching real estate investors, real estate agents, and other entrepreneurs how to become land acquisitions specialists. Additionally, beyond his all-important task of being the best husband and father, his mission as a devoted follower of Jesus is to share so that we together can create fulfilling legacies through our purpose and impact.
CODY'S SOCIALS
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codybjugan/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100085095469190
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/codybjugan/
CODY'S PERSONAL WEBSITE
VESTRIGHT WEBSITE
VESTRIGHT SOCIALS
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/vestright
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/vestright/
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Are you making marginal returns on your real estate investments and tired of having to work so hard for them every single time? Land development expert Cody Bjugan joins me on the podcast this week, where we discuss how to make 6-7 figures on every deal you do in real estate through the buying and selling of land. Cody and I cover his strategies, why money isn't the end goal in his business, and how wholesaling and land development are different. For anyone wanting to take that next step in real estate investing and has the capital to do it, I highly encourage watching this podcast and learning how to beat the recession.
I am excited about what's going on. Thank you so much for subscribing to our channel, checking out our show, and leaving all the comments and reviews. I appreciate it. I got a text saying, “That last episode was amazing. Thank you so much.” I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for being here. I got a great show for you. I interviewed Cody Bjugan. This guy blew my mind.
He's a real estate investor. He owns a company called VestRight. He's a land developer and a mentor. His strategy is he makes 6 to 7 figures per deal. I'm a real estate flipper and wholesaler. I make $10,000 to $20,000 on a deal. He makes 6 to 7 figures. He told me after the show that there was a deal that he did. He made multiple seven figures.
If this doesn't light your fire and blow your mind, I want you guys to get educated on this particular episode, one deal, multiple seven figures with Cody Bjugan. It has to do with the land. He says, “Who controls the dirt controls the deal.” He buys and sells raw land with development potential that makes seven figures in a deal. This is great, but he's also a man with a huge heart. He helps entrepreneurs lead a life of purpose, impact, and fulfillment. He's educating people on his strategy. He's a man of God. He’s a great all-around dude, Cody Bjugan. Make sure you guys check him out in a little bit.
Before I introduce you guys to Cody, I want you guys to do something for me. We have a Men's Awakening, and it's from March 13th through the 16th, 2023. Check it out at IronDeep.com. I had a lot of guys register. This is for business owner men looking for something more than success. They're looking for their identity, purpose, and fulfillment in their life. They're looking to leave their truest legacy. This is for you guys.
If this interests you, we're doing it in Zion National Park. We're undistracted in the middle of Zion National Park. This is a real event. This is an event where we can be ourselves. We can take the masks off, get around other like-minded guys, and figure out what's going on to help us live out this identity, purpose, and legacy in our lives.
If you're a man and looking for that deeper connection with the father and with other like-minded guys, this is the event for you. It's filling up fast. Check it out, IronDeep.com/retreats. Check out the Men's Awakening from March 13th to the 16th, 2023. I'll see you guys there. Check out our YouTube channel too. We're coming out with videos every single week. We do a video podcast, and we're coming up with a game plan of what can help you guys out more.
I want to hear from you. What do you guys want? What do you want to hear? What type of content do you want? Do you want me to interview someone else out there? We're going to be coming up with real and raw topics for businessmen. What are you struggling with? What are you challenged with? This is the show that we want to do here at Iron Deep. I want to hear from you guys. Email me at Brett@IronDeep.com or text my phone number at (812) 216-8602. I want to introduce you to Mr. Cody Bjugan. I'm with our guest, Cody Bjugan. What's going on? Thanks for being on the show.
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
I'm excited. I've interviewed hundreds of real estate investors. I've been in real estate investing for the last several years. You caught my interest. You're going to catch a lot of the reader's interest, especially when you talk about doing 6 or 7 figures in one deal. I have been in the residential flipping game. If I say I make $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, or $30,000, that is a wow because I come from a teaching background. That’s great, but you go way above and beyond. I want to talk about your strategy for land, “Who controls the dirt controls the deal.” Let's talk about you. Who is Cody Bjugan?
I love that you asked me that question because August is when I decided to do it. I'm in these different mastermind groups. We have our pods and forums. We go deep because it's a confidential environment, and we're able to get vulnerable to each other. I decided to take it a step further. I identified five people in my life that I wanted to do scheduled, recurring one-on-ones with.
