Brace Yourself for Jaw-Dropping Success Stories
"Unbelievable Flipper Triumph in Waco, TX! Watch as Success Smashes Expectations! 💰🏡 #WacoWins #FlipperExcellence"
Learn how to do Real Estate Deals every month!
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Brace Yourself for Jaw-Dropping Success Stories
"Unbelievable Flipper Triumph in Waco, TX! Watch as Success Smashes Expectations! 💰🏡 #WacoWins #FlipperExcellence"
Learn how to do Real Estate Deals every month!
“The Real Estate Block”🎙️⭐️
👉Apple Podcast‼️
👉Spotify podcast‼️
👉YouTube‼️
Podcast: The Real Estate Block
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-real-estate-block/id1656811295
Instagram: @aaronlgaunt
https://www.instagram.com/aaronlgaunt/Tiktok: @Aaron.gaunt
https://www.tiktok.com/@aaron.gaunt
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/aaron.l.gaunt/
11_15_23
U1
0:00
All right. Welcome to the Real Estate Blog podcast, where we ask our guests the hard questions by taking a deep dive into their teams marketing strategies, systems and processes on how they built a machine that spits out consistent deals month after month. The value given in the show will help you find and create consistent real estate deal flow today. Have my buddy Stinson. What's up, my man?
U2
0:19
What's up Aaron? Thanks for having me,
U1
0:21
dude. Thank you so much for hopping on here. Like I said before we hopped on, this is just us going to catch up. I know we met in a mastermind, Duncan's mastermind, and again, we could talk about that, but mean you guys were super 1s hospitable. You guys were incredibly nice to me. And matter of fact, I would like to talk to you more about that. Probably after after this, but going right into it, you guys are crushing it when a lot of people are running away from real estate. So let me ask you this, Stinson, why did you get into real estate and how did you get your first deal? And I mean, we because you said it's been an up and down roller coaster. Yeah. So, so so give me a little backstory and why are we selling real estate quick backstory. Is everybody. Well, not everybody, but the crash of zero eight. Basically, I went from having a very high paying business. I was doing marketing for small cap companies, which online marketing back in 2006, 2005, 2007. Um, online marketing wasn't as easy as it is today where you just kind of anybody can do it. I actually had to read books and learn how to do it. And so I was making really, really good money working for publicly traded companies, helping them find accredited investors. When zero eight when the crash happened in zero eight, 1s my income evaporated and I was I was much younger as in my late 20s, so I was dumb. I was leasing the penthouse, I was leasing boorish as leasing Mercedes and wasn't paying my taxes. 2s Uh, it's embarrassing now, but it's just
U2
2:00
you go to college. I moved out a very. I moved out 15. Didn't have any kind of role model to teach me these things. And the taxes. It's a real thing, right? Yeah. So, sure, Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy. I can remember I was leasing a second apartment that was my office with my best friend. I can remember crying when Lehman Brothers filed bankruptcy because I knew I was, I was, I was skunked, you know what I mean? It was over. Um, I had about a quarter million dollars of tax debt and about 100 grand of cash and about $12,000 a month in bills of nothing I owned. Like, literally, it was all borrowed,
U1
2:35
right? Yeah. Um.
U2
2:37
Panicked, started looking around. Understood the theory of buy low. Sell high. The real estate market was crashing and was like buy low, sell high. Real estate markets crashing. I can make this work. I'm good at sales and marketing. This is what I'm going to do. And so I started. A lot of guys in the space. A lot of people in the space have heard about homes. They're based out of Dallas, Texas. Franchise model. We were one of the first franchises that came in with what was called affiliate. It was a way to get in the door cheap. So we bought a franchise, 1s got a really good, amazing mentor at the time, Mike Campbell. Right. He basically taught me the ropes. It took me about four months to get my first deal, and then I just started wholesaling to Mike over and over and over. Oh, wow. Eventually 1s 2010 was my first deal, and then my first flip was 2012. And that, you know, you've probably seen this and mean your wholesaling. I'm like, yeah, Mike's getting rich over here. And I'm like digging out of a hole. So I wanted to graduate to flipping right. So there's 20 that.
U1
3:43
Yeah. So I mean so because. So you're in Waco, Texas, you are dominant. You are dominating the market there. Like I said, you were you were doing wholesaling. Well, let's back it up here. How did you learn about the concept of wholesaling real estate to kind of get start getting you out of out of that debt,
U2
4:00
man. It was what was crazy is it was actually a good friend of mine, Ben Lamb. Ben had wanted to flip to the houses and he had he had started doing a lot of research. He was on Biggerpockets. So if you think back then, it's before podcast and the social media wasn't what it is today like Biggerpockets was the one stop shop. Yeah, yeah. And he started like sending me posts and threads. It's like, hey, this seems like a viable way for me to just use my skill set, which was sales and marketing, and go out there and start digging out this hole. And to this day, I still tell people all the time like, I'm in real estate, but the houses are just the widget, you know what I mean? The the business I'm in sales and marketing. Marketing first, sell second. And the houses are just the thing that were it's just the commodity trading. So I basically took a trader's mindset and said, hey, this, this, this is what I want to do. I can buy a blue and sell high and use the skills to actually have in a confident in and apply them. And home testers was a way that I could buy in. I could pay to get in the club, get training, and more importantly, at the time, what they're offering is capital, right? And that's what one thing had like had very, very little. So I needed capital. And I was like, hey, if I pay these guys, I'll get a coach, I'll get a mentor, I'll get a brand, and I'll get financial backing. And those were all the holes I had. So that was a way for me to get into
U1
5:26
business easily. They are they are they still around?
U2
5:29
Yeah. Sorry. Sorry to respond like that. Yeah. They're well past 1000 franchises
U1
5:34
now because I don't see him much in California anymore. Well, California
U2
5:37
is off market, right?
U1
5:39
Yeah. For sure. Chase him out of here.
U2
5:42
So what's great. Absolutely. And I'm I'm not anti investors but I'm anti franchise right. Like
U1
5:49
don't okay. If you
U2
5:50
if you hear a little bit about my background like I moved out when I was 15 I don't I don't deal with being in a box very well. And a franchise is very much in a box like you can't is it. Well, like I'm a marketing and sales guy and you can't do your own marketing, right? You just pay in and they do it. And whether you agree with it or not, and we didn't leave on good terms because
U1
6:10
of that. Really. Okay. Pretty
U2
6:11
significant spend at spender and 1s again was young and egotistical and 1s didn't deal with that kind of being stuck in a system getting well. So I took off from there. We left in 2013. 1s Well,
U1
6:28
I want to I want to ask you some of the hard questions there. I mean, what did your team look like then? What was your ad spend? What kind of marketing were you doing with them? And I mean, were you making any good returns with them?
U2
6:39
Yeah, absolutely. So my team was very easy. It was me and my best friend.
U1
6:43
There you go.
U2
6:44
So what's crazy is I convince my best friend to quit his six figure call center management jobs. Come work for me in this ad side. And two months later, Lehman Brothers file bankruptcy. So I had to bring Steve in with me. And it's worked out great. He's still in Dallas, has a bunch of rental properties. Oh, wow. Great. But that was the team. And the truth is, if I hadn't had just recruited Steve and it would have just been me. When we started, we were spending a thousand a month. It wasn't working at all. We were paying about $100 a lead. Their primary advertising back then was funny enough newspapers. Oh,
U1
7:19
wow. 1s And billboards.
