Strategic Partnerships: Collaboration over Competition

There are two things that will always be a necessity; a place to sleep and food to eat. It makes sense that someone would want to make money by finding a way to provide things to people who are buying. Solomon Lacy III turned the tide for both of these industries simply by partnering with the right people and using his unique ability to create the capital that they simply did not have.

Creating Capital

Usually, people tend to believe that in order to get into the real estate industry, you need a ton of cash to invest and make money. Well, that’s partly true. It just doesn’t need to be your money. He understood this concept. You see, if you didn’t know, Lacy is a master at building capital for people who need it. He understood how to use OPM, aka “other people's money,” for his own personal gain. By knowing how to establish amazing credit he could obtain loans for money that neither he nor the people he began to partner with would even have in their bank account. Being the founder of Fresh Start Financials Group, a master credit resolution and investment company, definitely helped with this as well.

Like father like son...with a twist

Lacy was able to do something that was completely foreign to many people, even himself, back in the day. In 2014, after years of shadowing, he followed in his father's footsteps and began his own journey in real estate investing. As a way to give back to his hometown community, he decided to buy distressed properties, fix them, and rent them out at affordable rates in Flint, Michigan, just like his dad. Years later, after learning about credit and forming lending relationships, he was able to start investing more using OPM. His ability to create capital allowed him to partner with some genius wholesalers and title companies, each of them having their own roles in the deals made. Lacy’s role, of course, was borrowing capital for the fix and flip home deals. This made it so they wouldn’t have to throw a bunch of their cash on the line for one project, essentially minimizing the risk factor, and including him in the profit. Lacy would also help them build out their own credit profiles to gain access to more money than they had in the bank.

Paying the minimum

A funny story that he had mentioned to me, was that one time he had a real estate deal where he and a couple of other people had all invested $40k into a project that was supposed to only last 2 months. It turned into a full 9-month project where everyone else’s bank accounts were depleted, but not Lacy’s. You see, because he borrowed the money (use of a credit card), he was able to make minimum payments on the “loan”. While everyone was out of their ($40k) cash, he was making a steady $400 monthly payment on the investment, holding on to his cash. He believes that if you're going to deal in the credit space with investments you can’t be scared to owe, you are going to have to leverage money you don’t have. The key is to essentially fund the minimum amount of loan obtained on deals until your investment is profitable. That way you don’t feel the effect of being out $40-, $80-, or even $100,000. It could make the difference in keeping you going and even growing your business, allowing you to continue to make these deals.

Eat your veggies

Knowing what he does about lending, he has been able to help and even partner with tons of people. This reminds me of another individual that he met who was in the produce & farming industry, he was raking in a ton of revenue. Because of Lacy’s ability to enhance credit and attain funding for the business, he was able to become a strategic partner with the guy and start a produce import/export company. They started in 2019 and now import Chinese, Indian, and conventional vegetables from Mexico and Honduras. They are on pace to gross $1.2 million going into his first year, even through the coronavirus pandemic.

When it comes to business, one of the most powerful traits is being able to create capital in order to go into ventures properly and without taking an unexpected financial risk. It’s about being able to make that power play without feeling the pressure of putting all of your eggs in one basket. This allows you to continue making moves and properly grow. Solomon Lacy III is a master at doing just that and educates the masses through Fresh Start Financials Group.