Alan Quintero | The Closers Podcast #8

Alan Quintero built multiple seven-figure real estate businesses by the time he was 24 years old. He started selling chips out of his cargo pants in sixth grade, got mentored by the owner of one of the biggest furniture stores in the country at 15, and figured out land investing on his own before anyone handed him a roadmap. This one is packed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Closers Podcast, guys. Today I've got one of my best friends in the world, Mr. Alan Quintero, who's gonna sit down with us and talk about how he has built multiple seven-figure real estate businesses at the ripe age of 24 years old. So this is gonna be a lot of fun. You're not gonna want to miss everything we're about to dive into. So, Alan, welcome to the podcast, man. How are you today? Hey guys, if you're anything like me, I'm sure you're hearing the rumblings in the space right now. Is land investing still working? Is there a better better model? Should I be pivoting to messy title, to land home packages, to buying notes, and to so much more? Which is why I'm putting together the land scaling summit on October 15th and 16th here in Dallas, where I'm putting together the best speakers and panelists in the space to cover all those topics and so much more. So if you're interested in growing your land business, if you're interested in learning about these topics, if you're interested in just being in the room of people that are doing real business, come to the landscaling summit. You can get your ticket today at landscaling summit.com. I'm doing great. Thank you for having me. Absolutely, man. It's it's a pleasure to have you on. I think every time we sit down, both on and off camera. Uh you said it last night at dinner, actually. My jaw hurts too from laughing so much, man, just because like we we always have such a good time. So if we crack a couple of jokes, people will get over it. But um, we're gonna have a lot of fun today, man. I want to talk about your background because you're pretty unique, man, as uh as a fellow 20-something year old. I feel like we don't meet a lot of people in our age group that uh do what we do with the levels of business that we do, right? So let's talk about like at what age in your mind you started thinking about hustling, making money. Because I know for you it started all the way back in high school, if I remember right, down to like the PB and J's, man. Get us from there to Mattress Mac and honestly. Tell us a little bit about that era.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Yeah, so um honestly, I think it kind of started before then. Um, you know, when I was about seven or eight years old, my father went to prison. He got sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. And, you know, like our life kind of changed a lot, right? We went from living the like ghetto fabulous to like, you know, we've seen a you know a pretty significant difference in like you know our um our everyday life, right? Um so man, I remember like growing up seeing my mom go through some difficult times, like on the dinner table at night, going through it. And I think like at that point, it was I was like I was young, so I was helpless, but it was kind of like I had like an urge then. So even in like middle school, I remember like um you know, my grandma or my mom would like buy me bags of chips or whatever, and I would like I would I'll have cargo pants, it's cargo shorts, so I would like have four pockets full of like things to sell and then a backpack full. So I started selling like stuff in like sixth grade. I remember now. So it's just because like I didn't want to be an extra burden to you know the stress that they already had. So it's kind of like you know, I didn't so yeah, that and then um you know started skateboarding with uh a lot of friends that I still have today. Oh, cool, and uh learned a lot even from there, like falling down, getting up, commitment, and things like that, which you know, a lot of folks uh I don't know, it's not like I think Jordan uh Peterson talks about like how skateboarding teaches children a lot of stuff too, which is really cool. Interesting. But then like uh around 15 years old, uh, you know, my father got out of jail. He got out a little early on good behavior. That's great. And um, you know, he like was excited to get out, get on the ground, start hustling and bustling and working. He was always a hard worker, right? Yeah, so yeah, my you know, my pops was like always like you know, hustler, figured out, like, you know, even in the things he was doing that was illegal, he did really well doing it, like, you know. Sure. But you know, it's just like um he came here at 12 years old, and there was just like that's just what he was, the cards he was dealt with, right? If he was dealt in, you know, maybe our cards that we were blessed with to be able to do things we do now, it probably would have been a different story. But you know, anyways, um, you know, he gets out and he just kind of starts showing, you know, my siblings, my family, that kind of like, hey, like, it doesn't have to be like this, let's get back to work. He kind of like build confidence in us again. Wow. And um, well, one day he invited me to he's like, hey, come to, you know, um right here, Gallery Furniture with Mattress Mack uh in Houston. He's worked there for a long time, even before he got in trouble. Um and I went to go volunteer for Hurricane Harvey. And that's the day What year was that? 14? 2017. 17. Yeah. So I, you know, went there, introduced myself to Mac, and I helped volunteer that whole day, passing out waters to all the people who got like affected, lost their homes, and we're giving them food, supplies, and just a whole bunch of um, you know, supplies for them to, you know, kind of get back on their feet. But at the end of the day, after passing waters out, like literally from morning to night, walking lines of hundreds of people, heavy, heavy, like ice chests, I'm you know, dragging around. Uh he's like, hey, um I told him, I'm leaving. You know, thank you for having me. It's about like, I don't know, maybe six, seven o'clock or something. And then he's like, Stay here and work till 10. And I'm like, okay. And you're what, 15 years old? Yeah. So I end up staying till 10 o'clock. I'm like cleaning, taking out the trash and stuff, just trying to help out. And at the end of the night, he leans in over his desk and he's like, Do you want a job, son? And my like light, my like life flash between my eyes because I'm 15, yeah, and I see how hard my dad worked, I see how hard my brother worked, because he grew up working there as well. Okay. And I'm just like, mmm. Yeah, I'll do it. Let's do it. So that decision really did change my life. It, you know, it was like a self-development boot camp. Wow. You know, um, you know, Mac.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And for those that don't know, just real quick, guys, like Mattress Mac in this whole mattress furniture store, one of the biggest ones in the country. This guy does what, like 50 mil a year in revenue or something crazy. Or like this is a monstrous sized company, and you talking to second gen, third gen owner too. First, he's first. Wow. Even more impressive that he's built that from scratch. But just a massive store. So I want to give some gravity to like the opportunity that was presented in front of you. Because I think people could miss that of like, hey, the owner of this like nine, maybe ten figure company. Yeah, like is just offering you an opportunity at 15 years old. He saw something in you, right? Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

So keep going. Yeah, so you know, um, I spent my weekends there. Yeah, because you're in high school, right? Yeah, yeah. Spent my weekends and my holidays, so I had no more holidays. Oh wow. Anytime there was a break, it was there every day. And um, you know, what I would learn is like, you know, he was about he had like 40 years of business experience that he built this company from, literally started with like 3,500 bucks to like nine-figure, you know, operation. Wow. Like 400, like tons of like hundreds of employees. I don't know exactly how much the number was, but yeah, it was a lot. And uh, but you know, I got to see and learn from somebody that you know understood what it takes to, you know, get there, right? And like yeah, and you know, I just was able to learn a lot about sales, about marketing. I would go on something called like the walkthroughs at night. So every night we spent an hour together walking around the whole store and replacing the signing sheets so the salespeople can know the inventory so they could walk around, sign it. And um, I mean, just like the countless amount of hours we've spent that I was able just to like hear him, talk to other people. We'd have small talk and I would ask questions, and it was just like like a he would even at one point refer to me as his apprentice on like uh like yeah, so it was like Did you take that as a compliment? Yeah, I did, absolutely, yeah, because I was like, hey, like I don't mind that. Yeah, right. So um, you know, I got into sales of like I was always greeting people, talking to customers, and I would pass them off to the salespeople. And my dad, too, he loved it because he was like getting extra like qualified customers. So um So were you a salesperson at this point?

