Air Force Discipline to Win in Real Estate — Kenneth Cano's Story

Today on the Alan K Show we have guest Kenneth Cano, a former Air Force veteran who took everything the military taught him. Showing up early, outworking everyone, and never quitting  and applied it directly to real estate. The result is a thriving business built on discipline, consistency, and a mindset most agents never develop.

0:19 — El Paso roots and what shaped his work ethic early on
1:49 — Why he chose the Air Force and what it taught him
7:19 — How he stumbled into real estate while still active duty
10:27 — First two years: one deal and learning everything the hard way
13:07 — Why military discipline is the ultimate edge in cold calling
19:19 — Finding his niche in the Spanish-speaking market
23:36 — Spending $600/month on ads and generating $30K+ in commissions
25:15 — How AI booked 14 appointments from dormant leads in 2 days
29:22 — Hitting rock bottom and using that same discipline to rebuild
43:12 — Getting back to basics and building the right way


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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's going on right now? How do you generate business? Well, now it's a lot different than when I started. If I started all over again, I would just go back to what I did in the beginning. Yeah. But over the years, I started dabbling with Google ads and Facebook ads and the Spanish market. Because I speak Spanish. So the Spanish market is where I started running Spanish speaking ads on Facebook, and those started hitting really well. They were a lot cheaper than English ads or needs. And I just kind of find my niche in the Spanish speaking market. So now in these last few years has been, I would say 90%.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

Alright, guys, welcome to another episode of Alan Kay's show, where every time we try to get you the best of the best when it comes to the real estate industry. So I would like to welcome you guys. Kenneth Cano. My name's Great Harley. All right, man. Thanks for coming in. Okay, so let's let's start from the from the early stages of your young life. You originally, correct me if I'm wrong, you are from El Paso. From Paso. El Paso, Texas. How was El Paso growing up there?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Well, well, I was born in California. Yeah. Moved to El Paso, Texas. I started sixth, seventh grade in El Paso. So I just say from you know, I'm from El Paso for that. Well, good. A lot of dirt, dry kegan. A lot of dirty. It's not like Phoenix where you have palm trees and trees and everything. It's just a bunch of dirt. Yeah. Uh small city. Yeah. I found myself um just kind of getting in trouble a lot growing up, not on purpose, you know. Well gonna travel. Okay, so I mean I broke my legs three different times. I've had three major surgeries just growing up. See why you were now a bad lane twice, my railway, while was it playing sports or voice, football, be loud on the street, you know, right or wrong on ATVs and just be crazy. So but that uh I get in trouble too with the authorities. You did yeah, yeah. I used to skate board, so you know, people you know, I'll be skating. Yeah, you can be here trespassing, yeah, you know, you're being arrested, yeah. A current is picking me out. So yeah, I kind of grew up uh not really liking school too much. I found myself just barely passing by, you know, C pictures I joined in high school. Yeah, burned it.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

Like you see CLC Russell Boards. I mean, I was I was a C I think C plus student. So you got your high school degree. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

And then one. And again, I did uh really didn't high school. I well I didn't want to go to college, so you know, naturally joined the military. Okay, you know, the Air Force and So what excited you about joining the military?

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Like for me, it would be like why the one be somebody's property for the next two or three years.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Yeah, well, I mean, I didn't know that at the time, right? So I'm I'm the first one from my family to join the military. Obviously, the recruiters don't that somebody just recruited you, or you just decided to just go into like a recruiting center and say, Yeah, I want to join military. Yeah, yeah, me and my buddy Gus, which you know, Gustavo, we were like, what are we on do? Was it Gus a troublemaker as well? Uh guessing that's striking out somebody was this trouble. Not too much. You know, he was in the middle, just Joe, show that. But his brother was in the Air Force. He was like, hey, you know, we should look at you know, the Air Force, you know, they'll pay right away and then they'll train you, they'll do you have all these bad ideas. Oh, that's right, sounds good. But I wanted to join the Marines. I'm gonna go fight, I'm gonna go shoot eurons. Yeah, but because I do the Air Force, it's a lot easier. Yeah. You you know, you don't have to get, you know, deployed or do oh you you will get deployed, but you you know, it's a lot easier than the Marines. Yeah, and they get paid the same. I even know everyone gets paid the same. You know, can you like pick and choose or they actually want to make a decision? You pick and choose so I ended up I used to work on cars in ice cream, so I was uh I want to do something mechanical. So I wanted to join the Air Force and work on jet engines, their planes, which is pretty much weather, and that are doing okay. So you join the Air Force and you're working on the jet engines. No, that's what I wanted to do. I want an open mechanical, okay, which means you're gonna get a mechanical job, but you don't know what it is. Okay, they're gonna bid for you. Yeah, yeah. And the reason I went that route is because if I wanted to do a very specific job, there was a wait list, or that okay, these jobs have certain wait list. You can write a year or two. Okay. My mom was like, hey, you gotta go to school or you gotta leave. So I had an option but to just go in open mechanical. Got it. Okay, and where were you working on? What type of jets? Let 35. So once I went through is basic training, yeah, graduated that when yeah, that's when they let me know, hey, you're gonna be assigned to this career field, which was LO ASM, low observable aircraft virtual maintenance. So that was my main job title. And then from there, that I got sent to Florida to do all my training, and then ultimately got stationed here at Luke Air Force Base, working on the F Curry Five.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