One of those is a gentleman. I admire him. He's a pastor in Colorado Springs. He asked me that exact question. People have asked me similar questions to that on all the different podcasts or in life. I answered whatever way, but when he asked that, he somehow asked it in a way I didn't instantly respond. I stopped and thought about it for ten seconds. Here's what came out. It's on my wall here. It's been on my wall ever since I said it. It's fairly profound in my eyes. It identifies who I am and what I'm trying to accomplish.
I'm going to read this to you. We can wrap however you want off of this. It says, “Who are you? I'm a broken little boy being intentional and purposeful about pivoting the legacy of my family so that same little boy doesn't show up in future generations.” That's who I am. I'm that hurt little boy focused on the pivot.
That's starting off going deeper. That question stumbles a lot of people. Sometimes, people stumble over the words like, “I do real estate. I’m a developer.” They stumble through it but thank you for sharing that. That is one thing that launched this ministry, Iron Deep. We dig deep into identity. Who are you, and what is your identity statement? When it's all said and done and stripped away, what can you hang on to? Thank you for sharing that.
I was talking to a good buddy of mine. He is one of the guys I do one-on-ones with. We were talking about that statement. I've done tons of digging in my life, trying to unbury stuff that I have stuffed way down deep over different wounds, hurts, or life experiences. They're hard to find. I have been through a lot of personal development, personal growth, and therapy.
It's okay to be vulnerable enough to say you're a hurt little boy. The question is, are you focused on turning those open wounds into a place of healing? The scars are still going to be there. That's why I still call myself a hurt little boy because no matter how much healing or work I've done, that hurt little boy never fully goes away. It's okay to own that. The question is, what are you doing to change it for future generations? It is a part of my statement. I'm humbled and proud of myself that I'm comfortable enough sharing something like that vulnerable on a show like this.
Typically, you're the guy I'm interviewing and supposed to have all the answers and have it all together. That's your position in this show.
Maybe being vulnerable like that and being humble enough to be vulnerable like that, there's some magic sauce in that, and potentially on my way to having some things figured out. It takes a lot of pressure off of me. It allows me to have a lot more freedom and peace in my life when I'm allowing myself to be authentic no matter what environment I'm in.
Cody, you've removed the mask, and I appreciate that. I know our audience appreciates that too. Before the show, you said some words like living out your one legacy. You have PIF, which is Purpose, Fulfillment, and Impact. We can talk about that. The thing that a lot of people want to talk to you about is how you make seven figures in one deal. You've been an extremely successful businessman. You've taken real estate investing to another level. People want to pick your brain, talk to you, and learn from you. Can you tell us about that journey and your strategy? Has that helped bring you freedom? Take us into that. Let's talk about your real estate.
I'm not going to sit here and say, “Certain financial freedoms don't allow you the opportunity to make success in other pillars of your life a bit easier.” Let's break that down a little bit. Let's talk about one legacy, and we will get into my business model because you asked if my business, the money we make, and all that allowed me to have these other focuses of PIF, Purpose, Impact, and Fulfillment, that one legacy. It does.
Money is not the goal, but it sure is a wonderful tool. To be clear, you'll never arrive. It's not all of a sudden you're going to hit a certain net worth or a dollar amount, and you're going to all of a sudden arrive. Money is not like that. Money is just an element to me or a tool that allows you to do great things in the areas of life that matter.
Let's talk about my model. How do I get into what I am into now? I started my business in 2002, along with a partner. We were partners for a couple of years. I got my high school girl pregnant. Let's start there. I got a degree in the hard knocks of street smarts through having a reality check. I planned to head off to ASU, where my daughter goes now, and do the whole thing.
When I was in my senior year in high school, my girlfriend was pregnant. I got into the flooring union. The reason I got into the flooring union is because my soon-to-be father-in-law was in the flooring. He owned his own flooring business. He said, “If you go into the union, you can get full health benefits within three months.” I needed to figure out a way to pay for my son who was on his way. I went into the flooring union, qualified for health insurance, and paid for my son being born. I got married a couple of months out of high school. I had my son.
Shortly after that, I left the flooring union and went into the private side of the flooring industry, accomplishing great things. I’m a young, driven individual, lopsided, and sacrificed every other pillar of my life for my career and money. I got to a point in that industry where I had a choice to make. I either needed to open my own store because I had capped out in the industry without being an owner, or I needed to do something different.
For the wrong reasons, I admired a lot of my clients who were developers and home builders because we were servicing all their projects. I admired their shiny things, which I now know now are extremely empty. Along with a partner, I made the leap of faith. The biggest thing that holds people back is fear. There's no question. When you're 24, you don't have the same fear factors that you do when you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s. That made it a little easier to make that leap. Once we did, I never looked back. Don't get me wrong. The Great Recession was painful.
