Unlocking Legacy, Sobriety & 1,000 Deals: The Real Estate Life of Steve Valentine Guest: Steve Valentine

Unlocking Legacy, Sobriety & 1,000 Deals: The Real Estate Life of Steve Valentine

Guest: Steve Valentine | Phoenix, AZ | @SteveDValentine

💥 From flipping 1,000 homes to flipping his life, Steve Valentine drops jaw-dropping wisdom on real estate, relationships, rehab, and real ROI.

In this powerful and wildly transparent episode, Shane and Duane sit down with Arizona real estate titan Steve Valentine, who’s spent over 26 years in the game — and learned how to play it his way.

Steve’s story is part real estate brilliance, part personal reckoning — and all heart. From losing his father (a top-producing agent who died owning zero property) to flipping the script on his own life and going all in on sobriety, Steve gets brutally honest about what it takes to build a legacy that lasts — in business and in life.

🔑 What You’ll Learn:

💡 How Steve and his wife flipped & acquired 1,000+ properties — and kept 120+

🧠 Why “buying boxes” and solving bigger problems leads to bigger profits

🤯 How Steve turned a hoarder house with a $280K IRS lien into a $225K win-win with seller financing

🔥 How his wife’s general contracting biz now leads $500K+ renos — and how they work side by side without losing their minds

🚫 Why “no more pets” (aka bad deals/clients) is Steve’s 2024 motto

🛠️ What The Garage is and how it’s reshaping real estate community and investment in Phoenix

🧘‍♂️ Why October 2, 2023 changed his life — and what rehab taught him that real estate never could

👏 How self-awareness became Steve’s greatest success

🙏 His mission to help other agents battle addiction, burnout, and the pressure to be perfect

🎙 Thank You for Tuning in to the R.E.A.L. Real Estate Agent Life Podcast!

We appreciate you joining us for another powerful episode where we dive deep into the world of real estate, mindset, and business growth. If you found value in this conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network!

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Transcript

Shane Kilby (00:01)
All right, folks, we are here today to shoot another episode of Real Estate Agent Life podcast with my co-host and partner in crime there, Dewayne Murphy. And today we have special guest, Steve Valentine from Phoenix, Arizona. He's going to bring a wealth of knowledge and maybe even disclose some great part-time stress reliever. So we had the luxury of having that discussion before we went live with this recording.

Duane Murphy (00:16)
you

Shane Kilby (00:29)
Hopefully we'll get into that, but let's go ahead and let's tell them a little bit about who you are, Steve. You're from Phoenix, Arizona, but you've been successful in real estate. Walk us through that backstory.

Steve Valentine (00:40)
Oh, let me see if I can shorten the backstory. So it's 26 years I've had a license to this point. Most recent successes is just we're building a new real estate community called The Garage. Real excited about it. I'll get into a little more on that in a little while. And my wife and I have successfully flipped a thousand homes and acquired a thousand homes in the last decade.

And we've kept about 120 properties as far as flips and and rentals right now. We still do that. Part of the reputation is just problem solving. Those thousand homes that we bought are our problems that we solve for people in one way, or form. And we learned a lot of that through my dad's passing. My dad worked with lot of investors back in the foreclosure days. And I saw what he was doing. And my biggest eye opening thing in my career was when my dad died at 63.

Selling more than a thousand homes to investors and owning zero for himself at the end of the day was just very eye-opening that you know our industry the real estate license the opportunity is missed for most agents because it's a buy-sell transactional business and nobody seems to open the doors for the opportunities that actually provides My dad just happened to pass and rather than leave me a lot of money He left me a lot of knowledge and a lot of legacy and I just flipped the script for a family and broke the chain

Shane Kilby (02:04)
That's awesome. That's awesome. you know, when you bring solutions to a real estate deal, take us down that path a little bit. For some listeners, we got listeners that may be seasoned veterans, we may have listeners that are considering getting in real estate, we may just have buyers and sellers listening, right? So I know exactly what you're talking about and how many different directions that can go. So share a little bit of insight with us on that.

Steve Valentine (02:33)
Well, let's take one a little further is that a lot of people in the industry hear the word deal and nobody really knows what the terminology of a deal is and the deal actually comes in the form of creative strategies in multiple ways to cut up a property and see something from 30,000 feet rather than the front door and 90 % of our industry goes to the front door and the only solution that

Their value is that they've taken the time to learn is how to represent a buyer or seller, which is either put that house on the market or get a buyer into a house. And that's, that's the baseline of the knowledge. The reality is they don't realize that they're missing so many other opportunities to help people. And my goal when I started investing was to, how do I never say no again? How can I sit in front of a seller and not say no, but give them four or five different options?

that fit their current needs and help them with their future needs. So I'll give you an example, two of them real quick, that are really great when you get into the problem solving mentality. If a seller has a hoarder home, they might go and call some of the cash buyers. They might call the realtor, but the realtor walks in the door and doesn't have the connection with the investor community or is so used to, I wanna say,

You know that the prim improper in the beauty and all the things when they walk into the order house it takes them to somewhere they don't know. And the option is like well we need to fix this up we need to move these things around. But they haven't really asked the questions as to why how when. And figure out do they have any money to solve this because what happens when people get in that situation they're already embarrassed they're ashamed.

They may not have the money and so it's getting them to it's getting to empathize with them and then show strategies that are options. So here's a great one. Recently, another agent which happens a lot referred me to a client we met and met the seller. They had a massive IRS tax lien. They had been renting the house for years. It was in bad shape. They didn't have the money to fix it. Now keep in mind they're 15 years in ownership as a rental. So they're going to have some

long-term capital gains tax problems. Plus, they owe back taxes, like 17 years of back taxes that are leaned against this property. Before we opened escrow, we had a lien report pulled. There was $280,000 worth of tax liens. So these people were gonna break even, essentially. Well, once we got escrow opened, a bunch of those tax liens fell off and they only owed 15,000 IRS. So, surprise, they have 225 grand. Here's the kicker.

Duane Murphy (04:59)
you

Steve Valentine (05:19)
When they get that 225 grand, they're going to have a massive tax liability from the capital gains over the years. Well, we turned those tax IRS liens into seller carry for them and put that money to work against the property for us. And now they don't have the tax liability because they're doing seller carry and they carried all of it in the note. So now they're earning a thousand dollars a month in interest off of money they didn't know they had. All because we were able to guide them through that process, they didn't put it on the market.

And then here's the cooler part. When I took it, I was going to fix it up and I found a family that's partnering with their kids that wanted to do the sweat equity. So I made a good spread in between. I didn't have to do anything with it. I made that in a week. I solved seller's problem. I solved buyer's problem. And I got paid in the middle for solving everybody's problems. And the bigger the problem you make with those experiences or the bigger problem you solve, the more income you earn. And it's not in the form of commissions. It's not in the form of percentages.

