Interview with Steve Trang

13 Sep Interview with Steve Trang

Steve Trang shares what started the Real Estate Disruptors movement, and what is going on in his world in regards to wholesaling.

Video Replay of Interview with Steve Trang

Podcast Replay of Interview with Steve Trang

Transcription:

00:00 Hey everybody, welcome for today’s special episode of real estate disruptors. Today we’re doing a little bit differently. We get Chris Mayfield interviewing me. He thought it’d be a good idea. We did a little poll and apparently that’s what people want. So that’s what we’re doing today. Um, and then if this your first time tuning in, I’m Steve Trang, broker, owner of Stunning Homes Realty, cofounder of the offer fast app, the one app you need for wholesaling. And my goal is to help people become real estate entrepreneurs. I had some struggles when I first started. You’ve hoped a lot of people build their businesses and our goal for this show is to help people become real estate leaders faster. Um, and if you’re excited for the show, please give us some thumbs up some ways. And this is a live episode. Chris is going to be checking out the question, so please don’t hesitate to answer.

00:46 And with that, yeah, here we go. Good to go. Yep. So I sat down with you a few months ago and uh, your gracious to give me my time, which I always respect when an investor who was willing to do that. And I asked you about wholesaling, but I thought first it would be cool to share about your journey that you shared with me. You went from an electrical engineer to all of this, right? Can you tell us a little bit about how you went from that to here? So, uh, I was an engineer by default and that sounds kind of ridiculous, but you know, when I went through high school and college I was pretty good at math and being good at math, you know, it’s really what you need science and math to be good at engineering. And so for me, when I was trying to figure out what major I wanted to do, engineering was the, was the easy option.

01:37 So I did that and I can’t say I was ever really passionate about engineering. I know they are really a handful of people that really are, but generally speaking, people aren’t really excited about engineering. So. And that was me and I know that when I was working at Intel, um, I didn’t really fit in as an engineer, um, for an engineer. I was extroverted. Now naturally my persona is introvert, but amongst engineers I was an extrovert. I just didn’t fit in. Um, which is ironic because now that I’m in sales, I’m the opposite now I’m now I’m an introvert again and everyone else’s the extrovert. So, so then how do you go from electrical engineer to real estate agent to broker to overall well rounded investor. So the passion sometimes seep through or lack of passion, uh, they were, I would typically work 25, 30 hours a week.

02:33 And that was what was, I wouldn’t say it was normal. A lot of people were working 40, 50, 60 hours a week. And, and if you’re working intel, it was known for being a sweatshop, right? Uh, but I’ve had, I had incredible mentors along the way. So as long as I got my work done, it was acceptable. So I’d roll in 9:30 and I was out by five and sometimes 4:30 4:00 on Mondays. Because you want to be on the good Games at lifetime fitness, you’ve got to be on the gym by four. And I thought, you know, no one noticed, but one of these days I was actually there after five and the manager was like, Oh, you’re still here. But that just goes to show, you know, like I had great managers and that they, they liked the quality of work I did. So they didn’t give me grief for not, you know, working 40, 50, 60 hours.

03:17 Uh, but going back to the, the passion, just because I was good at it, didn’t mean I was excited about it. So I always knew that I was going to quit after seven years. Um, that was the plan. I was gonna start a business. I didn’t know what business, but I know I’m gonna start a business after seven years. What was the significance of seven years? That’s when all your stocks vests the golden handcuffs. So after seven years, this show’s brought to you by Intel. So all, all, all your stocks, vests and you get a, um, a as a, it’s a two month sabbatical. So you get two months vacation, right? So I figured that’d be a good time to go explore my options, but along the way, uh, my friends and I have three friends that we bought investment properties together with and when we’re buying investment properties, we met my first broker and I was talking to him and I said, hey, what you seem to do is very interesting and you make how much money really I can do that.

04:09 Wait, what do you do? I just talk to people. I can do that. So I went from there, meeting him and asked him, Hey, if I want to learn everything you do, what would be involved so you can just go get your real estate license. So from that dinner to two and a half weeks later, I was licensed, right. Sign up for real estate school, got licensed who half weeks? As soon as I was licensed, I mean in my two weeks notice at Intel and that was in both feet. Real estate, may of 2007. Not a good time, but I’ll hold it all in. Then you go from agent to broker. What was that? I mean, was that the goal? Uh, no. The goal, and I tell everyone, don’t be a broker, was not a good decision, but I did it. And the reason why I did it was as where I learn, I learned a lot, uh, the old broker, he was an incredible salesperson.

04:54 I’m still appreciative of the effort and attention he gave to me. I’m still think he hates me, but that’s a story for another day. But after three years I felt like I learned everything I could learn from him. And you know, this, the leadership has to do part of being a leader is staying ahead so you can lead the pack. And there came a time where I just felt like I was no longer following and I was leading and for me, I just couldn’t. I can’t follow someone that’s not ahead of me. So I decided, you know what? I’m going to go do my own thing. I’m learning all these things on my own. I’m investing in myself more than he was investing in himself. So at that point I said, I’m just gonna do my own thing. My own ways, and there was a little bit of a, of greed, right?

05:44 I figured if I didn’t have a broker then I won’t have to pay split. Um, and then I was doing a lot of interesting marketing and a lot of quick practice stuff and I didn’t want to get broker approval anymore. So between those two things, I thought I would start a brokerage, but then I that you’re much better off paying a split then paying a lease and the managing broker. Um, but fortunately along the way I found my passion, uh, so even though I got into real estate just to make more money, whatever, I found that what fulfills me the most is leading and developing people around me. Right? Side note on that, on the, on the leading and always having a leader out front. You also don’t want to get too far out. I’ve learned a lot in my past that I can go to the next thing before I’ve brought my town.

