The Titanium Vault hosted by RJ Bates III

I'm A One Trick Pony | Wholesaling Real Estate

• RJ Bates III • Episode 516

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If you’re new to my channel my name is RJ Bates III. Myself and my partner Cassi DeHaas are the founders of Titanium Investments.

We are nationwide virtual wholesalers and on this channel we share EVERYTHING that we do inside our business. So if you’re looking to close more deals - at higher assignments - anywhere in the country… You’re in the right place.

Who is Titanium Investments and What Have We Accomplished?

Over 10 years in the real estate investing business
Closed deals in all 50 states
​Owned rentals in 12 states
​Flipped houses in 11 states
​Closed on over 2,000 properties
​125 contracts in 50 days (all live on YouTube)
​Back to back Closers Olympics Champion
Trained thousands of wholesalers to close more deals

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Speaker 1:

All right, let's get into this. So I made a post inside of the TU group the other day. I literally just said I'm a one-trick pony and it got quite a few different reactions. You know it got some heart emojis, it got some laughs and you guys know I always talk about the hedgehog concept back here and it's a little bit different than that, but it's very similar.

Speaker 1:

And the reason why I made the post is because at different times, there's just always someone inside of the real estate investing space, the wholesaling space, that has something to say about me. I don't really understand it. I don't know why. Maybe it's because their sales teams get tired of hearing about Titanium University, or RJ's content, or RJ disagrees with you. I don't know why, but there's just constantly someone that has something negative to say about what we do here at Titanium. It's not based off of facts, it's not based off of results, it's just based off of their personal feelings of, hey, they disagree with what we stand for and obviously, with me regularly talking about the hedgehog concept and saying, hey, you know, the majority of your deals are going to be cash deals. Saying, hey, the majority of your deals are going to be cash deals, you don't have to understand how to do sub two or seller finance or innovations. You can strictly focus on doing cash wholesale transactions, especially early on, and if you're laser focused on that, that should lead to you getting more closed deals and more wires in your bank account. Lead to you getting more closed deals and more wires in your bank account, which is what we should ultimately care the most about.

Speaker 1:

But inevitably there's someone out there that's running their mouth. In the past it's been the one dial closes. You shouldn't do one dial closes, not everyone's RJ. You can't close like RJ. Well, to use proof that wrong, there's plenty of people that have come in and been able to replicate the closers formula and have success.

Speaker 1:

You know, I'm the PPL guy, I was the texting guy, I'm the cold calling guy, I'm aggressive on the phones, I don't know how they have empathy and now it's well, I'm a one trick pony, and so if you want to learn how to do all these other methods as well as wholesaling, you got to come here. So let's talk about that. I actually I have no problem saying you're right, I am absolutely laser focused on being a one trick pony. I just had a reel that came out a couple of weeks ago, talking about the fact that we did zero novations in 2024. But yet we had a great year, probably one of the best years that we've ever had. Now, if that's the case and people are saying that I'm missing out why those two don't add up, why if I'm not doing certain things, then why was I able to have a great year and be so successful and also stress-free? Because it isn't just about how much money you make. It's also about the life that you're leading. And that's where it became super easy for us here at Titanium, where it was like, hey, as the leads come in, we know exactly what we're looking for. We can embrace being the buyer in these conversations. The comping and the underwriting is a lot more simple for us, and so we're very laser focused on what we're doing inside of our hedgehog concept.

Speaker 1:

And then when I look at other people and they're trying to figure out what they want to do inside of their real estate business or their wholesaling business and they feel like they need to expand either their exit strategies or just strategies in general, already starting to taste success, and then you feel like you're leaving money on the table. There's always a way that you can spin that to where, yes, if you're not doing a certain strategy, you would be leaving money on the table, absolutely, because you're looking at something saying that one deal right there, if I were to do a novation, I could make forty thousand dollars. So there's the story right there of how you've convinced yourself that you're leaving $40,000 on the table because the numbers don't work out for it to be a wholesale transaction. The only exit strategy would be a novation. So, yes, you are leaving money on the table. However, the backside of that story is all of the work, energy and knowledge that you would need to accomplish said $40,000 being realized inside of your business. And that's where I have a problem, where people don't understand that and they don't take the time to truly think about what this looks like when you start replicating this over and over and over inside of your business. When you start replicating this over and over and over inside of your business, and because we were not chasing those shiny objects, we had very few issues inside of our business. So, again, going back to the most important things yeah, making money being profitable is important, but also running a stress-free operation and not stretching ourselves too thin and having other things that could take us away from our core business concept. I think that is equally as important as the amount of money that you're generating. Am I okay with leaving a few deals on the table? Yeah, I am, because I actually think in the long run, because we don't have any of those problems from going off into a different strategy, we actually end up doing more volume in the long run. Topic First and foremost I want to talk about I believe it was the first book that we read inside of Titanium University's book club, which, if you guys have not heard me talk about book club, I absolutely love the perspectives that are shared by you know, at any point in time, at any point in time, 20, 30 different entrepreneurs reading the exact same books and then giving their three largest takeaways from the same piece of literature and seeing how many different perspectives there are.

Speaker 1:

And the first book that we actually read was Essentialism by Greg McCown. This book right here, the Discipline, pursuit of Less. Now, if you just can't tell by the title in and of itself, Essentialism. Basically this entire book preaches being a one-trick pony. I mean spread out energy does not go far. Book preaches being a one-trick pony. I mean spread out energy does not go far, it just doesn't.

Speaker 1:

And so you have to look inside of your business and say what is essentially essential to us being successful. And when I looked at titanium and I looked at, what are we the best at? What should we be solely focused on? It is wholesaling. We are really good at that. Now, if we were solely focused on flipping houses or being a landlord doing sub two self-finance novations, that being said, we probably could get similar type of results, but our foundation as a company is in a wholesaling.

Speaker 1:

And so, taking what Greg McCown talks about in essentialism and putting it into business terms, it is irresponsible as a business owner for me to look at one single opportunity or one strategy and say let's now spread ourselves so we can spread out our energy to hopefully make more money, instead of just doubling down on what we're already doing, what we're already making money on. And so the actual business examples that we're going to give talks about that, first and foremost, the one that I have witnessed in my lifetime, coming from nowhere and then becoming what it is today, is Starbucks. Starbucks is essentially only focused on coffee and creating an incredible coffee experience for the consumer when I live and I know there's parts like up in the Northeast where maybe Dunkin' Donuts had this, but where I live here in Texas, prior to Starbucks you had the small coffee shops, but you didn't have what we have now, which is essentially there's a coffee shop on every corner, whether it's Dutch Bros 151 Coffee, dunkin' Donuts, whether it's Dutch Bros 151 Coffee, dunkin' Donuts, starbucks. Starbucks kind of spearheaded that. But in the mid-2000s Starbucks overexpanded and they started selling music, cds, books, instant coffee. They licensed their brand and what's funny about them doing that? Is it absolutely crushed their sales. Funny about them doing that? Is it absolutely crushed their sales. And so when Howard Schultz came back in 2008, he discontinued all of their non-core products, like the music CDs which, funny enough, why were they even going into music CDs? That was a dying entity to begin with, and they scaled back the food and all this other things. But they reinvested in the training of the baristas and now look where Starbucks sits. I mean, literally now, if you go to a small town it used to be is there a Walmart? Now it's. Is there a Walmart and a Starbucks? That's where. Okay, wait, we're in a small town in East Texas. Boom, stop at the Starbucks.

Speaker 1:

This is one of many examples that I'm going to give you today where, when they decided that hey, we've got this traffic going on, what can we do to expand our sales, can we do to expand our sales? And instead of just doubling down on what got them to where they were in the mid 2000s, they tried to go into something that they should have never even messed with. Another example is Coca-Cola. So in 1985, coca-cola which I was one years old when this happened but they introduced a new Coke is what they called it and this was essentially a version of the classic soda to combat what Pepsi had done, the new contender on the block. And so they experimented also into other products. I didn't even know this. They diversified themselves into wine, acquiring a winery, and movies, owning Columbia Pictures. I never knew Coca-Cola owned Columbia Pictures, but essentially, the new Coke that came out to fight against the competition that was Pepsi.