Shane Kilby (06:20)
That is absolutely phenomenal. So if you just listen to that and it just kind of, I won't use the verbiage that I would use if we weren't recording, but if it just went over your head, slow this down, rewind this and listen to that again and capture the transcription off of this podcast because that is very strategic. Very strategic, it's very outside the box, right?

You know, lot of times we sit down, I know for Dwayne and I know for you too, Steve, like we're sitting down talking to our agents. We have this conversation multiple times every month is, you are in the real estate industry, but if you stop being a real estate agent or a realtor and become a problem solver, you expand your opportunities immensely. And that's a perfect example of that. Perfect example.

Duane Murphy (07:14)
And it's,

Steve Valentine (07:14)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (07:15)
it's difficult in this industry to a certain degree, right? I mean, I just flash back to, you know, I've been in this now, you know, 19 years, so going on 20 and, I cut my teeth, right. For the first eight years or so in a traditional big box brokerage.

Steve Valentine (07:34)
Mm-hmm.

Duane Murphy (07:36)
You help buyers, you help seller, right? You list homes, right? And you write contracts for buyers. if they're, yeah, right? you know, by the way, and here's your desk and a phone, so good luck, right? And, you know, especially back in those days. the, you breathe any type of,

Steve Valentine (07:41)
Don't forget to call a thousand people a week.

Duane Murphy (07:59)
breath of right problem solving or thinking outside the box or investment solutions, all these different options that you're going to get into that you do in Excel at, like it was shut down so fast. And it still is in many cases, know, in no bash on any other companies, they can run how they want, but there's still a very limited mindset on, nope, like,

Steve Valentine (08:20)
No.

Duane Murphy (08:27)
I'm just going to list their home and it's like, well, wait, if you partnered with them or introduced them to right person, someone fixed it up, they can make that much more money off of it. Everybody wins. There's so many other options when you go down that path that a lot of companies either shut the door on or is not taught, probably more importantly, not taught, that is out there.

Steve Valentine (08:54)
it's not only not taught, but it's not thought about and it's not praised for doing it. And part of that is, is if you think about it, the brokerages where they have, I don't want to say not done it the right way, but they haven't opened up a space for people to learn about investing and say, you can invest here, but you have to go through these programs so we know what you're doing. And you've been coached through it. have a mentor through it.

so that you don't have the wild wild west with investing getting the brokerage in trouble, which I totally understand. mean, you look at the wholesale industry, that's a train wreck, right? Because there's no guidelines. It's the wild wild west. But the agents and the brokerages tend to sway away from the investing because it technically doesn't feed the brokerage money on splits. But the reality is it actually does if they give some incentives to do it. Like when I do it real, I mean,

The reason I met real and I joined real was because I can utilize the amount of personal transactions and flips that I do to get to my stock awards and the other pieces. So I'm playing the investment game through the brokerage going, how many things can I funnel through the brokerage to get X? Cause I'm already doing this business, right? I'm already doing my personal stuff. So, and the money's tax the same. It's interesting to see where people

the agent side when they get into the investing, it's a lack of financial literacy in how money moves and breathes and how easily accessible it actually is when you find the right deal.

Shane Kilby (10:29)
So, Steve, talking about capturing every opportunity on these strategic solutions, your wife, she's involved too, right? Is she still involved in the day-to-day?

Steve Valentine (10:44)
yeah, yeah, that's taken a huge turn on us. mean, she started a decade ago wanting to manage our flips because it gave her something to do while the kids were in school. And that turned into a full fledged general contracting separate business. She has flipped more into retail renovations and does my stuff on the side. So her business has gone way up here. I mean, she does probably, probably six.

Shane Kilby (11:07)
you

Steve Valentine (11:13)
six to twelve half a million dollar renovations a year on top of the stuff that she does for us.

Shane Kilby (11:19)
That's pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Yeah, I remember I've seen her in photos, the hard hats and the blueprints. I'm like, it's after it. She is after it.

Steve Valentine (11:21)
Yep. Yep.

Yep.

Yeah,

the cool thing about that that we learned early on from working with my parents when we had a bunch of construction entities and I know a lot of real estate agents get on this vertical business and where can we capture more income from more clients? I can tell you what not to do is don't open a bunch of construction companies and tie them to your real estate business if you really want to screw yourself up because the first time the painter screws something up, they're calling you not the painter because you own the company.

So when we did that, construction side is awesome though, because it is a separate entity. It's something separate we can bring in when we need bids for certain things. And it's been a benefit to a lot of our clients when we come into an inspection period or whatnot. I'm just hands off. like, whatever Wendy says, right? I don't know how much it's going to cost. Like she's the contractor. I get to say, I'm out. You guys deal with her, which has been a blessing.

Shane Kilby (12:19)
Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. So let me ask you this question. So you have a lot of milestones, a lot of successes in your business, in your history in this business. What would you say the biggest success thus far, because you still got lots and lots more that you're working on accomplishing, what's been your biggest success in business thus far?

Steve Valentine (12:44)
this will shock everybody. The biggest success thus far is the self-awareness to get my life back on track and head to rehab in 23. So, backstory on that. Shane, you've known me a long time. You get into the flipping and the reputation, the coaching, the influencer space, and lots of successes, but along the way, I ran over a lot of people.

Duane Murphy (12:45)
Good.

Steve Valentine (13:15)
Including my own family, know, including my staff including things around me and so My wife gave me a not an ultimatum in September of 23, but it was a choice and it was You have a choice to go hang with the bottle if that's where you want to be or you can Alleviate the bottle and come back to your family your choice like you got to make the choice. It's not on me and so October 2nd of 23 I

I committed myself to rehab to an executive men's retreat and I left my phone, my laptop, my business to the capable hands of my staff and my wife and I left for 30 days quiet. That was a tough two weeks to prepare financially to make sure everybody was set up. in middle of projects and flips and purchases and all the things. And you always think there never could be a right time to do it and there isn't. The only time is now.

Right. So, that has been, well, it'll be 17 months come February that I'd been clean and making that decision. And it has been life changing to go in and it really didn't have much to do with alcohol. And what I realized in that part is that the more, the more I drink, the further my head and my heart got disconnected from what my passions and my joys and things were. And realizing that

I also have what's called hero syndrome, which means when you are constantly the hero. So in my line of work and in my reputation, I wanted to save everybody and tell nobody no. And in the meantime, bottle of tequila was really good when I got home every night to quiet the brain, right? Which, wasn't going well. I was extremely functional and all the things and I didn't burn anything down, but it was definitely my greatest success. And what's changed since then is just.

the clarity, the vision, my kids, my staff, all the things are 100 % back together and still kicking down that road. So it was hard. It was hard from public. And then what really broke everything open was when you do something like that, day one is your reputation's over, everything that you know and who you know is over.