U2
7:22
Right. And and Mel. Newspapers, billboards. And they'll be in primary. But billboards were eating up like a third of our budget. Dallas was a big market. There was like 30 franchises with my experiences in marketing, became part of the AD Council advisory board and was trying to help allocate the funds, was spending about $200,000 a month in advertising, and I can't remember the exact numbers. I don't want to lie. Yeah, fortune was going to billboards and we could track it, and we knew billboards weren't buying as houses, but they were selling franchises. And every time a new franchise came in, we were competing with our checkbook. So our ad cost was shooting up. Our cost per lead. Right? Not even like. So essentially we got into this really dumb competition. It was me, my camera and a couple other big franchises, Chaz being one, and we were just competing to see who could get the biggest piece of the pie, because that's the way the franchise works. Everybody put in money and you share the leads based on how much you put in. Yeah, so it just became as big, like we were all chasing the same leads. And I ended up leaving for that. And a lot of franchises leave because of that reason, to be honest, for sure. We when we left, we were spending about 16 a month.
U1
8:36
Like direct mail and newspapers. Yeah,
U2
8:39
Billboard, direct mail, mostly some TV. Okay. But you don't get they shoot the franchise and is like, you write the check and they go out there and do what they want with it, you know,
U1
8:49
like so
U2
8:52
that's where the problem was. It's like, hey, I was very into the internet back then and they were not on board with the internet at all at the time. Gotcha.
U1
9:01
Especially when when we came in. Our ad costs are a lead. Cost is around 50. And when I left we're paying like 600 every time the phone rang. And if you think about billboards. What billboards were driving made, services would call us, contractors will call us, and it's going through an automated system. So, you know, it's on a rotation and the maid calls you and it costs 600 bucks. We are just waiting for it to go back around to circle back to your turn. So it's very, very frustrating. We went three months in in
U2
9:30
16 grand, didn't buy a house. I was like, this is it. I'm out of here.
U1
9:33
Oh, yeah. For sure. 1s So we
U2
9:36
actually had a page out too.
U1
9:38
Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay. So so obviously. So we go so we go through a dry spell with the ventures. You decide to, to buy out you go. And now you want to start flipping. I mean that's that's a huge that is a huge step right? A lot of people like for example, me and my business, you know, we're strictly wholesale. We made it into a complete business. Some people you think of it as, you know, the the ABCs of real estate investing. So you decided to graduate up in to junior in high school, right? Flipping. I mean, why the heck did you decide to get into the physical world? And did you start in Waco?
U2
10:14
No, no, I've only been in Waco for three years. Then I moved here. I moved here during Covid and. Oh, wow. Yeah, I did that for. 1s A better quality of life one. But that wasn't the primary driver. That was a side benefit that we didn't expect. We expected the opposite, to be honest. But to pursue rentals and owner financing in Dallas is hard to cash flow on rentals. It's very competitive. In Dallas 1s was a tiny minnow in a ocean of wells,
U1
10:44
right? So you're in Dallas? In Dallas. Gotcha. Okay. You know, at that time, there's 7.5 million people up there. And down here, there's 125,000 people 1s down here, like the mayor offices in my building. You know what I mean? So it's like it's it's whole not not the building I own, but the office I'm in. 1s It's a totally different world of going from just a little minnow and a sea of wells to, hey, now you're rubbing elbows with the biggest movers and shakers that you can actually make an impact in Waco. So that's why we would do it. Why do you graduate to flipping? Because I was assigning properties to Mike, my good buddy at the time, for like ten and 12 grand. He was my mentor. We were friends. We were doing some other projects on the side in the internet space, and I was seeing the HUDs come through at like 40, 35, 50. I'm like, well, shit, that means you're starting his 35 plus my 12. Like, I could have made 47. So, you know, it's just simple greed and for
U2
11:45
sure to say, hey, let's cut the middleman out and become the end buyer. And by that time, I dug out of that hole and I was comfortable taking more financial risk and was trying to build that to where it was. Right. Like, it's very ego driven, but needed to get that to where it was. It was it was a big punch in the face to go from. 1s Being in your 20s and being able to afford anything. Being pretty much dead broke, you know for sure of that. And flipping felt like was a quick way to get out of it. And it was,
U1
12:15
tell me that mindset, how it I mean, what kind of mindset did you have to get into to be at that very bottom, scared to death? I mean, did you have a family at that time?
U2
12:23
I did, I had a serious girlfriend. Um, I've I've been pretty separated from my family for a young age, so I had a serious girlfriend. She left. Uh, 1s it's a huge transition to, like, we started dating when she was just still in college, and she went from living a high flying lifestyle. It's a hey, I'm broke. Like,
U1
12:43
I don't know how we're going to eat, you know? So she she she didn't stick around, huh?
U2
12:46
Yeah. Eight years and that was it. Oh, man. It is what it is. It's been a an amazing blessing.
U1
12:54
Well, I'm sure you use that as fuel. Exactly.
U2
12:56
It was more it really was a lot of ego back then. Like driving me like, got to be this person. I got to prove these people
U1
13:03
wrong. I've got to prove my family wrong. Like, there's a lot of ego driven. But what really changed the biggest change ever had was kind of reading and thinking, grow rich and then and went to psycho cybernetics and really got deep into NLP in mindset. Right? Like, and to this day, I still journal every day and write these affirmations. My fiance thinks I'm a crazy person. I talk to myself in the mirror. You know what?
