From Barber's Apprentice to Real Estate Powerhouse: Brandon BlueNote's Journey to Success

Brandon BlueNote, a dynamic force in the real estate world, shares his transformative journey from a challenging upbringing in Queens to becoming a real estate powerhouse with nearly 400 deals under his belt. Raised by a single mother and grandmother from Colombia, Brandon opens up about overcoming financial hardships and a strained relationship with his affluent father. He started as a barber's apprentice, realizing that cutting hair wasn't his ticket to financial freedom. A turning point came at a grocery store, sparking his passion for real estate self-education, leading him to acquire his realtor license in 2017. Brandon's story is a compelling reminder of how self-belief and resilience can pave the way to real estate success.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Success in Real Estate
• 10:17 Real Estate Investment Strategies Interview

Transcript

00:00 - Hope (Announcement)
Brandon BlueNotes went from struggling in Queens to closing nearly 400 real estate deals. One life-changing moment changed everything. Now he's sitting down with Jesse Burrell to reveal the secrets that got him there, From hidden gems to billion-dollar deals. This is the Property Perspective, where seasoned real estate pros reveal how they spot value, others miss and industry disruptors share the unconventional strategies reshaping real estate. Now here are your hosts. 

00:28 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Jesse Burrell here, CEO of BatchService, sitting down with my boy, Brandon BlueNotes, out of Florida. Thanks for making the trek. I know you've been seeing all the gurus out here dropping some gems. I'm excited to have you on today. 

00:41 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Man, excited to be on with you and on your platform, man. So I'm just here to give as much value as possible and just help people understand how to get into the business and how to be able to use the barrier of entry of just wholesaling and real estate investing. So I appreciate you a lot, man. 

00:57 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, I know we talked off script about this, but I really just want to talk people to know who you are, how you got started, what you're doing today. We'll kind of get into a whole bunch of different things, but I always think it's really good and we don't do this a ton on Batch. It's just like really interviewing someone and hearing their story and talking about your successes and failures, and you're doing some really cool stuff off camera that we're talking about. So let's just get started with telling people about who you are and how long you've been wholesaling for or investing for and what that looks like. 

01:28 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah for sure. So essentially, I was born to a single mom and grandmother. They're from Columbia and I was born and raised in Queens, New York. My mom worked several jobs and I shared a bedroom with my grandmother to the age of 16. Just because we know, we didn't have a silver spoon, so it was kind of funny. You know, if you ever walked into my room, you know one side would be like a bunch of catholic and religious stuff and then one side would be like LeBron and all the stuff that I liked. But it was great, you know, it was great. 

01:56
I didn't meet my father till the age of 16 and I actually found out that my father's actually pretty, pretty wealthy and he did real estate. So I kind of had that real estate bug just to kind of show and tell to my dad that I could do what he was doing. But it wasn't something that I initially wanted to do. So going to school, I was your average C student, just did the bare minimum. I was very much of a class clown and I always got people to kind of sway my way. If we're talking about going this way, I was like no, we should do this. So I was always good at influencing people and, you know, just being that popular person. Thereafter I said you know what, let me just go and get a job right. So after high school, I like to stay fresh. I said you know what, let me go and learn how to cut hair. So I became an apprentice at a barbershop. I was kind of like a do boy. So essentially I would go there, sweep you know for them, I would get their lunch, I would get their you know tools or whatever they needed. And then that's how I was learning for free how to cut hair. But over time I kind of noticed that it just wasn't something longevity wise that I wanted to do. So I quickly learned like, hey, listen for me, to make more money here, I have to cut more hair, which obviously less time away from my here, I have to cut more hair, which obviously is less time away from my family. Or I have to charge more, but it's very difficult to charge more when your competition is right next to you. And then the last would be well, become an owner. But all the owners that I knew that they still worked at barbershops. So I went to my local hospital and started to volunteer as a patient transporter. So same thing, Jesse. 

03:22
I had another epiphany I started going to community college, didn't take it seriously. I've used my Pell Grant money for, you know, just having fun or mom stuff like that. So it took me five years to get a two year degree and once I finally got done I wanted to go into nursing Once again another epiphany where I was like you know what? I don't know if that's really something that I want to do, I don't know. I just see myself doing more and I see myself making more money. 