In April we did an event called grit And I spoke with four gentlemen and that was my release To the general public so in front of my you know 200 colleagues I let go that I just been to rehab and this is what I fought for and this is what I fought through and You know, I cried a lot. It was very emotional, but it was out It was out and there was no more hiding and then I just became a little bit more vulnerable with it not from the standpoint of

Duane Murphy (15:56)
you

Steve Valentine (16:04)
You know, we always see it when, some people come out of something like that and it's like everybody else had life has to change because they did. Right. Like you need to stop drinking. And, it was actually just a new lease on life when, when I came out and just started to share a little bit about my struggles and where people were at and how I got it got back on track and what it was doing for me. What's been really cool is realizing that

I started to do that because there was nobody for me to talk to when I was going through it.

Judgment fear. Do you go to your competition in this business and go? I'm really struggling with this like who was I supposed to talk to and So by me doing it and you guys know being in this industry There's a lot of functional alcoholics and all the things and alcohol is it everything we go to and I'm still okay with it your story, right? You do it you do you but what's been awesome is the amount of agents that have reached out and I've been able to talk through talk off a ledge some get to rehab

Shane Kilby (16:45)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Valentine (17:06)
by being the vulnerable source, it's allowed me to impact other agents that have gone through what I was experiencing where I didn't have anybody to talk to that knew what it was like to particularly be in this business, the stresses, the different things, and being able to talk them through that has been probably one of the greatest successes.

Duane Murphy (17:25)
Yeah, the showing of vulnerability, not necessarily weakness, but just right, pulling that that curtain back, because right, as leaders, we're always right, we have this mirage, right in this image of right, everything's perfect, and we can handle anything and we write, we can run through walls and we can do all these things, right and nothing, you know,

Steve Valentine (17:44)
Head of stool, everything's perfect.

Shane Kilby (17:46)
Yeah.

Duane Murphy (17:54)
everything bounces off of us, right? And to reveal all that and to show that everything's not perfect and that we all have struggles in different ways makes you stronger even than what you were when you don't show that, right? It's like, we bleed, we get cut and bleed too, and that's...

Steve Valentine (18:14)
Yep. Yep. 100%.

Duane Murphy (18:21)
Unfortunately, especially in our industry, think, right? you you throw in influencing and influencers and, you know, how visible our occupation, our profession is. It's not always like that. So kudos to you on your 17-month journey. That's, right? It's one day at a time, as you know, and that's awesome.

Steve Valentine (18:41)
Thank you.

Shane Kilby (18:48)
Yeah, definitely, definitely congratulations on that. and you know, I I don't see, you know, vulnerability. know that's not what Dwayne meant. I don't see vulnerability as a weakness. see vulnerability as a strength because I mean, you know, we're probably all Gen Xers, probably all Gen Xers. So that's a different age. We were raised different times were much less fragile, much less triggers. Or there were, that was not a word. Maybe there, maybe the triggers were there.

Steve Valentine (18:49)
Yai.

Shane Kilby (19:15)
But you know, it wasn't anything that was spoken about.

Duane Murphy (19:19)
trigger was the beatings I took when

Steve Valentine (19:19)
Right?

Duane Murphy (19:22)
I didn't do what I was supposed to do.

Shane Kilby (19:24)
Absolutely, absolutely. But it also gives us the strength to try to attempt to carry the load today. Not only were it looked upon to carry that load for our companies, our organizations, our families, it's a badge of honor for us to do so.

Steve Valentine (19:25)
Yeah, or... Yeah, no doubt.

Shane Kilby (19:50)
But there are days when there are so many blocks, there's so many rocks, there's so much on that load that it gets to be a struggle. That it gets to be a struggle. And you're right, you get to the point, like, I can't have this conversation with anybody because nobody understands what the conversation I'm trying to have, right? So I commend you for that, and absolutely. I know personally, I've done, went through just some,

mental discipline programs like 75 Hardwood, Andy Frisella, you know, just to make sure that I was still in check because you are right. There's, you know, we don't go 75 days without being in an environment where alcohol is just like, just, it's just, part of the appetizer, you know, and it goes hand in hand. the fire, fireside chats, right? The, the, the, the masterminds like the deep 11 PM conversations.

about making these changes to the world and solving the world's problems. It's with a cocktail. Usually don't do that bone sober. Right? And so I've done that a couple more than one time just to make sure like, who's the boss? are you still in control of this? Or, you know, because I mean, there's not many of us Gen Xers that didn't come from a long line of alcoholics or alcoholism. Right? So it's like, I still do that today to make sure that I'm in control. Right?

And I still have a few drinks here and there, but here's the thing, like, Gawain, we've had this conversation more than once. Once you do go through an experience like that, it's like, what, name me one thing, other than completely lose your sense of being and make a lot of mistakes. Like, what is one thing that alcohol benefits?

Duane Murphy (21:25)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (21:49)
You know, nothing has zero health benefits. And if you do it long enough, it leads to some financial losses and even some personal losses, friends, family members. you know, think that some things you can get back, other things you can't get back.

Steve Valentine (22:06)
I can tell you one thing that alcohol still serves a purpose for for me. I don't drink it anymore but it definitely makes annoying people less annoying.

Duane Murphy (22:15)
Is that why? Is that? That's why I me drinks when he's with me.

Shane Kilby (22:16)
Okay.

Steve Valentine (22:17)
and it makes other people more annoying.

Shane Kilby (22:21)
I fixing to say, mean, if you're sober and giving alcohol to someone that's annoying, they're only going to be that much more annoying. But no, absolutely. And it doesn't make good gifts. It doesn't make good gifts.

Steve Valentine (22:34)
Well, the other

thing too, with the alcohol, just the change on, mean, for any real estate agent out there, you know, this business will suck the life out of you if you let it. And I watched it, you know, I thoroughly believed that my dad would still be here today had he not let his investor clients run him ragged and he put some boundaries in place and he had some focuses. And that was one of the crazy parts is like, you know, I had 30 days at a five acre compound. It was like, okay,

30 days to myself, I'm going to read, I'm going to do all the habits and get all the things that I've wanted to do for my life. And I'm going to set this stuff in stone. So when I come out, there's no change. And, you know, I, I got shredded, you know, starting their cold plunges and in the gym and I haven't stopped since. And that stuff has all just built into who I'm at. And now they're boundaries, right? You, I'm at the gym come hell or high water every day. And, you know, whether it's movement or the gym and then

the things that you want in life just become more prevalent to where alcohol just kind of fades away. And now I can honestly say in that, that road, which is really fascinating is, we, I'll share kind of a passion project with you, but through the passion project, just discovering when you're struggling with alcohol, you're in one prison, right? Mentally, physically, all the things when you decide to stop, you're in another prison because now all the things you can't do.

Right? I can't do this. It's like a diet. And then you just constantly want it and you're focused on the problem that you can't have. And so you're hungry, you crave it, all the things. And it wasn't until about six months in that I wasn't focused on the problem, but the person that I was going to become without it. And then it just kind of faded into the background and it doesn't become a one day at a time. I'm struggling today. This is triggering me. It just life is better and where I'm going without it.

Duane Murphy (24:34)
Mmm.

