Farrelly-Caizzone and Associates had the honour to interveiw Michael Ligon, a real estate investor and business coach. Discover more about him in our interview!
Michael Ligon is a serial entrepreneur, seasoned real estate investor, author, award-winning coach, mentor and polymath.
Together with his brother David, Michael started his career as a real estate investor and then he become a very know personality in this field. Now he is a celebrated member of the Forbes Business Council and an expert contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine.
Together they founded The Ligon Group and The Ligon Brothers, two companies in the real estate sector and that help small business to reach the success and to solve their issues.
The great personality of Michael has provided him a vast knowledge in a plethora of subjects. He is very attracted by everything he does not know and he never stops learning
He has received numerous accolades for his mentorships and wisdom pertaining to investing, business building, negotiations and various real estate practices.
He is nicknamed “The Fixer” for his great ability to uncover and solve issues of the business he helps.
Find out more in our interview!
Questions for Michael Ligon
- Hi Michael, thanks for your time. Could you please tell us something about yourself and your work?
- How did you start your career as a real estate investor?
- You are also a business coach: what kind of customers are you dealing with?
- You have been labeled “The Fixer” for your ability to uncover and resolve issues facing struggling businesses: what is your methodology for facing these problems?
- Your motto is “Never stop learning”: what is it that motivates you the most?
- ‘The Ligon Group’ operates in the real estate sector: could you briefly describe this sector? And what are the difficulties to face in entering this sector?
- You are an expert contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes: how these collaborations started? Are you happy that they have recognized your knowledge and expertise in your field?
- What is success for you?
- How will The Ligon Group continue to evolve? What are the main plans and projects for the future?
- We are living in a time of uncertainty and disruptive changes. What are the main resistances that people and companies are facing? And how can you help them to deal with these difficulties?
#1. Hi Michael, thanks for your time. Could you please tell us something about yourself and your work?
Sure, thanks for having me. I’m a business coach, author, real estate investor and co-founder of The Ligon Group of Companies.
#2. How did you start your career as a real estate investor?
It was actually my brother David that introduced me into real estate. We grew up in a typical middle class family but we always had our eyes set on bigger things. I knew I wanted more than what a normal 9 to 5 job would be able to provide.
So one day my brother David heard a radio commercial about a seminar on real estate investing and we both bought tickets. The seminar ended up being an introduction into real estate investing and they were selling additional mentoring for $5,000 per seat. At the time we didn’t have that kind of money, so we had to decline the offer.
But the information that we took away from the seminar is what led us to continue moving forward in real estate and eventually choose it as a career path.
#3. You are also a business coach: what kind of customers are you dealing with?
I started out coaching small businesses and start-ups, but now I primarily assist businesses that make over 7 figures a year. I assist them in overcoming their plateaus and scaling issues. I enjoy helping newcomers, but the issues a new company faces are much more complex than established businesses and require a lot more time to solve.
My personal Firm now has several different divisions that I oversee and I just don’t have the time to consult as much as I used to. So when I do, I focus on the scaling and growth of established businesses, rather than the development and creation of start-ups.
#4. You have been labeled “The Fixer” for your ability to uncover and resolve issues facing struggling businesses: what is your methodology for facing these problems?
The simple answer is data. You have to have data in order to make adjustments to anything. If you’re not tracking the information for your businesses you’ll never know where your real problems are. I teach business owners to track data for all the aspects of their business.
Once you know how each department is doing or how your processes are converting you can make plans to adjust any issues or shortcomings. Your business data also allows you to see the business as “A” business rather than “YOUR” business.
What I mean by that is that many business owners think they know what’s best for their business and their clients. Many times the data that we collect will reflect a very different story. Once I have detailed information, I can help them build better processes and systems for their business.
#5. Your motto is “Never stop learning”: what is it that motivates you the most?
I’m motivated by the “Why”. I’m an extremely inquisitive person. Whenever I do anything, I like to understand why. Because of that, I command a cohesive understanding of a very broad range of subjects. I think it’s important for people to allow themselves time to learn new things.
We’re all busy and we all have jobs to do, but setting aside a few hours a day to read a book or watch an insightful documentary is good for our brains. Technology has provided us with access to more information than at any other time in history. We should take advantage of that.
