How This Former Marine Built The Largest Military Real Estate Investing Community In The World
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
I’m David Pere, and I built the largest Military Real Estate Investing community in the world in a few short years!
In 2008 I enlisted in the Marine Corps to travel the world and have some adventures while trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I enjoyed it enough to re-enlist and found myself on recruiting duty in Springfield Missouri in 2015 working long hours, and with no money set aside to allow myself to exit the rat race. A friend handed me Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki on an audio CD and told me to read it while I was driving to various high schools recruiting the nation's future Marines.
That friend changed the trajectory of my life forever. Within months I had bought a duplex, to house hack, and begun my journey to financial freedom. In 2018 I began documenting everything I was learning and doing—really just do learn how to write a little better, and because I thought it would be cool to look back on one day. I never dreamed that a little blog would turn into a full-blown brand helping service members and veterans learn how to build wealth and achieve financial freedom!
We have a ton of free content across all platforms: podcasts, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc. I wrote The No B.S. Guide to Military Life in 2021, and there are a few basic real estate investing courses as well. I also help connect members of the community to real estate agents and lenders with a thorough understanding of the VA loan across the country to help them purchase homes when they relocate.
The crown jewel of the Military Millionaire community though is the War Room REI Mastermind group, which is a recurring membership chocked full of service members and veterans who are crushing it in real estate and life in general!
Currently, this mastermind costs $100/month–it was only $50/month for the first 2.5 years or so–and at the moment we have 161 members, so the recurring revenue is hovering right around $10,000/month gross at the moment, from memberships alone.
The main focus was adding value through top-of-the-line speakers and resources.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
In January of 2018, my friend Brandon Turner was at my house in Hawaii for dinner, and I asked him how I would go about learning to write—I wanted (and still do) to write a book about my time in Afghanistan in 2010. He recommended that I start a blog to get in the habit of writing regularly, learn about my writing style, editing, and search engine optimization, and build a bit of a following.
As we were brainstorming topics for the blog he suggested that I begin documenting my journey as a military real estate investor because it’s a unique niche, and as they say “the riches are in the niches”.
Well, the next day I watched some videos by Pat Flynn that he recommended, and I was off to the races blogging my little heart out…and let me tell you, my first articles were terrible!
Then, in 2019 From Military to Millionaire started to take off. People started recognizing me on base from my YouTube videos, I started getting on larger podcasts, the Facebook group started growing, and we finally started to break even periodically with our monthly revenue within the business!
Over time we gradually started adding revenue streams, ad revenue, affiliate marketing, referrals, courses, the mastermind group, and paid brand sponsorships.
The more it grew, the more I leaned into the brand as an actual business, as opposed to the hobby it had started as.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
For the sake of this interview, I’m going to choose my real estate investing 101 course. I’m not sure this is technically our first product, but it’s the first that will be easy to talk through.
Essentially, I compiled an outline of the A-Z process of buying my first investment property.
Then I went back and layered in everything I did wrong, wish I had known, could have done better, and all of my current systems and process.
I then build a PowerPoint presentation around the entire outline, outsourced the graphic design of the said presentation to somebody on Fiverr, and recorded individual videos for each slide/section of the course.
I also uploaded files and forms that I use in my buy-and-hold transactions to the course for students to utilize as well.
The most important things you can do to build a successful Facebook group revolve around having a clearly defined avatar (niche), a successful moderation strategy, and engaging content.
Describe the process of launching the business.
My launch was pretty simple actually. You see, I’m not huge on pushy sales, and because I had been plugging away writing content for years. When it came time for me to launch this course, I just posted it on all of my social media channels, pushed a few emails out, and set up some automated/recurring posts to those same channels. Luckily for me, those are still working, and we’ve enrolled over 200 students in the course since launch with $0 in advertising!
In the beginning, I spent the majority of my time hunting down quality guest speakers to ensure the initial members would receive value right off the bat, and tell their friends about the group.
Then I focused on adding resources to the group and backfilling tools they could utilize to make their lives easier as investors, etc.
The main focus was adding value through top-of-the-line speakers and resources, and then making sure my community knew about this new group we were launching! I did that via social media posts, emails, going live on social media, a podcast talking about the mastermind, and several “sponsorship” spots on my podcast talking about the mastermind as well!
A Facebook follower is more valuable (in my opinion) than a follower on any other platform in terms of how involved or engaged they are in the community.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
I believe the thing that continues to build our community is how relatable I—and the rest of the community—am. We are genuine, and here to help each other. Service members and vets share a unique bond from the get-go, and when we join forces to tackle a mission nothing can stand in our way.
Likewise, when people join our military real estate investing community to learn about financial freedom and achieving their true potential, they can’t help but be drawn towards that success, because everyone around them is offering a helping hand, and wants them to succeed.