Steve Valentine (24:34)
doesn't

factor in anymore. again, it was not a, I didn't mean to like take a bunch of time on the podcast about that, but that was one of the things. And what it's done is it's taken the story. I think the bigger part of this story for anybody who is listening is understanding that challenges in life are meant to refine you for something better. it's not always.

Duane Murphy (24:42)
Yeah, it's important.

Steve Valentine (24:59)
Awesome going through it. I mean, I've been financially broke all the things. It's not great to go through it, but I'll tell you what, if you're going through it, it means you are being refined for something better and something bigger. And you have to go through those lessons to learn it, or you may have to go through it again, right? But those, those things are the big pieces where any one of us that have gone through these challenges the last couple of years, just understand like you were being refined for something that's the next level or the next evolution.

as long as you learn and you take from those things. And it's the people that wallow in their misery and walk away from it and go, that really sucked, but they don't look at it from the third person and go, what did I need to learn from that freaking part of my life so that either A, it doesn't repeat itself or B, I can do it better, right? Which is when you go back to our flips, so many people like they flipped their first home, they lose money and they never do it again, because they never look at where they screwed up and okay, how do we fix that?

Duane Murphy (25:40)
You

Steve Valentine (25:56)
And we just constantly refine the process to make things better, to make things more profitable rather than giving up.

Duane Murphy (26:03)
Yeah, I could... Offline, online, could... You... If I put that down, you had mentioned... Because I've got... Four going right now. Right? And, You mentioned a thousand, and I'm just like...

Shane Kilby (26:20)
you

Duane Murphy (26:22)
Whoa, like the

scale, right? And the amount of moving pieces and just the refinement and just everything that goes into that, right? I mean, everything from right, acquiring the deal, finding the deal, right? And everything to the end, that is just a staggering number to me on how you pull off a thousand of them, you know, even over a period of time, but to pull off a thousand of them.

Shane Kilby (26:42)
you

Steve Valentine (26:42)
And I wouldn't, I wouldn't.

Duane Murphy (26:49)
I mean, because right now, like how many would you estimate like you'll do this year?

Steve Valentine (26:55)
60.

But remember, here's the deal. In learning the refinement process, crazy, like to share this with you guys, is that when we were doing flips, still a little emotionally tied to the end outcome of like the highest price and the things, which ended up costing us money for trying to like, well, we're the nicest house on the block. And so we cut everything down, like we've torn our business down to the studs in the last eight months.

And reason being, I started looking things. like, I sat down with Eric. I'm like, look, we buy boxes. Boxes make money one way, or form. And we need to have boundaries that if the average price is this, even if we're the nicest house and it sells for that fucking good. Oops. I don't know if we're sorry. Right. Okay. Cover it up. So it's, it's one of those.

Shane Kilby (27:42)
We can cover it, it's good, it's good, it's real.

Duane Murphy (27:45)
Trust me, we

fight not being like that on the entire podcast.

Steve Valentine (27:49)
So, you know, we just cut it back and we're like, look, let's go through the budget. Let's set these numbers and set these targets to determine. See, we'll do 60 or 70. But you got to remember that probably 30 of those we bought and sold as is. We didn't touch because we have a what's the number here? What's the number here versus as is and

Duane Murphy (28:06)
Mmm. Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Steve Valentine (28:15)
Before what we were doing is we were so focused on all the opportunities that a flip would bring like a buyer another seller The problem is you got to have somebody to work those opportunities and it's not me I ain't got time for that Right and some of the agents that I've tried to give opportunities. They just can't see it and work it So I'm like I'm until somebody comes to me with a plan. I'm out so these have to move in move out and hit our targets and Let's move on. I'm like no more pets this year. So Erica's very very excited about no more pets

Shane Kilby (28:36)
Yeah.

Ha

Steve Valentine (28:46)
and what I'll tell you though, is that when we buy houses, Dwayne, it's, it's really important. Like on the investment side, we get into, we buy something and we know that it's something. We just don't know what it's supposed to be at the end of the day. And when you leave it open for that, it actually is kind of crazy how things work as far as you're in community and you're talking to different people about how to solve problems.

So this is what happens. We have a house that we're about ready to flip. It needs about a hundred grand worth of work. We're probably going to net 25 grand in profit at the end of the day. You got to go through the process, put the money into it. Well, I'm out shooting with the guys and the guys like, yeah, I've got some cash and I'm listening to what he's saying. And I'm like, Hey, you're a contractor. How about I help you get a foot up? Why don't I do a lease purchase partnership with you on this house? You do the repairs. We split the equity. You pay the lease on it.

And then you buy that house and we're going to keep it as rental. You're going to have the equity in it when we're done. And then we'll move on and do the same thing again. And in the next five to 10 years, we'll get you a million dollars in equity by bouncing from one to the next going through this process. That's where it gets fun. That's where it's not a sale. It's not a nervousness. It's like, dude, check out, like this is what we can do. And you get all excited. You know why? Cause the guy's wife brought me the certified check yesterday. She's like, the house is way bigger than we thought. We got the flooring done on it.

Shane Kilby (29:58)
and

Steve Valentine (30:12)
and you see the opportunity in their eyes light up and you're like, this is better than closing on a house because it was something they didn't know was possible.

Shane Kilby (30:22)
Bigger picture, bigger picture. That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, it's, you know, that's what you do it for. That's the big rewarding part of what we do is those wins like that. And that's why I had an idea, we didn't pre-script this, I had an idea where you were headed.

Duane Murphy (30:24)
Wow.

Steve Valentine (30:29)
Absolutely.

Shane Kilby (30:46)
when you said that it's not always the commissions and the money, it's the opportunity to see what it can do, to see what it can do. And I do like the terminology of the pets. I'm gonna use that. I'm going to use that. No more pets. I'm gonna refer to that as bad agents, as bad projects, no pets, no pets.

Steve Valentine (31:01)
Well,

Well, let's, let's take it to something practical and tactile as you talk about pets and let's, let's turn that into client conversation, right? You know, we, go through listing presentations and sometimes the clients dictate where they want to go price wise and you know, it's too high and you're going to sit on it and you waste your money, time and energy anyway. Right. And it's one of those pieces. And I know that I have 26 years experience, but I wish somebody would have set me straight with this early on is like, look,

You are interviewing the client as much as they are interviewing you and you're there to sell the house, not list the house. So let's make sure that we're asking the pointed questions and getting to the point of number one, do you want to get in bed with this person for the next six months? And two, is it going to be a terrible person to get in bed with as far as energy, time and all those things? And are you better off walking away with the power of no?

Duane Murphy (31:53)
you

Steve Valentine (32:00)
Feeling good about yourself not and this is where most people like if they lose it. They're like what did I do wrong? But if you said no You're like guy you're not my person and you walked away now you have energy for the people that do believe you are their person and so, know We're really big on this right now Like I'm just drawing lines in the sand with what I will and won't tolerate from clients and it's it's a different interview process of hate

I can help solve, I have these experiences, I have all these things, but we're not going down this road because I work with you, not for you. And when we work together, we both accomplish the same goal. I have a goal of creating income, you have a goal of selling your house, that's where we're on the same page. If we can't be on that page and you want me to pussy foot around with freaking photos and twilights and all these other things because you think that's gonna make a difference in the price and you don't do this for a living, it's probably not your client.