U2
13:30
There you go. 1s It was the mindset of just kind of controlling your own destiny and focusing on the controllables and and truly just working hard. I think that's in the internet space now, and I feel like a lot of people, um, glorify what we do. And they either they don't project how much work and how hard it actually
U1
13:51
is. Yeah, 2s it's the truth, right? Like what we do is hard. It's complicated. Especially on the wholesale side. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts, you know? Oh, yeah. 2s I say that all the time, you know? You know, sometimes we sit in these, these positions, um, as the head person or starting your own business, and, and you look out and you're like, man, why doesn't anybody else do this? You know, because, you know, there's too many there's so many people, and you're a leader in one of the masterminds, and you probably get this all the time where people are afraid to hire people because they think they're going to go replicate what they do. And they don't understand that. Even in my wholesaling space, right where we run a business, where I got to I got to figure out a sales process. I got I got to talk about marketing, I got to figure out leadership. I got to talk about processes. I got to develop relationships with vendors. I got to figure out where to market to, you know, you got and you got all the numbers that you're that you're watching. And I go even deeper into that. But um, and. Yes. And then there's those ups, there's the downs, there's the, there's the risk. And, and it's going to be you got to be a little, a little bit crazy. You got. And what I mean by crazy, I mean crazy crazy obsessed. You got to be crazy because when you're down, when you have that bad month, that negative month, which we all have them, you got to just. Balls to the wall. Figure it out and be obsessed with it. And also have fun with even when you're down. You got to be that person to say, hey, you know we got it, right? We've been there been times in my business and actually I heard somebody else say this who was doing 20 million. That's not even real estate, just a business. He was doing 20 million. He was looking at his bank account. And sometimes the people on your team, because we're talking about cash conversion cycles, where people think on your team that you just you have this all this money sitting inside and everybody's trusting you. And then you're looking at your bank account and you almost little to none, but knowing that there's still money coming in. Right. You got this whole cash conversion cycle and you're real and you're strategically figuring out, okay, where can I budget, right? Where can I cut costs work, you know what I mean? So and me and my soapbox here for a second and a lot of people talk about, you know, don't look at your don't look at your gross. It's all about your profit. And I completely agree. But the funny thing is the kind of person that you have to be to make millions of dollars, right? And look at the gross like I'm all about, I think I think if you do make a crap ton of gross and make a little bit of profit, but you're still young in the business, that's pretty cool that you were able to get to that. Then you work your way backwards. Okay? We're all. Where can we cut right? Where can we cut costs? Now we know how to get here. Now let's work our way back and cut all the costs. Now that's just me speaking out loud, you know, because I feel like the people that preach, you know, grosses and all, it's all about profit are the guys that have, like, crazy amounts of gross, high, gross, like shut up. All you care about is gross as well. Anyways. Stinson. Sorry, I'm real on here. No. 1s Well, the truth is, is that. I mean, what you're saying resonates a lot with me. If September was a rough month, I have about 40 grand a month in overhead. And September we didn't buy a single house. We don't wholesale. So, yeah, when I make offers, they're they're they're solid offers. There's five grand and earnest money. There's no back out for me. The contracts are ironclad. Yep. I'll make an offer. I'm stuck. So in September, we didn't buy a single house. I have an office, I have employees, I got all this overhead. And every day I had to tell myself, hey, you got to go in there and be a leader and exude confidence in the team. But the truth is, is what happened is that houses that contracted in Q1 and Q2, that took a while to convert and get flipped. They're sitting on the market for a long time. So my lines operate from lines of credit. My lines of credit were getting very exhausted and had houses that are just sitting on the market. I got greedy and. Because
U2
17:43
a market was so easy, I got greedy and I quit borrow on rehab cash. So all these flips that were sitting had all my cash and the rehab and I'm talking mean the one that closed on Friday, it's got $82,000 in my cash. Right. Like that's a lot of operating cash a lot. Right. And and went through exactly what you went through. I was watching my account just go down and down and down. I'm like, all right, how many months survival do I have if, if, if all this, if nothing happens and how do I make sure that the team knows that they're secure so they don't go out looking for another job? Like if they think if they sense any weakness in me that that's going to go through, the sellers are going to hear, they're going to start looking for jobs. Like, the last thing I want to do is hire another lead manager. I have an amazing manager. I can't lose her.
U1
18:30
Yeah, right. Right.
U2
18:32
So that that resonates so much because September was a tough month for me. And as you know, we fought through it. And this month it's it's going to be crazy. We're closing like 21 houses this most of those are on sale side recouping all our cash right. That's all I told my fiance and agent. I said my goal was to go into the holidays cash heavy and confident with all of our inventory and everything except for one house is either gone or it's going to be gone here in two days. And all the houses I own right now are like home runs. So you mentioned it. Mindset feel like it's everything in business,
U1
19:07
right? Right. And we and we learn those things right when we had that, when we have that that scary month. Right. We learned that okay, I'll never have this happen again. I'm going to make sure I stack away in my war chest as much as I can so my family doesn't get scared because I'll be honest. Like, yeah, it's scary for us, man, but it's the family that you don't want. So I'm partners with my wife and it sounds like your partners as well. And you guys are both looking at the bank account, and it's like I'm a visionary where I'm just like, balls to the wall. Who cares? Like, we're we're way far ahead. If I always said if we lost everything tomorrow, which could totally happen, we'll just do it again. You know what I mean? And so obviously. But you want to always be strong for your family and your team. I want to I want to dial back again. You said that you you're you're not a wholesaler. Right. And you and it was I love what you said at the mastermind as you scorch the earth with your sellers. So. So if I come in and I put my little $100, you know, earnest money down, and you come in and you say, hey, I'm ready to go. Tell us how you scorched the earth so that you could obviously make sure you secure that that house that you buy.
U2
20:15
Um, there's a lot of ways that do it well. One of the main things. And I have no. Before. Disclaimer I have no problem with wholesalers, right?
U1
20:23
No no no no, not at all. It's it's some great it's a great tactic.
U2
20:28
Yeah. So don't wholesale. And that's how I separate myself. Most people in my market, um, that are direct to seller. Now there's plenty of bigger fish in my sea out here. They're buying houses for cash. But most people in my market that are direct to sellers or wholesalers say something like 95%, right? So my whole sales process and I'm the acquisition agent don't have ambitions of having a giant team or anything like that. If I can buy 5 to 8 houses a month and keep my team small
U1
20:56
and. Absolutely.
U2
20:58
Um, you know, this, I mean, you have a big team and a big operation. There's a lot of stress, and, um, I don't know, drama, right? Like personal
U1
21:07
drama. We can talk about that one later.
U2
21:09
Yeah, there's just a lot of personal drama there. Don't. Don't have those ambitions. Um, but my whole sales process is about us being a true cash buyer. Um, about. Educating the seller what a cash buyer is, what to look out for. I teach them how to catch the wholesalers and lies because not all wholesalers are this way, but a lot of people in my market are very misleading. They are lock it up. They'll get to the, you know, week closing, start negotiating down, which is to me super shady. Um, and then you you were there, I pulled out a checkbook, and I write a $5,000 earnest money check and explain to them, and that's their money. If don't perform and show them in the contract and that's five grand is theirs. Like they're getting five grand a day. That's there's guaranteed work. They sell the house for the price we agree upon. So that's my whole thing is I sell certainty, so I sell people all the time. I hate this because all of my contractors say it. I'm not going to be the the lowest. I'm not going to be the highest. My contractor say I'm not going to be the lowest, right? I'm like, I'm not going to be your highest offer, but I'm a guaranteed offer if you want certainty. That's what I'm here to provide it. Now you go mess around with these guys and if it doesn't work out, you can come back to me. But you're just going to stress yourself out and waste a lot of time. Yep. Kind of where it is.