So you got all your training in Florida, and then you got stationed year at year at Luke. Yeah, and how much were you making? 600 every two weeks. So it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Every six weeks, 1200 a month. Okay. Yeah. You got a few raises after that. It took a while. Yeah. Well, I mean, uh I'm fresh out of high school. I have no car agreement. I have no I don't remember. Hello, young spaces are covered. I'm moving on base for free. Uh they'd fee you there. Yeah. I was a food there, okay. Was pretty it? Well, so back then I was I mean, I'm still into fitness, but back then I used to track like what I ate. So I I never ate on base. I always went out of Bomber Elephant. You could mass, you know, I did all that. So I was still paying for my own food, but it wasn't. Yeah. But yeah, and then I got stationed at Luke, and they were crowded. They were like full of people because of this new F-35, so they were just bringing in all kinds of people. So they kicked me out of the dorms, and that's when I was able to live off base, and they give you house and they were giving me like$1,300 a month, housing and food and all that. And so how was it working for you know Luke? I mean, especially during the summer months.

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Like you're you're like, you're you're you're you're fixing jets, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Oh man. I didn't like it. Like I well, I I like the mechanical part, like working on jets, but I I I didn't like the military structure as structure, you know. Being old today, I'm being told well to do, hey, you know, if you're not early or later, if you're you can't call outside, you can't if I want to go to Alpastos, I gotta request permission to go anywhere. Yeah. So I didn't I didn't like those the structure, you know. Then drug test, you you've been working 12 hours and you're going home, they call you on the way, and then you gotta come back, you have a drug test. I was like, oh damn. Oh wow. So just uh, you know, I I just didn't like being told to do but uh working on the jets, I mean, it was fun. I learned how to do carbon fiber, carbon graphite, you know, pretty much all the structures for the jets, spray banging, all the she metal, riveting, bending metal, cutting metal. So it's it's good stuff to know that if I wanted to right now, I could go work for knocking martin on their aircraft, but you said what, like 30 million R jets, 40 million R jets, or I mean that, I mean or it was there really expresses high-tech, stingles. There are the newest, you know, fire jet. So it was a good experience for sure. Have you ever found one? Like have you ever bell in one? No, no. I mean, I've been in the car pink, so I said you gotta work in there, fix some stuff, sure. Yeah, but that's as far as I got. But not any area. No, no, I wish. I've been in the engines, yeah. Engine the insane just is it uh sometimes you gotta repair the paint inside the inlets and you gotta crawl in there and spend four hours, you know, painting and sanding. How you do it at what's like 115 degrees outside. Well, they make you you have your uniform, right? You've seen the uniform. On top of that, you gotta throw on the bunny suit, which is like a really soft but thick suit that doesn't scratch the surface of the and then you gotta crawl into an after the plane landed. It's 120 degrees outside. It's been running and it's bad, and a lot of times you have a respirator, like a full face, and you're just sweating, you're just pouring it was a bit you got the experience, yeah. Right, which is very valuable. You got paid. You got paid something, right? I mean, you're gonna pay what about two thousand dollars a month, so towards the end. I was I don't even know how much I was making towards it, it was Hemmafria right now at 3,000, 3,000, 3200 tours I had after six years, which is not supposed to six years. Yeah, I didn't know it was six years.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Oh wow, yeah. Okay. So then what made you to get your real estate license? Wasn't making enough money? Different industries, there are different fields, they're bringing out side hustles out there by why real estate uh it happened by accident.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I mean, I I was married when I was in the military, got divorced quickly within a year. So you got married and got divorced? No, within a year. Yeah, was she here? Sure, she was living here. She was also in military? No, no, she was from my hometown. Right now. Okay, yeah, I so you don't mind me asking you why did you get divorced? I was just young and we were just young, but we're yeah, we were we wanted different things, and it's just different living with someone that either once you're in toll person's. How old were you at that time? I was 19. So you were what? You were eight. No. And she was also like 1818? Yeah. Okay. Yep. Wow. So anyway, then it worked out nothing crazy. Uh but after that, I was living in at a four-bedroom house. That the military came for. Yeah, the military was came for. Yeah, uh, I was renting. Yeah. Uh, I had two or three cars, I had two dogs. Well, she used two or three cars. I was into cars. Yeah, I used to work on cars. Every time I bought a saw a good deal, I would buy a car. Anyways, I had two or three or three cars, three dollars, two dollars, four bedroom house, four-bedroom house. I was at a point where I was just like paycheck with paycheck, or slightly more than I was making the most. Sure, right. Most of the young people, yeah. And then and not only young people, most of the people who do share. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. So that kind of pushed me to you know, find out. I knew I was gonna get out of the military. I knew I was gonna do my six years, I didn't get out. Stable career called real estate sales. Yeah, right. It's more stable. It was a success rate of less than 10% in the first two years or three years. Yeah, so I started looking at uh stumble on real estate. So I was renting that house and my lease was coming out. So I was like, instead of renting them, we'll buy it. So on YouTube, I was like, how to buy a house, I had no clue about renting. And one of the first videos was Grant for Dung. Yeah. And it says, do not buy a house. That's the whole thing. So I clicked on that video, and you know, he used his old reasons of why you shouldn't buy a house, you know, 10 goes into income, and you know, you're not making enough money, and all you need to do is get a sales job. That way you can make enough money and not worry about you know bills and whatever. So naturally from there, I looked up real estate agents. Yeah. And then I found that it was a sales job. Yeah, and I found out you don't need it. Certain hours, you need to be in the office, which is what I needed when I was in the mother, because I couldn't work anywhere else without approval and they wouldn't approve anything. Like I couldn't go work at Circle K, I couldn't go work at any other job just to make any extra income. Yeah. So the workaround was just a soldier. I was like, I just have my license and I don't need permission to do it as long as it's after hours. Yeah, so she got you got your real estate license. You join a company, yeah, a broker. We're not gonna name that bro, right? And then I think after what, how many months did we uh did we like but we didn't mean it was it? It's probably like a year and a half. A year and a half, yeah. I got my license when I was in two 2016. Oh, so that's more like two years, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