Shane Kilby (32:56)
Yes. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (32:56)
Yes.

Shane Kilby (32:57)
And so it's like, you know, working with you instead of for you. If I work for you, I need you to put up a retainer fee. I need a retainer because that's a different conversation, different relationship, right? If you're not paying, if I'm not financially gaining until the end, we must work together to go after the same goal. I like that. Very good. Very good. Let me ask. No, no, go ahead. Go ahead.

Steve Valentine (33:08)
I like that. Yep.

Yeah, you know, it's, it's, yeah, go ahead.

No, I was just saying like the learning, you know, I love it when you just said that because there is something to be said about understanding for your own knowledge. Is this going to be transactional or relational? You see, some people do hire us for the job that we can do and it can be straight transactional. Just know that not everybody wants to hear from you when it's over. And then you're going to know the people that you want to be relational with.

Duane Murphy (33:38)
Mmm.

Steve Valentine (33:50)
And when you can do that, you're going to handle those clients in those manners of like this person just needs direct contact every Tuesday because they want to get the job done. They want to hear from me. This person wants their handhold. I need to stop by and have coffee. And I think they're going to be good for business. And it's okay to have both clients. If that's what you want, right? And I'm more into, I mean, if this guy is transactional, wants to work with me, I'm in. But if I'm going to be his Chihuahua and he's going to tell me how to do my job, I'm out.

Shane Kilby (34:09)
and

No, he has a bigger timer.

Steve Valentine (34:20)
I don't

want to be in that position anymore. And I think a lot of us in this industry, especially in the current market, we take those people on in hopes something happens. And the reality is the hope is you're more likely to have a problem, a lawsuit, an unhappy person, and a bad review out of somebody like that than you are not doing anything.

Shane Kilby (34:42)
So that's if I, Dwayne, got, I have got to have a Bradley bomb button on this podcast because that is, that is a bomb. That is a nugget right there. If you're an agent or a buyer or seller or consumer, or you've been in the business for a long length of time or you want to come in this business, there is another piece of gold right there. It's, know, in the way that you prevent

Duane Murphy (34:47)
No, just me hating it

Steve Valentine (34:48)
Hahaha

Shane Kilby (35:12)
from having to take every piece of business that your desperate self can get is to be consistent in the activities that drive results. Then you get more choices on what you can say no to and what you can say yes to. Too many agents, when they go to an appointment, it's in such desperation that they're trying to be a circus poodle in front of other circus poodles to see who can get the deal. And it's like, don't want every deal.

You because if you, you nailed it. Like if you don't say no to the ones that you need to say no to, then you're going to spread yourself so thin that you're not gonna be able to bring that 10X value to the clients that deserve it and that are worthy of it, right? But you can't have those opportunities if you're not consistent with the activities that create the results. Huge nugget, huge nugget, very tactical nugget. yeah.

Steve Valentine (36:06)
was a great recap. I like that.

Duane Murphy (36:08)
Yeah

Shane Kilby (36:09)
We

see it. We see it every day. it's like, you know, and it's it, it, one of the blessings of this podcast is that, you know, it's like when you, you share insight with your kids on how to throw a curve ball or a knuckle ball and you work in the front yard every day for months and months and they just don't get it. They just, it's in one ear and out the other, but they go down the street and you hear from Johnny's dad and like come back, back, throwing those.

killer curve balls and those knuckle balls, you're like, yes, you finally did it, but we practiced this for eight months. It just wouldn't get through. So when you hear another guest speaker that is in this industry and you know that when the conversation starts, like it's transparent that they are in this industry and they have seen the things that everyone else has seen and experienced, what everyone else has experienced at some point in in this business, then it's nice to hear those same conversations.

you know, come from across the industry, no matter if you're in Phoenix, Arizona or in Wisconsin or in Sweet Home, Alabama.

Steve Valentine (37:09)
think the other piece that really goes to that that resonates with me, which was one of the struggles going into rehab and I was called out by a couple of really good friends is understanding the difference between ego and arrogance and confidence. And, you know, some people portray telling people no as an ego and an arrogance, but let me tell you why it's confidence. See, I can confidently tell somebody no, knowing that they're going to expand my boundaries, that I don't want to be in those positions. They're going to make me miserable.

which is in turn going to make my life miserable. And there's no amount of money that's going to come from some guy selling his house that I'm going to let him take me off course in these areas, right? That's confidence in what I know that I will tolerate and not tolerate. It's not ego. It's not that I don't want to work with you, but you're not the right person to work with me in this, in this capacity. So it's better off that I refer you to the person I don't like. I'm still going to get paid for this.

Shane Kilby (38:01)
Absolutely. And so,

Duane Murphy (38:02)
I'm

Shane Kilby (38:07)
yeah,

it's like oftentimes, we have a real estate school too. And oftentimes, we can't take every agent or every student that comes out of those schools. And oftentimes, we help them all get located with a brokerage that will fit their chemistry. And sometimes, that's kind of the mindset. It's like, you know, I'm

You know, I want to make sure they have an opportunity to win. Sometimes it's not just, it's just not the right fit for our organization. So we help place them at, you know, competing brokers, you know, because we know the outcome, the outcome is going to be the same. The outcome is going to be the same, but it's, that's another nugget though, right there in that, in what you were just talking about ego or confidence, ego and confidence. And we talk so much in this business about

you know, strong confidence and building confidence and doing activities that layer on confidence. And here's, you know, the bad side of when you spread yourself too thin and make promises you can't keep in this business, just trying to create business, you know, what you can do through consistency is the people that are closest to you are the ones who feel the brunt of your being stretched too thin, you know.

I mean, we've all been there, like personal experience, like you turn around, you're like, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm kicking the dog. like, I'm, know, I'm I'm staying to myself at home. I'm like, wait a minute, like I've got to bring those boundaries back into a healthy place. I've got to say no to what I, what I need to say no to so that I can save some in the tank, the best in the tank for the people that support me and are there for me when I need them, right? Every step of the way, your family, your friends, the people that are closest to you. Cause otherwise,

They're so close to you that you can easily step over that boundary and dump it all on them, right? We've been there. This is a high stress business. That's a way to cure that is to know those boundaries and stay safe inside those boundaries. It's okay to say no. And it doesn't mean you're ego. It doesn't mean your ego. So very good.

Duane Murphy (40:13)
Yeah.

Steve,

you had mentioned a couple of times you're just skirted. You had called it one thing in the beginning and then you referenced it, I believe, as the passion project.