I'll get into the model I do and how you can make the 6 to 7 seven figures. Before I do, let me lay the foundation. When I became self-employed, I knew only this unique model I teach and that my company mainly does now. I did the horizontal construction. I put in all the utilities and street lights. I put in all the infrastructure. I would build tons of homes. I've done a lot of the construction, but I've gotten to a point where you start figuring out what your unique experience is, knowledge, or understanding because that is where the most opportunity or leverage.
I don't teach horizontal construction like land development. I don't teach home building vertical construction. The reason I don't teach those things is that I don't feel like I have anything unique or specialized to bring to those areas of the space. There’s plenty of education out there related to construction. It's technical. I'm not going to wow you there. There are plenty of other opportunities and materials out there to learn.
What I have carved out to be the opportunity that we make these types of paydays you're talking about with limited capital and limited risk. That is key because most people don't even try to get into my space of land development. They think it's untouchable. They think it's way too much risk and cash. You had to have a business or a bunch of money handed to you. It's only for the wealthy. That's why I decided to start VestRight, my education company, because Allied Development is my company that does all this. VestRight is my company that teaches it.
I started that in 2019 because I wanted to take my specialized knowledge and experience and make a difference, impact, and throw down the rope. That's where PIF comes from, Purpose, Impact, and Fulfillment. I started VestRight to fulfill a purpose that I felt I had a calling to make an impact on other people's lives. That brings me fulfillment.
I don't like the word happy. The word happy is temporary. Let me let you know a little secret. None of you are searching to be happy. What you're searching for is fulfillment. Whether you know it or not, you are searching for fulfillment because fulfillment can be lasting. Happiness is temporary. You can be going through a trial or tribulation and a tough time and still have fulfillment. That's why I started VestRight.
Here it is, and it took me a long time to get here, but here's the core of our business of what we do and teach. We teach how to go prospect off-market, raw land that has development potential. Let me break that down. Don't misunderstand me. We do on-market deals too, but our focus is off-market. Why off-market? It is because I want to be in control of my own deal flow. Without deal flow, nothing else matters.
I don't want to sit around and wait for a real estate agent to call me or for something to go on the open market for sale. Why? It is because I don't control that. Two, it is because it creates a competitive market that you've got to compete in, and oftentimes have to compete in environments where guys are doing things that don't make sense because they're either overly motivated, desperate, or completely uneducated. A lot of times, it's the second one.
Warren Buffett has a quote out there. Let me read it to you. It says, “Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.” A lot of people come into my space and take unnecessary risks because they don't know what they are doing. Why don't they know what they're doing? No one's teaching it. There are those out there teaching how to wholesale rural land and houses. They flip the man and make a couple of bucks. One of the guys lives down the street from me. We're talking about him promoting my stuff to his people as a way to level up and go to the next level. We know that no one is teaching how to prospect off-market raw land that has development potential.
Development potential is where you make your money. For those of you who have been around real estate a while, there's what's called value add. Get them the value added with multifamily, storage, mobile home parks, or any asset class or building they get into that operates on cap rates or NOI. They figure out how to add value to that asset by decreasing costs and increasing revenue.
We're not in the wholesale business. We're in the value add business of taking a raw piece of land and turning it into an approved development. Through that process, we bring substantial value to that deal. Our clients are ecstatic to buy our deals at approval, meaning approved for development to where they don't have to deal with that process of getting it there.
That is where those 6 or 7 figure paydays come from. It's because we bring value to the deal. It's also because it's a blue ocean area of real estate because I’m nothing against house wholesalers. I got plenty of friends who are house wholesalers and apartment syndicators. There's one on every street corner. Not only that, but they're five deep. They're in line. Why compete in a red ocean environment? Why not compete in a blue ocean environment?
It's a blue ocean because not everybody and their mother are out there teaching it. Everybody in their mom’s teaching house wholesaling is teaching apartment syndicating, storage facilities, or mobile homes. Name another guy teaching what I'm teaching that I know of nobody. I know that was long-winded, but hopefully, it was informative.
I belong to some mastermind groups. Another guy was talking about this. I haven't heard much about this concept. He was talking about the seven-figure paydays. It got me thinking about it. It takes a level up. When I got out of college, my parents were both school teachers. I was a school teacher for about a year and made $30,000 to $35,000 a year, whatever a teacher makes getting out. I started getting into real estate investing a couple of years later. I started hearing guys say, “What if you made $35,000 a month?” I was like, “There's no absolute way. That's crazy.” We started doing that, and it started leveling up.
