Renatus - BIF webinars 3/6 - after intro webinar, before follow-up webinar (testimonial)

At just 19 years old, Bob Tierney became a remodeling contractor involved in historical restoration in Oak Park, Illinois.  He became a craftsman, and started own company in the 1990s.

He worked on a rehab project in Chicago, what was once a gorgeous, luxurious Victorian-era home built in 1893, which had 13 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.  But through the years it remained vacant and fell into disrepair.  Homeless people routinely stayed in the abandoned house, even keeping warm with fires in the fireplace.  Of course, Bob and his colleagues sure had their work cut out for them. Among other things, they acid-washed the roof and gutted the interior completely.

And $1.1 million later, the property was restored to its former glory, complete with modern-day amenities.  It was now worth $2,450,000.  The investor sold and came away with a handsome profit of $700,000.

But Bob was not the investor.

Instead, after slaving away at 60 to 80 hour a week, he and his co-workers earned only $60,000, less than a tenth of that.  He saw the same thing happen in every other job before that.

And he wondered why.

After all, without him, there would have been no deal.  It was a classic love-hate dilemma.  He passionately loved his profession, yet still had reasons to be dissatisfied with it.  He was destined to struggle.  He was utterly unprepared for retirement.  He was never going to make more than $100,000 in a single year.  He was burdened with a pitiful credit score of just 400.  It wasn't working, and he couldn't possibly continue on the same path.

Bob mulled over what led to this sorry state of affairs.  To be sure, wealth wasn't winning some big lottery ticket.  Even investors have to work to earn their income.  The difference was that each job Bob took was a case of the investor's company owning the owner, instead of him owning it.  Regular W-2 workers like him spent their lives trading their time for dollars, as if they were selling off part of their lives.  It was pretty clear to him that actual ownership was the key to the profit he both needed and craved.

It went even farther than just real estate deals.  Corporations of all kinds benefited from other people's liabilities.  The government benefited from people's taxes.  All that didn't jibe with the conventional, age-old wisdom he grew up with.

He decided the only way out of this dilemma was to become an investor himself.

But how?  So many things stacked against him.  The lack of knowledge, of time, of money and credit.  He graduated from DePaul University in Chicago with good grades, but all those years in school never taught him anything money, taxes, interest, financial strategies—nothing at all about financial literacy, much less real estate.  That also hinted to a lack not only of knowledge, but also a perspective, or way of thinking about these things that ordinary people didn't have, but entrepreneurs did.  Poorer people operated in a system of debt, liabilities and taxes.  Wealthy people operated in a system of passive income, accumulated assets and tax write-offs.  The wealthy also had advantage of networking with like-minded people, not just working for them like he did.  There would be huge opportunities from thinking differently, he thought.

The one big thing that manifested from all those other things was fear.

Bob then searched for real estate education.  One of the first programs he found was Donald Trump's now infamous show promoting Trump University, with Trump himself landing at O'Hare Airport, making his way to Rosemont.  Bob paid the admissions fee, expected to learn, but it was nothing but a sales pitch.  Trump tried to sell a $50K-coaching program payable by next Sunday night, at which time the discount would end.  Bob was livid.  It was crazy, nothing but a big gimmick, all hype and high-pressure sales tactics.  To make matters worse, it wasn't the only scam out there that operated this way.  And the more of these bogus guru exhibitions he attended, the stronger his desire to overcome grew.  He was sick of making other people rich.  He needed to get real estate education somewhere to be successful.  The opportunities were out there.

Allied with his rage of determination was fear.  He reminded himself that fear was just the normal reaction to the unknown.  That fear would only lead to heartbreaking, self-limiting beliefs, the kind that paved the road to so many broken dreams.  But as God as his witness, he wasn't about to let that to happen.  Real estate investment wasn't a pipe dream.  Not when the population was growing and saw the inevitable demand for housing he was renovating.  Not when so many other people were doing it.  People who weren't sitting on a couch attending a webinar and expecting money to roll in.  Especially people with their heads in the clouds who thought they could become a real estate experts at some three-day boot camp.