Because you you you joined my team at that time I still had a team back in 2019 on the mark, March 1st, 2019.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

So you actually 2016. And in the very end, 2016 I finished on my course of twice. So you were licensed for almost two years. How many oils did you sell? 2017, which was my first year full-time, I sold one house. One house to one of my flat. Brokerish matters. Environment matters. Yeah, okay. And then 2018, I think it was about four or four. But uh again, I was still in the military, which I was trying to do sales, and yeah, that was just hard getting any trash and doing it after 3 p.m. or you know. Yeah. And I know I think for real, I s met for the first time, and I think it was Starbucks, right? Yeah, Starbucks. Starbucks, and I think it was the E30I video of the road. Yep, right. You were doing most of the talking, you know, Gus was doing all the had nodding. Yeah. Yeah, listening, right? And uh, I think we hit it off, right? We hit it off. We we we had a really good connection. I think at that time you guys were like in your like early 20s, you're only 23, 20, 23, 24 years old, I think, right? No, probably oh yeah, 22. So you have a three, four years here. So what what what was the ultimate deciding factor on your guys to to to partner with me? Just curious. Well, um those three years I was still part-time hotel, I was reading, you know, about real estate sales, and it all led to you know, co-calling, getting listings. So I kind of wanted to do that. You know, I was co-calling on my own. I didn't really have any good scripture or any training. And then the brokers I was with their mentor, the guy that had recruited his recruited us there, he didn't really believe in either co-calling or do he was telling us go out there, take donuts here, take dollars there. And I tried it, and I tried it, but it wasn't working, you know. And when I'm at you, um and when I looked into what you have done, then it was pretty much the same thing. You know, just joining an office and co-calling, yeah, for sell dollars, expired, canceled. Yeah. So we couldn't get on that. And then the other factor was I didn't, I couldn't afford a dial there. I couldn't afford to pay for the leads.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

And I needed the mentorship, the coaching, the training on how to go on a listing, how to set the listing appointment, how to do a listing presentation.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