Here is another level up. When I started reading about you, you talked about getting out of the hamster wheel of real estate investing. Sometimes I feel like I can be in that hamster wheel. We own a wholesaling type of business. We do a couple of hundred houses a year, and it is a lot of work at the end of the day. A lot of real estate investors who are reading this are intrigued. Can anyone step into this space? What does that look like? I'm used to flipping a bunch of houses. Stepping into this space is intriguing. Can anyone step into this with your education? What does that learning curve look like for them?
Let me start off by saying, “You have a huge leg up.” Here's what I mean by that. I've spoken to rooms that are full of wholesalers, whether physically or virtually. We've educated several house wholesalers. The reason you all have a leg up is that house wholesalers are no questions asked. The best off-market prospectors there are. All you got to do is shift your criteria of what you're looking for and become a deal flow machine.
You all know off-market prospecting. That's huge because, without the deal flow, nothing else matters. As far as the education side and learning this, let's first break a couple of things down before I get into how long it takes and the different options of how to get into it. If there's one thing that your readers or followers could get from this interview would be this.
If you're going to come into this space and do off-market raw land that has development potential and get it approved for development, you need to understand that you never close on these deals if you're going to pay development value for the land. I go and talk to Joe Blow Farmer and his land sitting there as is. It's maybe worth $5,000 an acre.
That's typical. We all have towns and farmlands.
There are certain areas in the country where that farmland might be worth $20,000 an acre. My point is, let's say as is, it's worth $5,000 an acre, but as a developer, I'm willing to pay him or her $50,000 an acre. It is 10X more. The key is that if I'm going to pay that 10X more, I don't close on the purchase until after I get the development approved. Depending on where that is in the country, that's a 9-to-18-month process. People say, “How do you get Billy Bob to wait 9 to 18 months?”
Everybody's used to real estate deals closing in 3 days to 60 days. In the craziness of the last couple of years, it is much quicker. I don't know. Put yourself in Billy Bob's shoes. Billy Bob owns ten acres. Billy, would you like me to pay you $50,000 now or $500,000 a year from now? I've never had one property owner say, “I'll take the $50,000 now.” If they said that, I'd do it. No problem. Don't play in this space and close these deals like a normal real estate transaction because, in the stupidity that was happening from mid-20 to mid-22, there were guys coming in, paying development values, and closing right away. Guess who's licking their wounds now? They are.
They say, “Land eats three meals a day when the market is coming down.”
As soon as you take the title, you lose all your options. Everybody in our country knows that the market has changed. Property owners aren't surprised that you might have to come and revisit the price. Because I haven't taken the title, I can revisit the price and push the closing out to the other side of this recession. Worst case scenario, I can walk if I need to, but I don't have any of those options if I close it and take the title. If there’s one thing you all could learn from me, don't play in this space and close it like a normal real estate transaction because that is going to get you in trouble. You might luck out here and there, and you think you are brilliant, but I promise you that's not brilliance.
One question is, how many deals fallout? What's a fallout percentage? You tie these up for 9 to 18 months. How many deals don't get approved? I've heard that a lot. In towns, they're like, “No, we don't want development here. We're not going to approve this.”
You should know the jurisdiction and their appetite before you get involved. Knock on wood, thank the lord. Our track record on projects we attempted to get approval on, we've not got a project approved for several years. You got to understand. Many people make mistakes with politicians, jurisdictions, and governmental bodies. They see them as the enemy. They see them as it is us against them. The first thing you need to do is shift that mindset. It's not us against them. You need to look at the jurisdiction as your partner.
They want growth in their jurisdiction. They want it on better terms. What I talk about or advise people is that we teach them to figure out what a property owner's hot buttons are and what's important to them, and structure the deal around their hot buttons to where it's a win-win. A great negotiation book never splits the difference, but one thing I do not like in that book is that he says, “Win-wins aren't possible.” That is not the truth. You figure out the hot buttons and structure a deal around that to where it is a win for both parties.
It's no different than the jurisdiction. You got to figure out what's important to them and what they want the public to see. They're elected officials. You got to figure out what story they want to tell. You take care of those hot buttons. You might even be willing to fall on a sword for them publicly to make them look good. You are winning in other areas of the overall structure of the project to where it's a win-win. You got to shift your mindset of how you view these governmental bodies. Otherwise, it's an uphill battle. We got a project approved. That jurisdiction hadn't approved a project in over a decade. It was because we went into it with this mindset.