U1
22:29
I like that you said that. You're right. A lot of wholesalers, you know, because obviously we're we're talking about an old age of way to do deals. And that is obviously lying to your sellers. As a nationwide wholesaler, we don't promise that. What we do is we actually tell them we're wholesaling this property. And in a way, we don't say that to confuse them. We say we do. We called it concierge service. So we do say we are going to market. We are going to bring a third party buyer to the table. So we are very up front when it comes to that. And obviously if you want to learn more about that, you know, listen to my podcast and reach out to me if you want to know if you want our script. But but we're very up front now. We learned how to dial that in because and on the back end, on the transaction side, it makes transactions so much easier. They know we're bringing buyers side and and also we we do know versions. Right. So Novation makes it even easier for
U2
23:21
you. Yeah literally I've got to ask you are you guys doing
U1
23:24
donations. Yeah we do a lot innovations. We probably have like 20 houses on the market right now with 20 different agents. My display team, they they find different agents and they put them on the market. If you can't do nationwide without putting them on the MLS. But I mean, so we're in way we're in Waco, we're crushing it. And, you know, we decided to go deeper into and I'm still on the fence about like, you know, because I'm nationwide, but we're still marketing Southern California. And I'm like, I'm always torn about like going deeper, wider. And so I'm still figuring things out as well. But I mean, we're still good. We're still we're still positive in our profit. But let me ask you this. If you had somebody and I know, I know a lot of people reach out to you, but what advice would you give somebody to have consistent deal flow,
U2
24:08
uh, figure out your marketing budget, stick to it and don't stop like Darren in September with my my burn rate is about 40 a month. 28 of. That's advertising, right? Right. It's really small and there's some systems in the small staff. It's all advertising. In September when I started projecting Q4, like what happens if October? Don't buy anything. And these how, you know, I could doomsday myself with that. And the easiest thing to cut would be the $18,000 mail order for the checks or the $6,000 order for the postcards. That would be the easiest thing to cut. Yeah, but I knew I had to stick with the mail because the mail. This whole screen right here is all my deals and the resources that mails where the money comes from. Yeah. So when you're going broke, we're having a hard time. Like, you got to stick with the marketing because that's and you know this year National like you guys got to keep doing what's driving the leads to
U1
25:01
get your ass on the
U2
25:03
phone no matter what at what cost. Right. Like, 1s I would sacrifice a lot of stuff before I sacrifice my marketing cost, but my marketing costs are 80% of my cost, probably over everything. So yep, that would be my biggest piece of advice for anybody to figure out a true marketing budget. You can a project for six months say, hey, you have a small budget, you're in cold call like, hey, I'm gonna spend $1,000 a month on data and phone services, and I can afford that for six months. You better stick to that or that six months. Because for me, in home investors in zero nine, when I owe the IRS a quarter million dollars, um, I had I think we were at like $52,000 before we got our first $7,000 assignment in cost. Right? Like between the franchise and the ad spend and all that. Um, you just got to stick to that marketing because you don't have anything without. 1s Not sure what you talking about all the time.
U1
25:58
No, that's that's incredible advice and even rings true and hits hard. You know, even reminder for myself to always. You're right. I'll look I'll look at my, uh, we have like a spreadsheet of, like, all of our costs and subscriptions and stuff like that. And, yeah, the most expensive one is always marketing. It's about 80 to 90% of it. And everything else is small. Right? And you're right. And especially so in this business is about marketing. Matter of fact, I'd like to pick your brain a little bit. We're going to be going into direct mail heavy coming up next year. And it's funny, I've always been I've always done direct mail and it's always been a great, great return. And then I cut it and and I'm right. I'm an idiot. Right. So anyway, so coming into this next year, because what we've done is we've gone into several different marketing channels. But one is like we never say consistent is direct mail, and it's always been a great return. But I'm now now that I've built the team, I'm able to stick my whole claws into this direct mail and I'm watching it like a hawk right now. So we're sending we're sending a little bit at a time every single week. And I told my team, what's that nationally? No no no no. Just southern California, southern southern California. So yeah. And like I said, we're Southern California and then nationally based. And again, when I talk about national, I'm talking about state statewide, not the entire nation. Um, so direct mail, I'm sticking my whole clause in it. I'm sending a little bit at a time. And one thing that I'm I'm going to tell them, I'm telling myself this year is we're, we're sending out every single week here in Southern California because again, those deals are are our bangers, our bangers, especially in Southern California when we do get deals. And I'm telling my team, even, even if I have to send only 50,000 pieces of mail I'm sent. It's going out every single week on, on, on the money. It's still going out now. We do have to send a lot out here in Southern California. I do have a mail company that I do work with that I had a deal with back when wholesale and Ink was first came up. And so I would actually like to hear you. I mean, what is your strategy with direct mail? What is some of the returns that you're seeing? How much is your mail piece and mean? I mean, let's break let's break it down. Let's, let's, let's shoot the crap and I'll tell you kind of what, what I, what I believe, what how it works, how much my piece of mail is, how much I'm going to send out to get a deal here in Southern California.
U2
28:21
Yeah. So. 2s First and foremost, I don't have it figured out. We're adjusting constantly. Of course, I 1s mean, when I say constantly, I have three male houses that I've bounce around through. They all really. One of them is a good friend of mine and I move based on cost, quality, deliverability. 1s And I'll just say this I'm an emotional basket case. Like, you know, like you have one bad mail drop, like I'll
U1
28:56
move. I'm not.
U2
28:58
No I'm not.
U1
28:59
At the end of the day, I'm the same way. I'm 2s loyal to one mail house when there's other people that do. Exactly. And it's gone this far. And this is where I'm at now, or Q1
U2
29:10
and next year we're not using that mail house.
U1
29:12
We're using it and then personally delivering it to the post office. Wow. Okay, here's what here's what I know. I see myself on everything, and I know that we haven't received pieces of mail that I sent out four months ago. Now think about this. One of my mail houses comes out of Southern California. You know exactly who I'm talking to. Um, think about the logistics of that postcard going from his mail house to get to Waco, Texas. Think of how many trains, UPS or mail trucks? How many sorting machines? Don't know how it works, but there's a ton of logistics to get that postcard from Southern California to my house in Waco. 1s Now, I'm not saying this has happened, but when I'm not getting see pieces from multiple male houses, I don't think it's them. I think it's the USPS. So I'm trying to eliminate that. I'm in downtown Waco, the big post offices right here. We're going to print them and take them right over here. So they're going interesting
U2
30:12
three blocks over here to 12 blocks over there to eliminate what I believe is is happening in the shuffle of male and female males being transported by trains and sorted by machines.
U1
30:24
Okay. So when, when we're spending, you know, a quarter million dollars a year on mail and I want to make sure that that all that male is getting delivered. Um, yeah. So pieces I rotate. Basically we're data driven. So we have our our houses we want to hit, we rotate one letter, two postcards, one letter, two postcards over six weeks cycle. So we were hitting every month. We realized that just wasn't working. Our cost per contract was going up, so we've moved to every six weeks. There's not a lot of houses here. I'm in a small market, so right,
U2
31:03
there's not a lot of houses. So what was happening with we were just saturating the market so much every month. Postcards are full color. 2s There's all kinds of different postcards we use for you guys that are okay, but we go between, as you can see behind me, everywhere in here, we're heavily
U1
31:22
branded, very brand heavy. Yeah,
U2
31:25
yeah, we go from branded and then we do non-branded. Sorry. Got a whole stack of. We also do non-branded just yellow postcards. What's crazy is that the best postcard this year for us was a hot pink.
U1
31:37
Really interesting.
U2
31:39
Completely unbranded. 1s Sorry, completely, completely unbranded. And then we've also in Q3 and Q4 have gone to the Czech letters. Um, the Czech letters are basically an offer on a Czech.