SPEAKER_01 7:52

You were more so just doing qualifiers, just greeting.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

You're like a lead manager, like yeah, not a setup today, right? So I was a greeter. I would uh you know, hey, how can I help you? I would just like what's out of the store, can I take you to? Yeah. Small talk, and then I'm like, hey, somebody's over there, they're looking for this, and they'll go. And um, well, I then I started like moving furniture. I literally did everything you can think of. Like I I'm curious, what did he pay you when you got started? $10 an hour.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

$10 an hour. Which when you're 15, bro, that's like it was pretty decent.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah, in high school, no bills, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Um, it was just you know to fend for myself, but like let's see, so you would move in furniture. I would move in furniture, I was taking out the trash, I was uh sometimes there was like random events, I would help give out food or whatever, clean up. Um, and then I started to get into sales a little bit more. I would like attend the sales meeting and he would he would do like 15 sales huddles a day. Wow. Yeah, if there was 15 sales huddles a day? Like literally, yeah, I don't probably it's like one an hour, right? Maybe more. Maybe two an hour sometimes. Wow. Is the reason it is is like if he sees people standing around, maybe there's you know they're doing smaller huddles too?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Smaller huddles, yeah, different departments and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Well, no, it was mainly sales huddles. Oh, that makes sense, yeah. But it would be like uh, you know, questions that kind of get the salespeople to affirm themselves and what they're doing throughout the day. Okay, right? So it's just kind of like small. Um now that I'm looking at it, it's kind of like affirmations of like sales practices. So they always had like this stuff on the top of their mind, and as they're talking to customers, so good. They got ammo to load and they got things to use, you know. So um, yeah, I learned so much from that, right? And then I started to, you know, in school, I just really wasn't a great student. I wasn't huge into like it's just I knew I wasn't gonna go to college, it just wasn't in me. I didn't see that going, you know, my path. Yeah, and um, you know, I started to learn about I went to a Grant Cardone event when I was 17 years old. Did you really? Yeah, in Houston. Okay. And I met an old man that it was in Houston that was like 24. No, right? Out of 17, he was like 65. Okay. And out of all like 500 people in the room, I sat next to this one man that mentors people and kind of like he just shows people the ropes and like he does deals with folks. It was kind of like a a local investor type of thing. He's a real estate guy. Real estate guy, yeah. Uh kind of quiet, not on socials, just like, you know, doing deals. Yeah. Like, yeah, real quietly. So he kind of took me under his wing. You know, he I was driving for dollars, sending mailers using uh what's that one app? Uh uh the one that I know. The old machine. I had it in my head, I couldn't remember. So I was driving around taking photos, sending mailers.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Man, that's the OG driving for dollars app. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

And um, you know, I like after four months we landed, well, I landed my first deal. I was kind of like just driving around, sending mailers. I had a friend named Esko that, you know, kind of was like keeping me accountable as well. And um yeah, well, we we split up the deal. I had another friend help us, like, uh, because we know what we were doing. Yeah. You know, we didn't know anything we were doing, know nothing about contracts or title companies or TC.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

You were just doing whatever they told you. Yeah, they just making calls.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

You know, go drive for dollars, talk to sellers, and make an offer, and then we got to a point where it's like, all right, well, they're we're kind of close now, let's do something. So um, you know, that first deal wraps up. It was like a total of 45,000. I think I made like 12,000, but I was still in high school. I was gonna say you were 17. I I was uh yeah, I had just turned 18 now, and I'm like, I'm in class talking to the title company, and like the teacher's like, are you not supposed? And I'm just like, hold on, this is important. Back off, Mrs. Jenny. No. But uh, you know, keep going. Yeah, it's super funny though. It's super funny, yeah. And um, you know, after that, like COVID happened in March of that school year, yeah, and we got released, didn't have to go back to school. I got blessed by COVID because if it wasn't for COVID, I probably wouldn't have graduated. I paid somebody to finish my thing because I just was not a good student. I was just not a good student. Yeah, I get it. But at this point, I'm in sales at gallery and I'm making a decent living. Okay. And I'm also trying to get, you know, wholesaling off the ground.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

But I mean, you're already making what, multiple five figures a gallery?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

Uh yeah, I was pretty decent. I'm not gonna lie, you know, and then I had a good teacher to, you know, to pour into me about like communicating sales, and then like I just played my role really good. Like sure. My role was to get customers, qualify them, and then pass them on to a sales guy for them to build the ticket. Yeah. So it was like I always had a few customers on the floor at one time. Yeah. And it was like, yeah, it was like leveraged a little bit more. 100%. Um, so you know, I would work three days a week, sometimes two days a week, but I was making a decent living, like you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

And um there, I want to pause for a second, Alan, because there's there's a theme about you that I want to point out to the audience, man, that um even from when you were in sixth grade and you're putting potato chips in your pocket all the way through to you're 15 years old, you're handing out water bottles, Mattress Mac asks you to stay late, to you know, you're you're rounding people up on the sales floor, both greeting appointment setting, taking out trash all the way through when you actually start selling. And then you meet this guy and you don't really know what you're doing at the Cardone event, but you still get deals done, right? And and there's this theme about you that you are just so coachable, Alan. Like, I think in every single story I'm hearing you didn't have a big ego about it, right? You were just like, Man, I just wanted to be helpful, I just wanted to like move things forward. Like um, but but you were so humble in your approach, which you know, statistically, uh you know, to get I don't want to call it political, but statistically, like your father was incarcerated, you're of you know minority Hispanic descent. Um you see a lot of trends, I'm sure, in pockets you were in where people have big egos about them that aren't successful, and oftentimes that's kind of what stops them. Why do you think you're you're different that way, coming from the background you did and and still doing what you did surrounded by good people, but you let yourself be mentored, right? Like you had opportunities that that presented themselves, but you took them, and I think that's the difference between you and so many people that don't make it. Like, why do you think that's different in you versus again what the statistics will tell us? Um I know that's a that's a tough question.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

I mean, I would say maybe it kind of boils down to two things. You know, one, definitely my parents kind of you know, uh raised me to not kind of like have a big head to think that you knew it all or you were this big tough guy, like just kind of like to have more of a humble approach and you know, start that way. And also kind of like um sometimes I would see, like I think one thing I've done, and now you say that, like thinking about one thing I've done like since I was really little is I would always observe other people and kind of how other people, you know, uh maybe held themselves or treated other people and kind of how it would also affect them as well. So so like I think you know, growing up, just kind of like sidetrack a little bit. I would see I would hang out with my I always had older siblings, so I would hang out with theirs their friends. I was like eight years younger and hanging out, like 10 years old, hanging out with 18 year olds.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

You probably thought you were cool and they thought you were cute.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So it was like I would like see, you know, them make decisions and it affect them certain ways, and my brother would always just kind of be like, you know, like learn from this, you know, like like you know, and when I when I bring that up to say because sometimes when you see folks, they have egos, uh, you don't they don't maybe don't treat people right, and then it kind of starts to the whenever the it comes back to them in the effect way, it just doesn't work out best for them. Yeah, you know, so it doesn't serve them well, right? So I think you know, I think that's probably what I would say that kind of has that approach to the other.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yeah, you got a little bit of a lot of things, right? Both watching your siblings, then also it sounds like your parents had some good wisdom there they poured into you.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yeah, like my siblings always made sure that I was gonna go on the right track. They were like the youngest. I'm the youngest, yeah. Yeah. So yeah, they always were kind of like, I mean, trying to force me to be better than better than them. That's how my brother is too. I get it. So, you know, while my dad was gone, you know, my brother played a huge role in my life to be, you know, kind of like to guide me and make sure I was he'll always be that I want you to be better than me. And he was pretty good. Yeah, you know, so um, you know, yeah, just always being held to that standard. But one thing I also would say, and I talked about it on the podcast with Logan, is like eventually you have to learn like what a good student is and how to be a good student, and like, you know, sometimes you just gotta learn how to shut up and listen and if it hurts your stomach while they're telling you something and it shifts it, it's probably something you needed to hear, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Yeah, that's so good, man. That's so good. And um, you know, I I was thinking about uh it it's funny with ego and humility because it's really easy to get a big head about a couple of things, man. I even think about um, you know, with with uh with my partner and mentor Jake, who you know, uh he is just a beast at sales, right? And like I have some ego when it comes to sales because I train people in sales, I've trained teams, I'm a great salesperson. And you know, sometimes I have to sit back when he he coaches me in that and be like, dude, this guy has literally brought in over a half billion dollars in cash collected. Like you have stuff to learn from him, like humble yourself, you know. Because I'm nowhere near that on my uh uh career yet. And so um there's something to be said about like it, it's it's not a one-time decision either to keep your ego low, because man, there's seasons to practice and flows, you know. I know before we started rolling, we were talking about um, you know, you get some big deals, some small deals. It's easy to get a big head when you have those big deals hit, especially if they're pretty consistent, right? But uh no, this is so good. I want to change gears just a little bit here because I know we we could focus on your background for a long time, man. But I want to make sure people in the audience learn a little bit about real estate too, right? Let's pick up on your story just for another two minutes or so and then get into where we are now. So you wholesaled a couple of houses and then you got into flipping land. So was that transition?