And uh again, for those first two years, I had no clue how to do anything. So you spent two years with a brokerage and you have no idea, no idea how to use how to how to really make calls, let's just say how to say it, seller listing presentations, you know, that's I had nothing. All the training we got was once a week, like brokerage training on the laws and the forums. And I was like, I need a listing presentation. Yeah, I'm not gonna make clear what I include. It's interesting though, right? Like and again, what you're saying about your mentor, right? And uh there's nothing wrong going out there and meeting with people, building developing relationships with those people, you know, you know, handing a notice. I think there are like 101 different ways of of generating leads and and and generating business, right? But I I I believe that what worked then when I started, what still works now in 2025 is cold calling works. Like if you like literally for the next five years commit your time on cold calling, you're gonna make millions of dollars. Like most of the lead sources will work if you commit working on the lead source, you know, period. Right. So in your situation, I remember when you came in, I think you were full like you're all in I'm gonna be coachable right now. I've committed, I'm gonna make holes. Kind of walk us through that stage, right? When you started coming into the office, now you don't come to the office, now you don't make those calls. But I think the first two or three years with us, right? I mean, you were like, dude, you're like you're a machine. Come to the office, you make holes, you booked an appointment, you would go and get the listing, right? Yeah, I mean, again, I was in that mindset. I was true, I was just reading book after book about cold calling listings. So once we joined your team, and he, you know, he provided us with with the tools, you know, especially that mojo belly, the yeah, we have mojo tower. Yeah, that yeah, so you a lot of but it was hard. I mean, even when we started, I mean, we uh I remember having our I think it was Tuesday meetings, every other day we had our team meetings, and uh we would I mean I I would be calling it thousand, two thousand or dials, you know, and I wasn't saying any appointments and and then it did take probably a good six, six months of just practicing it, talking to people before I was able to set appointments. But yeah, I again I was still fresh out of the military. I was used to waking up at you know two, three in the morning, so I just kept kind of that same schedule. And I was in the office every day by eight, set my appointments, and yeah, and go on those appointments. Yeah, I still have that that structure right from the military, which I think helped a lot. Yeah. You mentioned something very important. You see, it took you about six months to finally get some business, you know, right? It took me six months also to get my first listing, right? That was a like a hundred thousand hour listing, you know. Yeah, right if you turn out, right? So but I just remember myself, like there were days when I was like in a questioning the hype thing. There were days when I was just really getting discouraged. It's like, you know what, F this this uh this cold calling thing doesn't work, the expires don't work, the cancels don't work, right? How are you able to overcome those mental obstacles, right? That that happened to all of us, right? Because again, we show up every day, you know, we're doing the work every day, you know, we're making calls every day, we're getting rejected left and right every day. How do you continue to to overcome and push through? You know, because six months is a long time. Like most of the agents, when they they try a lead source, you know, if they don't see any results after about a month or so, they're like, man, this lead source sucks. I'm gonna jump on something else. You know, like in your case, and in my case, it took us six months to get going. So how are you able to overcome all these doubts and uh in some cases these challenges, right? Like, like, man, I'm not getting any type of results, I'm not getting any type of business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Hey, real quick, if you're a real estate agent team leader or a brokerage owner and you're curious what it would look like to partner with me at EXP, listen closely. Look, when I say partner, I don't mean join my team. No team transfer, no control, no weird stuff. I mean this. You keep building your brand, your business, your team. And you get me as your behind-the-scenes support system. Hands-on coaching, training, mentorship, strategy. So you actually hit the goals you've been chasing. And you also get my business partners like Joshua Smith, one of the best in the world at deploying systems and who coached over 4,000 agents and done over 4,000 transactions with his team. Kevin Kaufman and Fred Weaver, who I've known for over 15 years who have a real estate team and partnered with over 2,600 agents at EXP. So it's basically four high-level coaches under one roof, and you get full access at no additional cost when we partner at EXP. So if you want to explore what the partnership could look like, there's a link below in a show notes. Book a hundred percent confidential, zero pressure Zoom call with me. And I mean zero pressure. I'm not going to recruit you, I'm not going to push you. That's not my style at all. This is just a straightforward conversation. Where are you at right now, where you want to go, what systems, tools, and support you and mentorship we have, and whether this makes sense for you.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Well that that never goes away, even to this day. You know, I still, you know, feel like that. But I know from experience, as long as you keep doing Sunday's gonna happen. Like you just, I mean, it's hard to know where it's gonna come from. But uh for for Cold Hall specifically, it was just those random ones. Like unless you you make a call, you hey, they don't sound motivated, they don't I'm still got an appointment, but you you just won't think anything about it. Those are the ones that end up signing with you, you know. You you're outdoor knocking, free foreclosures, and yeah, there's no way anyone's gonna answer. And they answer and then they sign on this area. So it's those random that's so the ones you don't expect that kind of end up doing business with you from my experience. Yeah. All the ones that I got excited, all this I'm scared, they just go stick. But it was just those random deals that you would get that you didn't think you would get that gave me, you know, a lot of hope and you know, excitement, which made me call even more. Yeah, and just keep showing up. It was I was just keep making the calls and keep showing up and going on appointments. Uh you just don't know who's gonna like you, who's gonna connect with you, who's gonna say yes. But uh outside of that, I didn't have a plan B. So I uh I got out of military, I didn't have a backup, but I didn't have a uh second job or a part-time job, but yeah, I gave up my career in the military and yeah, there was no no other option. Well, yeah, I mean you you decided that real estate is going to be your career, it's going to be your business. Right. Right. And obviously it's paying you very handsomely since so fast forward, you know, what you're doing right now, how you're generating business right now, what's working for you right now? Are you still doing what you used to do back in the day? You know, calling expires to sell by owners, you know, what's going on right now? How do you generate business? Well, no, it's a lot different than when I started. If I started all over again, I would just go back to what I did in the beginning. Yeah. But over the years, I started dabbling with Google ads and Facebook ads and the Spanish market. Because I speak Spanish. So the Spanish market is where I started running Facebook, Spanish, Spanish speaking ads on Facebook, and those started hitting really well. They were a lot cheaper than English ads or needs, and I just kind of find my niche in the Spanish speaking market. So now in these last few years, it's been, I would say, 90% of my business is Spanish speaking. I don't I I don't really target English speakers at all. Yeah, if I do, it's just for me, it doesn't really work out as good as the the Spanish speaker. So I'm so what is the advantage working with a Spanish-speaking buyer or a seller versus let's say English-speaking, right? And obviously, the obvious one is is the language. Yeah, but Wells, why do you prefer to work with Spanish-speaking appliance versus versus let's say English speaking or like American? Well, uh, I mean, the culture is a lot different. I mean, we speak the same language, and then the trust is there almost automatically. A lot of my Spanish-speaking clients, they just trust me like right off the bat. When the lead signs up for my Facebook, even the small things like that, they 90% of the time to put in the real phone number, a real email. You're getting good phone numbers, right? They're they're not putting fake numbers or fake emails. Yeah. So chances are if I call them, they're picking up. And they pick up their phone too. They they answer anyone who calls them, they're answering the phone. And if you speak Spanish, they trust you right off the bat. And so I just think there's just this trust with the Spanish community. They they trust me and they let me handle whatever I need to handle for them. They tell me, hey, this is what I want for money for. They usually keep the work, you know. But yeah, yeah. Um, my career is good, my career's side, they don't lie about you know the small things. It's easier to convert them on the Spanish side. I notice on the English side, it's they're they're just used to being bombarded by ads and and scams and all that. So they they're easy to dismiss any text or they put in fake numbers and stuff like that. The conversion rate is a lot higher. A lot higher. So what would you say is your conversion lead? I would say every a hundred leads that you you generate, you buy, you know, what would it look like in terms of the conversion closings? Uh never actually doesn't work, but I I know it's higher than but it's still it's still not as high as you would think. I mean, I still I mean I mean I somebody gotta go over of a hundred leads to get a uh a one or two closed ones percent. Yeah, it still takes a lot of well down. Yeah, yeah. But at least to the people you're talking to are talking mag or telling you now they were just looking there. Yeah, so and so but so so these ads are Spanish, Spanish ends. What's to offer? I've had the same match for the last four years, which is why it's just a picture about uh listing your house, and every now and then I update it. And I know a lot of the Spanish community they like having big lots and the HOA. So I just target you know lots and the HOA. Big laws, no HOA, in Spanish, obviously, you know, yeah, yeah. Usually uh a lower sales price, they're they're looking for something very affordable. It's like in fives, no, like 350. 350, yeah. The cheaper the better. And better cheaper better. Yeah, the cheaper the better, and then you know that they'll just click on it and hey yeah, I'm uh I'm interested in looking for this and that area, but pretty straightforward. For sale, 350, no HOA REK 70 like that. Okay, and that that seems to be working. I'd I've tried the higher price range, but I had no mug with like we have 400,000. And you're running asked value wide. Yeah, people might be asking how much are you paying per lead? It's gone up a lot. And when I few when I first started, it was like a dollar or less than a dollar per lead. Now it's probably averaging between two and three dollars a lead. Three dollars. Which is still not serious, garbage. I mean, yeah, increase by a hundred percent or two hundred percent. But two to three dollars a lead, dude, I will generate like a thousand leads a month. If I'm I'm not spending how many how many do you generating a month? I mean you check maybe between eighty to a hundred dollars. How much are you spending a month? Like six well if you're spending six hundred dollars and each lead is is like three dollars, that means you're generating about two hundred leads. Yes, two. I haven't so with two hundred leads, that means that the conversion rate is about two percent. That means that's foreclosing. Okay. Foreclosing. Average closing probably gonna be about what ten thousand dollar commission share somewhere there now. Less or one or less. Less? How much? 8,000. 8,000 multiplied by four is$32,000. Yeah. So you spent about$600. Maybe I'll spend like$450,000. Two, right? I had this conversation. I had that conversation like literally half an hour ago, 45 minutes ago with Eddie.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Like Eddie consistently closing one, two deals a month from fast leads, right? Same buyer leads, but English speaking.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