06:29 Right. And, and what happens is if you get too far ahead, you become hazy. Yeah. And they can’t tell if you’re the enemy or that you’re still their leader. Interesting. So you have to lead just far enough that you stay ahead and keep them hungry, but not too far away that you walk away from your team. Now. That makes sense. Yeah. So, so then the story to wholesale and how do you get to there. So when we’re talking about creative market, getting a, there was this thing that’s called a house buyer network back in the day and a lot of paper click marketing for finding motivated sellers. I was part of the Craig practice systems and I try to sign up for bills locked out and actually talked to the owner of the house by our network program who eventually became the owner of Commissions Inc. Made a lot of money selling that to fidelity to title.

07:06 But at that tiMe he said, you know, steve, I have a agreement with one agent in town and I can’t violate that agreement as a, hey, no problem. Dwayne, let me do it my own way. So I created my own paper click website. They my own thing to find sellers and I was able to, that sourced my business for quite some time and what we were doing was the guaranteed sale program. And so our guarantee sale program and say, chris, if I can’t sell your house, I’ll buy it myself now. I don’t buy it 100 percent right, but I’ll buy at 90 percent, right? Uh, so I go to these homeowners said, okay, here’s how the guarantee sale program works, going for these cash appointments and we offer them 80 percent. They said, well, we want cash today. So, well it’s 83 percent, you understand right?

07:47 After 90 days, this is what we want to cache. It’s like if you want cash today, we can buy at 80 because I thought no one would take that right boy, we were wrong. So the first time I say, hey chris, so you understand that if we list it right, you’ll get this, But if I buy it today, you get this. Instead you’re saying we’re talking like $10,000 here, no big deal. So the first few times we bought a house for 80 percent, we realized, boy, we’re doing this wrong. So we back that number up, but I just fell into wholesale and accidentally because I was trying to find motivated sellers to get more listings. Yeah, a little shout out here to andrew. What’s up andrew? Andrew lebaron saying what’s up? What’s up? Manager. Steve is usually looking at the computer, but today I am the interviewer.

08:28 So tell us a little bit about the struggle. Right? I think a lot of times we hear success stories, but I think people want to hear the infancy, right? What waS it like to, to grind and try to get this whole selling thing going? Well, uh, I will say there’s a lot of struggles all the time, waste the route and I would say there’s still struggles today. Uh, but I remember some of the stuff in the beginning for just traditional real estate. When I started in [inaudible] seven and through eight or nine, there not a lot of good opportunIties and we were happy to sell $30,000 condos. And I still remember installing a mailbox on a $30,000 condo so that we can close to talking about $900 bucks, you know, that’s less the commission I made on that one, which I paid a 50 slash 54 on the brokers, like 450 bucks.

09:17 The struggles that you had to face back then I felt sharpened me to be where I am today. Like there was a lot of pain along the way, but because of all the pain, all the struggles, I appreciate more than what we have. Um, and I think the, the, a lot of the people that are trying to be successful today, the, we’re in such a good time right now. The unfortunate thing is they don’t have any pain or struggle or they do, but not the same amount of pain and struggle that everyone that had to hustle and cut their teeth on back then. Right, right. So where you’re at today, obviously you’re, you’re, you’re moving, I really sense a lot of momentum with you and your team. What would you do differently if you, you know, I, I’ve learned in this business, if you can’t pivot you will you go down quickly.

10:05 So what would you do differently in the process of getting from here to there? I would focus more on the wholesaling sooner. Um, the, it’s, it’s a lot less or it tends to be a lot more transactIonal. Uh, I wish it weren’t that way, but that’s what I found to be the most successful part of our business. Uh, and it’s funny the, if you look at, and I was actually talking to brent daniels about this other day, we have homeowners like, you know, I list your house, chris, and let’s just say clemente rancher, that’s where I live and we set the record, you know, the highest in that neighborhood has been to 50 a square foot and I saw your house or to 80 a square foot. At the end of the day, you’re still dissatisfied. Like I either I didn’t get the binzer right or I didn’t get you up on the appraisal or this or that.

10:57 And we tried to do everything perfectly, but we’re still humans, right? Or the the, the lender took too long. What a titled in schedule, the signing, right? But there is always something that can go wrong and I can make you an extra 30 k and you’ll be disappointed. But on the flip side, as a seller, it’s using tHat buyers, buyers love you if you do a good job for buyers, they love you, but it motivated homeowner where you’re buying their home for 75 percent of market value is so grateful because they help you. And so as much, again going back to that fulfillment and doing a good job for people and being happy, like it’s so much more fulfilling to help someone go through that situation. Because we were on a walk this morning anD she said, I feel like the reason why you do well is because you approach it is a, is a help process.

11:43 They’re in a difficult situation. They’ve, they’ve, they’ve run the gamut on what they could do. Traditionally you’re just looking for a way out with the, with the least amount of pain. And we come in and try to offer something and honor them through the whole, through the whole process. So, so people that are out there looking, they’re in electrical engineering or thinking about jumping ship and they hear about real estate. I mean, you get on facebook, you get online, people are constantly selling systems and programs. where would you tell people to go look? Where do I go find a mentor? So fortunately we have shows like this and it was not this one, you know, we got some other ones that you can find an itunes store. Um, uh, there’S some great free content out there or go Into youtube. Uh, and then we have our meetup.

