Chandler Smith Founders Interview: From Door-to-Door Sales to Real Estate Investing

The inception of Chandler's love for Real Estate.

Growing up, Chandler's father worked hard right out of law school to buy his family a house. Once he did, he and his father (Chandler's grandfather) decided to flip it, which meant Chandler's childhood was filled with projects around the property. By the time they were done, the house had looked beautiful, definitely better than how it was when they moved in.

With that complete, the family decided to move and flip the new house again. They ultimately modernized it, and Chandler got to watch everything unfold right before his eyes. Thus, igniting his love for real estate.

The birth of Chandler's sale's mind.

Now his love for entrepreneurship also stemmed from his father. Chandler started mowing the lawn when he was eight years old; what that meant is that his dad helped him with each property to get Chandler to understand entrepreneurship.

"This was a total game-changer for my life because my dad focused so much on not only spending time with me but helping me understand how important hard work was."

Now he would practically mow the entire neighbourhood's lawns with his dad, and the way he signed them on was through… you guessed it - Knocking doors.

8-year-old Chandler would go up to people's doors, knock on them and ask to mow their lawn. When they replied with either, "we've already got someone" or "we do it ourselves," Chandler would respond with, "that's okay, I just want to mow it for free and if you feel like I did a better job than you can pay me."

And a good percentage of the time, this worked!

"I found out very quickly that dropping the neighbours' names and saying they were using you was extremely advantageous. Especially if your parents were the neighbours."

Chandler's mission for the Church.

After mowing lawns through high school, playing sports and living the dream, Chandler got to the point where he wanted to start a mission for his Church. He spent two years in Canada sharing the message about Christ and doing service for people.

The experience was a game-changer for Chandler's life. He had the opportunity to meet 1000s of different people in different situations and learn to serve them. It completely altered the way he looked at the world. Through the mission, he got good at talking to people, connecting with them, cold calling, and knocking on their doors. He spent most of his time meeting people he didn't know, presenting something to them and learning the importance of work ethic.

"This message meant a lot to me, but it also taught me a precious skill set and helped me to fine-tune that skill set."

When he got back from his mission, Chandler did what every young adult would do… he got into college and started looking for jobs.

The journey from door knocking to Real Estate Investor.

When Chandler was 21 years old, fresh in college, he started applying for jobs but was rejected from practically every company, including McDonald's. So he started looking elsewhere until his friend presented an opportunity for door-to-door sales selling pest control. When he was approached, his friend mentioned that the average seller earned around $20,000 in 4 months and Chandler was intrigued.

When he got out there and started knocking on doors, all his experience from his mission helped him sail through the experience, and Chandler fell in love. That being said, it was a slow start; in the beginning, it took a while for things to click, but when it did, Chandler was practically unstoppable.

His first summer (within three months), he ended up breaking the company record and sold 459 pest control accounts, which were valued at about $500 because they were year-long contracts. That is over $200,000 worth of contracts, and to add on, Chandler made $96,000!

"At this point, I was in college. I was hoping for $20,000, so $96,000 floored me. And I fell in love with selling pest controls."

He continued in the position for his 1st year there; the next year, Chandler was promoted to a leadership position that started with 12 subordinates but soon turned into one of the most prominent regional managers in the company as of 2019. His first year as manager, he trained everyone under him and made $144,000; the next year, he made just shy of $250,000, and it just scaled from there. Now he manages over 300 sales reps that recently made over $50 million sales.

As his income continued to grow, Chandler needed a place to invest his money. So he approached his friend's father, who made a reasonable sum from real estate investing, and asked him what to do. He explained exactly how to use leverage to purchase real estate and get huge returns. This blew Chandler's, and he decided the right way to go was real estate investing.

Chandler's first steps in Real Estate Investing.

It began with a condo, which turned out to be a bad investment. Confused, Chandler went back to his friend's father and asked about it, but he only confirmed the reality. Nonetheless, this didn't stop Chandler; in fact, he was overjoyed every month when he got cheques in for the rent, even though his return was subpar.

From there, he only grew. He moved on to buy several other duplexes, 4-plexes, and 8-plexes. Soon Chandler was buying a 24-plex and a 32-plex. Before he knew it, he made 100s of 1000s a year, just in cash flow from investing in real estate.

"What I decided early on is that I wanted to live according to the rich dad, poor dad,' principle. That stated you should only live off of what your passive income is making."

Now at this time, Chandler was still making a large sum from D2D sales. He always does it to date; his region in 2019 even brought over $10 million in sales. Therefore, his revenue and income have increased every year doing this job. However, Chandler has only spent that money on real estate or other investments to give him a passive income and use the passive income for leisure and living expenses.

"That forced me to live a lot more frugally early on… Living on the income that I made passively helped me stay in a place where I never overspent, and all of my income from my job was going straight into real estate."

The two most essential things Chandler has learned in real estate.

First and foremost, only live off your passive income.

Second, your active income should be something involving a commission or the fact that the more work you put in, the more you get out.' Because if you are on an hourly wage at $15 an hour, you'll never be able to buy any real estate or create any passive income.

That being said, you can flip properties on someone else's dime or find lots of other creative ways; you've got to find a job that's not hourly based but based on what you do.

He states: That's the reality. You're not going to get there on an hourly wage job. But if you can find a sales job or something else where you get paid a hefty profit for the deals that you put together, that's where you're going to build an income you require to get into real estate.

"With real estate, you can not only have a cash flow you can live off of, but you can put yourself in a place where it's a win-win-win. And you've got a future retirement pot."

The 11 principles Chandler has learned in his 20's.

After doing both sales and real estate, Chandler has learned that he loves teaching people. He fell in love with speaking, sharing and helping other people learn while growing their portfolio. And that's how he decided to start his YouTube channel (Chandler David Smith).

Before we get into the principle, Chandler states it's important to note - failure and rejection are part of the plan. Chandler would go as far as to say it's essential; it's something you should get excited about because the more rejection you face and overcome, the better you get at turning those into positive learning experiences.

Now for the 11 principles:

1. Never regret working too hard

2. Find the positive - it's the path to a happier, more successful life

3. Consistency - Consistently do the right thing; even when you're not in the mood, you need to show up.

4. The way you do anything is how you do everything - put everything into everything you do, continually carry over, and build momentum.

5. Money doesn't make you happy; however, it does help if you use it properly.

"Money is an indicator of success, but it's not the only indicator. And a lot of time it's not the most important indicator."

6. Learn to love rejection, use it as a motivator to find the right path. Expect it and improve yourself in the direction of success.

7. Visualization is key. It would help if you saw where you're going before you get where you're going.

8. Find the good in every person and their value.

9. Spend time with people who will build you up, surround yourself with the right kind of people and mindset

10. Do something hard every day - What have you done for yourself lately? What have you done to make yourself better?

11. Treat people right

These are the 11 principles that Chandler has learned in his 20's. That being said, he hasn't perfected all of them but releases that these are big players in living a happy, successful life.

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