And he's like only spending like 15 bucks a day. I mean, he gets two, three leads, four leads a day. But I was like, dude, you gotta spend at least$30,$40 a day. Like every time, this is me, every time I would close a deal, 20% of it would go towards marketing. 20% of it goes towards marketing. So if you're making$8,000 commission share, 20% of it should be going towards marketing. Right. Is it towards marketing? Why not?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Especially if you're spending like a$2,$3, like for a lead. Dude, I would just overwhelm myself with leads. You know the difference between someone in no honesty, and this is something that I've been going back and forth about for the last like 12, 13 years.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

The main difference between someone who's kind of like not consistently closing deals or maybe closing here or there versus someone who's doing like three, four, five transactions every single month. One of the main differences is lead flow.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Like I remember myself when I was closing 35 deals, 75 deals, 87 deals. Why? Because I was just overwhelmed with leads. I was just running so many leads. I didn't care if some of them fall through the crack, I didn't care if some of them didn't work out, I don't care if some of them ghosted me. Dude, I just had so many leads. Yeah. And when you're like spending$2 a lead,$3 a lead, even a$5 a lead, even$10 a lead, that's nothing.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Right? Yeah. The more leads you have, the better you're going to be trusted.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

And by the way, most of them are not going to do anything with you now. But you never know. Like right now, especially with the AI. Like I have one agent. She has lit from two at least from 2019, right? She did like over 3000 leads, 2019, 20, 21, 22, 23. And we ran a campaign on all of our leads from 2022. Like there were like 600 leads.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

And the text went out to all the 600 leads asking them, how are you still in the market to buy a house in this city? Phoenix, Glendale, Avondale, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

Bijdo said no, but the ones that said yes, you have the AI now. Do you have an AI? No. You have the AI, standing speaking AI, that starts communicating with all these leads, right, and getting them on her calendar. So within two days, 14 of them booked through the AI on her calendar. Half of them showed out, five of them in a credit repair, two of them she closed.

SPEAKER_01 26:49

And these are dormant leads of like 2022. Oh, if I look at my German, there's at least four or five thousand Spanish leads this city. Because I've been doing it for so long, and they're all still like they're all dude. That's like at least$150,000, I think, right there. Yeah in the next three or four months.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

So AI is a huge component to this whole thing right now, because before, like you send a mass text and then you have some automation, but that's pretty much it. You have to be constantly in a moment. Now with AI, it's almost kind of like a human touch. Like AI is communicating like a human being. Now, is it like 100% right now?