12:27 We do every first thursday of every month where we have a guest speaker speak that it’s supported and sponsored by us in the real estate disruptor is a movement. Um, but if none of those worked, then there’s also the facebook groups. Now you do have to sift through, you know, who’s real, who’s not real pay attention, do your due diligence, but just like you’ve done. And just like I do still today is I go and meet people that are moving, making things happen, and learning from them. I can say the parallel for me in traditional real estate before I open my own brokerage, before I got into coaching with craig proctor, I met with the calloways. I met with Russell Shaw and I reached out to a bunch of other people too that didn’t return my calls sometimes. That’s the way it is. He hits that way a lot.

13:11 Yeah. But the most successful people are happy to meet with you. They’re givers. Right? Um, so, uh, that’s what I would do is I would seek out other people that are doing well and asking them how I can add value to you. Right? Right. And I think someone made the example is like, if I need to go take your car to get washed, that’s what it takes to get time with you. I will take your car to get washed. Right? I mean, if I can learn from someone who’s making a hundred, 300, 500,000 a year, I will wash the car. If that’s not where I’m at today, I confess, I came out of another profession that was highly successful and when I first started doing this, I had one guy who came out of my same profession and just built into me and said, there’s plenty of stuff you can find without having to pay, but this last year I really have tried my best, so vulnerable and get out here and meet people.

13:56 I Think there’s a competitiveness slash a pride issue and wanting to go talk to someone, you know, and I just said, look, this is where I want to go. This is where they’re at. And meet them. The ones that will give me the time of day just to ask questions. And it’s tough because they think you’re there for an agenda. And I’m like, no, I just want to learn whenever you’ll share with me, you know, I’ll learn. And uh, it was funny, there was a guy that came into their office yesterday who wants to get his wholesale business going and he kind of jokes, yeah, we’re going to be a competitor. I was like, no, we’re not like, you’re going to find opportunities. You don’t know what to do with that. We can help you or someone is not something that’s ideal for us. It’s probably gonna be a deal for you.

14:31 I mean, I’m proud to, you know, for the people that have been guests on the show to call them friends and these guys have been givers, not takers. Right, right. These are guys are generally available and happy to help. That’s cool. So on that, you know, that realm of help, what are some steps, if you were to give somebody a newbie, five steps on how to get started, what, what would you do? You know, it doesn’t have to be five, but one, two, three. Like here’s what I would do to start this process. So the first thing I would do is find a mentor, find someone to copy someone’s got systems in place and ask them questions. Uh, the other things I would do is there’s three real quick on the mentor. How would you do that? You don’t want to pay them because you don’t have any money, but you do want to learn from them.

15:13 So how would you tell that person? I come to you and say, steve, I really want to learn from you. I, from your standpoint, I really bring nothing but I’m coming. I want help. What? How can I offer myself so that you would take the time, which is valuable to invest in me? So if I know that you want to learn this business and you’re committed and serious, but learning this business, then I will teach you how to do this business with our systems existing today. Right? We would give you the people that call, we will give you the script of the training, right? That’s one way to do it for someone that doesn’t have an ego and is okay, you know, learning that I was given this lesson a long, long time ago from one of the guys used to live poker with and he sold a window cleaning business for lots and lots of money, uh, back in Singapore.

15:59 And he started as a cleaner. He started day one, cleaning the windows work so you have to manage it, worked his way up, worked his way up, eventually wasn’t in position to buy the company, built it some more and then sold the company. It’s awesome. Right? So I think that one of the best ways to learn is to put knee deep in it and you know, you can look as an internship, you can look as an opportunity like as a job, but whatever you’re in a position to work the system with leads given to you and coaching and mentoring from. I did that over a year ago. I stopped what I was doing and I went and worked for someone else and I just said I need to know more than you need to be putting more fires because that’s my education, right. Deal. I’ve done. I’ve been educated.

16:47 Right. I mean the last. There was a deal I did recently and the gentleman was living in the house and his parents had died, but her mom was less than a year had died, had been removed. And so I’m trying to figure out how to do this. And I called my title company, which god bless them, they said, hey, just run over to the courthouse and ask a few questions. And I did. Yeah. And I got the deal and, but yet everybody else told me, no, you’re going to have to let it go. Let it sit. Probate as like, I’m not letting this sit, we’re going to figure out a way to do it. And I had chased six other family members down and we got, we got the job done right? and we hope the guy right in a difficult position. And I love that part.

17:21 It is. They have a smile on their face and say, thank you so much for helping. Then I know, hey, I’ve done the job I was supposed to do. So along those lines, what are you passionate about in this business? A, be passionate about every little step, but what are the parts in this process that really get you the most excited? So there’s two things I get excited about. One is doing good work is having people say thank you, you changed my life, right? Like, that’s always awesome. uh, so whether that’s sellers that we’ve saved buyers and traditional sellers that we’ve helped or the agents in my office, I’m like, these are all people that I love having that ability to support the other part, and this is the nerdy part, it was just building new systems, uh, at the colby test a few weeks, a couple of months ago, and that my rating is quickstart, meaning I just love making things.

18:12 I just don’t love finishing them. Hey, we just sAid that to me. Awesome. With starting, not so much putting the finishing touches on. Yeah. Yeah. So those are the things that I’m passionate. My mantra is keep going in your business today if we looked at your organization, uh, and we’re talking just about wholesaling right here. Yeah. What does that look like? uh, so right now is maximize self. That’s the partners. um, and then we got, um, we got ruben, george, ben, daniel, and these guys are affiliates. They’re either door knocking or cold calling. Um, and then we have other people that send us deals. People are saying, hey, I’ve got this tight up. Are you a buyer? Yes, I mean for the numbers, for the ones when they call you, it tends to be a yes, right? The ones where you’re getting email is, it’s like where’d that number Come from?