03:47
And I decided to just not go back to college. I decided to go ahead and do my own route and I started to read a lot and change my mindset a lot. And at that point in time I said you know what, how do I go ahead and make a lot of money? And what really pushed me to the ledge was one day I was at Publix with my grandmother. She was buying the groceries and her car kept declining and the gentleman behind us actually decided to go ahead and pay for our groceries and I said this will be the last day somebody will dictate whether me and my family eat again. So I went home, went on YouTube University and started figuring out how can I make more money, and real estate just kept popping up. 

04:23 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
A lot of people that are going to watch this are in real estate. Obviously they want to know your journey. Talk to me through your first year of real estate. What'd you make? How much did you make? What were the struggles? Because a lot of people for me it was you know those first, I'd say two years were the hardest. 

04:46
Yeah, and there's a lot of self-doubt that goes on and a lot of imposter syndrome, a lot of pocket watching, seeing how everyone else is doing so much better than you. Um, what are those first couple of years look like for you, and when? What year did you get? 

04:55 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
started actually. So 2017, I became a licensed realtor. Okay, and um, once I became a licensed realtor, you know, I went off there, got my business cards. I got with a broker that the only agent was me. So I was just really excited because I had this new journey, right, and I started showing a bunch of people houses. But the thing was is that I had to use social media because I didn't have a sphere of influence when it came down to a lot of people that could qualify for a house that had good credit. So I had to go out there on Facebook and Instagram and try to reel people in and I would come out of work and I would go and show people houses. 

05:29
I remember showing this one lady houses for three months and I would drive 45 minutes out because she wanted to live in what's called Cape Canaveral, which is a little bit further out from Orlando, and after three months, she ended up not buying anything and I did the math and the money that I would have made on commission was like three thousand. I said, well, you know what? How do I be the decision-maker? Because once again, I'm working for the man. In this case was a woman right and and my money right is being dictated by somebody else, right. And that's when I figured out about real estate wholesaling, which I Obviously, in the beginning I thought it was a complete scam. 

06:02
I was like how can I sell something that I don't own? So the great thing is that I started to understand what real estate wholesaling was the fact that I am gaining equitable interest when I go under contract with somebody and that I don't need to have a license because I'm representing myself and, because of the inspection period I can back out and also because of the assignment clause, I can sell that interest to somebody else without having to own the actual property. So, yeah, did my actual first deal on my own, and at that point in time, Jesse, I knew that everything that I wanted was obtainable. 

06:32 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Let's talk about how do you actually be consistent? We need to talk about your processes. 

06:38 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah, so yeah, let's talk about processes. So, number one when I first got started, I was still working, obviously, multiple jobs, and I was trying to struggle. I used to use what's called Call Rail right back in the day and I used to bring in my leads through there and then I would have them. I would write them down on my iPhone notes and it worked. But the thing is that I didn't know where I was when I closed the deal. I didn't know how many times I called them. I didn't know where the list came from. I didn't know how many times I called them. I didn't know where the list came from. I didn't know any of that stuff. I wasn't tracking any of that right. Another mistake that I made was that, unfortunately, because of the scarcity mindset that I had and the attachment of money, I wouldn't want to reinvest all of it right, because I wanted to start accumulating more and more wealth or more and more cash. 

07:28 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Because society puts you in this thing to say, hey, save your way to wealth, but it's impossible to save your way to well as a business owner. It is because, the more if you have the right processes and systems and know where you spend money, how much you get out of it, that's when you actually need to be reinvesting and spending more money. And that's how we were successful with batch was because we did have at that time a successful real estate operation where batch was just like gravy on top. So we kept just reinvesting into developing. You know, we started with batch skip tracing, then batch leads, then we had batch dialer and then batch driven, which is now folded back into batch leads, and then now we have a batch data product as well like an enterprise product. And all that was because we understand systems, processes and how to grow. But if we were focused on, oh, we need to keep and take all this money, there's no way we'd be anywhere close to where we're at revenue-wise today. 

08:16 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah, you have to let the money work for you, so that's a mistake. That. 

08:19 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
I did early on Properly too. 