SPEAKER_00 18:14

So actually, after that first deal, I didn't I get any look. Like Oh really? Yeah, it was a whole next year. But you just skunked. Yeah, just skunked, like, you know, no contracts the whole next year. Yeah, but I was learning like You were still working at Mattress Mac this whole time. Still working there. And um on I would work seven days a week. So I would work three days selling furniture and mattresses and stuff, and then Monday through Thursday, I was trying to figure out the real estate thing. Yeah, and I did that for as long as I like could remember. I don't know. Yeah, I don't think I maybe had a one period where I stopped because I was like, all right, I need to make money, save money so I can market again. But I was like, I knew I was gonna go back for it. So that year goes by, but I learned a lot about texting, marketing, you know, data, all the acquisition side of things, right? Because that's all I was trying to do, right? So I was like, I was trying to figure out. You're bringing deals. Yeah. And uh, well, eventually I I um you know run back into AJ because we actually sold my first deal, which is funny, which is my Oh really? Yeah, he we dispoed it and he had it had his fee on top. But yeah, AJ, my partner today, ran into him. We started to connect again, and um, you know, he had just finished one of his first uh direct mail campaigns for the land. And they were like telling me about the KPIs, and it was like $300 a contract, and they had like an eight grand average deal size on their first campaign. Yeah. And I was like, I had maybe like five or ten grand saved, and I said, all right, well, I want to spend money on marketing. I was thinking about PPC, that was like the buzzword at the time, and I was like, wait, that's it, $300 a contract, y'all made eight grand? And I heard you look at the numbers, PPC is like two or three grand, and I was like, this ten grand go further doing that. Let's go mess with that. So like I put that money in a different bank account, and and weekly I was sending direct mail about $700 a week, right? And we were getting like two or three contracts a week consistently. It was like, I was like, oh my god, we finally figured out. Oh, we did it! And you know, we built a good pipeline, but we partnered with some bad actors, and we kind of cut took a little bit of L there, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Happens.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

Um, but then we get right back up, we start to market, we finish that year strong, in like three months we close like 10 deals or something like that. And then 2022 comes around, and now we're like, all right, we're confident, we know how to transact. We got you know proof of concept, we've been saving this money, and we like 2022 was like the year I quit gallery and took full-time. Just took full-time land. I think we did like 60 deals that year. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

60 deals in a year is a ton, man. Especially it's you, your partner AJ, and then like how many other guys you got on the TV system?

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So that year it was me, AJ, and Frank who came in to you know, as an equitable partner to do the marketing. So I knew sales and I understood marketing. He, you know, started to you know learn the marketing and took off with it. And then AJ did dispo on TC. Okay. So there was a ton of leads always being generated, and you know, I was kind of more on a sales side. Um, I had another friend, Damien, that I grew up with as well. That he came in and I'm like, hey man, like we need help with acquisitions, you want to come in, do your thing. If you want to do your own thing in the future, go ahead by all means. And uh, yeah, man, like that year was a solid year, and we picked up also like a really solid deal at the end of that year that you know we close the next year. But yeah, man, that year was like it was uh like you said, and I think it's a good point to bring back up. Like it's we had one month where we did like a hundred and forty grand. Yeah, and mind you, like just previously months, I mean, I probably never made more than uh maybe ten grand, sure, twelve grand. Which is great month. Which is yeah, great money, but but yeah, but I mean 144 grand was you know it was it felt like we felt like insanely rich.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

And did you do anything like uh crazy? Because I feel like young people, you know, you have a six-figure month and you see it, I mean, you've seen it a hundred different ways. You think the money's never gonna stop coming. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

That month you think it's gonna happen the next month and the next month, and I'm gonna check it out there. Yeah, yeah. Um, but for me, I think the only thing I bought was this bracelet. Because like I was like, it was like it was like uh something to treat yourself.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

It was something I wanted for a long time, and then I was like, all right, I feel like I earned it now because you know you know, I've actually heard Patrick Bett David say every time you hit a new record, you have to celebrate or else your morale goes down. And even if it's small, just like go out to dinner with your girl, right? It can be a very small celebration, but you should do something. And so when when we have like big months, I definitely try to like take my wife and like let's go, even if we just go get ice cream, man. Yeah, something just like something to like savor in the fact of like we won, this is cool. Yeah, because it just kind of keeps the momentum going. Otherwise, when when big things happen and you really don't take a second to appreciate it, it almost loses like its flavor a little bit. And like, don't get me wrong, as a business owner, the longer you're in, you will get desensitized to like, and yesterday, man, I had a couple wires and and stuff come in, and we were like, oh, cool, like on to the next, you know? But there was also a piece of like, dang, how blessed are we that we have lives like this, right? So um, it sounds like you did a good job celebrating with uh with that bracelet. What's um what's something that you feel like attributed to a lot of success that first year? Like it sounded like you guys did a good job building out some departments, even you were doing acquisitions, AJ was on dispo, you had Frank on marketing, right? But like within that, you know, people can own functions. What work do you feel like you guys were doing that like made it so you actually made money? And the reason I'm asking is we have a lot of people that are trying to get their businesses off the ground, and not everybody has those right partners or worked with Mattress Mac, and they might say, Oh man, Alan had it easy, right? And I'm I'm joking with you because you and I both know you put in the work, right? But talk to us about what do you feel like you did different versus so many people that don't succeed.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Um I'd say that year I would attribute it, maybe if I could say to a few things, it would be um definitely like compartmentalizing the business. Yeah, that did help a lot. Yeah, because now I could focus on what I'm good at. Yeah. AJ was really good at dispo, that's what he could focus on. And you know, Frank actually had a pretty good marketing background, so it like it just worked really well, really well. Um now another thing is is marketing and kind of like using your momentum, don't stop. Like, you know, um sometimes folks will send a marketing campaign, they would do some deals and they won't send another one until they finish the batch of deals that they're working on. Like, you just gotta keep dropping things every month. Every like Lee's had like it's the lifeline of the business, especially in that early time when you have nothing in the CRM to follow up on. 100%. You just gotta like literally market, market, market as much as you can. Um, and I think that's probably the two things because you know we had you know plenty of opportunities, and I think another thing as well is like we kind of picked an area and we worked it. We try to squeeze all the juice out of those areas. Like, you know, I say 60 deals, it was only across a few areas, like a few subdivisions, but like, you know, we stay there, we squeeze all the juice out, we try to stay focused, tried and didn't get, you know, like uh any sidetracked or anything like that. So I say those are the few things.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Yeah, man. No, I think as as I draw on the lessons that I'm hearing, a big one there is just consistency. Yeah, right. I mean, even down to when you were getting started before you had uh AJ and Frankie on the team, you were telling me 700 mailers every single week, right? So there was always a piece of consistency in you. Where do you think you learned that it was the regular actions every day or every week that actually got to the results? Because man, that's as as boring as it is, like that's the sauce. That's the secret, is just doing the thing enough times for long enough to win.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

I would say, and I never even thought about this, but that definitely came from Mac because he worked seven days a week, you know, from sunrise to sundown. Like he would leave eight, nine, ten, eleven o'clock at night, and he would just he would say all the time, like inch by inch, like you know, day by day, and you know, just like focus on delighting customers every single day. And one time I asked him a question, I said, Hey, like, did you ever think you were gonna kind of like build to this point? It was like on one of those walkthroughs at night. Yeah. And he was like, No, you know, like I remember, you know, getting started. Um, I was just worried about making payroll every week. And like, you know, the snowball effect happened, and you know, here we are today. So he's like, you just gotta show up every day and fight. That was his thing. And like he would say that all day, every day on the radio. Come on, boys, it's our day, let's fight. So it was like, you know, I knew it just that's just what it took. And I think I I seen what it took firsthand, and it just kind of became like second nature, you know? Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