19:04 But when they call you, typically it’s, it’s a yes. So now how have you structured that with these guys, right? How do they come in and how do they perform and how do they get paId? Well, they get paid on the assignment, so when they bring me a number, so, um, I’ll give you a perfect example. Um, we didn’t go down this road, but I don’t care how much you make on the deal. If you made fifty thousand one hundred thousand dollars deal, good for you, right? You’re able to hustle, get that deal done. For me, our goal Is to make 10 to 20, maybe 30 on the deal, right? So I make that very clear to people that are sending us opportunities. I am not interested or it’s not a concern to me how much you make. What’s a concern to me is that there’s an opportunity available for me and I can make money on this deal.

19:50 That’s it, right? So when I tell people, call me first. Yeah, it’s for me, it’s not about how big the check is for me, what I do in memphis and other places. It’s about volume. yeah, I’ll take less. I’m trying to create a system where we’re doing more volume as opposed to gouging somebody on one deal than I ever get to work with them ever again. Well, it’s, it’s funny, right? Like you see these other guys. I’ve had friends I won’t mention their names, talk about they’re upset that the person they moved it to beat him up on the assignment fee is like, hey, you know what, it’s kind of tight. I can’t. This is too much for me. And then you find out they took all the margin that they beat you up on so you know it’s too much for you to make 10, but then they make 30 so they’d beat you down from 10 to three and now they started making 30 am eight, 37.

20:39 Right. That’s such a shortsighted way to do business. It really is. My first deal, my first deal I made I a 10 and not mentioning names, someone said, hey man, you don’t have any buyers. We’ll just put a little bit on top of it and they put another 10 what sat there because I knew it wasn’t a good deal at that price. So I said, man, thanks so much. I appreciate it. I’m just going to go do this on my own. I’m totally green but I’ll figure out a way so that the next day guess if you bring me this kind of deal about every time. So yeah, I get that. So how many acquisitions did you save? It was at five. Uh, so we got four guys working for guys. but what would they. TheIr, their associates. So it was max your acquisitions or is maximally.

21:20 Overall I’m overlooking the operation. He’s the one who’s going to the appointments. He’s not a, he’s not setting appointments. We have one person in Mexico booking the appointments. Got you. Now if they’re booking appointments, then what are these people doing? They’re just calling. They’re also calling. Okay. So we’ve got, they can book appointments as well. Yeah. Okay, so what would the person in Mexico be doing different than what your colors are doing as far as booking appointments? Uh, I will say they’re doing a little more scrubbing. Okay. Right. So the leads that come in, we’re going to have a lot of bad numbers, just the way it goes. Yep. So they get to do more of those numbers. Gotcha. Whereas our guys are going to have either prescreened or higher quality, just hotter leads. So are you and max both doing dispositions as far as selling deal or how’s that working?

22:04 Uh, we’re both, we’re both involved in it. Um, I would say max is in charge of makIng sure mco is constantly running. Um, we’re both doing acquisitions were both networking and dispelling right now I wouldn’t say we really have a strong guestbook because they’re requiring more than we’re wholesaling. Sure. At this exact moment. Okay, that’s cool. Any interest? Uh, any, uh, uh, war stories and he, you know, I think people learn from failure. Yeah. I think when they, when they see people are willing to be vulnerable and say, hey man, this, this man, this tore me up. Yeah, have any of that, uh, I don’t have any interesting war stories where we were impacted, but I do have a story that I thought was just the strangest thing and that this is a property require that foreclosure. And so we met the guy, so we’re door knocking, ben door knocked, met the home owner and say, hey, we saw your fur coat, your house go into foreclosure and next month we’re willing to pay x amount.

23:00 I think we offered on one, I think we started at 1:35, 1:40, we ended up at 1:50, which is what has payoff was right. Uh, or yeah, what his path was. And he kept dilly dallying, dilly dallying, shopping it. And it was funny, like he reached out to another wholesaler who then reached out to max. Like, hey, I’ve got this deal at one 60, one 65 max, I get out of here. We’re looking at that one, you know? Uh, and so the guy came back and said, hey, 1:55 is yours, was said at 1:55 a pile of the closing costs. We’re good to go. Shopped at some more, right. He went back to the other people and said what? What we were willing to pay. Yeah, he was, he was working, he was working. It took too long, got foreclosed on and we bought it at the courthouse. That’s what, 1:35. So it was just an interesting situation, but this is also reminding you can’t help everybody. Right? You can do your best. You can convey the information, you can present opportunities, but they still have

23:59 the walk through that door. Yeah. I was on the phone with the, with the lady, a sweet older lady and uh, she wasn’t living at the house and was kind of shopping it and I kind of gave her an offer on what I felt like I would normally do in my business. And she said, oh, you’re at least $20,000 short. And I said, I just stopped. I said, look, this is how this business works. I said, if that person is willing to pay you $20,000 more than what I’m offering, I said, can I tell you something? Take the money and run. She was, well, I think I might be able to get more. I said, no, that is the offer that it’s almost full market. Take it and run with the work that you said that’s needed in that place. and I just, you know what I did, I stopped and I took 15 minutes of my time and I said if those people can really pay $100, ask them to do it in the next three to four days.

