Shannon Robnett: 12:09
I’ve heard the story of that kitchen window. Every single one of them heard that story as to why that’s important, you know. And I remember, you know, I was installing some bathroom partitions. I had a side gig that I teamed up with a door installer one winter when things were a little bit slow, and we were installing some bathroom partitions in a building that was that was a $12 million building, and it was a concrete tilt up, and one of the panels got poured one inch too long. And the building was I mean, they were literally setting the last panel when they figured this out, and they had to do some drastic things to make this work because somebody missed it and the panel was an inch too long.
And it’s not like, you know, these are concrete panels. They’re 30 ft wide. They’re, you know, 20 they were 38 ft tall. You know, you don’t just squeeze it in. You don’t just kick this panel out.
And so it’s lessons like that that cause serious disruption in schedule and in costs and things like that, that it’s the small things, it’s double checking them that that really makes the difference.
John Corcoran: 13:14
The other thing that you experienced growing up is that your parents did a lot of ten, 31 exchanges, which is where you buy a house, you live in it for a couple of years, and then you get it. You get the gain tax free. So you say that you never really lived in a neighborhood for very long. You ended up moving from house to house. Talk about that.
Shannon Robnett: 13:31
Well, you know, I remember when 1030 came out, you know, they weren’t always available, but they came out and my parents were talking about it. And, you know, next thing you know, our house is for sale. And they had a lot of, you know, they were developing commercial properties and they would instead of sell the property and, and enjoy the proceeds, they would sell the property and buy another piece of land and build another building. And, I saw them really pay attention to that. They were also able to cut out the taxes that are involved with long-term capital gains.
And it’s allowed them to retire at 50 years old because they weren’t cutting off 20% of their income every time they sold something. But I remember one time, you know, my dad had built a house that was in the parade of homes. It was, you know, a large production, and everybody toured the house and, and we were kind of getting excited because it was the final weekend of the parade. And my dad had said that if nobody buys this house, we get to move into it. We were so excited about having a new house that we could actually, you know, have all the upgrades and all this stuff.
And I remember we started moving stuff in on Sunday night, and we were thinking, man, this is good. The parade of homes is over. At 4:00 we started moving stuff in. They got a full-price offer on Monday morning, and we had to move into a rental because my dad had already sold our house that we lived in. And so we lived in this rental that you had to literally kick the carpet down to get the door to close.
It was that old orange shag carpet, and it was so worn out that you had to, you know, stamp it down so you could close your doors. But we were constantly moving. But I watched my parents literally build a position that, you know, their, their monthly income. The last buildings I built for them was in 2001, and their monthly income has stayed on par with what they were making in oh one because of inflation and rent increases. But they’ve literally, you know, parlayed everything they have.
And they just did it again with another house that they had for a rental. And they’re continuing that, you know, they’re in their 70s and they’re continuing to do that.
John Corcoran: 15:41
They don’t put down roots for very long in any one spot. Yeah, yeah.
Shannon Robnett: 15:44
About the time the carpet needs to be cleaned. We always sold them.
John Corcoran: 15:47
It’s funny how those lessons that are so painful as a kid end up being the lessons that really relish and drive you and motivate you and shape your life as an adult.
Shannon Robnett: 16:00
Well, and I’ve done that multiple times, you know, I built a house, you know, I was living with my parents at the time so that we could build this house three days before we moved into it. It sold. So I built one down the street. 11 months later, you know, my wife came to me and said, hey, you know what? If we built a little bit bigger floor, we would literally build this floor plan five times, and every time we built it, it got bigger and we added a three car garage.
We put a soaking tub in the master, we added a fireplace, and a double head shower. We just did all these things. And as our family grew, it grew from 1220ft² up to about 26 2700ft². But it was the same floor plan. We just kept moving because we could keep parlaying that equity until we still had the same house payment, but we had 2600ft² of house, and that was really where, you know, things made sense because we weren’t paying taxes on every single move.
We were doing it strategically and keeping the tax man out of our business.
John Corcoran: 17:02
Now you eventually go into the family business after a short stint in college. Your brother actually goes and makes about $50,000 one year right after high school. And you took a look at that. This is, I think, in the early 90s or something like that, back when $50,000 was a heck of a lot of money, I imagine.
Shannon Robnett: 17:22
94.
John Corcoran: 17:23
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a lot of money. And so you’re thinking like, forget this, I’m out of here. I’m going to go build some houses.