U1
31:53
Yep. Um, and we're having crazy success with that. It basically cut our cost per. We look at cost per appointment. I know everybody has a different metric. So what I look at is cost per appointment, because I believe that there's, um, 1s cost per contract is too, too vague and it get a lot of contracts from houses I met with 3 to 6 months ago. So when we're analyzing the ROI on our marketing channels, we look at cost per appointment and our cost per appointments, like 50% on the Czech left. The offer Czech offers, okay,
U2
32:30
our response rate is like three x on the Czech Czech offers. But a lot of people are confused. A lot of people have said, you know what I
U1
32:37
mean? Oh yeah.
U2
32:39
So we try to dial it back. It's like, what's the one metric we can look at? And it was the cost per appointment because I buy in person, you know, I'm not virtual. I buy in person
U1
32:47
for sure.
U2
32:48
Belly to belly relationship based volume is my business. Yeah. So I want to know what it costs me to get into a house with a quote unquote motivated seller.
U1
33:01
So you like. So you like the Chex man? I tried that earlier this year and I didn't. I did not like the return at all. For us, it didn't work out. It was too costly for us. And like you said with again, that's just my experience. They. Yeah, you're right. There was a lot of confusion. You're arguing more about the price that was on the postcard. I felt like I felt like the RV.
U2
33:22
It was like,
U1
33:24
what's that
U2
33:26
in that price? That's that's what page my lead managers like. It's crazy. They're mad about the offer in your offer is if the house is perfect and we know the house isn't perfect, right. Like our number is going to actually be lower than that, and they're already arguing with us.
U1
33:40
Well, that's actually right there. You hit on the head, right? I always said that, you know, when you when you give an offer and this is mail aside, when you give an offer, you start low because the only way you could go is up. You can't go down. So that was my light bulb. And I was like, wait a minute. If I give these offers in the mail, yeah, I might get a good response, but they're going to be upset because I can't go down. Yes you can. Don't you still get deals and stuff like that? But now you're now they're already set at this number. But you said and now you've already lost credibility. And that's kind of what we saw in our side because I was I was more going back and forth about these checks. So what we do is we send nice ugly postcards that have nothing on it just says, you know, this is name, you know, would you want to? We want to buy your house for a no hassle fee. Call this big number. It's just black and white postcard. It's pretty large and we're about $0.49 per piece right now. So we want to we want to do volume, try to get as much people get in front of as much people as possible rather than do like fancy postcards. Now obviously we're going to be talking about doing lots and lots and lots of postcards just to get the calls in. What are you guys at per? And again, mine's ugly. So when you do when you put some other stuff on there it might go that cost might go up. What do you guys at cost wise I mean just depending on the house in the high 40s to the mid 50s on the postcards. But it depends like on I know a lot of people are listening out looking but on this postcard. So we're we have all these pain points for these properties. So it's variable data. So every postcards unique because if they're delinquent on their taxes or if they've had water shut off or if they're absentee owners, the postcard that it speaks directly to what we believe they're paying is for that seller. So
U2
35:31
every card is unique, not just the name and the address, but the actual. Card in the design of the card is
U1
35:39
unique. Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. I'm interested in what you're saying. Just black and white, unbranded, ugly. Big. Because like I said, that stupid pink card got the most calls and told my team. Said they got the most calls because it's ugly. It stands out like when they're sifting through. I've branded so much in Waco. They know when they see this blue to throw it in the trash, because they've already they've already been tricked by me, right? They've already read a couple times.
U2
36:04
Right. So the pink one worked and I told my team, I'm like, it's because it's unbranded. And it was ugly. It just stuck out. So actually
U1
36:11
I got that. Yeah, I got that advice from my first coach, Tom Krull, again when I was super new four years ago. And yeah, that's what that's what he kept saying. If they're going to call you from like an ugly postcard that, you know, obviously, you know, they're motivated, right? Unless they're, they're going to call you cursing you out. But but if they call it they, you know, they're motivated. And what I like about the postcard is like, I like the larger because, you know, you got the postcards that are a little bit more smaller that could get lost in the mail. I like the large little more harder 1s feel for it because, yeah, because because that's going to pull out this large. And again, it's just black and white big old number call or text me. So we get if we get a text. And so that's so that's pretty cool. It's always been our it's always been our number one winner. And then every time I try something different it just yeah never got the same return I wanted. My team
U2
37:02
would tell you my fiance I'm definitely bipolar when it comes to the marketing stuff. Mean I'm very up and down. And so even back to that advice that you asked me I'd give, I don't even stick to it because I'm so emotional and everything that 2s it just is what it is like. I know my faults, um, but also like, I enjoy marketing, so, um, I like looking at the data. I like trying things. It's part of what brings me joy in the space.
U1
37:33
Exactly.
U2
37:34
Sides of it. I've lost the love of sales and acquisitions completely. Um, but I still enjoy the marketing side.
U1
37:42
Does your fiance hold you accountable? Is she kind of your integrator? No, I have a that's my integrator. Okay. Yeah. Jodi is amazing. Um, she handles all the technical side, like, I couldn't I
U2
37:55
couldn't put these reports together without her or she. I'm not organized enough and don't have the
U1
38:02
gotcha
U2
38:03
the mindset for it. Right. For organizing data. I love to look at data and analyze data, but I'm not going to gather data and put. Yeah. So have an amazing co. She's on the back end. She's a she's an introvert. She handles all the technology all the data and all the accounting for us. And that's her. And she runs all the team meetings and keeps all the KPIs and all that stuff.
U1
38:25
Very cool.
U2
38:26
I just analyze it and make a rational, emotional decisions. 3s It's just it just is the fact of the
U1
38:35
well, I'm the same way. So we spend at this moment and my marketing goes up and down based on the size of my team at this moment. Um, so we spend around 10 to 12 grand per person with. So we're spend about 35 grand a month right now. That's just that's just and again, if I got four people then that goes up another ten, 12 grand. Um, and a matter of fact, we just we one guy just quit. We just were hired. Another guy, he he's coming in on Monday, so we're excited to have them. Anyways, the reason why I say that is if I'm emotional too. So I, if I, I would tell my wife I would spend way more if I could right now, but my wife's. Hey, no, let's let's slow down. Let's let's watch this. Let's see what this goes on. I'd say so anyways, 1s most of the work for you guys. I'm curious and you're interviewing me, but I'm curious with the dichotomy of working with your wife. Um, I work with Danielle, my fiance. She's my agent and is pretty hands off on my business. I can't imagine 1s how. How is that where you're the work life balance? Like, does that exist? Like we have trouble with that, just as her being my agent, much less if she was fully integrated.