Steve Valentine (40:31)
yeah. we the passion project came out of you, Shane. I was talking to you offline about how you're enjoying the podcast and things. And I've done the real estate podcast like three different times, three different headliners. And I just kind of got tired of talking about real estate. Right. There was only so much. And I was with my media manager, Garrett, who's also my brother-in-law. And it's interesting how

you start to contradict yourself and you start to grow through that contradiction of where do I want to go and what does this feel like and feeling like my identity up to rehab has always been like real estate investor this guy and now I'm like I want to be known for this person and this is who I am and this is my identity and this is what I do over here and so we started a podcast called or a show on YouTube called the real rehab experience and it's actually been a lot of fun because

everybody including both of you guys has rehabbed something in their life whether an injury a family they've torn something down whatever that looks like it doesn't have to be physical rehab so these are like practical tactical interviews of people that have gone through the shit pulled themselves out of it through whatever form or fashion that they did and bringing it to light so i've really enjoyed that part of it and my brother-in-law he comes from

many years of being a youth pastor. So he's very wise and he's very inquisitive and he's not in the industry. having his conversation in that has been a lot of fun. It's helping a lot of people. it's, it's, it's a good podcast. Really enjoying it.

Shane Kilby (42:11)
Nice,

Duane Murphy (42:12)
I'm one more

Shane Kilby (42:12)
nice.

Duane Murphy (42:13)
time just for everyone listening So they can so they can definitely right find it subscribe smash smash that button

Steve Valentine (42:18)
Yeah, it's,

yep, it's on IG, the real rehab experience and then same thing on YouTube and you can find all the different episodes. think there's four episodes out, including my journey is the first episode from, from the day I entered to where I'm at now and what's been impacted.

Shane Kilby (42:36)
Very cool. We will make sure to include that in the transcript and the show notes and stuff too, because we'll definitely capture that as well. Let me ask you, so we've talked about a lot in real estate, real life, ups and downs, successes and failures. What would you say your greatest influence in life and business has been up until this point?

Steve Valentine (42:40)
Awesome.

What's influenced me the most?

Shane Kilby (43:05)
Yeah, yeah, what's been your greatest personal influence?

Steve Valentine (43:09)
I mean, by far my faith, my relationship with Christ has by far been that. The other thing, I'm gonna answer this a little differently. I believe my successes have come through surrounding myself with the right people in those times in my life. Being in this business for 26 years,

I have watched the industry and what it does and when people, you know, hang their head, hide their head, all those other pieces, they're afraid to be in community with people. They're afraid to say I'm sucking and I'm working on this and they're afraid to have that collaboration piece. Right. And when I got into the industry, everything was about keep everything to yourself. Don't share anything. Right. Like it's some sort of industry secret. And throughout my years, even in, I go back to COVID or not COVID.

Shane Kilby (44:01)
you

Steve Valentine (44:06)
pre-COVID, let's go back to the foreclosure days, 2008, when we were all a bunch of broke real estate agents trying to figure out what the hell to do next. And there was 12 of us that would have coffee every Thursday morning. What's going on here? What are you doing here? What are you doing? And that helped us move through. It helped us do some deals together and it helped us just have community. We weren't responsible for each other, but we showed up for each other, right? And there were some great friendships and partnerships that were created.

because you start to get to know people. You see, you really don't get to know somebody on a cross transaction. You really get to know somebody when you see them week after week. And one of those coffee, I can say that every time I've had a group like this, some sort of business venture or something that has catapulted me forward has come out of it. so, you know, with that, Dave Carrick was a good friend of mine and we ended up partnering in the REO days. We bought a Realty Executives franchise. We were doing REOs and

We sold like 5,000 REO homes together during that time, but it came from those mornings and coffee. He was also the guy that loaned me the 10 grand that I needed to get that REO account and it came from that coffee. And so even nowadays when I came out of rehab, I a monthly lunch with these four guys that are independent brokers. I'm the only agent that's still like in massive production. These guys own independent brokerages. But when I sat down with them in January last year, I said, look guys,

I want to have lunch and this is fun, but I've got no time for bullshit. Like here's all the things I fucked up in life. Like this is where I'm at. I need to be real, honest, raw. Like if I'm having a bad day and you guys need to be able to do the same because I can't pussy foot around like look at us all being successful and all the things why everything's falling apart in the background. So we, we still have dinner or lunch once a month and we're still the first calls when one of us is in trouble or needs help with something.

Shane Kilby (45:36)
He he he.

Duane Murphy (45:49)
you

Shane Kilby (45:49)
Absolutely.

Steve Valentine (45:58)
because that's what you need in community is you need that lifeline. And I don't even remember how we got on this topic. influence, influence. It's people, right? It's people and connection.

Shane Kilby (46:06)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they are. So

Duane Murphy (46:11)
Mm-hmm.

Shane Kilby (46:12)
what I heard was you back all the way to 2008, you were having weekly masterminds of 12 problem solving high level thinkers in the same boat, in the same situation or similar situation, sharing personal struggles and strides and trial tribulations and successes.

And helping each other overcome that in between is what I heard and it led to that. monthly, monthly week, monthly meeting.

Steve Valentine (46:38)
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yes. Because think,

think about what happens. Like even you guys might be able to shed some light on this is when we have teams or brokerages, that's where they're getting fed. So either we need to feed that better. Or if you're on a team or at a brokerage where the environment is constantly staying the same, you need to go get yourself out of it and add something to it. That's away from the norm. And the reason I can say that is that

I got fed internally, not just from my team, but I was partnered with my parents, right? So there's nothing like your boss and your dad being the same person. And that's where it all came from. And I didn't have outside relationships because my dad didn't believe in it. But when I started to get a taste of it, I'm like, this is fun because I can have a conversation with somebody that knows what I'm talking about. I go to my buddy who's turning wrenches. He doesn't know what an escrow is. He doesn't know what you're going through. And so

Duane Murphy (47:16)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (47:34)
Right.

Steve Valentine (47:37)
Having those communities and those people is really important and I think it's also just as important to get yourself in community outside the business. So I did a lot of masterminds. was fortunate to be friends with Chris Harder and Lewis Howes and that influencer space where I got out of the real estate business and got around other high earning influencers and business owners which also helped me see things a little bit differently and bring some of that

into the real estate space and the business.

Shane Kilby (48:09)
Nice, nice. that's, you we have a small mastermind group and that's what we do. We meet, you know, we're all in different locations, but we meet via Zoom twice a month and then we meet, we pick a destination every six months and we get a big massive house and it accommodates everybody and spouses.

And we stay there for usually three days and two days is just eight, 10, 12 hours of deep diving, know, obstacles, hurdles in our businesses. And we share different perspectives, point of views and strategies to overcome those bottlenecks and obstructions in our business. So.

Duane Murphy (48:51)
You

really get to know someone when you're staying under the same roof and breaking bread with them and sharing stories and writing hurdles. That connection just brings it into a whole other level than just that mirage on camera or through a screen of, everything's perfect. I'm kicking butt. You get to kind of get behind that curtain a little bit and actually get to know the person.

Shane Kilby (49:20)
Yeah, it's good because you make those connections because like you said, it's and even but even it's it's it's still prevalent in this business that that it's hard to have this why this was some of these associations are falling apart all these, know, National Association, realtor association. They all everyone of them that I'm aware are struggling to hold it together because everybody's fake.