Shannon Robnett: 17:29
Yeah. I mean, I did a semester in college. I thought, you know, what’s the most progressive thing at the time, it was computer information systems, you know? And for context, John, I learned how to type in high school on a typewriter. We didn’t even have computers at our high school.
John Corcoran: 17:44
I did.
Shannon Robnett: 17:44
Too. I did too. Yeah. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 17:46
So for those of you that don’t know what that is, Google it. It is a typewriter.
Shannon Robnett: 17:50
Out. Yeah.
John Corcoran: 17:51
But you know, I’m watching this happen. And it didn’t take me long to realize I wanted to make money. I wanted to be able to afford a lifestyle for my family. It wasn’t really about a passion for me, you know? And so I quickly moved out after I did a semester of college.
I quit that and went on to build my businesses from there and haven’t looked back and haven’t regretted it at all. You know, when it came to my own kids, you know, I didn’t want to be the dad that said, hey, college is garbage. You can’t do that. You’re wasting your money. And so we had a whole different experience with my kids on how we did that.
And, but they also centered around conversations with money, you know, because if you’re going to handle it, you need to know how to handle it.
John Corcoran: 18:36
Right. And I want to get into those. But before I do You eventually made the transition from working with your hands, building houses to, I imagine, building a team to build a house and then getting to the point of syndicating, which is bringing together different investors together to form larger projects, which requires a whole different set of skills. That’s not an easy transition. You know, I have two people working in my house today that, you know, have been tradesmen their entire lives.
How did you make that transition from working with your hands with a hammer in your hands, or a saw to the point of bringing together deals and investors and having to provide a return to your investors? Those are a totally different set of skills.
Shannon Robnett: 19:21
Well, you know, I was sitting there in that 2600 square foot house, and I would work during the day doing all the things you just described, running heavy equipment and all that kind of stuff. And I would come home and I’d work on the spreadsheets and I’d work on the bids and I’d put all that together. And I’m thinking, man, this is just getting to be too much. And I had a good buddy of mine, Keith Hansen, who was running his own framing company, and he was trying to get out of the daily swinging a hammer, too. And I thought, you know, if I could make you my working superintendent, then I could have more time to finish up the bids, get the projects out and go get more work.
Right. And so I literally had this conversation with my wife, and I said, I want to hire Keith and I want to pay him. He’s asking for $75,000 a year. She looked at me and she goes, we didn’t make $75,000 last year. How are you going to do this?
Right? And so when I took that leap of faith, I was able to triple the size of the company in a year because I had more time and I was able to then shrink what I was doing down into a skill set that fit and was able to put more deals together. Then, as I started doing that, I started seeing deals that, hey, I would like to do this. I don’t have, you know, I don’t have a customer coming to me saying, hey, will you build this building? But here’s a lot.
Here’s what I can do. And I quickly found that I didn’t have the money for it. So I would partner with a doctor. I’d partner with a high net worth individual. We do the deal.
Everybody would make money. And the last deal I did like that was in 2017. I started a 180-unit apartment complex with a family office that brought $19 million in capital to the deal, and it was just a really straightforward, you know, split on. I built the buildings. They provided the capital.
I had a property management team that was coming in that brought all that together. And then we would sell it and we’d split the profits. Well, after that, the family office kind of split up. And so I’d lost my capital source. And so in 2019, I had to go find another capital source.
And so I began learning how to syndicate. And I was working with a guy that actually used to syndicate capital for movies because, you know, you can’t get a loan to make the next Batman movie. Obviously, the Joker proved why you don’t want to do that, right? The new Joker movie is just an absolutely massive bomb. But that’s why you can’t get a loan, right?
And so he showed me how to stack capital and how to involve investors. And, I got on pretty well with Excel spreadsheets. And so then I just started talking to friends and family and growing my network. And, and over the last four and a half years, we’ve raised about $75 million in capital and deployed for our investors. And and we’ve had some really good exits for them because they’re this is all a market that I learned from the very beginning when I built that first industrial building for myself in 2001 and used all my capital and realized I didn’t like that, that was a very bad feeling for me, because I had all my capital tied up in a very illiquid thing.
And so then I began to partner. And how do you work those out? And just kind of it’s just kind of been one slow step after another that, you know, 30 years later, I look like an overnight success.