U2
39:55
Right? No, that's a great question. We get that question often. I freaking love it. I love my I love my wife. We're always shooting the shit. We're always talking about business. Right. We on my way here? I mean, we're talking we're talking shop. Um, one thing I always so we watch sometimes stupid. Like we just watched this stupid show on Netflix called The Ultimatum. And yeah, it was so stupid, but it's, like, entertaining. And and then we just. And we talk about it and, you know, we talk and they talk about, you know, obviously when somebody's a husband wife, they go to work. Both of them had their own jobs. And then they see each other at night. And I look always, I always I'm so thankful to the to the Lord God. And just so thankful for my life where I get to spend my entire day with my wife, and we get to really live this life together. And we we have goals together. We have so much trust and and we just we collaborate together all the time. Because I tell my wife, you know, we have two kids, we have two beautiful kids and those kids. And I tell my wife all the time, those two kids are going to leave the house one day, right? And it's going to be you and I. And so it can't our relationship can't be based on our kids. Our relationship is based on who we are. And so that's why I love that. I love chilling and hanging out and shooting the shit with my wife and and doing business and talking shop together. And we have all the same goals and, you know, mean we definitely we definitely have a lot of similarities because we're like the same age think we're like a year apart. So so we're definitely same age. So we have a lot of the background old, old music, old, old stuff that we could always talk about in the back. But and we're definitely different and in some aspects like she so she would be my integrator. I'm definitely the visionary, but damn it, she is so supportive.
U1
41:44
Well, I say that because and this is where I see this is where I see. And again, it's just you, you and I talking shot. This is where I see people, husband and wife fail. 2s I don't I don't know if how religious you are, but I am a Christian and I do see, you know, obviously the man is is the head of the household, right? We are the providers and and I'm not saying my wife submissive or anything like that because I love her like, like Christ loved the church, but she, um, you know, like, if I, if I wanted to go this direction, she's come with me. Right. If I make a call in the business, she's going with me. Right. I'll be honest. We are partners. But this is kind of hard to say, but I kind of have the end result, and she's going to be fully supportive. I'm the one who start. I am the one who started this. And she was just the one who really supported me. And she and I remember the day she said, hey, where can I help out in the business? And she jumped in headfirst and just crushed it. But but she she's incredible. And obviously I take her advice and we definitely we try to have level ten every week to where we talk about finances and where the company is going and stuff like that. Anyways, how about yourself?
U2
42:47
Well, I mean, I asked that question because we work together. She's my agent. So that's the one thing. The work work life balance is a struggle for us. I mean, not a struggle, but it's
U1
42:57
like, oh, like spending time together.
U2
42:59
No, mean. We're like, you were around each other 24 hours a day. We we. Me and my partner owned the brokerage, and she works for my business partner. Oh, wow. 1s She's in the building, you know, and she's very, very involved. Our business is her lead source to, like, she gets a ton of listings from us, right? And because we own the brokerage, we can monetize that. And I'll send out marketing costs. So it's a win win for sure.
U1
43:27
Um, but it's crazy. They'll be like 845 at night. I'm an old man and try to get in bed by 930. I'm like, man, we haven't talked about anything about work since 7 a.m., you know what I mean? Like literally. Um, so it's just a it's fine. Right now. We're we're young and hungry, but I question the longevity of our relationship. If everything is work. And it hasn't always been this way. She just got into business. When we moved to Waco, that was the. That was my whole value proposition is like, hey, I'm going to make you leave your family in this big, amazing city. We're going to go to a town of 125 people where we have a few friends, and you're going to quit your career. You can work with me. So the whole value proposition is like, hey, you become an agent. Shane owns a brokerage. I can feed you leads, you'll make more money, you're going to have fun. You're not going to have this stupid corporate American job where you're like. Not happy. But now it's turned into where work. It's. We're always working, right? Even, like we'll be out of town next week. Camping. Backpacking and. Oh. Nice
U2
44:31
work, you know. Yeah. Can't get to that. Yeah. Where where would you want to be? Like, what? What kind of dynamic of a relationship would you want to see? I have no
U1
44:41
idea. Okay. I'm just I'm just I get again, this is just this is just masterminding, right? 1s I wish, I wish, I honestly wish that 1s there was a way that at night it was just we just didn't talk about work. Okay? But it's just not. It's literally just not possible, right? Like. Right. We
U2
45:01
try, but then she's an agent. So most of her activity happens at night, right? Like the,
U1
45:06
uh. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. What I, what I, what I like to do is for at least this is what I do. So I like to try to put my phone on sleep mode when we're at home. Right. And I just, I put it in the other room and I literally do that. I've been doing this now probably for like two months now, and it's been fantastic because I don't want to hear, I don't want to. My wife still looks at our slack channel every once in a while, and she'll tell me whatever somebody's saying, but at least I'm off. And like I said, like I said, we'll watch stupid shows together. And that kind of helps us talk about other stuff, you know? Yeah. And because we're always pausing it and then we'll talk about what's going on in the show. And uh, and so that kind of helps out a lot when we talk about other stuff. And obviously with the kids, you know, we're trying to talk about things with the kids and. Yeah, so but no, we don't we still talk. Oh no kids. You guys have
U2
45:54
that whole, you know, all of our friends have young, young kids right now. And that's a whole nother thing for sure. Yeah. Full time, a whole nother full time job.
U1
46:04
So. It sure is. 2s No, I mean, we we still talk about work so much, I think I think. Yeah, we talk about work a lot. I think that's where it comes down to. It's like also, I mean, we do enjoy it, you know, it's like because, you know, people used to say, you know, get a hobby, right? I don't really have any hobbies. Let's just be honest. I don't have any hobbies. My hobby is this I see this, you know, it's kind of like, I love Alex Mosey, right? Electromobility talks about this. The game. Yeah. Building a business is a freaking game. It is your hobby. Like, I. I don't care what anybody says. This is my hobby. I'm having a good time doing it. I'm building blocks. I'm building things. I'm maneuvering things, and I'm figuring out what works, what doesn't work. And to me, that's like, I think it's a freaking cool hobby. Um, so yeah, 1s I 2s don't want to sound too generalization to general, but most people don't like work, right? Like, because they don't like their job, they don't like the environment. It's different when you're an entrepreneur. And I imagine most people listening to this or living this life or aspire to live this life, it's different when some people think it's crazy because I work a lot. Like my best friend is a cardiologist. He makes crazy money, but he works a lot. But when he's off his off, so he's like, man, you're always stuck on your phone. I'm like, dude, I have so much 1s a bunch of flips going on. I got a bunch of rentals. Like there's always something broken, right? 2s But when you're building something for yourself, it doesn't. I'm building a future like I've been self-employed pretty much my whole life. Or commission based? Yeah. So
U2
47:35
these rentals and owner finance deals are my retirement. I'm working towards a goal, and when I hit that goal, I can. I can throw this phone in the trash. Right, will I won't. Right? Because we're we're achievers and I enjoy the challenge. But it's it's different when you're building something for yourself rather than working for somebody and building something for somebody else.
U1
47:55
Do you have an executive assistant?
U2
47:57
No, no,
U1
47:59
because that would be it. That'd be a good little filter for you. Yeah.
U2
48:03
No, I don't have an assistant. So page is again a very small team page in my lead manager. But we have a VA that is kind of the first, first contact for the leads that come in. Paige actually works for the leads have been pre-qualified. So she does help me with, you know, personal stuff. She manages my schedule 100%. Um, you know, I booked this with you on my own, and she's like, what is this? You know, like.
U1
48:32
I'm going to talk with my when my boy Aaron. Yeah. Well, it's just, you know, she manages my schedule, so she's like, how are you going to manage this? I told you, hold over here. Didn't eat lunch. I just came from closing two houses and. Nice.
U2
48:43
That's what happens when I've managed my own schedule. I screw everything up.
