About Chris Hermes

I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin, which is a smaller town of 75,000. I enjoyed living there as a child because there wasn’t a lot of crime and my mom let me run around and be a kid. My mom worked in a Mill and my dad was an auto Mechanic. They split up when I was young and my sister Kory and I stayed with my mom. From a young age of 11 I started working as a paperboy to help my mom out. I worked so I could buy my own stuff and she wouldn’t have to worry about it. While growing up I heard the same thing as most kids did, “get good grades so you can go to college to get a good……JOB!” Well I did that. I hated high school so much I did everything I could to graduate early. After graduating I started saving money for college. Well what do most kids do…? Exactly what there parents do. I worked in the mill before I went to school to be a Diesel Mechanic. I guess you could call me a “good boy”!

After graduating, I worked as a Diesel mechanic for about 1 1/2 years (I guess you could call me a statistic of not doing what I went to school for) and then started working with my older cousin Bob who was working on his own, building decks, fences and garages. He said he could pay me cash and we would have a blast working together! That is exactly what happened. He taught me a lot about life and business. From there business got slow for him and so I had to move on. From not working a regular job for so long it was hard to hold a job.

I had landed a job as a Assistant Super Attendant of a Apartment Complex that was in the process of being built. That was a fancy title saying I told the sub contractors if their work passed or not. Most of those guys didn’t like listening to a younger kid but that was just how it was. While doing that I also was helping my dad get his motorcycle repair shop off the ground. I helped him do oil changes and other small odd jobs so he could get the big stuff done fast, to create that client base. I also worked as a bartender/cook on the weekends to create a little more income to pay the credit cards down. It’s funny how I got in the vicious system of buy now and pay later. I guess that is what I get listening to my parents. I love you mom and dad!!!(just in case they read this, lol!) As I did this for months, which felt like years, I finally ran into (now I say “it happened for a reason”) Amy Whitston who stopped me in the middle of the mall parking lot (while I was going to pay my Sears charge card bill) and asked me if I kept my options open to making more MONEY!! Of course I said I was doing good, I mean I was working 3 jobs, was living pay check to pay check, what could be better than that… She got my number and told me she would call me. I told her she could try but I didn’t answer phone numbers I didn’t know… Three weeks later I got a call. I didn’t know the number but for some reason I answered, it was Amy! We set up an appointment to sit down at her office. That is when my life changed!!!

After sitting down with Amy and her brother Zach, they showed me a different way of making money. First, they talked about the Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki, on how 95% of the population was working for the 5% of the population. They then showed me the way to leverage and become a business owner with no overhead, no employees, and no problems. This may sound familiar to some of you because this was a Multi Level Marketing company called Excel Communications. All I needed was $300.00 and I could be my own boss. I found the money, I actually changed in my change jar! This was it, this is what I was waiting for!! They told me to make a list of all my friends and family and come back and they would help me. That is exactly what I did! I came back the next day with 200+ names and numbers with the ambition of a super human. We got to work, next thing you know I was showing 5-7 people a day, well I wasn’t there for all of them, I was working half the time. Amy and Zach were showing my other people the business. In my first month I had 45 people in my business and the next month I and about 100 and the next month I had about 130. By this time, I had to quit one of my jobs because I was making more money than at my full time job. That was amazing! Then it happened! The company sent out the letter stating that they were shutting down. Now that we were making money there was no way we were going to get J.O.B. (just over broke). So we ended up finding another MLM company. Our upline set it all up and we all got to keep our positions and transfer our teams. Since Appleton was such a small area a lot of people knew about us and it seemed like we had found most of the 5% in our age bracket, the leaders of the group Amy, Zach and a few of the others decided that all the leaders should move to Denver where there is 1 million plus people. We could really make big things happen there!

As a young entrepreneur, I realized, I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I sold everything I had and only kept a few boxes of stuff in my sisters basement. I took my clothes and that was about it. I drove there with a friend in his 5 series BMW. We got caught in a ice storm but I was driving and nothing was going to stop me from getting there to start working. It took us 24 hours to get there and I forgot to mention that we left on the 1st of the year so I didn’t get much sleep the night before. I did get few hours of sleep on the way. When we got there I went out with Amy and I got 6 phone numbers and the next day I was already setting up appointments! After being there for a while Zach and became good friends. We kicked butt and made some money!

When I moved to Denver I met one of my now best friends, Chris Colvard. I helped train him and his brother. They ended up moving back to Texas where Chris grew up and started some business down there. While Chris was down there, he found a better company so we could get our people paid faster and more products for bigger opportunity. At this point in time, we have had worked with ACN for a year and we re-evaluated our progress. We decided to go with the company Chris found. That company is Fortune Hi Tech Marketing. We got a new office and did our thing and started recruiting like crazy. In the mean time, we thought we could do a few other things as well. We also tried starting a door knocking business. That went well for about 3 weeks! Being young and being with a new company we decided to move again. Since there was a big team in Austin were Chris was we made the decision to move to Austin.

At the time I was dating a girl for about a year and she decided to go with me. We sold everything and packed the car and headed down to warm Austin,Texas. On the way the car broke down and we were stuck in a small city called Boise City, Oklahoma. We got stuck there for 2 days and the hotels were all booked. We ended up sleeping in a church. Then I bought a old Suburban from a old guy named Willy. Thank god for Willy! I might have been stuck there. lol. Finally, we made it down to Austin, got a place and went back at it. Well… it wasn’t what we thought. I didn’t make any money the first month. Then the company started doing charge backs and the money I was suppose to make they took back. I was done! I found a job as a used car salesman. That wasn’t any different besides the fact I only had to sell cars not a dream and then product.