#6. ‘The Ligon Group’ operates in the real estate sector: could you briefly describe this sector? And what are the difficulties to face in entering this sector?
The Ligon Group is a muti-real estate conglomerate that has several different divisions. Each division compliments one another and they are all centered around business building and real estate. Here’s a brief breakdown of our Firm and it’s departments.
The Ligon Brothers is our brand and we hold events, speaking engagements and mentoring classes in that division. LigonU is our online school and training facility. Ligon Capital, Ligon Wholesale, Ligon Cash Buyers, Ligon & Key and LYNK are all our Real Estate Investment Divisions.
We buy, sell, wholesale and fix-n-flip houses in those divisions. And Ligon Consulting is our business consulting division. I won’t go into deep detail on each division, but you can visit our website for more information at www.TheLigonGroup.com
The most common issue people face when entering into the real estate sector is capital to invest. The old saying “it takes money, to make money” is especially true in real estate. You can start investing with very little money if you know how, but the more capital you have the easier it is to get started.
#7. You are an expert contributor for Entrepreneur Magazine and Forbes: how these collaborations started? Are you happy that they have recognized your knowledge and expertise in your field?
My brother and I were speaking at a real estate conference in Miami Florida. After the event I was approached by an audience member that wanted to ask me a few questions about a book I wrote on closing tactics and techniques. They had been following my work and asked if I’d like to provide some insight into an article they were writing.
At the time I didn’t know he was a well-known editor of a major Magazine. Initially I lent my expertise on a variety of topics before being asked to provide full articles. I was honored to eventually be invited to join the Forbes Business Council as a valued contributor and soon after Entrepreneur Magazine asked me to join their leadership team.
I’m extremely grateful to be recognized by such well established organizations, and it’s a pleasure to be able to provide content to their millions of readers.
#8. What is success for you?
In my personal opinion, success can be summed up in three words. Happiness, Freedom and Security. Notice that I didn’t mention money. Money is simply a tool to achieve success, but you can have all the money in the world and still not be happy. If you want to be truly successful, you need to achieve happiness, you need the freedom to live life on your own terms and you need to be able to provide a safe and secure life for yourself and your family.
#9. How will The Ligon Group continue to evolve? What are the main plans and projects for the future?
Real Estate is a proven wealth generator and The Ligon Group will continue to use investment techniques to scale and expand into new markets and different territories. As for our overall long term goals, it’s to help others. I would love to be able to teach more people how to use real estate as a tool towards finding financial freedom. I will always look for ways to scale and grow my firm, but my long term goal is to educate more people to become financially independent.
#10. We are living in a time of uncertainty and disruptive changes. What are the main resistances that people and companies are facing? And how can you help them to deal with these difficulties?
You must be able to adapt and pivot your business. So many businesses are stuck doing things one particular way that when they’re thrown a curve ball they fall apart. Understand that change is inevitable. I tell all my business coaching clients to do these 3 things in order to better prepare them for disruptive and uncertain situations.
1. Always run your business with the end goal in mind. You have to know what the pinnacle of your business looks like. The bigger the goal the better. Even if you feel like you may never achieve your ideal vision of your business, you need to know what it is and work towards it.
2. Create a roadmap to that goal. Now that you know what you want to achieve, you need a blueprint to build it. Be detailed and set milestones. Milestones are extremely important no matter how small, because they become tracking points for your overall success.
3. Use the milestones you created as points of reference for change or adjustments when you encounter uncertain times and disruptive changes. Sometimes taking one step back will allow a business to take two steps forward. But if you don’t have a roadmap with key points of reference, it makes it much harder to make smart business decisions and adjustments.
Sometimes things will happen that are out of your control, it’s how you handle those unforeseen problems that will determine how successful your business will become.
We want to thank Michael Ligon for his time and for introduce us to his field!
If you want to stay updated on the activities of Michael Ligon, these are the main links:
- Ligon Brothers
- Ligon Group
- Michael Ligon’s Crunchbase
- Michael Ligon’s Instagram
- Michael Ligon’s Facebook
- Michael Ligon’s Twitter
- Michael Ligon’s Linkedin
If you liked this interview, discover more interviews with start up founders and business experts in our blog!