Speaker 1:

The customers hated it and literally it formed backlash, not only against the new Coke, but also the existing brand of Coca-Cola and what had gotten them to where they were, I mean the leader in that space. Why? Because they feared the competition coming on. Guys, I've said this time and time again, competition breeds greatness. Okay, what they should have done is sat down and said how can our marketing efforts be better to beat Pepsi? Instead of saying let's go ahead and give up to Pepsi and give them part of the market share and then diversify ourselves into other products to try to replace the lost revenue that we're going to have and this is what I see inside of real estate investing businesses is that wholesalers will look at it and say so.

Speaker 1:

I called 10 sellers today and several of them were saying that my competition were willing to offer them more money because that person has an equity protection program. And so maybe what I need to do, instead of trying to beat my competition, is I should also try to open up my equity protection program. I should do novations so I can beat my competition with their same strategy. That's you just becoming one of the many, one of the masses. Instead of standing up on your own two feet, looking that seller dead in the eye and saying equity protection program, why don't we do a quick Google search of that and see what that is? Or how about this Simultaneously? Why don't we Google search equity protection program and Novation? Let's see what is a real tactic. Let's actually look at this. See, mr and Mrs Seller, my competition. They're easy to beat because they're liars. They lied straight to your face. They don't have an equity protection program. All they want to do is get your property. They want to listen on the MLS for a spread. This is how you beat the competition not becoming one of them. And that's what happened here with Coca-Cola. They just gave up to Pepsi.

Speaker 1:

Instead of doubling down on what they were already doing well, they tried to become something else a winery, a movie production company what are we talking about? Another one? This is a business that we use every single day here at Titanium Slack. Slack was originally if you guys don't know what Slack is, it's basically a communication. It's kind of like WhatsApp or something like that, but it's got channels. It's great for business communication. So we use Slack. It was originally a video game company and it was basically a failing video game company, but what they figured out was that the chat was the best part of what they had created as a video game company. So they doubled down and went all in on being a one trick pony of a chat company. And now Slack is what it is and it's used in so many different businesses across the world, not being embarrassed that they didn't succeed at what they probably wanted to be, but capitalizing on what the market asked of them, being a chat company.

Speaker 1:

Other companies that I look at and I I almost chuckle at what restaurants have been able to do over the past 20, 25 years, because there for a while it was like how big is your menu? What else, what all can you provide? Right, we have burgers and tacos and donuts and pizza and all this different stuff. But there's companies out there that have blown up in recent years off of one thing Chick-fil-A, raising, cane's, in-n-out Burger, five Guys, these business chains. I mean, if you go into an In-N-Out Burger, it's like do I want one piece of meat, two pieces of meat or three pieces of meat and do I want cheese on that? Those are your options. It's like you get a burger, you want a cheeseburger, and how much meat do you want? And then you get fries and you want a Coke or a shake. That's it, and people love In-N-Out.

Speaker 1:

In-n-out's biggest competition here in Texas is Whataburger, but I'll be honest with you, I don't like Whataburger anymore. In-n-out's stolen it from me. Like In-N-Out is simple it tastes better. They got better at what they were doing than Whataburger. They're a competition here. Raisin Canes same thing. You go in and it's like do I want chicken strips or do I want chicken strips in between two pieces of bread and call it a sandwich? That's it. Chick-fil-a it's all literally the same pieces of chicken. Is it fried or is it grilled? Like these companies are so simple.

Speaker 1:

Why do we think that in our tiny little wholesaling operations that we need to be more complicated than massive organizations like Chick-fil-A, raising Cane's, in-n-out Burger, slack, coca-cola? Why? Because we fear losing potential revenue. We look at it and we say, if we did that, we could make more money, instead of looking at it and saying, if I double down on what I'm doing, I develop skill sets, I analyze the metrics and I figure out what I can do on my marketing side. That's where you should be focusing your attention on how to make more money and that's what we did in 2024. And looking back at it is literally one of the best decisions that we've made.

Speaker 1:

So I say this where, when I hear my competition say, hey, you're just a one trick pony, I'm like you're just a jack of all trades and a master of none. That's why it does not matter what happens. If I'm on the phone with a seller and my competition is, more often than not, we are going to beat our competition. Provide the creative finance and the novations and all the made up language that you have. We will beat you with transparency and honesty and really leveraging your inability to be great at what you're doing because you're spread too thin. That's why you can't look at a seller and just say we're going to do what's called an ovation. Let me explain what that looks like and how this process will help you in the long run, based off the motivation that you just gave me.