U1
48:47
Well, you know what's funny, though, man? You know, it's leverage. I would start I would start thinking about, like, delegating. And I know you're really good at this, but delegating, delegating, delegating. You know, you said earlier in the podcast you're like, hey, you have a team. I wouldn't say I have a large team right now. I have six people on the sales floor and like two Vas, right? It's not a crazy big team. I do aspire to have a bigger team. So I do want five five. I want five Dispo reps and five acquisition reps by the end of, well, beginning of first quarter next year. So we're always recruiting. We're always looking for for hire
U2
49:20
locally in office, local in office. Correct. So yeah, very important. Right. But here's the thing. Um. 1s I because of the the systems I put in place and because of the way I learned how to manage people and the way that we do. The books that I've read this year about leadership write a CEO shouldn't be in the nitty gritty. My I shouldn't be micromanaging, right? When I first started, I was kind of micromanaging because obviously I'm finally taking my hands off everything. But one thing I learned about in the book, multipliers, and you might hear me say this on the podcast quite often, but is you need to be a multiplier. You need to extract the genius out of every single person in your team. Right? And so every time somebody comes with me with a question I always ask and actually it's something I learned here, 2s some stuff here like the rescuer, that's what it was. So I asked for a solution. I said, hey, well give me so, so what do you think we should do? Right? You lean on their genius. You don't want to look at them like they don't know what they're doing. Because if you hire, right, you're hiring really smart people. Like, I have some smart freaking people. Now. I went to my bad hires. I don't do that shit anymore. 2s And I'm very careful on who I hire. And we could talk about how hire later, but man, I hire some smart ass people, man. And so now I lean on them and for the like the one, three, one right where like what? What? So somebody brings you a problem, 1s you say. And I didn't even have to do all. I didn't have to say this. I've just heard this concept. Usually I tell them to bring me a solution. And then as a CEO, I pretty much just go say do that one. So what I like to do is I say, you know, if they bring me a problem, I say, give me three solutions. They give me three solutions. And then obviously you'll pick as a CEO, you'll pick one or you'll pick one, they'll pick the one of the solutions. And then most of the time you go do that right. If because at the same time, if you're constantly in their business, they'll never grow, right? Learning, right. If you're solving all the
U1
51:21
problems. Exactly. And and I heard this from a mentor earlier too. Is that like, my way works, but it's not the only way. And it might not even be the best way. Yes, I know how to drive results, but I'm going to lean on my team to also be resourceful. Actually, one of our core values is resourcefulness, and so I want my team to learn how to be resourceful. And so they're going to go find all the the soluble answers as well. So that's been a huge deal. I have like one chicken. I have one person on our team and she is a she crushes it. But I think she stopped coming to me because I kept asking her. I said, well, give me a solution, right? What do you think we should do? So I helped and I already know what I would tell them and how I would solve that problem. I already know, right? But I want them to think about it. And then you go, okay, we'll do that. And then it's been amazing. By creating such a world in
U2
52:11
there, they're not coming to it all the time. Right. Like if you know you trust them 1s a solution, they don't have to come to you and ask you everything to you. Empowering
U1
52:21
them, creating
U2
52:22
loyalty. They're
U1
52:24
110%. Our turnover is like little to none. Now. Like I said, we had a guy just quit recently, but it was for like health issues and we left on he left on good terms and but yeah, remember when I first started I was it was it was high turnover because I my big goal now and you'll hear me say this often is you know when you got when you got a bunch of candidates and you're like well maybe we'll try him or let's give him a shot. I don't hire those those guys anymore. I don't hire maybes. I need to be like sold on this person to bring them on. But that being said, you need a lot of candidates. You need a lot of leads, right? So so indeed does some pretty cool crap, right? You could put a budget on and you get a crap ton of leads. And in those leads I have my admin filter them out because I was I was you know, a lot of people do like no show. So I'm admin filter them out. I look at the recordings, I even think they're great. So it'll take me like 30s like I want to talk to that guy or not. Most times it's a no. That guy dressed like crap. That guy didn't know how to answer this question. This guy answer the question. Bad or so. I don't even need to watch the entire thing. She has four questions and I want to see, you know, how do you present yourself? How did you answer the question? Did you show up on time? Do you show up at all right, so that online or in person. Yeah. So that would be pre screen. So they'll pre screen. So my so they'll come in my admin reaches back out books a slot and then so then she'll do a zoom call that's recorded. At the end of the day I get to look at all the recordings which literally takes me five minutes. It doesn't even take me that long. And then I say, all right, I want to add the out of the 15 pre screens, I probably want to talk to one, 1 or 2, and then they'll set up for a second interview. That second interview I'll talk to them on the zoom call for like five ten minutes 15 minutes and I'll fill them out even more. Right? That's where obviously my now my time is valuable and I get to deep dive into them. And if I like them from there, they'll come into my office and we do a shadow day. We'll do they'll do a screen test. They'll see if we'll decide, we'll do a they basically, do you want to be a part of this culture? Is this is this a place you want to work? Right. They'll they'll shadow my team. They'll my team now obviously gets to interview them. Right. Yeah. So they. Yeah. So they get to kind of like, is this guy 1s asking questions. Is he paying attention. He'll sit on our morning high puddle. Right. They'll sit on morning high. But we'll see if that's something that they want to be a part of. After that we'll go into the conference room and then we'll do a role play. Right? We'll talk. We'll ask a bunch of more questions. Is this something you want to be? Are you gonna be the hardest worker? Etcetera. Then we'll do a role play. We do about 2 to 3 role plays, right. Are you able to take the feedback? Am I giving you right. How are you able to handle certain objections. Right. And I've people got all the way to the role play. And I see the red flags and I don't move forward with them. Um couldn't we actually found somebody today? Somebody came in for a shadow day today. And actually I really we really like them and we're going to hire them. So we shot them an offer. So after that then we show them an offer. And I've gotten people all the way to the show today. And it wasn't a good fit for them. Right. They like I don't really want to do this. I'm like, perfect, I'll stop. I'll stop it. Like, hey, I don't think I'll tell. And I'm very blunt. And that's another thing we talked about earlier in the business is you got to be able to have hard conversations and I'll say, hey, I don't I'll tell them, I don't think this is a place for you. What do you mean, am I right? They'll say yes. Perfect. Shake their hands. They're out the door. Right. You say both
U2
55:46
yourself. Both be parties a lot of times. Exactly. So we do don't want to be like the phone. Culture is a different thing. Once they get around it, they realize that's not.
U1
55:55
Exactly
U2
55:56
when I found Paige. I mean, think she's like, I love talking to people, and that's her biggest skill set. Call her a chameleon. Then she can build rapport and build a relationship like nobody I've ever seen. Every appointment I go to there like Paige is amazing. Oh. That's awesome. 2s Now, like, you had to go through dozens of people to
U1
56:15
find her. There you go.
U2
56:17
Shows, lots of new shows.