Duane Murphy (49:38)
Okay.

Shane Kilby (49:49)
Looked in the camera. I it everybody's fake everybody's on this and everybody's on that committee everybody's and when they walk out the room They talk about each other They talk about each other and I get asked all the time. Why don't you serve on this? Why because I'm not fake I'm not faking you don't hear what I have to say is real right? You can't handle the truth. What's it? What's it a with a few good men? Yeah, you can't handle the truth, you know because at end of the day it this this industry needs to be we need to

Steve Valentine (50:09)
You get banned.

Shane Kilby (50:17)
be connected like the neighbors that we truly came in this business to be.

Steve Valentine (50:22)
Well,

I mean, you know, when you say that the reality is we're in the people business, not in the housing business. And it's about connecting the dots and figuring out how to make it a win win for everybody without everybody taking shit personally. And it's become this pissing contest when the reality is it's one, it's two people, right? It's the buyer and seller that are the most important part of the transaction at the end of the day and trying to figure out how to get them across the finish line.

and you know the cross the aisles with the brokerages you know I remember a couple years ago because I love this this is what happens when you have too much shit going on we have we have a house that's on the market for sale and for lease keep in mind it's for lease in the property management company we get a signed executed lease and a signed executed contract same day I'm like shit so I already know I have a problem

Duane Murphy (51:16)
Hahaha!

Steve Valentine (51:17)
I already get it. I've been told from the management company and my partner, like, hey, how do you want to fix this? I'm like, you know what? I think we have a vacant house down the street. Make him the same deal on the condo in the house and have him move to the house and we'll sell the condo. I already knew what we dealing with. But the broker calls from the other company and he has got his chest puffed up so high and he's like fighting on the other side of the phone and I'm laughing and I'm like, dude.

Like I get it, but your job is the brokers to call and go, Hey, I understand we have an issue. there any way I can help you solve the problem? I want to make sure that everybody not this you Fed up you owe my client. You need to do dude. I dare you to come down and knock on my desk. You schmuck.

Shane Kilby (52:03)
Exactly. Talk is cheap on the other end of that phone. Yeah.

Duane Murphy (52:07)
Yeah,

I've had the same conversation when I'm teaching, coaching my agents. From the same point of it's like, yep, it's you and you got the other agent on the other side. I said, you literally have to look at, does your seller want to sell or does your buyer want to buy? Does my seller want to sell or does my buyer want to buy? If the answer to that is yes and yes,

Steve Valentine (52:09)
Keyboard warriors.

Shane Kilby (52:11)
Yep.

Duane Murphy (52:35)
as agents, professionals, regardless of brokerage and brand affiliation, it is your job to figure it out and not to be the ones that stand in the way of getting it done because of personal pride or ego or I gotta win because I'm gonna make sure I win because that's who I am and I just, go to battle for everything. And it's like, no, your job is to work with that other agent and the best interest of your client is to buy yourself.

Steve Valentine (52:50)
Right.

Duane Murphy (53:04)
The best interest in my client is to buy or sell. Okay? As agents and as professionals, it is your job then to work together to figure it out. It's not a you versus him or you versus her. It's a how do we figure this, how do get from here to there? You want to get there, I want to get there, let's get there. And it's lost so often, right, that it's just not always taught enough or coached enough or.

or enforce that, hey, it's not a you versus me. It is how can we get there together? I have a transaction going right now with, you know, because I still do some real estate as well, and with a senior agent in our market, right? She's been in business a long time. And that's been our conversation. We've had some major hurdles overcome with this transaction. it honestly probably would have went sideways a

dozen different times, I think if there were two different people in the seats. And every single time something comes up, which literally would seem like it's going to nuke the deal, it's insurmountable, Each time we've gotten together and said, hey, how do we get through this? Like, what do we got to do to get to the other side? And that doesn't mean my side's going to win or your side's going to win. It's like everyone's going to get a little bit of something.

Ultimately, how do we work through this? And that's huge and phenomenal. I guess fairy land, right? Magic land is, I wish that there was more of that in our industry and unfortunately it almost seems with the lack of communication, people don't pick up the phone anymore. You can hide behind text messages and it's like, no. I had this same conversation in our team meeting yesterday, in the brokerage meeting. Pick up the phone.

call each other and talk about it and do not hide behind a text message that can be interpreted a dozen different ways and typically wrong.

Shane Kilby (55:11)
Yeah, can burn it down.

Steve Valentine (55:11)
see

it can it can and I I do a lot of voice messages right so they can hear tonality and where you're at where your heart is so if you're trying to speed things up a lot of times I will use voice memo versus text plus there's no screenshotting the voice memo

Duane Murphy (55:26)
I like that.

Yeah.

Steve Valentine (55:33)
I had good I had look two weeks ago Two weeks ago. I I had coffee with a buddy of mine. I was telling him how he responded to somebody He's like dude. He's like you ever hear of the client or the quiet FU response and I'm like, do mean? He's like just don't respond He's like people have anxiety when people don't respond to their text and he's like make him think about it He's like make him come back. He says and

Shane Kilby (55:34)
There's a nugget. There's a nugget.

Steve Valentine (56:03)
Don't give them any ammunition to screenshot something out of context and use it against you. I'm like, this mother effer. I'm like, all right, you're right.

Shane Kilby (56:11)
Yep, yep, I got to pick up the tab on that one. That's some great nuggets. So let me ask you this. So the experience that you've had, which is probably two lifetimes of the average real estate professional, what's one thing that if you could go back and tell the younger version of yourself,

Duane Murphy (56:16)
Yeah.

Shane Kilby (56:37)
that you would like to know then that you know now or to someone else that's considering pursuing this path in real estate or you know, wants to be a full-time investor. What is that one thing that you wish you'd have known then that you know now?

Steve Valentine (56:55)
I'll have sum it up into a couple of things because there's not just one. The main thing for any licensee to understand is that no matter where you're

you should be doing some practicing on the investment side and understanding how the investment works. Even if you decide it's not for you, you have clients. This is part of business. Everybody wants to invest and having the knowledge comes through experience. you know, I, so one is, is understanding investing when it comes down to it. The other thing too, that is probably the most important thing for real estate agents to understand is

understanding how to connect. If you can't do it or it's not in your wheelhouse, who do you know that can? You see, we have this culture that I realized recently that we live in a what if culture with an exclamation point, not a question mark. You see, most people live in a question mark culture where it's doubt, it's fear, it won't work, all the things. And I'm like,

Cool, what if, until we get to the obstacle and then the obstacle either comes in the form of money or a person. And if I can't solve for that obstacle, okay, well I did the work to try to get here and it's not gonna work right now, but at least I know what it's gonna take the next time it comes up. See, most people won't even take it to the great point, right? I tell all my agents all the time, you guys wanna invest and you don't have any money and all the things.