24:44 Right. If they want their shopping your deal, you know, I just wanted her to be educated. I wondered, are undernourished because for me, if I, if I don’t lie and deceive, I don’t have to look over my shoulder. I just tell people the truth and if I can’t get the deal then obviously I can’t help you. So I say, hey, but look out, go get your deal and I hope you get that 100 before it. Yeah. We’ve had multiple conversations with people. You know, many times people call you back a lot. That wasn’t a right. you know, I would like to work with you. I got a deal the other day in memphis, but that one reason we like, you know, you’re going to offer us less, but we like you,

25:18 we like you. We know you’re going to perform. And one of the questions we started asking is, you know, so what happened or what did they say when you asked them to deposit the nonrefundable earnest. Oh, they didn’t

25:30 him haul backtrack, you know, come up with a story. Right? So I just tell people the truth and it seems to work. Tell me this, you guys seem again to have positive momentum. What are you think? What do you think are some of the, like the critical things that you’re doing well right now that’s leading to the momentum that you guys are creating?

25:54 Uh, well I think we have the right people. I’m max. I hired him, I want to say over a year ago as an isa. And he told me beginning before I even hired him, hey, I tried this whole selling thing. It hasn’t worked for me. Right? I was like, okay, hey, you know what? We can do it the other because I’m already doing it with the paper click, but then after that he said, hey, you know what, this whole selling thing is finally working. I’m gonna go do it on my own and say, hey, you know, what, go do, go do what’s best for you. I’m not upSet about that. And we stayed in touch and we reconnected to do max cash offers. Um, but I think we got the right people. And then I think that is just the personal development. One of the things I tell people, getting the real estate, the greatest benefit for me getting the real estate isn’t selling houses.

26:40 It isn’t, you know, income or any of those things is the opportunity to develop and grow myself. I’m a much better person today than I was 10 years ago because I’m in this business, uh, as an engineer. I was, believe it or not, a little arrogant, a little overconfident, a 30 hour week I was, I still remember woman managers saying, hey, we’ve got stephen covey’s seven habits of highly effective people were doing a workshop in the and, you know, does that intel, uh, it’s on this day from this time to this time, you should go check it out. and I was like, what? I need that for. I remember when I first met you, you said that they came to you and said, hey, we’ve got a special project. It’s going to be a little bit more, you know, after hours. And you said no, and you said the only reason why I don’t want it to go home, lay on the couch and watch a basketball game, no desire to do anything else.

27:31 Right. So, um, so back then that was my mindset. But man, you get into where you dictate your future and your income. Boy, you got to improve. And so I, I’ve invested a lot in person development. I still invest in lot of personal development. I’m going through sales training, entrepreneurial training, just traditional real estate training. And I’m also connecting with all these other people that are successful in the wholesaling industry and learning from them. But uh, the reason why I’m bringing this all back is that traction was one of the books that I read and that’s helped me run a tighter meetings and more focused. So on my traditional brokerage are traditional real estate team and our wholesale. All three are different traction meetings that we run every single, every single week consistently. And that allows us to focus on the rocks, focus on our, our, um, our metrics or kpis.

28:25 I mean, for example, this is something that max and I were looking at on monday. He said, hey, you know what? We cAn see the metrics for the last few months, the trends and say, well, we’ve been cold calling for two months and literally we have had no assignments from cold calling for the last few months. This is a problem, right? I’m likewise door knocking, you know, for the last two months we’ve had no second meetings from door knocking. This is a problem right? Since that one that we bought at the trustee sale, we haven’t had second meetings, so now we see opportunities to look at issues and say, where are we falling short? So then we changed, made some adjustments on the fly. Tell, tell, tell me one little thing that you noticed in two months of cold calling not getting a deal. What’s one little pivot that you made?

29:09 well, so we made an adjustment on the warm transfers now, so we had the cold caller and Mexico booking appointments. Now we’re saying, hey, you know what? You get a live one. You send it to max. Max is going to book the appointment and that’s one tweak we made this week. I think you hit on something personal development, you know, this year I started putting myself out there because I’m doing all this by myself and I started realizing I would rather make less money and surround myself with people that are going to challenge me than to keep going in the direction that I’m going in. That was one of the reasons why I reached out to you just to meet who you were. I didn’t know who I was going to find in each appointment. I haven’t figured out, you know, but, but I’m putting myself out there because there’s something about accountability and there’s something about good healthy competition that causes you to grow and you know, you start reading books together, you start doing life together.

30:03 I was just recently with, with jamil and it was my first time to ever meet him. I was so impressed. But what I was impressed with when I walked in and saw their whole thing, you could tell they do life together, right? They don’t just work together, they do life together. and that’s in my former career, why always built great things was I made it a family thing. And, and, uh, it’s very important because what it does is then you get this kind of holy fear inside of you. I better do a good job of leading, right? If I’m going to attach myself to already, uh, a good team. Yeah. Better, you know, develop. And I think there’s something beautiful about that. So, and I don’t know if bill wants us to put this out there, but if you guys haven’t had a chance, you guys need a tour.

30:45 Kigali in tempe. I mean, I walked in there, I told you I was blown away. Yeah. When I walked that office, you know, I was tempted to do a facebook live was like, ah, he’s out of town. I don’t know if I can get permission in time, like he’s doing whatever, but it’s an incredible environment. So it really is that there was music playing and stuff and we went in his office and shut the door. But I was just impressed at his transparency and his willingness to give me an hour and the midst of all their craziness. He didn’t check his phone 16 times. He didn’t look out the door 38 times. He just sat and asked questions and listened and I was very impressed. So, uh, with that, you know, obviously he’s got some, some pretty unique super powers. What would you say is a super power with you?