08:20 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Properly, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's the thing about it. Right that properly, yeah, yeah, yeah, and that's the that's the thing about it, right that when you're doing this on your own, it's kind of hard because there's not a handbook for this, right? This is why you know you want to read books. It's why you want to look at the right type of content, maybe get a mentor, because you want to be able to go ahead and utilize somebody else's wisdom and mistakes and what they've done, so that you can do this properly. So, right, basically invested into a great CRM and started using that, and that allowed me to understand what KPIs were. 

08:46
But at that point in time, Jesse, I'll be honest with you, man, I was doing direct mail and I said you know what? I have to cut my costs per lead down, right, and how do I do this? And I started to build a great relationship with my mailman and from one day to the next, he like disappeared on me and I said dang, and I. One day to the next, he like disappeared on me and I said dang, and I started thinking about well, how can I get more properties while I'm at work without having to go to the county and pull the actual records. At that point in time I was also using TLO, which was like 17 20, I don't even know what it was. I remember you had to have like a lockbox in your yeah just to get qualified, right? 

09:18
yeah, just to get so that's how long we've been doing this right, so. So anyways, I left a sticky note in my mailbox and I was able to go ahead and basically joint venture with my mail, with my mailman, and then they started to go ahead and bring me in opportunities and I start to close more and more deals. But yeah, that's when I started to scale my business. I started to do, you know, learned a lot on the way, because tax delinquency was one of my favorites. I used to use a blind postcard direct mail, which still works to this day, and I used to pull the tax delinquent was one of my favorites. 

09:44
I used to use a blind postcard direct mail, which still works to this day, and I used to pull the tax delinquent list every two months. What I didn't know is that the tax delinquents role was actually pulled every year. So I was actually marketing to the same list every two months. But what that actually showed me Was consistency Exactly was consistency and that, no matter what, as long as you followed up, you was consistency. And that, no matter what, as long as you followed up, you would always get a deal. 

10:08 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Um, so, yeah, I did that, and then my biggest breakthrough was uh, was a code violation? Uh, deal, that's well put. I couldn't agree more. Let's dive on to the next subject let's talk about. Is wholesaling all you do? Do you do any flipping? Do you buy any rentals? Um, I guess, holistically what. What is your real estate? I guess like portfolio, look like how do? You. How are all the ways you make money in real estate? 

10:31 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
yeah. So number one primarily, I do wholesaling real estate done a little, a little close to 400 deals, thank God, and one of the biggest things that I didn't get to capitalize on was that I actually get to in a learn real estate investing for free and make money at the same time because of wholesaling Right. And essentially what I mean by that is that the people that you're selling to are actually real estate investing. They're buying properties, they're renting them out, they're flipping them, they're buying commercial Whatever it is they're doing and these people, since you have that nugget, you can use them for free. So a lot of times what I would do is I would say, you know, okay, I want $100,000 for this property, and they're like, well, listen, can you do it for $98,500? And I'd say, okay, you know what, I'll go ahead and look out for you on this deal. You did that. Why is it that all your houses have a red door and it's painted gray? 

11:25
all right yeah and these are the questions that you, that you ask and you actually get to learn? Because, in my opinion I don't know, Jesse, if you would agree with me, but me being around people that are way more successful, way smarter than me I've kind of realized that the rich and wealthy, they actually don't buy real estate for cash flow. They buy real estate for tax advantages and wealth preservation, right, because that whole thing buying a duplex, living on one side, running the other side and making 300 bucks, I'm sorry, it's not going to retire your wife, it's not going to get you to Jamaica faster, right, and it is good debt. It is maybe 20, 30 years down. You may be able to go ahead and take advantage of it, but you're not going to be in your prime and join your life now. So what I started to understand? 

12:11 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
is how do I leverage people that are actually doing this and I'm actually making the money, but then I'm getting huge tax bills right? This first couple years are like sure, how do I do that? Right, you've talked a lot about you know your why and your journey and how you want to your future family. Like what are your future plans? Like what are your goals to create this thing? Like what? 

12:24
do you want to start getting into commercial real estate? Are you trying to get into, you know more rental properties, syndications, like what's like? You have these big goals I could tell. Tell me about them. Like what does the next two, three, four years look like? 

12:38 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah, my biggest goal is to accumulate enough cash to be able to be a hard money lender. I want to be able to lend money to other people that are fixing and flipping, other people that want to start their own business and, like you were talking about earlier, you know, venture capital and things of that nature Just because investing into somebody else's dream and their vision I think is very dope. You know, I wish that I had somebody do that when I first started. So I think that that's something that you know I really want to do, and you start to understand the banking system on how they take your money and then they lend it out a thousand times and then, when you even go to pull out money, they don't have your money and they ask you a bunch of questions, right? So how? 