We just get up every day and fight. And then what when you hear that, a lot of times people are fighting against something, right? I don't know if you follow Patrick B. David at all. I've been a big fan of his for a long time. Uh, he came up with this book a couple years ago called Choose Your Enemies Wisely. And in that book, he talks about how in seasons where you start to fall flat, that's where you need to ask yourself, who's my enemy? Who's the villain in your story, right? Because I need to fight against somebody to get up and want to fight every day. And I'm sure uh we were at, I think it was lunch yesterday, and we were talking about how um, man, you're in a season right now where you're like, bro, do I do I go all out and push it forward or just keep kind of doing what we're doing? Or, you know, it was like this interesting sort of dilemma you're in that I think we all have this question probably every like six to twelve weeks, if we're being honest with ourselves as business owners at our scale. And what I've learned from PBD is the reality becomes you have to have something you're fighting against to really jack you up. You know, I think and I'll share a personal story. For me, I remember in uh in in 2024, our businesses were starting to fall a little bit flat because you remember Dispo was kind of whack in 24 for a little bit. Like you you've seen the dispo cycles, man. So it was just one of those times we spent a lot on marketing and it kind of skunked a little bit, and then we had Dispo really slow down. So you see the cash crunch, and you're like, oh, I've got all these you know contracts on the books, like the money's there, but it's not here. And uh my wife was unhappy with her job at the time, but financially we weren't at a place where we felt comfortable that she could leave. And that like did something to me where I was like, dude, kind of like what you were talking about, how you felt powerless as a kid. I felt that too in my own story, and then I felt it again as an adult where I was like, dude, this is the woman that bet her life on me. How am I gonna sit here and not give her the world? You know what I mean? And uh it lit something in me, and I started fighting, right? And and I haven't stopped since, man. It's been good, and she's in a very different state now than she was back then because we just took the businesses to a whole new level, you know. Um, anyways, I I bring that all up to ask you, Alan. Like in previous seasons, what do you think you were fighting against? And I know there's a big question probably in your head now of like what are you fighting in the next season?

SPEAKER_00 29:22

Yeah. Well, in the previous seasons, it was um it was definitely just because like I mean, it was definitely just for a better life, right? Yeah, I mean, like uh I wanted to improve my life and the ones around me, you know, my um, you know, I'm you know, I help my mother as much as I can. My father was, you know, he's hustling, he has it taken care of himself. I don't have to worry about him. But it just kind of like, yeah, it was just like making sure I can do things, you know, for others at the time, you know. Yeah. And, you know, that was just the main thing. Yeah, it's still the main thing, you know, is to take care of, you know, everybody we love. Man, that's so good. And I think that's why like also like you know, me and you know, AJ, we would always hear other guys, operators, like, oh, we have core values, this is like the thing. We never realized, but like that's kind of like what we always were both in agreement on. Like, he wanted to he was doing this so he can take care of his family. Yeah. And it was the same thing for me. And it was just kind of like, you know, that's what we were fighting for.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

100%, man. I would almost like to use a Christian word, especially. Like, I would say you and AJ both are servants, you know, you're servants first. And I think I've always seen that in both of you, as long as I've known you guys, of like you just care about serving people and you show love to everybody that like if they're your people, they're your people. You know what I mean? And I think I've always seen that in you, which is cool. Let's uh let's transition into some of the uh like the business today, if that makes sense. So um I want to hear about I guess the transition going from you guys had built up a pretty decent land operation where you did 60 deals your first year, you guys were cruising. I know you built up a big Discord, you had a following, people would hit you with deals. Sometimes deal hits your desk, you dispo with people in the Discord, you know, things were flowing, they were good, right? You guys started the transition over into curative title about the same time we did, though. Um talk to me about that transition, you know, and whatever it is you want to share of like what did that look like for your company because it can be kind of messy when you're pivoting.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

Yeah, it was definitely a switch. Um, you know, because obviously on the land side, it's like volume, you know, you can spend a ton in marketing and you know, you get a lot of leads, you know, hitting your CRM, but we just started to see, you know, uh a shift in you know our average deal size or our average deal cost as well. And um, you know, in 24, we had a couple deals that you know did really well and they had some issues. So whenever we um you know decided to join in in 25, it just kind of made sense. You know, we still kept flipping land all like most of 2025. And um, you know, we started to build, you know, um, I guess a pipeline, a lot of these security deals. And yeah, one of the things I guess I would say was is definitely different is like, yes, you know, there in the beginning, at least for us, it wasn't as much volume um as we were doing on the land side, right? But our average deal size or the uh potential that we see now coming through is just a way better solid deal. It's worth your time. Now I would say, you know, yeah, it does have low marketing costs, but sometimes that's that you know kind of gets made up in some other costs of the deal that you know you have to do to take it all the way through, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think there's something to be said too about with dispo, pricing has a big piece of it, yeah. Right. And in this model, you can just drop prices because you have so much margin.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

And in land, when we started, we used to send um offer letters for 25 to 30 cents on the dollar, and we would get deals. Yeah. So the same pricing theory applied to that strategy, and that's when we realized, like, all right, well, if we can buy something for 30 cents on the dollar, we can sell it for 80 and we would be moving. And our conversion check was like great in 2022. Oh, yeah. I mean, the market was great, so yeah, it wasn't really us. But um, yeah, like you know, that now we have the power to do the same thing on the sales side since we're able to buy stuff, you know, a lot cheaper.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

That makes sense. How do you feel like the uh the I want to start to dive into sales a little bit? Yeah. Because I think this is something that obviously you and I love talking about. You have a huge background in sales, I love talking sales. Um how do you feel like the main differences are in these conversations when you're talking to like owners and heirs versus just like a regular land seller?

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Um, I would say when it comes to like land sellers, you're usually talking about the property. You're trying to figure out, you know, when they bought it, what they bought it for, what changed, yeah, and you know, what's you know, causing them to sell it today. It's kind of like the typical conversation. Yeah. And these conversations, it's I feel like, or at least our approach is like a little bit more of like a doctor, like you know, like I'm trying to like send the down here at the table with the desk and I'm gonna say, hey, like, you know, tell me about what's been going on. What have you tried to do to solve it? Cough. No, just yeah, yeah. Where does it hurt at? You know, uh, how long has this been going on for? And at the end of it, I'm gonna kind of you know examine what the situation is and figure out what solutions might be possible. And then I'm just kind of assuming the sale at the end of it. Like, you know, usually we're instead, like a doctor is not gonna ask you, like, hey, uh, do you want me to fix your bag for you know 50 grand? They're just like, hey, like the surgery is this, um, I'll have an appointment available this day. When do you like to get scheduled? So, like, if they want to solve the problem, I'm trying to get them to tell me, hey, I don't want to do this on my own. Like, I don't like, you know, so that's kind of like the approach I guess that we take. And if they kind of get to the point where they tell us, yeah, I don't want nothing to do with this. Like, I'm not gonna pay this, I'm not gonna do this to pay that, and I'm not interested in dealing with these people. I just kind of assume it, hey, are what time are you available? What's the best time and place? All right, cool, we're gonna have a notary, you know, go over there, get you situated. But yeah, our goal is to get them to tell us no that they don't want to, you know, solve it on their own.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

That makes sense. I think there's something to be said. I'm trying to remember what that uh technical term is because I learned it when I studied some high-ticket selling from Cole Gordon over at closers.io, and he um he talked about it was kind of like the doctor frame, right? Exactly what you're talking about of like our job is to be the expert and to diagnose the issue. And for that to happen, we need to sound like an expert on the phone, right? So just to take that a level deeper, like what are some things you feel like you're doing with your your heirs, your sellers on the phone that make them believe you are the expert? Or is it, you know, more so in a lot of that assumption or some technical terms, or what have you found there in terms of like building that trust and establishing authority with those people?