It's all about the mindset shift. I've been used to the quick nickels. You get in, get out. Two weeks, 30 days in and out, and that's what I've been used to. When you put it like this, is it easier to market, slow down, do one deal, and make seven figures instead of 100 houses?
We got everything approved. Allied is based in Dallas, Texas, where our headquarters is and our whole team. I'm in Scottsdale. I'm on the board at this point. That company is scaling all over the country. When you're scaling at that level, to be frank, you are going to have more deals, not get past the due diligence process because it's how it works. It's part of the economies of scale.
Up until a few years ago, it was me and a couple of people for several years. I could be anywhere in the world and still be running my business by utilizing technology. The reason we're able to do deals all over the country without having offices all over the country is that you aren't the boots on the ground. The fun thing part about our model is your engineers and consultants do 90% of the lifting. You're more of an overseer.
When we go do a deal in some new jurisdiction in the country, the first thing we're doing is figuring out who the best engineers are in that area that have a good relationship with the jurisdiction because they are our boots on the ground and representatives. It's fun that way. I understand it. We call it the hamster wheel, the house wholesalers. I’m nothing against you all. Bless you all. I want nothing but the best.
What I enjoy about my model as far as my legacy is I don't have to find a desperate, motivated seller to make money. I don't have to buy below market to make money. I make money by bringing value to the deal. You have one legacy. I have one legacy. Those property owners have one legacy. We all have one legacy. Every decision we make, every single day action we take or don't take. Every movement you make every single day is a part of your one legacy. The moves and how you handle me impact my legacy and vice versa.
Here's what I know. I want a part of my legacy to be that I care about my sellers and their legacy. I understand that them selling me their property might be one of the biggest transactions, if not the biggest transaction, of their legacy. The last thing I want to do is try to figure out a way to rip it from them for less than it's worth because we don't make our money by ripping below the market. We make our money by increasing the value of the asset.
You started to get me to think about the legacy in general. Let's wrap the show up with that. You've been doing this for many years. You've had this journey within the last few years scaling the business, but you have PIF, Purpose, Impact, and Fulfillment. You are educating people on this. Can you talk about your journey? What has been going through your life and starting to reflect? You talked about the five people you want to meet one-on-one repetitively. Talk to our audience about this season of life you're in.
It's the most disciplined and intentionally fulfilling phase of my life I've ever been in. The first 40 years of my life, and part of the reason why I didn't ge generate substantial wealth through the Great Recession because that was a huge wealth generation opportunity is because I didn't put value in things like podcasts, courses, masterminds, books, and mentors. I didn't value any of that. I started dipping my toe into it several years ago. I went all in a few years ago.
The way I've been able to get into the place I am now is through two main points. One is faith. I love Jesus. I wouldn't call myself religious. I don't believe in checking the exterior boxes. I have an amazing relationship with Jesus. The reason I do is because I don't take the relationship for granted. I'm disciplined and intentional with that relationship. If you want to have a good marriage, you better be disciplined and intentional in that relationship. It's no different than Jesus.
My faith is the number one reason. What started causing a pivot in my faith was, in 2016, I heard a sermon that I'd never heard before. I've been in the church since eight years old. Just because you believe doesn't mean you have faith. That's me taking what he spoke and putting it in my own words, but because you believe doesn't mean you have faith. Up until then, I always looked at believing and faith as the same thing. The reality is they're far different.
I spun off of that and came up with another slogan of mine, which is Believe, Action, and Faith. It doesn't have to be spiritual. It could be your business. You are in a position where you have the freedom of choice. You can tell yourself whatever story you want to tell yourself. You can make it come true, whatever you want that story to be.
First, you got to believe in whatever it is you're trying to accomplish. Second, you got to take action to try to accomplish it, but after that, you're done. The last part is faith. For those who are trying to control everything and won't leave everything up to faith, life is challenging for you. Without faith and realizing you're not in control of everything, you have no shot in hell of any type of lasting peace in your life. Without faith, peace is not possible. Whenever I fall out of peace, within seconds, I can quickly go over and say, “I'm not exercising my faith muscle. I'm trying to control everything.” My number one is my faith.
Number two, and I'm guilty of this until the last few years, is I wasn't trying to serve first receive second. The more I've tried to serve, make a difference, and do it genuinely and authentically, without expecting anything back. People talk all the time about, “It's crazy how when you give and throw it on the rope and how it comes back tenfold.” You don't want to go into it with that mindset because I don't think it's blessed the same way. You got to do it because you genuinely want to do it. I'm telling you, it works. You're a magnet. People want to be a part of that.