SPEAKER_01 27:27

No. I mean, is it perfect? No, you still gotta monitor the conversations, but it's much, much, much better than it was like six months ago or 12 months ago, where the automated text switches go there and you're like, oh no, that's not exactly what I wanted to say, right? So look into it. I didn't know you guys had a Spanish speaking man. Yeah, we do. Less than where you do. No, we do we had it for the last four or five months. Six months ago, but hey, you guys first large house, I need to spend. Speaking, I we got Spanish speaking offers. Like, dude, oh, another one that really would work for you, aside from the big lots and OHO, is the new home builds. That I'm true. Oh, man. That's money right there. Like right now, my agents are crushing with the new home builds. What are they saying? 3.99% interest rate, shit. Just hanging around on a new build. Yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of home builders out there that offer 3.99, 2.75.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

ZR Horton, Texas, is offering right now until the end of the year, 0.99 for the first year.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

First year, 0.99. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't just close a new bill. They got a 3 3.2, I believe. That was a VA. Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Right. So don't overthink this thing, man. I mean, seriously, you gotta be you gotta be generating 500 or so leads every single month. Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna increase that budget. That just happens. I'm so scared so sometimes Facebook leads like if it's working, I don't I I'm scared to even hit the edit. Because sometimes when you mess with these No, no, no, no, but they don't double or triple the the budget. Just just just increase it by 10%, 15%, 20% a week. That's it. Yeah, I've been scared so it says and for you. All I'm trying to say is the fact that, you know, and then if you can't handle all those leads, right? We're working right now with the ISA team in the Uagua. Okay, right. So they speak Spanish, obviously, that's their native language, but they also speak English. And so we can connect it with them as well. So you're gonna start calling your leads. Yeah. That's not around. Yeah. Um you guys are training them, and they're already training at what? Well, I mean, they're the we are training there for our stuff, right? But it's a little bit different. So we are we're calling broker owners, we're calling degents. But you can probably train them to call buyers. Obviously, like you'd be crushing it since you joined us, right? The first two years didn't really count.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

The first two years didn't count without brokers, we're not gonna mention their brokerage name. But obviously, like knowing you, you know, hasn't been like single selling for the last five or six years, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:52

And uh I don't know how much you want to you want to share, how much you want to disclose, but back in 2000, you know, was it 22? 23 or in the ES some you made some questionable choices, yeah. Yeah, I mean I I I started around with uh wrong people. I wouldn't call them French, it's the wrong group of you know, people.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