SPEAKER_00 35:44

I got one.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Whenever um Yeah, and if you have a story too with an heir, you're welcome to share. Yeah, I mean, I almost do this like on every call. But whenever like somebody's explaining to you their problem, and especially if it's a common problem that you hear a lot when you're talking to other people, I kind of make them feel comfortable. Ah, yeah. I, you know, a lot of folks that we work with deal with XYZ. And then I bring up a feeling that most folks feel in the same position that they're in. Yeah. And then they kind of like that's whenever the trust comes, like, yes, exactly, you got it. That's what I mean. Yeah, like using a third-party story to just pretty much be like, hey, you're not alone. This happens common. Yeah, we help folks in similar situations like this all the time. Yeah, this is what they usually tell us. And then, like, the if if you can hit that on the spot, the trust is just like automatically.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

I think there's something to be said there too about how so many of these are family situations, right? And people feel shameful telling you like that there's two ends of the spectrum, right? On one end, they're like, F my brother, right? And on the other, like, oh, like, you know, I I just need to call him, and then they never call him. Yeah, right. We they because they don't talk and they're estranged and they don't even have the right dude. I've talked to siblings where they're like, I just want to have a conversation with him. Do you have his phone number?

SPEAKER_02 36:59

I'm like, what do you mean? You know?

SPEAKER_01 37:01

And so that's how it goes sometimes, though. And it's it's a shame, but it's it's the business where it's business. Um, so I think to that point though, on that word shame, I think they feel ashamed to tell you like the real, like raw reality of what's going on in their family, right? Because on one end, I hear people are like, dude, these aren't strangers, these are my siblings. And I'm like, well, you've had 50 years to deal with this. If you guys haven't, I can help and we could JV or whatever. No, no, no, I don't want to talk to them. Okay. So, you know, you get it, you get it uh both ways. So I think it's good that you can you can kind of uh remediate that shame with a good third-party story to make them feel like seen and validated.

SPEAKER_00 37:42

Yeah. I think you I mean tactical empathy plays a huge part of it, but also being relatable with people. Like that's I think one thing that I use a lot, especially in the neighborhoods like in Houston, where I'm like, I know how it is, I I get it, I have family in certain areas, and it's just like when I'm talking to these people, I like I kind of like you know, express that, and they like there's been people that would prefer to work with us just because they know somebody that can relate to them that they like and trust, you know, rather than somebody maybe that's in the 40th floor in a downtown building that's trying to get their property for pennies. It's like, okay, this guy that knows, you know, our people. Like that I have won deals that way because I I understand certain demographics, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

No, that's good. I mean, even to that point too, I think I've had a lot of conversations because we do a ton here in like Dallas County, where when I'm talking to people, where are you from? Right? And I'm like, oh, my office is just up in Plano. If you want to drive up, you know, I'm 30 minutes north of you, right up to Tollway. And they're like, Oh, and it's like uh, you know, I remember when we were just flipping land. It's different.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Why do you have a Texas phone number?

SPEAKER_01 38:44

What city are you? What's somebody from Houston calling me about my land way out here, you know? And I know you guys did a lot of like more local deals, but we did stuff across 15 states. So it got it got different quick. Um, but bringing it back, man, I want to hear about uh could you talk to us maybe about a deal you did full cycle? So anything you want to share about like what was the fact pattern, what was kind of the story, how you got the deal, um, and then like how long you were in it and how much you made if you're comfortable sharing like one full deal story.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

I like to share my first one just because like this is what stuff like the type of deals people shouldn't be looking for, okay? Right. Um, you know, after this one, we've obviously learned a lot because, you know, and I'll I'll share this before we get into that deal. In the, you know, as we were building our pipeline up, um, you know, we would pretty much say yes to most deals that they said yes to our offer to right. And what that means is, yes, we might have gotten our price and we might have entered at, you know, a couple hundred dollars or something, but it's the seat that you're buying into sometimes can be more expensive. So like it's sometimes it's not worth, you know, what the equity is and all the the headache you're about to go through. So I I circle back to my first deal. The first deal was a like a clean base hit that and like if I could do deals like this, like I would be I would die happy just doing these like over and over and over and over again. It was uh situation so before the program with Logan started, um I was like, all right, I need to get like I want to get work and I don't want to wait. I'm not gonna sit around. Yeah, I'm not gonna sit around. We were giving you crap at that time because we were starting to get into some. So I uh I remember re-watching a little bit of contact, knowing enough to be dangerous. Uh pulled a list, it was probably uh court docket tax delink uh tax lawsuits, um, you know, started reaching out. One of my sales guys actually got the lead to the to the front, right? So it was um lady owned the house, she was married, the man passed away, she marries a man across the street, he passes away, and then but he doesn't leave the house to her at the time of the death, he leaves it to like five people. I mentioned that because I was gonna get two houses at once, but his will lifted to five his siblings instead of to her, so I didn't end up going with the one across the street. Okay. I say other because that is an important detail you'll see right now. So at the house across the street, there's like a uncle or like a knee nephew of the original owner. Okay. Okay. The lady passes away. She has no children. She has one adopted child, actually, legally adopted child, but she has no biological children. Um and then a few years before her passing, she had a boyfriend that convinced her to sign over half the property to him. So he had been occupying, not paying taxes, not maintaining it. Like the house is like a wreck. And um, you know, this adopted daughter does not want to deal with him, she does not like him. He took advantage of her his you know, her mother, and she just wasn't interested in paying the taxes or dealing with him. So for 50% of the property, we gave her $2,750. And we got it on Friday, we s we closed her by Monday. And um, on Monday, we start to call the other guy. He's not picking up, so we call all of his family members. Like we go on the line and like they're like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So in 30 minutes, he's calling us. Like, okay, and you know, we explained to him what the situation is, there's taxes, you have partial ownership. You know, we offered him $2,500 for his share and he accepted it. So in 48 hours, we picked up both shares for $5,200. Wow. Right. So we own 100% of the property, it's worth uh seven grand in taxes, is worth, I thought at the time it was about $120 because there's a house on it, right? Okay. But this is important to know, like because like, you know, you you think it's worth one thing. Sometimes things happen. For sure. We'll get to that point. So um, you know, we're in the office, we never visit the property. We send a surveyor to go out there, sure, and you know, he's surveying the property. The neighbor across it's like uh it's a I don't know, 5,000 square foot loghouse. Yeah, in the city. Smell a lot. Um yeah, and uh nephew across the street comes out, pulls the gun out on our surveyor, and then he uh tells him to leave. He's trespassing that he has deeds for the property, it's his property. No, and it was just a bunch of bogus, right? So I was like, all right, cool, whatever. Sorry, survey guys, y'all don't have to worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

We'll figure it out. Dude, quick side note the surveyors and the droners, they do the Lord's work, man. We had at least two droners held up at gunpoint. That's a story for a different day, but keep keep going.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