So he pressed on, doing his lonely due diligence for opportunity.  Ultimately, in January 2006, he found Renatus.

At his first workshop, he found no pressure, no upsells, and was never asked for his credit card.  Instead he found a community of people who in every respect seemed committed to making a change in the world, actual investors who seemed generous with their knowledge and skills.  They even conducted property tours.

Of course, after so many pitfalls, he wasn't about to let his guard down when they mentioned selling the education, despite their assurance that no purchase was necessary to participate in the marketing opportunity.  Some clever pyramid scheme could be grinding away within the machinery.  Yet again he was surprised.  The marketing model didn't promise payments or services for enrolling, but rather worked as a more legitimate direct sales marketing that focused more on the education than on recruitment.  Not that such a generous model that paid thousands of dollars was anything resembling a bad idea.

And the education wasn't the usual books and tapes brimming with useless, superficial information.  It involved live help, coaching, workshops and study groups.  It consisted primarily of a curriculum of different classes taught by actual real estate investment practitioners who had to have incomes of more than $1 million in the topic they were to teach.  They both online and recorded.  Renatus didn't have the ability to accept student loans, but Bob had the ability to earn while he learned.  Those remarkable classes covered a vast array of aspects on investing, tax and legal strategies, and two topics that particularly appealed to Bob—acquisition and credit management.

Because acquisition dealt with his lack of money, and credit management dealt with his lack of good credit.

On the money side, Bob soon learned from the intensives alone that for acquisitions—the first essential strategy for any real estate deal— the government provided unique incentives to the private sector for investors to participate in housing and job creation by giving huge tax deferments—one definite difference between linear and non-linear income systems—meaning that income is taxed, but wealth is not.  He learned there were more than 400 tax deductions for running expenses through businesses.  He learned that investors also bought material at discount which appreciated in value.  Among all the other means of obtaining money, banks also looked favorably on loans for real estate investments as opposed to other kinds of investments.  To illustrate, if someone went to a bank and tried to get a loan on an investment in stock, it would be impossible.  But if someone were to do the same with real estate, it was not only possible, but likely.

On the credit side, he learned not only how to repair his own personal credit, but how to obtain a $1 million line of credit through his own corporation for investing.  There was an origination fee, of course, but the interest rates were down.

Bob then took the chance and purchased the education.  He studied hard, and in his first deal with a partner, in which he split the profit 50-50, he gained a $22,500 profit which financed that entire education—a far cry a professional in almost any other area spending precious years paying off a student loan for a university education.

Bob never imagined quitting his job, but after just nine months, he shut down remodeling company.  Still, he did it responsibly.  The last three months he kept it open to finish projects and do right by his customers.  Soon afterward, with Scott and Nancy Rowe, he opened a training facility in Downers Grove with a seating capacity of two hundred, providing training to both current Renatus students and newcomers.  The Renatus business model is so successful it's been duplicated eight times in major cities across the nation.

Today his life is completely different.  He continued doing other deals, specializing in short sales, at times receiving grant money from municipal governments for historical restoration—not just to make money for himself, but to make a difference in those communities.  He takes to heart the advice that his mentor gave him: "Bob, don't become one of those investors who make one million dollars and forget where you came from.  Be willing to pay forward.  Help others.  Give back.  There's abundance for everyone.  As you learn more about us and become successful as an investor, don't forget." 

By working on the investor side, Bob no longer suffers that love-hate dilemma.  Through his newly formed corporation called IQ Investments, which now earns an annual revenue totaling $7 million.

And today he is a member of the Renatus Founders Advisory Board.

Bob stresses that if he can do this, anyone can.  Whether you focus on wealth creation, fixing your credit either corporate or personal, meeting and networking with people who have the experience, skills and success you want—you can do as he has, and attract different results in your life.

To continue to the last stage of the qualification process, click on the link below to schedule your own live participation in the third and final follow-up video.  You will receive an email to verify the time, and will have the opportunity to ask any further questions you have with the hosts.