13:16
do you hack the system and a lot of the times, you have to be that person that has that money and how can you use your money to put other people in positive positions. 

13:24
So my end goal is to become a private money lender, hard money lender, and do things like that be able to help other people in their visions and their projects. My second one right now is going to be building a community. I want to build a bigger community than what I already have. I want to be able to help, you know, build a tribe of people, and I think that goes hand in hand, because the more people that I help and the more people that I get to where they want to be, the more that I'll be able to go ahead and have more opportunities. Right, I look at everything as abundance, and the greatest thing about what I've been able to do is that I've been able to help people, and God just always sends me somebody or an opportunity, right? So, yeah, I think it's hand in hand with buying the real estate, doing more deals, helping more people, jiving with my students all one in one is going to be able to get me to what I truly want to be able to do. 

14:13 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
So, before we wrap up, I guess I got a few more questions for you, and then obviously, I want the audience to know how they could, you know, get in contact with you or get into your mentorship, Cause you know I want people, especially people that are new. 

14:26
They're going to, they're going to go pay someone something somewhere, and I know that you're the type of person that's going to take care of your community. But before we get there, I guess what's the biggest deal you've done and I know you mentioned a few books, but, like, what is your favorite book for someone to get started in real estate as well? 

14:43 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah, great question. So the biggest deal that I've done was a $70,000 assignment fee. It was actually in the midst of COVID and it ended up being a pre foreclosure and one of the greatest things was that, you know, when it comes down to hosteling, you have to be able to stack your list Right, you have to be able to find different levels of motivation and, you know, because of that deal, I was able to go ahead and do that. So we did what's called a short sale process on it. It took some time, but obviously it definitely reaped the benefits. 

15:15
I do regret wholesaling it. I wish that I would have kept that property. I got it for $210,000. Under contract, I wholesaled it for $280,000. And then I think they put like $80,000 into it and they sold it for somewhere like 560. So, right, um, that was my biggest deal, but I'm honestly man, I'm grateful for even the small ones, right, uh, because what you learn is wisdom, you learn experience and, um, you know every, everything is a lesson learned. So, yeah, I'm really, really excited about that deal, um and uh, I hope that I can get some more of those yeah, and let's talk about, uh, books for, let's just say, entrepreneurs. 

15:49 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
So what's like your favorite book for a new entrepreneur to read? 

15:53 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah, I mean I'll just tie it back in. Man, my favorite book is Outwitting the Devil, and I think that with entrepreneurship, you know, just like you touched on it earlier, which you said was like you know you said that you can see how I'm successful based on the questions I was asking, or I guess how I was talking, and I think that your mindset is very, very important. You have to have tough skin and you have to be able to think differently and outside the box when you want to become an entrepreneur. I would also say the Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki was a really great book as well. And then, obviously, everybody knows the Holy Grail, which is Rich Dad, poor Dad, and I definitely recommend that those three books will be very, very well, you know, to go ahead and look at. 

16:37 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Yeah, and I think all those are all great books. I'd add one last book and I would say a book that really changed my life was Atomic Habits. 

16:43
I heard about that book because I think that for someone to truly make change and be successful and do all those things, you have to change your habits and how you do things. And it's a great book to show you how to kind of shift your mindset and become the person you want to be. But you're not going to become that person without discipline and the right habits. So, um, to wrap this up, if someone wants to get a hold of brand Blue Notes out of Orlando, Florida, what's the best way to contact you? 

17:11 - Brandon Bluenotes (Guest)
Yeah, I mean at this current moment it's going to be Instagram at BlueNotes Brandon. My YouTube also is Blue Notes Brandon. My Facebook is my name, Brandon Narain. You can reach out to me on any of those platforms. And yeah, just let me know. You saw me on Batch with Jesse and hopefully I can provide some value and help you out. 

17:31 - Jesse Burrell (Host)
Well, thank you so much for coming in and doing this. I know you traveled thousands and thousands of miles and got to drop a bunch of gems all week here in Phoenix. But until next time, guys, let's get it. 

17:44 - Hope (Announcement)
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