So, you know, we talk to him, we talk to the seller, the adopted daughter, and she calls him, she squashes it, she lets him know she he doesn't own the house, that you know, she's selling it, leave him alone. So then we send our long guy. And then he comes and pulls a gun out on him too and tells him. So at this point, I'm like, all right, this guy calls him. Yeah. Like we got. Well, we talk to him and like he's just being like crazy. Yeah. So um then I call in a favor and uh we call in a favor and I have a cop and I pay a cop to just you know make sure nothing happens, pretty much. Just sit here, make sure these people come together. They did like off-duty security or something. Exactly, yeah. Okay. Yeah. So um they just made sure they did their job without being, you know, harassed messed with, harassed, or gun pulled out of them, right? Because like I was like, at this point, I'm like, all right, this guy's getting in the way of our sale. Yeah. Like, we gotta get this finished completed. Well, he um he decides to come out again and uh, you know, armed to this time? Is he ever? I don't think he was armed, but he was uh he said enough to get the police officer pretty mad. Because okay, so this is what happened. So it's like it's like eight o'clock in the morning, the long guy's out there doing his thing, the cop's out there, we all had it all scheduled. And um the cop calls me at like eight in the morning, and he's like, Hey, um you know, this guy's telling me this, this and that, this is his house. Like, can you send him your stuff? I'm like, Yeah, cool, like for sure. AOH, D's. Yep. Yeah. And then he's like, uh, he calls me back later, and I hear the guy in the background screaming, like, he made the cop very mad. You can tell the cop was not ready to like deal with this earlier this morning. Yeah. So 8 a.m. Yeah, 8 a.m. He's giving the copy. And then the cop calls me, he's like, What do you want me to do? And I was like, What do you mean? What do you want me to do? He's like, he's like, he's trespassing. And I was like, he's trespassing, right? And I was like, technically, I don't know, like property. But this is the thing. The guy had previous warrants and he got himself arrested. No way. So yeah, he's like, you go press charge at the time. I was like, I'm not yet pressed charged. No guy, yeah. I don't have time for that. No, I'm uh so yeah, that's like get him off my freaking house. Yeah, I was just like, we told him he knows he was just playing games at this point, but like that's just stuff you gotta deal with sometimes. And well, fast forward, we go on market, we sell in like eight days, and then we're all in we're all in for like 17, we sold for like 81. We made and then like yeah, it's I think we knit like 50. 50 pop, yeah, 55 or something like that. I'll take a 50 grand deal like that. Yeah, but it happened from the first time we came in contact to close in 60 days. Shoo.

SPEAKER_01 46:33

I love 64 days or something like that. That is like, man, those deals are just like so nice. You're like, I think you said this as you started talking about it. We're like, if all I could do was deals like this, man, do like three to five of these every month. Except the uh, you know, a guy across the street. But honestly, you took care of him. Yeah, yeah. I'll deal with you just it's the nature of it, yeah, right? Like, if you're gonna do messy title, you're gonna get some messes pop up.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

Yeah, I mean, the and in a lot of the sources are just from family drama, you know? Like and it it's crazy to see what happens out here.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

You know what's interesting about this business model though, I have found that with family drama, when you remove the family members, the drama can get squashed really quickly. Oh, yeah. Like we've we've had a lot of conversations with uh heirs, and they'll tell you, oh, this guy's so unreasonable, he won't do anything, he'll never sign, you know. And I call him, he's like, Yeah, bro, I'll sign. Yeah, I give me five grand. Yeah, I'll give you five grand. You know, and like you get it done, and it's like, no, they just hated each other because of family drama. His beef's not with me though, so he's cool. Yeah, he's a normal dude, you know. Um, we had a deal, I remember I don't want to tell too much of this story, but I'll say there were three heirs that needed to sign, and uh, the one that owned a majority of it, she tells us, Oh, the the two that you need to sign, I've tried selling multiple times. They won't they won't deal with me. They hate her, right? And uh they all hate each other, whatever. She's like, they're brother, sister, and they live in the same house, and you interpret that as you will. I don't know what kind of redneck stuff they're doing out there.

SPEAKER_02 48:03

Uh dude, she's saying all kinds of what I don't know what kind of Alabama sibling type stuff they're doing, you know. And I'm like, oh gosh, who are we about to call? Dude, we called them and they were cool.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

They just wanted a little more money. So we ended up writing them 10 G's a pop, but we made like 65 on the deals, so it was fine. You know, we were all in at like 3540 after junk removal, sold it for like 132, had some back taxes, I think. So yeah, I made like 65 on it when all was said and done, which is like, I'm cool with that. Yeah, you know. But these deals are funny, man. These deals are funny. Um, I want to talk about KPIs for a second because I know you were talking about like filling up the pipeline. We have a lot of people in our audience, both Messi Title and then some land investors that are getting into Messi Title. You know, you're kind of you're seeing it, right? With a lot of people we know that are jumping in um and either supplementing their land business with it, a bunch of jumping ship, a bunch of just focusing on land in Messi Tidal. So I'm seeing it cut a couple of different ways. But let's talk about just like the inputs for a second. Because I remember um like my team got some traction a little bit before yours, and like again, we've got a good relationship, so I poke at you a lot. Uh, you know, some people that have been around us now about a year ago, I'd I used to always grill Alan. I'd be like, Man, you still taking naps in the middle of the workday? Why haven't you put up some numbers yet, bro? And uh even to the point my wife jumped in on the joke and she was like, Oh, Alan, tell him, tell him he needs to quit taking naps. She's funny like that though. But uh to come back, let's talk about KPIs in the sense of um what activities were you guys focusing on, you know, and then like in those numbers, where do you feel like you started to see success? Either that's from a couple of weeks in because I was calling this many people every day, or like what can you share with us about the numbers that'll be helpful for people jumping in?

SPEAKER_00 49:44

I would say we would assign about 30 properties to work on ourselves, right? So 30 properties that could mean like, you know, one to five people. Yeah, it's like quarter of 15. It's to ten people to call every week. Yeah. So um, I think on that case, you know, you should be able to run into some opportunity. But then just like land, and this is something I didn't think about in the beginning, was just like land, when you generate a lot of leads, sometimes you're gonna have some leads you're not interested in buying or dealing with just because it may not be a good deal for you, right? Right, whatever that means. And I wish I maybe had thought about that a little bit more whenever I was just, you know, like so. Yeah, so 30 30 properties a week can equal, you know, 100 to 150 people to call. Yeah. Um, and in there you'll find some opportunities. Now it's just kind of up to you to be able to choose the right ones to work on, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:37

Okay, that makes sense. So you're getting into about 30 and you had a bunch of people to call, you're obviously disqualifying some. Let's take it a layer deeper though. Um, you know, how many people do you feel like you call before you get a pickup, or maybe how many offers do you feel like you make before you get a deal? Yeah. Do you have any idea of some of those numbers just to help people with as again there a lot of people trying to get their first one or really trying to get a rhythm going? Like, yeah, how do we set expectations?

SPEAKER_00 51:01

I think one of the difficult parts is getting people on the phone. Yeah, I would agree. Because you can, you know, try to reach Joe, but you may not get in contact with Joe by calling him. Have you tried calling his mama? Yeah, you might have to call his mama, or you might have to call his yeah, you might have to call Joe mama, and or you might have to call his sister, a brother, or a girlfriend, or whatever. Yeah. Um, but I would say, you know, in dials, it's I don't have a number to measure, but kind of like similar to you said, maybe 20 to 30 air conversations. Yeah. Um, now as far as offers, sometimes it just kind of depends on the deal, the deal the situation that you run into. Totally. Right. Um, but I would say if you put out, let's say on the high end 15 offers, you should get something.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

Yeah. You should get something. That's pretty in line with our numbers. I say about 30 air conversations to a deal, only about a third of them, maybe half, will actually let you make an offer. So somewhere between seven and fifteen offers, we actually get a deal. And it it always looks different, man. Like, I feel like when when we can get all the airs to the closing table at the same time, I'm gonna kind of try to get in either at like, can I give you a couple grand to get out quick, or do you guys just want to JV? Because if I don't have to rip more than 10 grand on a check, I'd rather just JV with them, honestly. You know, but like if I can get in cheap, I'll get in cheap. But if I can JV with them, let's just go to market together. I'm no money out of pocket. Let's, you know, aside from some legal and stuff. Yeah. So what are you guys doing with your structures right now that you feel like is working well?