And you know, I was right after COVID, I mean we were making money. Houses were selling through the roof. Yep. I think you had one of your I think your best year was 2020. So those were they were both reasonable. Yeah, they were the years, yeah. On top of real estate, we did uh we did a flip. Yeah, horse property. Or the rice property, yeah. We made pretty good money. That one's really it's always nice. I was I would say in the last 13 years, that was the easiest and the most profitable probably flip. But didn't do anything, just bought it and sold it. Yeah, because that was it, yeah. So that was nice, and then I had bought that other house, my first house that I also renovated and I did cash out refinance, I got paid, you know, good money there. Well guys shoot out house. That was you that was here. That was gonna be your house. That was a great house, I tell you that. That was a busy organization. Yeah, I was busy with others. But maybe you were 200? Yeah, it was like 230. 230. You still have it. No, I just sold it. How much did you sell it for? Not as much as I was like 385 or 100. Still sold pretty much money, yeah. Yeah, but if I would have sold it last year, if I had a time in the markets, that would have been 400 or 420 for sold. You know, prices went down. Yeah, and people are asking for closing costs now. Uh-huh. So so yeah, so you're making pretty good money, 2001, 2021, 2022. Yep. We had our own crowd, started arguing a lot, going out a lot. How often? Well, it started once a week, twice a week. And I still had at this point, I started Airbnb. I had US, me ghosts, me indoor. I don't think we were partnered yet. Not yet, right? Not yet. But regardless, we had 10, 12 properties on Airbnb, so they were making money. Yeah. I mean, you guys were doing like an arbitrage, right? At that time, arbitrage, yeah, yeah. Airbnb was flopping. Yeah, yeah. So I I was just seeing all this money from. So naturally my sales started declining because I, you know, I would get a booking, and there'll be sometimes insurance booking, 20,000, 30,000. And we're just sitting like, yeah, I was like, all right, well, I'm gonna just do Airbnb. Yeah, like full time, 100%. But anyways, I I started getting out around the wrong people. I started drinking a lot, and I got soup to the point where I mean I wasn't doing it. I was just drinking. I had an alcohol problem. And I was How much were you drinking, like at the at the peak of of this whole situation? I mean, I'm talking about like bottles of wheat, like it wasn't that wasn't like 10, 20 dreams. It was like full tequila bottles. Like I'll just walk around sipping, like straight tequila from the vault book. Wasn't how bad. Yeah, it was it was bad. Yeah, it was it was pretty bad. And uh, how did you come out of it? It took a while. 20 towards 23, uh, I was really trying to stop, and then 24, it got better. And then this year I've been way better. I mean, I don't feel like I have a problem anymore, but mainly because I I was in a position where my sales dropped, and 23 was like the lowest, really anything. Airbnb took a shit. Money wasn't coming in anymore. So I I was just in a spot again. Like kind of when I started where I had no option but to, you know, fix myself up and and then start selling together. I just got to a point where it's I couldn't afford to not sober up and start calling again, start doing what I was doing before. Yeah. I that and it felt like I wasn't gonna get out of it. Like when you're in it, it feels like there's no like like how am I gonna do it? You know, no escape, no way, has it? Yeah, no, I see it. It's just a very dark time for sure. But uh, yeah, I mean, if it wasn't for me getting to a point where I had no more money coming in, then I wouldn't cut in out of it. I would probably freaking had liver family or something. Like if money kept coming there and things were stuck in, I would probably I'll probably be dead, right? Yeah, like it was It was that bad. It was pretty bad. I had yeah, I ended up in the hospital. I had you ended up in a hospital, yeah. I mean, I started having like heart issues, you know, chest pains, and then I was freaking out. I went to the hospital. I was like, dude, you need to stop drinking. I was drinking, I was, you know, nicotine, baby, vaping, taking great workout, energy drinks just to feel better, trying to go to the gym. So luckily there's nothing bad with my heart a I did a whole scan, I had a what is called a heart monitor for a week to check everything, everything was good, but uh that that was a good wake-up house. I need to, you know, relax and stop doing everything I was doing. Wow, man. That's pretty intense. Yeah, it was we we all go through the seasons, right? In in my situation back in the day, it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't drinking or eabad stuff. It was, you know, I was diagnosed with autoimmune disease, ulcerative colitis, and physically, you know, and also mentally, emotionally, you know, every day is a pretty much a roller coaster. Like for a few years that was not the case, man. Yeah. So we all go through seasons that come with Jersey. Yeah. But I'm glad that you were able to overcome it. It was a long season. Yeah, but but like two years ago you're on. But you know what? Look, here's what I believe, right? We we all make mistakes, we'll all have failures in life. That's that's part of our journey. As long as you realize and don't make a habit out of it, you're in good shape. Yep. So it took you two years to realize this to figure this out. And you said, you know what, I gotta I gotta cut the shirt, right? Yeah, and now and I'm glad that this is not lingering, I'm glad this thing got continuing. I mean, you know, and uh I think your environment also matters quite a bit. Oh, you were just in a wrong environment. Yep. And uh as soon as I changed that, obviously uh I still had to fight to do that, too. But it was a lot easier than being around people there. Well, you're doing it on the Monday at 2 p.m. Come on, let's go to the board, you know, right? Let's do it, let's do uh yeah. I I I had a cut ties with every single person I was around around time. Even even family or friends, like I just kind of had to like lock myself away and then just deal with it on my own. So that's pretty much what I did. I wasn't I was trying not to talk to anyone hang out with anyone, like I was just wanted to be alone and figure it out. Who's your circle right now? Like, who's your like your friends right now who you hang out with? Oh well, um, I mean he does moved out of here. Yeah, well, Gus has obviously been my friend. Uh he said we had thanks for Thanksgiving, which was very sweet of him, very nice of him. Yeah, and I guess yeah. Hopefully he comes back. Hopefully he comes back. But uh pretty much, well, I was lucky enough to meet my girlfriend now that I have now, and I mean since they once I met her, I haven't like it's just been straight. Like it she does keep me in line. Now very you guys have been together now? A year now. A year not a year now. So when I met her, I was already getting over pretty much everything. And then once I met her, you know, I told her what I was doing with, and she made sure I didn't, you know, go out of the way to you know, when we go out to dinner, have a couple of drinks, you know, I started to pour right on. Give them a little woman as she did. She's like, no, no, you're not thinking, no, let's go home. So she's helped me a lot. So I swear that we've just been with my girl and I mean you menor it. Yeah, but even then I don't I haven't really done anything. I really I've just been staying home. I'm out to dinner here and there, go to a movie here and there. I'm not yeah, I'm not doing anything. Just focusing on your relationship and then business. Relationship business. Yeah, going to church. I started going to church every Sunday. Oh, really? Yep. She's a Christian. I I was raised camp, yeah. But I wasn't to church. But so she knew you actually kind of got me married, going every Sunday is a little church. That's been happening a lot too. I notice every time when I'm consistent with church, do you just start communicating? That's what I say. I had a conversation with with the A General here this morning. He's like, man, Alan, it's like I feel like in the last six, seven months I've been like snake bitten already. Like all these deals are falling through, like these buyers that wrote an offer, the seller accepted another offer. It's like, what is the last day I went to church? It's like a long time ago. I was like, start going to treat. That's my church, man. How's the Airbnb market? I know, I know you and I were crushing it back in the days. I know you still manage how many how many properties you guys are. I think you're at 31, 32, so 31, 30. Yeah, it's been hard on custom. How's that? The house is the overall market place. It's low, it's low, it's just not the what it used to be, you know. Yeah. People are still doing it. People still want to rent their house out for everything. The other thing is going away, but the money's just not as as good as they used to be. So, I mean, we have 30, yeah, 30, 31 listings, and last month was brutal. Everybody switched their fees. When you host on RBME, they'll charge you a 3% fee. Yeah. Hosting. But now they shifted that to 15.5% to the host. Because the guests used to pay low their 13 and some cheese. And now they're not the hosts say that they're calling fees, yeah. Oh wow. Yeah. So what about what about the guests? Guess they're in the well, they just see a final fee. They don't see team fees or bad fees, they just see hey,$1,500 for Fortnite, and that's it. That's it. But on our end, we we see the whole breakdown, you know. So that was a major change. So this month, and when we sent announced statements for the first November, I mean our folks were blown out that hey, what's all these channel fees? It's like$600 here. It's like, well, we're paying 30%, you know, our fee for their Airbnb fee. I was like, yeah, we send one messing though, we're now that everybody needs to switch their fees. So it's it's a bit tough for sure. We yeah, they've been making some moves that don't align with the hosts. Really? Yeah. So what's what's the plan with the with the Airbnb business? Well, we need to get I mean to at least 50 management. Right now, we're we're at a point where we need to hire help for our employee uh committee of BA. So we interview a couple of VAs to take over all the messaging and all that. And our goal is to obviously grow 250 and then 200, and then after that we maybe sell it. But right now, this is just building it to start to get to a higher number. And how do you get these clients? Let's say somebody wants to get into this business, start managing short-term rentals. Like what is what is your source or like sources or what puts each in your business? Property managers. That's been a good help. Face look Facebook forums. A lot of people are asking for help on Facebook. Yeah, and then uh as a real estate agent, there's clients or email past clients that bought it out of rent out. You know, we give them the option to do long-term or do Airbnb. So so far it's just been a lot of worried, man. We haven't touched stats, we haven't really touched advertising. But just worried well so far. Welcome, man. So what's next for you? I don't know. I'm not sure. Um I'm at the point where I I want to simplify everything, but I just want to go back to the basics, back to me and you just sell in real estate, and then ideally still buy a flip or two. Me and Norway somebody didn't offer like two days ago on the property in Mac and Dell, we didn't get it. So you kind of just go back to kind of restarting everything, honestly, and just start almost from like it's it's stressful having two, three houses. That's it's stressful have having multiple policies, following multiple taxes for so for me at this point. I want to kind of reset and clean up just kind of because I mean I was starting a business with like this good left and right, and next thing you know, you gotta pay taxes and cheese and everything. So I'm just kind of simplifying my life and I have less stress, less things to worry about. I uh I I I just gotta figure it out again. You know, just mainly go back to I can buy in properties again, whether it's flipping or flipping and then just holding it. Maybe not Airbnb for me, just just long-term rentals, just kind of taking the slower and more easy more statement on my end. Yeah, I mean there's a method to it, right? Done it for a bunch of years. You sell real estate, you generate income from real estate sales, and then you invest in the real estate. Yeah, that's that's it. I would just try I was trying to do a lot. I mean, I told you about the the whole life insurance, I canceled out because I was uh I was trying to get the insurance dogs, Airbnb flips. Your your main your primary cash flow is is is a real estate. Yeah, right? I mean, it still operates very high margins, eight, nine, ten thousand dollar commission checks. Yeah, right. You close four to five a month, you make your you know, forty to fifty thousand dollars a month. Right, then take that money and reinvest it in real estate, short-term, long-term flips, whatever that is. Right. But your core business always should be real estate sales. Yeah.