31:26 Uh, so it’s got to be either learning or, or I’m caring. I’m not sure which one it is that I was hoping you were gonna. Say that word fIrst time I met you. I said, how’d you go from one real estate agent to a broker with some odd 50 agents were over 60. Now. It’s crazy. You said one word and I went home and told my wife immediately. Yeah. So we’re deeply passionate and care about our agents and it’s so easy to just say, oh, I care about you. Right? Well, yeah, it’s easy to say but to live it and for them to feel it. and it goes back to um, you know, John Maxwell is good leaders ask great questions. One of my favorite books, I feel like a lot of us was kind of blend together but have all his books. that one’s my favorite.

32:10 great dude. But there’s three questions that you need that your people need to be able to answer and hopefully, hopefully I’m not butchering them, but do you care about me? Can I trust you? Do what’s best for me when, uh, when I, you know, I’m not looking and are you capable of leading me? And those three questions or something, I always had the back of my mind. Oh. And so when I’m working with my people, that’s always on my, on my, on my mind, and I think I’m fortunate also that I’m naturally that way. I think that probably being the oldest of six boys has a little bit of that effect, you know, being the first born. But will that laSt question is always in the back of my mind. That’s why I’m out seeking and asking questions of different leaders in Arizona is who could lead me.

32:56 I remember serving at a church, I was a pastor and I remember one of my leaders saId, you’re difficult to lead. And I said, is that a compliment or is. And he said it is, you’re just, you’ve got to bandwidtH, you know. And most people kind of just want to slowly go through on their Conveyor belt and you think and you want a challenge and you want to go where no one’s ever gone before. And that makes people nervous. Have you read the ultimate sales machine by chet holmes? No. So you should read that one. But that’s what he said, he was like, he realized like everyone kept complaining that he was awful to lead, but every time he works somewhere, he had doubled their production fedora 50 percent year over year consistently. and what he found was that by finding the difficult people is how you’re able to make massive changes and improvements.

33:46 Right. Without the difficult people. Like you want someone that’s just kind of comes in and does the job, then you’re not going to make massive pivots or switches or growing, but you get the troublemakers in there, which I feel like we’re pretty good surrounded by troublemakers. That’s how you make things happen. It really is. You know, you kind of. I was talking to another guy, he’s like, I go out and create all the messes. Yeah. And the rest of my team kind of cleans it up. We, we make money. Yeah. So, uh, what lesson would you want to teach somebody young in the real estate there? They’re young entrepreneur. What’s a lesson you’d want to pass onto them today? I think, I think you had to learn. I think you’ve got to grow. And I think one of the books I give to all our new people is the miracle morning.

34:27 Whether your miracle morning for real estate agents are just a miracle morning and that one does a pretty good job of capturing what you need, the mindset. But you got to keep growing because the world is going to pass you if you stay still. The minute you feel like you’ve got to figure it out is the moment you get passed. And one, um, one thing darren hardy always says, ranking, you know, or you want to make god laugh, tell him your plan. And that’s exactly it. If you’re not growing to stay ahead of everybody else, you will get past, especially with how fast things are changing today. I’m always hearing these new things that like, oh man, now we got to have that in our system because if we don’t have that, we’re so behind. But then let me, let me challenge that a little bit and said, but how do you not kind of chased the new thing so much that you don’t kind of keep treading towards the success?

35:18 You know, you’ve got a system that’s working, yes, I understand what you got to tweak and we get, but sometimes we get so focused on what somebody else is doing that we get off track and what we’re supposed to do and how do you kind of coach that so we don’t tear everything down, right. We add to it. Um, so I would say that’s definitely something that for the longest time people are always afraid of me going to conferences that particularly those two conferences. Going back to darren hardy, I went to two consecutive daren hardy conferences and both times I fired two people because he says he’s standing in front of you. He says, you know, there’s people that are don’t belong on your team. And right now you’re thinking about it and those people that you’re thinking about, you got to go back, get a firearm. Were they there at the conference with, you know, um, so, but there’s a lot of, you want to go back as a visionary and like implement wholesale changes. But we don’t, we make tweaks. And so when I come back from a conference, what I try to do it just write down, okay, if I accomplish three things out of these two pages I wrote down, that’s massive. And so we don’t want to tear everything down. It’s just subtle tweaks here and there.

36:25 Matthew potter said, true story. First book he handed me was a miracle morning and our production went through the roof and it was a good guy. It’s an awesome guy, you know, it was cool. I mean, that’s what I love about networking. I was, I was on a house with a short sale and hadn’t dealt with that much and I watched an interview. Yeah. And you were interviewing him and he waS the short. So guy. So I literally just reached out to him and the next thing you know, he, I got a three way phone call. We’re working a deal together with another wholesaler and he’s putting in all the work and gave me all the advice and uh, you know, props to him. So he’s an amazing guy. I’m very, very lucky to have him. Yeah, we’re, we’re trying to have lunch. Hopefully soon, matthew. So what’s the greatest lesson that you have learned? And I’m gonna I’m gonna

37:07 in the last five years. What’s the greatest lesson that you’ve learned and wholesaling the greatest lesson I learned wholesaling. I’m. Boy,

37:21 I’m going to tie this back to a comment I made earlier. Um, and I, I feel like at the same theme over and over again, but if you just network with other people and develop relationships, it really can help your business quite a bit. Um, so an intentional relationships, intentional networking, not just networking for the fun of it. Uh, I learned a lot about wholesale from jamil, you know, I consider him to be one of my mentors, um, but finding people that can help you grow, I think that’s, that’s the greatest lesson. It’s, we can get something more insightful, but no, that’s just, that’s the way my mind works. Sure. What are you learning right now? Uh, how to, how to get our brand out there. Uh, so right now this is one of the things we’re doing and it’s so fascinating to me that I feel like I’m still the same person that I have been for the last few years, but because of what we’re doing here with the podcast, with the meetups and intentional networking, you know, we’re getting their brand out there and becoming an authority in the space.