SPEAKER_00 52:29

Um kind of something similar, man. You know, we it depends on the situation, right? Some people are not willing to JV. Sometimes we just have to buy impartially. Um yeah, either that or like uh some type of a little bit down more later on. I've done something where um, you know, I bought one share out, the other share we knew they weren't gonna do anything, you know, to fight it. So the this one guy was the only person local, everybody else was out of state. Yep. And um, but he wasn't willing to sell at a discount, so we just JV'd on his share. Okay. And, you know, we got majority of his share, but he's just like, all right, he feels comfortable now. He knows he's like getting something he's you know happy with. So uh yeah, man, I I think like you gotta be able to kind of be fast on your feet when it comes to like you know, creative deal structure sometimes, because you know, when you got somebody they're high, you don't want them to think about it. If y'all can come up with something, they won't pick up. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Yeah, you kind of gotta like there there's a skill here where you know we see a lot of these end up being two and three call closes, but if you need to take that as far as you can while you're on the phone with them. Yeah. We had a guy, um, I'll send you the call. I I can't remember if I did with this guy or not, but uh when we were chatting, you know, he didn't want to sell super cheap and he was living in the house. I mean his brother were living in the house. So then I pitched him on a JV, but then his brain was trying to do the math and it got so uncertain, you know, where he was like, wait, so you're gonna split, but I don't know how big my share is because some of my siblings are MIA, and what if we can't sell and the taxes are like, how does this all work, you know? But he wouldn't tell me that. He was like, okay, man, I'm gonna think, I'm gonna think about it. So I'm like, oh no, he doesn't know what's happening. So I flipped the script and I'm like, hey man, are you are you thinking that just because like you don't know what you're gonna get at the end of this? He was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't understand. I'm like, all right, so he wants to do business with me, he trusts me, but he doesn't understand his share. So I was like, let's do this, man. We're gonna go into a JV together. But instead of us splitting a percentage, uh, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna work with your siblings. I'll I'll basically buy them out or work with them or whatever. So you get a higher share, right? So instead of a one-sixth ownership, you're gonna get 25%. But I get 10 grand out of your share when we go to sell, and I get reimbursed on my legal expenses. It's about the same thing when it all shakes out. Yeah, yeah. But the math is a number exactly. So he's like, okay, 25% minus 10 grand, I can do that math, right? And he was like, Yeah, that'll work. And he signed. And so like I had to walk him through the PA live, and we actually got it on video too. I was out we were in Scottsdale. Yeah, yeah. Um, so that was that was fun, but I had to walk him through this eight-page JV. I thought he was ready to sign, we jump on, he's like, Yeah, man, could you just like explain it to me? I'm like, like one piece of it or like the whole document. He's like, Yeah, the whole document. It took us like 20 minutes to walk through it, but but that's what it takes sometimes. You know, I think I think too, like a lot of people just aren't patient with their leads a lot of times. Um, have you found like in some of these conversations, right? I'm thinking about the one you sent me when I was in Austin last month. Oh, man. Some people you just have to go in these circles with like how how do you feel like when I say patience, right? And you think about these phone conversations, man, what comes to mind?

SPEAKER_00 55:37

Like, I think in this space, you literally are doing what people are unwilling to do.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:42

Like, tell me more about that. Yeah, like I mean, okay, so, and I could even relate to this like heavily because we had a land operation that was more based on volume. So any like we had a machine, right? So anytime we put something in the machine, it would supposed to flow throughout workflows smoothly, right? That's what we built it for. But whenever you are running a volume-based shop and a curative deal comes and you try to enter your machine, it just like starts to mess up the machine, right? It starts clicking and clanking and making it well, why? Because there's just additional difficult things that have to be systems in place. Yeah, you don't have the systems in place for it, exactly. So I remember when I used to come across this and it'd be like, Oh, we have four siblings, and I was like, Oh, hell no. I'm next to lead, you know. Because it's just easier to rip a quick like 15 hit, right? Yeah, with one person, one yeah, exactly. Um, so yeah, you're definitely doing what other people are unwilling to do. And um yeah, you just got like, I mean, yeah, you can I definitely feel like I've gotten better dealing with people like over this past year. Isn't it funny? It's insane.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

It gives you just such a perspective for life, though, because I also feel like so many folks in our industry that just jump in, they almost view these people as lower, you know, and you and I come from like you know what I mean. Yeah, we come from a background where we were exposed to this avatar young, and maybe that gives us an edge in reasoning with them if that thing exists, right? Um, but I think the reality with so many of these folks is you know, the the same avatar that is behind on taxes or homeless or on drugs, people treat them so poorly sometimes. Yeah, you know what I mean? And like I have found just being human with them and like, yeah, they've made a lot of mistakes, but bro, they're still people. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there's there's like a human piece that's missing sometimes in how other like attorneys are not gonna treat them well. Yeah, the tax office isn't gonna treat them well, realtors aren't gonna treat them well. So we're really feeling a need. We're like people look down on these people. Yeah, like I'm really just trying to find a solution. And like, I get it. They got their vices, like I got mine, you know what I mean? And like, let's let's talk about this as humans and figure it out. I can tell light bulbs going off.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

Yeah, no, I'm laughing because I remember I was talking to somebody in my market and I was like, Yeah, you got this dude like over here, and they're like, Man, that's the hood. And I'm just like, yeah, yeah, man, it is it's like the area I was in growing up. But but yeah, man, like uh I think uh bro, my abuela lives out there chilling out. Yeah, so I was like, she's like five minutes from here, bro. I got some good restaurants, yeah, right. But um, yeah, no, definitely. I think uh, you know, and that's something Mac used to always say he has like around his uh around his store, he has a bunch of like uh like uh what is the um principles, more sayings and things like that. And one of them is like successful people do what unwill unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. Oh, that's good. And say that again, say that again successful people do with unsuccessful people are unwilling to do. That's really good. Um and yeah, and then it showed in like everything, like even in the sales aspect back then when you know the people who were the highest earners in sales were willing to work seven days a week when the fish were biting, you know? Yeah, that's another thing. Fish when the fish are biting. So when you're on a hot streak, don't let it off. Like you need to be fish and stay there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 59:15

That's good. Talk to me more about that. How do you do that in your workday? Like, when do you see fish are biting on like the like we find like the lunch hour and kind of end of day team seems to be better pickups? Or you guys see?

SPEAKER_00 59:24

Yeah, I'd say like afternoon. Like, I mean, anytime after lunchtime, yeah, from like till like as late as 7, 8 p.m. Yeah, you know, fish are biting. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

I remember one time I got on the phone with an air that hadn't picked up. I called her 15 times, and it's it's six o'clock on a Monday, and my wife is like, hey, I'm about to order uh some dinner, you down to pick it up. I was like, Yeah, I'm just gonna make a couple more calls. Bro, this air picks up 30 45 minute call. 45-minute call for real. I probably I think 44 like 06. These calls are a lot longer on a normal.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

What are you seeing on a standard call? Minimum 20 minutes. Yeah, it's a good conversation. It was yeah, minimum 20 minutes. And up to what? Probably 40 minutes, yeah. Four and a half hours, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:07

Yeah, no, right. Oh my god. No, yeah, 20 to 40 is realistic. I uh why do you think that is?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:12

Well, I think you like you said, like you got them on the phone. Sometimes these people are hard to get on the phone. You need to get as much as out of that conversation as possible, and you need to do what you can to move the ball forward on the time you do have 100%. And like, you know, on the other calls, there's a lot of follow-up. That's why these calls are one, two, three, four call closes because they're 20, 30 minute calls.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:35

You know, yeah, 100%, man. I also think in those calls, there's uh there's an education piece that I know we've talked about a lot before too, right? So like when you're talking to a land seller, bro, they know what they own because they bought it a lot of times. Sometimes they inherited it, but I even find with a lot of the land sellers that inherited the land, they grew up going out there. So they've got some some level of knowledge and attachment to it, right? Whereas with uh with with the messy title side, half the time they don't know they own it. The other half they don't understand the situation ahead of them on what it what it's gonna take to get it to be sellable. So somewhere in between either of those, you have to educate them on the process, on the costs, on the time, on what they're up against if they don't work with us. Because I have found, and I'm curious if you see this too. Like we've had probably three or four deals I could point to where I educate the prospect and they're like, I think I want to try to take this down myself. And I'm like, Can I give you like the one, two, three on where to start? Go meet with your attorney, tell them, like, get out your pen and paper right now. Tell them X, Y, Z. Here's the situation. I've got three siblings, I haven't talked to these two in 10 years. This one's homeless and missing. What's it gonna take for me to be able to sell this property with clean title if I want to take it to market? And how long is that gonna take? And how much could that cost? Ask them those three questions, just start there and then just promise me we'll have one more conversation after you have that. Great. Every time they've done it, they sign with us for less than two grand because they just realize like, oh, I can't spend twenty thousand dollars. I don't want to hire private investigators, I don't want to talk to my siblings. Um, and it's all a maybe. You know what I mean? Like, obviously, your backstop is probably like a partition suit, but nobody wants to do that either. Another lawsuit and it's a good thing. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, another six months, twelve months, depending on how they respond, right? So there's some risk involved, but I think the whole point I'm making is education being such a time, I don't want to call it a suck because it's it's relevant, but this is where patience comes in again. Because also, Alan, you ever talk to an heir and they just don't get it? Yes. And you got to explain it again.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:43