Then you get out there and you practice on one house a week. You run the numbers, you write the offer just like you're going to do it because you're going to get feedback. You're going to understand things. You know how many people do it? Zero. You know what's going to happen when they stumble into a listing appointment? It's trash. They're like, okay, what did Steve say to do? Dude, you should be able to do it like this. And if you were practicing, you would understand it. You know, yesterday I was doing an open house, an investor open house. had 60 people there watching the agents come through.

and the conversation I'm like, my gosh, you are actually guiding other people through this process. You scare me, right? And you know, what's fascinating is the other part of investing, why it's really important for agents to do it is because it creates experience and value, not only to yourself, but to your clients and your future. You see, the amount of homes that we've renovated,

The amount of problems that we've seen that most people will never see that I'm 100 % prepared for because I've seen it. I know the cost of it. That experience equates to hundreds of thousands of dollars for my clients. I can't sell that. I can't bottle it up. It's a trust process, but experience in these things is really, really critical or being in the vicinity of somebody that is experiencing these things. You know, I watched it. I watched it from my dad.

Duane Murphy (59:42)
Go.

Steve Valentine (59:52)
right and that was kinda my experience and I'm like I like what you're doing but I think I can tweak it and that's what I did I took everything that I learned the last nine months my dad was dying with some of his flips and his investors and I'm like I can do it better if I just move this over here and if I go and ask this person for money I can buy the house myself rather than selling it to an investor and it all comes in the what if exclamation point

is to what is possible in this business not what's not possible. And so many agents think I don't have money, I'm new in the business, I don't have good credit. I don't need any of that shit. What you need is the right person around you. And I'll tell you right now, anybody that's lacking success in real estate, it's not a money problem, it's a relationship problem. 1000 % it's a relationship problem. And I can tell you this, you know in my coaching what I do with agents,

Duane Murphy (1:00:29)
Thank

So.

Steve Valentine (1:00:49)
Like, I got a house to buy. I'm like, cool, where are you going to get the money? I don't know. Cool. There's 10 people in your phone that have $300,000 alone. You go find it. No, I can't do that. Every time they do it, they come back with one or two yeses. And I'm like, you don't have a money problem. You have a relationship problem. Now figure it out, right?

Shane Kilby (1:01:07)
yeah,

Duane Murphy (1:01:08)
Thank you.

Shane Kilby (1:01:08)
what's the saying? Go find the deals and the money will find its way to the deals.

Duane Murphy (1:01:13)
Yeah, I've always heard that same, you know, almost the same variation right money finds money And if there's if there's money in the deal that the money will be there for it, right? But but as you had mentioned it's such a key point It is truly is truly about the relationship like right with with some of my great investors and some of the stuff that I'm doing Right and I'll go to them and be like, okay. Here's what I'm thinking. Here's what I'm doing. I want to scale this Right. I want to go from four

Steve Valentine (1:01:20)
all the time.

Duane Murphy (1:01:42)
you know, four, want to have 10 at a time. Right? That relationship, right, is so strong and so solid that they're like, awesome. How can we help? Not right. wasn't like, I don't know how you're going to do that. It literally, right, that conversation because of the relationship and that relationship is built on trust and it's built on track record. It's right. It was earned. Right. And, and,

Steve Valentine (1:01:56)
Where can we support?

Duane Murphy (1:02:12)
It wasn't just given and it's literally that their response, right, in different avenues isn't like, well, how are you going to do that? Or, well, that doesn't seem possible or any of that. was literally, how can we help?

Shane Kilby (1:02:29)
Yeah. Well, there's two things that come with that. One, that's where the relationship comes to play. And two, those relationships get stronger by what Steve said. You gotta know your numbers. You gotta know, that's what they wanna know. Like, you got 10, you got 20, you got two, we're gonna make this, we're gonna make that. Just, what's the numbers? Let's do it. And then the relationship gets strong enough, it's like, I don't need to know the numbers. Like, I've got partners today, it's like,

Steve Valentine (1:02:29)
Mm hmm. So.

Duane Murphy (1:02:30)
Right.

Shane Kilby (1:02:58)
And I'm like, no, I want to sit down. want to show you these numbers. I want you to see these numbers. want you to, I don't care. Like just, just, I'm good. I'm good. I'm like, no, I want you to be a part of this process. But that relationship is so strong that they're like, that's what I got you for. I'm like, okay, but I just want you to know that I sat down here on your time schedule to make sure that you knew what we were looking at, our opportunities were here. So.

Steve Valentine (1:03:23)
What's crazy, so if I were to go back and think about my younger version and going through it, it'd be realizing that everybody I come in contact with that's a client or a connection is not a commission or a sale. They're a connection for something that I'm going to need now or in the future, right? And so if everybody saw my database or my community, which is how I operate, right? I have been teaching my community and my clients how to invest in me, so.

My bank is in my community. The deals are in my real estate agent community that don't know what to do with it. And all I'm doing is connecting the dots and being the middle person. And every one of us has the power to do that. All the money that you need is in the relationships you currently have. You just don't know how to ask. And by the way, you're not asking somebody for a $1,000 loan to get you through to Friday.

you're presenting a business opportunity to someone that creates a win-win. You see, most of my clients are retired old people. And when you give them an 8 % return, which is doubled in a money market, and they know that it's helping my family succeed and that we're keeping 50 families employed and that their investment has heart and it has a return and it's guaranteed, they're all in. They don't have any issues with what we do.

Shane Kilby (1:04:40)
That's ducks on the pond. That's the grand slam. It's all the bases covered. All the bases covered. Well, Steve, you know, I don't want to take too much of your time. You have been an absolute wealth of information. We connected before this interview. We'll connect again. And like I've always enjoyed, you know, observing your journey, we're going to connect the next time that we're in the area.

Steve Valentine (1:04:42)
Yep. Yep.

Shane Kilby (1:05:04)
How would everybody that's gonna listen to this podcast, how would they connect and follow you and get closer to you in case they wanted to be in your organization from some capacity or they wanted to invest with you or they wanted you to take this heap of whatever they call a piece of real estate and you to develop it into something grand. How would they reach out to you? How would they connect with you?

Steve Valentine (1:05:27)
Steve D Valentine on Instagram is the best place to get a hold of me. That's where all my contact information, DMs, all that good stuff is there. And that's where I share a lot of my real estate and life journey. And then the passion project is called the Real Rehab Experience, which is also on Instagram as well.

Shane Kilby (1:05:45)
All right guys, you heard it here. This has been a wealth of information. Download the transcript, go back and watch this episode again, listen to this episode again. There is tons and tons and tons of value there. I hope that it brought you some value. If it did bring you some value, please like and share and leave us a review. helps us in the algorithms and then until then, him up on Instagram.

on either of those shows and YouTube and he's on YouTube as well and And we will bring you guys some more good value here in the near future. Take care Peace

Duane Murphy (1:06:15)
I'll seeing you.

Steve Valentine (1:06:20)
Thanks guys.

Duane Murphy (1:06:21)
Peace.