John Corcoran: 22:31
Well, it’s I mean, it’s really a process of taking looking at the list of tasks that you do, looking at the highest and best use of your time and everything below it, and just, you know, eliminating those things, delegating those things, and sometimes taking a leap of faith, like you said, where you hire someone at 75,000 a year, even when you hadn’t made it the year before, with that, you know, knowledge that we’re going to make this work because it’s going to free up my time to bring in more deals. That’s really cool. You mentioned the kids earlier. I want to hear about your son because you had a deal with your kids where I love this because my first car was an absolute piece of crap. And I am really proud of that.
But you went out and you bought a $1,500 junker car at auction and then said to your son, you’re going to make me an $80 a month payment to cover everything on the car. Tell us a little bit about that.
Shannon Robnett: 23:24
Well, you know, the thing is, how do you get a kid to understand what? How money works, right? How do payments work? How can you get involved in deals where they say, hey, you’re approved for this money, but you can’t, you can’t afford it, right? And so I went and got this car.
I just finished building a car dealership and they helped me. You went to the auction? We bought this car and I said, I’ll cover everything on it. It’s $80 a month. You need to learn how to make a payment.
And I didn’t want him to get into a deal where, you know, the alternator goes out. He’s got to fix that. So I just said, you know, this is the deal. And any of you kids that want to drive this car, it’s 80 bucks a month. And so when it all came their turn in Idaho, you could drive at 14.5.
My youngest came to me. He wasn’t quite 14.5. He said, dad, I’m hoping you can take me to this job interview. I want to get a job. And I said, well, what do you need to get a job for?
And he says, well, dad, I gotta have the 80 bucks a month I gotta have. I want the car, I gotta have the 80 bucks a month. And I said, well, where do you get a job at 14.5? And he said, well, McDonald’s and McDonald’s would hire Stillwell at 14.5. And I did not have to ask any of my kids to go get a job, because they knew that there was a financial reward for them, that for 80 bucks a month he had a car that everything was covered on, and he made that payment religiously.
And, you know, once he’d done that for two years, I bought him a vehicle and sent him off to college with it. And he had a vehicle that he doesn’t have a payment on. But it was through that where they learned that things cost money and nothing is free and not that you can’t give your kids. You can do whatever you want. They’re your kids.
But you know, when you put things out there, freedom and mobility and things like that and make that something that they can find the positive in getting a job because nobody likes getting a job. You know, you’re 14 years old, you want to go write dirt bikes and and, you know, go play with your friends and, you know, Call of Duty or whatever. But when you realize that these are the things, this is the only way you’re getting a car. This is the only way you’re getting, you know. Either you’re riding your bike to and from baseball practice, or you have a car to drive because you have a job.
Yeah. And so by doing things like that, it really changed how they looked at work, not as something to be hated, but it was something that opened the door for them to do the things and have the things that they wanted.
John Corcoran: 25:50
And I love that you charge that amount. You know, it was something meaningful. It wasn’t debilitating. It wasn’t minuscule. It was something meaningful that they had to pay for.
And I went to a high school where there were a number of kids in my school whose parents bought them a brand new, you know, car when they got 16. And man, did they not appreciate it. Most of them would run into something or, you know, damage it in some way.
Shannon Robnett: 26:16
And, you know, three of my kids all drove this car and they all hit something with it, you know? But it wasn’t I mean, it was a $1,500 car, right? You didn’t even bother fixing it. I think, you know, my daughter is still driving that car today. It’s got a white bumper on the back.
You know, because somebody ran into her and she made some money on the insurance and didn’t want to spend the money fixing this old car, but it runs fine. And it’s one of those things that once they’ve learned what payments cost them and what it does for their future, they’ve gotten pretty okay with not having them if they can.
John Corcoran: 26:50
What about for dad? What about you? Imagine you live in a nice neighborhood. You’ve done well in your career. You’ve got neighbors, right?
You know. And what is it about you that you know that you’re okay with your son or daughter driving this junky car around town? Is there a part of you that’s that? Maybe I don’t want to put words in your. I don’t wanna put words in your mouth, but, but but you seem like it’s a point of pride.
Absolutely. Your kids are driving this junky car around town.
Shannon Robnett: 27:22
Well, I mean, let’s go into the fact that my daughter is driving this car that’s still worth 1500 bucks, but has $65,000 in the bank. Right.
John Corcoran: 27:31
And I want to get to that. Let’s talk about I mean so yeah. So talk about this.