So I think the yeah, like you mentioned, like I mean, people only do so many transactions in their life in real estate that are not in the business, right? Maybe one to three on average. Yeah. So when it comes to this, I think what it what works for us in the education part is like you said, walking them through, letting them know first the cost, second the time, and then the energy or the effort it's going to take to get this to be sellable. And then at the end of that, once it's sellable, what could it be sold for? What are they gonna get taken out of that? And then how much are they gonna walk away with based on their ownership? Yeah, and then like when they realize that sometimes they're gonna spend more to get even less, even less than what they're gonna get. So they just need to be educated on that. That's true, and that's why I think when people hear us say, hey, we're offering a couple thousand bucks on these properties, well, it's because of that. You guys are crooks, yeah, you're stealing their properties. Well, it's mainly because of that reason. Yeah, you know, I think it it shakes down, and then like sometimes we'll literally even walk people through what we would sell it for. Like, we I we walked them through this is what we are gonna do. Yeah, this is how much we might sell it for. Yeah, and but we still have to deal with these things.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:56

Man, I remember I was uh I was up in Milwaukee, it's where my um in-laws are in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I was sitting down with my wife's family. Her mom is an attorney, and her sister is an attorney. And I asked them, Oh my god, why are attorneys so expensive? Like, I love you guys, right? But just from the outside, people hate you because you were so expensive to do anything, and you bill us out the wazoo, you know, and like we work with the same attorney, Nathan. I love Nathan, dude. He's like, I think he's fairly priced from the perspective of like he probably could charge more, but like he does great work and he's very responsive and he's he's good. But but the when I was just getting started, man, and like I had to go give this guy a 10k uh what's that called with a trans retainer, and I'm hearing, you know, 500 an hour or whatever. I'm like, that's a lot of money, dude. Like um, so I remember my my sister-in-law, she looks me in the eyes um when I'm like, Why are you guys so expensive? And she says, Do it yourself. If it's so expensive, do it yourself. And I'll tell you, technically can. I think you can I would not want to do it. I would not want to do it. And I'm like, you know, when you say it like that, fair enough, right? And so it it's funny because it reset my brain a little bit, but from that perspective I had, I brought that to my air conversations where when people are like, How can you offer us so little? I'm like, do it yourself. Yeah. Clearly, you don't know how, or else you would have by now. This stuff's not easy. Yeah. You know, I've had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on education and attorneys to know what I know now, right? The same way the attorneys that get to bill for a thousand an hour, it's not because they're that much better at being lawyers, but like they know what they know. Yeah. And that's a very unique skill set. And I I'm willing to pay a premium for that, right? So we earn that through these technical skills. But, anyways, I'm talking too much here, man. Um, we're probably getting into the last, you know, 10% or so of this episode. So I want to switch topics here just a little bit and start to get into just like, you know. Things that you want to impart to the audience. I want to start with, like, for folks that are, man, you said this earlier, right? They feel powerless. You know, I think you were there, I was there when we were kids. I'm sure we've had seasons where we go in and out of it as adults, even. Um, and we probably will again at some level, but there's a piece of us that remembers what that felt like. And I think a reason you love serving is because you don't want other people to feel that way, right? So for people that are listening right now, man, that feel that way, and business might be that tool to get them out of that. Like, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:34

It's a fight, you know? You got to stay in the fight every day. You gotta stay in the course. Um, it's not gonna be fair, it's not gonna be fun, it's not gonna be easy, but nobody ever said it was going to be, you know. And I think like uh, you know, when times get tough, you get tougher, and you just gotta keep pushing. Like literally day by day, it's what it takes. Like it doesn't happen in one deal. It doesn't happen. I mean, there don't get me wrong, that you can get, you know, one deal can push you ahead, it can move the needle, but it's not gonna solve all your problems, right? You know, so it's uh consistently working on yourself, getting better on yourself, and you know, also balancing some of these other parts of your life. Because if you just go in all on business, you're gonna tarnish all other aspects of your life, you know. So yeah, you know, it's it's a it's an all-around effort. It's uh I think it's a it's a life's work, it's not just one sector of it, I think. That's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Um, in terms of uh sales, I know we talked a lot about this. If you could summarize, right? If you were bad at sales and uncomfortable on the phones today, what advice would you have to people that are trying to get good?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:44

I would say shut up and listen.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:46

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:48

To who? The seller. To the seller. Okay. If you can shut up and listen, the seller's gonna give you enough information to know what to say next. And two, you gotta be willing to put in the output to make up for your I guess the the part where you lack if you're getting better at sales as you go, you need to make you need to put up like you know, um, put more in output and you know, learn how to listen. Yeah, that's good, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

Last question is from a overall words of wisdom, man. If you could impart the past 10 years of business that you've basically done between selling everything through now, you know, what would you want to give people? Just any words of wisdom to people that are out there either getting into real estate or messy title or sales, life, relationships, religion, like whatever, whatever comes to mind, man. What would you want to leave people?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:39

Oh, man, that's uh I see. I want to leave something that I'm I'm trying to think of something that really impacted me, you know. Um What's the question one more time?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

From all of your experiences over the past ten years, if you could package up what you think would be the most valuable lesson you could leave behind to people watching, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:13

I wish I would have saved the one I just said before. I know I think it's that. You know, it's that, yeah, not gonna be easy. You know, it nobody said it was gonna be fair, fun, or easy. And you just gotta keep pushing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

It's the day nobody owes you anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Yeah, nobody owes you not one thing. You once you realize that and you come to that conclusion, you realize it's all up to you. It's in your hands. No matter what the economy looks like, yeah, no matter what's going on in the world, there's you gotta control the controllables and and work that as much as you can every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:40

That's good. That's good. I do have one more question, actually, because now I'm curious, man. I know when when uh when Logan Fulmer interviewed me on his podcast, he asked me something similar to this, and it it kind of got me. Um, if you could go back in time and talk to seven-year-old Alan, you know, things were rough. What would you want to tell him?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

Yeah, that's a tough one, man. Um, you know, stay strong, it's gonna get better. You know, keep keep pushing, keep uh, keep your your chest high, you know, your head high. And um I think uh I, you know, if I would have had a maybe a conversation about some self-confidence in that kid, you know, I think like especially as in, you know, young, you know, men or women, it's in like self-confidence is super important. Yeah, and I think, you know, definitely during that time my dad was gone, you know, a lot of that was lacking, you know. And um it just like it's a it's a thing that it's like a continuous now, something I work on all the time. And you know, it's it definitely impacted, especially the decisions and how confident I am in doing certain things, but like a lot of people lack that self-confidence. So if I could instill that into some of that kid a little earlier, probably would have been rich by now.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

I love it, man. How can people get a hold of you? If they want to work with you, get mentored by you, do deals with you, what's the best way to reach out to?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:00

Um on Instagram is usually where I'm really active. So it's Alan H Kingtetle, uh A-O-A-N-H-Q-U-I-N-T-E-R-O. And you can connect with me, DM me, you know, and I'm always around to help.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:12

That's fantastic. Alan, man, again, I know we're we're about the same age, but I gotta tell you, you are such an inspiration, I think, to all of the people getting into business, all of the young men that are aspiring to make something of themselves from your humility and lack of ego, and the fact that you are just always willing to do what what it takes, right? So um, I want you to know I I really look up to you and respect you for those qualities. I'm proud to be your friend and to get to call you a brother. And it's an honor to have you on the show, man. Thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:46

Man, same goes to you, man. It's always a pleasure.