In the meantime I bought a dog from a customer I was selling a car to. They told me it was a boy and that he was a rottweiler. They said he was 4 weeks old and they had to sell him because they lived with a sister and couldn’t have more dogs. He is, in fact, a she and her name is Bearalina (Bear for short). She is a mix of maybe a rott and a shepherd. She is awesome! Things were good and I was starting to look into real estate. Of course you get what you attract. Chris Colvard came to me and said he found the golden egg. I told him Chris I wasn’t going to do another MLM. He said it wasn’t it was a Real Estate Investing College named Nouveau Riche. On top of that it was a direct sales company. So if we wanted we could sell the college and get paid a ton of money while taking the courses.

I was in 100%. I knew that Real Estate is where the wealthy keep and make their money! I came up with the money to invest in the education. IT’S THE BEST EDUCATION EVER! This was it! I knew that real estate was for me. The classes were in Arizona 4-6 times a year for a week at a time. In the meantime, they gave me all this material to study. I was studying like a mad man so I would be up to par on the real estate lingo when I went to the college. I wanted to be ready to network with investors and like minded individuals. On top of studying I also started marketing the education. Next thing you know I was selling the education and learning.

One of the guys here in Texas, Isaac Spencer had already picked up 12 houses with no money and no credit. He said it was all because of the Nouveau Riche! After my first week of classes I came back and good a deal from Isaac and did a fix-n-flip and made $10,000. That was only after 4 months of studying and working with the investors in Austin. When Chris Colvard and I got involved with NR we were assigned a mentor. His name is Chris Record ( I know a lot of Chris’. It was even confusing for us at fist) and he lived in Northen California. We spoke with him and he said if we came out there he would take us under his wing and teach us everything that he knew. By this time Record had made $350,000 in 10 months or so just selling the education. It was final, you guessed it, we were going to moved again. lol This time to Northern California!

Again, I sold all of my stuff and packed up the U-haul and put the car on a trailer and headed out to Antioch, CA with Chris Colvard and his family. We got out there and started marketing, while learning real estate investing. Chris Record was the best mentor I could have asked for. He is a good leader and taught me so much about business, real estate and how to become a leader. Oh yeah, he helped out a lot with my golfing too! While out in Cali I was very involved in the community and created a lot of contacts/friends. I spent 10 months learning from the best marketing mentor I could have asked for. The reason for this blog is because of Chris Record! While in Cali I made money marketing the education. I was still studying the education everyday and making the contacts to build the team to have everything in place. Basically I was scared to go invest.

Chris Record was looking at a promotion in the company because of his leadership and business skills. He had the opportunity to go and start a new territory in North Carolina. Now I was at that fork in the road. I could stay in Cali or I could follow Chris Record out to N.C. I was getting to the point of really wanting to start pulling the trigger in Real Estate since I had been studying so long! I ended up calling Isaac Spencer my friend back in Austin. At this point in time he had about 30 – 35 properties that he bought Subject to the existing financing. I wanted see what he had going on and if he needed help. One lesson I learned is you have to serve to be a good leader. He actually was going to start looking for assistant to help him out! He always said I would be a good person to have in his office. We made it final he said he would pay me to work in his office and that would give me the opportunity to learn exactly what he was doing and how he was buying the properties! I had set a date to move back to Austin. Imagine that! LOL

I had talked to my best friend Miles Brooks who was in Wisconsin. He also had invested in the education and was studying. I had the a chance to fly back to see the family and sit down with Miles. We both have a intensive construction background and decided that we both should move to Austin and start doing rehabs and fix-n-flips. Miles then started to sell all his stuff to prepare to meet up in Austin. The goal date was August 15th 2008.

I showed up at midnight on the 15th, talk about making it on time. I knew that I was going to arrive late so I had packed the bed last so I could take it out put it on the floor and sleep. Miles showed up few days later and that is when it all began. I started working for Isaac while Miles and I started marketing the education and started building a team for rehabs. I helped Isaac get everything together in his office and he started mentoring me about real estate. Next thing you know Miles and I were making money marketing the education and doing real estate deals. We started speaking in front of people who wanted to learn what we have learned. On top of that we started doing rehabs and fix-n-flips with Isaac. We had created the real estate dream team. Because of all the education we started our own company Hermes Brooks & Associates and New Age Cash Flow to create protection. It is now 2 years later. Miles and I have been able to complete 9 Rehabs/Fix-n-Flips, 2 Subject-To’s, and own a rental all in the last year and a half. We have profited on all of our transactions and we have used private money on all of the transactions. What a ride it has been! All it takes is to be willing to put yourself out there and taking the chances the 95% of the population isn’t willing to take!!

On top of all the success, I have met the woman of my dreams. Her name is Henna and she is the most amazing woman I have ever met. She has assisted me in so many ways. Henna moved down to Austin from WI in January of this year and I haven’t been happier! I feel so blessed to be where I am today with the people in my life. I am excited to share with you all my mistakes and will do my best to give you as much value as I can.