Speaker 1:

Another example is in 1996, steve Jobs came in and cut over 70% of the product line that Apple had. Look at where Apple is today. Why is that the case? Very simply put, why do you think that you are smarter than Steve Jobs? You probably aren't. I look at people that have succeeded like Steve Jobs and go what did he do? What did he do when Apple was struggling? Oh, he simplified it down. He cut 70% of the product line. Maybe I should replicate what he's doing there. Why do brain surgeons make 10, 20, 100x times what a general doctor makes? Because they specialize in one thing, they're a master at what they do, whereas the general doctor, more often than not, can barely even diagnose you with something. Are we sensing a trend here? Become that master of what you're doing Instead of looking around and saying what else could I do to increase my revenue?

Speaker 1:

Because what ends up happening more often than not and I'm not saying this is across the board, but more often than not what I've seen in 15 years of being an entrepreneur when I see someone decide that they want to go spread themselves, revenue might go up but profit goes down, and at the end of the day, it's a vanity thing to say look at what we're doing. I know this because I also did it myself At first. It doesn't start off with a vanity metric. It very much starts off with I want to make more money, and if I do more, then that opens it up. But you can only become a master at so many different things. But you can only become a master at so many different things, and so this is why I'm always very leery when I have someone inside of TU ask me Like today someone asked me about doing novations.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, man, it's scary because I look at it and I go you are already succeeding. But he talked to someone who's averaging a $70,000 fee on novations. I get it. That's a lot of money. That's probably more money than he was making as W2 that he quit in January. In a year he's like man, if I could just add novations. It's about the mental bandwidth and what the direction your business is headed in the long run. It's not about one or two individual deals. It's about what happens.

Speaker 1:

When you look back, like I do now, over a decade of being inside of real estate investing, and go where were the mistakes made? I can tell you where there weren't mistakes made. When I said I'm laser focused on wholesaling, it was just a lot of deals that were done, a lot of revenue and a lot of profit and my life was great. Where did the problems exist? Where did they start? From Me spreading my energy somewhere else in the same space, it felt like up front, there's not that much different. I can do a flip, I can do creative finance, I can go do an apartment complex, I can do this portfolio, I can do innovation and then, over the course of time, that's where I can look back and say and that's where we lost money, that's where issues came, that's where stress came, and that's why I repeatedly want to tell you guys it's okay to be a one trick pony.

Speaker 1:

Other people might make fun of you, but who gives a shit? Other people might make fun of you, but who gives a shit? At the end of the day? Isn't it about where you sit in your business, how much money you're making? Are you living the life that you want? When you made the decision that you wanted to be an entrepreneur, you probably didn't sit there and say I want to be doing 10 different things inside of my business. So I'm stress, out the gourd trying to figure out what we're doing. Oh, you probably sit there and say, hey, if you could do one thing and make all this money and be stress-free, would you be okay with that? Yes, problem is, entrepreneurs, by nature, are super creative and we're always trying to push the boundaries. So we're always trying to come up with what's the next thing that we're going to do inside of our business, and that's where we get ourselves in trouble. So, at the end of the day, do not be ashamed to say that's my hedgehog concept and, yeah, I'm a one trick pony.

Speaker 1:

Now getting back to some of the specific examples inside of real estate, if you want to do a novation, why don't you just outsource it to somebody Like I tell the TU members, there are people inside of TU that specialize in doing novations. They do them all the time and just partner with them. You don't have to do it to keep all the money, partner up with somebody else where that's part of their hedge fund concept. They've become a master at doing that. Then you can still capitalize on some of the money maybe not all of it, but that might satiate that desire that you have for doing more or not leaving that money on the table that you're so afraid of losing.

Speaker 1:

So to my competition. Here's the thing I want everyone to stay focused and make money and create their own reality. So yes, I am a one trick pony and I don't plan on stopping, just like I didn't stop doing the one call or one dial closes, just like I'm not going to stop wearing my fucking wrestling belts, because, honestly, I know you're obsessed with what I do, but I don't even know what the fuck you're doing over there. So just stop talking about me. How about that?