Shannon Robnett: 27:36
Rest of the story. It really is a nice story. You know, I live in a neighborhood. I live in a million and a half dollar home that I rent because I can rent it for about $4,000 less than a payment would be on it. And I live in the same neighborhood, and my money is invested. I would have to invest in a down payment on this house that’s making a return that more than pays the rent on it.
John Corcoran: 28:02
This is really interesting. Someone who’s a fourth generation in real estate. And you rent because.
Shannon Robnett: 28:07
Because the thing is, your house does not make you money because you’re the guy that has to pay for it. Right, right. So, I mean, if you just figure out what the payment is on a million-and-a-half dollar house, right, you got to put 20% down. You got to put a minimum of 10% down at that part. But usually that’s a jumbo loan.
So you got to put 20% down. So you have $300,000 tied up.
John Corcoran: 28:29
This is that.
Shannon Robnett: 28:31
You can’t use it. Or I could rent the house. My rent is $3,500 a month, and I’m absolutely top of the market. But that $3,000, $300,000 that I put down is making me 12%. It’s paying my rent.
And that’s growing. Right. So there’s different ways to look at debt, right? And so when you understand that it’s the same position my kids were in, right? They understood what was good debt and what was bad debt.
John Corcoran: 28:57
And talk about that. So your daughter decides to go to culinary school, and you had this great story where you said to her, I will pay for your cost of the culinary school, but you had a big condition. Talk about it.
Shannon Robnett: 29:11
Well, my daughter, she comes to me and she’s all starry eyed man and we love to cook, right. Her and I, that’s always our thing. We love to be in the kitchen. But I she’s she comes back and dad, I really want to go to Culinary Institute of New York and it’s this beautiful school, amazing campus, great five star program. I mean, you know, you could list the alma mater that came out of there.
They’re all over TV and everything. And I said, man, that sounds amazing. How are you going to pay for that? And she goes, well, what do you mean? And I said, well, I said, you know, I will.
I want to see results for my money. Right? And so I said, listen, let’s teach you again about debt. So we went and got student loans right there willing to loan you money. And I said, when you’ve worked in your field of study for two years, I’ll, I’ll pay for it.
Okay. So really think about what you want. Because if you go get a sociology degree, is that going to provide you with the lifestyle you want? Is it going to do the things that you want and are you going to do that? There’s so many people that go get a college degree and never use it.
So she does that. She goes to school, has a great time, winds up with a great degree, comes back, goes to work. She hadn’t been there. I think she was there right at two years when she comes to me and says, okay, dad, I’ve been here two years, what about paying for this? And I sat down with her and.
And see, when you get out of college, you gotta start making that payment. So she was making a $500 payment every single month on her student loans. And she’s like, man, this is aggravating. And I go, yeah, but look at where it got you, right? You got value for it.
You’re making better money because you have the degree. You know, all of this is working. And so she came to me and she said, dad, I’ve been here two years. You could pay for it. And I said, you’re right.
Bring me your stuff. We sat down and I and I wrote out the check, and I left it blank on who it was to intentionally. And I said, Kyla, I can either pay off your student loans right now and you have no more $500 payment. She goes, man, that would sure feel good. I said, or we could, I could show you how to invest this money that will make you more than $500.
You’ll be able to grow this, pay off your student loans and have money for down payment on a house. Maybe start your own restaurant. And she goes, what? And I go, well, how do you think I make my money? Right?
And so it began this conversation that we began to have a monthly investment conference where we would talk about, well, what about this? And I’m looking at that. And she began to really learn what it meant to be an investor. And I’m very proud to say that today, three and a half years, four years later, she’s completely paid off her student loan debt, and she’s got $65,000 that she’s managed to invest and grow, and she’s still investing and growing. And so she’s learned that culinary school comes with a cost.
She’s learned how to make payments on that debt. She learned how to invest to pay off that debt. She understood that. Had she paid off that in full, yes, she would have avoided 8% or 9% interest on those student loans. But she would not have ever had the opportunity to become an investor.
And so there’s times in your lives where good debt is a good thing. You know, debt is a good thing because you’re utilizing that debt to improve your life. And investing also is a good thing. And so she was able to do that by herself, creating a nice nest egg. She’s getting done with an assignment in Colorado Springs, will be back here in December and probably going to look to buy her first house.
You know, so she’s 25 years old. She’s got enough to put 20% down on a house and be in really great shape to move forward.