It might not work all the time. A lot of people relay that to money. They were like, “If I give, it's going to come back.”
A lot of the time, it's not money.
It could be your purpose and fulfillment. That's priceless.
The biggest of all and part of my business being where it is at is because I went through a process in 2020 of having to humble myself and acknowledge the biggest problem with my company was me. I was the one getting in the way. I have this thing called ENE, Entrepreneur, Not Executive. Most entrepreneurs are not phenomenal executives.
I made this choice because I needed to get out of the way and allow my business to accomplish all the opportunities to accomplish. The business has scaled since then. I call that scaling through humility. The more humble I'm pushing myself and trying to grow to become more humble, there's no question that there is wisdom found through humility. I have a verse, Proverbs 11:2, on my computer. It says, “Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” Daily I'm working on my humility.
I did a video on humility. That was the greatest. When they started to study the company, it was good to great. They started to study companies, and a lot of it was because the owner had humility. It takes, especially when an entrepreneur like yourself, to get out of that seat and is not the face, power, and leader, and no one is going to him with all the questions. It takes a lot of humility to get out of that seat.
Humility is a beautiful gift if you will allow yourself to receive it. My business model is the carrot and how we attract people. They want a part of my blue ocean business model. The other thing we didn't talk about is that most of the risk and most of the capital required to play in the land of element space is non-existent with that model I taught because the real risk and capital start when you close on the dirt. The beautiful thing about the model is you do simultaneous closing. You use your buyer's money to pay your seller and make your scrape out of the middle. You held the title for a split second.
We are familiar with that model.
If you decide to put a shovel in the ground, that is where you take on the substantial debt, capital requirements, and risk. The model avoids all that. That's why the barrier of entry is lowered so much for the students we teach. We had a lot of students. We teach you A to Z how to do what we do, but more students and everybody said, “Cody, your business model is brilliant.” Let me humble you. This wasn't the original intention. It is just people kept asking for it.
What happens is a lot of students want to partner with my company, Allied Development. That wasn't why I started VestRight. It wasn't to be self-serving. It was to teach people what I do. More students kept asking, “Can we partner with you?” After hearing that enough times, we allow students to partner with us where they find a ready, willing seller and teed up. We'll come in and negotiate the purchase. We will run all the approvals and get it all approved for development. We will sell it, capitalize the whole thing, and cut the student or partner in on the profit. People are like, “Cody, that's brilliant. That was smart to start that education company.” It wasn't. It happened.
With your model, it’s good for a student to start getting their feet wet to learn and be educated during the process.
Do your first couple of deals with us and do them on your own, whatever it is you want to do.
Cody, thank you so much. What’s one last thing you'd like to say to our audience? It doesn't have to be about the land or business. What do you want to say to them?
One is I want to provide your audience with a free playbook where they can learn a whole lot more about my model. I can't guarantee things, but if I could, I would guarantee you that you'll come out the other side of that playbook much more knowledgeable. Even if you never do what it is that I do, if you have the knowledge, it's going to bring power to you when you walk into the room.
Here's the reality. I'm in a room full of real estate experts or investors. A lot of times, I have a leg up on most of them because I understand this side of the industry. You say, “No, I'm in the house wholesaling business. I'm in the apartment syndication business. It won't serve me.” That's not true because I'll go after that same deal and see the opportunity you don't. I know that I can add a couple more doors. I can split off a lot. I can do this, that, or the other thing. You don't know that. I have an advantage. Even if you never do what I do, I would suggest you understand the model and get educated because dirt is the name of the game when it comes to real estate. None of these other things exist in real estate without first starting with the dirt.
Cody, thank you so much for being on the show. Where can they get the free book?
Go to VestRight.com/Brett, your name. We created a link for you all to get that playbook for free. Check it out and get through it. You are going to learn something.
That is a wrap with Cody Bjugan. Thank you so much, Cody. Thank you so much for checking out the Iron Deep Channel. If you liked this, slam on that like button and hit the subscribe button here. Remember to leave us a comment and let's mingle in the comment section. Here at Iron Deep, we strive to create content for middle-aged businessmen that involves identity, purpose, and legacy, all with a foundation that's rooted in Christ. Check out our website at IronDeep.com to apply to be a part of the Iron Deep Brotherhood Community. Thank you guys so much, and I'll see you next time.