38:26 So that’s the, that’s what I’m learning right now. Now don’t you have an app? I do. So what does that, uh, so I created a app with my cousin wayne, a offer fast and what we felt was a need a little over a year ago, uh, for one place to consolidate all the wholesale properties because how many emails are you getting a day? And for a lot of those they just, you of get email blindness from them and we know statistically emails about 17 percent open rate or less. And text messages used to be the thing, but that’s kind of gone away. Uh, I know I was guilty over a year ago of starting to treat at text messages, emails. We’re kind of going through that pace or that, that direction, right? So we created an app so that you get push notifications. So, um, you know, we don’t know we’re there yet, but if all the wholesalers all put their properties there, then for a buyer it’s a lot easier for them and creates a better experience for them.

39:25 And from there they can, they can view the properties kind of like you have, you know, for zillow, you can view all the wholesale properties from all the different wholesalers. You can make offers on it, you can do messaging on it. Um, and we’re not there yet, but we’re going to have push notifications for your area. So that’s the focus for the rest of the year is being able to say, you know what, I only want to buy properties in a five, zero, one six. So you create a filter for if I own six and you get pushed up vacations anytime at eight, five, almost six property comes up. So we’re trying to create a better experience for wholesalers. Um, because right now it’s still a little bit of a free for all. A, I always tell people before that real estate was the most capitalistic industry of every, of everything in America, now that we do more wholesaling, boy,

40:11 that’s capitalism that way more capitalistic than traditional real estate. So what about, uh, so you got an app, you got real estate disruptors. I mean, what are you doing in regardS to coaching? Is that on the forefront? Is that something that interests you or

40:28 that’s something that we would love to do a. When we bought six, about three months ago, I say, you know, in six months I would like to start investigating coaching. Uh, but we already had people reaching out now and say, hey, you know, what, I’m stuck here or I don’t know what to do about this. So we’re finding that as opportunities present itself sooner rather than later. But yeah, definitely a passion for that because that goes right in line with my passion of, of helping develop people. So if I can help transform people’s lives, boy that’s, that’d be the ultimate

41:01 for, for what I’ve come out of and in my philosophy is there’s always somebody ahead of me. But there’s also always somebody behind me and so it’s kind of an image of I’m holding their hand in their hand because I feel like once I’ve been empowered, once I’ve been educated, I’ve got to figure out a way to pass that onto someone else. Um, so that’s, that’s huge. I mean, if I could get where I want to be in my passive income, I’d probably at this sounds crazy and I probably won’t, but I’d stop just so I could focus on that if I could wake up and make other people’s day better. That a truly what excited me. That’s the part of wholesale and then I do like is, is that getting in that conversation with somebody who’s hurting and they don’t feel like they have a way out. so what’s your favorite best or maybe even most interesting failure?

41:47 Uh, so when I first started real estate, I signed up for everything. So when people are asking, are some of the agents, you know, I’m thinking about signing up for this and for that I was like, talk to me first because there is an opportunity to spend it. I’ve probably spent it so racked up a lot of credit card debt when I first started and I would say that’s probably the most interesting failure because It got to the point, and this is back in 2008, 2009 where the credit card company, he said, steve, you have so much credit card debt with us. We don’t think you can pay it off, right? To wish I had every intention of paying it off, but when they say that, I said, you know what? You’re right. Let’s settle this. So, um, and that took a while, right? Hurt your credit for a little bit.

42:29 Sure. But, hey, if you’re willing to take less, you told me you want to take less, I’ll give you less. Sure. Um, but I would say that was the shiny object syndrome and I still battle it today. Shiny object syndrome hasn’t gone away, but now there’s a voice in back in my head that says, hey, you know what, this is, makes sense. And I’ll also incredibly blessed that I’ve got a wife who not only supports me but also keeps me out of trouble. Like the, uh, I, I’ve joked sometimes, you know, it’s the husband’s job to go out and find trouble as the wife’s job to keep us out of it.

43:02 Yeah. my wife would disagree, but I get us into a lot of trouble. Um, so let me, I want to circle back on something because it did make an impression on jeremy and I, you say you said this and that’s actually what attracted me and share me to your tribe is you care. Yeah. Um, what do you think it is in your life deep seeded that causes you to care? Not I care for people so my business can be successful, but maybe I’m being a psychologist here, but why do you care? Like what do you think it is that started at a young, early age for you to cAre about people as opposed to looking at them as profit?

43:41 I think it has to do with my upbringing, culture, you know, I think, uh, I had two parents who always told me that if anything happened to them, I was personally responsible for the five younger brothers. NoW fortunately, and they’re all successful, but that was what I was raised with was that you have this responsibility, we’re investing in you. Right? Um, they helped me, you know, obviously live with them through high school. Uh, I, they pAid for my car when I went to college. Now I had a scholarship, so they said, you know, if you get scholarship, we’ll buy you a car. It’s like a scholarship. They bought me a car, but they supported me through college and then I went to grad school. So I moved to California. Fortunately for grad school I also got a fellowship where they paid me to go there, but they were still supporting remotely.

44:32 But again, it was an investment where if anything happens to them, like I’m responsible for everybody else. And then there’s also an, they did this since I was like three or four, probably earliest ones. I can’t remember it any earlier. And I do the same thing that my kids is that, hey, we’re taking care of you now, but you just know when we’re old you are responsible for us. So there was always that lesson responsibility. I don’t, I’m not saying they didn’t do it with my other brothers, but I don’t think it was the same extent. In fact, I’ve, I, I’ve given my parents when grief because if I didn’t get straight a’s, boy I don’t go home, would not have straight a’s and then they were a little bit lax with my younger brother is say, oh, so either you’re unhappy with how I grew up, how you raised me or you’ve decided you want. The young ones will be failures. Which is it? And they didn’t like that conversation. Yeah, you don’t get grades.