John Corcoran: 32:58
And did you have her invest all of that money and wanted dad’s syndicated projects or did you? So what were the investments that you helped to guide her through?
Shannon Robnett: 33:08
We looked at all different kinds of things. We looked at stocks, we looked at crypto. We looked at, you know, annuities. We looked at all different kinds of things. And we got a feel for what we needed.
And, you know, I hear this from a lot of people. They come to me and they say, hey, you know, I really want to invest for cash flow. And my first question is, if you got a 7% return on the money you have, can you live your life? Well, no I can’t. Then you really need to invest for growth.
And having that conversation with her, she understood. See, when you’re 65 years old, you don’t have time to go make more money. So you need a safer investment that’s doing 6 or 7% on a quarterly return. But when you’re young, you can take bigger risks, you can do different things. And she was able to really do some things that really grew that money very rapidly and was able to take advantage of that and create a nest egg.
Well, obviously the larger that nest egg got, the more conservative she’s gotten and what she’s doing. But it really was something that helped her to grow. And now she’s asking me for advice instead of me always stepping in like dads do and telling them what we think they ought to do, even though they didn’t ask.
John Corcoran: 34:17
Yeah, it’s so nice to be able to be on a kind of a level playing field there where they’re actually interested in the advice and you’re not trying to like, you know, stuff it down their throat and get them to listen to you. Absolutely. All right. I want to ask you also about you having a stepdaughter who wanted to go into the dental field, and you sat her down and kind of explained to her that, you know, either if she becomes an oral surgeon versus a dentist versus a dental assistant. Talk about that.
Shannon Robnett: 34:45
Well, you know, she was coming to me and she wanted to be in the dental field, but all she wanted to do was spend the least amount of money she could get, the quickest degree she could so she could get to making money. She really had this drive and this desire to make money today. And so I had an oral surgeon who was an investor of mine still is. And so I said, hey, doc, can we catch up with you? And so we went over to his office and I said, hey, I said, tell me about a dental hygienist.
What’s it cost to get that? And he says, that’s about 30 grand. It’s about 18 months. I said, well, what do you make? He says, 50 to 60,000 a year.
I said, okay. I said, what’s it take to become a dentist? He said, about six years and about $150,000 worth of school. She goes, oh my gosh, $150,000. That’s an enormous amount of money.
And I said, well, doc, what do they make? He says about 200 to 250 a year. And I said, well, that that kind of makes sense. You know, you’re making a lot more money. I said, what about an orthodontist?
He said, well, you add another year of school and another 70 grand. And I said, well, what do they make? About 300. 350 and I said, well, doc, what do you make? And he said, well, I’m an oral surgeon.
I had to go to another year of school. I’m $400,000 into my education. About this time, my stepdaughter’s almost unconscious. She’s just about to pass out and hyperventilate. $400,000.
Oh my gosh. Student loan debt. And I said, doc, what do you make? He says, half a million. 550 a year.
And so I quickly put together a spreadsheet and I said, what if you’re making a half $1 million a year.
John Corcoran: 36:17
For.
Shannon Robnett: 36:18
20 years versus making 60,000 a year for 20 years. And the bottom line number was astronomically different. And my daughter really began to understand that by borrowing $400,000, she would be able to really change the course of her life and how she was going to be able to retire. You know, I mean, you’re making $550,000 a year. You can put away a couple hundred grand a year, live a really nice life, put away a couple hundred grand a year.
In 20 years, retirement is very possible. So you went to school from 18 to 26. You started your career. You could literally be done by 46, 50 years old with a multi-million dollar retirement versus getting out of school in 18 months and going to work right away because you’re not at the lowest cost. You’ve spent more money, you’re now making more money, and things are working better for you.
So they’re again, incurring all that debt could be a good thing if that’s what you really look at for the long-term picture. But you have to understand what this education is going to buy me, and what am I going to be able to do with it? And what’s that going to act like long term?
John Corcoran: 37:35
Yeah. Shannon, I have so much more I could ask you, but I know we’re short on time, so I’ll wrap things up there. Thank you so much for your time. I’d love for people to learn more about you and check you out online. Where can people go to learn more about you?
Shannon Robnett: 37:48
All my socials. Everything is just right at Shannon robinette.com. You can book an appointment with me. We can chat about what you’re doing in your investment space. I’d love to have the conversation and love to provide more information.
John Corcoran: 37:59
Awesome, Shannon, thank you so much. Thanks, John.
Outro: 38:04
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.