unknown 42:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

I think I should already do most of my recon. Yeah. I think I try to move away from it sooner. I was trying to find the next thing or and kind of move away from it into every meet which when you let it last long. But yeah, I can just simplify everything, making good money, saving it, investing into other just real estate and stocks, nothing, nothing crazy. I'm not gonna be trying to day trade. You know, I was training with day trade. Yeah, my side actually was the day trade. I was like Zach. I was like, I mean, you could try it and everything like that. You know, well, they have the paper accounts where you could trade with it, it's not real money, it's the real market, real time, but it's fake. You put an hour on the balance of ten thousand or a hundred thousand, yeah. Yeah, get your experience. Yeah, but I mean what I realized is anything you're gonna do, I mean you have to do it full time. Like if you want to do Airbnb, it has to be full time do real estate full if you want to flip full time, like it's hard to dabble, we'll do this and do this, yeah, and have it all work out at one time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because we we all have a certain amount of time during the day, certain amount of energy, focus, right? And when we have multiple things going at the same time and none of them are fully established. Let's say you would have uh like a uh a real estate team, right, where you have teachers going out there and showing hoes, right? We haven't admin. Yeah, then you can start, for example, doing some other things on the side, right? As long as that's running thing, you don't have to be in it constantly like close deals, right? But I think where you're at right now, dude. I mean uh if I were you, I would just increase my increase my lead flow. Yep, generate more leads, leverage AI, have a nice day working those leads in addition to what you're doing. Consistent close to four to five deals, bring a really solid bass admin that can help you with operations and the back end of it. Maybe get one or two junior agents like primarily focus on the buyers. Yep. And you can focus maybe on the on the sellers and the listings. And then after that, start diversifying to some additional businesses or other businesses like flips, wholesaling, whatever that is. Right. But real estate sales, it's it bad. And you're good at it. When you're focused, when you're intentional with it, they close three, four, five transactions. So good. Sure. Yeah. So that's it. Just turn and have less stress, worry about less, and you know, make a good living. Awesome, man. Well listen, yeah. If anyone wants to connect with you, where can I find you? Instagram is town, the Phoenix Realtor. The Phoenix Realtor. Okay, I'm having Kevin Connor on Facebook, but I'm I'm not already on Facebook. Well, listen, as always, it's an honor. It's a pleasure. And uh I'm glad you are crushing her. Thank you. And hope to see you again, maybe next year and the year. You know, on 5050 Airbnb Pro. Amy the small team. Whip. Alrighty. Appreciate it.