45:26 So I have five kids and four of them are still in high school. In grades are important to me. Probably not for the same reason for a lot of people, but I’ve always taught my kids, I want you to get the a because it’s a process. I don’t care about the Letter grade, but it’s the process in getting the a, you’re going to use that for the rest of your lie. You got to go sit at a job or build a team and you might not like everybody, but you still want an a plus outcome. So what are you willing to do? How flexible are you willing to be to get what it is that you want, even if you don’t, because I got tired of hearing. I don’t like the teacher, I don’t care. That’s who god put in front of you. Find out what makes them tick really, which goes back to wholesaling. If you really do a good job of listening and find out what makes someone tick, you’ll be able to help. So I do commend you on that. You, uh, I continue to watch you just to see if he fake cares or cares, but it does seem that you really do care. So I appreciate that. So two questions real quick. What are you reading right now?

46:27 Uh, I’m not reading anything at this particular moment because people, because right noW I am, I am knee deep. I’m doing some sandler training right now. I am knee deep in that and I am all in on that. I mean, I am going to classes three times a week, I am listening to audio in my car. That is, where are you going to classes? Uh, so there’s a sandler facility up in scottsdale to chemo center and 90th. So brad ferguson is all super awesome dude. But like I thought I was saying earlier like sales training, I, this is re mapping everything I know about sales. So that’s all my energy. That’s good. Isn’t that favorite book

47:05 or, or what’s a book that everybody should read if they’re thinking about wholesaling and real estate? Yeah, investing.

47:12 So this goes back to traction and it’s universal, but I think traction is a great book. UM, and then for the visionaries, a rocket fuel to learn how to deal with people that are reading traction that, that need traction. Um, and then one of the bookS I gave, I gave two books to everyone and organization. One was delivering happiness, which is tony shay, the guy that founded zappos and sold it to amazon. And that’s something that it’s all about service. Everything starts with service and that’s one of our five core values. But the most important of our five core values, um, and then a miracle morning and think and grow rich is still one of my all time favorites. But so many people say they can’t get through it. Why do you think, uh, last question for me, why do you think people, uh, you, you’ve done a great job of putting people on the show and asking great questions and they’re doing well.

48:07 But why do you think people fail in this industry? I think it comes down to grit. I think it comes down to the willingness to do what other people won’t. There’s someone that someone wrote a great article or journal, but you know, uh, if you want to succeed, do what other people are not willing to do. Um, but I think that right now we’ve got some amazing young people in wholesaling today and you know, thank goodness that we have those, those young hustlers, but we’ve traIned a lot of people to, to, to not expect greatness. Um, or expect greatness within yourself. This is something that’s, you know, preposterous. But when I was in first grade, this is the beginning of give everyone a first place trophy, right when I was in first grade I was, we were in a contest, it’s not Turkey trot, but it was one of those things, right?

48:58 And one of the events was who can get the fastest from here to point a point a to point b right at the finish line with an egg on the spoon. ThiS is one of the four or five events. And I totally cheated and put my thumb on the egg and ran. Totally cheated, totally got busted. Right? You think you’re smart at six years old, you’re not, you’re not right. So I got busted cheating and after the event was over, I got a blue ribbon. I said, what’s this blue ribbon for? and you say, oh, everyone gets a first place ribbon. Yeah. I looked at her, took that blue ribbon and just threw in the trash can. And I’m a little competitive. right? Yeah. um, so I think that right now a lot of people are allowed. I’m not saying I’m not allowed or allowed to fail because I want everyone to embrace failure like you have to fail to be successful, but I think they’re failing without gaining any of the benefits of failing in that.

49:55 And that’s wheRe I’m saying fail with accountability. Yeah. If there’s some type of accountability built in, you’re held to a standard of how you felt. Let’s learn. Let’s move from that. But with no accountability. Yeah. So he tried hard and I tell people I don’t want to be a swamp. I want to be a river. I need those two sides. Right? Because that causes me to flow. It causes me to move and even move with purpose and power. But you remove those boundaries and I’m just a nasty, smelly swamp and one wants to be there. Right? Yeah. And yeah, so I don’t, I don’t think people know how to learn or grow from failure. Good word. Well, hey man, I, I’ve enjoyed it. I appreciate you letting me throw this idea at you and uh, and uh, do this. I think people did want to hear from you.

50:44 I think you are building something that is desirable to be around. I think people would benefit from the app. I think people do benefit from the show every week and I think there’s more to come. So I just wanted to say thanks for letting me do this and. Oh thank you. Yeah. Thank you for, for suggesting this. Yeah. Well you told me. I said no, no one wants to hear this. I like doing stuff different. If someone’s vegan that I say we should zag. Yeah. No. So I just thought hey, it would be just something different so I’m going to turn it back over to you here for the end. Alright. Thank you guys. Thank you. And do please tune in next week. We got chris iman. He’s one of the godfathers and the wholesale for the hard money side. He’s been doing it for a very long time, so he’s going to give us perspective on how he survived the last to turn around. And then we do have our event next thursday. I think it’s the six, 4:30. I make fake brewery, so be ready to attend that. And then download the app, you know, we, we, we love for you guys to gIve us some feedback on the app and what we can do to make it better for you guys. So with that, thank you guys for watching and thank you for this. This is awesome. Yeah, I appreciate it.