U1
56:19
Larson shows it. Right? And, like, obviously, we shouldn't be. We shouldn't be sitting around for the no shows, right? You want to. You want to delegate that out? I don't got time to try to filter these people out. So but after implementing that, that process and when I find that person I like, I hire them fast because obviously they have other offers and I want them to have other offers. Right. Because that means I have somebody good on my hand. Um, so anyways, it saved us. It saved us a lot of money and and we're built we built actually a great team. Now, this is probably the strongest team we've ever had. And dude. Yeah, super excited to build that team. And it's also because like Max Maxwell said, right. Like that lid. So when I really started reading books and really started focusing on my leadership, I was able to hire more quality people than I was a year ago. So
U2
57:10
leadership book
U1
57:11
multipliers. So yeah. So I haven't read
U2
57:14
it. Extreme ownership obviously. Mine or not obviously, but it's mine multipliers I'll check it out.
U1
57:20
Yeah great. Yeah. Extreme ownership is probably my second I would say the second to that. Then obviously John Maxwell has some pretty good leadership books. I read some good business books. Have you ever read The Leaky Buckets?
U2
57:33
Dude, that's a great that's an incredible book too. 2s So that. Yeah, that one's. I just got done reading traction again because when I read, I don't know if you saw my video recently, but I read traction my first started and obviously just like, yeah, like it doesn't make any sense to you and you don't have a team, right? You build a team. Traction makes more sense. Like we just I just put this thing, I just, I put a bunch of stuff together. But one of my favorite things I implemented from traction, and there's a lot of them, but is the People Analyzer, I freaking love it. I put a spreadsheet together and I put core values at the top, and I analyze each person every single month. It does this person, you know, present the the core of this core value? Yes, sometimes or no. Right. And then obviously most of them are all sometimes most of them all agree. But the guy who just left, he had about four sometimes. Right. He was kind of in the middle on some of those core values. So it was perfect. It was. And and if there are any. And I went back and I thought about all the people I had to let go, all my bad past employees, they would have been red. They wouldn't they didn't implement the core values that we have. So you got to have damn core values. Oh, another book, Teamwork by Natalie Dawson. I couldn't put that book down to it. It's a short read, but it has so much, you know, the book's all out there to have fluff. Well, teamwork. Credible. Credible. Dawson.
U1
58:58
Yeah. 2s Traction is probably one of the hardest books I've ever read. It's a it's a textbook, you know what I mean? And for a visionary type, it just is real. I like to.
U2
59:12
I like to read books, like physical books. But traction I had to listen to, I just couldn't read like I couldn't like you said, you couldn't put that book down. I
U1
59:20
couldn't put pick it up. Well, I couldn't do that either until until I actually had people to manage. Right. And then this and this stuff is now saved me so much. So, for example, we're really implementing like HR and shit like that too now because, you know, you get in some sticky situations when you start getting it with employees. Right. So I make sure everything's documented. We do we do two. 2s Um, what is it called? A performance reviews a month. Two? Yeah, we do two a month, and it's basically like 15 days. So like in the middle of the month, we do like because we're doing their salespeople. Right. So we want to make sure we want to talk to you. Hey, how's everything going? How's your numbers looking? What kind of revenue do we bring in work. What are some end zone opportunities? Right. It's just that it's almost like a coaching, like one on one. Right? But we make sure it's written down. Right. We want to make sure your numbers are written down. We want and ask questions. Are you taking your damn lunch breaks right. Are you okay with the equipment. Right. Anything that you come back with some stupid lawsuit. Anyways. Now now we have all that shit written down, right? And also, we could catch things early. If we have people that are unhappy, I'm going to catch that shit early. I'm going to have harder conversations early. And at the end of the month we talk about that because it's is it's sales, right. So you got to look at numbers consistently. So if I start see you going down already. Well let's talk about that. So we get you back on track early and not wait for a quarter quarterly review. Like how crappy is that. Right. So that's what I'm saying. We don't
U2
60:43
have.
U1
60:45
Well we don't. So. So let's talk about that. So we don't do. So you don't micromanage. But we obviously are having one on one coaching calls. Right. Start coaching stuff so you do your shit. But guess what. We'll talk about it. And the numbers right where we where we're going wrong and where do we need to come back. Now that's just again that's just running a sales floor. I soon hope to hire a you know, we're obviously trying to build up a sales manager to have those those right. So obviously our team is still small enough where I'm able to do that, do those things. But there are going to be a time when I need a sales manager to really manage the sales floor.
U2
61:24
That's awesome. Good for you. Do not. I do not have any ambition. 3s I know we're running out of time, but
U1
61:34
before. No. You're good. My marketing for small cap companies. I was running a sales team, 28 people and was the sales manager. And 1s when I talked about earlier, the emotional and personal baggage it comes in, you know, like, I have a relationship with my staff. Like, I know everything that's going on for sure.
U2
61:55
And the culture here, we're family. 1s Managing 28 people on commission in a high sales, high pressure environment. Man. Insanity. I don't I don't I don't aspire to do that again. Now, whether it's right or wrong and just got burned out. You know, I did that for a long time. And, um, salespeople, I'm a salesperson. Salespeople are highly emotional people. Like, we're we're bipolar in our emotions. Um, so good for you. But getting the sales manager, for sure. Take yourself
U1
62:28
out 1s delegating, delegating, delegating. That's that's all. That's all I'm trying to do, man. I'm just trying to delegate, you know, because obviously we'd have a turnover. But that's why I'm really excited about going into the next year because we put all the levers now that are in place. Now I just need to turn, turn on the lever, turn off the lever, turn a dial up. Hey, do I marketing's in place okay? Do I just need to turn it up? Do I need turn down? Right. So when you got the levers and the dials in place, it's really easy to then start scaling. Right. And but you got to go through the crap to go through all that, and you got to go. You got to go through the you got to get your teeth kicked in, not just from sellers, but you got to get your teeth kicked in by, um, you know, deals. You got to get your teeth kicked in by buyers, sellers, employees, um, outside forces. Right? Things happen. That's what that's what this whole rollercoaster. But at the same time, it's super rewarding. That's why, I mean, you are crazy enough to to do it. So.
U2
63:21
Absolutely.
U1
63:22
I've talked to way too much during this podcast. I'm
U2
63:25
just. No. Love
U1
63:26
it. I'm just. I'm just enjoying talking shop. But usually when I have a guess, I'm trying to just keep it about them. And. But again, I appreciate you again coming on here, sharing, share, sharing your journey. Again. Reach out to Sinton if you're ever in the Texas area. He knows. He knows all that well. And you're also a leader in the the elite, 1s the elite circle in an inner circle elite by Don Kass a fantastic mastermind. Matter of fact, once we hit off, I want to talk to you more about that. But great mastermind if you ever if you're doing deals, you want to be around a bunch of high level entrepreneurs, real estate entrepreneurs, hit up Stenson or hit up Don Costa to join that. Join that mastermind.
U2
64:08
Central Texas wholesalers call me. I'm a buyer.
U1
64:11
Like a trooper. There you go.
U2
64:14
That's where the meet is for meetings. I'm looking for houses in Central Texas, so 1s my business model owner financing allows me pay a lot more of that. 1s So
U1
64:26
awesome. Awesome. Hey. Well, we'll see you next time here at the Real Estate Block Podcast. Awesome.
U2
64:31
Thanks.