"You Have No Freaking Idea What You're Getting Into"

[Music] Brought to you by Xander Insurance. Compare rates from topter term life insurance companies in seconds at xander.com. So me and my wife, I was looking for some advice. We want to take our family, we have three small children. We our dream is to buy a Canadian fishing lodge and run that from about May to November every year. Um, the issue that I'm running into, just because I'm new at this, is trying to come up with figuring out how to come up with a down payment for something like that. You know, some of these lodges range from $250,000 to millions of dollars. Um, I'm trying to figure out what's the best way to go about doing something like that. It depends on how much money you have to spend. You you you don't have any money to put a down payment down. I mean, I've I've got I think I could probably come up with between my me and my wife and, you know, asking my parents for, you know, a small a small amount to pay back, I could probably come up with maybe around 100 grand, but it seems like that won't take me very far. What do you make right now? I make about 90,000. What do you do? But I'm in I'm in construction and a job I really don't like. I'm away from my kids, you know. Have you ever worked in a Canadian fishing lodge? No, but I'm really really good with my hands. Really knowledge knowledgeable about fishing and hunting. I'd be doing both. And zero knowledge about business. Zero knowledge about business. Yes, sir. A fishing lodge is 90% business, 10% fishing. I I'm just going off of what I've talked to. I I've got a couple, you know, mutual friends now, of course, since I'm in this process of owners up there. I've talked to them and they both the both the ones I talked to are they've been they've owned a lodge now for about 10 15 years and they didn't do this before. Didn't run business before. Um one of them was in construction just like me. Yeah. I I'll tell you I don't I I've never been to Canadian fishing lodge. I don't know what what that is. Is it something Do you live on the property? Is it like a a bed and breakfast where you live there and you provide, you know, all of this for for your guests and and you're living on the property? Yep. We would live on the property with uh with our my family. And what we're looking for, we are not going to provide the American plan, which is food and everything. It's more of just you're coming up there, your fishing, we'll take you, we'll guide your fishing trip, we'll guide your hunting trip, show you where to go, stuff like that. But we're not going to provide the American plan, which is all your meals included. So just play this out with me. So you said these could range from 250,000 plus, right? All the way up to a couple million. So let's just pretend you said, "Okay, I'm looking at the $250,000 plan. My family lives on the property. I put 100,000 down. So we've got the place, we're living there, and now we're starting to rent out the experience to guests. What What happens next on your end? Like what's the next step? I guess I don't know what you mean. What do you mean next step? So you've got the lodge, you purchased the property. What's the next step? How do you build out the business? How do you get people to come to you? How do you build a profit? The next one's Yeah, there's already an existing customer base on most of them because you're buying a turnkey. But the a lot of the lodges up there are for sale are elderly people that are trying to get out and they haven't marketed in years. They don't do online marketing. They're only they're only relying off of their annual return customers. Um, like I said, both the people I talked to that have purchased the lodge in the past 10 years said it was really easy to get a lot to to up their their customer basis. It was really easy with simple marketing tactics, you know, and what do they earn? Like what's their what's what do they what's their net profit? What are they getting out of this? I mean, I couldn't ask them that. I'm not close enough to them to ask them exactly what they're earning. But the first If you want, if you said, "I'm going to put $150,000. I'm going to put $100,000 down. I'm going to buy a $250,000 house with $150,000 with $100,000 down. I'm going to have a $150,000 mortgage." Mhm. And I'm going to start a new business and I don't know anything about the business other than I'm know about fishing. And I talked to three people who said it's a good idea. Um uh you know, so the elderly people are going to owner finance the 150 and hope you make a go of it. Okay. Yep. Um um so are you are you 27 or 29? 28. Yeah. Almost like I've done this. Okay. And um so I'm your old ugly uncle uh that's 64 that loves you. Okay. Um, you are about 90% dream and about 10% reality in talking to you. Yeah. You have no freaking idea what you're getting into. You just think you do. And it's very romantic with rainbows and Skittles and unicorns in your head right now. And when you get up there and get dirt under your fingernails and realize this is freaking mess and what have I gotten my family into, that's about the time you're going to discover how this really works. So I I really would love for you to go work at one for one of these people, operate it for them as a part of the purchase plan before you close on the deal. like run it for a year and see the numbers and see what is wrong with this because the only impression you have is all positive. And there are three rules of business, Caleb. It's going to take twice as long as you think. It's going to cost twice as much as you think. And you're not the exception. Those are the three rules of business. And you you know the the way you're painting this is you are using fantasy language, not reality language. And it scares me for you. I'm afraid you're going to turn this dream into a nightmare if you're not real careful. And so I'm afraid of that, too. I I really want you to get some reality on you in this thing and get under the rainbows and the Skittles and find out what the flip is really going on up there. And you know, why is it that there seems to be a lot of these for sale? And um you know, there's a problem here. Okay. So, I I I really want to go work up there. Uh, I want you to take your family up there on vacation for three weeks. Find an old couple that wants to sell a 250,000 one. Write down a a a contract that says, "I'm going to work for you for a year. At the end of that, I'm going to close on this if I find out things to be the right thing, be the way that you say they are. And if I can get financing or if you provide me financing and what's it mean for you to be doing business in another country?" And now, now you are an immigrant. I don't know what it means for an America to immigrate permanently and buy a business in Canada. I have no idea how to do that. Um I do know it's probably more difficult than it was 12 months ago. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Um so, you know, you probably got some issues there. And um you know, I really want to understand the business better than you are doing. And so the way I always ask myself when I'm going into something as a business person, would I hire me to do that? And if the answer is I don't know what the flip I'm doing. No, I wouldn't hire me to do that. Then that tells me not to go into that space until I learn some more about it. And I am 100% sure you don't know what the flip you're doing on this. Well, there's no fish. There's no numbers around. I don't doubt that. But you've never run a business of any kind and you're stepping into this. I'm not trying to be a dream killer. I love killing nightmares, though. I love killing nightmares. So, I want you to go forward with this slowly, carefully, and much more wisely. And then, while you're doing that, work like a crazy man and pile up some cash and come up with your down payment and get one of the old people to owner finance it because I don't think a bank's going to touch us with a 10-ft pole, dude. And that's probably good for you that they won't. So um so guys um the wonderful thing about America is that we live in the free enterprise system. And the wonderful thing about America is that 54% of the gross domestic product is brought to you by small businesses. All the goods and services totaled up over half of them are delivered by small businesses. People like Caleb who started something. So I love encouraging the free enterprise system. I also have spent 20 years coaching over 20,000 small businesses through our entree leadership brand and I see all the things that go wrong when you're doing this. So, um you know, you're not the exception. It's going to take twice as long and it's going to cost twice as much. Those are the three rules and they do apply. They apply to me when I get ready. You're not the exception. When I get ready to go into When I get ready to go into We're going to open an app. Uh we're working on one for Dr. John Deloney right now. Let me tell you what, our projections on that are known as a guess. Uhhuh. We have no idea what the stupid app's going to do. And we need to build out our business model as if the thing does nothing and then when it does something, be pleasantly surprised. Yeah. You know, and so uh and you can get digital advice, but everybody's got a dad gum opinion. They're like armpits. They stink. Oh my god. Caleb Caleb needs to invest. His first investment needs to be in your book. Build a business. Give him let me send him send him entree leadership and send him build a business you love. I want you to do this I want you to do it in such a way Caleb that it doesn't kill you. If anyone depends on your income you need affordable term life. Never cash value insurance. Visit xander.com today for