I’m also very consistent about producing content. Facebook group engagement is important. I have a moderator for each day of the week, and friends marked as group experts to help drive engagement. I try to ask engaging questions almost daily as well.
The most important things you can do to build a successful Facebook group revolve around having a clearly defined avatar (niche), a successful moderation strategy, and engaging content.
For example, you need to know who your avatar is so that you can speak to exactly who that person is. For me, it’s service members and veterans, so I speak to my audience like I would if I was speaking to the Marines in any of the commands that I served in.
The moderation strategy needs to include clear rules, and you need to stick to it with the help of keyword alerts and moderators who are willing to block first, allowing them to ask questions later.
Assume most people are selling something, and protect your audience at all costs…in my experience, you’ll be right most of the time. If you block somebody, and they were genuinely trying to help, they will almost always shoot you a message asking about it, and you’ll be able to reinstate them in the group with no harm, no foul. Most of the time, that wasn’t the case, and you just saved somebody in your group from a scam or solicitation they didn’t want. You don’t want your group to become a place of constant solicitation or sales.
Finally, engage! When people ask questions, give thoughtful responses. When you see recurring themes in the questions, create content–blog posts, videos, etc–answering that question, and then share that in the group to showcase the answer for anybody else who might have the same question. Post-thought-provoking questions and the occasional “share your wins” or “self-promotion Friday” posts to get people commenting and engaging. The more engaged your Facebook group is, the more it will be pushed to people outside of the group as well!
On Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube (shorts) I try to make 1-3 vertical videos a day, and on YouTube, I release 2-3 long-from videos a week. I also launch a podcast episode every single week, and a blog post almost every week.
I record a vertical video most mornings whenever I have a thought cross my mind. They don’t take too much time to do, and on TikTok, I’ll often go back and answer one or two comments with an additional vertical video as well.
Every platform is different, TikTok has been the fastest growth, but it is hard to turn those followers into engaging members of the community. Instagram is best for messaging and communicating one-on-one it seems. YouTube is best for evergreen content and allowing people to stumble upon you, and Facebook is hands down the best for fostering that community feel. A Facebook follower is more valuable (in my opinion) than a follower on any other platform in terms of how involved or engaged they are in the community.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We are growing consistently, and the mastermind is one of our main focuses. I am working to increase the value there consistently, and the enrollments and income are following suit!
Over the next year, I believe that I’ll be able to double the revenue from that income stream, as well as add at least two other 6-figure income streams before the year ends!
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I think the biggest takeaway for me has been the power of an online brand. With a big enough fan base you can pursue and several business ventures with a large possibility of success. Just look at Mr. Beast, he started a nationwide Fast Food chain, without a single physical location (in the middle of a pandemic) through the power of his online brand!
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
- I use WordPress as the platform for my website and the main hub for everything I do.
- Mailchimp is my email provider. Idk that they’re the best out there, but they’re free until you reach around 2000 people on your list, and that was great for when I was starting out. Now I’m too lazy to switch!
- teachable is where all of my courses and mastermind are hosted.
- Circle.so is a platform that I just paid into last week to be the new hub for my mastermind community. It integrates directly with teachable and will serve to replace Facebook, Slack, Google Drive, Google Calendar, my directory, map of member locations, etc. within the mastermind community, bringing it all under one roof, which is awesome!
- Nutshell is the CRM that I use for managing my real estate referral business.
- Fiverr is where I outsource most of my small projects for design
- Onlinejobs.ph is where I hire most of my virtual assistants
- And a whole host of real estate investing tools, which are mostly listed out here.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris – this book taught me how to be efficient with my time. In W-2’s most people—whether they will admit it or not—do not work as efficiently as they could. They work efficiently enough to not get fired. To be an entrepreneur, you must learn to get as much done as possible in the least amount of time.
Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki – This is the book that started it all for me!
Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt – This book helped me learn how to reorganize my life and reprioritize to work more effectively and avoid burnout by saying “no” more often.
The Like Switch by Jack Schafer – This book is great for teaching you how to utilize non-verbal ques as a tool to get people to like you, which is powerful in the networking game!
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
The biggest pointers I have for you are these:
- Have a vision for where you want to end up and start each day journaling/planning your goals for the day toward achieving that vision.
- Be careful who you take advice from. If they haven’t achieved what you want to achieve, and/or aren’t living your dream life, then—while they may be somebody close to you, and may have your best interest at heart—they may not be somebody whose advice you want to give much weight. Listen to the people who have achieved what you desire, and you will achieve your goals much faster.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
My next hire(s) will most likely be an integrator and/or Chief of Staff position(s). I’m a visionary personality, with lots of ideas. I need a right-hand man/woman to help take my ideas and build the systems/process for my team (the “doers”) to execute.
That, or it will be a component of a social media/videographer team to produce more content.
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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